People who want the Democratic Party to move left: how can it be done?

Their interest just aren't being represented by the "centrist" Democrats.

The GOP are all depicted as decent, quasi-folk heroes. The Democrats are depicted as mobsters (Hillary), preening hypocritical sissies (Edwards), and inexperienced phonies (Obama). How do you fix the public perceptions when we are at such a disadvantage in terms of media influence?

gives us a chance for that.

Also we need more rock stars like in the old days. Remember when they tended to take the right side, and were so cool? Now it's all corporate music.

as building a foundation for a house. You start by doing the hardest, most tiring work. People driving by don't see the results you are getting. But you have to have a strong foundation in order to build anything upon it that will hold up.

It's comforting to yell "They'll never get -my- vote!", but the gesture is so completely futile for a leftist that I'm surprised anyone can do it. It's equally tempting for the current power structure of the party to imagine that if they can just claw their way to a consistent majority, perhaps they will have parity in media and structural influence. It won't happen, for the simple reason that Republicans have their whole economic platform based on helping the top, and we make considerable concessions (relative to them at least) to the less fortunate. Given that, the Republicans will have a built-in advantage with the media and with the power/money centers of politics, who above all look after themselves.

Take over county party organizations, then state organizations and finally the national party. Those who can move voters have power.

Having a way to get our message out without the corporate media is the other central task.

"MOVE LEFT"????

I am sick to death of these labels being imposed upon me.

Why say, "left"?

What does "left" mean other than the designations imposed by the most selfish and incorrigible of human beings?

WHY NOT SAY: PEOPLE WHO WANT THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY TO MOVE CLOSER TO REAL DEMOCRACY,...A GOVERNMENT OF, BY, AND FOR THE PEOPLE?

Why NOT say THAT?

This "left" and/or "liberal" thing,...is just a creation by those who want to rule our lives rather than give us an opportunity to be A PART of ruling our own lives!!!

SCREW THAT!!!!

It meant and still means great things, and though you're welcome to believe otherwise, recognize that no term I could have shunted into this poll will satisfy you. "Real Democracy" is just as subjective and full of bullshit, incidentally. I assume we share similar goals, such as open government, equality of economic and social opportunity for all, reasonable foreign policy, etc. I call that left just for reasons of brevity. Fill in something else if you like.

I am not "led around by (my) fucking nose". I live with a sense of basic human integrity that is resilient against people like you who aim to label me.

So, if being labeled "left" is more important to you than acknowledging my position as a human being,...then, we have no place to meet. That is sad.

Of course it is! What word would you have me use? I assumed people would be adult enough to have a general idea of what "move left" would mean, but I also knew there are some people so hung up on the moronic game of words that is played in the media and by thinktanks the world round that it would inevitably show up here to crap all over my thread. And so it has.

,...you are in a world of political ideology.

Tell you what--retitle my poll in a way that doesn't offend you. See what you come up with.

Why say, "left?"...This "left" and/or "liberal" thing is just a creation by those who want to rule our lives...WHY NOT SAY: PEOPLE WHO WANT THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY TO MOVE CLOSER TO REAL DEMOCRACY...

You'd think that the fact that even the RIGHT insists that the Dems' "far left" is alienating their "center" would be a tipoff that it's a crock!

:headbang:
rocknation

They Don't GET IT! Because financially it's not necessary to "Get It." Put fingers in ears and block out sound....yahhhh...yahhhhh...yahhh...for Dem Grassroots Progressive Efforts.

After all... It's not about "Progressives" they will ALWAYS VOTE DEM... it's about the "new folks on the block"...those we want to get the VOTE OUT FOR!

BUT...we "grassroots lefties" worked to GET THE VOTE OUT FOR KERRY! (we were onto the DRE Machines and Voter Disenfranchisment)........but ...did our Dem Party Machine (leave Howard Dean out of this) GET IT?

NO!

You want us to WORK FOR YOU AGAIN? You REALLY WANT THIS?????? :eyes:

kinda of loaded poll there, jpgray

I mean, that's how it got moved to the right, and it certainly didn't take decades of running for the school board.

But yes, #2 is the correct answer.

You're right that we can't, because their terms were created to make us lose every time. How can you compete in wooing the money/power systems of politics with a party whose sole economic platform is to enrich the powerful? The DLC and others continually sell their souls for that influence, and they never get it for the above reason. The best position for whoring out values is already taken--at best we can only be half as good. We need to get into office despite our lack of influence, and once there starve out any power/money men who bet heavily on the Republicans, who would push us to a world of zero middle class, elderly people dying alone and afraid, and only the rich receiving a decent education.

I think the only way to do this is to avoid the ordinary power games we have already been maneuvered into losing, and instead get as many people in ground-level positions as possible who actually care about the progressive issues most Americans wholeheartedly support, based on poll after poll after poll.

is a wholesale effort to educate those not of the political class in how to do the organization necessary for such an effort. iirc, there was something along those lines connect with Paul Wellstone after his death, but I haven't heard anything about it in a while.

