Without much leadership from the Democratic Party a resistance movement has arisen. Liberals and progressives are making daily calls, attending meetings, writing letters, attending marches and rallies – all in defense of “what we once had.” The resistance is encouraging, but social and political movements cannot be based entirely on nostalgia – regardless of the Republican Party’s fleeting success with it. If we are honest, we have to recognize that the world we created is not that rosy. We can do better.
Hamid is a Pakistani novelist perhaps best known for the book (and film) The Reluctant Fundamentalist. He writes that we seek solace in nostalgia because the world is spinning so fast. We fantasize that the men and women of the past were more confident and secure in their roles and their work than we are today. We understand the technology of the age of toasters. Robotics scares the hell out of us. We watch TV and search the internet, but the fictions and connections we are really looking for are much deeper and older, more primal. Our identities are, in part and in fact, stories. And we are story tellers. Why retreat to the past, then, when we can create new stories for an even better future? Read Hamid’s complete article here.
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And – speaking of reading – people tend to read mainly what fits or confirms their pre-existing views. Democrats and Conservatives literally read different news and hear different opinions. But if you really want to know your political adversary, you need to know what goes on inside his pointy little head. There is some disagreement whether it was Sun Tzu, Machiavelli, or Mario Puzo who came up with the quote, but “keep your friends close and your enemies closer” is good advice no matter who said it.
Republicans certainly understand this rule – know what the competition is up to. So even though it hurts, tune into the president’s speech tonight at https://www.whitehouse.gov/.
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Finally – speaking of rejecting nostalgia in favor of a better future – Massachusetts Senate Bill S.291 proposes banning “Indian” names as school mascots. This would cost my own town of Dartmouth a couple dollars to change. But it would finally end an insult similar to that of turning Black jockeys into lawn ornaments or reducing Native Americans to wood statuary in front of cigar shops. “Indians” are people, not mascots. If you really can’t think up a new mascot that belongs on your school’s front lawn, try a gnome, smurf, or a pink flamingo.
Some may object to this as “political correctness” – but what does this phrase really mean other than civility? It’s long overdue that this kind of unthinking insensitivity and low-grade racism ended. As the rest of the country plunges deeper into racism and xenophobia, it would be rather sweet if a few oases of sanity and kindness, like our own Bay State, shone a little light into the nation’s heart of darkness.
Tom Perez’s election as DNC party chair yesterday was a big disappointment to Progressives who had hoped the Democratic Party would choose not only a new chairman but a new direction. Lost in yesterday’s party proceedings in Atlanta was another vote. This one concerned taking money from superPACs. The DNC voted to continue doing business as usual. Donald Trump tweeted that this was a good day for both Perez and the Republican Party, and he was right. The Democratic Party just seems incapable of helping itself.
After the vote, Perez and runner-up Keith Ellison, who will become vice-chair of the party, swapped campaign buttons. Both are decent men, and both represent a party that – like it or not – is the only serious entity standing between a vulnerable American public and the billionaires salivating over ending regulation and what’s left of the Social Contract and American democracy.
For Progressives now is not the time to succumb to temper-tantrums and despair. The DNC delegates who voted for Perez and for superPACs are the same ones, for the most part, who committed to Clinton and sandbagged Sanders. This election was not a surprise. The terms of these Clinton and Obama holdovers will eventually end but the Democratic Party will remain. Progressives are now beginning to make gains in the DNC in states like Oregon and California, and it is a matter of time before this happens in our own state.
The Democratic Town caucuses are coming. Show up. Run for a slot. You will be given a minute or two to tell your fellow Democrats who you are and what you stand for. Tell them you’re a Berniecrat. Tell them you want and end to Big Money and Superdelegates.
If the party does not reform itself long before the 2018 midterm elections, it will be replaced, and many of us will be changing party affiliation.
Patience only extends so far and the clock is ticking.
Regarding my summary of Saul Alinsky’s “Rules for Radicals,” an anonymous reader wrote to correct me on the time period in which the book was written and to do a much better job of explaining Alinsky’s purpose than I did. – Thanks.
Alinsky didn’t write Rules for Radicals during the Reagan years, He published it in 1971 during the Nixon years.
I worked with Alinsky. Contrary to the likes of Gingrich, Saul was not a Marxist. He was a old-fashioned American patriot who frequently quoted the Founding Fathers.
One of Alinsky’s favorite quotes – mine too – and which he used to introduce an earlier book I also recommend entitled Reveille For Radicals, is from Thomas Paine: “Let them call me rebel and welcome, I feel no concern for it, but I should suffer the misery of devils, were I to make a whore of my soul.”
Saul’s objective was not mere resistance. People tend to focus on Saul’s tactics but his objective – the objective of Alinsky style community organization – was participatory democracy. No less than to make US style representative democracy work the way the founders intended. Here I would recommend you go back and take a look at [the ending of]Obama’s last State of the Union.
Saul’s tactics, based in life-long experience, close observation and study under everyone from UC sociology professors to John L. Lewis and Frank Nitti – what he called called “applied social science” – were designed to involve – to enfranchise – those who were excluded from civic decision-making that effected their lives.
Alinsky used confrontation over issues important to peoples’ lives to get them involved. He started off with what he called “fast, easy victories” to give people confidence they could actually get things accomplished and to convince others to join the effort so it would be possible to take on bigger and bigger projects. In addition to political tactics Saul taught leadership skills, research skills, fund-raising skills, how to prioritize and pursue goals and how to build not only a voluntary neighborhood organization but a coalition of voluntary associations.
If everyone’s involved, all interests represented – and people are informed about available options and the implications of those options – Saul figured things would turn out at better than they would otherwise. What he called “enlightened self-interest.” An informed, involved citizenry was an article of faith with him as distinct from those who rely on demagoguery and/or ideology for their answers. Saul was a big fan of checks and balances.
The idea that an educated citizenry is essential to representative democracy is of course also basic to American style democracy as envisioned by people like Jefferson and Franklin.
Basically, Saul was a teacher – saw himself that way and saw Alinsky-style organizers that way too.
Saul taught people citizenship – how to become effectively and productively involved.
Saul believed therein lay the best available answers. The opposite of those who purposefully seek to disenlighten because an enlightened citizenry would never buy what they are trying to sell.
Newt Gingrich created the meme that Saul Alinsky was the Machiavelli behind Obama. Since then, the Right-wing blogosphere has been littered with denunciations of Alinsky. This has also resulted in a cottage industry of pamphlets, articles, and spinoffs like “Rules for Conservatives” by Michael Master, Jerome Corsi’s “Saul Alinsky: the Evil Genius behind Obama,” Will Clark’s “Obama, Hillary, Saul Alinsky and their Useful Idiots,” Richard Bledsoe’s “Can Saul Alinsky be Saved? Jesus Christ in the Obama and Post-Obama Era,” and, well, you get the idea. Not to mention Ben Carson’s claims that Alinsky dedicated his book to Lucifer. The Right doesn’t like it when the little guy fights back.
Alinsky learned his lessons in organizing generations ago and wrote the book Rules for Radicals during the Reagan years. He knew what kind of stacked deck workers play against. And he knew full-well what effect he had on the Right – “The job of the organizer is to maneuver and bait the establishment so that it will publicly attack him as a ‘dangerous enemy.'” Well, Alinsky’s methods worked, and his enemies respected him. Despite all their venom, the Tea Party eagerly adapted Alinsky’s methods successfully. And in fact the following quotes from “Rules for Radicals” were taken from a Right-winger who studied him in depth. Alinsky saw politics precisely as the Right does – as all-out war. And in times of war one does not always take the genteel high road.
In the quotes below, it’s clear Donald Trump uses many of Alinsky’s principles, and it’s also clear how poorly most Liberals do. Alinsky’s ideas may seem alien to people unaccustomed to street fighting. But we have now entered a period where politics has got to get a little rough.
This failure of many of our younger activists to understand the art of communication has been disastrous. Even the most elementary grasp of the fundamental idea that one communicates within the experience of his audience — and gives full respect to the other’s values — would have ruled out attacks on the American flag. — P. xviii
As an organizer I start where the world is, as it is, not as I would like it to be. That we accept the world as it is does not in any sense weaken our desire to change it into what we believe it should be — it is necessary to begin where the world is if we are going to change it to what we think it should be. — P. xix
“Power comes out of the barrel of a gun!” is an absurd rallying cry when the other side has all the guns. — xxi
A reformation means that masses of our people have reached the point of disillusionment with past ways and values. They don’t know what will work but they do know that the prevailing system is self-defeating, frustrating, and hopeless. They won’t act for change, but won’t strongly oppose those who do. The time is then ripe for revolution. — xxii
But the answer I gave the young radicals seemed to me the only realistic one: “Do one of three things. One, go find a wailing wall and feel sorry for yourselves. Two, go psycho and start bombing — but this only swings : people to the right. Three, learn a lesson. Go home, organize, build power and at the next convention, you be the delegates.” — xxiii
The preferred world can be seen any evening on television in the succession of programs where the good always wins — that is, until the late evening newscast, when suddenly we are plunged into the world as it is. Political realists see the world as it is: an arena of power politics moved primarily by perceived immediate self-interests, where morality is rhetorical rationale for expedient action and self-interest. Two examples would be the priest who wants to be a bishop and bootlicks and politicks his way up, justifying it with the rationale, “After I get to be bishop I’ll use my office for Christian reformation,” or the businessman who reasons, “First I’ll make my million and after that I’ll go for the real things in life,” Unfortunately one changes in many ways on the road to the bishopric or the first million, and then one says, “I’ll wait until I’m a cardinal and then I can be more effective,” or “I can do a lot more after I get two million” — and so it goes. In this world laws are written for the lofty aim of “the common good” and then acted out in life on the basis of the common greed. — P.12-13
It is not a world of peace and beauty and dispassionate rationality, but as Henry James once wrote, “Life is, in fact, a battle. Evil is insolent and strong; beauty enchanting, but rare; goodness very apt to be weak; folly very apt to be defiant; wickedness to carry the day; imbeciles to be in great places, people of sense in small, and mankind generally unhappy. But the world as it stands is no narrow illusion, no phantasm, no evil dream of the night; we wake up to it again forever and ever; and we can neither forget it nor deny it nor dispense with it.” Henry James’ statement is an affirmation of that of Job: “The life of man upon earth is a warfare…” — P.14
The most unethical of all means is the non-use of any means. It is this species of man who so vehemently and militantly participated in that classically idealistic debate at the old League of Nations on the ethical differences between defensive and offensive weapons. Their fears of action drive them to refuge in an ethics so divorced for the politics of life that it can apply only to angels, not men. — P.26
One’s concern with the ethics of means and ends varies inversely with one’s personal interest in the issue. — P.26
…The secretary inquired how Churchill, the leading British anti-communist, could reconcile himself to being on the same side as the Soviets. Would Churchill find it embarrassing and difficult to ask his government to support the communists? Churchill’s reply was clear and unequivocal: “Not at all. I have only one purpose, the destruction of Hitler, and my life is much simplified thereby. If Hitler invaded Hell I would at least make a favorable reference to the Devil in the House of Commons.” — P.29
The fifth rules of the ethics of means and ends is that concern with ethics increases with the number of means available and vice versa. To the man of action the first criterion in determining which means to employ is to assess what means are available. Reviewing and selecting available means is done on a straight utilitarian basis — will it work? Moral questions may enter when one chooses among equally effective alternate means. — P.32
The seventh rule of ethics and means and ends is that generally success or failure is a mighty determinant of ethics. The judgment of history leans heavily on the outcome of success and failure; it spells the difference between the traitor and the patriotic hero. There can be no such thing as a successful traitor, for if one succeeds he becomes a founding father. P.34
The ninth rule of the ethics of means and ends is that any effective means is automatically judged by the opposition as being unethical. — P.35
The tenth rule of the ethics of rules and means is that you do what you can with what you have and clothe it in moral arguments. …the essence of Lenin’s speeches during this period was “They have the guns and therefore we are for peace and for reformation through the ballot. When we have the guns then it will be through the bullet.” And it was. — P.36-37
Eight months after securing independence (from the British), the Indian National Congress outlawed passive resistance and made it a crime. It was one thing for them to use the means of passive resistance against the previous Haves, but now in power they were going to ensure that this means would not be used against them. — P.43
All effective actions require the passport of morality. — P.44
But to the organizer, compromise is a key and beautiful word. It is always present in the pragmatics of operation. It is making the deal, getting that vital breather, usually the victory. If you start with nothing, demand 100 per cent, then compromise for 30 per cent, you’re 30 per cent ahead. — P.59
The organizer becomes a carrier for the contagion of curiosity, for a people asking “why” are beginning to rebel. — P.72
To realistically appraise and anticipate the probably reactions of the enemy, he must be able to identify with them, too, in his imagination and foresee their reactions to his actions. — P.74
With very rare exceptions, the right things are done for the wrong reasons. It is futile to demand that men do the right thing for the right reason — this is a fight with a windmill. — P.76
The moment one gets into the area of $25 million and above, let alone a billion, the listener is completely out of touch, no longer really interested because the figures have gone above his experience and almost are meaningless. Millions of Americans do not know how many million dollars make up a billion. — P.96
If the organizer begins with an affirmation of love for people, he promptly turns everyone off. If, on the other hand, he begins with a denunciation of exploiting employers, slum landlords, police shakedowns, gouging merchants, he is inside their experience and they accept him. — P.98
The job of the organizer is to maneuver and bait the establishment so that it will publicly attack him as a “dangerous enemy.” — P.100
The organizer dedicated to changing the life of a particular community must first rub raw the resentments of the people of the community; fan the latent hostilities of many of the people to the point of overt expression. He must search out controversy and issues, rather than avoid them, for unless there is controversy people are not concerned enough to act. — P.116-117
THE THIRTEEN RULES – Always remember the first rule of power tactics: Power is not only what you have but what the enemy thinks you have. The second rule is: Never go outside the experience of your people. …The third rule is: Wherever possible go outside the experience of the enemy. Here you want to cause confusion, fear, and retreat. …the fourth rule is: Make the enemy live up to their own book of rules. …the fourth rule carries within it the fifth rule: Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon. …the sixth rule is: A good tactic is one that your people enjoy. …the seventh rule : is: A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag. …the eighth rule: Keep the pressure on. …the ninth rule: The threat is usually more terrifying than : the thing itself. The tenth rule: The major premise for tactics is the development of operations that will maintain a constant pressure upon the opposition. …The eleventh rule is: If you push a negative hard and deep enough it will break through into its counter-side. …The twelfth rule: The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative. …The thirteenth rule: Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it. — P.126-129
One acts decisively only in the conviction that all the angels are on one side and all the devils on the other. A leader may struggle toward a decision and weigh the merits and demerits of a situation which is 52 per cent positive and 48 per cent negative, but once the decision is reached he must assume that his cause is 100 per cent positive and the opposition 100 per cent negative. He can’t toss forever in limbo, and avoid decision. He can’t weigh arguments or reflect endlessly — he must decide and act. — P.134
It should be remembered that you can threaten the enemy and get away with it. You can insult and annoy him, but the one thing that is unforgivable and that is certain to get him to react is to laugh at him. This causes irrational anger. — P.134-135
I have on occasion remarked that I felt confident that I could persuade a millionaire on a Friday to subsidize a revolution for Saturday out of which he would make a huge profit on Sunday even though he was certain to be executed on Monday. — P.150
For example, since the Haves publicly pose as the custodians of responsibility, morality, law, and justice (which are frequently strangers to each other), they can be constantly pushed to live up to their own book of morality and regulations. No organizations, including organized religion, can live up to the letter of its own book. You can club them to death with their “book” of rules and regulations. This is what that great revolutionary, Paul of Tarsus, knew when he wrote to the Corinthians: “Who also hath made us able ministers of the New Testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit, for the letter killeth.” — P.152
Many of the lower middle class are members of labor unions, churches, bowling clubs, fraternal, service, and nationality organizations. They are organizations and people that must be worked with as one would work with any other part of our populations — with respect, understanding, and sympathy. To reject them is to lose them by default. They will not shrivel and disappear. You can’t switch channels and get rid of them. This is what you have been doing in your radicalized dream world but they are here and will be. — P.189
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David Frum is a prominent Neoconservative who worked for the Bush administration. Many of his foreign policy prescriptions are pretty repellent. But for Frum, as with many Neocons, Trump’s proto-fascism is so frightening that he’s offering advice to the Atlantic Monthly’s liberal readers:
“It’s possible I’m not the right person to offer the following analysis. Yet it’s also a good rule to seek wisdom wherever it may be found.”
