Our nation quite possibly executed an innocent man last night, and there was no one there to stop it. A barbaric ritual was completed, in the name of a nation that thinks of itself as “the land of the free and the home of the brave.” Our politics has been dominated by a far right fringe for more than a generation now, and it needs to stop. But no one’s going to stop it for us; we have to stop it. But as we all should have figured out by now, marching and demanding change doesn't really work. At some point, we have to win elections.
This should be a pretty simple concept, folks. I can’t believe I have to repeat something so elementary, but a lot of people don’t seem to understand this concept.
We live in a democracy. Yes, I know; if you want to split hairs, it’s actually a democratic republic, but the concept’s the same. The point is, we have to get a majority of people on our side, which means appealing to more than 50% of the voting population, which means attracting a whole lot of people who currently don’t like us very much; people like political moderates, who are the majority of voters in our system, and who swing every election.
The Fox-News-lovin’ right wing doesn't swing elections, and the Dennis-Kucinich-lovin’ left wingers certainly don't decide who wins and loses. The voters who swing elections are those who only pay attention to the buzz surrounding the candidates, and decide based largely on how they feel. They don't study every issue, or consider every candidate's position on issues. In fact, though many liberals seem to have a difficult time understanding this concept, these people are generally not at all ideological. In fact, these days, they aren’t so much deciding who to vote for as deciding whether to vote at all. While they hate the right wing crazies and all they stand for, our rhetoric isn’t exactly giving them a reason to show up at the polls.
And that’s why we keep losing elections, and our nearly half-century losing streak is why right wing policies seem so entrenched these days. We must do more to attract moderates to our side of the aisle and give them a reason to vote for our candidates, or at least against right wingers.
I'm always amazed at the number of libs who respond to the simple concept above by suggesting that I’m somehow calling for progressives to “give up their principles,” or demanding that progressives “adopt centrist values.” Both accusations are absurd. I’m a proud progressive, and I’ll put my “progressive values” against anyone on our side who isn’t a simple-minded flaming extremist:
- No one in this country should ever go without food, water, heat or basic shelter. Period.
- Everyone should pitch in to pay for health care, and for one person to die or lose everything they’ve worked for because he or she lacks coverage is absolutely shameful.
- I want our capitalist system to be regulated for fairness, to keep the crooks from pillaging the treasury on a regular basis.
- I want taxes to be progressive, which means fair, not equal.
- Anyone should be able to love and/or marry anyone else they choose, so long as the parties are consenting adult humans and not already close family members.
- The drug war is the biggest waste of money and the greatest usurper of civil rights than anything in our history. Most drugs should be legalized, regulated and taxed.
- Everyone, no matter who they are or what they believe, is entitled to the same rights as everyone else, until they’re convicted of a felony, at which point some rights relevant to their crime should be limited, at least for a while.
- Women should have complete control over their bodies, and medical decisions should be between doctor and patient, with few exceptions.
- Sex education should be absolutely mandatory, comprehensive and begin in about third grade. Birth control should be available free of charge to anyone who wants it.
- Everyone, regardless of political persuasion, is innocent until proven guilty, and the burden of proof should always be on the state. No one should ever have to prove they didn’t commit a crime.
Those are some of my principles, which many progressives refer to (mistakenly) as “beliefs.” As you can see, they are in line with what most progressives claim to “believe,” in general. I don’t have any pet issues, because to me progressive politics is an overarching idea, not a series of policy positions or “solutions” that I personally think are important. Put simply, the above are goals we should be working to achieve as a society; how we get there is a secondary consideration.
(Side note; I use the above for illustration purposes only; they are not intended to provoke argument, so put aside your tendency to nitpick tiny details and stick to the subject of this post.)
What makes me different from many progressives is that I have an extra principle; the principle of winning elections. Actually, at this point, after a generation of watching liberals self-destruct, my goal is a little more modest, at least for the near future; to make sure the wrong people are kicked out of office.
