So after we win in Nov - how do we move this party to the left?

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

I don't want to have to abandon my affiliation and find another party which behaves according to the ideals I hold dear. I want my party to be a party that actually represents me. How do we move things left?

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

1. Be careful...

Do you want to move this party left in the same way Bush moved his party to the radical right? Look at THAT disaster. We have to be pragmatic about this, or else we're going to lose the foothold we will hopefully have.

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

2. I don't like the way that sounds. How long can we wait for real reform in

our party?

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

9. I think your better option will be

to fight for reforming the entire system to allow for third parties. I don't think the Democratic Party will ever be exactly the way we fully want it to be under the current 2 party winner-take-all system. Of course, I don't think under ANY system that everyone's going to be happy with the choices they have.

[GreenPartyVoter]

12. Yep. Election reform with stronger small parties for people

who find the BIg Two aren't quite right for them.

I think undre that scenario the big two would become parties of moderates and the folks that run farther left or right would feel free to do their own thing in a smaller party.

[cheezus]

3. no, just back into non-republican territory would be good

we wouldn't even be as far left as bush is right until the new democratic government had dissovled/purchased half of the businesses in the USA.

[porphyrian]

6. Apples and Oranges

We're talking about moving TO the left, not moving from middle-left to extreme-left. Our party has been centrist and even somewhat right-winged on some issues since Carter. The Republicans were on the right and have been moving steadily farther right for decades. Bringing our party back to its correct position isn't at all comparable.

[mzmolly]

4. From the bottom up I say.

Support Democracy For America and 21 Century Democrats for starters. :shrug:

[redqueen]

18. That's the ticket!

Just the way the right did it... from the ground up. Change the minds of the voting populace and the party has no choice but to follow.

[dumpster_baby]

25. but where is your soapbox, your bully pulpit?

DK never got a chance because he had to use the corporate media soapbox, and they sabotaged him.

See my post below on pacifica radio.

[redqueen]

35. For the public? It's us

We don't have one, in other words. We just have to talk to each other, write LTTE's, etc.

For the leaders, it's think tanks. Thank goodness for the Center for American Progress. Now we only need about a dozen more.

[dumpster_baby]

27. but what is the TOOl you would use?

[IkeWarnedUs]

44. Democracy for America and 21st Century Democrats

THESE are the organizations that will give the Democratic Party back to its constituents.

They are holding training sessions to "increase the political skills of participants and to connect them to campaigns that need their help."

July 10 - 11 Denver, CO
July 17 - 18 Orlando, FL
July 31 - Aug 1 Columbus, OH
Aug 7 - 8 Phoenix, AZ
Aug 21 - 22 Austin, TX
Sep 10 - 12 San Francisco, CA

I am going to the training in Orlando this weekend.

Link to training session info: http://www.21stdems.org/training/dfatrainings.cfm

I also recommend reading this 5/01 DU article by tygrBright titled "A Blueprint for Taking Back the Democratic Party." It is long, detailed and an absolute must read for anyone wanting to get involved. Here's the table of contents:

CONTENTS
Part 1 Who's Got It Now?
Part 2 Is it Worth Saving?
Part 3 It's Up To Us
Part 4 Learn From Experience
Part 5 Learn From the Opposition
Part 6 Inspiration and Perspiration
Part 7 Laying Foundations
Part 8 Making It Happen

And here is the link:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/articles/01/05/blueprint1.html

[Monte Carlo]

5. By treating the party like a friend, not like an enemy.

I know a lot of principles leftists like to preach against all forms of impurity, but at some point in party politics, you have to be a team player. Change in the Democratic Party is going to come from the inside, not the outside.

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

10. Ok - that sounds good but how?

Just saying it needs to come from the inside is all well and good but what are the concrete steps to get there?

I'm serious - I love this party but I want it to be the party I can be 100% proud of.

[Commendatori]

15. "I'm serious - I love this party but I want it to be the party...

...that I can be 100% proud of."