And Frum’s counsel on strategy is pretty sound. In fact, it sounds an awful lot like Alinsky’s:
The more conservative protests are, the more radical they are. You want to scare Trump? Be orderly, polite, and visibly patriotic. Wave the flag, be more inclusive. Disinviting pro-Life women from the Women’s March may have been an error. Invite more cops and veterans. Don’t be so partisan. Be inclusive. Be dignified. Don’t let Trump set the tone.
Strategic thinking, inclusive action. The military formula is – superior force at a single point. OWS fizzled because it was diffuse. Be selective with demands that can be achieved. And go after specifics related to Trump – “Pass a law requiring the Treasury to release the President’s tax returns.” – “An independent commission to investigate Russian meddling in the US election.” – “Divest from the companies.” – Limited “asks” with broad appeal.
Protests are fun but meetings are effective. Bodies in the street represent potential power, not necessarily real power. What happens when people get on the bus and go home? In contrast, it’s the mundane day-to-day organizing that gets things done. Less hair-splitting, more organizing. Relentlessly use the kind of tactics Indivisible spells out to keep steady pressure on elected officials.
In three days we’re going to have a moment of truth.
With the election of the next national Democratic Party chair on February 25th, it’s going to be either Business as Usual for the Democratic Party or a confirmation that it needs to start moving in a different direction.
Whatever the result, it’s not looking too good for a new direction in the state of Massachusetts.
Most sentient creatures know that the Massachusetts Democratic Party has an honesty problem. The last three House Speakers all had felony convictions. National DNC bigwigs like Debbie Wasserman-Schultz and Donna Brazile likewise have had serious honesty problems. It may not come anywhere close to the filth and kleptocracy of the GOP, but this is a party in need of a whole lot of soap.
I have written before about the DNC Chairman’s race, and as much as the debates have had a gentlemanly tone, let there be no doubt whatsoever that this most certainly is a proxy war between party centrists and progressives. The leading candidates are Keith Ellison, a Black Muslim Congressman endorsed by (among many) Bernie Sanders; and Tom Perez, a Hispanic Labor Secretary and civil rights attorney with Clinton and Obama connections. Both men are decent-enough guys, but Ellison has promised to make the most changes to the DNC and, without a progressive direction, I just don’t see voters having compelling reasons to trust the DNC again.
Those from the Green, independent, or Berniecrat worlds have some idea of the mendacity of a party that couldn’t even help Americans get lower cost drugs because so many Democrats were in Big Pharma’s pocket. The 2016 convention exposed the Democratic Party’s corruption and lack of democracy, and the Presidential election exposed a lack of strategy and the absence of a coherent message for working class voters.
Next week 447 Democratic delegates are going to choose between Ellison, Perez, and a few latecomers. Those casting their ballots from Massachusetts are a subset of the same DNC superdelegates who got us into this mess in the first place, so don’t look to them to vote for change.
It’s going to be more Business as Usual. At least in Massachusetts.
The nine Bay State delegates selecting the next DNC chair are: Virginia Barnes, at-large delegate from the Teamsters; Gus Bickford, chairman of the Massachusetts Democratic Party and principal at Factotum Productions which does political consulting; Kate Donaghue, publisher of the Democratic Dispatch; Deb Goldberg, Massachusetts treasurer; Debra Kozikowski, vice-chairwoman of the Massachusetts Democratic Party and publisher of ruralvotes.com; Thomas McGee, Massachusetts state senator and former party chairman; David O’Brien, political and communications consultant with Northwind Strategies who formerly headed up Duval Patrick’s PAC; James Roosevelt, Jr., co-chair of the party’s Rules and Bylaws Committee and FDR’s grandson; and Susan Thomson, anthropology professor, musician and somewhat of a Renaissance woman.
Of the nine, all but Barnes, Roosevelt, and Thomson were pledged Clinton superdelegates in the 2016 Presidential primary. After the primaries, Sanders-proposed reforms were rejected by most of these nine superdelegates.
So – after the vote, brace yourself and try not to scream too loud.
Going forward it is CRITICAL that Massachusetts Democrats begin organizing at the town and ward level to get rid of Business as Usual Democrats. It’s going to take some time before the terms of these superdelegates and their self-perpetuating jobs expire.
But when they do, a new base of new Democrats needs to be ready.
Yesterday the Boston Globe published a piece by Martha Bayles, “Will the media be crushed?” Bayles makes her thesis crystal clear:
“Put bluntly, it’s not enough to assert that a free press is the lifeblood of liberal democracy. We must also recognize that liberal democracy is the lifeblood of a free press. And if liberal democracy stops working, no one should expect the press alone to fix it.”
And what’s the point of a free press if there is no democracy?
Our free press has handed American democracy a lifeline more than once. Watergate comes to mind. The Guardian’s and Intercept’s articles on NSA spying on Americans put unconstitutional spying on notice. The Wikileaks State Department cable dump shed light on a hypocritical and destructive foreign policy. The public got to see what sort of mischief its elected officials were up to – and lying about. The Fourth Estate has often been a fourth pillar of democracy, albeit an unappreciated volunteer.
