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Just a brief note to suggest that all, especially those interested or supportive of an activist progressive movement, tune into as much of the C-SPAN coverage of the Tea Party people as you can stand.
They are of course getting the race and class baiting red meat of Tancredo and Palin.
But they are getting some clear comprehensible articulation of an ideology in terms easy to understand strung together with clear logic. The truth and factual basis of the premises be damned. That is not important. What is important they are easy to remember, to chant and to sound bite.
In addition at least one speaker Peter Wolf gave precise and practical ways to recruit others to the movement and form interest and voting blocs.
In my view these folks know what they are doing.
We could profit from their example.
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Sorry about the typo. I fixed it but it is still showing in the listing.
I watched a good part of Wolf’s presentation. It boiled down to A) ignore Democrats (they’re the enemy), B) don’t bother too much with solid Republicans (they’ll vote the right without any help from Tea Partiers), and C) go after independents who vote, win them over, get them to embrace conservative values and vote Republican.
The only problem is that the candidate on the ballot calling him or herself a Republican is often a neo-conservative corporatist and won’t work for the people or real conservatism.
The guy seemed more like a Republican hack than a Tea Partier to me.
Facts, even ideology, don’t make any difference. We are seeing a passionate constituency created or expanded and trained to expand further.
Whether it is the Republicans doing it for their goals or someone else, it is a textbook on how to make a movement.
I haven’t seen much similar from Progressives, Netroots or for that matter Democrats since the pre-election carve out by Obama.
If we want to do more than sit around here head bobbing to each other I suggest we can learn from what they are doing.
I might add that they are making these folks feel educated and intellectual with rhetoric that sounds good and is easy to repeat.
For a populist movement which by definition encompasses a lot of people resentful of, for lack of a better word, elitism. This kind of thing shores up their self-esteem. It is really no more than what Rush Limbaugh has been doing for years.
We loath the content, in my case so much I can handle only a few minutes of it, but the techniques are very powerful. More accepted than the current Democratic leadership’s designating a segment of their constituency as “fucking retarded.”
You make a lot of good points especially your last one:
Hard to keep it together with snots like Rahm calling us “retarded” and by most of the rest just outright lying to us while they call us names.
I wasn’t disagreeing with your premise regarding organizing so much as pointing out that the one speaker you highlighted – Peter Wolf – is an example of some of the leaders of the Tea Party movement who are just hacks for corporatist, establishment Republicans. They’re not Tea Partiers at all. You wrote in your comment @ 4:
Peter Wolf wasn’t selling populism today. He was using people’s resentment of elitism to get them to vote unwittingly for elitist Republicans and to get others to vote for elitist Republicans.
Honestly, I think what we’re seeing today isn’t anything new. It’s just new packaging. For example, Republicans have been using faith-based organizations to get out the vote for a couple of decades. But it stopped working for them by 2006. Now they’re trying a new angle.
When Democrats lose in November, it will be because they’ve turned off their base by failing to deliver on their promises. It won’t be because these Tea Partiers will have turned out more voters than otherwise would have turned out to support Republicans.
I think we basically agree. It is not new for the right wing. As a constituent of Newt Gingrich I watched first hand the same kind of “intellectualizing” nonsense. And of course was an early listener to Limbaugh and C-SPAN. But they are damned good at it.
Resentment is always an aspect of right wing populism.
But I think you may be skipping my larger point. The progressives are not doing much of anything to mobilize a movement, especially with populist elements. And we are failing to enunciate a clear simple philosophy of governing. That is in part because Obama has discouraged that by dissing, Dean, Lakhoff, Westen, Sirota and many of those who do try to speak clearly.
Just a personal opinion but I think we overestimate our power as “the base.” We need to build more populist power into our philosophy.
The treatment we have gotten from ObamRahma is outrageous.
I an wondering if anyone with media access will speak up?
You say,
I am involved with jeffroby’s Full Court Press, which looks to run Democratic primary challengers (in up to 435 districts), but who must embrace a simple, and limited agenda.
Just tonight the issue of reworking the basic principles came up, and I wrote,
I also informed Jeff Roby that in my view, he is a Tea Party-er of the Left. He liked that so much that he said he would add it to his repetoire. :-)
Because of a late start (only last Dec. 1 was the plan first articulated, at OpenLeft), we will probably not get to run a lot of candidates in 2010. However, if enough support and supporters appeared very quickly, that could change.
I agree that progressivism should be a natural focus for populism. It bothers me that so little effort is put in our side of the blogosphere on recruiting progressives to primary Democrats and run on a populist/progressive platform. Medicare for all, protect Social Security, go after Wall Street, affordable education, and jobs, jobs, jobs.
I don’t know Full Court Press that metamars references but that is the kind of thing we should be doing.
I found this the other night at redstate.
Becoming Politically relevant through civic duty and the precinct committeeman strategy
it’s about tea party activism from the ground up, not what is being sold at these events. It’s an inspiring read.