Because we live in a democratic republic, those who actually get to make and implement policy are those who get 50% of the vote or more, with few exceptions. That means, if I want any of the goals noted above to actually happen, I have to figure out how to get a majority of the electorate to vote for people who share at least some of those goals. That doesn’t mean giving up my principles, it means figuring out a way to sell them to a majority of voters.
This is the cognitive dissonance that infects a large swath of the far left. They cannot see how it’s possible to reach out and attract moderates and “centrists” to our side without betraying their own “principles.” Of course, part of the problem stems from the troubling way many progressives define “principles.” They eschew actual principles, in favor of adopting policy proposals, calling them “principles,” and then attacking anyone who doesn’t agree with them.
In other words, too many progressives are so obsessed with the "how to get there," they miss the main goal altogether.
Case in point; the Affordable Care Act.
The goal of reforming our health care system should be affordable universal health care. And that was the main goal, until the debate started. But early on in the debate, two essentially meaningless phrases poisoned the bill that was passed, and actually continue to threaten its existence to this day; “public option” and “single payer.”
The ACA, as passed, provides health insurance to 30 million more people and it expands Medicaid to everyone making up to three times the poverty rate. It forces health insurance companies to offer health insurance to everyone, to pay all legitimate claims, to eliminate the concept of “pre-existing conditions” as a premise for denying health insurance or a claim. It requires insurance companies to spend 80% of premiums on health care, and to rebate any excess to the insured. So far, even though most of the plan hasn’t taken effect as yet, health care inflation is at its lowest rate in 40 years, premium increases are at their lowest rate in 20 years, and some insurance companies have already begun issuing premium rebates.
The law is not perfect by any stretch, but the system it creates is a hell of a lot better than the one it replaces. Yet, the two phrases above permeated the professional left’s discourse over the ACA. At one point, their rhetoric surrounding those two phrases threatened to kill health insurance reform altogether. Some progressive blogs even urged Congress to kill the ACA because it didn’t contain a “public option,” suggesting that we just kick the can down the road.
Yeah, that worked so well the last 20 times, didn't it?
These “progressives” were willing to put the lives and livelihoods of 30 million people at risk over a "public option," despite the fact that the phrase has no real meaning. And they continue this ruinous line of "thought," because of this alleged “principle," because we have to work toward a “single payer” health insurance system, and the only way to get to "single payer" is by starting with a "public option."
That's not "principle." In fact, it's the opposite.
How is it “principled” to advocate for the denial of health insurance to 30 million people because it doesn’t contain one policy you yourself consider to be important? It’s not. And based on the lack of a "public option," the trashing of the ACA by progressives has continued unabated, to the point that one of the greatest advances in the history of health care financing is at risk, politically speaking, because "both sides essentially agree that the ACA sucks.
A “public option” can be added to the current law at any time, folks, IF we can manage to get people elected to office who are amenable to it. In fact, once the ACA takes full effect, I’ll bet private insurance companies will clamor for a public insurance option soon after, because they’re not used to the level of risk involved with a universal health plan.
As for “single payer” being a “principled stance,” I’d like to point out that very few of the top universal health care systems in the world are “single payer” systems. The country the WHO acknowledges as the #1 system in the world, France, is not a single payer system. The UK and Canada, whom many progressives cite as shining examples of single payer systems, are #18 and #30, respectively. If we’re to aspire to something, shouldn’t we aspire to be #1? And NHS was manipulated for many years by the right wing Thatcher government, in an attempt to kill it and return health care to private insurance. Now, imagine if the Tea Party was in charge of a single payer health system and needed to finance a huge tax cut.
In other words, be careful what you wish for.
But this post deals with the tendency of progressives to keep shooting ourselves in the foot with their obsession with micromanaging issues, to the point that we completely lose track of the overall goal. Actually, only a small number of progressives do that, so in reality, they're shooting other progressives, as well.
