Parallax View

Partly following up the last post, “Why We Blog” — Take a look at this WaPo headline on an article by Jim VandeHei: “Blogs Attack From Left as Democrats Reach for Center.”

And then take in this first paragraph:

Democrats are getting an early glimpse of an intraparty rift that could complicate efforts to win back the White House: fiery liberals raising their voices on Web sites and in interest groups vs. elected officials trying to appeal to a much broader audience.

My revision:

    “Blogs Demand that Democrats Be Democrats”

    Democrats are being put on notice that they can no longer ignore their base to appeal to right-of-center “swing” voters. Fiery liberals are raising their voices on Web sites and in interest groups to tell elected officials that in trying to appeal to a “broader” audience, the party is in danger of losing all definition and becoming an amorphous, unidentifiable blob.

Some of what VandeHei claims is going on in liberal blogoland is a bit, um, wrong. “First, liberal Web logs went after Democrats for selecting Virginia Gov. Timothy M. Kaine to deliver the response to Bush’s speech next Tuesday,” writes VandeHei. Really? I hadn’t noticed, and I’m here pretty much all the time. But if you keep reading, you find that “liberal Web logs” is Arianna Huffington. I like her, but she’s hardly the entire liberal blogosphere.

VandeHei’s article describes a war between wild-eyed, far-leftist ideological commandos against the sober, realistic Democratic Party establishment professionals. If the Dems cater too much to us whackjobs, they risk alienating centrist voters.

Yeah, right. This is the same conventional “wisdom” that tells Dems they’d better be careful about criticizing Bush’s handling of the Iraq War, even though adults nationwide disapprove of Bush’s handling of the war by 58 to 39 percent (CNN/USA Today/Gallup Poll conducted Jan. 20-22, 2006). And this is the same conventional wisdom telling Dems to back away from Roe v. Wade, even though 66 percent of adults nationwide say they don’t want it overturned (ibid.).

But the fact is that our problems with the establishment Dems aren’t really about ideology. I agree with Scott Shields at MyDD:

To be fair, there is some tension between the Democratic Party and the progressive blogosphere. Unlike the rightist blogosphere, we tend to be a bit more independent and suspicious of power. But to pretend that we’re in an all-out war is silly. If that were the case, I doubt the majority of us would still consider ourselves Democrats. Some of our favorite Democrats are people like Jack Murtha, the pro-life Harry Reid, and Russ Feingold, who voted to confirm Chief Justice Roberts. As Markos has pointed out time and again, the tension doesn’t stem from ideology. It’s all about entrenched power and reform.

What we really want is for Dems to work with the liberal blogosphere and with progressive organizations like Moveon to form an effective liberal/progressive coalition to counter the Right. In other words, we in the blogosphere want to work with the party to form a Daou power triangle. The Republican Party uses rightie bloggers to get their message out; much of the Democratic Party runs away from us, screaming. But just exactly who these Dems expect to vote for them — if not people looking for an alternative to the GOP — is a mystery to me. As Peter Daou wrote,

Unfortunately for the progressive netroots, the intricate interplay of Republican persuasion tactics, media story-telling, and 21st century information flow seems beyond the ken of most Democratic strategists and leaders. The hellish reality progressive bloggers have acknowledged and internalized is still alien to the party establishment. Dem strategy is still two parts hackneyed sloganeering and one part befuddlement over the stifling of their message.

Maybe the Democratic establishment wants it so, maybe they don’t know better, but progressive bloggers and activists are starting to see the bitter reality of their isolation: the triangle is broken and they’re on their own until further notice.

Back to VandeHei:

“The bloggers and online donors represent an important resource for the party, but they are not representative of the majority you need to win elections,” said Steve Elmendorf, a Democratic lobbyist who advised Kerry’s 2004 presidential campaign. “The trick will be to harness their energy and their money without looking like you are a captive of the activist left.”

We may or may not be representative of the majority the Dems need to win elections now, but what the Dems need to do is work with us to educate and persuade people that the GOP way of governing the country isn’t the only way.

How in the world did the extremist whackjob Right get itself framed as the “center,” after all? VandeHei provides a clue:

The closest historic parallel would be the talk-radio phenomenon of the early 1980s, when conservatives — like liberals now — felt powerless and certain they did not have a way to voice their views because the mainstream media and many of their own leaders considered them out of touch. Through talk radio, often aired in rural parts of the country on the AM dial, conservatives pushed the party to the right on social issues and tax cuts.

