DU In A New Age - Democratic Underground

gcomeau

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Sat Nov-29-08 10:14 PM
Original message

DU In A New Age

Or alternately, "A Few Thought On How We Deal With A Democratic Administration".

I've noticed, particularly during last week while the economic team appointments and Clinton rumors were breaking, that a lot of people don't seem to be getting this. DU has never existed with a Democratically controlled government in place before and it appears a great many people here have no clue how to make the appropriate adjustment. For 6 years we had Bush in the White House and the Republicans in control of Congress. People it very quickly became apparent there was just no way we were going to be able to reach middle ground on policy with. So what shape did political activism on DU generally take shape as? Attempts at obstructionism and undermining of the general credibility of those in power to try to prevent them from doing too much damage. Protests against their decisions and policies were hyperbolic, not simple criticisms of the logic or rational of what was being put forward or suggestions for how to improve it... since we knew they wouldn't be listened to by the people making the decisions anyway. So the protests were extended to direct attacks on their character, credibility, and suitability for office. It was seen as necessary to throw as many roadblocks as possible in front of these people, erode their popular support, hammer them from every angle at every opportunity in a desperate attempt to somehow lessen the amount of damage they could do until they could be removed.

There can be some debate about whether that was the best course of action available or not, but that's not what I'm here to do right now. It IS what happened. We all understand why.

But then 2 years ago the Democrats took back the House and kinda the Senate... and as a community we didn't adjust our approach a whole lot. Whenever they did something the community here didn't like people rushed straight for the armory and let loose with everything in the arsenal. Bush and his cronies were still in the White House, they were still doing pretty much anything they wanted and driving us insane doing it, the government was still basically 'the enemy'. And precious few people here were all that interested in distinguishing between different types of opposition on an emotional level. So people routinely let them have it... "betrayal!" "traitors!" "criminals!" "incompetents!" "corrupt!" "corporate whores!". Attacks aimed not just at opposing or redirecting but undermining. Discrediting. Removing their ability to govern effectively with a base of popular support or the confidence of their constituents. Nobody who has spent much time around here can honestly say they haven't seen that type of thing, and plenty of it, directed at Democratic officials whenever things took a turn we weren't happy with.

There is a lot more to debate about whether THAT was the best course of action to take, but again not what I'm here to do. It IS what happened. It continues today.

But now it damn well needs to stop.

Because here's the bottom line folks. This is pretty close to as good as it gets for us right here and we can't afford to fuck it up. We have a president on his way in who is clearly inclined, at the very least, to actually LISTEN to constructive criticism and new ideas. We have a democratic majority in the House AND Senate who have the potential to get serious reform enacted and who hold policy positions that, while obviously are probably not entirely in line with where we want them to be, are at least largely compatible and open to influencing further in our direction. We have a choice how we handle this.

We can keep undermining them at every turn every time they do anything we don't like. We can be all stick and no carrot... do what we say or else there will be a temper tantrum like you're never seen! We can do everything we can to drive their approval ratings down every time they take a step wrong and obsess over every way they deviate from our ideal policy goals. We can be the vicious attack dogs pouncing on anyone who strays from the path... and I'll tell you where that ends up. We maybe get a few concessions to try to quiet us down. I'm not denying politicians are sensitive to negative pressure. But then more elections are going to roll around... and the approval ratings of this Democratic congress will still be in the tank where we worked our asses off to put them and keep them while everyone on the right was doing the same damn thing for different reasons. And THEN what the hell do you people think is going to happen? We're going to have the damn Republicans to deal with again because they WILL make gains in that environment. If anyone here is even thinking of saying "NO... we'll get real progressives then!" Dream on. You need support from the independents in the center, and from their perspective we have a bunch of Democrats in charge right now. We tank their approval ratings and they are NOT going to go along with the idea that the solution is to replace them with different Democrats. And depending on memories of the last 8 years to keep them from going back to the Republicans a few years down the road if we screw this up is pure idiocy, anyone here familiar with the attention span of the average uncommitted swing voter? Really?

Alternatively we can get a hold of ourselves, change direction a bit, and say it's carrot time. We still offer criticism, nobody is saying you have to stifle your opinions... but do it constructively and rationally for cripes sake. Don't just show we can be a giant pain in the ass anchor on approval ratings if they don't play ball with us, show we can be a great big booster shot to those same approval ratings if they DO play ball. Make a concerted effort to make it very clear to Congress that if they start delivering it won't just be a slight lessening of the headache, we'll get out and HELP them. And then maybe, just maybe, the next time an election rolls around we will still have gotten some of those concessions, AND we'll have a decent shot at keeping the people willing to give them to us in office to keep freaking doing it. How does that sound to everybody? Sounds pretty damn nice to me, but then I seem to have a greater tendency than most people I know to think in the long term.

And I don't want to hear any of this "this is just a discussion board, it's not like anyone listens to what we say here anyway" bullshit. If it doesn't matter what we say here there's no point BEING here is there? You can debate how MUCH it matters, how MUCH it influences wider opinion, but if you don't think it does at all get the hell off your computer and go do something that you do think matters why don't you?

