I leave tomorrow for West Africa to begin two years of service in the Peace Corps. In my country, Cameroon, I'll be working on public health and water sanitation. They tell us that most people in my particular program are assigned to rural areas - those far-flung regions in the bush without electicity, plumbing or telephone, let alone an active internet connection. Honestly, I'm really looking forward to it all.
But as I leave for Africa tomorrow, I also leave something else behind - my nascent career in Democratic politics. I've decided that inasfar as there are ways in which the progressive movement is promising, our side has simply failed to gel into a viable opposition to the bad guys. Our collective failure leaves me much more optimistic for the country I'm going to tomorrow than the one I'm leaving.
More after the jump.
I graduated from a prestigious university in 2004. While working with the DNC and my state party here in Virginia leading up to the 2004 election, I met many fellow progressive workers who seemed honestly optimistic about John Kerry and our chances of taking back Congress. Young and old, newcomers and veterans alike, they largely seemed consumed with a sense of inevitability of right over wrong - George Bush couldn't
possibly win again - Americans could never be
that stupid. Even here in Virginia, some of my fellow Dems began to indulge in fantasies of our state (where Ollie North nearly won a senate seat) "going blue" for the first time in a generation. We approached election day with a spirit of celebration, like we were awaiting a long-overdue comeuppance.
But I couldn't buy it. Quietly, in somber moods, I confided with some friends that I couldn't see it happening. Most of these United States are more like the small town I grew up in in the Shenandoah Valley than they are like the liberal enclaves of Charlottesville, Richmond or pockets of Northern Virginia, and places like the one I grew up in are solidly pro-Bush. So red you'd think people there called their neighbors "comrade." The sort of place where local elections are won and lost over the decision of who gets to call themselves "Republican."
I was not surprised last year when John Kerry lost. Nor, in fact, were most Republicans. Their optimism about the election was simply better grounded in reality than ours. And it still is today.
The progressive movement today has inspiring leaders, solid and worthy goals, and many people in it with admirable dedication. But what it lacks is what gives the Evil Empire (the GOP for the purposes of this diary) its decisive advantage: overwhelming financial and institutional support from the power brokers of our society (big business and the wealthy); narrative consistency with the hagiography of our country, however distorted or unrealistic it may be; the undemocratic electoral advantages of less-populated rural states in the West; party discipline among their army of talking heads and elected officials; and a total disregard for propriety, fair play or scrupulous conduct.
In short: too much money, too few scruples. This is as much a winning recipe in politics as it is in soccer or football.
Liberals debate the merits of trying to pick off the few Lincoln Chafees and Olympia Snowes remaining while other liberals defend or even endorse them. At the same time, the Evil Empire is steadily raking every Democrat it can find out of conservative states and replacing them with someone who will increase their majority without regard to how this affects the "discourse" or to its effects on the other party's stances. They play smart politics even as we fight amongst ourselves.
America is becoming a more and more conservative place. This is true socially as well as politically - so while smart politicking and maneuvering by Karl Rove can explain some of their success, much of the blame must be laid squarely on the shoulders of Americans themselves. Forget the demonstrations and the petitions and all that crap - where it counts, when the cards are down and the numbers counted, there are simply many, many more conservatives out there who are consistently voting for Republicans than there are progressives, whose votes we can never count on anyway unless a candidate has X position on one thing and Y on another. I listened to a good, committed and vocal Democrat friend of mine tell me today that if she were a Virginia resident, there's no way she'd vote for Tim Kaine. She doesn't like his stances on abortion and marriage. No way she's going to support that.
So the fundamental problem with our movement is just that there aren't enough of us. Ours is a closed circuit, an echo chamber - liberals listen and talk to other liberals discuss liberal things. Culturally, we just don't have much outreach in the movement, not only because it's just not something we're equipped well to do but also because the majority doesn't share our views. This may not be true in a handful of states in New England or on the Pacific Coast, but in most of the country - in the West, Mid-West and here in the South - it certainly is.
And just for shits and giggles, let's say John Kerry had won in 2004. How much would that have changed? Who's going to claim John Kerry would've had our troops home today? Or that he would've repealed the tax cuts? Or defended same-sex marriage? Who's to say the government's failure with Katrina would've been any better with Democrats in office?
Another aspect of my disillusionment has been the realization that the really important issues - the things that either really pose a serious danger to our society or are moral responsibilities - are going completely ignored. Crushing inequality of income and opportunities, both here and, to an infinitely greater degree, abroad; the quickly-approaching peak oil crisis; global warming; the AIDS pandemic, to say nothing of the millions dying just today from malaria and TB; Official Development Assistance to poor nations. Americans turn a blind eye to nearly all of the above and then treat the damage from Katrina as if it were unprecedented in human history. Nearly a quarter of the population of our planet live in conditions approaching post-Katrina LA/AL/MS or far worse. But the reality is that their lives are not considered as valuable as Americans' are. And yet, some people would demand equal attention and importance for their pet issues - abortion rights. Same-sex marriage. Mike Brown's new FEMA job. The PATRIOT ACT. Etc.
The Evil Empire rules our country today, and even in the unlikely event of significant Democratic gains in '06 or '08 (I'm not holding my breath), their movement will command a primacy in American politics that it will take liberals a generation to even rival. This is not cynicism - it's just a well-founded pessimism.
So then - we're going to lose, so why try? Not exactly. I think that two things, integrated more centrally into the progressive movement's consciousness, would do more to begin the critical metamorphosis of our movement than all the MoveOn petitions in the world. The first is discipline - supporting Democrats at all costs over Republicans. As long as important issues exist, after all, partisanship will not be a dirty word. The second is perspective. Our party is dominated by people who have no idea what "red America" looks or feels like. I don't mean to peddle in "liberal Northeastern elites" slogans, but for Dems to prosper out in "the wilderness" of red America, we need to encourage and groom people from those backgrounds. And put at least a 10-year waiting period on nominating anyone else from Massachusetts (sorry, Senator).
All in all, I applaud those of you on this blog and others for your advocacy. But as a young adult in America today, I do not see promise. I see looming disaster. The dollar will crash because of our reckless borrowing habits from the East soon before the oil shoots up to $200 a barrel, grinding our society to its knees and giving the Bad Guys a good opportunity to blame liberals for the moral depravity that led to America's fall from grace.
God help us all.