And we know, even if VandeHei doesn’t say so, that those 1980s righties were not howling in the wilderness, but were being mentored and funded and promoted by big bucks donors and right-wing think tanks. And pretty soon the only message most people heard though the allegedly liberal “MSM” was the rightie message. Thus, the Right runs everything now.

You’d think that would be a clue.

VandeHei again:

The question Democrats will debate over the next few years is whether the prevailing views of liberal activists on the war, the role of religion in politics and budget policies will help or hinder efforts to recapture the presidency and Congress.

In fact, the prevailing views of liberal activists on these matters are the views of a large part of the American public. Like most Americans we think the war was a mistake (although there are diverse views about how to get out), most of us support the separation of church and state as Thomas Jefferson described it, and we’d like to go back to the dear departed days of budget surpluses that we enjoyed in the Clinton Administration. In other words — this is not radical stuff. We are not trying to turn America into a socialist utopia. We’re just trying to pull the government away from the extreme Right and back toward the center. And we’d like to live in a nation in which progressive policy views can get a fair hearing in public, and are not shouted down by rightie goons.

I honestly believe that if most Americans could hear what we had to say, they’d realize we’re mostly right. And the Dems could help themselves in the long run by helping us.

Even if they disagree with their positions, Democratic candidates recognize from the Dean experience the power of the activists to raise money and infuse a campaign with their energy. On the flip side, the Alito and Kaine episodes serve as a cautionary tales of what can happen to politicians when they spurn the blogs.

Once again, there was not a Kaine “episode”; most of us were thrilled when Kaine won the Virginia gubernatorial race in November, and I for one look forward to what he has to say next week. But what really worries the establishment Dems is whether we’ll continue to let them use us as campaign ATM machines if they’re afraid to be seen with us in public.

11 thoughts on “Parallax View

  1. Those highly paid beltway political consultants and our ‘star’ beltway Democratic contenders may suffer from ‘hierachfiend syndrome’.

    Hierachfiend syndrome is what happens when those chosen to represent the people get so full of themselves that they think they are supposed to manipulate/use the masses rather than listen to the masses. Power flowing the wrong way…..

  2. Oh how I wish more blogs made a big deal about the Dem ‘leaders’ selecting Kaine over Murtha

  3. The Democrats will remain useless and ineffectual until they find either the balls or the brains to start speaking out against the war in Iraq. It’s obvious and it’s known by a majority of Americans that the whole adventure was a huge mistake brought on by deception and outright stupidity. There is no possibility of winning in Iraq except to escape by changing the definition of victory or success. As it stands now, victory in Iraq is predicated on America’s will and dominance, which is contrary to the Iraqi’s freedom and soveriegnty. Iraq was lost before we began, and it will consume any politician who doesn’t have the sense to distance themselves from the beast. Murtha offered the Democrats a get free of Iraq card,but too many of them were too stupid or insecure to take advantage. Only a fool will try to support a mistake.

    Beware of the harlot, all saucy and pert, for she seeks to devour you.

  4. Swami nailed it.
    We’d better be planning for ten years out, with what is happening in the Middle East, West Africa, the Caspian Basin, China, and South America, who ever is in charge will have his work cut out for him. The new great game has begun.
    To complicate matters, it is very likely the the Govt. of Mexico may implode. Their only sources of revenue are Tourism, Oil exports, and dope. The oil is in decline, and if our economy goes south, the tourism is gone also. That will leave dope and border issues.

  5. Notice the biggest difference in that example.

    Radio Talk Blowhards talking to the masses

    Lefty Blogger Masses talking to Any and Everybody.

    We have comments, they don’t. We like to hash something out and find agreement, they like to dictate.

    Pretty much says it all.

  6. Ah, nice and self-congratulatory. “We have comments” – sure you do. DU and Kos have comments and make a very pointed practice of ‘disappearing’ comments that aren’t echo-chamber quality – dissent is NOT tolerated.

    Same thing with the Indymedia sites – they’ll ‘hide’ your post in a heartbeat if it contains anything that’s considered contradictory to the data they try to present. But they don’t ‘delete’ the posts, far from it. They just shove it through a door, drywall over the door, and pretend it doesn’t exist.

