Ariana Huffington suggested the Massachusetts special election might have been a blessing, because it will inspire course correction. Nice thought, but my hopes aren't high.
Typically, when we "liberals" lose an election or three, it's never because the majority of the American people actually think we should pollute more and regulate Wall Street less. Or that multi-millionaires or billionaires shouldn't pay their share of taxes. Or that we should be giving the Pentagon 60% of our money so they can war profiteer with their buddies in industry. It's not that most Americans think we should have a low minimum wage, or that it's a great idea to offshore all our manufacturing and onshore our IT work, or let 6 corporations own 95% percent of our media.
When we lose, even though more people support our policies, it's usually because we've lost both the message contest and the money contest. (It doesn't help that the opposition has most of the media and most of the money.)
In contrast, the GOP usually has to screw absolutely everything imaginable up before voters will turn on them. When the GOP loses, it's generally because their policies have wreaked so much holy havoc on such a grand scale that even those brainwashed by corporate media and conservative church talk start to notice.
Given this, it's kind of odd that when we lose, our politicians often respond NOT by investing more in messaging and persuasion, or by rallying our sheer numbers to strike back on the money front, or by running extremely strong and charismatic candidates.
No, somehow the lesson we often take from our losses is that Americans want us to "appeal more to independents," which we imagine means allowing MORE approaches that will hurt working people, even though not a single policy poll supports this conclusion. We do this in search of the coveted label "moderate," or "centrist," because "liberal" and "progressive" have come to sound so fringy.
We're SO pleased with this strategy that we do the same damn thing when we win. We do it even when our win arises from a wholesale rejection of the laissez-faire, neocon ("centrist") policies we're so eager to re-embrace over and over.
Because of this tendency, we're taken aback that after the abject failure that greeted 12 years of GOP philosophy, the GOP responds to their electoral losses by doubling down on their wingnuttery, their nastiness, and their lies.
We imagine that the GOP would surely do what we'd do, which is compromise, rethink or even renounce former positions. We expect that the GOP would reject or at least temper their Friedmanist religion, reconsider their wars-for-profit, perhaps even apologize for their now soundly-rebutted global warming denial.
And because we think that, we never quite expect that the GOP will become more intractable, dishonest and shrill than ever, rather than angling their jib at least slightly more in a progressive direction.
When Obama shows the good sportsmanship to put industry Republicans on Health Reform committees, when he appoints right wing, laissez-faire cardinals like Bernanke, Summers and Geithner to fix the economy, when Reid courts "bipartisanship" by dealing away competition and cost control despite overwhelming public support for real health insurance reform, when Obama accommodates the GOP demand to escalate the Afghan war and let U.S. war criminals skate, it somehow still amazes that the GOP thanks Democrats by calling us a weak-on-terror socialist-Marxist-fascists.
We find it hilarious and curious that the Beckshit-crazy teabaggers are ostensibly willing to endanger short-term gains by harassing and primary-ing some their most conservative members for not being Marc Rubio.
We mock the clownish Becks and Palins and other wacky foils the GOP serves up for our derision, and feel triumphant that the knuckle-dragging 'baggers and the GOP politicos seem so unhappy that the Democrats temporarily have the pennant, regardless of what policies are actually arising from our incremental, bipartisan, middle-of-the-road, big tent "centrist" team.
For all the second-guessing of ourselves we do, we're a self-satisfied bunch, and we certainly don't like to feel outsmarted.
But the fact remains that we still have the presidency and still have overwhelming majorities in the Senate and House, but we're acting like we're in the minority, accommodating the GOP agenda time and again. We're maniacally hushing up and squashing the voices that expect real, Wellstonian-style reform, and telling ourselves that Reaganesque policy represents a big win, because it's SO much better than the Pinochet policy the GOP is gunning to serve up.
Too many of us don't see much wrong with this picture, or see our role in perpetuating it.
Democrats aren't feeling motivated to come out, for some reason. And predictably, we have our Democratic strategists wondering if we just might get those independents back if we tack again to the always right-shifting "center" and comb through the GOP's Pinochet-style platform and embrace the parts that aren't too TOO over-the-top.
I hate to repeat tired adages, but for the love of God.
"The people don't want a phony Democrat. If it's a choice between a genuine Republican, and a Republican in Democratic clothing, the people will choose the genuine article, every time." -- Harry Truman
"People would rather elect a strong a-hole than a weak, indecisive wuss. Because at least the strong a-hole will be good for something in a fight"--Trey Parker & Matt Stone (Translated from their foul South Park original quote).
Recall that the Republicans, when in power, were complete, unapologetic a-holes about everything they did. They didn't give a damn about "independents" (who can never be predicted or pleased) they just made sure they got enough of their base to come out for them. They rammed through massive legislation using reconciliation. They refused to let the opposition add amendments. They wrote their legislation ahead of time and crammed it through before the opposition had a chance to organize. They held votes open until 3am. They threatened and harassed and shut down mikes. They were absolutely take-no-prisoners about everything they did. They fired anyone who didn't meet their demands, however outrageous. They were bold, ruthless, they pushed the envelope, they were never EVER bipartisan, but they somehow got the opposition to vote with them much of the time.
But you know what? Not many folks hate them for HOW they got their agenda through. They were hated for the agenda itself, and the hell it has wrought.
Nobody will remember what nice guys Harry Reid and Obama were when they tried to get things done. They'll only remember what they managed to get done.
Dem Establishment, we beg of you, take a DIFFERENT lesson this time from your loss in Massachusetts. Because it's not enough for your reliable activists in the blogosphere to get on the phones and knock on doors for you. You need to inspire non-political people. Play offense on the talking points. Get out ahead of the right-wing lies that you know are coming. Invest like crazy in messaging, and show discipline and consistency. Stand up for something from the Democratic wing of the Democratic party, and stand up strong, and fight for it like it was your only child.
Call out the GOP lies and remind people of the stakes, and be able to show how the Democrats are truly different. Then the unions will come out for you. Nonwhite people will believe you represent them too. The young people will rally to your side. Hate to say it, but an Alan Grayson or an Anthony Weiner (or even a more moderate Debbie Wasserman-Schultz or Al Franken) would not have lost that race, even to a pretty snake-oil salesman like Brown.
When you can stand strong, when you can articulate clearly and simply what your platform is about, when you can show yourselves to be fighters and not cavers, the people will once again come out for the Democrats.