Bayles cites a Freedom House report – that our free press is declining in pace with declining democracy. Freedom House specifically identifies Trump’s autocratic methods as a threat to watch. But it’s not just Trump himself. For mainstream Republicans authoritarianism is now acceptable – and, like plastic forks pretending to be silverware, perfect for everyday use.
In Arizona, Republicans have proposed HB 2404, which restricts the right of citizens to put referenda on the ballot. In North Dakota, HB 1203 makes it legal to run over and kill pipeline protestors. In Minnesota, Republicans want to make protesting police killings a serious crime. Republicans in Washington state want to make protesting a Class C felony. In Michigan, Republicans proposed a bill that would prohibit unionists from picketing. Republicans in Iowa also introduced new legislation to increase penalties for protesting. The Intercept goes into greater detail on these cases.
Betraying a contempt for the Judiciary, Republicans in Florida introduced HJR 121, which permits legislators to overrule any judicial ruling they don’t like – effectively abolishing the Judiciary. In Washington, a similar Republican bill has been filed. Similar confusion with the function of the Judiciary seems to have been at work in Alabama, New Jersey, and Kansas. Louisiana Republicans have enacted a “Blue Lives Matter” law that makes “resisting arrest” – a vague and often unprovable charge already abused by police – a felonious hate crime. The law is now in effect.
And it’s only been a month since the inauguration.
The DNC has a long road ahead. For many Democrats regaining Congressional seats and rebuilding a decimated party are going to seem like the main – if not the only – objective. If we are really lucky, regaining seats by doing a better job of reaching out to working class voters will be the reason.
Democrats also have a huge todo list. They must rewind and unroll all these assaults on democracy at the state level, dismantle a heavily militarized American police state, reinstate the Constitutional holiness of warrants and probable cause, provide oversight of a surveillance machine that can easily suck up all our text messages and emails. Democrats must reform our foreign policy, end shady dealings with autocrats (Putin isn’t the only one), get rid of FISA courts – and finally (and symbolically) retire the Patriot Act.
Otherwise – what’s the point of winning if there is no democracy?
There are two thoughtful articles that express both my frustration with, and hope for, Trump voters.
The first was written the day after the election by Jamelle Bouie and the title says it all – “There’s No Such Thing as a Good Trump Voter.” In a nutshell, Trump voters brought their racism, privilege, and recklessness into the voting booth, completely disregarding everything and everyone Trump – with his extreme and well-known positions – promised to harm. These voters knew full well what they were doing and they should have known better.
And it wasn’t just the racism, sexism, and xenophobia. Trump voters also chose to destroy public schools, dismantle medical care for 40 million citizens, wreck environmental protections, and they actually chose to give themselves a tax increase so that a few billionaires could pay lower taxes or none at all.
The word “idiots” doesn’t even begin to describe them. But there’s also a more charitable view.
Justin Gest writes in POLITICO (“The Two Kind of Trump Voters”) that Democrats have to make a distinction between the new crop of proto-fascists in the GOP (along with their supporters) and the other numbskulls who cast their irresponsible votes for Donald Trump.
Gest writes off those whom Bouie does – he calls them the Nationalists – but holds out hope for those he calls the Exasperated, voters who were disappointed by Democratic Neoliberalism and wanted to try something new.
These Exasperated voters also heard the same Mexican rapist rhetoric we all did, and there’s no letting them off the hook. Bouie’s arguments apply completely. They voted for Trump because their [only slightly less ideological] racism and xenophobia made anyone else’s concerns invisible and irrelevant. But they still voted to screw their neighbors.
But Gest has a point. Many of the Exasperated were once Democrats, whether Southern Democrats or Democrats from Southie. Just from the numbers we know that many of them voted for Obama in 2008 and 2012 but changed their minds in 2016. Gest suggests that they may be irresponsible, unreliable, and unpredictable – but they aren’t stupid. They will turn on Trump as quickly as they did on Obama if he can’t deliver. And they can smell a bullshitter a mile away.
Democracy is dirty, reckless and untidy. And so is the American electorate. But Democrats have to reach out to these Exasperated voters and – most importantly – have to offer them something new and real – and something they honestly intend to deliver.
It is one of life’s great joys to have adult children I can argue with. Smart people with the right and the obligation to keep the old man honest. The other night I was having a phone conversation with my son, who expressed his annoyance with not only right-wing flacks but with flaming liberals.
And I was included on his list.
I argued that we can’t reach agreement with the Far Right because (1) they are highly averse to facts; and that (2) most of our disagreements can’t be settled with a New England stone wall (you live your life, I’ll live mine on my side of the wall) – when the Far Right’s idea of freedom really means the right to take civil rights away from a multicultural majority. And (3) – I questioned whether, at the end of the day, any amount of polite chitchat would ever really change their commitment to taking my rights away.
My son disagreed and said – well, you have to start somewhere. You will reach some of them. And anyway – what’s the alternative, dad?
This, of course, was the grown-up way of looking at the problem. And maybe my grown up son is right. Maybe we just start where luck and serendipity take us.
* * *
Another of life’s great joys is to have second chances to spend time with your grown children. We are in South Carolina for a few weeks avoiding the New England winter, and our daughter flew down to run in a race and to visit with friends.
Yesterday we were all sunning ourselves in Waterfront Park in Charleston when a man with an NRA cap and a “Lifetime NRA member” T-shirt stopped in front of our bench and asked, “Where y’all from?” Massachusetts, we answered. “Where ’bouts in Massachusetts?” he pressed us. I replied by asking if he knew where New Bedford is. “Hell, I was BORN in New Bedford. 115 Pleasant Street. But I haven’t been back in 40 years.”
We talked about the area. He remembered random local geography and history, including Joshua Slocum, and he couldn’t remember the name of “that Portuguese sausage,” Linguica, I said. “Linguica,” he repeated with a happy grin. “Yeah, that’s really good.”
My new NRA friend stood in the sun a moment remembering New England, while I sat under one of South Carolina’s famous palmetto trees enjoying the winter warmth. Then he stepped forward and offered his hand and gave me his name, and I did the same. And we shook hands like we meant it.
I have my doubts, but my son is probably right. We have to start somewhere. And maybe the only things we will ever have in common with those of wildly different political views are things like food and warmth.
But maybe a shared appreciation for what we all bring to each other is enough to make that start.
Donald Trump campaigned with a promise to deport three million people. A mass expulsion of this scale would not only be a human catastrophe but also a civil liberties nightmare and a drain on local law enforcement agencies expected to cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, known by the strangely appropriate acronym ICE.
As a result many cities have enacted “sanctuary” or “welcome” policies designed to keep immigrant populations safe. Most of these policies restrict cooperation with ICE in some way. However, on January 25th the Trump administration retaliated by issuing an Executive Order which cuts off federal funds to so-called “Sanctuary Cities,” a move yet to be tested in the courts.
In an ironic reversal, it now falls to Liberal states and cities to use the Constitution’s 10th Amendment (states rights) provisions to resist oppressive Executive Orders.
Closer to home, it seems only natural that New Bedford – a city known for Abolitionist Frederick Douglass, a strong underground railroad during slavery, and a vibrant immigration population today – would be a Sanctuary City. But New Bedford is afraid of joining several other Massachusetts localities – Amherst, Boston, Cambridge, Hampden County, Holyoke, Lawrence, Northhampton, Somerville, and Springfield – in resisting the president’s xenophobic decrees.