    I vastly prefer the honesty of sites like LittleGreenFootballs.com – if someone disagrees you’d better have a good reason, not just some vague stuff about ‘feeling’ something about an issue. They also aren’t afraid to try to find out info, instead of going on ‘everyone knows’ sorts of meme propagation. You have good reasons, they’ll respect that.

    [Note from MAHA: Except that LGF requires registration to comment, and registration has been turned off for a long time. I couldn’t comment there if I wanted to. I guess they don’t respect me.]

    Yep, I’m anonymous. I’m a troll. Delete this if you like, because it doesn’t agree with your lockstep echo-chamber mentality. Start looking outside the echo chamber, and you’ll understand why the Democrats are having problems.

    It’s not because you aren’t active enough – oh, you’re more than active enough! It’s because your message isn’t resonating with the people. And it’s not because your message isn’t liberal enough, far from it. It’s a message that’s been tried, examined, and found wanting in relevance and application. Wondered why there was no groundswell of support for Borking Alito? Why there’s no mass demonstrations against the NSA? Your message isn’t being heeded, because it’s not seen as truthful, accurate, or applicable. (Getting Kennedy to lecture Alito on ethics… damn, that was priceless. Can you POSSIBLY have a better figurehead?)

    But for heaven’s sake, don’t trust anything anyone tells you that isn’t what ‘everyone’ already knows. After all, you know so much better than the folks who don’t agree with you. (I take in point the Alito hearings. God, could you have come up with a more clueless bunch of ideological windbags? It showed the rotting, brain-dead corpse of the Democratic party far better than ANYTHING else.) The problem for you is – we won’t be ruled by such as you.

    We’ve been slow to see just what you were – how corrupt and self-serving – but every day as you become more and more strident people are looking in the other direction. Your support isn’t dropping because you’re not extreme enough, though you might want to think so.

    The Democrats can either reform themselves, abandon the ideas and attitudes they’ve been pushing for the last 5-10 years, or join the Whigs up on the shelf of failed political parties. Personally, I’m sorry to see it. I think our country is best served by two opposing parties – but the parties have to be loyal to the COUNTRY as a whole, not just to their own party. And what I’ve seen of the Democrats in the last 30 years their loyalty is to the PARTY first, individual power second, contributors third – and the people of the country a distant fourth.

    [Note from MAHA: Notice that everything this guy says about Dems is actually much more true of Republicans, but he’s way too much of a kool-aider to notice.]

  7. Wow, I am glad that Anon did a post. I agree that persons who disagree with ‘the crowd meme’ should have a place in discussions, as long as there is thought and civility in the posed comments.
    A few days ago, in a first for me, I added a comment on a rightie site, California Conservative. The topic was the NSA warrantless wiretap. My post was thoughtful and civil, the opposite of shrill and strident. Sometime within 24 hours, I rechecked that site.. Though the site topic was still up, my comment had been deleted.

    I agree with you, Anon, that our country is best served by [at least] two opposing parties, just as those with differing opinions are best served with a forum that allows back and forth, from all sides, discussions on issues that affect us all.

    But, I had to laugh out loud at your last two sentences in which you concluded that Democrats aren’t loyal to this COUNTRY, but rather to the PARTY. I see the opposite!

    How do you, Anon, explain the Republicans maneuvering in Congress these past few years, whereby they disallow ANY opposing views in as much as they are doing legislative decisionmaking in Republican-only conference committees?

    Being a Democrat, and part of roughly half the country’s citizens, that means to me that the Republicans have effectively denied congressional representation to half of the COUNTRY.

    Anon,

  8. I vastly prefer the honesty of sites like LittleGreenFootballs.com – if someone disagrees you’d better have a good reason, not just some vague stuff about ‘feeling’ something about an issue. They also aren’t afraid to try to find out info, instead of going on ‘everyone knows’ sorts of meme propagation. You have good reasons, they’ll respect that.

    Anon (brave use of real name, note): LGF only allows for registered users to comment, and registration has been turned off for a long time. I couldn’t comment there even if I wanted to. I guess they don’t respect me.

    Did I ever tell you about the time I had to shut down comments on THIS site because LGF was sending readers to swamp my site with hatespeech? That was fun. And absolutely true.

    Righties can be SO hypocritical …

  9. Hey, I just found you when searching technorati. Glad I did because I was about to blog the same article (well, still am but you’re linked in it now) which I think goes a little lite on the topic but that’s just me.

    Glad I found you and I’ll be back….(not like Ahnold).

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