I mean, today campaign politics at least is almost wholly about image. The coverage is certainly focused around it. "Does he sigh too much?" "Is he a regular guy?" "How much do his haircuts cost?" "Would he be fun to have a beer (whether or not the candidate can drink beer) with?"

Whether this obsession is purposeful or not, it's all the media focus on these days. You can go to the Daily Howler and read meticulous and somewhat tedious documentation of this phenomenon. If Fred Thompson is praised, it's because he has a deep voice, is a daddy figure, seems like a regular guy, etc. And the great irony is that the media choose to cover campaigns this way despite their being less qualified than regular Americans are to discern image. We vote in American Idol. We're perfectly qualified to figure out superficial qualities all on our own. The media are qualified to judge facts--who is telling the truth? Is this policy practical? Does Bush's plan really mostly go to the poor? Did we really go into Iraq as Romney says to fight Al Qaeda? But they won't.

And because they won't, nobody cares. Everyone seems much the same and any bias can be explained away by the subjectivity of the superficial. So what if everybody asked whether Gore really did farm chores as a kid and no one asked why Bush bought his ranch in 1999? It's subjective--Gore is a lying elite and Bush is an authentic cowboy.

But I think that coverage is a huge part of why people don't care. Campaigns are covered in such a way that without digging deeper yourself it would be foolish to care deeply about them.

How do we start? I say "we" because I assume you're in with me on this. :) What's the first step?

:P

But seriously, I think publicizing even in very simple ways the -results- of various policies through precinct walking or very specific/clever protests can help quite a bit. Mostly we need to find a way to catch people's imaginations and excite their empathic qualities, in other words get them to identify with the people hurt by the policies we look to stop. And also to see themselves identified personally as the only real chance to help these people in need.

I used to think the "voting against their own best interests" thing was the way to go, but people I've learned will do that indefinitely. It's the reason so many yeoman farmers in the South marched to support a nation nominally founded to preserve slavery, it's the reason a poor blue collar worker votes for people who support free trade pacts that are investor bacchanals, and it's the reason the middle class voted away their surplus into the pockets of the ultra rich. Basically, no one likes to see themselves as the person that needs outside help--people like to see themselves as eventually being on top of an unfair system they will ultimately benefit from. No matter how unrealistic that is, people like to believe they will eventually be up there to reap those unfair rewards.

So I think switching the motive to showcase the depravity of corporate power and ruthlessly humanizing the serious plight of those who are less fortunate might yield better results. But I really don't know.

We don't have the cash or the big-time fundie backers that the rightwingnuts did in the 70s, or even the organizational structure - at least not in any national sense. Your tactical points are well taken, but how do we go about starting the effort itself?

At a thornier level, how do we take advantage of the existence of progressive groups that don't always agree with each other - say black churches and gay rights groups?

Which is horrible, but he did include a few things in the WPA and such that mitigated his essential avoidance of the issue. Probably the New Deal itself and the GI Bill had great ancillary benefits to helping blacks economically. Either way, his keeping that in many ways contemptible coalition together did bring us the New Deal. Is that sort of craven maneuvering morally justifiable? I have no idea. Perhaps the current comparable issue would be gay marriage--it's unquestionable that equal rights is the proper position, but it's currently politically difficult. In terms of pure political expediency, ignoring it during the campaign and then shoving progress under the door would be best, but that's quite insulting to gays.

As for the money, we just can't compete. In our current system that seems pretty inescapable for a long while. But since our ideas are more compelling to begin with, perhaps we can use what little we have to better effect. But I really don't know. :P

member of the proposed coalition in order to even create said coalition, much less keep it together, and the battle will be long.

"I am hard pressed on my right; my centre is giving way; situation excellent; I am attacking."

- Marshall Foch

Tell me more. Like how we fricking start.

But I like to think if we have enough able, concerned people in readily available local positions, we'll start things rolling. Right now too many ambitious self-obsessed people search out those positions. "How do we get the right people in those positions?" Eh, leave me and my tedious theorizing alone. :P

then you can bet I'm going to drag you and yours up to the front lines with me. :D

You're right - the left needs to do this, has to do this. Shall we?

But yeah, I totally get the idea that not voting for bad Democrats is something that can be done here and now that will conceivably have a direct impact of -some- kind, positive or negative. Nothing I'm blathering on about can pretend to do that. But yeah, it'd be good to do some work and soon. I know I do far less of it than I'd like while engaging in far more emotionally-gratifying debate than I probably need to.

along those lines. :)

I'm not actually trying to call you out. If we're going to do this - and I would genuinely like to see it happen - then let's do it. I don't see anyone else making the attempt right now, so it might as well be a few DUers. I just don't know how to start.

And then try to make more and more noise so more and more people listen. Or at least until more and more people try to shut me up. :D

Is it enough for enough of us to do the same?

That's what the Christian Coalition was doing in the 80's. Pretty soon they started taking over local governments, local party organizations, state organizations and so on.

Nothing makes people pay attention to policy positions more than prolonged recessions or a "depression."

Unfortunately, that seems to me about what it's going to take in the short run.

That or- in the historic view, a virulent pandemic. Thus far, the Dem leadership seems unable to come to grips with the strategic disaster in Iraq.

