Colin Greer: 'A new majority for the American left'

A new majority for the American left
Colin Greer
8 - 12 - 2005



Something vital, exciting and underreported is happening across the United States: marginalised groups in the poorest communities are joining forces to improve their condition and win local electoral victories. This is the America of Latinos, African-Americans, religious progressives, union members, young people, and single women. Combined, these mostly progressive groups of the left constitute an actual and significant national majority. If the Democratic Party taps into this energy, it could help create the next social and political momentum in the United States and even win presidential elections. But typically, Democratic leadership does not work closely with these groups, their natural constituencies. This relationship has yet to become a reality.


The right’s debt

Since the 2004 presidential election, the fashion on the American left has been to look at what the right did and try to do the same, as though the right have won a major victory in American consciousness. Even the second wave of progressive critics, who complain we obsess too much over Republican strategy, end up using the right’s supposed victory over hearts and minds as an axis from which to build their arguments. But George W Bush never won a public mandate. The plurality he earned was largely a result of the withdrawal of Democratic campaigns from most states, in a flawed strategy to focus on “swing states”.

My intention is not to deny the power of the Republican Party as an electoral machine, but to emphasise that that is all it is. Poll after poll has found American citizens largely in support of progressive solutions to public problems, even as Democratic Party support for these ideas has dwindled.
Every single American city with a population of over 500,000 voted for John Kerry in 2004. And more than half of all cities with over 50,000 inhabitants did the same. The American public rejected Bill Clinton’s impeachment in 1998, just as they rejected the vicious manipulation of the Terri Schiavo case in 2005.

In special elections in California in November 2005, voters rejected six right-wing legislative initiatives dealing with access to abortion, authority over union dues, and political lobbying. It was a failure for Republican superstar governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who had personally endorsed four of the ballot initiatives. But it was a triumph for the coalitions of community-based groups that have been organizing aggressively around social values in recent years. These were the same groups who paved the way for former union leader and Democrat Antonio Villaraigosa to become mayor of Los Angeles in May 2005. We can learn from their success. (Just think, as late as 1980 Ronald Reagan launched a presidential campaign from the Red Republican stronghold of California!)

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http://www.opendemocracy.net/democracy-americanpower/new_majority_3103.jsp

Thanks. I'm going to forward this article to some other people. I agree. This type of organizing by progressive-oriented people is happening in communities all over the country. It's past time for Democrats to reach out to these groups. This is where the real action is and the Dems seem to be missing it. The hope for the future is in the progressive base and not in appeasing swing voters.

Democrats need to be themselves if they want to win elections. Being Repub-Lite will always lose elections.
Reach out to the public. Get them directly involved in the process.

This is where the real leadership is :
In today’s America, the political centre is located somewhere between the extreme right and the supposed extreme of the left. Actual progressive political life in America is completely discounted, even though it is thriving in cities across the United States, where communities elect progressive officials and pass progressive policies such as the living wage.

Indeed, one of the far right’s biggest victories is that it has persuaded the political classes that a more progressive agenda for America holds no legitimacy. Yet the very ground the right stands on, and from which it claims a modicum of legitimacy, is ground that was won by progressive social movements in the recent past.

mobilizes the fundies.

This should be portrayed as an our team vs. their team. This is the like Red Sox vs. the Yankees but with the help of the fans (voters) we can crush the crony capitalists who only care about the rich. Throw out traditional campaign literature and walk lists. Our base is in the barber shop, the Dollar Store, the bus stop. We don't need names, addresses, phone numbers or party registration. We just have to stake out the bus stops and the parking lots at the Dollar Store.

When Paul Hackett was running against Mean Jean Schmidt I stood at the bus stop that served one of his reddest wards in Cincinnati. The potential voters came to me, and the best part is I wasn't waking anybody up or bothering them because they were waiting for the bus.

Oh and my Hackett campaign literature? It killed...

those that felt disenfranchised, IMO.

In 04 I would walk up to mostly African Americans but also poor whites and say, "Bush sucks so bad I had to write a song about him" and I'd hand them a copy of: