Interparty rebellions or third parties can change the course of policy. However, this may happen after the party they are closest to looses and learns it's lesson by absorbing the new party and its positions. If a major constituency splits off, a party may wake up after it has lost an election and move towards them. Good strategy.
Sometimes.
But, there is a time limit here. A time limit on the jobless, the sick, homeless children, ignored seniors, our soldiers, you name it. We don't have the option of waiting for the Democratic Party to come around after losing an election. Too many people need us to ask/cajole/demand that it does it now. The only way to do that is to make ourselves into an even more obvious asset than we already are.
We need to be a visible asset like the Tea Party is to the right wing. Visibility is it's own recruiting tool.
Okay great, so what are my suggestions? Here's the outline, details follow:
1. Gear Up for next year's battles, including
A. The budget: an opportunity to force substantive decisions
B. Local Elections: cumulative policy makes national policy, and local progressive activists become national ones
C. Transportation reauthorization: the biggest opportunity to affect jobs, the environment, energy and health all at once.
2. Split the opposition/recruit allies
A. Look for strange bedfellows: anti-military conservatives
B. Take advantage of dissent:
National vs. local Chambers of Commerce
Conservative vs liberal religious groups
Details
1. Gear Up for next year's battles, including
A. The budget: an opportunity to force substantive decisions
There is nothing to prevent the President from submitting two budgets to Congress (this is not my idea, but I really like it):
One that savagely cuts every program Republicans attacked, including entitlements, and allows no provision for local projects dear to Members of Congress. This is something that they campaigned on, but never expected to happen, because it's political suicide. He could present it with an itemized list of programs cut specifically at the request of named Republicans: "As Representative John Doe (or, better yet, John Boehner) has requested, I have asked for cuts in the XYZ program" (extremely popular in John Doe's home district)
and
One that protects seniors, children and pushes job growth by any number of means.
The White House needs to be encouraged to do this, and the Dems in the House and Senate need to be encouraged to go along with the strategy.
Please suggest it to:
Your Representative and Senators (make sure you call yours, calling someone else's wastes their time and yours:
Capitol Switchboard: (202) 224-3121 The White House: 202-456-1111
The Democratic National Committee: (202) 863-8000
The Democratic Senate Campaign Committee: (202) 224-2447
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee: (202) 863-1500
Your own State/County Democratic Party. List of State and Local Democratic Parties
When calling, simply suggest that this would be a good strategy, and good politics for the President or Member of Congress whose staff you are talking to. Never plead, never threaten, just suggest and thank the staff for their time. Remember, the President submits the budget, so when you call anyone but the White House, you are asking them to get work getting the idea to the President. I suggest calling rather than emailing because it is difficult for Congressional offices to verify if emails are actually coming from their own districts. In addition, form emails are easy to generate, while individual calls signal that constituents are making an extra effort, and therefore taking the idea seriously. So get to the phone, and get your friends on the phone.
B. Local Elections: cumulative policy makes national policy, and local progressive activists become national ones
While we should, justifiably, focus a lot of attention on the biggest 2011 elections coming up, we should also give equal attention to the smaller municipal, town and county elections (not to mention the often overlooked but surprisingly important homeowners and condo association elections) that will happen throughout the country this year.
The first, and most obvious one is that cumulative local change equals large national change. The more elections from condo board to county board that produce actual policies, such as buying renewable energy, recycling, donating to food banks, et cetera, the more we affect real conditions. Local policy creates momentum for state and federal policy.
Which leads to the next point: those who become civic-minded stay civic minded. The condo owner who votes for a recycling bin today supports county-wide energy savings tomorrow, votes for green state legislators next week, and supports progressive Congressional candidates down the line. Maybe the voter becomes a candidate her/himself.
