Fighting vs winning

[Donald Ian Rankin]

I don't normally start threads, but seeing as this is my 1000st post, I thought I would use the opportunity to bring up something I've been seeing a lot recently, and that worries me somewhat.

A very common meme here on DU is "I want politicians who will fight for what they believe in". "Why aren't the Democrats fighting the Republicans?". "Our elected representatives lack the stomach to fight".

At first glance, this seems eminently reasonable - surely, fighting for good government is a good thing? - but what worries me is that the underlying attitude often seems to be that fighting for what one believes in *is an end in itself*.

This strikes me as very misguided. I don't want politicians who will *fight* for what I believe in; I want politicians who will *win* for what I believe in. Clearly, if they don't fight, they're unlikely to win, but if they're not going to achieve something then there's nothing to gain by them fighting for the sake of it. A lot of DUers seem either to disagree with me, or not to have thought of this.

The two events where this has struck me most in the recent past were the Alito confirmation and Russ Feingold's censure motion. In both cases, there was an incredible degree of bitterness and recrimination here on DU against the Senators and Congressmen who refused to fight, and the fact that there was no possibility of winning barely seemed to be mentioned. Something similar happened over Kerry's refusal to contest Ohio in 2004, although it's marginally less clear that there was no chance of him achieving something there.

This worried me - the Democrats need all the support they can get if they're going to get to the point where they can translate "fighting" into "winning", and criticising them for failing to pick losing battles strikes me as counterproductive in the extreme.

Often, of course, it's worth fighting for something even if there's no chance of winning - doing so may well influence people to support it more, making winning that or other fights at a later date more possible - but equally, it can be counterproductive, discouraging future support. But when a fight is unwinnable, the decision on whether or not to make it should be made purely on the basis of "what will fighting and not fighting achieve". The accusation that the Democrats are "oppositionist", "negative", "angry" seems to play well with the voters for the Republicans, alas.

An awful lot of DUers seem to apply a chain of reasoning "It would be much better if X happened rather than Y happens. Therefore it is much better to fight for X as opposed than Y or not - or rather, much worse not to fight for X. Therefore, those who don't fight for X are very bad" even when fighting for X has no possibility of being achieved. I think this is misguided.

My advice to all would be: don't demand that your representatives fight every time, or even that they fight every time the issue at stake matters. Demand that they *win* as often as they can, fighting or not fighting accordingly. And act, argue and vote yourself accordingly.

[wryter2000]

1. While I agree with your thesis

We might have won on Alito with a filibuster. We have the numbers for a filibuster.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

4. In theory, yes.

In practice, my understanding is that while the Democrats had the numbers for a filibuster, the Republicans could and would simply have changed the rules to render it ineffectual.

That would quite possibly have reflected more badly on them than on the Democrats, making the filibuster still the correct option, but most of the posts on the subject I saw were attacking those not filibustering for allowing Alito to be confirmed, rather than for the much less serious and emotive, and more debateable charge of costing the Democrats votes, and this struck me as a fundamental misconception.

[wryter2000]

11. We don't know what would have happened

That's why I used the word "might." However, we didn't really try. A Supreme Court nomination is huge. If we had filibustered and they threatened the nuclear option and we thought it was a real possibility, we could have withdrawn the filibuster.

Perhaps what was worse was the Dems who sounded as if they sincerely thought Alito was okay. There's no way in hell he was okay.

I don't want to throw all the Dinos out (although there is one...), but I do think they should have stood up on the Alito nomination.

[Lerkfish]

2. and let me say for your 1000 post -- I completely disagree with your stand

Republicans have shown what doing "what will win' produces: corruption.

politicians who only fight when they are assured of victory are adept at protecting their own jobs, but are not good leaders.

Tell you what, do you want and ambulance to come up to you after being hurled from your vehicle, and have them argue about whether your chances of survival are good, and then have them say "sorry bud, we don't think we have a chance of saving you. You're on your own. Die knowing we were more concerned about our own success rate."

[Donald Ian Rankin]

7. Point of information.

I am *not* advocating not fighting except when victory is assured.

I am advocating only fighting when *defeat* is assured if there are reasons other than the primary one (historical record, votes, preparing ground for future battles, etc); doing so on the clear understanding that that (as opposed to preventing the thing fought) is the reason for fighting; and limiting the criticism of those who disagree accordingly.

In the "ambulance" analogy, in your situation (small but non-zero chance of saving life) obviously it's worth trying, but if there is no chance of doing so (less comon in medicine than in politics, where the result of a vote is often a mathematical certainty) I'd far rather they concentrated on palliative care.

