A lot of right-wingers are claiming victory today and cheering loudly after holding off Democratic challengers in four of Tuesday's Wisconsin recall elections. You can see it at #wirecall on Twitter. At the same time, progressive traffic at both #wirecall and #wiunion has slowed substantially despite the coming recall election against two Democrats next week. Some regular denizens are trying to pump up enthusiasm for what are important contests, but it's slow going. Apparently, some progressives feel somewhat demoralized at what they perceive as a loss.
That's just plain wrong, but what can we do to improve our effectiveness, to actually create the changes that we know our country needs? Can we succeed?
I won't bore you with the statistical odds against Democrats taking those two seats -- and nearly a third one -- in strong red districts, or with a historical analysis of the rarity of state legislative recalls. The fact that Democrats now hold two seats that they didn't hold the day before, and that Republicans lost two seats, should be enough to demonstrate the necessity and value of progressive action.
But there's a lot more value to be had from yesterday's exercise that can benefit progressives. Crooks and Liars has an excellent article about those lessons, and it's imperative that progressives learn them. Basically, the article targets the inadequacy of progressive infrastructure and messaging, although I would emphasize coordination of messaging. Get-out-the-vote efforts need analysis for effectiveness, and they must be overhauled. In addition, people must be trained in what works and what doesn't. (Does anyone like telemarketing for any cause? Can it inspire anyone? Is it cost-effective when compared with other methods?) And progressives' messages are often muddled and over complicated. (A simple message yesterday could have been, "Republicans want to rob you of your voice and choices and money", although even the simple messages about the value of unions were too often blurred.)
But there are other things we must learn, as well, and those lessons come from Republicans. One thing that they do very effectively is to make sure that everyone in their coalition gets a turn at bat, and no one tells them, "this isn't a good time for your issue; you should wait." (In Democratic parlance, that translates to, "Sorry, but we won't be getting to you any time soon.") And whenever a right-wing issue is at the forefront, people with interests in other issues support them. The right wing never ignores a member of their coalition.
You might not know it, but anti-abortion efforts have had huge successes at the state level even while tax and budget cutting have been making the headlines. Every right-wing issue gets a shot, gets full use of the infrastructure, and wins.
Furthermore, right-wing messages are coordinated. On any given day, you can turn on Fox News and CSPAN and hear commentators and elected representatives using exactly the same phrases to market their issues, and those messages can be changed or fine-tuned within hours. The stories about Grover Norquist, Roger Ailes, and Rupert Murdoch are not mere folklore. Those guys have lots of money to spend on their issues, and a tremendous infrastructure built up over decades to spread their message.
Unfortunately, progressives don't have the luxury of time or massive wealth if we are to prevent our country from sliding further into ruin. We must act fast, and we must act now.
Republicans do have some fundamental problems. The party is composed of two groups that sometimes oppose each other: establishment-types with lots of money who want to control everything and take every cent they can get from the middle class, and tea partiers. Fortunately for the establishment-types, the tea partiers don't seem to understand that they're being duped, although they do rebel on some issues. Occasionally, you'll see one of them stand up at a Republican's "town hall" meeting and say they want to raise taxes on the rich, but they soon forget what they said amidst effective right-wing marketing campaigns that tell them to blame Democrats for their problems. But progressives can exploit the issues that divide Republicans if they coordinate and develop effective marketing campaigns.
There is one other aspect of the task confronting progressives that must not be ignored: The Democratic Party is also composed of two groups, but unlike the Republican coalition, the Democratic groups actually have little in common. Neo-liberals support a plutocracy with corporate control of the economy and of government. In fact, many Democrats lean so far to the right that they must be considered to be classical liberals, opposing many social policies supported by other liberals and progressives. They often oppose necessary environmental legislation, have opposed efforts to end discrimination against LGBTs and women, and are even willing to abandon the social contract that has held the party together for decades. Have no doubt: Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security will all be cut in the coming months even though doing so is completely unnecessary in order to "save" those programs. Saving them is not what they want to do because doing so diverts large amounts of money to the millions in the poor and the middle classes and out of their pockets. In fact, many neo-liberals would make excellent Republicans, except that they control the Democratic infrastructure, and that is a powerful weapon to have at their disposal, and it's too much to give up. Besides, as other Democrats have found when they tried to switch parties, they were not welcomed.
Progressives, on the other hand, hold opposite positions on all of those issues, and they have very little control of the Democratic infrastructure. This is because too many of them have shut up and sat down when told to by party leaders.
If progressives are to have any voice at all in government, their acquiescence must end now, and if they don't start standing up and fighting, they should be replaced by people who will. It doesn't matter if a seat is held by an ineffective progressive or by a Republican if the result is going to be Republican policies anyway. A lot of Democrats learned that lesson when they were voted out in the last election. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like any of the Democrats who remain learned that lesson.
Our country is in danger from enemies from within. Our wealth is being drained, citizens are losing control of the government, and having children begging in the streets is a sight that's just around the corner. It's time for us to stand up and fight.
The first thing any of us can do is simple and easy, and each one of us can do it alone: Make a sign that protests an issue that is important to you and go stand in front of your local federal building. Just do it. Take the leap, walk through your fear, and don't worry about not making a difference. And it doesn't matter if you're the only person carrying a sign on that sidewalk. It may take a while, but you will meet other like-minded people, most of whom just need a little encouragement and to see that others think as they do. And the exercise is good and necessary practice for the battles ahead. But if we want change, then we have to act, and we have to act now -- and this is an easy step to take to get the ball rolling.
We also need an umbrella organization that we can use to coordinate our messaging. There are several candidate organizations available, although they would have to be strengthened and expanded with more funding. Off the top of my head, the biggest right now seem to be the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, MoveOn, and Rebuild The Dream.
Personally, I favor Van Jones' "Rebuild The Dream". It's got a clear agenda, a charismatic lead spokesman, and it's new. With a "contract" that's easy to describe and to focus on and inclusive of every progressive issue, messaging would be much easier. I mean, face it, progressives are lousy at marketing, but Rebuild The Dream has managed to attract almost 200,000 people in a very short time.
But no matter what organization we choose, it's imperative that we choose one now, rally around it, volunteer for it, and get busy building it, because the main lesson that we should have learned yesterday is that progressives can win.
We already know that we must.