But momentum and resistance is growing. There are now hundreds of Sanctuary Cities throughout the United States. In addition, there are four Sanctuary states – California, Connecticut, New Mexico, and Colorado – with varying protections for immigrants.
A malignant group with a benign name, the Center for Immigration Studies, echoes Donald Trump’s claims that immigrants are rapists and criminals. However, the facts are quite different. An article in the Annenberg Public Policy Center’s factcheck.org cites not only ICE data itself, but law enforcement officials and the results of a University of California study debunking claims like Trump’s. There is no spike in crime in cities with immigrants, and law enforcement would prefer to hear from those impacted by crime rather than drive them underground.
But Sanctuary is nothing new. In fact, it’s an ancient concept with roots in all the Abrahamic faiths.
During the Reagan years hundreds of Central Americans found refuge in Catholic churches offering protection from murderous regimes supported by Reagan Republicans. Though there was, and still is, no legal basis in the United States for a religious institution to offer asylum, the sight of armed federal agents storming a church would have been shocking. By 1987 over 440 American cities had become “sanctuary cities.”
The Catholic tradition of offering sanctuary to refugees, the persecuted, and even criminals stretches back to at least Medieval times. Even after the Catholic Church no longer ruled an empire it still offered sanctuary and it was recognized. For over a thousand years, for example, Britain recognized asylum granted by the Church.
In the Islamic tradition, Muhammad had to flee from Mecca to Medina, and the hijrah (migration) is regarded as an example of the Islamic obligation to provide protection from oppression, even to non-Muslims:
And if anyone of the disbelievers seeks your protection, then grant him protection […] and then escort him to where he will be secure. (Surah 9:6)
It might interest those who claim to be guided by scripture that the idea of Sanctuary is also found in the Old Testament.
According to one of the first stories in the Bible, after Cain murdered his brother Abel he fled to the land of Nod. There he built a city called Enoch, named after his son. Thus, according to tradition, the first human city was founded on both a crime and an act of redemption.
In another Bible passage, before the Israelites were permitted to cross the Jordan into Canaan, they were instructed to build cities of refuge (arei miklat) where those guilty of manslaughter could flee to avoid blood retribution. The cities were run by Levites who, everyone knew, would treat the new citizens and their fellow human beings fairly. Unlike the current presidency.
Today the New Sanctuary Movement is ecumenical and not even always Christian. In many communities Jewish, Quaker, Episcopal, and Unitarian congregations have joined Catholics in protecting their most vulnerable friends and neighbors – renewing not only the ancient traditions of their faiths but putting faith into practice.
On January 30th, as soon as a US-born NASA engineer set foot back on US soil, agents from Homeland Security placed him in a holding cell and demanded that he give up the PIN to his cellphone.
Sidd Bikkannavar, an employee of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab, was stopped and questioned about his South Asian heritage, although he was born in the United States and his personal information was already known to officials from his Global Entry application.
Bikkanavar was shown a “Blue Paper,” which stated that he was obliged to give up the PIN number to his phone – although, according to Hassan Shibly, executive director of CAIR in Florida, American citizens are under no such obligation.
Thus Bikkannavar was denied his rights as an American citizen because he was racially profiled.
On the other hand, perhaps none of us has all the rights we think we do.
The NASA engineer’s experience is a sobering reminder that – since the Patriot Act was signed – there are no Fourth Amendment protections within a one-hundred mile deep coastal and border zone. If you live within 100 miles of Canada, Mexico, or the ocean, you live in what the ACLU calls a Constitution free zone.
WIRED recently offered travelers some suggestions for keeping prying eyes out of your personal data. In a nutshell – don’t re-enter the country with much to show authorities if you don’t want to have to change all your passwords after your Constitutional rights have been violated. If you’re a non-citizen, it’s trickier.
Most Americans, if they were in Bikkannavar’s position, would give up their rights in a heartbeat if it meant not being delayed. Most Americans, if in the engineer’s shoes, would give up their rights in a second if it meant not being inconvenienced by the confiscation of an expensive gadget.
But this is a calculation no one should have to make.
The Fourth Amendment unambiguously requires warrants and probable cause to protect citizens from unreasonable searches and seizures. What happened to Bikkannavar was not simply unreasonable – it was a violation of his Constitutional rights:
Amendment IV – The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
The “Constitution Free Zone” is only 100 miles deep but it affects approxmiate 200 million Americans:
Donald Trump’s Executive Orders are causing a lot of fear and insecurity in New Bedford’s immigrant community, resulting in a dramatic increase in demand for the Immigrants’ Assistance Center’s (IAC) services. Now more than ever the IAC needs your support.
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The IAC will be hosting another community forum on Saturday, February 25th, 10-12am, at 58 Crapo Street in New Bedford. The purpose will be to give the immigrant community an overview of the impact of the Trump presidency. Come and learn about rights and risks.
Next month, on March 31, 2017 from 6pm-10pm, the IAC will be hosting a fundraiser at the New Bedford Whaling Museum’s Harbor View Room at 18 Johnny Cake Hill, New Bedford. Tickets are $50 per person.
Don’t stop with that fundraising ticket. If you can spare the cash, support the IAC generously with a bigger donation. They are going to need more resources than any of us can imagine right now.
For numerous reasons I have never liked golf. My apologies to those of you who see something in it besides a bunch of old guys hacking away at $4 balls with $500 clubs. Maybe the time outside can be a salve for a stressed-out businessman. Maybe there’s something to it after all. But it’s a ridiculous game played by goofy looking people in lime green pants, weird shoes and weird hats. Just look at the smirking grifter in the photo.
Worse, it’s a rigged game. All sorts of handicapping schemes give free points to lousy players. And usually the lousy players get their free points, well, because that’s what gentlemen deserve out on the links.
Sort of like Capitalism.
Capitalists get their profits from the sweat and ingenuity of people who work for them – and then pocket the cash. Over time, as a class, Capitalists become wealthier and wealthier, while over time workers struggle to keep the lights on. Labor and business have always played an adversarial game, and the system has always been rigged in favor of business.
Because, in the language of golf, the duffers get all the handicaps.
Two points for union-busting. Two points for right-to-work laws. Two points for anti-union legislation. Two points for keeping the minimum wage below survival wages. Two points for saddling working people with taxes while the super-rich get tax shelters. Ten points for making sure members of Congress are all millionaires. Five points for a stacked Supreme Court. Five points for making housing, education, and medical costs unbearably high. Ten points for receiving free oil, mineral, and gas drilling rights on public land. Ten points for producing goods and saddling the public with the resulting remediation costs and Superfund cleanups. Five points for preventing municipalities from competing with monopolies by offering citizens broadband services. A hundred points for government bailouts. Twenty points for R&D grants. Fifty points for bringing a business to the state. A hundred points for a decade free of paying taxes on that business. Fifty points for the state picking up the tab for worker training. Five hundred points for Citizens United. And so on.
And still – with all these corporate giveaways – they whine that they can’t compete.
But when you have every advantage and you still can’t win, there’s something wrong with the game.
19th century Socialists, specifically Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, thought they were living in the End Times of Capitalism – a system they saw rapidly approaching the limits of human and natural exploitation. It would only be a matter of years, they thought, before its injustices, contradictions and cyclical crises would lead workers in European democracies to reject and replace the system with Socialism.