Same here, but in my case that would allow for guaranteed rights to gun ownership for law-abiding citizens, to include conceal permits, especially here in D.C. The handgun ban in the city hasn't made me any safer, and in fact I'm moving to Virginia because I'm not willing to die for crossing the wrong street.

I'm not sure if you agree (most here don't). Isn't there one issue that you disagree with the party on, or are you all for every single Democrat talking point and just think we're not left enough?

I remember a thread about "what do you disagree with our side on," and it was long. If our party caters to you personally, would that thread be shorter or longer if it ran again?

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

17. I'm not asking it to cater to me personally!

Geez

I want a party that is concerned with people, one that is not beholden to corporations and one that would actively denounce things like this illegal war - they can't even do that!

[Commendatori]

37. Sorry, you said "100% proud of."

Say, for instance, that our party stops pressing for new gun laws and makes it easier for the law-abiding to get and carry firearms. It'll please me and some others on the board, but assuming that you're not with me on this issue, would you consider that honorable, or a bullshit compromise with a party which both us agree are otherwise assholes (like every Dem I know thought when Clinton signed welfare reform into law)?

I've never met anyone who was 100% proud with his or her party without being 100% in agreement with everything they do, so I didn't understand your post (and, no offense, still don't, but not trying to pick a fight).

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

42. You're right - 100% proud is unrealistic - I should have phrased that

differentlty.

You have some good points.

[Monte Carlo]

16. I think Dean's campaign showed some good examples.

Personally, I think what Dean offered in 2003 was similar to what Nader offered in 2000; a populist, generally anti-war, left-leaning campaign that spoke to a lot of people. Only this time it was INSIDE the party, and look at the difference in effect it had - other candidates were forced to grow some balls.

I'm not big on demonstrations and rallies myself. I think a lot of work in rebuilding the party needs to be more intimate - on the phone, one-on-one, etc.

EDIT: Maybe the key lies in financing. Any good movement needs some money to get it off the ground. If a few million people sent in a $100 each, that'd be some serious venture capital. Money talks.

[dumpster_baby]

29. even if 100% of the democratic party activists are TRUE liberals

you will still get moderates and RW dems getting the spots on the tickets. You agree the Dem party needs change. THat means that the people on the ticket now and in Congress now are not liberal enough.

I agree.

But the Demo party activists are not large enough a faction to vote into office the really true liberals, the leftists. That is because the voters have been influenced by propaganda over decades so much that they are now very conservative. So now we have conservatives elected as Democrats. The people elect them, not the activists.

So you have to first change the mind of the people, or at least enough of them.

To do that you need a bullhorn. THe corporate media will not let you use their bullhorn.

We have to get our own. Please see my post below about pacifica radio....

[Gman]

7. Now you've got it!

Back before the primaries, many like me were afraid that we would lose in November with Dean because of the "unelectable" thing which I don't want to get into. What we were preaching was to get rid of Bush, THEN move the party whichever way you think it should go. Not its Dean or Nader and Bush wins reelection.

Understand, though, that if you act to move the party quickly to the left just as Bushco has moved the GOP so far right in such a short 4 years, the very same thing could happen to Kerry in '08 as what's happening to Bush right now. Patience is a virtue. Think slow, incremental and long term.

I'm sure many here don't remember what happened in the party in 1980 when Ted Kennedy ran against Carter (and almost beat him) in the primary. The liberals wanted to run a "real liberal" because they were disillusioned with Carter even though Carter had a great many things to his credit. That primary fight softened up Carter enough that Reagan could take advantage. A lot of activists stayed home during the November campaign and on election day. The party never got it back together again until 1992, 12 years later. And, I know people don't want to hear this, but it was the DLC that got it together, pushed the party back to toward the center and got two good moderate candidates on a ticket and won.`

But this kind of talk if very premature. Let's get Kerry elected, then we'll talk about this.

[RandomKoolzip]

8. Start more Grassroots campaigns....

Start letter writing campaigns to guys in Hollywood or other really rich liberals and get them to form and fund think tanks in the manner of the Olin Foundation or the Cato Insititute.

