(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . After the Election, Obstacles for Progressives [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.', 'Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags'] Date: 2022-11-08 Progressive policies are better. The people are more ambitious, more willing to hold right wingers accountable. Progressives tell their own messaging instead of reinforcing the right. What are obstacles to achieving more power? I’m writing this before election evening, publishing as the results come in. So I don’t know what the results will be. Maybe they go well for dems, maybe poorly. The writing will not be biased or influenced by election results. We’ll see the results this evening. Then be ready for primaries. And work between elections. Setting them up ahead of time. This post is for those primaries, and organizing work. Daily Kos might be hostile overall to progressives, but does have a big audience. Wired for Republicans Right wing are jocks, left wing are nerds in a movie high school. Right wing are tough, dominant men; left wing are caring, weak, fuzzy thinking women. Washington is wired for Republicans. These are metaphors, observations of how media, politicians, staffers, party officials, and random everyday people think. Added together, right wingers deserve power, left wingers do not. And if you aren’t full on right wing, moderates can substitute. When progressives seek power or use power, moderates and conservatives get angry. -All Republican moral panics. Critical race theory, crime and police, “being too woke”, Even nitpicky crap like “Latinx is scary”. Turns out Latinos are probably not going Republican at all, outside maybe Florida and the Rio Grande, not even all of Texas. In all of these, some moderate pundit or consultant will argue that liberals need to compromise. –Some pundits got rather excited about producing more oil and gas production thanks to Ukraine war. Gotta attack those environmentalists. -The Nevada dem party organization quit when some Sanders people won within party elections. Which possibly has lost several elections for democrats, if the close or slightly r leaning polls are accurate. –Mr. Ralston, the election data guy for Nevada, is suggesting something safer last I saw. But seemingly calm data analyst is also quite angry about Sanders people winning those inter party elections. Link 1 Link 2 –A moderate third party person may hurt the Oregon governor election. -Idiotic, nonsensical internet commentary. Including – Moderates will definitely pass the reconciliation bill . A month later, it was stupid to expect the reconciliation bill to pass . Either way, its all progressives fault. –Only South Carolina democrats/Southern democrats are real Democrats. Link. Said by a friend of James Carville about the 2020 primary. (Why am I getting fundraising emails and texts using these guys?) –Elizabeth Warren endorsed a bunch of pro abortion candidates in primaries. Mostly Kamala Harris fans, who in theory support abortion, decided this was the most awful thing ever. Screenshot of a few tweets, there was about 50/60 in total. Got several from one person, who boosted about 50 of these. Picture Link. -Internet harassment and toxicity. -Blaire Erskine attacked to the point of leaving twitter for a short time. Made a joke about getting two fundraising texts in a row after abortion reveal. Link to thread, include original joke and some responses. -Another comedian makes fun of Kamala Harris for saying some dumb things. Harris supporters try to get them fired. link. -Language about progressives you don’t see for moderates or conservatives. –”Progressives didn’t get everything they want” –”Progressives need to compromise”, rarely said about Manchin or Sinema, –”Are they loyal to Biden/Pelosi?” It was moderates who voted against Pelosi as speaker, mostly. And really, Biden and Pelosi work for us, not the other way around. They are not owed loyalty by anyone. –”Purity Pony”/asking for a Pony. Bipartisanship, healing the nation, everyone getting along would be the moderate version of demanding something impossible. Single payer health care, more regulations on things, student debt relief, building renewables are all physically and economically possible. Republicans fixing themselves is not. Progressives get blamed or asked to do things others are not. -After the BBB vote, “the squad voted against pipe repair” was a dishonest talking point. Moderates who voted against child care, more global warming fixes, etc….eh, what can you do. -Moderates have endorsed republicans, and interfered with bills without a similar fuss. What to do: Progressive policies are better. Passing them means taking and using power. Moderate and Conservative anger must be fought through. -Act dominant, confident, powerful whenever the opportunity comes up. Goes for ordinary people also. Argue