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Of Democrats and Dissent

by DF 9/27/2010 - 7:39 pm   |

Much has been written, both here at dagblog.com and elsewhere, about the rift between the so-called progressive left and their interlocutors in the halls of power.  So much so, that the arguments seem fairly ossified at this point.  I don't know that I can change of that, but I do have something for the offering nonetheless.

I recently read this post on Calitics, a very fine blog about California politics from a progressive point of view.  The post in question highlights two essays that were recently written for the journal Democracy.

The first, written by Michael Tomasky, makes the case for avoiding what he labels "despair" among the progressive left in the face of numerous disappointments in the Obama era (he also coins the term "professional disgruntleists," which I will readily confess to favoring over "professional left").  In his piece, he visits much familiar territory, including acknowledging both successes and failures of the Democratic party in the Obama era, but he does so by way of revisiting the history of the New Deal and other progressive successes in a way that reminds us how bumpy those roads really were.  To top it off, he reminds us that it seems far more probable that the progressive successes of the previous century were anomalous rather than indicative of the overall arc.  For my money, it's probably the best piece that I've read from this perspective, both for making the argument so seriously and thoroughly and for the helpful reminders about how uneven the history of these events actually was.  And, just to be clear, I do not think that Tomasky ever makes the argument that the President or Party should be excluded from criticism, but rather that he is concerned about the ennui that might result.

But a response penned by David Dayden is even better.  Rather than simply contradicting Tomasky's argument, Dayden builds on it by delving again into the history of the New Deal.  He recounts the story of Francis Townsend, who was a furious agitator and advocate for what became Social Security.  Dayden makes Townsend sound like a one-man AFL-CIO cum MoveOn.org, all without the aid of the Internet - or even television (seriously, the guy gathered 20 million signatures for his cause, something that is hard for me to imagine even with today's tools).  On Townsend's reaction to FDR's initial implementation of Social Security, Dayden has this to say:

Townsend went ballistic–some would say crazy. The Depression-era March of Time newsreel series accused Townsend of leading a “lunatic fringe.” Townsend criticized the Roosevelt plan from the day it passed, calling the benefit package completely inadequate and “suitable only for paupers.” He ramped up the Townsend clubs, which, according to political scientist Edwin Amenta, increased tenfold between the end of 1934 and 1936. He used his Townsend Weekly pamphlet to hammer Roosevelt’s Social Security program and its meager benefits. He joined with Gerald L.K. Smith, the head of the Share Our Wealth Society (founded by Huey Long), and the nativist demagogue Father Charles Coughlin to found the National Union for Social Justice, a new political party. The Union’s candidate for president in 1936 grabbed almost one million votes.

In short, Townsend’s reaction mirrored that of the “professional disgruntleists” cited in Tomasky’s piece. Rather than justifying the Social Security Act of 1935 as the product of the art of the possible, he loudly proclaimed Roosevelt a sellout and apostate, and did whatever he could to bring him down, even joining in a coalition with those who mostly shared a vendetta against the President instead of a similar ideology. There’s even evidence that Townsend may have been pushed along by his own vanity and the adulation of his millions of followers rather than seriousness and principle–in his 1943 autobiography, New Horizons, Townsend claimed that FDR only enacted Social Security to “stem the Townsend tide.”

The point of this exercise is for Dayden to try to answer the question of how progressive agitation is actually hurting progressive causes, which seems to be what the other side is saying.  The conventional wisdom is that sober adults all realize limiting factors in our political institutions, so we have to fight for what we can get and take it (cue the old "half a loaf" trope).  But Dayden goes to the history of the very programs that Tomasky discusses and finds that if progressive agitation hurt the cause, you can't really tell how.  If anything, it looks like all of the subsequent agitation for expanding Social Security helped create the space for that to happen.

So agitation and activism matter.  Dissent matters.  Even liberal Presidents need to be endlessly prodded into achieving their status as legends, if they should be so lucky.  That's the way it's been and we have no apparent reason to expect that now is any different.

To that end, I have found much of the way that this discussion has played out to be pretty dumb - and I'm hesitant to use that word, because I don't mean to call the smart and passionate people who care enough to make these issues a part of their daily lives "dumb."  I don't mean it that way.  Sometimes brilliant people make foolish arguments.  And we can all get sucked into familiar patterns of debate.  And that can make us look dumb (or maybe even make us dumber if we swim in it long enough).

