Yes, my dearies, it seems Matt Bai has written about us, deep within his NY Times Magazine article about Hillary Clinton, of today, entitled
Mrs. Triangulation.
In his article, Bai reiterates Simon Rosenberg's definition of Democratic activists as an "activist class," separate from the insiders who are called the "governing class."
Well, well, my oh my, and lah de da!
And where is it that I (lowly activist that I am) may be finding the servant's entrance, Mr. Rosenberg?
What Dean's candidacy brought into the open, however, was another kind of growing and powerful tension in Democratic politics that had little to do with ideology. Activists often describe this divide as being between "insiders" and "outsiders," but the best description I've heard came from Simon Rosenberg, a Democratic operative who runs the advocacy group N.D.N. (formerly New Democrat Network), which sprang from Clintonian centrism of the early 1990's. As Rosenberg explained it, the party is currently riven between its "governing class" and its "activist class." The former includes the establishment types who populate Washington - politicians, interest groups, consultants and policy makers. The second comprises "Net roots" Democrats on the local level; that is, grass-roots Democrats, many of whom were inspired by Dean and who connect to politics primarily online, through blogs or Web-based activist groups like MoveOn.org. The argument between the camps isn't about policy so much as about tactics, and a lot of Democrats in Washington don't even seem to know it's happening.
The activist class believes, essentially, that Democrats in Washington have damaged the party by trying to negotiate and compromise with Republicans - in short, by trying to govern. The "Net roots" believe that an effective minority party should disengage from the governing process and eschew new proposals or big ideas. Instead, the party should dedicate itself to winning local elections and killing each new Republican proposal that comes down the track. To the activist class, trying to cut deals with Republicans is tantamount to appeasement. In fact, Rosenberg, an emerging champion of the activist class, told me, pointing to my notebook: "You have to use the word 'appease.' You have to use it. Because this is like Neville Chamberlain."
Talk about straw men!
Rosenberg insists on a paradigm in which we of the "activist class" want our representatives to "disengage from the governing process and eschew new proposals or ideas."
Nonsense.
What I, of the "activist class," want is for our representatives to represent us, and to come up with ANY idea or new proposal in line with my values and then STAND UP FOR IT.
Rosenberg, again in an either/or structure, says that we are all about winning local elections and killing new proposals by the GOP as they appear.
I wish!
Why do Democratic political pundits insist upon shoving we non-professionals out into the cold, time and time again?
Why do they minimize our activism as naivete and amateur meddling?
It seems to me, as a lowly member of the "activist class," so marginalized by my party as to have exited it into unaffiliation to protest the non-representation of my representatives in matters like the invasion of Iraq and the Patriot Act, that the professionals and D.C. insiders in the Democratic Party in Washington D.C. would rather lose outright, and repeatedly, and continue to listen to the pros who keep helping them lose election after election, then suffer the eager and inexpensive participation of we of the "activist class."