The Case for Movement Liberalism

OK, so we lost. So 3% more of the country likes fighting unnecessary wars than us. 3% more likes ensuring their economic ruin than us (that is, unless they're filthy rich). 3% more can't stand the thought of gay guys kissing than us. And so on and so on and so on. If you accept the premise that the vote was fair (which is quite an if, the more you read), then you have to look at the results and try to figure out how the Democratic Party can turn it around. Let's just list them, in no particular order:

1) I don't blame Kerry. The guy ran a decent enough campaign. He won the debates, found his voice, and attacked on Iraq for about a month straight, and he ran this campaign without selling out his own values, like most candidates do. A Newsweek article that goes "inside the campaign" reports that Clinton advised Kerry to come out in favor of the anti-gay marriage amendments in the states. Kerry replied, "I would never do that." That, in many ways, proves that he would have been a far better President than politician. He didn't have a Ricky Ray Rector moment, and even when he tried, like with the duck hunting episode in Ohio, it appeared than even he wasn't buying it.

Kerry's big mistake, IMO, was not mentioning Abu Ghraib. For a country apparently obsessed with moral values, this grave immorality was the perfect example of how Bush and the Republicans were committing a snow job of the highest order. Plus, it's not just a "gotcha" moment, but one with real import; nothing has radicalized the world (and particularly the Muslim world) more than Abu Ghraib, with has directly contributed to a decrease in security. In addition, Kerry was too busy articulating why Bush was wrong, and never got around to articulating why he was right, and what he stood for. In the "post-thinking" universe in which we live, that's crucial. You can almost say that Bush was happy to be wrong about nearly every policy, because it proved he wouldn't change course.

2) Because a good percentage is off the table. The main organizational structure in America is the church. The brutal forced decline of the union movement in America had a political cost as well, because that was once the support structure for the Democratic Party. Now that it's severely diminished, all we have left is the church. And the church has become increasingly partisan at the same rate as the Republican Party has become increasingly religious. In fact, the party is a religion at this point. And that means a wide swath of the country is beyond the reach of reason, no matter how much economic populism you give them. They can return to the fold, but it's going to take several cycles and a lot of personal heartache before they drop the ridiculous notion that "God is just testing me" and realize that change can actually happen in this life too.

The labor movement needs to strike back (although the deck is stacked heavily against them), but in addition other structures need to be built. Some of them are already happening online. Sites like the Daily Kos and others are organizing people across the country. This, in effect, needs to be localized; Kos chapters, if you will, that can meet in real life and organize around quality candidates.

3) But all is not lost. The Republican Party has a big Northeast, Upper Midwest, and Pacific problem. Sure, you'll never hear that, but with the lost of New Hampshire, New England and the Mid-Atlantic are solid blue, as is the Upper Midwest (Iowa is extremely close and may yet go to Kerry once all the votes are counted) and the Pacific Coast. That eliminates any hopes for an electoral landslide from the Republicans.

In other words, we're not that far away. It's not about "We can only run a Southern Democrat." Is the other side thinking "We have to run a Northern Republican"? Hell no. The Mountain West is trending our way, too, although it's yet to be reflected in the Presidential vote. Montana has a Dem governor now. So does Wyoming. Colorado has a Dem state House. Nevada's electoral majority tightened. Core Democratic values like the environment, along with a reaction against fiscal insanity (who would've thought fiscal conservatism would be the Democrat's issue?), is what will move the Mountain West. Well before the South.

4) You have to take a stand. Or, at least, you have to take up a position opposite your opponent, and forcefully defend it. Republican-lite doesn't work. "I'm not Bush" doesn't work. If the choice offered to the voters includes one guy with his flag planted in the ground, and the other guy pointing at the flag and saying "That's not what you want," there isn't really a choice. At least the flag is tangible. And in a society which is incresingly distilled to soundbites, that's all anybody gets to see: the flag. The Democrats are the opposition party in a government wholly owned by Republicans. They should not be the loyal opposition. Language that puts yourself in "the party of reform" works. The saddest thing about government is that everybody wants its power, but nobody wants to associate themselves with it. We've had something like 6 or 7 straight "outsiders" win elections. Miraculously, in this race Kerry was seen as the Washington insider over a sitting President! By taking up the opposite position, we put ourselves outside of government, which is really where the nation approves of its leaders being, strangely enough.

5) Build the movement. That is, continue building the movement. We're two years into what was, for conservatives, a 40-year movement of building infrastructure. We have a long way to go, but the movement is starting to happen. We have media outlets like Air America (true liberal media, not just "objective" SCLM), we have think tanks like the Center for American Progress and Media Matters, we have ACT, we havbe MoveOn, we have the online blogosphere. It's a good place to start, and it must be supplemented and allowed to grow. The worst thing that could be done would be to drop everything and try a different tactic. The Democrats are by their very diverse nature a loose coalition. That doesn't work anymore; the message has to be tight every single day for four years.

I'll post tomorrow on what that message should be.