But what has all of the frustration is these discussions really been about?  Do the White House and its supporters really want to chill the speech of the "professional disgruntleists"?  Are editorials on FDL or Salon really the reason that the Democrats are facing a tough midterm?

My answer to both questions is an unequivocal "no."  But what's strange is that I'm pretty sure we all knew that.

For me, here is where the rubber meets the road: Agitation and dissent are a vital part of the process.  So Robert Gibbs accidentally exposed his sensitive side.  So what?  It's his job to toe the party line and take flack.  And it's a job that most people can handle for a year or two, tops.  I sure as hell don't want his job.  None of this means that anyone is going to stop writing, organizing and agitating.  And it shouldn't.  Political activisim and agitation play a vital role in pushing things forward.  These actions create space for our political leadership to act and then push them into that space if necessary, which it usually is.

And we all know (or should know) that our political system is dysfunctional in some very serious ways.  To the extent that I'm disappointed in Obama's leadership, it's been that he has the skills to be a powerful public advocate for whatever he wants.  I think many of us look at him as someone who could have been using his position to help us create space on many issues of importance.

But there's also the matter of values, which Robert Cruickshank of Calitics illuminates thusly:

Ongoing progressive organizing is motivated by a refusal to accept that our values cannot find expression in our politics and our laws.

This is why, and I've made some half-hearted attempts at making this argument in the past, it seems so bizarre to me for the Democratic establishment to be demonizing the political left as a matter of political persuasion.  Basically, you have a group of people out there saying that they don't find their values reflected in the politics of the Party.  The Party's response, if they hope to persuade, cannot be, "Your values are wrong and/or unimportant."  That is persuasive to no one.  It's insanely obtuse to try to persuade people to your side by berating their values.  (If there is one thing that I have learned as an atheist in religious debates, it is this - it does not matter how insane you think someone's values are, you cannot persuade them by blatantly devaluing what they value.)

(Also, if people are saying, "Though I had initially supported you because I thought you shared my values, I now feel that you share them no more than the Other Guy," you may want to come up with a more persuasive argument than, "Yeah, well just wait until the other guy gets ahold of you!"  That should happen in a Monty Python sketch, not in the campaigning of the Democratic party.)

But what I didn't want to do here was simply rehash old arguments or simply offer my take on them.  And I hope I've done more than that at least by at referencing what I found to be a valuable discussion, properly steeped in the relevant and messy history.  To conclude, I'd like to bring things back to the concrete now by discussing the present and future of healthcare reform.

This is probably the best issue for the highlighting the arguments I've examined here.  For one, we've seen that it closely mirrors the way that important social programs like Social Security and Medicare actually got implemented - fits and starts and lots of rancor all around.  It is far from perfect.

Indeed, as Tomasky notes in his piece, supporters of the HCR bill as it stands today should not spend too long congratulating themselves on the accomplishment because it has some serious problems that we will commence fighting about shortly (what he actually says is, "progressives who don’t worry about [the mandated coverage] aren’t being honest with themselves about the possible problems that could arise from the bill").

Through the lens of history, what we see we have with HCR (and with the era of Obama) is a potential beginning, but not a solution.  The exchanges don't even get implemented until 2014.  The fight will be on in January to start peeling reform back, Democratic majority or not.  The "professional disgruntleists" (and the amateurs!) will be an integral part of pushing this bill forward, of reshaping it into something more substantive over the coming decades.  It was true then and it's true now.

To that end, I leave you with one more piece from Democracy that tries to peer into the future of this battle.

Happy Monday, Daggers.  See you in the fray.

Valiant attempt to push this discussion a bit beyond the tired cliches, DF.

One subtextual conclusion one might draw, maybe what Tomasky would conclude, is that progressives need to develop fortitude. Look at the history.  It's practically never been the case that a major advance in social policy happened on the first try.  Keep at it.  We didn't get good things done in this country because the people who cared gave up easily and threw in the towel.

Another conclusion might be drawn in response to the FDR/Townsend example.  FDR was able to get a lot done--despite the defection and opposition of the influential Townsend.  One might wonder: how was that?  Well, I think one has to look at how FDR was able to win over most of the public, including a sizable share of the populist anger and sentiment, to support him and his program in a way Obama has not. 