Social psychology provides ample proof of this phenomenon. Persuasion psychology pioneer Robert Cialdini conducted a fascinating and much-cited study in which people ramped up their level of commitment for a cause after taking a small action:
This paper describes part of the study (emphasis added by TGW):
Consider, for example, the "drive carefully" study. Researchers randomly assigned homeowners in a residential neighborhood to either a control group or an experimental group. A researcher, posing as a "volunteer," asked the homeowners in both groups if they would allow the volunteer to post a gigantic "Drive Carefully" billboard in their front yards. Each homeowner viewed a photo of the billboard demonstrating it was so large it would almost completely obscure the view of the house from the street.
The only difference between the two groups was that two weeks earlier another "volunteer" had asked the homeowners in the experimental group display a three inch by three inch sign that read "Be a Safe Driver." The subjects in the experimental group, who complied with this seemingly innocuous request, were much more likely to agree to the gigantic billboards in their front yards: seventy-six percent of those in the experimental group versus a mere seventeen percent in the control group agreed to do so."Because they had innocently complied with a trivial safe-driving request a couple of weeks before, those homeowners became remarkably willing to comply with another such request that was massive in size.
This site adds more information about the experiment:
Moreover, in a further variant, the residents were first asked to sign a "Keep California Beautiful" petition. Two weeks later, they are asked about placement of the large billboard, and 50% agreed, even though the first request differed in subject (beauty) and action (signing)! The researchers theorized that the first action actually changed way the participants viewed themselves, e.g., "public-spirited citizens" in a way that influenced them to act in accordance with that view in the future .
Key takeaway: small victories will lead to larger ones, and local elections are not anywhere near as heavy a lift as state or national elections.
These victories can be on any number of issues, both substantive and symbolic (that is, publicity generating). Policies and attitudes can be changed: town councils can pass resolutions condemning or praising national initiatives; while these do not have the force of law, they have force in the court of public opinion . Every reported resolution against war or bigotry lets other know that there are progressive constituencies to tap. condemning policies.
You can find local municipal elections by state and county easily enough through Google (I haven't found a comprehensive list yet, sorry
C. Transportation reauthorization: the biggest opportunity to affect jobs, the environment, energy and health all at once.
Why is this important? Because this legislation will set all transportation funding and policy for the next six years . As such, it is is an opportunity to expand public transit, the only historically proven way to improve public health, reduce dependence on fossil fuels, improve quality of life and allow legislators to bring home dollars and jobs while doing all three . It is a winning formula for a lot of groups.
But the groups need to be mobilized.
The keys to doing it are jobs and disease (yes disease , not health). The reasons I think it will work:
First: jobs
The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee (T&I)has a remarkable history of bipartisanship for two extremely relevant reasons:
While there has been opposition to the President's high speed rail proposals, every member of Congress likes to cut the ribbon on roads, buses and/or conventional rail in his or her district. So, the committee tends to unite to get as much funding as possible for such projects.
The T&I committee is also united in its opposition to another committee: the Appropriations Committee. A couple of surface transportation reauthorizations ago T&I took jurisdiction over the Highway Trust Fund (which provides the bulk of funding for highways and transit programs) away from the appropriators. The appropriators went predictably batshit, because they traditionally control all funding.
This may seem irrelevant but, remember, we are now dealing with an anti-earmark movement. Earmarks are traditionally defined as special appropriations. Everyone still wants them, of course, but no Republican can admit it. So, where will they get the bacon? Seems possible they could argue that a transportation project isn't really an earmark, because no funds were appropriated. Cute, huh?
Onward to disease :
This is the transit part of the equation. While people get riled up around the "socialization" of health care, they are even more scared of heart disease, lung disease and cancer. Remember soccer moms? They are particularly scared about threats to children. Plenty of evidence for such can be found in the EDF's All Choked Up Report, a case study in traffic related disease. While the report focuses on New York, the dangers it outlines exist nationwide.
If the public health organizations can be convinced to put their muscle behind this and if there is outreach to support groups for all these problems, you have the makings of a grass-roots effort to improve public transit.
It doesn't even need to be nationwide, though that would help. Getting grassroots delegations of construction contractors, union workers, pediatricians, and health officials to visit key members of House T&I and Senate Banking would start the ball rolling.
And the Representatives who voted for such a project could take credit for giving their constituents jobs and saving them from cancer. hard to pass up a chance to be a hero to that many voters.