positions strongly, compete, argue with others. -Fighting what should be the strongest dem supporters squanders resources. And reinforces right wing messaging. -Persistence and willingness to stick things out are valuable. -No politicians is irreplaceable, no one is special, no one is above criticism. Not Pelosi, or Biden, or Obama, or Kamala Harris or anyone else. Remind people of that fact as often as possible. Persistence and stubbornness Republicans are combative. Democrats, are not. Craven, Cowardly, Feckless are appropriate words. Not just being less combative, but punching at easier targets. Fighting against other’s attempts to be combative. And remember, “fighting” is just talking to people, passing laws, and such. Unless you live in a scary MAGA area, its words. Support for progressive things is weaker still. Often progressives get used as a punching target. -Pelosi resisted impeaching Trump, and toned down what did go through. Garland is also rather slow, maybe something passes, maybe not. -Hippie punching. Blaming activists for doing it wrong. Instead of helping achieve their goals, which are almost always worthy ones. -Voter registration organizations did good 2020 work, and useful funding dries up between elections. These groups got little attention after everything was finished. -Internet people are particularly bad about this. On Daily Kos right now, lots of doom posts. A couple years of Eleveld posts about how Republicans are totally screwing themselves. With a close election coming up, those were inaccurate. -In my personal life, I am not as much a people person as family members or close friends. I am also the person who actually does phone calls and other political activity. This gets frustrating. What to do: -Procrastination is easy. Vegging out in front of the TV or youtube is easy. Doing activity, learning new things, doing that big project you always wanted is hard. But rewarding. The same with politics. It’s easy to write about how the world is ending, or how democrats will definitely win. Or attack activists for not doing it right. Or for saying the wrong word or using a wrong term. But however scary Republicans are, attacking them, and supporting progressives is, it is more rewarding. As is supporting good policies, instead of giving up because “people are dumb” or “people don’t care about policy” or whatever excuse. Cultural pressure changes people. It encourages others to do the same. –Let smaller things slide. Harassment, abuse of any kind, that’s a red line. Using a term or slogan you don’t like, or a strategy you wouldn’t pick but makes logical sense, that’s not a problem. Decisions you don’t like that slide for other politicians, also fine. -If you support progressives, keep doing so. Some elections went well over the past few years. Some went poorly. AIPAC was weird and unexpected. Moderates being so damn angry was unexpected, at least by me. But organizations are getting better, so be ready for 2024. If Christy Smith in CA-27 can run in a third election in less favorable conditions after losing the first two, you can keep supporting politicians who support the policies you want through several elections. -Activists do a lot of things to get attention. If the goals are good, support the goals. Make them popular. Then if you get annoyed easily, you have less things to get annoyed about. Organization problems Organizations can be abusive. Or racist, sexist, and other ist’s. Applies to everyone, including ones supporting progressive goals. I put this in the middle because it isn’t special to progressives. I want to keep attention on non-supporters. But less abuse is still better than more. Picking leaders and politicians is a problem also. The boring unambitious moderate who does little. The loud, shouty person making strong moral statements who doesn’t make them happen. The domineering, abusive type who gets little done. Progressives seem to like the middle one. Based on my impressions. One, maybe two people I see as mistakes -Bernie Sanders as the big primary choice in 2020. Campaign harassed a lot of people. Promoted to a high level several who have gone Republican. (Glenn Greenwald, Brihiana Joy Gray) Campaign’s strategy of running in a split vote was obviously bad. Sanders himself said protests would get Republicans to support dem bills, which we know was nonsense. These problems were visible from the start. -Jayapal as head of CPC is a maybe. I read the site Dear White Staffers every few weeks, and Jayapal shows up over and over again as a bad environment to work in. Which may not be a problem itself for getting laws passed. But other CPC management seems a bit off. She did agree to pass the reconciliation bill on a promise. Also still has some questionable members, even though the caucus supposedly had tighter standards introduced. It’s a gut reaction of mine, but Jayapal might be someone who is good at power fights within an organization, and making strong statements, but bad at taking in outside information, or other skills needed to carry out those goals. What to do: -Abusiveness and harassment are red lines. We don’t want it for its own sake. In addition, it leads to groupthink and inflexibility. And assholes often go right wing. Ask Glenn Greenwald, Elon Musk, Andrew Cuomo. -Picking leaders and politicians is tricky. A good leader is one who accomplishes goals better than a random person or no one telling everyone what to do instead. A number of qualities accomplish this: ability to work with details, flexibility, openness to outside ideas, competitiveness applied the right way, determination. Seems a few rules would be: –Be open to different people, not just famous ones. There’s a few hundred representatives, senators, and governors for presidential primaries. Several hundred or thousand potential leaders in big enough organizations. There are options if you look. Obviously doesn’t work for congressional races or state legislatures where smaller numbers run. –Treat negatives as negatives and positives as positives. A boring, unambitious, moderate might be competent, probably they are just boring, unambitious, and moderate. An energetic, friendly, optimistic person might be dishonest or a hypocrite, probably they are actually friendly, energetic, and optimistic. –The loud shouty leader making strong, morally charged statements. It’s a widely loved archetype for leaders. Highly overrated. My gut reaction is that progressive supporters go for this type, while moderates are more diverse and also like Boring Technocrat, Quiet stays in the background, and other unambitious archetypes as not so great choices. Crabs in a Bucket, Pulling up the Ladder, No good things for You We can’t have nice things because someone will get mad. Can’t forgive student debt, because noncollege people might hate it. Can’t keep COVID vaccines and free tests and other programs going because antivax. I’ve even been questioned about continuing to use masks. Can’t fix the court or pas laws because Tradition and Filibuster. Can’t have cheaper, more efficient healthcare because change is scary and older people earned medicare and want it as a special thing. Abortion will just have to disappear for awhile. Right Wing will harass teachers, health care workers, voters in blue areas trans people, gay people, and nothing we can do. Rents just have to be high with few new houses built. It’s the theme of modern politics. Progressive policies are nice things,so naturally a lot of people oppose them. What to do: -Some student debt was forgiven, less than desirable but still happened. A huge backlash didn’t occur. If you are resentful about debt or anything else, too bad. If you support something nice, make this point over and over. -The model to preach is: support good things for others, expect the same in return. Better health insurance, slowing global warming benefits just about everyone. Resentment leads nowhere. -Crabs in a bucket or pulling up the ladder, make them socially toxic. Demographics Old vs. young is the biggest division among democrats. All primaries since 2008 have been age split. Clinton and Biden for older voters. Obama and Sanders for younger. The old age of dem leadership is regularly commented on. I'm getting fundraising messages "from" James Carville. Older voters go for moderates for whatever resson. Another group that hates progressives:are southern....moderate internet commentators. Maybe southerners as a whole, maybe not. But the moderate commentators are the most committed. What to do: -Demographics are what they are, unfortunately. But members of all groups will be on the fence, and better turnout in primaries can help. -Remind people that younger voters are turning out much better than only a few elections ago, more than said people's friends did when younger. -Southerners are a non majority, maybe about 1/4 of all dems, so are easier to work around if needed. A presidential candidate can focus elsewhere if needed. A pundit could be reminded how red the region is and it depends on blue areas for any political power. Corruption Insider trading in congress. Consultants more into fundraising and keeping taxes low. Congressional wildly successful stock trading. Media owned by rich people, reporting on the out of control crime that’s actually decreased somewhat. Add ego to the mix as well. Several blue dogs have switched parties or worked against democrats after criticism, or for attention. Such as Sinema. These politicians, and money people, oppose progressive goals. No What To do list here. There isn’t anything other than compete better in other ways. Changing laws when possible, building other media, are the longer term solutions to this problem. 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