http://www.nonesoblind.org/blog/?p=146 Improved Version of Earlier Piece: "Why We've Been Losing: Fieldnotes from Progressive America"
[I'd like to thank my friend, Sam Gruen, for both prompting me to improve my earlier piece, and for taking a preliminary editorial pen to the task. As a result, this piece is more than 1000 words shorter than the previous version, and it makes one of its arguments in what I believe is a more constructive way.]
Why it is that the left side of our polarized society has become so weak? It's a crucial question, and I'd like to suggest some answers beyond the obvious ones.
It is true, for example, as many on the left complain, that the mainstream media have woefully failed in their job to be a watchdog over power for the American people. And it is true that the Democratic opposition has been timid and disorganized, not to mention naïve in their failure to appreciate the powers that oppose them.
But there are deeper factors as well—factors that pertain to the mind-set of many on the left, from the grassroots on up. If we are to turn back the advance of fascism, it is important that we face these factors squarely.
My recent speaking engagements with left-leaning audiences have brought two important aspects of this into focus for me.
1. All Shades of Gray are Black
When I spoke at a politically progressive college about the ongoing dismantling of our constitutional system by the Bushite regime, I praised the American Constitution as a primary reason that America has been a relatively free and decent society.
Some of the professional academics then attacked me for "romanticizing the American past." My remarks, said they, failed to recognize the many injustices that have marred American history—the racial oppression, the exploitation of workers, etc.
I readily acknowledged that the history of the US has significant dark aspects. But I also maintained that if my grandparents had not come here from the Old World at the beginning of the last century, my parents would have had to survive a vicious civil war, purge trials and Gulags, and would quite likely have been machine-gunned into that ravine in Babi Yar. Because they were here in America, my parents were able, despite their poverty, to live free of terror, to get themselves an education through considerable struggle, and to have generally an important degree of control over their lives.
That did not satisfy my critics, who characterized even that point as merely a romanticization of the American past. They argued that, because there have been injustices in America, it's not legitimate to praise America for what's been right about it.
Their view connects with another recurrent theme I've heard from political progressives: that what's wrong with the Bushite regime really should be understood not as some departure from the usual American way but as a continuation of long-established defects in the American power system.
For example, the Bushites' imperial thrust is just the latest chapter of the continuous history of American imperialism—a history that travels through the times of manifest destiny, of meddling in Central America, and of cold-war empire-building. Likewise, the Bushite catering to corporate interests and to the rich is just more of the same, starting with the Constitutional Convention's creation of a document to protect property and privilege.
There is, of course, much truth in this argument. But to see only the continuity is to miss the truly important story of this moment in American history, when –with this Bushite regime—something unprecedentedly dark and dangerous has been happening in America.
The reality of this significant discontinuity is signaled by public opinion in democracies around the world. Substantial majorities in these countries have long seen America in basically positive terms, but the poll numbers now indicate that roughly two-thirds of the population of countries that have been our traditional friends now characterize the United States as a dangerous power, a threat to world peace, even as a rogue nation.
Another sign: never before would it have occurred to Canadian hockey fans to boo an American team simply because of the flag under which they play!
If our old friends around the world can see a truly significant shift in the spirit with which America now wields its power in the world, what's the matter with these progressives who can't?
The form of blindness in which all shades of gray are simply seen as black is a genuine disability. As a result of their failing to see the new, deeper evil that has taken power in America –making America's worst elements into its ruling spirit– many sincere people on the left, whose passion for justice might allow them to be the spearhead of the effort to save this country from these destructive forces, may instead make themselves irrelevant to the struggle.
This same kind of blindness is manifested, too, in the tendency to treat the abused and weakened Democratic opposition as the moral equivalent of the Bushites. They voted for the Iraq war after all, the leftist argument goes, so they're not much better than the Bushites. But does anyone seriously argue that any Democratic leaders would have given us this particular war in Iraq? Can Clinton's penny-ante détente with the corporate world and his Lincoln-bedroom fund-raising really be equated to the outright plutocracy of these Bushites?
True, many congressional Democrats, in dealing with the difficulties of succeeding politically in Karl Rove's and Rupert Murdoch's America, have been fearful and craven, politically calculating and opportunistic, even outright foolish. But can this be rightly regarded as the moral equivalent of the Bushites who openly hungered for this war and hide behind Orwellian rhetoric as they strip-mine the nation?
I worry that the high-contrast mind-set that converts all shades of gray to black will waste its days seeking pure and unsullied leaders. As such purity is hardly ever to be found in the precincts of power, this quest would –just as much as the inability of the Democratic leadership to speak with moral power and conviction– condemn progressive America to impotence.
2. Strategy? We Don't Need No Stinkin' Strategy!
In another of my recent interactions, a supporter of Ralph Nader asserted that people should never vote for the less objectionable candidate, but only for the person whose public stands on the issues match their own values and beliefs. I asked her if she doesn't now wish that the 96,000 people in Florida voted for Nader in 2000 had instead voted for their second choice. Not at all, she replied. "That's what the essence of democracy is," she explained. Democracy "is about voting for the person you most want and not having to concern yourself about the results."
I don't know what moral philosophy this woman may hold, that she would regard it a virtue to be able to act without concern for the results. But one thing would seem incontrovertibly clear: if, in the political arena, people who care about results are competing against people who don't care about results, the likely result is that the first group will gain power and the second group will be rendered impotent.
If we actually want to affect the course of this country, we have to think strategically. And an essential element in our strategy must be to begin winning against the Bushites, thus shifting power from them to us.
Until their regime becomes discredited and weakened, some issues will simply be unwinnable. But then, a snow-ball effect will make others issues winnable as well. So what is needed is not to forget about the other issues but to find the optimal sequence of battles so that each victory sets the stage for the next.
When I proposed this to the academics I mentioned earlier, I was attacked. They said that proposing to defer some issues was just selling out the great struggles of the oppressed. What about the plight of migrant laborers, they asked? What about the rights of gays and lesbians?
I conceded that a great many struggles for justice have lost ground in recent years, and they all deserve attention. But if fascism consolidates its grip on the country, I argued, then none of the values and causes dear to our hearts will be served. But still they insisted that we must hoist the banners of all their dear causes.
I wondered how that was going to work, asking them if they disagree with me that to prevail over the Bushites, we need to rally the mainstream of the public to our side? Or did they have some reason for believing that any of their cherished causes could rally the majority? Could they find a single instance in which one of their favorite causes has provided any political advantage to fundamental liberal goals?
They really had no reply. But more disturbingly, they saw my questions as entirely beside the point. It seemed to be much more important to them to carry worthy banners onto the moral high ground, even if their approach guarantees political defeat.
One primary over-looked reason for the success of these Bushite forces is that they have been working strategically for decades to gain power. They funded media spokespeople, like Limbaugh, during years of financial loss, created and financed think tanks that produced "scholarly" works for decades to generate credibility for themselves, quietly installed their allies into local election boards around the county, courted the good opinion of the easily swayed, rewarded allies, relentlessly discredited critics, etc. They planned and executed.
And they got their allies to keep quiet about pet issues at key moments when they knew it would cost votes. Can anyone really argue that the surge of activity for legalizing gay marriage didn't help Republicans in 2004?
Winning –on the battlefield, in sports, and in politics—requires strategy and discipline. And sometimes it is important to win.
There are good reasons why societies have made their victorious warriors into national and cultural heroes. Sometimes what's at stake in great battles is freedom or slavery for a whole community for generations to come. Sometimes what's at stake is even life or death.
Perhaps we Americans have been spoiled by our comparatively safe and comfortable history. Compared to Russians and Germans and Poles and Chinese and Afghans and so many other peoples in the world, most Americans have known relatively little of tyranny's terrors and suppressions of the spirit. Perhaps our sheltered history has impaired our ability to envision the full range of possibilities that history can bring. History, we may believe, has promised us a rose garden.
But there is no such promise. It can happen here, as Sinclair Lewis knew several generations ago. And it seems to be happening here now.
Sometimes, indeed, there is no substitute for victory.
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