My frustration is not that the measures adopted have seemed generally weak and inadequate.  That would have been predictable by those familiar generally with the history which the authors of the articles you link to cite.

Rather, it is that this President has not used his bully pulpit to develop the strong relationship with the public which was by far his best weapon to beat back attempts to gut the legislation he was proposing.  Why no Fireside Chats a la FDR?  Has the President lost confidence in his ability to explain specific problems in language ordinary people can understand, what he wants to do about them, and why, in a way that is persuasive to the majority of the American public?  Hell, FDR did this within 10 days of being sworn on the banking situation.  It was extremely reassuring to the broad public that was suffering so much, on several levels.  

Fast forward to the present.  It feels as though "we" have gone in battle having decided in advance not to use our most effective weapon--the power of a popular President to frame debate. 

It has happened often enough as to raise doubts among many progressive Dems as to whether this President is, among other issues: a) more of a progressive or an overly timorous triangulator; b) a fighter for those progressive causes which majorities of the public, not just professional disgruntlelists, say they support; c) a competent communicator with the public, which is a shocking concern to many following the campaign and his perceived talent as an orator; and d) someone who really has bought into the worldview some of his top advisors seem to have of progressive activists/the party's base as having fringe views and aspirations for the country.

If you feel someone has your interests and concerns in his heart and in his gut, is fighting as hard and as well as he can, and has had to compromise more than you would like to have seen him compromise, it's a hell of a lot easier to accept that than if you're left scratching your head on those kinds of questions.  Especially if there is no particular reason to believe that any of that will change going forward.

Anyway, good post, DF. 

by AmericanDreamer 9/27/2010 - 8:51 pm

May I please recommend your comment, AD (nice to see you again), and recommend your post, DF (nice to read you again), and add an action, possibly (please!) a Game Changer:

http://www.onenationworkingtogether.org/main.aspx

Sorry; I'm out of words lately, and I thank you all who can continue the struggle.  I'm in another, more exhausted, place, no matter which website I read and/or comment within.

by we are stardust 9/27/2010 - 9:09 pm (re: AmericanDreamer)

Thanks for the link--I took a brief look at the link and am going to look into it more.  The last thing I want to aid and abet in any way is abandonment of the struggle, what Tomasky calls "ennui".  I think DF's post is intelligent and accurate in allowing for the important role of different kinds of advocacy.  Have you posted under a different handle at the cafe or elsewhere?  I hope the exhaustion is not on account of serious health issues but is more a (hopefully) transient situation. 

by AmericanDreamer 9/27/2010 - 9:54 pm (re: we are stardust)

Thank you, Dreamer.  I hope I'm just resting in order to marshall my energies.  Every car on the freight train of disasters bearing down on us deserve diaries; shorter: so many issues, so little time and energy.

Ennui and excuses are cowardly at this point, IMO, and it will take some incredible critical mass of Americans knowing what is crucial for our survival and for justice of all kinds, and acting toward regaining what we've lost, and then moving even further forward.  

I think the times call for both thinking and feeling people of goodwill to come together in common cause.  

by we are stardust 9/28/2010 - 12:09 am (re: AmericanDreamer)

This is just a step beyond, DF.  And I know what you mean by dumb -- it has nothing to do with dumb people and everything to do with how an argument we've been having has dumbed down the whole discussion.  I mean, on one hand I'd like to believe that the other side thinks Salon and FDL are costing them the elections.  That would make the other side so wrong that I wouldn't even have to worry about taking them seriously.

The fact is, the other side isn't dumb and they did a ton to get Obama to the White House against all odds, really.  So, not dumb.  Rather accomplished.  So what do they mean?  I think they mean, when they complain about pretty small outlets like FDL or Salon just what they used to mean when they complained about The Nation and Mother Jones back in the day -- they mean to remind some very passionate people that they are outside of the mainstream.

Good ideas are always going to come from outside the mainstream.  Some very bad ones, too, but let's stipulate among friends that most of our ideas, while radical by current standards, are pretty darned good.  There are two reasons general reasons to oppose them:

1) Fear of risking what we have.  In this instance the other side likes our ideas, wants to remind us about the art of the possible and, to be fair, would not like to see all of its hard work and passion flushed down the toilet because some of us what Noam Chomsky for Secretary of State.  I kid, but not really.  If you credit the other side with a lot of work, passion and intelligence then you have to believe that they would like to defend their own advances too.  This is the tactical disagreement.  We share goals but differ about how to reach them.  I think it tells part of the story but only a small part of it.