The following groups will hit the ground running:
The American Public Transportation Association (APTA) and its affiliated Public Transportation Advocates in Action
Reconnecting America
Smart Growth America
Transportation for America (T4 America) and its many affiliated organizations
But they will need help from the following:
Environmental Groups. They are very heavily invested in cap and trade and have traditionally made transportation a second priority. They must be convinced that this need to be reversed in the near term if we want any kind of improvement at all.
Public Health Groups. Public transit is in the interest of the American Hearth Association, the American Lung Association, the American Cancer Society, and all children's' health organizations. They have begun to look at public transportation, but they must be convinced to make it a top legislative priority.
The key committees to watch and pressure will be as follows:
The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee , which has a genuine long record of bipartisanship, and whose incoming Chairman, John Mica of FL, is not against transit.
In the Senate, the following three committees: Environment and Public Works, with jurisdiction over highways, Banking, with jurisdiction over public transit, and Commerce, with jurisdiction of long range rail.
This is a chance for a real win. Monitor APTA's website for news.
For background information, see the CRS Report Surface Transportation Reauthorization Legislation in the 111th Congress: Summary of Selected Major Provisions
2. Split the opposition/recruit allies
Remember: never attack a movement's members, always attack its leaders.
Why?
Cognitive dissonance (the academic theory, not the common usage) suggests that attacking the supporters may actually increase their level of commitment.
It works like this: Say someone has two contradictory ideas: "I smoke" and "Smoking is bad for me". This causes discomfort, which must be resolved. Unfortunately, it is usually resolved in an ego- protecting way, so you wind up with something like: "Smoking isn't bad for me" instead of "I'm stupid to be smoking and should quit".
If we make fun of a Tea Party supporters, they hold the following ideas": I like my candidate's ideas" and "All these people say the ideas are crazy". Well, no matter what the evidence for the lunacy, that's likely to resolve into "the ideas are right" instead of "I made a mistake". This is particularly true if they see criticisms as hostile.
On the other hand, if a supporter holds the following ideas "I like this candidate" and "this candidate just said that s/he is going to screw me personally ", the supporter is more likely to look question the candidate.
For a great exploration of cognitive dissonance, see Tavris and Aronson's Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts
A. Look for strange bedfellows:
Anti-military conservatives
Here's one you won't believe:
Grover Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform, the group that helped launch the 1994 Gingrich takeover of the House, just said this:
"Today, Americans for Tax Reform, joined by strong coalition of organizations and individuals, released a joint letter calling on Republican leaders in Congress to consider all areas of the federal budget in their efforts to cut spending. The letter states that leadership on spending reform requires lawmakers to reject the sanctimonious pardoning of Department of Defense waste, and consider military spending cuts when confronting government profligacy. In part, the letter states"
Read more: http://www.atr.org/...
Don't knock this. Strange bedfellow coalitions can be some of the most effective in politics.
(On a side note, the incredible story of Americans for Tax Reform's rise from fringe group to powerhouse is worth studying. They had a laser-like focus on one uniting issue, lower taxes, and refused to dilute their message with cultural issues for years. By doing so, they built a strong coalition. This is a model we might want to duplicate on a progressive issue, but it has to be one accepted or acceptable to a wide coalition. But I digress)
To give you and idea of why any ally in reducing military spending is needed, take a look at the following:
From Waste Land: The Pentagon’s nearly unprecedented, wildly irrational spending binge. by Greg Easterbrook:
This year, the United States will spend at least $700 billion on defense and security. Adjusting for inflation, that’s more than America has spent on defense in any year since World War II—more than during the Korean war, the Vietnam war, or the Reagan military buildup. Much of that enormous sum results from spending increases under presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama. Since 2001, military and security expenditures have soared by 119 percent.
For most of that time, of course, the United States has been fighting two wars. Yet that’s not the cause of the defence spending explosion. Even if the costs of the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan are subtracted, the defense budget has swelled by 68 percent since 2001. (All money figures in this article are stated in 2010 dollars.) The U.S. defense budget is now about the same as military spending in all other countries combined.
Discussion the binge, Easterbrook points out:
...Pressure-point lobbying has made it hard for the Department of Defense to render final acquisition decisions. Instead, programs are perennially “stretched,” becoming more and more expensive while less and less of value is produced (all emphasis by TGW).
Exhibit A for this phenomenon is the F-22 fighter jet. Lockheed Martin was chosen as the prime contractor in 1991. But the plane did not become operational for 14 years, as lawmakers scrapped over which congressional districts would receive the subcontracts. While deadlines kept passing, taxpayers paid billions. Through the years of wheel-spinning, F-22 costs more than doubled in inflation adjusted terms per plane. The Air Force’s entire B-58 project—which produced the world’s first long-range supersonic bomber—took six years, from when the prototype first flew in 1956 till the final B-58 left the assembly hangar. Back when Pentagon spending was much lower, there was discipline about completing programs on time.
Eventually, the original justification for the F-22 fighter—anticipated aerial duels above Europe against the Soviet Union’s best—faded away, as did the adversary. When the first operational F-22 finally entered an Air Force squadron in 2005, it was unclear what the plane would do, other than be something really cool for members of Congress to have their pictures taken next to. The F-22 has never been used in Iraq or Afghanistan: Either the plane is irrelevant to low-intensity war, or the Air Force fears one will get shot down by some cheap, old-fashioned weapon. The project was finally ended last year, but only after a nasty and protracted fight in Congress.
and
Although the Pentagon is “awash in reports” on its broken procurement process—as the military’s own news agency said in August—little meaningful internal reform has occurred. The latest jet fighter costs nine times as much as the top fighter that flew during the Vietnam war. The latest submarines cost $7 billion, the latest aircraft carriers $11 billion. In 2009, the Government Accountability Office estimated that Pentagon weapons projects were collectively $296 billion over budget.
and of course
There is a Joint Chiefs of Staff structure that, in theory, should resolve these sorts of squabbles. But the Joint Chiefs are like the board of directors at BP—they rubber-stamp whatever is put in front of them. Each member of the Joint Chiefs is a four-star officer in his final billet, soon to retire and accept a cushy job in private industry. The last thing he wants is to offend a powerful Pentagon interest group.
and, head-smackingly finally
Despite unprecedented spending,U.S. weapons are becoming antiquated. The Air Force consists mainly of aircraft designed 30 or more years ago. The Army’s primary tank, the M-1, went into the field when Jimmy Carter was president. Billions of dollars have been wasted on replacement projects, including a super-costly plan for a swarm of elaborate armored vehicles called Future Combat Systems, but the initiatives failed to produce a substitute. Under current plans, the M-1 will remain the Pentagon’s primary armor until 2050, when the tanks will be 70 years old.
So we're spending more than we should on outdated weapons that might not work to fight an enemy that no longer exists.
To put this into perspective according to In Context: US Military Spending Versus Rest Of The World:
• US military spending accounts for 46.5 percent, or almost half, of the world’s total military spending
• US military spending is 7 times more than China, 13 times more than Russia, and 73 times more than Iran (note from TWG: even without current war spending, our military budget is several times larger that those of Russia, China and Iran combined).
• US military spending is some 44 times the spending on the six “rogue” states (Cuba, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Sudan and Syria) whose spending amounts to around $16 billion.
• US spending is more than the next top 14 countries at least.
• The United States and its strongest allies (the NATO countries, Japan, South Korea and Australia) spend something in the region of $1.1 trillion on their militaries combined, representing 72 percent of the world’s total.
What does this mean to the average citizen? Here's one example: The combined cost of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars is about $190 million per day Assume a few covert opps and round up to $200 million. Four days of the wars' cost could freeze tuition at every public institution in the country.
(Numbers taken from this excellent piece by Robert Weiner:)
Diverting a small portion of the federal budget — approximately $800 million (TGW's note: roughly 0.027% of the fed. budget) — could pay for a tuition freeze at every public institution across the nation, increase attendance and reduce student debt. It’s a reasonable shift if the U.S. wants to return to No. 1 in college graduations.
