Coalescing the Left

[This post continues the discussion on the Coalition of the Left. Read more (lots more) here and here.]

Kenneth at T. Rex's Guide to Life continues this discussion in fine fashion with a lengthy and detailed argument for greater activism by the left with the purpose of more heavily influencing the Democratic party.

I don't disagree with this approach, as he rightly notes that most states have locked down their electoral systems so tightly that building a third party organization is close to impossible. Take the Libertarian party as an example. It's been around since the 70s and has yet to get a congressman or senator elected. It currently resides as a voting block in the GOP coalition, but given how the GOP has governed, my guess is that more than a few libertarian voters are ripe for poaching by fiscally responsible Democratic candidates.

There are a few places where I think Kenneth has it all wrong though. For instance, he says

First off, when was it that liberals in America developed a successful grassroots movement that strongly influenced Democrats and the electoral process? When was it that we got together, worked hard and made sure our voice was heard? As far as I can tell, it was way back in 2004. Prior to that, I'm not sure that one could talk about a "oranized" liberal movement in any realistic way. If I'm correct in saying that, then why does it shock us that Democrats haven't fully come on board with our agenda in only a year since we've gotten our shit together?

While he's probably technically right in asserting that 2004 will be remembered as the year that woke liberals up this time around, I don't think that his characterization is the most helpful or accurate one.

Let's talk about America, liberals, and influence. The first example of liberals successfully developing a grassroots movement to strongly influence American government was the Revolution. Many of the same people did it again a decade later and produced the Constitution we live under today. Ancient history? It would be if it was an isolated event, but we can jump ahead to the election of Andrew Jackson in 1828, the first populist candidate to smash the aristocracy that had quickly taken hold of American politics.

Abraham Lincoln's election was another instance of a wave of liberalism and reform sweeping through the public, less than a quarter century after Jackson. The abolitionist movement had gained steady ground, but as became clear by the later exploits of prominent abolitionists, it was a coalition of various interests groups, exerting pressure on issues where they could produce the highest gains. Thus the coalition of the left in the 1850-60s turned their attention to temperance, social reforms, and women's suffrage after the war.

The next generation of reformers became the much-heralded Progressives, which put a President in office in the first decade of the 20th century (Theodore Roosevelt, a Republican) and used their enormous influence to radically change American society. Labor laws? Workplace safety laws? Women voting? Science education? Prohibition (glad it's gone, but it certainly speaks to the influence of progressives at the time)? Fact-based instead of theologically based legal rulings? National parks? Women permitted to divorce? All are progressive reforms that various coalitions of the left brought about in the first third of the 20th century. Many of these reforms came about before the New Deal answered the problems of the Great Depression.

And this takes us forward to the Civil Rights Movement and Dr. King, women's liberation and the raft of legal protections that went into place to support women in the workplace, for instance, and the gay civil rights movement, as yet entirely unfinished.

So one can say that in microcosm, 2004 was a year where liberals began to get their acts together, but the truth is that America's history is the history of liberal coalitions agitating for the betterment of our society. If you treat 2004 as an isolated moment where new things happened, you're missing the point. What we're talking about is merely a continuation of America's history of social agitation for reform. I find the framing argument somewhat trite, because I really do believe that you have to have a good message to frame in the first place (framing didn't help Bush's social security 'reform' very much), but we really have to drop the idea that we're building the very first mouse trap. American history is the history of liberals and liberalism, and the conservative forces at the times (often Democrats) have usually served to keep a lid on change for as long as they can before being swept away by an energized electorate, only to return later while the country adjusts to the new reality it has created.

And yes, I realize that this is a highly simplified overview with implications of happy endings at every turn. It's not quite true, and we're really not finished with the work our forebears began.

Again, Kenneth's piece is lengthy and well worth reading, with a lot of points that I agree with and some that I don't, but there's one important piece of the discussion that I don't think he addresses at all, and that is the the fact of the approximately 1/3 of Americans who are in the bottom income levels and don't vote, as Cernig says, because they have nothing to vote for. As Chris Bowers at MyDD notes, low income voters as a group are less likely to use the ballot box to advance their aims than any other. It is entirely fair to ask if this is because neither party offers them a platform that speaks to them.

And this is the cohort that Cernig seems most eager to target with his American Solidarity concept. We can spend a lot of electrons on whether the Democrats are sufficiently liberal or sufficiently centrist, whether they battle hard enough and rage rage against the dying of the light, but at the end of the day, there's about a third of the public lacking representation of any kind.

What's called for in these times are reformers. Clearly, the country is being run by a gang that prefers cronyism and corruption to clean government. They believe their ideology is more important than the interests of the public (see Bill Bennett's unwillingness to support public schools) and the public I think feels that, but doesn't have an option. Many of us vote because we believe that voting is important, but that doesn't mean that we are happy with our choices. Many people seem to have decided that the choices aren't going to get any better, and they stay home. Or, more likely, they pass election day at work, or shuttling between multiple jobs, and worrying about whether their kids are getting home from school safely.

So how do we get these reformers? How do we make legislators and candidates aware of the issues that people care about?

An American Solidarity movement, without even being a political party, could pattern itself on the Working Families Party in the northeast, endorsing candidates based not on a raft of issues but merely one or two. Will a candidate co-sponsor living wage laws, for instance. Or state tax credits for child care. Or whatever targeted legislative effort will give the bottom third of the country both assistance in conducting their lives and a reason to go to the polls.

While most states do have their electoral process locked up, there's always room in America for organizations to rate candidates and so forth. Moving towards the formation of one that worked for the bottom third is a healthy advance in America's historical struggle to create a fair and humane society, especially as we move into an era where energy and housing costs are driving up all prices and already putting a dangerous squeeze on exactly those Americans.

Posted by shamanic at October 2, 2005 12:57 PM | TrackBack