The conundrum for progressive Democrats is: Just when does it become acceptable in the face of a clearly bad candidate to bear the Hobsonâs choice and put being a Democrat first and a progressive second, despite the obnoxiousness of it all? At what level does it justify putting being a Democratic voter ahead of being a progressive one, and just what is the turning point at which voting for a clearly hidebound Democrat in order to supposedly prevent the âgreater evilâ of a Republican being elected becomes highly questionable for a clear progressive to stomach? At what point does the Democratic candidate become so bad that it is hardly acceptable for a progressive to support him/her despite the Republican threat of winning, and at what point is the supposed difference between a clearly regressive Democrat and a Republican become so negligible, so clearly the choice between Tweedledumb and Tweedledumber one simply says, âA plague on both your houses!â and either âvotes oneâs conscienceâ for a third-party candidate with no chance of winning, or sits out the election altogether?
These are hardly academic questions, as we look at the 2014 elections and beyond and see Democratic politicians and possible candidates who clearly pose problems for committed Democrat progressives as well as for those usually Democratic-voting persons whose political conscience and involvement are fueled by support of progressive, economically populist, and socially equitable policies. Consider how we progressives must honestly feel about candidates and candidacies of Democrats such as Andrew Cuomo, Rahm Emmanuel, or Hillary Clinton, not to mention those other Democrats running in 2014 who are making clear lurches toward the center-right and even the right, of whom several are prominent. Here we might recall as relevant the narrow victory of Kshama Sawant of the Socialist Alternative ticket in the Seattle city council race, where she just barely beat out a Democrat. Yet itâs obvious that, now in office, sheâs advocating legislation and supporting policies that progressive Democrats can easily join in supporting and rallying around. Same goes for the fiery, outspoken populist independent Senator from Vermont, Bernie Sanders, an openly-avowed democratic socialist whose recent announcement that heâs considering a Presidential run for 2016 has excited many. Arenât we who usually vote Democratic and consider ourselves progressives far more akin to Kshama Sawant, to Bernie Sanders, or to Cuomoâs Green Party challenger in the upcoming New York election, Howie Hawkins, than we are to many self-proclaimed Democrats, even as we deride ourselves for our âunrealisticâ sympathies?
For many of us progressives who usually vote Democratic, voting for some Democrats does mean holding oneâs nose and voting for the âlesser evil,â because the only realistic alternative (i.e., voting for a candidate with an actual chance of winning) is the totally unacceptable voting for a Republican, which means rabid reactionary; and despite the rift between certain âmainstreamâ Republicans and the ideologically purist and zealous Tea Party, such âmainstreamâ Republicans are but closet Tea Partiers. Even ifâin truly one of the great comedic moments of U.S. politicsâsuch âmainstreamersâ as Eric Cantor lose in the Republican primary for allegedly not being conservative enough! But the two-party system entrenched in U.S. politics (sometimes called the âtwo-party shell gameâ) limits effective choices to either Democrat or Republican. And so we progressives who vote Democratic often vote against our progressive political principles and preferred choices, vote solely for some âmoderateâ or âconservativeâ Democrat only to keep the rabidly reactionary Republican out of office. Feeling trapped when we do so, even feeling we have no tolerable alternative because of the very polarized, sharply liberal/center vs. rightist nature of the electorate (i.e., those who usually vote, even in midterm elections)âwith adherents on both sides roughly split down the middle numerically, where winning often depends on which sectors of the potential electorate are mobilized to vote, and which donât bother to vote.
Vote just to keep the already dangerous and fanatically-driven Republicans from doing more damage than they have already done. Vote for the âlesser evilâ solely to keep the âgreater evilâ from winning. But such is not a progressive political strategy; itâs but a holding action, and as demonstrated in action, only the upholding of an uneasy and dysfunctional status quo to stave off a troglodytic deluge! Making of us progressives politically compromised and impotent, our votes taken for granted by Democratic organizational machines and our input spurned, except when it comes to voting, vote-getting, and fund-raising. We have become in far too many cases nothing but Dutch boys heroically plugging the hole in the dike with our fingers while Democratic organizations pursue corporate and Wall Street funding, breathlessly hold onto every spurious call for âmoderationâ and âbipartisanshipâ from the Beltway punditsâas if it were we, the Democrats, who were causing the present dysfunction!âand usually run as far as possible from any hint of economic populism or social equity that benefits Main Street and discomfits Wall Street! (Certain Democratic strategists prefer to overlook Bill Maherâs trenchant calling-out of those Democrats trying to run away from the Democratic occupant of the White Houseâwith Maher irritably noting, âObama gave people healthcare, not herpes. Own it.â)
So, while Republicans have become uniformly ideologically conservative, have consistently aligned themselves with the right and the far right, no matter what delusional Tea Partiers claim of the Republican Establishment, Democrats cannot claim to be their direct ideological bête noire, their progressive, liberal or populist counterpoise. Despite being tarred with the âliberalâ and even âsocialistâ brush ever since the New Deal, the simple truth is, the Democrats are more of an eclectic vote-catching machine than a principled ideological force with a truly alternative vision to that of todayâs far-right Republicans. In fact, we are seeing just the opposite in Democratic office-seekers in these 2014 elections: Democrats such as Cuomo, Mark Pryor, Kay Hagan, even Allison Lundergan Grimes running actively against Obama nemesis Mitch McConnell, all of them trying to distance themselves from the âliberalâ taint supposedly permanently dyed into the Democratic Party and especially the supposedly âsocialistâ Presidency of Barack Obama. But such pandering to misinformation and ingrained prejudices among the electorate only compromises Democrats and fuels the Republican fervor. And, needless to say, scotches completely any meaningful political conversation on issues and policies in U.S. society outside of the already enshrined âexpertsâ who are invariably âmainstream establishmentâ credentialed (leading media, university, think tank associations, and/or are political columnists and consultants) when not actually tied to major corporations themselves!
So the question remains, and emerges even more stronglyâjust what are progressive Democrats to do when confronted with Democrats who are far from progressive? Because simply voting knee-jerk for any Democrat just to stave off the far right compromises our commitment to progressivism, makes âprogressive Democratâ an oxymoron. Entrenches centrist and even conservative, corporate-oriented Democrats even more deeply into the Democratic apparatus than they are now. And, needless to say, does not put into place the far-reaching social and economic programs badly needed to address and overcome the American present-day malaise.
While a full program cannot be elaborated here, I suggest a few notes toward such. And the first thing that must be done is for progressives not to be so âsoftâ on political activity. Too often progressives confine their political activism to the blogosphere; or to giving funds; or to reading the âcorrectâ publications and websites. Not that these arenât bad, but theyâre insufficient and frequently ineffective, and expose the inherent classism and upscale professional-managerial occupational status of many who identify as progressives. And this frequently manifests itself not only in snobbery, but even in vicious, dismissive attitudes toward ordinary people (read: non-professional-managerial workers, non-elite university graduates), especially blue-collar white workers. Those blue-collar white workers once a mainstay of the Democratic New Deal coalition but now the successfully-courted âbeneficiariesâ of Republican culture-war attention and race-baiting, who now vote regularly against their own economic self-interest in favor of âvalues.â These things I myself have experienced directly as I straddle both worlds: a university graduate (but non-eliteâIndiana University) intellectual and published writer from a lower-middle class background presently barely making ends meet as a blue-collar worker because those empyrean realms of âprofessionalâ employment are not open to me. This was further driven home for me by recent readings of two classic progressive books on the white working-class and the progressive default in reaching it: Thomas Frankâs Whatâs the Matter with Kansas? and the late Joe Bageantâs Deer Hunting with Jesus. As well as several seminal postings on Salon: Bill Curryâs âMy party has lost its soul: Bill Clinton, Barack Obama and the victory of Wall Street Democrats;" the angry interview, âCornel West: âHe posed as a progressive and turned out to be counterfeit. We ended up with a Wall Street presidency, a drone presidency;" and the shocking praise of Obama as a âmoderate conservativeâ by former Reagan advisor Bruce Bartlett. Also required reading is William Rivers Pittâs harsh Truth-out article, âAn Open Letter to My Democratic Spammerâ.
These books and articles indicate that progressives have to do some real soul-searching about automatic allegiance to the Democratic Party; that such allegiance has to be much more gadfly and politically assertive, and needs to push a progressive agenda within the Democratic Party more openly and actively; be a presence and even a thorn in the side, not just passively there to blog, send money, and catch votes for machines and their political operatives. Frankâs and Bageantâs book directly score the progressive default on simply being able to talk openly and without condescension to the people around us who arenât high-level educated and donât have awesome jobs: all those store clerks, waiters and waitresses, mechanics, baristas, cashiers around us, as well as the neighbors we donât know and tend to avoid simply out of being trapped in our own cocoons. Tom Frank especially notes that a large part of the Tea Partyâs spread in Kansas, with its left-wing populist as well as rightist political heritage, resulted simply from neighbors talking to neighbors. Not writing to the already converted on the blogosphere, or lecturing condescendingly at people instead of honestly talking to them, both major vices of progressive political style. As well as in our common well-heeled detachment, our elitist refusal to get our hands notably soiled in âgrubbyâ politics, but blog and send money insteadâan aloofness well satirized by Phil Ochs in his 1965 song, âLove Me, Iâm A Liberalâ: âAnd Iâll send all the money you ask for/But donât ask me to come on along.â
Further, let us not get so smug about changing demographics that will put âfuture history on our side.â While the cohort of angry white older men that makes up so much of the backbone of conservatism today is dying out, their active, determined presence and regular voting habits such as voting even in âboringâ midterm elections have shown that not only have they been a potent force for right-wing political dominance in the past and present, they will still be around long enough to wreak plenty of havoc in the near and middle future. Just because demographics favor progressivism, perhaps, (because a caveat must be expressed, one that notes the Millennialsâ embrace of social issues progressivism but also of its economic nemesis, the free market-infatuated anarchism of libertarianism), and perhaps especially in the long run, itâs always good to remember Keynesâ trenchant note on the âlong runââitâs when âwe are all deadâ! In the short run, itâs precisely those constituencies that showed in 2012 their commitment to progressivism that we need to get out in 2014 and other midterm elections where their no-show makes it all that much easier for the right to pull off its famous electoral coupsâas it did in 1994, in 2010, and which it might do again in 2014. We who view ourselves as progressives engaged in the political process really must ensure, with browbeating if necessary, that Millennials, African Americans, Latinos, single women, really do get to the polls and vote. And we must really push the importance of voting, even in face of all the common whines that âI donât care about politics,â or âItâs all rigged anyway,â or âMy single vote doesnât really count.â
And last, I would suggest we take a leaf from the Tea Party playbook and act more as political gadflies within the Democratic Party and within kindred Democratic Party-leaning organizations; be actively pushing for and articulating our political, economic and social policy agendas; giving critical instead of unconditional support to Democrats in office; holding them accountable for advancing progressive policies they express verbal commitment to; and maybe at times even running alternative candidates in Democratic primaries. While also following up on and putting into practice what I suggested above. And realize the need to think and act strategically, tactically, and with finesse and common sense, while not compromising principles. Because not all compromises for âunityâ are acceptable (even though not all compromises are automatically unacceptable eitherâthis is where tactics and strategy come into play).
These are things we need to do openly as progressives because too often we are simply taken for granted within the Democratic Party, where the operatives simply shrug and say, âWe donât have to worry about themâthey have nowhere else to go; even if we chide them publicly [as in fact, press secretaries in the Obama Administration have done], theyâll come meekly back to us come election time.â And we usually doâwith humility and, of course, diminished influence, giving yet another victory to the âsensible center.â Whose âsensible centrismâ has proven itself as inept and insufficient as has Republican obstructionism and open reaction.
The supposed âsensible centrismâ practiced by the Obama Administration is a case in point. Despite the qualified encomium of âsuccessfulâ given Obama by Paul Krugman in the October 8, 2014 Rolling Stone, many of us, and many of the American people, are legitimately dissatisfied with Obamaâs policies from the left. But the âtwo-party shell gameâ referred to above, that hegemony that defines ârealistic choiceâ as being only between Democrats and Republicans, leaves many persons who are dissatisfied with Obamaâs policies from the left feeling the only way they can express their opposition is to support the Republicansâwhich attacks these policies from the right, and where the strictly rightist nature of this opposition is fudged over and obfuscated! Which is yet another compelling reason for we progressives to offer an alternative framework from the left, an alternative not given voice in the âmainstream,â and when mentioned at all is simply derided as âunrealisticâ and conflated with the U.S. far leftâs sectarianism and utopianism. But if we progressives who usually vote Democratic donât make our voice heard as principled yet realistic political actors, our voice wonât be heard, and the âpolitical discourseâ will continue to be as it is todayâbetween the Tweedledumb of âsensible centrismâ and the Tweedledumber of the far right, be it Chamber of Commerce-style âEstablishmentâ Republican or Tea Party zealot.
That, I suggest, is the way we should act as progressives who usually vote Democratic; while we may have to swallow our spit sometimes and vote for a Rahm Emmanuel or a Hillary Clinton, let us not do so sheepishly, without even suggesting concessions for our allegiance. That is something the Obama years, and before that, the Bill Clinton years, shouldâve taught us, and did teach us numerous times through often sad example; but unfortunately, we didnât learn well enough.