Two-faced Progressives
04/24/08 08:53 AM
“Angry doesn't win general elections. It doesn't entice new voters into the process or beguile independents or heaven knows, invite Republican defections. But by definition, it has enormous negative power. And in the next couple of weeks, we're going to see how angry Hillary and her supporters really are.”
This is Slate’s Melinda Henneberger proving that she has in fact spent the past several decades in a hyperbaric chamber. Anger (and large dollops of fear) is exactly what has won elections at least since Nixon: Anger at the 60s social revolts and reforms; anger at minority advancement and the diminution of white privilege; anger at immigrants supposedly taking over America. Newt Gingrich’s Contract With America harnessed anger at a government “that is too big, too intrusive, and too easy with the public's money” to reshape the political landscape.
Her attitude encapsulates the two-headed nature of the progressive response to the last eight years of Republican rule-by-lawbreaking. On the one hand, bloggers and progressive comments sections seethe with righteous fury at the various tramplings of the Constitution and international law. On the other, Democratic voters rejected John Edwards’ pugilistic campaign , deride Hillary Clinton supporters as insufficiently forgiving and frighteningly aggressive, and encourage Barack Obama’s more “above-it-all” inclinations.
Perhaps this is why, despite a Democratic congressional majority, we have utterly failed to even begin to end this war, or seriously investigate how we came to tolerate torture, or how various lobbyists have worked to systematically destroy public health and welfare safeguards. Do our lawmakers see that our anger is more display than heartfelt? Do they sense that we will not have their backs when the shit hits the fan and the pitchfork wielding opposition comes a-marching?
Do they sense that we just really don’t care that much; we just play like we do online? Do the mainstream media deride our Democratic political leaders as wusses who don’t really believe in anything enough to fight for it because… well, because that’s what they are and who they represent?
Revolutions are inevitably outgrowths of anger. The labor movement, the civil rights movement, the women’s movement, the Reagan revolution—all of it (and note the greater effort and sacrifice the progressive revolutions require compared with the reactionary ones). Some Democrats seem to believe that—as in the high-tech and housing bubbles—old rules don’t apply and we no longer have to pay a price to gain the change we deem necessary. In this Oprah-fied age, the effortless group-hug, the miracle of “right thinking” will take care of it. Didn’t you read “The Secret”? Just believe…
Eventually those high-tech and housing bubbles burst, and we learned the hard way that some fundamentals do not change. We learned the hard way that—as in physics—movement comes at a cost.
I hope enough progressives—including our eventual Presidential nominee—learn this lesson in time. And I hope we progressives decide we’re willing to pay the price to get what we want.