[blm]

3. I think if no one fights, then how is the historic record going to tell

future generations what dissent occurred and why?

Sure, some things are not settled the way they should, but, imagine if Kerry had taken the advice of other Democrats and left IranContra and BCCI alone? And if more Democrats had supported Kerry in his efforts to reveal BCCI more fully, then 9-11 would likely NOT have happened.

Shouldn't the historic record matter? I side with YES - ABSOLUTELY.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

5. Yes,

which is why I think that often fighting is the correct option even when you can't win.

But doing so should be done on the understanding that it is being done for the historic record, or for votes, or to prepare the ground for winning later, or what have you, rather than actually for stopping whatever it is that is being fought against this time, and as such the degree of hostility directed against those who don't should be proportional to that, not to the magnitude of the thing being fought against.

[blm]

9. I agree about the disproportionate and often selective outrage directed at

other lawmakers. I am never comfortable with that.

Lawmakers act according to their specialty or interests. For Kerry it has usually been about exposing government corruption, and some of us key into that interest, as well.

[sweetheart]

6. fighting is winning

When you're plowing the field,
to see they're rapin' your wife,
you get back in time to see her yield,
and enraged, you defend her life.

And if you're not enraged nostrels aflare,
strategic non-party non-strategic fife,
still gardening away while rapin' wifey there,
tactical irrational saviour from strife.

And for the beat up man defending his wife,
impresses so with the bravery so grand,
against an evil enemy, to die from their knife,
and dead disembodied we observe truth was to stand.

Disembodied voters speak and let us know,
conscience fiercest warrior, heart's injustice woe.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

8. This is rather what I was talking about.

How is rushing in heroically to help your wife, getting killed, and leaving her a widow, going to help?

If there's a chance of protecting her, obviously do so. But if there isn't, then getting killed so as to make yourself feel heroic will make her life *worse*, not better - hide, wait, and potentially you'll be able to help her afterwards.

All of which, incidentally, assumes the validity of your analogy, which is questionable - in a fight, unlike in politics, a result is seldom a mathematical certainty.

Fighting is *not* winning. Really. They're two completely different things.

[sweetheart]

12. Killing and distraction

Sometimes one has no choice but to be enraged,
to speak on behalf of the majority of their constituents,
and that is fighting politically, and winning,
in a domestic district by district concern.

The national voice can sometimes sound irrational,
as what passes for common-sense knowledge that the
Bush government is criminally incompetent across the
state of california, is just being discovered in the
thicker states. You'll hear then more outspoken advocacy
of intense measures coming from the pure blue, and the
rather different advocacy of centrist districts where
that shit won't fly. And here, DU is a mix, and any
centrist can read through the leftchatter.

Isn't DU like a huge flock of very noisy birds,
of all different kinds, spread out across meadow,
forest, and clifftop. Some birds are able to see
around and they call the shape of the land, and
the other birds learn to recognize those calls.

Other birds sit in the forest canopy and talk
about the climate inside their tree. The democratic
party has not been a national party, and in many
ways it is still not, as evidenced by the wide chatter
of the birds, and their indifference to the eagle calls
from the high ground.

But winning is fighing, ethically. The instant you
choose to make a stand for the right thing you win,
no matter the fight, and i think many birds like
the feeling of victory.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

13. I couldn't disagree more.

In politics, that "winning is fighting, ethically" is completely untrue.

The aim isn't to die/retire universally admired, it's to make the world a better place.

Fighting in politics that doesn't achieve something - either the thing fought for, or setting up a better position to achieve something else worthwhile later - is *worthless*.

I don't give a damn about feelings of victory. I like the feeling of living in a well-governed country. When fighting will help achieve that, fight; when it won't, don't.

[sweetheart]

14. chattering robins

Every once in a while, a big bird of prey soars overhead,
one that actually "wins".

I did not make a clear point. I'm saying that the chattering
classes are very well represented here, and that those persons
seek an instant moral victory, as their only fight is writing
a post on DU. As well, there are political movers on this
board, but they are not swirling in those circles of
chattering divisiveness that you claim is wasting political
capital. Yet the chattering classes provide a cover of
complexity of opinion, that is so difficult for most persons
to understand, not having trawled DU for years like the more
media-savvy have, people start to think the chatterers are
the center.