Get an AM radio station time slot and start your own talk radio show. Make sure you sound as angry as Michael Savage does.

Direct-mail campaigns in the manner of the Moral Majority's efforts in the seventies.

Start saying things to your co-workers, your bus drivers, your teachers, your restaurant waiters, your bass players.....(thanks to the Minutemen for this line)

First, though, everyone should RIGHT NOW go out and purchase David Brock's "The Republican Noise Machine." Read it thoroughly, and let friends borrow your copy. Brock elucidates just exactly how extremist right wing views were gradually integrated into the fabric of the public discourse, funded by enormous "anti-Communist" think tanks bankrolled by rich conservatives. Make liberalism PROFITABLE and bingo! It's an incredible book...we need to ape their methods.

Above all, the ability to see a hundred years in the future and realize that today's baby steps will evolve into something larger if you keep at it. Scaife, Ailes, etc. all had boundless reservoirs of patience.

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

13. Excellent, excellent!

That's what I'm on about!

Good ideas indeed - especially the radio idea.

[dumpster_baby]

30. please see my post below about taking over pacifica radio

It starts right here!

[Pallas180]

11. First make sure there is a demo in wh, before worrying about going left

.

[Warren DeMontague]

14. Here's a suggestion:

Re-frame the issues, and the debate. That's what the GOP has been doing. I would argue that, this is valid for this current election, as well. We've tried becoming "republican lite", and that only works so well. The hard-core greedheads, for example, are never going to vote for a Democrat, even if Bush's idea of "Fiscal responsibility" is to run the deficit through the roof while letting his CEO buddy's raid the treasury for no-bid contracts worth billions...
And, (memo to Joe Lieberman) we're never gonna be able to co-opt the GOP on smarmy pandering to the god-squad on so-called "culture war" issues. That said, what needs to be done (and this is why I think Edwards as Veep is such a god-damn masterstroke) is a reframing of the terms of the debate, like "values"... Once upon a time, for instance, Catholics voted almost exclusively democrat. They didn't do it because of birth control or who was screwing who or anything like that, but they did it, in part, because of a widespread sense that economic fairness and looking out for the little guy were basic, "Christian" issues. Martin Luther King used the mantle of Christian Values to implore the country towards progressive, positive change. Somewhere along the line the GOP and the right wing scored a massive coup in divorcing values issues from issues of economic and social fairness, and tossing out these red herrings about abortion and gays and janet jackson's boob as a cheap substitute. We need to point out that looking out for the poor and disenfranchised is the truly moral path, and the Republicans, no matter how much they wave the bible around, don't do that at all. We need to remind people that 40 Million Americans w/o health insurance is not the "beauty of the free market", it's a flagrant travesty in the most advanced nation on Earth.

I think that the GOP "coalition" has a tremendous weakness, because although folks in the heartland may get riled up about so-called culture war nonsense, if they're out of a job, can't get health insurance, and their kids are coming home in boxes from Iraq, suddenly stuff like Gay Marriage and whether or not the couple up the street are screwing outside of marriage suddenly become a lot less important, IMHO. So, I think the answer is not to compromise our core beliefs, just to do a better job of expressing them.

Phew!

[CWebster]

33. Fine post

interesting and thoughtful thread.
Deserves a kick.

[tom_paine]

19. Man, I don't think you should count your victory when dealing with Nazis

like the Busheviks.

They will stop at NOTHING and we must be vigilant and aggressive in our defense.

[xchrom]

20. it's at least a two prong problem

one is getting ''the people'' to idenitify more strongly with left-wing political goals, i.e. jobs, clean air and water, excellent education for all and free to boot, health care foe all, etc. -- that's a job not necessarily best left to politicians but to grass roots organizations.
second dealing with corporations -- they hold the political power in america today -- no politician can move ahead without becoming indebted to corporations in some fashion -- it's just to expensive. we must have publicly financed campaigns, and there must severe resistrictions placed lobbyists and the contact they can legally have with elected officials. and that's just the surface.

