Why this political scientist thinks the Democrats have to fight dirty

[babylonsister]

Why this political scientist thinks the Democrats have to fight dirty
“The Republicans are behaving like a party that believes it will never be held accountable.”
By Sean [e-mail]@vox.com May 1, 2018, 8:00am EDT

snip//

Faris, a political scientist at Roosevelt University, argues that the Democratic Party must recognize that Republicans aren’t engaged in a policy fight; instead, they’re waging a “procedural war.”

What he means is that Republicans have spent the past two decades exploiting the vagueness of the Constitution to create structural advantages for their side — passing discriminatory voter ID laws, using the census to gerrymander districts, blocking Democratic Supreme Court nominees, and so on.

Faris writes Democrats have to recognize this reality and act accordingly. I reached out to him to find out what, exactly, he has in mind.

A lightly edited transcript of our conversation follows.

Sean Illing

Your book feels like the left-wing equivalent of the “Flight 93” essay — an urgent Democratic call to arms. Is that how you see it?

David Faris

Yeah, I think so. We’re at a very dangerous moment in American history. There’s been a massive erosion of trust in public institutions and in the broader electoral process. The Trump administration has been disastrously disruptive to the norms of our political culture.

We’re also in a very dangerous moment for the planet, and I worry that we’re sleepwalking into a series of crises that we’ll have to deal with for a very long time, that our kids will have to deal with for a very long time. So yes, I am sort of sounding the alarm, and I think Democrats have to recognize the urgency of the moment and act accordingly.

Am I in “charge the cockpit or die” mode? I don’t know, but I do think our predicament justifies some serious procedural hardball from the Democrats.

more...

https://www.vox.com/2018/5/1/17258866/democratic-party-republicans-trump-election

[Doodley]

1. Yes, there needs to be a real fight. Trump caused a crisis in Korea. Other people fix it.

He takes all the credit and his support increases. Same will happen in Iran. Same will happen again and again. Where is the resistance? He gets a free pass for things that would destroy other presidents.

[elocs]

2. Absolutely, I always told my kids growing up about the need to fight dirty.

They grew up well but sadly they ignored my advice.

[malaise]

3. Procedural War

is a great description of ReTHUG's modus operandi

[Girard442]

4. Back in 2001, some Democrats were saying...

..."Yeah, sometimes the Republicans win with dirty tricks, but we Democrats sleep better at night."

And the obvious rejoinder was, "So, how well are you sleeping at night now that 9/11 has happened and Bush is in charge?"

We need to fight like our lives hang in the balances -- because they do.

[KPN]

14. Sadly, we too often and in too many cases

seem to be still saying "we sleep better at night".

[Stryst]

20. I feel we need to stop sleeping better.

The whole concept that the Right is dirty but the Dems sleep better is selfish.

"I am not willing to do what is necessary to protect my country and my people, because me getting a good nights sleep is more important to me than every US citizen."

It's pure selfishness, If we have to hate ourselves for doing the right thing then we still do it. If we have to die to do the right thing we still do it, this is what makes us better than them.

We are not they're betters because we were born that way. we are not they're betters because they lie and we don't.
We are better than them because we understand the concept of duty and responsibility. And some times that means we have to get our hands dirty, if a Democrat is more concerned with how well they sleep than they are about children being allowed to eat or live in a home, then they should be removed from our party.

We are not the Dems, we are The Democratic party and that means we stand for Democracy. We should put Democracy and Country before ourselves 100% of the time, if we can't do that then we should quit now.

We do what we must not because it is right, but because it is necessary.

[ck4829]

44. Sleeping well? What is this "sleeping better at night"?

I haven't had a good night's sleep in a very long time... Democrats who say we sleep better at night need to wake up.

[SWBTATTReg]

5. My sleeves are rolled up and I'm ready to fight nasty w/ nasty back!

Go Dems and GOTV!