2) Legitimate disagreements about our goals.  If you're outside the mainstream it's because the majority of people in society don't agree with you.  Whether or not you can win them over depends on a lot of variables but the fact is, you haven't won them over yet.  So if you put aside for the moment issues of corruption (remember when we used to call Biden "D - Bank of America?") you just get down to what most people, including establishment Democrats, are going to believe.  This includes things like:

God, in one form or another, possibly with warm fuzzy feelings about the U.S.

American exceptionalism in foreign policy, to varying degrees.

Free market capitalism, to one degree or another.

Security over liberty with regards to anti-terrorism issues.

That consensual crimes including innocent pot smoking should remain illegal.

That Social Security and Medicare represent crisis-level budgetary issues.

That for the most part, American society functions well, though it needs to be tweaked.

I'm just riffing above.  It's incomplete and some of it is no doubt wrong.  But it all kind of describes the system as it stands now and so to me, it's not that far fetched to imagine that if that's how the system is now, it's because to some extent most people like the system as it is now.  They don't think it needs to be radically overhauled.  Is that because they're deluded?  It might be.  It might also be that they're perfectly happy.  As a great man once said, that's why they make ice cream in chocolate and vanilla -- because you like crappy flavors.  What I don't believe is that there's a magical inner Obama who, say, would really like to let the ACLU sue the government over its rendition program but just can't.

I guess that means the left has to realize what it's up against.  The opposition is not secretly on our side.  Not most of the time.  They mostly disagree with us and it's not so much about how to get there as it is about where we're headed.  The good news there is that we can have our argument about ideas rather than tactics.  The bad news is it means we have a lot further to go than we maybe thought.

by destor23 9/27/2010 - 10:15 pm

I feel like the discussion about motives was very much alive on oleeb's recent thread.  That's not exactly the discussion I was trying to provoke here, but I do think it's a significant factor.  I addressed it only tangentially in trying to talk about how we both have to create space (ie earn market share in the bazaar of ideas) and push pols into that space, but I think that strongly implies that they are quite realistically not there because they don't want to be.

That's part of the fury that is directed at Obama personally - the notion that he should be a leader in a movement or movements for pursuing certain principles.  In reality, he's an elected official that, despite tremendous power, still has to work within certain parameters.

And I think that fury can go in fruitless directions.  One of the ways where I think it goes sour is when people push for third parties, despite all of the evidence that they aren't and won't be viable.  We either have to 1.) work within the system we have or 2.) change the structure of the system itself.  If people really think that more political parties is the solution, the system has to be changed in order accomodate that.

Similarly, as much as I support pushing the Democratic party to the left from within, even by primarying bad actors wherever possible, I also recognize that there are other structural issues that poison the whole process.  Campaign finance is incredibly worrisome in terms of any promise of real democratic power.  I think that the main goal of democracy can be summed up by the phrase "diffusion of power."  The campaign finance system exemplifies the opposite of this, allowing for the concentration of power into the hands of small groups or individuals.  The corporate form, as we've discussed, has problems along these lines.

So, yes, I would agree that we have a long way to go.  And, unfortunately, it would seem that we spend perhaps too much time in pitched battles that get us nowhere because the real business here is winning the war of ideas.

by DF 9/27/2010 - 10:46 pm (re: destor23)

Very solid post, DF. And I say that even before following your links. But I was struck by destor's ad-hoc list of " what most people, including establishment Democrats, are going to believe." I reread it a few times, and have to say it's a pretty accurate description of precisely what I do not believe. Just by chance, you'd expect one or two things I'd agree with, but no. Nada. Maybe it's just me.

by acanuck 9/28/2010 - 12:03 am (re: destor23)

Yeah, you're more of a Canadian exceptionalist.

by Articleman 9/28/2010 - 12:07 am (re: acanuck)

DF, nice piece.  I agree that the arguments are ossified.  Nice mention of Cruickshank's blog Calitics, I'd like to put in a plug for him, he is the regular Thursday guest on KRXA540.com of Hal on the morning show.  He's very knowledgeable, congenial, anyone interested in your state's politics should check him out.