The establishment republicans are trying hard to co-opt the Tea party movement, or get it back under control.
I’ll check out the FullCourtPress. Thanks metamars and talkingstick.
Ed Shultz did the other day, but he spun it of as all about health care but missed the boat on the lack of respect aspect.
It’s amazing that no public apology has been offered to Moveon or the liberals, as if the only those that were smeared was special people by associating them with liberals.
And to metamars.
All the time I was a county party committee member i tried to push this idea. Run a candidate to begin to get our alternative message out even though there could be little chance of winning.
In fact we had a Senatorial candidate had he survived the primary that might even have won in the 2008 environment.
But I was never able to get very far and though could find lots of people in my area (relatively, for No. GA.) who hold progressive philosophy I could never get them to participate in the process. As to the party establishment, they set up roadblocks all over the place. So I quit the Committee and party and just go to lunch with my fellow progressives, and bitch. :-)
I will look into Full Court Press and explore what I could offer.
While you’re at it, check my diary, “If not Now, When.”
I’m going to write the platform for a new third party and I’ve listed 30 points.
Let me know what you think.
Procresive activism sounds like a pipe dream. We have not seen it in the past, and I have my doubts we will see it in the future.
If You become like the Tea Baggers and hold a Convention where 600 show up, there won’t be much action to Your activism.
Unless You can get progressives off their asses, and willing to make some real noise the political tree falling in the forest won’t be heard.
Man, would I like to have some email discussion with you.
Please see my website http://ifihadmyway.com and then write me
skoglund AT pdmsb DOT com
Thanks
Doug
One thing that needs to be done is to have Full Court Press type candidates blog about the obstructions they face. In fact, documenting any unfair obstructions that are thrown their way in 2010 may be important in figuring out the best way to electoral effectiveness in 2012, and beyond.
I believe that we are on the cusp of a migration to voting blocs, which will eventually comprise de facto parties. If the traditional parties – Dems and Repubs – create too many problem in a given district or state, then adequately warned voters can look into running through another party’s ballot access, or forming a new third party.
John Emerson, who comments here at FDL, had fascinating diaries at OpenLeft concerning populism and the Democrats’ history of it’s suppression. The ‘pros’ would prefer to throw insurgent populist candidates under the bus, even if they did get ballot access, than lose control of the party. Your experience was not unique.
Uber-activist Gary Null, who started the explosively growing ProgressiveRadioNetwork.com, has just started adding programs to give 3rd party advocates a forum. The groups are Greens, Libertarians, independents, and Constitutionalists. He believes that some sort of compromise 3rd party can and will arise, and is looking to help that process along.
Independents already outnumber self-declared Democrats. Historically, the emergence of a third party into 2nd party status is rare in the US, but we “live in interesting times”. So, don’t be surprised if FCP evolves such that candidates and their supporting voter blocs simply dump their Democratic Party affiliation on an election-by-election basis.
Addressing your last sentence, you’re right; the guy IS a Republican Party hack. The entire tea party movement is a disguised variation of the conservative movement that took over the GOP. Yet there is a difference between a Republican Party hack and a Democratic Party hack. The GOP is movement-oriented, meaning that his first allegiance is to his movement, while his second allegiance is to his party of choice. The Democratic Party hack, on the other hand, owes his or her allegiance to his or her party; the movement can go to hell for all the hack cares — the movement is merely a resource to be exploited. The GOPer sees the opposite; the party is the resource to be exploited.
As for the strategy, it’s a proven method. Smart organizations focus on frequent-voting members of their party and independents who lean toward their party, ignoring the enemy altogether. That’s one reason why, for example, Northeast Ohio maintains such a strong Democratic Party presence despite years of Republican efforts to insert themselves into local politics. A GOPer simply cannot get elected there unless he runs as a Democrat or rigs the voting system.
As to the candidates, if we are to run progressives who will represent the people and the base, then we’ll have to do a very good job of vetting them. This means going over their records, if any, with a fine tooth comb and grilling them on why they’re running and what they intend to do once they’re in office. (We don’t want losers who are only looking to further their own ambitions, for example.)
If that were a likelihood, we probably wouldn’t be experiencing half the problems we are now. We can’t rely on what I’ve seen described as access-bloggers (bloggers whose overriding goal is access to power circles, not progressive policies made into progressive laws). We can’t rely on access-bloggers to lead a reinvigorated progressive movement. They’re Dem Party hacks through and through, and they will do whatever it takes to push us out and silence us.
Yes. If anything the Obama win and place as party leadership has suppressed the populists/progressives. And yes no doubt, even to this less astute observer, much of the suppression has been intentional. And yes few of the players in politics are pure as to their ideology over personal position.
I truly believe in the power rising from the people or the image of it. But it does seem it requires money and skilled political leadership.
I was struck with the cleverness of most of the Tea Party Speakers, including Palin, yesterday in repeating the mantra that the TPs are ordinary folks rising spontaneously. Yet we know the money and most of the panelists and speakers are Republican organizers.