[CrispyQ]

6. "...our predicament justifies some serious procedural hardball from the Democrats."

Don't hold your breath. The dems are weak. They have a few fighters, but the party doesn't seem willing to organize as a collective & kick GOP ass. When they go low we go high & now they have their boot on our neck. I have zero confidence that the dems will act boldly if they ever gain any kind of influence back. They will work with their GOP counterparts across the aisle for the sake of "healing the nation" & we'll be back down this road again.

[CK_John]

9. The song is "They can't do that" right after they done that.

[treestar]

25. Why do you call them "weak?"

What is "weak" about that? Fits right in with what Republicans say about other people.

[CrispyQ]

29. How much fuss did the dems make when McConnell refused to give Merrick Garland

a confirmation hearing? There should have been a dem on every TV news show every fucking day & twice on Sunday complaining about that. Instead, crickets. They are great at policy but suck at politics.

[treestar]

30. Would that have helped?

They were in a minority, if I remember right.

[CrispyQ]

33. How would it have not helped?

How many Americans didn't know or forgot what was going on with the SCOTUS nom? The media sure didn't report on it after the first couple of weeks. If the dems had done that to the repubs, they would have been on TV every day, telling the American people how the dems stole a SCOTUS nom & were breaking with centuries of tradition & how undemocratic the whole thing was. But not the dems. They wouldn't want to be accused of politicizing anything–wouldn't want to rock the boat. This is partly why we're where we are. The dems are too timid. I know people don't want to hear that the dems have any responsibility in this mess, but they do.

[treestar]

34. In the minority in Congress

people on TV aren't going to change that.

The Repubs would have been on TV every day and the pundits would have talked about it all day. They would not have done that for the Democrats, which of course they did not. They were probably letting McConnell and Ryan justify it. Any Democrat that went on to say it was a travesty would have been labeled as not caring about the will of the people just as McConnell and Ryan put it.

[CrispyQ]

35. So they should keep the same losing strategy they've always followed & not try something different.

Got it.

I'm sick of the excuse that the media doesn't invite them onto their shows, or the media doesn't give them equal time, or the media paints everything in favor of the GOP. Fight this shit or be prepared to lose.

[ehrnst]

37. Where did you here that they are saying "the media doesn't invite them?"

Why do you think that they are not "fighting this shit?"

[CrispyQ]

45. On DU.

The common refrain is that the right wing media has shut out dem/left leaning politicians or pundits from their shows. True or not, I say, you are US Congresspersons. Call the networks & demand time & then have a cohesive set of points to make about the issues. Why are all the catchy political phrases GOP, even if they are disingenuous? Trickle Down Economics. No Child Left Behind. Healthy Forests, Clean Skies. Tax & Spend Democrats. Ouch! That last one really hurts & it sticks! And the perfect retort would have been Tax Cut & Spend Republicans. But somehow that never got in the lexicon. And our last slogan was A Better Deal. ~yawn. To answer your post on the other thread, that's what I'm talking about by not doing things the way they always have. The dems are good at policy, but crap at politics. Politics is marketing & they better sharpen their game & get in the 21st century. I personally would start with the classic Joe Conservative essay & come up with a clever sound bite for each of those issues, or just dissect the essay. Oh & they should read George Lakoff's "Moral Politics," too, if only they'd read it when it first came out. Also, thanks to GOP shenanigans, the dems now need massive turnout & margins to win in some areas.

[ehrnst]

47. So, not from the actual Democrats you are talking about, then.

Actually politics is mostly administrativia.

Campaigns are mostly marketing.

I understand that sound bytes are important, but what I hear on DU is that so many politicians are too polished, and not offhand enough, not "honest enough."

But then again, when one does, often one is pilloried, and even misquoted or misrepresented. Even the most progressive of politicians.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1016&pid=205755

We can't have it both ways, but it certainly does feel good to rant about it either way, right?