[kiahzero]

21. I just told you

Build the left portion of the party from the ground up. Win local offices, and then move on to states, and so on and so forth.

There's proof it works, and that it works well: Look at the "Christian" "Right."

[dumpster_baby]

23. but you have to have a bullhorn to get out your message

where is your bullhorn? The right has christian radio, christian TV, etc., and corporate funded thinktanks, media figures, columnists etc.

What does the Left have? NOTHING.

But we COULD take over pacifica radio and use it for leftist talk radio. See my post below.

[kiahzero]

24. You don't need a bullhorn at the local level

And the right didn't have them until they started getting control of local politics.

Real reform isn't going to happen overnight, and it's silly to think so. But if you really want it, you have to work for it.

[dumpster_baby]

31. that response does not include a plausible mechanism

I offered one, a detailed one. Please rebut it or present a plausible mechanism.

[dumpster_baby]

22. voters-members takeover pacifica radio, then put on leftwing talk radio

I have already told you guys about the only way to move the country to the left--you have to use the same tactics that the Right has used, lo, these many years: PROPAGANDA!

Pacifica radio is a non profit foundation that has FM stations in several large metro areas, including NY, LA, SF, DC, Houston. Pretty good list there. Also there are a couple dozen affilaite stations, many of which appear to be college stations.

Their mission is to supply alternative, community oriented programming.

Right now their programming is only about 10% talk, and that 10% is not really true "talk radio," a la Limbaugh. For example, Amy Goodman could be classified as a type of talk radion, and is probably their most liberal/leftist. Hightower is talk radio and is QUITE leftist but he gets VERY little time; AFAIK he only gets about 5 minutes.

Right now, the pacifica target audience is the typical classic liberal--votes Nader or Democrats, supports environmental issues, affirmative action, etc. Many of the voting memb
ers are peace activists. You can be a voting member through a 25 dollar donation or by volunteering 3 hours.

These stations have boards that are elected by members voting. They apparently are indirectly in charge of programming.

If you vote in people on the local boards who will put on talk radio, in the mold of Limbaugh, et al., we could start to get the ear of the average white worker/commuter. That is what the target audience should be--NOT the average classic Liberal. That average white worker commuter is who the Right has captured, and who we have to convince if we want to move the country.

Then sell all the nights and weekends to informercials, etc. Use that money to support the stations.

Develop talk radio leftwing talent. Then the successes can go out into the commercial talk radio market and make money while spreading the word. That is the same model the rightwing neoliberal corporate funded propaganda machine used.

But never mind me, just keep going to peace rallies, etc. That tactic has been working just FINE so far!

[The Magistrate]

26. One Thing, Mr. Truth, That Seems Most Important To Me

People on the left are going to have to learn to speak to people who do not view themselves as leftist in a language those folks can appreciate and understand. Some people above have touched on this, and it is an essential factor. It is well established that, on an issue by issue basis, a solid majority of the people support courses that are compatible with a left orientation, and further, that a great many people who consistently vote for rightist politocos would in fact serve their own interests much better by doing otherwise. These things represent great potential for left expansion, that the left has to date been unable to capitalize on.

One reason for this, it seems to me, is that a good deal of leftist speechifying acts to anger and dismay many of these people. They percieve the left as comprised of moral scolds, the least prized form of the species. They percieve the left as concerned with things that are arcane and unimportant, that it pursues by indicting them, and scorning them. These perceptions may be based on a caricature, but it is a caricature that it is easy to sustain with examples and anecdotes, and like all good caricatures, it is an exaggeration that contains an essential element of the thing represented.

The best field for altering this perception, it seems to me, is a down to earth agitation against corporate power, focusing on workplace conditions and pay. The keynote must be reformist, not revolutionary. Everyone wants economic security, and to be treated fairly; everyone has experienced outrageous acts of tyranny by the boss. Very few people want to overthrow the system, and even if what they complain of is intrinsic to the system, most will brindle at the claim it is: what most everyone wants is that the system be repaired and made to work better for them. A series of reforms, remember, may have the cumulative effect of altering a system into something almost unrecognizable when the start and finish are closely compared.

