During the year and change since President Obama was sworn in, there have been significant changes on many things Democratic. From the perceptions of our leaders, to our stated goals; as political reality and the DC mentality meet campaign promises, plans and ideas, changes have occurred.
This has led to various divisions and fractures within the party. Certainly, they are apparent here in this microcosm known as the Daily KOS. The most prevalent manner of looking at these divisions is between progressives and centrists. And there is significant legitimacy to this approach to categorization.
However, I feel that there is perhaps a better manner of viewing this division, one that may allow for better communication, and a restoration cohesive effort towards the shared goals that we all pretty much agreed upon during the election cycle. Put succinctly, that division is between those who believe that the pragmatism of the solutions must precede the politics in order to achieve the long term goals, and those who see the pragmatism of politics as being the first order of business in order to achieve said same goals in the end.
This categorization is by no means completely definitive of the party as a whole. There are indeed centrist Democrats who believe in centrist solutions; who do favor approaches that many progressives find completely unacceptable. On the other hand, there are many progressives who propose solutions that a number of centrist Democrats consider to be too socialist in their nature; that are considered too extreme left to be acceptable in American society.
With this said, there are, I believe, a good number of folks who can be categorized between the two camps of pragmatism - political-wise and solution-wise.
Before I go further, I should make it abundantly clear that I am in the camp of the group that I describe as solution-wise pragmatists. With this said, I believe that I can also see the viewpoint of those I describe as political-wise pragmatists.
Those who believe that the pragmatism of politics must come first operate from the premise that radical change cannot happen quickly. They see the DC atmosphere, the momentum of the Senate, and thus look at things in an incremental manner. They are far more willing to bargain to accomplish small steps, believing that any step is positive, and that the political capitol from those small steps will pave the way for further steps.
Those who believe that the pragmatism of solutions must take precedence often do not believe that we have infinite time for the small steps. Furthermore, they believe that the political power to take further steps comes not from the political victories, but rather, from the consequences of the steps themselves. They believe that inadequate steps towards the solutions will actually lead to a weakening of political power for the Democrats, and that to embrace weak solutions is damaging to the party and the overall causes and goals. Additionally, members of this set tend to believe that once a given small step is taken, the political capitol for that area has been used, and that it will not be soon revisited.
Consider the health care battle, and the divisions that resulted during that fight. Given the polling numbers for a Public Option, at the beginning of the debate, it's fairly safe to say that the majority of Democrats supported some sort of a PO. When the PO was not strongly supported by what appeared to be a political-wise pragmatic White House, and then dropped, this caused significant rifts in the base overall.
At this point, the political pragmatists said that this was a necessary sacrifice, that we'd still be taking a step forward, and that we should be unified behind the bill, so as to push things at least a bit forward, despite the acknowledged flaws in the bill. Furthermore, they argued, it would be a new foundation that could be built upon.
Conversely, the solution based pragmatists concluded that the bill was so flawed that despite the ability to declare a victory, despite the political capitol that could be garnered, the long term political results would be negative once the flaws of the bill were exposed. That once the insurance companies started exploiting loopholes, that once people discovered the true costs of what the bill entailed and what they would and would not actually be getting for it, that it would lead to significant backlash against the Democrats.
Well, as we all know, the bill passed, and is now law. Certainly, the political pragmatists were at least partially correct about the polling results from the passage - President Obama's approval numbers went up. However, at the same time, the solution pragmatists were correct in that the insurance companies immediately began looking for loopholes. They were also correct when they claimed that there would be no great second push to fix the problems in the bill; we've already decidedly started moving on to other issues that face the nation. There is little impetus in DC to push now for improvements. Obviously, we won't know whether or not this will happen for some time, nor will we know about the long term political ramifications for the Democrats from the bill for at least a few years.
What we can observe now, though, is the results of these divisions, and of this political process. Progressive solution based ideas, while still technically the basis for the party platform, are quicker to be traded away or modified to fit what is perceived to be political pragmatism. The political based solutions are often seen as the only way forward; the perceived Health Care victory is used as an object lesson here.
The problem with the lessons that DC and many supporters and activists draw from this is that, while a certain amount of political pragmatism is quite obviously necessary, it cannot be the end-all of what we strive for. We should not be in this to beat the other side only; we should be here to actually fix the significant problems that face our nation. And when we focus too much on winning politically, we eventually loose sight of the actual goals that we got into this thing for in the first place. We never take that second step; we declare victory and move on to another issue. And with a political pragmatism frame of mind, we accept and even embrace sub-par solutions that are too often bandaid solutions to the problems that face our nation.
In closing, we obviously need a certain amount of political acumen and pragmatism to accomplish our shared goals. But if our solutions are so flawed, if we sacrifice too much of the pragmatism of the solution in order to win a political victory, then we are not accomplishing the goals either. We as a party need to keep our eyes on our goals, and take the steps necessary to find the solutions that will actually work, in a manner that is politically possible. We cannot blind ourselves in celebration of political victories to the flaws of the solutions achieved; doing so makes identification of the problems that we still face and the things that still needs fixing impossible. Nor can we blind ourselves to the political realities; that leads to the accomplishment of nothing.