In the longer term, there's also climate change- which if you read the literature, has also led to some "readjustment."

elections. winning and losing are the only things that influence a party. if a candidate wins, they do the same thing next time, if they lose, they don't.

But it doesn't work that way. There are tons and tons of local positions that can heavily influence the party. And clever, intelligent local leaders move on up in party ranks. From that position they can influence policy and strategy. Why do you think Gore, Kerry and Bush all heavily bowed to party strategists and handlers? On the Democratic part it certainly wasn't a record of success. So what was it? Influence. Pure and simple. The problem now is the wrong sort of people are getting that influence in our party. Too few concerned progressives are choosing to take those sort of jobs.

I really fucking hate the way things are now.

Politicians are success-oriented. They look at the winners. That's why you hear so many lousy Reagan/JFK impersonators in the political world. If the winners are Republicans due to us taking votes away, the Democrats have no way of knowing it was because we didn't vote, and they don't know -why- we didn't vote. They just know they lost, and the Republicans won. The strategists will ask "How can we be more like the winners?" and they will not ask "How can we get back the votes we don't know we lost?" and they certainly will never know what policies caused us not to vote for them. It's just too difficult to tie down a mass human event to a single cause or reason, let alone identify a whole bloc of voters as not voting for a specific reason.

Just ask Nixon, Reagan, Bush, and Bush.

Supposedly, the parties represent positions on various issues and we, the people, respond by voting for the party that will forward the issues we favor and/or reject the issues we hold in disfavor.

Other than that, what is the purpose of belonging to, or supporting, a political party?

"I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever, in religion, in philosophy, in politics, or in anything else, where I was capable of thinking for myself. Such an addiction is the last degradation of a free and moral agent. If I could not go to heaven but with a party, I would not go there at all." --Thomas Jefferson to Francis Hopkinson, 1789.

"Were parties here divided merely by a greediness for office,...to take a part with either would be unworthy of a reasonable or moral man." --Thomas Jefferson to William Branch Giles, 1795.

“Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost." --John Quincy Adams

Ralph Nader comes to mind. Think about the Democratic Party--from Joe Lieberman to Dennis Kucinich, it promotes a lot of ideological ground, no? And the way Congress works, even if a majority party of 99% centrists has a few progressives, those progressives will have a louder voice as a result of their association than a progressive on his or her own. Why do you think good ol' Bernie is caucusing with us?

And, I hope, that he caucuses with them, to influence their stance on issues that he finds dear.

And, the question could be asked in reverse, "Why do the Democrats allow a Socialist to caucus with them?" My guess is that they want his vote and a majority. Or, why does Bernie, the Socialist, caucus with the Democrats? My guess is that he can forward the issues he cares about by using his place as a factor in the Democratic majority as a lever to get them to vote positively on the issues he cares about.

As an Anarchist, I'm not a big fan of political parties or "leaders" in general. I'm a lifelong (since 1966) Democrat of the "lesser of two evils" wing, and my votes usually involve vigorous nose holding. Sometimes, the nose rebels and refuses to accept the extreme punishment involved when assaulted over certain issues. At which time Jefferson's and J.Q. Adams' admonitions kick in.

But one can use the strategic advantages of such a party without letting that party describe your entire system of ideals or dictate your actions for you. There's an amazing degree of latitude for belief in the Democratic Party. That's why we can sustain both Sanders and Lieberman (bleh) in our caucus.

... and yeah ... its a long term effort.

It's because our policies, even in a sort of mealy-mouthed form used to gain majority, are far less attractive than right-wing policies to the money and power centers in terms of politics. We'd have to hold power for a long time before they would give up aggressive funding of the GOP, and we'd have to punish them while in power for refusing to fund us.

that the left provides the Party with its most ardent foot soldiers.

It's cozy, I'm sure, at the nice wine and cheese fundraisers, but those doing the grunt work in the trenches are the ones who deserve attention as much attention, if not more, from the so-called bigwigs.

To me it seems more likely they will think "Conservatives are winning. We are losing. Let's copy the successful." Since politics is run like a business these days, that seems more likely for me. It's tough to pin down the effect of a group that abandons you in nationwide politics, and it's even tougher to pin down the exact reason for that departure.

the way the GOP cultivates its rightwing base. This is mainly due to the corporate stranglehold on both parties.

We can see how swimmingly that strategy has worked for us, the foot soldiers, but our inside-the-Beltway "generals" and strategists are doing just fine by it, thank you.

Therefore they can pacify the base and get away with economic murder of the very people who are voting them in. You can't do that as a Democrat, since the best you can do is become half as good a whore as the GOP, and try your best to get half the money and influence while holding on to half of your base. It won't work. But do they realize that? Or do they just see GOP victories and try to copy them?

I'm not talking about "pacifying" the left, I'm saying engergizing the left with a strategy that genuinely restructures our society while making a case that wins over the middle (ala FDR).

The Democrats don't have the guts to do that.

Even if they knew how, I'm not sure they'd get enough people to agree on it. The stranglehold a lot of Clinton advisers have on our party strategy is really a millstone right now, since Clinton's victory was more due to personal charisma than anything else.