These old Socialists never anticipated our hyper-predatory 21st Century Capitalism with its even more obscene levels of income inequality, and they never thought for a second that feudal states like China or Russia could be shoe-horned into their model of European political evolution. In Russia, the Narodniks thought they could adapt Marxism, but Marx himself had doubts. After Marx’s death in 1883, Engels corresponded with Russian revolutionaries like Plekhanov. But Engels died in 1895, a generation before the Bolsheviks came to power.
The authoritarian states that arose out of Communism were neither foreseen nor advocated by Marx or Engels. But the two “Marxists” did anticipate Capitalist globalism, chronic market manipulation, the necessity of government bailouts, monopolies, privatization of public resources, and the rise of authoritarianism – all to sustain a system that, in the long run, is unsustainable.
The 2016 election was many things. On the one hand it was a last gasp of American White Privilege. And on the other the election was a sweeping rejection of Neoliberalism – a belief that liberal democracy is somehow compatible with robber barons, hedge fund managers, secret trade deals, market manipulation, monopolies, mass incarceration and spying on citizens. Pretty much – Capitalism.
The Republican working class rejected Neoliberalism because it hadn’t been doing much for them lately – especially in Appalachia and the Rust Belt. Instead, they let themselves be duped by an Orange Mussolini who dazzled them with race baiting, Jesus, and a return to coal mines. The Democratic working class was more hopeful that reducing the crushing costs of education and healthcare might keep them afloat. But both the GOP and the DNC were selling a similar bill of goods to similarly duped constituencies.
And even though they gave it one last shot, Democrats could no longer sell the Neoliberal product they’d been hawking for 30 years. In fact, there were so many young Democrats who had lost faith in Capitalism that the DNC had to resort to subterfuge to derail an old Democratic Socialist offering better ideas.
bernie
So, for the moment, Advanced Capitalism is still alive under Trump. Just barely.
White Nationalists and Evangelicals may think the Trump administration has finally brought them to the Promised Land. Liberals may think the recent series of vicious Executive Orders are nothing less than the rollback of social progress of the last hundred years. And some may call all this weird nastiness “populism.” But what we are really witnessing is a team of private physicians tending to a rich, geriatric patient who is dying. Mr. Moneybags has brought in a team of doctors and lawyers to save himself and his legacy. Only most, like him, are hacks.
The Trump administration’s unprecedented number of billionaires, financial manipulators, and retired military is the logical result (if not the last resort) of a system that can no longer trust its own citizens or coexist with nature and democracy to ensure its survival. At his Inauguration the “populist” Mr. Moneybags made a point of surrounding himself with fellow billionaires, making it abundantly clear whose interests he really intends to serve.
Since the little people started yammering about income inequality, demanding the protection of rivers, oceans and the ecosphere, and calling for real democracy – it was obvious things would have to change. It would be necessary to bring in the Big Guns to gut all the institutions that protect and serve these Bolsheviks, ingrates, Saul-Alinskians, and Welfare Queens – remind them who’s Boss. Even the usual neoliberal technocrats could no longer be trusted with the reins of government. Thus the billionaires, the generals, the proto-fascists were recruited for the job. Put people in charge of the justice apparatus who can guarantee there will be no justice.
No doubt these are acts of desperation, but desperate times – for billionaires – call for desperate measures.
The midterm 2018 elections will be here before we know it. All the promises of security, prosperity, White American renewal, replacing science with scripture, and making America “great again” will ultimately be doomed to failure. The coal industry is gone. The robots are coming. The White House is criminally incompetent, ham-handed in its propaganda efforts, and its plans are often little more than half-baked talking points. The deliriously happy billionaires and hucksters who have been tapped to save Capitalism are so focused on stuffing dollars into their own pockets that it will create an unintended form of transparency.
If democracy does survive, and even a modicum of common-sense prevails, I have to believe Americans will finally see the real picture – and reject Trump and his kleptocracy.
But what then for Democrats? Double down on Neoliberalism? Or something different? Maybe not exactly what those old Socialists had in mind – but something rational, equitable, and fair. A game that isn’t fixed. Something that puts people before obscene profit, something that can survive on its own without crisis or strongmen. Something that will elevate the lives of all Americans – not just those living in their gilded towers.
Something that would truly make America great again.
Once again, politics are local – and here are some political things of interest right in our own backyard.
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If you are a Massachusetts Democrat, check out Kate Donoghue’s Democratic Dispatch. This has many items of interest, typically Boston-centric, but her recent letter contains much good advice for people interested in jumping into state politics.
Now for the really good stuff – the upcoming town caucuses. The following comes from Our Revolution, Bernie Sanders’ progressive organization (I hope others of you will join).
Over the coming weeks, the Dartmouth Democratic Party will be convening to decide who shall represent the people of Massachusetts at the 2017 Massachusetts Democratic State Convention as Delegates and Alternates. These are positions which can help decide important decisions for the future of the party, such as platform and rules.
You have an opportunity to participate in this election (or even run for a Delegate or Alternate position yourself!) by turning up at your local caucus:
At the 2017 caucus, delegates and alternates will be elected to represent the people of Massachusetts at the Massachusetts State Convention.
In order to qualify to vote, you need to:
Be registered to vote at your current address, and within the Democratic Party, by the time of your meeting. If you are unsure of your registration status, you can go here to check. If you need to register to vote, or update your current registration, you can do so here: if you register last-minute, be sure to bring proof that you have registered with you to the meeting.
Be present at the caucus at the date and time listed (see caucus lists). There is no absentee or proxy voting.
Be at least 18 years old by September of 2018.
No one shall be denied admittance (even people not registered to vote may observe), and no one shall be required to pay any fee to participate or vote.
If you would like to run as a Delegate or Alternate…
Indicate your interest to run when you arrive, so your name can be included on the ballot.
You will be allowed to make a two minute speech, and distribute materials to promote your candidacy, so come prepared!
Though each candidate will be voted on individually, you can join with friends and fellow volunteers to create a slate of candidates with shared goals and platform policies, and campaign together.
If you were not elected as a delegate by the caucus and are a person with disabilities, a minority or youth, you are eligible to apply to the Democratic State Committee for selection as an add-on delegate.
If you are elected, you will either need to pay a $75 fee to the state party by April 7th to receive your credentials to the State Convention, or submit a low income fee waiver form. Waiver forms will be available after the caucus. If you run, but are not elected, no fee will be charged.
We no longer have a balance of power in our tripartite form of government, and you can count the number of congressmen who fight for working people tirelessly on your fingers and toes.
So in Congress every Democratic vote is precious. Progressives know how often a “for sale” sign pops up outside the offices of some Democrats. The Democratic Party passively betrays voters when it can’t even work up the enthusiasm to compete in some Congressional districts. In Florida, billionaire Stephen Bittel, a pal of Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, literally purchased the Democratic state committee chair. And, for a price, liberals like Andrew Cuomo even become enemies of Constitutional protections.
There are too many back-stabbers in the party right now. We’re past due for some house-cleaning.
Within the Democratic Party there is a group called the Blue Dog Coalition. These are Democrats in name only, many from Red states, who vote Republican and from time to time become Republicans without anyone taking particular note. In the 115th Congress their coalition consists of Sanford Bishop (GA-2), Jim Cooper (TN-5), Jim Costa (CA-16), Henry Cuellar (TX-28), Josh Gottheimer (NJ-5), Dan Lipinski (IL-3), Stephanie Murphy (FL-7), Collin Peterson (MN-7), Kurt Schrader (OR-5), Kyrsten Sinema (AZ-9), Mike Thompson (CA-5), and Filemon Vela (TX-34).
Nancy Pelosi appointed this last Blue Dog – Vela – to the DNC Steering Committee, apparently concerned less with his politics than with some sort of regional formula.
Then there are the out-and-out traitors.
During last year’s DNC platform committee meetings, six members appointed by Clinton – Center for American Progress President Neera Tanden, Illinois Rep. Luis Gutiérrez, former EPA administrator Carol Browner, former Undersecretary of State Wendy Sherman, Ohio State Rep. Alicia Reece and Paul Booth – all voted with CEO Bonnie Schaefer and former California Rep. Howard Berman to oppose the $15 minimum wage amendment. Shaefer and Berman were appointed by Debbie Wasserman-Schultz.
The DNC platform, which has yet to be rewritten, still supports fracking, the TPP, and refuses to condemn Israeli settlements.
In Colorado, Hillary Clinton’s SuperPAC consultants torpedoed a “Romneycare” single-payer healthcare proposal.
On January 12th, thirteen Democratic Senators voted with Republicans and Big Pharma, and against reducing drug costs for working people: Michael Bennet D-CO), Cory Booker D-NJ), Maria Cantwell D-WA), Thomas Carper D-DE), Bob Casey D-PA), Chris Coons D-DE), Joe Donnelly D-IN), Martin Heinrich D-NM), Heidi Heitkamp D-ND), Bob Menendez D-NJ), Patty Murray D-WA), Jon Tester D-MT), and Mark Warner D-VA). Even Ted Cruz, a Republican, voted for the lower prices.
Corey Booker not only voted against lower-cost healthcare, he is also a supporter of Betsy DeVos’s school choice programs. Bankrolled by not only Big Pharma, Booker is beholden to hedge funds that champion “school choice.”
The all-Democrat Baltimore City Council blocked a $15 minimum wage increase when it allied with business. It was remniscent of big city party machine politics under Rahm Emanuel, in which Obama’s “Bannon” turned out to be a union-busting thug.
On February 8th West Virginia’s Joe Manchin (D) voted to confirm Jeff Sessions as U.S. Attorney General. As Sessions entered the chamber Manchin reportedly flashed him a thumbs-up.
With Democrats like this, who the hell needs Republicans?
You may not live in a state or congressional district with one of these back-stabbers, but you can certainly help “primary” them – see that they have progressive competition in the primaries, donate to their opponents, and help out in races in neighboring swing states. A few resources:
The Electoral College, like it or not, is how presidents are elected. It may be an anachronism, it may be an exception to the way all other elections work in the United States, and it may be an exception to the way political leaders are chosen in any other democracy, but it’s what the U.S. Constitution requires. And it’s not likely to change without a Constitutional convention – even though most Americans hate it. Two-thirds of us, in fact. Or 70%, depending on whom you ask.
Anyone who has driven across this vast country knows that dense urban areas – where the majority of Americans actually live – are quite different, demographically and politically, from more sparsely-settled regions. Clinton won in what some are calling urban archipelagos, and she won the popular vote by an almost three million vote plurality – the second time in sixteen years the Electoral College has subverted direct democracy.
Supporters of the Electoral College usually blame it on James Madison. But Madison thought the people at large were more qualified to choose an Executive. Detractors of the system point out that the Electoral College was a compromise with slave states – several with more slaves than owners – concerned they would always have fewer popular votes than other state at a time when slaves were property, not people, and definitely not voters.
But the fact is – today’s American population is overwhelmingly urban. Almost 80% in 2000, and 81% in 2010 live in urban areas. And as we become even more urban, the Electoral College will increasingly subvert democratic selection of a president. The Electoral College’s “winner takes all” mechanism leads to voter disenfranchisement. The system also gives a mathematical advantage to rural (white) America, which in turn creates institutional disenfranchisement of minority voters. The Electoral College is based on the odd principle that states – not the people themselves – are vested with the right to choose a president. And, increasingly, it’s a small number of states, with disproportionate focus on rural white America, that decide the presidency.
Some say the system is a stabilizing force for democracy – but if this is so then why was it not proposed for all elections? Once vocal critics of the institution, Republicans since 2000 have become converts to the Electoral College and often say that voters are a mob from which democracy needs to be protected – although we certainly weren’t spared from demagoguery this time around. Libertarians are more skeptical – your vote doesn’t count anyway, so why worry? In fact, one suggests, let’s just formalize this lunacy by abolishing the popular vote.
Meanwhile, Liberals have been trying to come up with ways to tweak a broken system. The National Popular Vote bill is one such workaround that creates a compact between states that holds all accountable to awarding the vote to the winner of the popular vote. But Republicans have been hostile to the idea since it dawned on them the system was rigged in their favor. Here in New England, Massachusetts joined the compact in 2010, followed by Vermont in 2011, with Rhode Island following suit in 2013. Maine, our beautiful but occasionally mad neighbor, ratified the compact in the Senate but defeated it in the state House two years later. Check to see the status in your state.
But this doesn’t really fix the underlying problem. The U.S. Constitution still has one more major birth defect affecting elections – one that must be corrected. Although change seems more unlikely than ever, it’s the only way to make presidential votes count. And patience may be required. The 27th Amendment didn’t immediately make it into the Bill of Rights, and it took 202 years to ratify.
With pressure, it works. Over the years Constitutional amendments have fixed a number of election problems. The 12th Amendment was the nation’s first fix to the Electoral College; it completely replaced rules which used a type of ranked voting. The 15th Amendment gave former slaves the vote. The 17th Amendment replaced the appointment of Senators with the popular vote. The 19th Amendment gave women the vote. The 23rd Amendment added the District of Columbia to the Electoral College. The 24th Amendment abolished poll taxes. The 26th Amendment gave younger adults the right to vote. With all these changes, an elite slaveholder version of “democracy” was slowly transformed into one that includes nearly all of us.
And with one more refinement, a vote for president could be something that truly counts.
I have done the unthinkable. I’ve joined the Democratic Party.
It was a painful decision because the party – long long ago a friend of working people – has abandoned its principles and, as Robert Reich writes, its only real friend right now is money.
Plus, I had to look in the mirror. We now live in a world in which no one can afford to remain a political independent or a purist. And as one Portland, Oregon, activist puts it – “you have to vote in the primary because that’s when you get to vote for who you want; in the general election in November you get to vote for who the party wants.” The parties have had their say far too long.
I’ve also joined Our Revolution, a group with a #DemEnter strategy – join the party and reform it. Or from Hillary and Bill’s perspective – we’re coming for your party.
And it is their party. At the moment.
But let’s be honest. The Democratic Party is hollowed-out roadkill, it’s vital juices seeping into the breakdown lane. It’s a tenement in foreclosure. It’s a patient on life-support. Not only the working class and rust belt states, but state parties have been victims of the DNC’s neglect. Below is a picture of the balance of political power in the United States. Red and blue trifectas indicate states where a single party has control of all three branches of government. Read Robert Reich again for the gruesome numbers. And note that Massachusetts does not number among the strongest of the Blue States.