Any progress toward increasing left influence and identification in our country is going to have to come from the ground up. Leadership in such matters cannot be expected from the top down. The position of a politician in a democratic order was most succinctly expressed by a nineteenth century French radical who, in a time of street turmoil in Paris, cried, "Where are the people? I must hurry there and lead them!" Politicians in a democratic order are in the business of giving the people what they clearly want, not of changing what they want into what the politician desires. When the wants of the people are unmistakeable, they will be satisfied by politicians who wish to remain in office.

"Democracy is a form of government based on the proposition that the people know what they want, and ought to get it, good and hard."

[Zorra]

28. IMO,

we need to form a new organization within the Democratic Party. We are the activists. We can get people like Dennis Kucinich, Howard Dean, Barbara Boxer, John Conyers, etc. to be the leaders of this organization. We could use all the tools that have materialized in the fight against Bu$h, such as internet grassroots activism, internet publications, organizations such as Moveon and Code Pink, etc., in order to form a massive powerful coalition of liberal (I'm not afraid to use the word, even though the DLC wants me to be) Democrats.

This would save the Democratic Party from further fracturing over the RW influence of the DLC after Kerry is elected, and provide an effective counter to these pro-pre-emptive war Reagan Democrats. Some of our main issues could be reforming the media system, insuring honest elections, promoting a national healthcare policy, public campaign financing, seperation of corporation and state, rewriting the Patriot Act, etc.

[Senior citizen]

32. George W. Butcher has done more to move the

Democrats to the left than we could ever do. Now that they've seen where conciliation gets them, they're more in tune with reality.

But the final touches will come when the DNC and DLC add up how much money F 9/11 made and how much Kerry/Edwards raised. If the Dems pander to corporations, they won't get any more money from us.

[truthspeaker]

34. by getting Iraq war veterans to camp on the national mall

With a big sign saying "Look familiar, Mr. President?"

[JHBowden]

36. Get more lefties to vote Democratic.

If the Democratic Party has a large base of voters than generously donate money, there won't be a need to pander to special interests and Republican voters.

That's why Nader's run is so frustrating.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

38. It's a lose/lose for the left.

If Kerry wins, the DLC/moderates will proclaim the victory was due to Kerry moving right.

If Kerry loses, the DLC/moderates will whine that the left weren't supportive enough.

The only weapon that we have are our votes. The one's that Kerry and the DLC are taking for granted. If they see that they can't win without them, the party will move left.

[JHBowden]

39. Are you asking for more Liebermans?

If the votes on the extreme aren't reliable, politicians of any party will move to the center.

[CWebster]

41. Like swing voters are reliable

That is the point.

It becomes a problem for the Dems when the Left has an option to become the new swing voter.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

46. So, is that why Kerry is moving to the right now?

Because he'd rather go after the voters who select their candidate based on the kind of underwear they wear on Thursdays?

[THUNDER HANDS]

40. win a freakin' House seat, for starters

Jeez. We moved to the right because we lost the House and had no choice.

It's not rocket science.

Win back the house - poof - suddenly we're a liberal party again.

[TexasSissy]

43. You don't agree with the Party Platform? What parts?

I confess that I haven't even read the entire party platform. I'll check out the DNC website and see if it's there. Could be that I already agree w/the platform.

[CWebster]

45. Was invading Iraq wrong?

No WMDs, no Al-queda connection, yet the Democrats claim it was in the planning, in the execution that the mission failed. The question I have to ask is, if the Democrats are officially supporting this invasion and rejecting the notion that the war was a mistake, how do they morally and ethically justify the invasion? On that premise, how can the Democrats claim that any approach, more troops, etc, would alter the fundamental lack of legitimacy?

Anyone? Or is it keep the ABB blinders on?

[Forkboy]

47. I've given up hope that it will happen

:shrug: