I got into a good conversation with a fellow Kossack about the "Overton Window" and my last comment got a bit lengthy. So in an effort to change the dueling diaries into a positive experience I decided to post it as a diary to curt discussion to something that might end up being productive. I, myself, might be going to bed soon, but here are my thoughts on the "Overton Window" and would be very interested to know what anyone else thinks about it and the strategy for moving it to the left. I have blockquoted the part of the comment that I was replying to in order to give some context.**
Slink's tactic in support of that strategy is to frame Obama's positions as center-right, thereby creating space on his left into which the discourse can move.
It's a sound tactic. Of course, to progressive Democrats, that framing will sound like an insult, like "screaming about how awful he is." But then progressive Democrats are not the target of the strategy.
It's a strategy that has to play out over the long term. Whether such framing hurts currently-elected Democrats in the short term is a reasonable question. I guess it's possible that there's a tradeoff between short-term and long-term goals.
I don't think so, however. I think Obama's getting criticism from his left actually gives him more room to maneuver.
The strategy of criticizing from the left is perfectly valid. It's necessary in order to give the President room to maneuver and negotiate. What becomes counter productive is when President Obama personally as well as any Dem who makes a "bad" vote or takes "wrong" side of a debate. These politicians are then labeled as "shills" "corporate sell outs" "owned" "weak" so on and so forth until finally "just as bad as republicans". This turns off voters. This narrative makes people who may want to become politically active tune out and not care nor vote. This allowed a lot of good people to believe they were Tea Partiers. This narrative does as much to hurt the left and the progressive movement as anything. Why? Because old, republican voters vote a lot. And they vote for any republican they can.
This doesn't mean that as lefties we have to put our heads in the sand and sing the praises of awful deeds. But it does mean that we have an opportunity to use a popular Democratic President to achieve more electoral victories of progressive candidates. We can't do that and at the same time scream from the heavens about how awful the Democrats are and how much they're just like Republicans. We have to address the policy which is what Klein did in his piece. His was a great read of the hypocrisy of the Republican on their policy ideas which is the way to attack Republicans. It's also a way to highlight what works with progressives.
This is getting long so I'll end by bringing us off-topic but using Health Care as an example. The strategy about health care reform, which a lot of people hate, but has helped a lot of people as well has been to bash President Obama and conservadems for passing such an awful piece of legislation. Now people are going to have issues with it and their going to have praise for it. What we could be doing as progressives is working hard to get the word out that that the good parts are progressive and liberal and Democratic ideas, while the parts that suck are the conservative/corporate/Republican ideas and until we start electing people with more progressive/liberal/Democratic principles than we'll have to put up with that other crap infecting our legislation. Instead of focusing on how much President Obama and the other Dems sold out to Big Pharma.
**Since I'm not linking to anything and not naming anyone I don't know if I need to ask permission to post that...but if the person who wrote it objects, I will get rid of it....or cite...or whatever they would like.
Side note: This site has more wonderful people than outsiders would ever imagine and if any place on the internet can have a meaningful impact on today's politics/gov't its this place and that's because of the talents and dedications of the people here.