So we find ourselves approaching another election day, and I sense a great deal of anxiety among progressives. I know this site is dedicated to electoral victories, but there is no reason to think that electoral victory or defeat makes a progressive irrelevant.
If you would grant me your imagination for a moment, I would like you to consider a concept seemingly lost in American politics.
Your Representative or Senator is still your Representative or Senator regardless of the (D), (I) or (R) after their name.
In a week's time we will have a body count of Democrats and Republicans to tally up. That new number is not directly correlated to the progressive or conservative influence in the United States Congress. Those are their numbers for their consumption.
After all is said and done, there will be Republicans in progressive districts and Democrats in conservative districts. This is always the case, and the sky hasn't fallen.
Right now there are quite a few Democrats, who are heavily influenced by conservatives in their districts. This points to a larger flaw in the progressive movement, which has been largely focused on maintaining an electoral majority.
Why in all this time haven't we seen a Republican pressured by progressives in their district?
The answer is that progressives haven't been engaged with their representation on progressive issues. We have such a nationalistic mentality, that we have failed to localize progressive issues.
We spend our time arm twisting a Democratic Senator from another state, but put no effort into arm twisting a Republican Senator from our own state.
Remember when we were all upset, because those Tea Party people were giving Democrats hell during the health care debate? Well, where were the progressives giving Republicans hell? Did we just naturally assume that they were lost causes?
I desperately want to see progressive solutions enacted by our congress, but the last 2 years should have taught us a lesson. These issues won't be the result of one political party doing the heavy lifting. It leaves them out on a limb, forced to confront dissenting voices among their constituents.
If next week you wake up with a Republican Senator or Representative, perhaps consider attacking the problem of advancing progressive issues from a different frame of reference. Rather than viewing yourself as a captured pawn in an electoral game, ask yourself what power you have as that individual's constituent.