[CrispyQ]

48. i don't think you have anything to add, but thanks for your time. -nt

[ehrnst]

53. I did, and you're welcome. -nt

[Kurt V.]

54. thank you

[George II]

39. In speaking of Democrats you say "they" have a few fighters and

...."they" will work with their GOP counterparts? Most people around here when referring to Democrats say "WE".

Which side are you on?

[CrispyQ]

40. The right side.

[George II]

41. Well if you refer to Democrats as "they" I guess you're not on "our" side?

[CrispyQ]

46. I thought it was pretty clear my post referred to those who could actually play

"serious procedural hardball," which would mean, those in Congress.

[Gothmog]

49. Are you a member of the Democratic Party and do you support the party?

[dajoki]

7. I have been saying this for a long time n/t

[DinahMoeHum]

8. They go low, we go high AND low. CHOP BLOCK, baby!!

It's a 2-person operation. You don't have to do this alone.

[bucolic_frolic]

10. That's a very pragmatic approach and a step away from

the "cultural war" we're told we're up against. It would put some teeth into our quiver for a change.

[BobTheSubgenius]

11. This needs to be spoken, out loud, and often.

That being said, it doesn't take a genius to recognize that sticking to one's highest ideals is going to be cold comfort.

[Texin]

12. So, how do Dems do that exactly?

Rethugs figured out back in the eighties that the majority of the people who vote - and I'm speaking primarily about the then majority of Americans who were white, traditional working class people, those of the working professionals, the wealthy and the people who identified themselves as *Christians* had a particular view of America. They figured out how to use messaging (the kind of Frank Luntz dog whistle language) that appealed to this large swath of the voting population, and they've exploited it ever since. Nothing the Dems have ever tried since then - until Barack Obama, of course - has ever resonated. And here we are today with a Putin-installed and McConnell-Ryan enabled demi-dictator and we are in the minority of both houses of government. How is this evil agenda to be stopped when they 1) don't have the numbers needed to thwart their plans, and 2) haven't figured out a message that will work to wake the people up in enough numbers to put down their remotes, turn off the 24-hour Kardashian and Big Brother TV-addicted public shambling into the abyss? How?

[Nay]

58. There's the rub, of course. As far down this putrid path as we are, it's very hard

to imagine how we are going to change things at all. The work that will need to be done re: climate change, just for one example, requires the sort of insight and character that no Republican has. And Democrats are having a hard time just confronting Republicans over anything.

Personally, I think we're going down the tubes. Once there was a way to reach billions of people hourly by electronic means, it was only a matter of time before we, as a species, were cooked. The propagandists/religious hucksters/etc. took over and the average human being has few defenses against the psychological tactics that such sophisticated marketers use. They can tell people any sort of craziness and they, by and large, will believe it. It's baked into the nature of the social human being.

[Pepsidog]

13. Dems must fight as if their life depends on it. For too long Dems have been the doormats.

[KPN]

15. Here's the key take away excerpt from the David Faris article/interview in my opinion:

We’re in the midst of a slow-motion unraveling of democracy in this country. If we don’t return the favor with some of this procedural war stuff, the only other option is to continue watching the other side do it. That’s not an acceptable option in my opinion.

I don’t think we can restore order by respecting rules that are not respected by Republicans. I do believe we’ll have to find a way to end this procedural war at some point, but now is not that time. Republicans need to know what it’s like to be on the other end of normative violations. The Republicans are behaving like a party that believes it will never be held accountable for anything they’re doing, and so far they haven’t been.

That has to change before we can fix this mess.

[area51]

55. Agreed. n/t

[JoeOtterbein]

16. YES!

DOUBLE YES!!!!!!

[backscatter712]

17. I've said it over and over. Democrats and progressives need to learn to be ruthless.

[Le Gaucher]

18. If we start doing that .. they will declare actual war and bring out their guns

[KPN]

23. Not trying to equate the two, but isn't that sort of

how the Jewish in Europe felt and responded in the 20s?

How else can we successfully respond when elections are outright stolen, when the majority are effectively neutralized as a political force repeatedly? We outnumber them vastly, yet they come out on top, in control and shift the goalpost ever rightward.

The risk you describe does indeed seem possible, but Einstein's definition of insanity also seems to fit here.

[ck4829]

42. They already have... Jim Adkisson, Dylann Roof, William Atchison, Scott Roeder, Jason Dalton, etc.

They fired the first shots and they are still firing shots. Look at the Adam Lanza wannabes of the "Alt-Right", especially the Atomwaffen Division, they are girded for war and eliminating the "liberal" and the "other" from political life.

Don't be afraid, fight for those who have already lost their lives.

Follow Heather.

[Volaris]

19. Holding them to account is only gonna be viewed as 'fighting dirty'

BY THEM. and yes, they'll bitch and cry about how mean we are and how unfairly they're being treated. That being said, I don't think it will take much. We got here because Nixon DIDNT have to go to prison and Bush DIDNT have to get impeached, and the GOP said well, cool then, we'll just keep doing this because clearly the other side is too afraid of the Next Election to do anything about these things.

We put their god-emperor and a few of his congressional leaders in club fed for a while like they rightly deserve, they'll knock this shit off.
The same can be said of the thieves on Wall St, K St., and Madison Avenue.

[Mr. Sparkle]

21. When i look at the Democratic leadership, none of them have the guts to fight like that.

Its not in their nature. It going to have to happen from the ground up.

[Kurt V.]

22. what we really could use is

a coordinated program of social engineering. the right has used it for decades for a corporate coup. the same methods can be used for the People.

[ck4829]

50. It really isn't hard to do that

We need to do some framing of our own.

[peggysue2]

24. You'll notice the sense of urgency here, both . . .

in David Faris's comments and Reza Aslan's interview from Salon yesterday. The danger to the Republic is very real, the damage is ongoing and there's no time to wait. I like so many others find the Trumpster's posturing ridiculous, his dreams of an undeserved Nobel Prize ludicrous and beyond the pale. However, behind the curtains he, his enablers and sycophants are deliberately ripping the fabric of our social order, chipping away at our democratic institutions and trampling on our past, present and future.

I believe the Republican Party needs to be broken into a million tiny pieces because it has become absolutely toxic and lethal. To us, to itself and the country at large. No more excuses for their behavior or mindset. No more Mr. Nice guy trying to find common ground because there is no common ground with these crass ideologues anymore. Ryan and McConnell have made that abundantly clear when they lie for the Imposter-in-Chief, jam tax cuts for billionaires onto the electorate, and pull the sort of stunt they did with Merrick Garland.

The time for hardball is on. And the first order of business? Sweep the damn November elections, neuter the Trumpster and start giving the dwindling GOP some of its own bitter medicine. There are plenty of Never-Trump Republicans who feel the same way: the Republicans no longer deserve winning any position of power, not even dogcatcher.

We need to make that a reality.

[wasupaloopa]

26. From The Untouchables, "they pull a knife you pull a gun, they send one of yours to the hospital

you send one of theirs to the morgue."

[raging moderate]

27. Trump's voters feel that he "tells it like it is."

I suspect that they actually think that short shallow sentences, with all those filthy, crude, insulting words, are in fact the only way to "tell it like it is." When we introduce any complexity or precision, that just sounds like obfuscation to them. And when we "go high," that just sounds like elitism to them.

[ProudLib72]

28. Get dirty. Don't take a shower or bath until after the mid-terms!

Talk about a crazy good way to suppress rethug voting. Stink them out of the voting booth!


BTW: this only works if everyone is on board. When we all stink together, we won't notice our collective odor. But those few who hold onto purity will ruin it for the majority.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

31. Charge the cockpit mode !!! Me 2

[Stinky The Clown]

32. Plus One Thousand ! ! Time to get with it and FIGHT. Ball kicking is perfectly fine with me.

[Garrett78]

36. Every Democrat in Congress needs to read that piece and take it to heart.

The following excerpt is incredibly frustrating for those of us who follow and care about policy, but I accept the truth in what Faris is saying:

David Faris
I think Democrats should have this debate, but my point is that no policy platform is going to win three or four consecutive national elections for Democrats because we know policy isn’t what decides elections; that’s not how most voters make decisions.

So there are no policy changes that are going to reverse the overall trajectory that this society is on right now. We have to address some of the structural barriers to progressive power in this country, and we need to take those things as seriously as we do the policy fights within the party.

Sean Illing
I definitely want to get into some of these structural barriers, but let’s be clear about this point you’re making. A lot of people still think there’s some meaningful connection between policy outcomes and voter decisions, but there’s a good bit of political science research to suggest that’s just a fantasy.

David Faris
Right. People just don’t seem to make the connection between policies and the party in power.

So, for example, the Democrats passed Obamacare and gave millions of people heath care, and yet tons of people who benefited from it have no idea what it is or how they benefited. And it’s like that with a lot of policies — voters simply don’t connect the dots, and so they reward or punish the wrong party.

I think the idea that we’re going to deliver these benefits to people and they’re going to be like, “Thank you Jesus, thank you for everything that you’ve done, let me return you with a larger majority next time,” is just nonsense. It’s the wrong way to think about politics.

That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do things for people, but we’ve got to be serious about how elections are won. And they’re not being won on the basis of policy proposals or policy wins.

[ehrnst]

38. Depends on what you mean by "Dirty"

Especially when our leadership is accused - from the left, no less - of being "corrupt," or "trying to put their thumb on the scale for certain politicians this year."

Which is it?

[Caliman73]

52. I agree.

What is the definition of Dirty? I haven't read the entire thread, but what I looked through doesn't really suggest what exactly Democrats should be doing.


Do we tamper with voting machines? Do we gerrymander districts like Republicans have? Do we send out disinformation and suppress the vote of people in Red States? Do we lie about Republicans and create conspiracy theories like they have?


How dirty do we get? If we go as dirty as the Republicans have, will the victory wash away the dirt? Will we be able to go back to ethical principles knowing that we cheated our way to victory?


These are questions that I would like to see answered.

[ck4829]

43. Give me a K! Give me an &! Give me an R!

[PaulRevere08]

51. Sadly, the rethugs have eroded the checks and balances between the 3 branches.

They have morphed them into a single entity whose only goal in the preservation of this structure. It was never more obvious then when they were allowed to block Obama's SCOTUS nominee.

[ecstatic]

56. Yeah, but we kind of get attacked when we suggest that

Whenever you suggest anything like that, prepare to get flamed. There's several categories of things that need to change ASAP, and I know that our demeanor and instincts are completely different than rethugs. I get it. A lot of what we must do will NOT come naturally. That being said, Schiff and others need to get angry and amped up. The time for calm smiles should be over with. What I've noticed is that repug converts have an easier time doing that sort of thing, and if that's the case, maybe they can step forward for a while until things get on track (people like E Warren, Grayson, etc).

[Jspur]

57. Michelle Obama's famous phrase

"When they they go low we go high" never resonated with me. I have always been the opposite which is when they go low we go lower and aim for the balls type of guy. I dealt with bullies as a kid and things didn't get better until I started fighting back against them. I would actually fight dirty with some of these ass holes. I remember one time slamming a tray in the cafeteria in a bullies face after he had punched me in the stomach while we were standing in line. In some fights I would actually literally bite the bully. I would even punch and hit the bullies in their nuts. I wasn't the toughest guy in school but I was the craziest and because of that the bullies eventually left me alone they didn't want to deal with me. The republicans are bullies and I believe they deserve a taste of their own medicine.