If you discovered DU in 2001, your 1000'th post might have
been quite a few years ago, yes, probably not even in the archives.
You might have written 1000 important, wise opinions that
are now, however relevant, buried and lost. And maybe, like
a lotta DU older, more serious drivers who did not just suddenly
wake up to bush's imperium, but who've been under strategic
seige for decades... persons who see this bushwhack as wholly
more systemic, pervasive and strategic in its danger. Then those
persons are already long behind howard dean in crafting lackoff
reframing... which is working bush to his lowest point ever
in approval.

You presume that what you've read are the opinions that matter,
and my point is that the appearance is totally misleading, and
you have to skim the creme... we *are* winning, the house
and the senate are in sight.

[FrenchieCat]

10. To some degree, I agree with you.....

Because there is a very thin line between what politicians will do to help themselves and what they will do to help the Nation. Sometimes the two occur mutually; sometimes a politician will have to sacrifice his stature in order to do what's best for the nation; and sometimes a politician will do what's good for him, regardless of how the nation is affected....so it all does depend.

To date, I have become "suspicious" of most politician's stance....and I look at various criterias as to what is "fighting", what is "Grandstanding", and what is being derelic in one's duty:
The timing; the chance of the issue being proposed making an actual difference; the principle involved; and the tenacity and logic of the pol's effort....rather than just judge willy nilly who's fighting and who's not.

Part of getting kudos (from me anyways) for fighting is the strategy incorporated into the fight to win, not simply are they fighting, or are they not.

Take for example the censure resolution....
I agree that it has no chance in passing---So whether it would actually make a difference, I have to imagine, had already been calculated by Feingold (who proposed it).

In reference to timing, I'm glad it was done way before the 2006 election. There would have been almost a contradictory result in proposing such a devisive issue that might divide the Democrats when it wasn't required. Seems like this issue will not be cause for that...so that's good.

In reference to principle....I can possibly see a principle there, however, the repercusions to Bush with this proposal were so slight (a public slap on the hand) for such serious offenses, until I'm not sure if the "Principle" was really there to begin with.

So many will hold up Feingold as fighting for censure and accountability...but I didn't call it that way. I felt it was more a move made by Feingold for Feingold. Maybe not for ulterior motives beyond being frustrated and needing satisfaction.....but I just didn't see a Censure Resolution as being a sound strategy to be called "fighting back".

PS. I will say, however, that when one looks at all that Feingold has stood for in total....the Censure Resolution is minor...but I just don't give Feingold the type of credit for it that others might. I said this a while ago...so it's not a new thought of mine. http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=2561277&mesg_id=2561337

[Time for change]

15. I think that you may misconstrue what many DUers have in mind

I think that there are few if any of us who would want our representatives to fight just for the sake of fighting, even if we knew that it wouldn't accomplish anything or would probably even do harm.

But many of us believe that we are in a severe crisis right now, and that we need to fight in order to change that. We feel that too many of our representatives are just "playing it safe", when THAT is what is counter productive.

Take the Feingold censure resolution, for example. The point is not whether that particular resolution would be likely to win if Dems got behind it. The point is that there were issues in the resolution that are crucial to our country's well being, and that these issues need to be heard. Our corporate media is silent on these issues, so in order to make them heard, Dems have to actively work to make them heard.

Sometimes "playing it safe" is a losing strategy. And that is what many of us believe is the case at this time.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

16. Which is fair enough.

But the feeling I got from a lot of the posts attacking those Senators not supporting the censure resolution was that they felt they were not just guilty of bad strategy, they felt they were guilty of letting Bush go uncensured.

I don't think bad strategy would merit the number of uses of words like "spineless", "sold out", "gutless" and so on I saw. "Misguided", fair enough, but I don't think that's what the majority of their critics were thinking.

[Time for change]

17. Well, bad strategy could be the result of being misguided, or it could be

the result of being "sold out" or "spineless", etc.

I haven't used those terms myself with regard to our Democratic Senators.

But it may be that it would take a great deal of courage in today's circumstances to go with the right strategy, i.e., the right strategy in terms of what's best for our country. By playing it safe and not making waves, some Democratic Senators may be taking a course that is designed to safeguard risks to their career, but it may be bad strategy with respect to what's best for our country.

I believe, for example that censuring, or even attempting to censure Bush, is best for our country, because the public's attention needs to be drawn to that, given the utter failure of our corporate media to do that. But it could be risky (or perceived as risky) to a Senator's career, and that may be the reason that there isn't more support for a censure resolution.

Anyhow, I think that something like this is what most critics of our Democratic Senators have in mind when they use abusive terms to describe them.

[AtomicKitten]

18. I say we can do both.