I would like to point out that at dag were are trying to break the ossification in another way.  The site is here to bring robust discussion from each side of the argument you reference, and other places too if possible.  I'm not generally in agreement with oleeb's take on these things, for example, but we bannered him this weekend and will some more.  The part of this argument that is ossified into a chicken bone in the throat is the idea that disagreement means shut up.  Someone close to me recently said it best:  "I don't need everyone to agree with me."  An excellent place to start.

Put reductively, we need the whole left engaged, both so innovative and bold ideas can filter throughout the left, and because fragmented, the left will fail.  So I like your piece, and hail the disgruntleists, and sometimes I'll be one, and other times not.  

by Articleman 9/27/2010 - 10:35 pm

The part of this argument that is ossified into a chicken bone in the throat is the idea that disagreement means shut up.

That's it.  In democracy we pursue the soft power of consensus, but that requires us to accept disagreement and compromise as elements of the game.  And I very much like your comment about sometimes you'll be a disgruntleist and other times not because none of us are every really entirely on one side of that or the other.

More and more, I think that the great challenge of the intellect is understanding duplicity.

by DF 9/27/2010 - 10:50 pm (re: Articleman)

Disagreement and ferment is where it's at.  Within the left and the right there are homogenizing tendencies, absolutizing tendencies.  And no one is supposed to talk to anyone on the other side.  

As I'll relate someday in a post of my own, I think we need talking across all these lines, but in a more assertive, less conciliatory way.  The first figure to do this well in the next year or two is going to go far.

by Articleman 9/27/2010 - 10:55 pm (re: DF)

Great piece, DF. I've commented on this before, but the Drayden position squares with my research on the right wing. The Republicans were full of moderate pragmatists for decades and remained the whole time at the minority party. In the 1970s, disgruntled conservatives began to challenge the party elite in ways that are much more aggressive than what liberals agitators have been doing. Their efforts to purge liberal Republicans gave two Senate seats and a few House seats to Democrats. But soon after, the newly conservative GOP began to make dramatic gains and eventually took over the government for the first time in 50 years. Far from hurting the party, the agitation was extremely effective.

by Genghis 9/28/2010 - 12:33 am

Thank you so much, DF, for this. 

I was going to leave this brief, but it may get long, and for that I apologize.

First, may I admit that it was your avatar that got me to move from TPM Election Central over to TPM Cafe in the first place.  One of my first Cafe posts that gained popularity, i.e., "recs", was my post, "I Have a Crush on DF".  It wasn't just your gorgeous avatar (which, unfortunately, I learned isn't really a picture of you, but the guy that co-starred in an Arnold Schwarzzeneger film, alas), but your reasonable approach to....well, just about everything.  Back then it was oil, mostly.  You covered our dependency on oil more thoroughly than any other online blog I could find.  Your knowledge of history, that too.  Most important, your way with words.  Your blogs spoke to us in ways even I could understand.

Okay, so I formed a crush on you until I learned that you didn't come complete with the hat and beard.  And then Dag came along and 'whoosh' you left Cafe.  Except every now and then. 

I've never forgotten your well-reasoned approach to things and I wish to hell I could emulate it but I am far too hot-headed and or milque-toasted to do so (hence, my apparent reputation for being passive aggressive....which I may be, or I may not be, depending upon my mood). 

This post tonight makes me remember all the things that made me join TPM.  The sense of reason, the long discourse, the involved discussions back and forth. 

And it makes me realize how grateful I am for having let go of the brain-washed feeling I had all throughout my late teens and into my 20's and early 30's, when I simply voted Republican because that's what my family did.  It makes me realize how grateful I am for discovering that I have a soul, and heart, and mind, and I can put the three together and use them in tandem to discern whether or not things are fair and balanced, or altogether fucked up and wrong.

I have a long way to go but I know my heart is in the right place, and I know that most of this country is the same.  Waking up the 'sheeple' is going to take time, and firing up the ones who are a million steps ahead of me is near impossible when they already know and see what is needed while I'm slowly catching up to their vision....but keeping communication open and being patient -- as you are doing -- is a huge major step.  And for that I thank you wholeheartedly. 

We all have the same goals in mind, it's just that we're all taking different routes to get there.  Some of us are getting stuck on the way, and some who are already there are, perhaps, getting bogged down in the quagmire in an effort to help lead people before they are ready. 

The fact that a door is open, and has been opened since January 2009, may be lost upon both those stuck in the reality, and those stuck in the hope.

But the door is open. 

by LisB 9/28/2010 - 1:15 am

Thanks for the kind words, LisB.  I'm glad to see you here and hope you stick around.

by DF 9/28/2010 - 12:55 pm (re: LisB)

Really thoughtful piece DF.  I wanted to read all of the links before I commented.  So here's what it boils down to for me.

I'm not part of the "far-left" political spectrum.  Not in the least.  I believe in listening to the other side, including Republicans.  I believe in triangulation where you invite all parties to the table and try to fashion out a real compromise (ex.  I was and still am a major proponent of welfare reform done the right way with adequate training, day care and suupport).  What used to be moderate Democratic party ideals are now being relegated to the fringe by the President and this administration.  In HCR for example, this Administration invites PhRMA to the political debate (the Ben Nelson wing of the Democratic party) and leaves progressives (public option) and far-left (single payer) out in the cold. This Administration stood up to fiercely defend it's backroom deals re: prescription drug reimportation etc, but never NOT ONCE defended progressive ideals.

Government expansion of snooping capabilities, the right of indefinite detention of terrorists without any judicial review, the right to assassinate American citizens without judicial review.  The Democratic Party en masse when they would have been crying bloody murder if GWB did these things.  Now there's division between the people who defend Obama no matter what and the folks who stand on principles.  Those folks standing on principles that these things are wrong regardless of which party or president is proposing them then further marginalized out of the mainstream by their own party in a way the Republicans were never capable of doing.

My point is not to mention how much I think this Administration and this President sucks.  I've done that before and I don't think this thread is the place for it.  It is to explain that this vision of the Democratic party is not what I voted for.  I didn't leave the party, the party left me picked up it's stakes and moved the tent 2 feet to the right.  Some people are tribal and so grateful for any cover they get, they go running and follow the tent no matter what and no matter how far it strays from their original position.  As for me, I'll just sit out here baking in the hot sun with the other refugees looking for a way forward.  Is that the Democratic party?  Well, I am remaining a Democrat by registration only so that I can vote for the most progressive candidates avalable in the primaries.  I'll give to and support progressive candidates who stick by their guns and stand up to the folks moving the party to Romney land (this has to include more than just  token disagreement and signing stupid Arlen Specter-ish letters to GWB while caving to the President with no compromises to show for it).  Is that third party?  Perhaps.  A rational third party populist counter-movement that can siphon disaffected (but rational) tea partiers, Republicans and Democrats may sound like a pipe dream.  But not as much of a pipedream as the idea that somehow that disastrous HCR bill will in any way be improved with the GOP and Dems already gunning to rip it to shreds.

You cannot just demand votes and money and support for "the Democratic party" September - early November, and then once elected push progressives over to the fringe, mock them and entirely shut them out of poliical debate in Washington.  Unless and until this Administration demonstrates inclusion and respect for all parts of the Democratic coalition instead of imperially demanding support because this party was brought to you by the letter (D), they will continue to bleed support of self-respecting progressives who see the Obama Administration as doing more to marginalize progressive principles than anyone since his idol Ronald Reagan. 

by dijamo 9/28/2010 - 9:30 am

Thanks for the thoughtful comment, Dij.  I agree with you that the healthcare process was kind of disgusting.  Why were single payer advocates absolutely shut out from the Baucus hearings from the beginning?  I remember seeing a cadre of doctors and nurses being arrested for trying to force their way into the meetings.  That was a true act of civil disobedience, but the purpose was to highlight that they had been shut out to begin with.  There's the principled argument that they should have been included, but there's also the political argument that they should have been included even if just for the optics.

But it isn't just about politics - principles matter.  Peter Daou's take on Dayden's piece:

Critics of this White House should acknowledge some impressive legislative accomplishments. But at heart, the fundamental demand progressives are making is that elected officials adhere to core principles. Without that, we are completely adrift.

Agitating for change doesn’t stop based on the party in power, it is motivated by real world problems. Ignoring those problems out of a misguided sense of loyalty is a path to despair. We’re seeing it play out now.

by DF 9/28/2010 - 1:06 pm (re: dijamo)

I just think there's too big a disconnect between the people who are writing and the people who are hurting. Period. That's what I find truly dumb.

by readytoblowagasket 9/28/2010 - 11:18 am

So people who write are generally disconnected from people who hurt?  If that's not what you mean, then your comment is too opaque for me to understand.

by DF 9/28/2010 - 1:07 pm (re: readytoblowagasket)

No, I didn't say "people who write," which implies all writers. (Why would I even say that?)

I said "the people who are writing" (in this case, Tomasky, Dayden, and Hacker) are totally disconnected from the people in this country who are hurting.

Tomasky blows 6100 words on ennui. 6100 words. (That's a lot.)

Dayden "builds on" Tomasky's essay with another 2700 words. Now we're up to 8800.

Throw in Jacob Hacker's 7000 words—not to mention your own 1700—and you are asking us to read 17,500 words about progressives. Not 17,500 words about the people who are hurting during the greatest recession we have ever experienced in this country.

There is something seriously wrong with this picture. There is something seriously wrong with progressives.

So back to the ennui (discontent, criticism of the administration, dissent, whatever you want to call it), the subject of your blog ("Of Democrats and Dissent"). Whose ennui are these writers talking about? Well, it apprears to be the ennui of other writers, columnists, bloggers, and academics, including: HuffPo, Harper's, Markos, Jane Hamsher, Alan Brinkley, Arthur Schlesinger, Steven Fraser, Mackenzie and Weisbrot, Michael Foley, Salvatore and Cowie, Michael Walzer, Bob Herbert, Krugman, Skocpol, Paul Pierson, Sawhill and Anrig, et al.

Who the fuck cares? Google?

I have no idea. I just know this much verbiage is wasteful. And today's progressives must be lazy or retarded, I can't decide which.

Because the lessons of the past (which constitute mere sketches of people who actually rolled up their sleeves and did the heavy lifting for those in need) are seemingly not as important as each writer's self-aggrandizement.

Tomasky is the worst. He obviously want to impress us with his reading list and additonally mentions how old he is in relation to Obama and Rahm. Sorry, I couldn't care less.

Hacker, of course, is writing this piece to promote his own forthcoming book: As Paul Pierson and I document in our new book, Winner-Take-All Politics... That's how publishing works, by the way: You write a book and then write an article about your book.

Hacker concludes:

In 2015, we will have come a long way in achieving health security.

2015?

Fuck him.

Why?

Because people who need health security last year are already fucked.

I don't disagree with your view, DF, that dissent and agitation are necessary for political progress. I believe that to my core. But I don't need these non-historians to give me permission to speak my dissenting mind. Maybe you do. I would rather look to the deeds of the activists throughout history who lived their entire lives fighting for what they believed in.

Yet each of these writers writes as if he's completely disconnected from real life.

by readytoblowagasket 9/28/2010 - 5:12 pm (re: DF)

I think Tomasky is addressing the Democratic party base members who he is worried may not exert in the closing weeks of this election season.  I haven't found his efforts in this regard, either this or in other campaign seasons, especially compelling. 

Hacker I do think well of.  I don't see him as at all disconnected from what is going on out there.  I think he gets that and has been doing his damndest to write about it and talk about it and advocate measures to help for several years now.  I'm not sure what else the guy could do. 

It seems to me that In this article he is trying to figure out steps some Congress that might potentially be in power over the next few years might take to get from where we are right now on HC to someplace halfway decent.  He didn't want the outcome we got.  He was pressing hard for a public option like many of us were.  I for one am glad he is laying out his thoughts on that and trying to keep that flame burning (or reigniting it, if you prefer). 

by AmericanDreamer 9/28/2010 - 5:37 pm (re: readytoblowagasket)

Listen.  I lost two of the most beloved people in my life to cancer within the last five years - my father and his younger sister, my dear aunt.  Before she passed, I had to read a letter from a major private health company explaining that they just wouldn't fucking pay for a highly recommended chemotherapy treatment after she had proved allergic to the most effective treatment.  I've seen what this system does to people that I loved more than anyone I have ever known - and she had health insurance.

You talk about hurt like you're the only one who perceives it or cares.  I don't think you're really seeing things clearly here.

Right now, Medicare Part D has been improved.  Already, people with pre-existing conditions have a recourse that they did not last year.  As I write this, young people can be insured by their parents regardless of whether or not they are a student, dependent tax status, etc.  You are, by the way, communicating with a young person who did not see a doctor for about five years precisely because I could no longer be covered and couldn't afford coverage on my own.  Thankfully, I didn't really need to, but I was only one accident away from emergency room bills that could have completely ruined my future.

If you care as much as you claim to about people who are hurting, you can't just count the negatives.  As flawed as I believe the PPACA is, it has already changed the game for millions of people.

Why 2015?  You're better than this, not to mention that you're usually the person complaining about how no one can read.  The reason is painfully obvious - the bulk of reform, which is the implementation of exchanges, will not occur until 2014.  We won't even begin to see how they've worked until 2015.  And 2015 will also find us in the thick of a new presidential election cycle, in which we can be guaranteed that the exchanges will be a central issue.

And that was the point of all those thousands of words of context, as superfluous as they may have been.  I'm no Ernest Hemingway.  For that I apologize.  What I do not and will not apologize for is trying to do whatever I can to push things forward.  Yes, the system is broken.  Yes, people are still being left behind.  The question is: What do we do about that now?

And I'll acknowledge that a lot of this seems like too much navel-gazing and not enough action, but we're at the point we're at precisely because getting to where we're trying to be is a soul-crushing grind.  Corruption and cynicism abound.  The economic situation is the worst for those with the least means.  Immediate solutions for these problems are not forthcoming and any sort of coalition large enough to succeed in the current system seems perhaps too soft to suffice, both when viewed from above and from below.

What is at stake is essentially whether or not there can be a self-sustaining, left-leaning ruling coalition in this country or not.

So I share your focus on those who are still hurting.  That's my motivation to keep writing, keep studying, keep participating in whatever ways that I can in order to help push things forward.  Yes, it is disheartening that so many still need so much help.  And the successes thus far have been frustratingly small and difficult to achieve, but they are successes.  Millions of people are better off now than they were last year.

And the reality is that the people for whom these successes look like failures are rapidly moving toward pushing all of that back.

Some people are being left behind.  That has to change.  But merely lamenting that won't change anything.

By the time the Allied forces made it to Auschwitz, millions had died.  Does that mean the effort was futile?  Would those who perished regard it as a failure, rather than a success in saving their surviving friends and family members?

For me, the situation seems much the same.  I can't save my father or my aunt.  They're both gone.  And while the system did help in them both in many ways, it also failed them both in significant ways that cost them time here, if not their very lives.  But I don't doubt for one second that they would look upon developments that make their children and grandchildren better off as a resounding success.

This road is difficult.  Success is elusive.  But we have to stop impugning the each others' motives if we're going to have any chance of bringing real help to those in need.

by DF 9/29/2010 - 2:40 pm (re: readytoblowagasket)

gasket, that reads to me either as an argument against writing, or an assumption that people writing do not engage in the practice of politics or social justice.  I think either suggestion is wrong. 

As an illustration, I do work in my life to redistribute legal services to people who don't have any.  And I sit here and have philosophical discussions about unity on the left.  And I give money to people who I think will do social justice in politics, and to organizations that support direct action on social issues.  And I talk about social justice. 

So is your suggestion that philosophical discussions unmoored to direct action just shouldn't be had?  Or are you assuming we can't walk and chew gum at the same time?  I think we can do both and I don't think that's dumb. 

by Articleman 9/28/2010 - 1:12 pm (re: readytoblowagasket)

I think either suggestion is wrong. 

Your interpretation of what I meant is wrong. I'm not talking about you, and I'm not implying we shouldn't be having philosophical discussions. I am criticizing the amount of time progressives look at themselves in the mirror. 

by readytoblowagasket 9/28/2010 - 5:17 pm (re: Articleman)

One can always say that intellectualizing about suffering isn't very valuable, much as you do in your comment above to DF. 

I didn't think you were talking about me, I just know what I do with my spare time better than I know what Michael Tomasky does.

While this may not be your point, there's a lot to be said for progressivism spending too much time thinking about what it is rather than doing what it is.  But then, that's true of most social and intellectual movements.  And politics and all the boring and concededly-too-indirect garbage that goes with that is how we do things.  The question of ennui in that sense is very real, and not a poseur or a sophist's focus. 

by Articleman 9/28/2010 - 5:34 pm (re: readytoblowagasket)

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