Examples of NON-Constructive Criticism

"Obama is keeping Gates! Gates is a HAWK! That means Obama is being a HAWK! He's going to keep us in Iraq and act like Bush and oh god he's letting us down!!!!!

The fundamental stupidity of that statement aside... who the hell is that helping exactly?

"The Senate voted to pass the Bailout and it didn't have this clause in it that I think is essential! They're SCUM! They're WHORES! They're in the pocket of the corporations! Corrupt typical politicians! They're WORTHLESS!!! Why did we even bother giving them their majority it doesn't make any difference!?!?!?

Oh yeah, thanks so much. That's ever so productive. And then there's the title of this article from an apparent moron at the "World Socialist Web Site" someone decided to post as a new thread a little while ago as I was beginning to compose this:

"The Gates appointment: Obama slaps antiwar voters in the face "

That's just purely stupid. What is that meant to accomplish? "Slaps antiwar protesters in the face"? Really? THAT is the most appropriate and constructive way to characterize this? Before we even know what he intends to DO with Gates just having him in position is a direct personal assault on people against the war? No it fucking isn't. Continuing the damn war is slapping anti-war protesters in the face. Using someone they don't like, or who in the past did things they don't like, to now DO WHAT THEY WANT is nowhere near slapping them in the face. The only thing I can think that idiotic title would possibly be directed towards accomplishing is driving a wedge between Obama and his support base, and how the hell does THAT help us get what we want?

"Look! Lots of Clinton People! Obama is the same as Clinton! We wasted all our time trying to get him elected!"

So... what's the productive proposal buried in that? We should all time travel back to the primaries and take all our donations and volunteer time back? How the hell is this helping at all? (Not to mention it's also stupid and wrong to try to fortune tell Obama's policy agenda by looking at his personnel choices when he's made it clear... lots... that HE is setting his policy agenda and is staffing based on a desire for conflicting viewpoints to keep him on his toes and administrative capability in implementing his decisions with a minimal learning curve.)

Things like this need to be curtailed. They really, really do.

Example of Constructive Criticism

"I believe the Gates appointment is preventing or at least making it more difficult to acheive the policy goals Obama outlined, and here is why... <explanation and anaysis>. This being the case I believe that we must lobby the Obama administration to reconsider this decision, if not now then in a reasonably short period of time, and appoint <this person> because they will be better able to advance our agenda for <these reasons>. Here is how I propose we organize that effort... <more explanation>..."

Approaching the issue in that manner... rather like grown-ups... is going to be more effective when we're dealing with people who are at least nominally supposed to be on our side to begin with and who we would like to damn well keep there. We actually have some reasonable expectation that a Democratic government will hear out liberal proposals for cripes sake, but NOBODY in the White House, Congress or Senate is going to be interested in giving a fair hearing to 12 year olds screaming "YOU SUCK!". And if that's what they're hearing from our camp day in and day out then they're going to just tune us out and go listen to what other people have to say.

Now, if this was my forum I'd be taking a few steps. If I wanted this to be a community where meaningful, effective efforts were made to organize a lobby for Liberal policy positions now that we have the more liberal party actually in charge of things I'd be directing the Mod staff to crack down on the idiots that are going to undermine those efforts now that we have "our" people in charge and make it clear that a change in tone and approach is called for. That we are NOT still dealing with the opposition in charge of the government and we need to start acting like it. Last time I looked this was DEMOCRATIC Underground. Guess who's in charge now folks? If we keep acting like the current majority government is the enemy when it's OUR majority they're going to oblige us and return the favor. If our people in the Senate and House, or even in the White House, take some steps we don't like it's still our people doing something we disagree with. How we deal with that is supposed to be different than if we're dealing with Republicans. A few more explicit forum guidelines regarding constructive vs non constructive methods of registering disagreement with the Democratic House, Senate and Executive might be a good place to start and if people insist on only coming in to post nothing more substantial than "Obama sucks now that he did this thing I don't like", or "All the Democrats are spineless pussies because they passed this bill over here" over and over again then it would be nice to have the mods step in and put those people on a little time out while they reflect on how they could contribute a little more productively.

Of course it isn't my forum, so all I can do is suggest, and I'm not placing any wagers on how likely this is to happen... so the most optimistic likely outcome I can hope for here is some non-zero number of posters who might have been inclined to act a bit foolishly when preferring criticism will reconsider their approach. And I'm sure any second now replies will be coming in calling me a speech censoring fascist for suggesting it. No doubt I will encounter at least a few replies ironically informing me I am wrong to express my opinion of the intelligence of the expression of other people's opinions because everyone is entitled to their opinion here and opinions criticising other people's opinions are an attempt at the suppression of free speech so be quiet!!!!... or something. I astounds me how often I run into that actually. Those responses will be ignored, or possibly mocked, depending on my mood. On the other hand there may be a few people responding with a thoughtful analysis of why they think I'm wrong or how my idea on this subject can be improved upon... you know, that constructive thing I've been mentioning. Those will be listened to.