(He also points out that Maryland governor Martin O'Malley campaigned hard on freezing tuition issue four years ago and won. He won again this year against a tax-cutting former Governor during a Republican wave).
But the Catfood Commission is the best we can do for the neediest in our society, including children?
National security is established by protecting the lives and property of the citizenry. So where is the focus on the oldest, youngest and poorest in our country? here is the protection for the property of anyone but the richest?
I am truly tired of a group that is interested in protecting our grandparents from imaginary death panels but is still wiling to let then starve; a group that is willing to protect children from conception until birth but says f*ck'em after that. This hypocrisy that needs to be put in their faces at every public venue,at every town hall, in every letter to the editor, and on every call in show possible.
B. Take advantage of dissent:
National vs. local Chambers of Commerce
As Chamber losing local member groups points out in U.S. Chamber losing local member groups
The very high profile, far-right, and expensive campaign efforts of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in 2010 has created a major headache for local chambers, which are breaking ties with the national group
.
We should encourage this. Use this link , ironically, taken from the US Chamber of Commerce's site, to locate your local Chamber and urge them to disassociate from the US Chamber.
If you want to give them a very good reason, find a US Chamber member who is competing with a local chamber member that it isn't in their best interest to fund promote the competition.
You could even call the local company and encourage them to make this point yourself.
In this kind of call, never plead, never threaten, just suggest, and if the contact you talk to can't give you an immediate decision, just say you'll check back later.
Conservative vs. liberal religious groups
According to legend, Republican House Judiciary Committee Chairman Henry Hyde once said of the American Catholic Bishops that "they are with us on abortion, but on everything else they are a bunch of socialists."
If this is true, why does the left always have such a hard time getting religious voters?
Answer: we don't ask.
After his first political campaign, Tip O'Neill asked a neighbor if she had voted for him. She said no. O'Neil asked why: after all, they had known each other forever. She replied: "You never asked."
Tip never forgot that lesson. But many of us haven't learned it.
The right goes to the religious middle, which is generally to the right on social issues and to the left on economic issues, and offers them half a loaf: support on the social issues. Even though it ignores their economic views, it still gets their support just by asking.
The left, on the other hand, stays away from the religious middle and wonders why it doesn't come to them. The left has to offer it's own half loaf: support on economic issues. And we'll get support just by asking.
This won't win over a majority of the religious middle, but it will split off a percentage large enough to make a difference.
For more thoughts on this see God's Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn't Get It, by Rev. Jim Wallace of the Sojourners (Christians for Justice and Peace)
In addition, this 2007 Grist article lists a few religious leaders who take it the environment seriously to one extent or another: 15 Green Religious Leaders They come from across the ideological spectrum, but they and their commitments should be used as a counterweight to those who preach that environmentalism is the devil's work.
I hope these are good suggestions. I know that they are nowhere near all the opportunities we have, so let's start searching for every win we can get, in elections, policy and the media. Victories create momentum which creates victories.
***
Recommended reading/viewing for radicals:
The incomparable Saul Alinsky's Rules for Radicals. Online preview here
Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion. by Robert Cialdini. This is the single most valuable book I have read on how to persuade and how to avoid being persuaded.
Don't Think of an Elephant!: Know Your Values and Frame the Debate--The Essential Guide for Progressives, by George Lakoff. See also: Cognitive Policy Wonks and The Progressive Strategy Handbook Project
Frank Luntz: everything he’s written. He's a conservative message master, and you have to know the enemy. Remember the great scene in Patton, when the victorious general shouted: “Rommel! You magnificent son of a bitch! I READ YOUR BOOK!”
Making the News: A Guide for Activists and Nonprofits, By Jason Salzman
The Campaign Manager: Running and Winning Local Elections, By Catherine Shaw
How To Win A Local Election,by Lawrence Grey
The Opposition Research Handbook: Guide to Political Investigations
Guerrilla Marketing
Robert Newman’s History of Oil Thanks to
GreyHawk for recommending this.