My name is Dante Apollo Atkins, and I work professionally in marketing research. I’m 27 years old, and a graduate of UCLA—class of 2003, with a degree in Greek and Latin. I live in the Miracle Mile region of Los Angeles. I forsook graduate school and an academic career when I became captivated by a certain presidential candidate named Howard Dean, because he wanted to know the exact same things I wanted to know.
So why am I telling you this? Quite simply, because I’m not afraid to. And as some of the best, brightest and most effective members of progressive online communities tear each other apart other the health care bill and the effectiveness of the Obama presidency in general, that fact is actually a very important point.
Those who have been reading blogs for all these years have witnessed a few transitions in the culture and attitude of the communities, and perhaps the most immediately visible has been the bylines of the writers. Emptywheel has become Marcy Wheeler, and brownsox Arjun Jaikumar; KagroX is no longer an X, as he has "become" David Waldman, just to name a few examples. Many authors didn’t start using online pseudonyms because it was cool, fun or clever. It was, rather, because there was an honest, legitimate need—a need that more recent arrivals to the blogosphere in the era of Obama may not fully appreciate. In the current political climate, where the Democrats hold a (supposedly) filibuster-proof majority, an overwhelming majority in the House, and a White Hose elected in a landslide, it is easy to forget that things weren’t always this way. Those with shorter experience—or even shorter memories—may sometimes forget a simple but regrettable fact: it wasn’t more than a few years ago that it was an acceptable media narrative to question openly whether or not the Democratic Party was loyal to America.
It is quite ironic that a movement dedicated in large part to opposing the crony capitalism of the Bush Administration arose out of a market need. Simply put, in a television and radio climate that refused to present any outlet for a left-leaning viewpoint, progressives turned to the only remaining forum for them to express their viewpoints: the internet. But that didn’t mean that these viewpoints were now popular. The internet provided a forum where progressives were judged not by the color of their skin, but by the character of their content. Still, in such a hostile climate, many authors and commenters feared for their job security or even their personal safety if their identities were revealed. Many here still do.
In that context, it is mindboggling to compare then to now. Back then, there was a palpable feeling of hopelessness and despair on the left. Bloggers were voices shouting in the wilderness, claiming the internet as a final frontier on which to make the last stand of an ideology that the chattering class had written off as a permanent minority on the American political landscape. Now, the gates have been crashed. Democrats control all three branches of government. Progressive online communities are accepted as an arm of the left-leaning apparatus. Luminaries within the movement frequently appear on the types of Sunday talk fests that previously would have been considered too "serious" for rabble like them. All in all, it’s amazing what just a few short years can bring.
But the sense of hopelessness has lingered, though the circumstances have certainly changed: now, especially in the wake of the healthcare bill, that feeling is born from a despair that the Congress will ever pass a truly progressive piece of legislation when confronted with the corporate opposition that seems to get its way on just about every single major issue of our time. On its face, that is understandable: for progressives, it would seem that better chances to get their agenda implemented will be few and far between. But those who give in to that despair are not looking at the challenges facing progressivism in their proper context.
Online progressivism has come far since the early days, and has experienced setbacks that could have been major, if not fatal, blows to a nascent movement. Things like the implosion of the Dean campaign. Or the entire 2004 election. Or the 2005 special elections in CA-50 and OH-02. Or the fight against the FISA legislation, or the gutting of environmental protections. Or the disappointment about not seeing more investigations of the previous administration, just to name some examples. And yet despite all these setbacks, the movement endured and continued to gain more influence as it moved the progressive agenda forward and helped keep our country's new Democratic majorities honest.
In this light, any feelings of anger or despair about the healthcare bill or any other part of Obama’s agenda cannot possibly be compared to the sense of dread that prevailed when Bush was talking about how he was going to spend the political capital he gained in the wake of yet another controversial election to privatize social security. Or the outraged terror many a progressive might have felt upon turning on the TV that hadn’t yet been smashed to bits, only to hear some new pundit questioning whether all Democrats were in fact terrorist-sympathizing traitors because some of them did not fully support GWB’s unprecedented arrogation of power into the hands of the Executive Branch. It’s worth pointing out: back in the lean years, if someone had gazed into a crystal ball and said that in 2009, the major debate in American politics would be whether to include the public option in a sweeping health care reform bill and that Democrats would have commanding majorities in both Houses, that earlier version of the movement would have felt overjoyed.
In the heat of battle, when every compromise is touch and go, politics may feel like a sprint. But the truth is that it’s more of a marathon. The last thing a marathon runner ever wants to do is stop, because it’s that much harder to get started again. And sometimes, taking a look back at those mile markers can serve as an inspiration to fight through the pain. The movement faces a new task now: the challenges of being the loyal opposition are completely different from those of actual governance. It took a few years to figure out how to do the former—so if history is any guide, patience and endurance will be key for the movement in the years to come.