Oh my. It seems that not only do those in congress 'not get it', but most of us don't get something else equaly important as a need to stand against the Republicans. Let me explain. (sorry, the geeky part is here, the hell fire is at the end)
Democrats in congress are adrift on important issue X. We call for them to stand up for position Y. Some fail to do so, even when doing so wouldn't of change the outcome due to Democrats being the minority party in both chambers. Yet Z kosmopolitans are out raged at senators/congresspersons A1 through An for not standing up for what we believe in. Congresspersons claim that on important issue X one of a set of reasons (pragmatisim, politics, personal beliefs, ideals about the senate) and the Z kosmopolitians counter and claim that spokes congress criter O and A1 thorugh An are not standing up to republicans. So, the question is not weather they should or not, but can they, if they can will they, and how do they do that exactly?
It all comes down to that question.
So lets try to figure out the answers. Each answer will be followed by a route to take to modify the conditions to make the truth of the answer more agreable.
Can they? Some can and do stand up for our positions on issues. Others are quite the opposite. Wearas Lieberman could stand up for progressive values, he does not. The Nelsons are a different picture. When every election you are at the top of the Republican's list of targets, one has to play it safe. And if an issue is going to go the Republicans way no matter how you vote, logically, its best not to give them the ammo.
How do we make it possible for each and every senator/congressperson on our side to vote our side of the issue? One way would be to only have senators who don't have to worry about being targeted by Republicans. This of course relegates us to minority as we loose our seats in Nebraska, Florida, Louisiana, Arkansas, the Dakotas, Montana, West Virginia... need I go on? On top of that, having for live senators and congress critters that are never given a serious challenge has another draw back. They are no longer accountable. Without accountability corruption mounts and the senators are more likely to go their own way and not stay with the caucus (if there is still one by that point). So, a better way to go would be to make Republican efforts useless in unseating our centrists and moderates. In the short term it means letting them vote their constituency, but in the long run, to get our vision of America enacted, we need to move their constituency towards us. Move the people, and the senator will follow.
Will they vote our way? Good question. Many have reasons for voting X and Y, some good, some bad. But senators are more likely to vote for our position if they know they can win. Else, why risk it? Yes, I'm accepting that some our our representatives don't have a spine. And despite our best efforts, there will likely always be a few who don't. Then there are congress persons who are on the take or honestly believe in the bridge to no where a three thousand miles away. So, some will vote with us when they can, others will vote how ever they feel like.
To cure this is of course, just as difficult as the previous solution. There can be something said about having a strong senate or house leadership system. Another thing fits with what I just said. If you move the constituents of the moderates left, then either the senator will move to what we feel is the correct position, or his/her successor will arrise already holding our view. Basically, make it toxic to vote for the other side's position. Toxic in Rhode Island, and toxic in Wyoming.
So, how do we pull this off? Aka, how do we make anti-progressive positions toxic?
We have several compeating plans currently. I'll try to summerize several that I know about.
1. Democratic Leadership in the Senate-Have our senators vote no on each and every bill that stands againts progressive values. By standing up against the Republican bullies they will show America that the Democrats won't take this lying down.
Problem: First, will anyone except us and the Republicans notice? Second, there's the problem of keeping all of them united which really is why we're here in the first place. Chicken and egg problems take way to long to solve. Moving on...
2. Advertise with Grassroots Money Funds-A good start has already begun by setting up the aparatus to channel funds from us to the right candidates/causes. With luck, all this money will be well spent to convince people that our views are best.
Problem: Advertising is becoming less and less affective. Everyone is tired of campaign commercials at this point. In fact, sometimes advertising can hurt a cause when there is to much of it. With vast amounts of advertising going on simultaniously, a mistake here or there is bound to appear. And sometimes that mistake can be highly detrimental to the cause as suddenly people who own lawn flamingos or wear tupees think we're screwing them over. Also, it assumes the money is being well spent in the first place. A good start move, but it can't be the only one.
3. Take Our Party Back-Also another one with strong progress happening. The theory is that if progressives and staunch democrats are in charge of the party they can reform it, make it efficent, and simplify the agenda to make it easily marketable.
Problem: Rebuilding the entire party will take years, if not decades. This is most certainly a long term project. And in order to keep the momentum going we need to insure that progressives and true loyalists stay in charge of the DNC and state parties, and we can't do that if our message fizzels out.
4. Framing-Create a tool that will make it easy for democrats in and outside of positions of power to discuss our values in an effective manner. George Lakeoff's apparantly singular purpose at times is to build the frames.
Problem: There are three problems with the frame construction principal. First, it requires Democrats to actually use them, and if they aren't on our side already on taking our party back/being smug with the grassroots/being strong leaders in congress, then they have no real motivation to change their rhetoric. We might be happy to use them, but if we can't get our buddies to do it too, then there's no point. Second, framing can't do it alone. It requires all the other plans to be carried out in order to really be effective (similar to the convincing problem but a little different). Third, its incomplete. Having talking points from here to Sunday is nice, but talking points and frames are transitory. They are used for situations J, K, and L. And when issue H pops up, we make a new one. We shouldn't have to wait for orders to know how to frame H.
So, where does this leave us? What are our options? How do we take this country back? How do we bypass the problems each of these strategies have? How do we make conservatisim toxic? How? How? How? HOW!?!
Yesterday I diaried about reducing all the frames and leadership questions into a short statement of vision. A mantra. To be used at the start of every debate, arguement, or scuffle we have with the other side.
But the point of it was not really about what the mantra should be. The point was that we needed to show leadership.
Screw weather or not Feingold and Byrd voting yes on Roberts was a betrayal. That arguement ignores the fact that many of use don't have a clue about what the hell our problem is. That there are other things we need to accomplish before we have earned the right to berate our senators and congresspeople on issue X we need to make damn sure that we are on the streets, spreading why everyone should have position Y on issue X. We need to be out there, talking to our friends and neighbors about how we feel about the events of the last five years. We need to be talking to those we don't know about Republican corruption. We need to be discussing with our co-workers about how that $300 extra refund is costing them their futures.
I know some of us are out there and doing our best. But to those of you who are not, shame on you.
We can't rely on anyone but ourselves to provide the leadership this country needs. Every time a kosmopolitan runs for office, I'm thrilled. Every time a kosmopolitan passes around a patition, not only here, but in the fleshy world to, I'm delighted. Every time a kosmopolitian reports back about a demonstration, I can't help but feel better about the world.
But there is more to be done than this. We must take our role as leaders of the Democratic party, as leaders of the progressive movement, a step furthur. Some of us are working as part of the party apparatus to take our party back, others are running for congress, and still others are sending money and coming up with frames. But the problems in these methods exist still.
We need to show leadership in solving these problems. It isn't enough to follow a plan. A progressive improves the plan until it has a chance of working. We can use the strategies I outlined above, but until we fix them we have little hope of telling America our mantra: Supeiror Military, Fair Taxes, Good Values.
This is our job, lets make sure we do it.
Tell me friends, how do we fix these things?