I have an unsubstantiated theory – and I hope a political scientist will set me straight – that third parties live in political ecosystems and exist due to the stabiliity of their more mainstream cousins. Especially in nations where Duverger’s “Law” applies. There are both “left” and “right” ecosystems. Without the Republican Party Libertarians would have had nothing from which to steal six million votes. Without the Democratic Party, the Greens would be substantially weaker. Look at the blue on the map above and then do a bit of research – and you’ll find these are precisely the states where the Green Party is strongest.
So if we want stronger Green Parties – and Working Families and Socialist caucuses and progressive alliances – elsewhere in the nation, an argument can be made for attaching paddles to the flatlined Democratic Party and pumping a couple thousand volts into its chest. If the procedure succeeds we may discover the party actually has a heart. And not only the patient himself but his close relatives will be saved.
Is there anyone who would like to join me in creating a chapter of Our Revolution in New Bedford / Dartmouth / Fairhaven?
We’ve had a few weeks to mourn. It’s time to organize.
Following the hostile corporate takeover of our government, per Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’s stages, we’ve moved from denial, to anger, to bargaining, and on to depression. But damned if any of us should accept the death of democracy. This is what we’re trying to prevent.
It is important to keep harping away at the fact that this administration does not have a mandate, that the president lost by almost 3 million votes, that the nation is 86% urban and, as such, we are disenfranchised by a broken electoral system that gives rights to states, not people. And that this administration does not represent American values.
While some point to the election results as a vindication and re-empowerment of White Christian majority culture, the demographics keep moving toward a browner nation. More importantly, the election demonstrated how easily White Evangelicals could turn their backs on not only democracy but their own professed religious values.
White Evangelicals are comfortable taking rights away from non-Whites, non-Christians, and non-citizens, and embracing an autocrat. But don’t blame it on religion. It’s the “whiteness” talking. By way of contrast the Black church has historically done precisely the opposite – shown a strong commitment to social justice, called for broadening democracy, and shown reverence for the Old Testament prophets who spoke truth to tyrannical power.
In over six hundred passages, the Judeo-Christian bible is filled with rape, murder, genocide, and ethnic cleansing. It is truly a wonder it isn’t banned from more Southern and Midwestern libraries. In Deuteronomy the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivvites, and Jebusites all get slaughtered, to the last infant, by someone’s idea of God. In Hosea the Samarians get theirs too – “their infants shall be dashed, and their pregnant women shall be ripped up.”
But if we hate ISIS we should remember that our own “majority culture” is likewise founded not only on violence but on a violent ideology. Multiculturalism rarely gets sympathetic treatment in the western Bible. “To the winner belong the spoils,” as Donald Trump reminded us recently. Losers are annihilated, their lands (and oil) are seized, and those not murdered are sent into exile or barred from entry. For centuries scripture has served as a virtual cookbook for colonialism.
For some the Bible is a literal document and the intolerance found within must be observed and respected as God’s word. This seems to be the preferred version of Christianity for many White Americans. For most the document is a repository of sometimes conflicting cultural and spiritual thought and the intolerance must be viewed in a historical context – and then rejected. The positive aspects of religions preserve the heart of their ethical traditions.
The book of Exodus warns us to “not oppress the foreigner” – for we were strangers ourselves in Egypt. The Book of Leviticus tells us we can not merely “tolerate” foreigners but must treat them as fellow citizens. The Book of Ruth (the Moabite) recounts a story about honor, kindness and loyalty – one involving a foreigner who becomes accepted by her new family and people.
One look at the new White House raises the question – where are all the moderate Judeo-Christians? With the Twitter Administration now filled with (white supremacist) Christian fundamentalists and a supposedly “devout” Orthodox Jewish son-in-law, their treatment of immigrants and other faiths highlights a certain religious hypocrisy. Those who play Christians on TV, including Jerry Falwell Jr., Franklin Graham and Pat Robertson, have sung Trump’s praises. Realty TV’s “Rabbi to the Stars” Shmuley Boteach supports Trump and even chief-anti-Semite Steve Bannon.
It’s safe to say that most religious people in America are appalled by the country’s new direction. Yesterday I got an email from a Jewish peace group working with Muslims to fight Islamophobia. The meeting was taking place in a Quaker Meeting House. This said a lot about how most religions view our culture, and I was moved by the expression of people really living their faith in a way that wasn’t doing violence to others. But with America’s White Evangelicals it’s a different story.
In 2015 a World Magazine poll showed only 3% of Evangelicals supporting Trump, scarcely better than Hillary Clinton. By mid-2016 the Christian Post was running a piece with the self-explanatory title, “No, Donald Trump Doesn’t Have Majority Support Among Evangelical Voters,” showing that 64% of Evangelicals had voted for someone else in the primaries – but Trump’s numbers were rising. By last November, however, exit polls showed 80% of Evangelicals had voted for Trump in the general election. So much for religious principles.
Evangelicals comprise a major part of the Tea Party. Evangelicals (and right-wing Jews) also make up a major part of the Islamophobia network. They regard Islam as a political movement, or worse, and not a religion. Or, if they do recognize Islam as a religion, it’s as a competitor in a zero-sum Clash of Civilizations game. A Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) article says Evangelicals view Middle East realities in a Biblical context. A Pew Forum survey showed that they have the most negative views of Muslims of all Americans. Their views have long been uttered by “mainstream” Republicans like Steve King (R-Iowa) who calls the United States a White Christian country and denigrates the contributions of others.
There are, of course, notable exceptions. At least some Evangelicals despise the 45th president. And in many ways religious American Muslims and Christians share a common social conservatism. But in general, Evangelicals have traded in their Christian charity and professed moral values for an opportunity to grab power. And this is what they’ve historically done.
Americans at that time had a choice between [..] a sincerely born-again Christian who taught Sunday school in his Baptist Church and was married faithfully to one woman. His name was Jimmy Carter. The other choice was a twice-married Hollywood actor […] whose wife practiced astrology. […] Christians overwhelmingly chose Ronald Reagan not because he was the most religious candidate but because he had the quality people thought was most necessary at the time, and that is leadership.
Jeffress continued:
[the] same-sex marriage ruling actually made evangelicals more open to a secular candidate like Donald Trump […] many evangelicals have come to the conclusion we can no longer depend upon government to uphold traditional biblical values. Let’s just let government solve practical problems like immigration, the economy and national security. And if that’s all we’re looking for government to do, then we don’t need a spiritual giant in the White House. We need a strong leader and a problem solver, hence many Christians are open to a secular candidate like Donald Trump.
For Evangelicals like Jeffress, it was the failure of “government to uphold traditional biblical values” – specifically, not being permitted to deny civil liberties to gays – that made them give up on democracy and embrace a strong man, a caudillo, a führer. For Evangelicals, democracy is not about equal rights for all but about replacing the Bill of Rights with a Protestant Bible and privileging their own ethno-religious group. And with the right man sitting in the Oval Office perhaps they’ll get the Christian shariah they’ve always wanted.
It is an Orwellian abuse of language to describe “religious freedom” as the right to oppress others or to take rights away from them. But this is precisely the vision Republicans and their corporate, religious and racist constituencies have. Liberals and Progressives have a truer vision for America – one that guarantees everyone the same rights. It is a vision our nation has steadily enlarged upon, and it is a vision still seen in our bruised and violated Constitution.
A vision we need to keep faith with now, more than ever.