I know some of you think such a notion is unseemly, but politics really is about salesmanship. Democracy is not pretty. Thomas Jefferson once famously said, “A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where 51% of the people take away the rights of the other 49.” Imagine if every bill was subject to a vote by 300 million people. I’m pretty sure you’d agree with him. Instead, we elect a more manageable 435 Representatives and 100 Senators to vote in our place. But because we don’t sell ourselves very well, we generally don’t have very many of our own in that group.
Once more; if we want our dreams to become reality, we need to elect people who will make them so. That requires us to gain a majority in elections, which in turn requires us to be the most popular. We have to sell ourselves. That means we smile and act more like Up With People and less like Insane Klown Posse.
It’s not as difficult as it sounds. As most progressives love to point out, the vast majority of voters, including moderates, already agree with us, or at least lean in our direction. The average soccer mom doesn’t want women and children to starve. They don’t want to see old folks fishing out of dumpsters because they lack money for food ot or dying in alleys because they can’t afford a doctor. They want kids to get a decent education, and they want their kids to have it better than we had it. They’d prefer to breathe air that can’t be cut with a butter knife, and make no mistake; if they could ditch their gasoline-powered car for an electric one, they’d do it in a heartbeat.
The reason they don’t vote in our direction is because they vote on emotion, and they don’t like progressives very much. Why would they? If they happen upon a typical “progressive” blog, even by accident, they’ll likely find some variation of the following:
- If the Republicans do (name horrible policy here), it will result in the collapse of the entire country/economy.
- Republicans are fascists.
- “Conservatives” want to kill puppies and children.
- All corporations are evil. Oh, yeah; and they want to kill puppies and children.
- All banks should be put out of business and their leaders should be jailed.
- Rich people are evil and are criminals who try to get out of paying taxes. And they want to kill puppies and children.
- If we don’t stop using oil now, the climate will change and we’re all going to die, not just the puppies and children.
- Political moderates have no principles, and “centrists” (said as a pejorative) don’t believe in anything.
- The debt will bring the economy down (if a Republican’s in charge) or The debt isn’t so bad, let’s incur more debt to create jobs (if a Democrat is in).
- The Democrats are spineless and/or suck.
Yes, the above are slightly exaggerated, but this is what swing voters often READ when they happen upon progressive media. And don’t make the mistake of thinking moderates never hear or read us; progressive blogs are public; they're not part of a web of top secret communiques that only those of us in the club can read. They sometimes happen upon progressive blogs, and even if they don't, many have progressive friends who repeat this stuff. And here’s why statements like the above tend to de-motivate them.
- Every one of them has a Republican in their family, maybe several. None of them are fascists, they all seem to love their country, and they lack a desire to kill puppies and children. We’re not talking about conservatives, anyway; we’re talking about right wing radicals. There’s a huge difference between George Will and Andrew Breitbart.
- Most swing voters – most Americans, for that matter – work for a corporation, and the corporation they work for is probably not evil. Most corporations are very small and not at all evil. One problem with broad generalizations; you’re only likely to be right about 1% of the time, and the 99% of times when you’re wrong hurts your credibility a bit.
- Most swing voters keep their money in a bank, and their paychecks are drawn on a bank. They may even like their bank. And all that money in those banks? It’s theirs. When you talk about closing their bank and throwing bankers in jail without being specific, they may feel threatened.
- Most swing voters know people they consider “rich,” and few are evil, and none want to kill puppies and children. Also, many aspire to be rich, and might resent the concept that they might be a criminal for doing so. As for the whole paying taxes thing, there isn’t a taxpayer in this country who doesn’t try to pay as little tax as possible; all of the commercials are built around the concept of "maximizing your refund." If you insinuate that rich people are criminals for avoiding taxes, aren’t you calling swing voters criminals by extension?
- Political moderates and “centrists” DO have morals and principles. Just because theirs don’t match up with yours does not make them rudderless.
- We really are our own worst enemies when it comes to the debt. We spent the last eight years complaining about it, and now we’re essentially arguing against the concept of “living within our means” and trashing Obama for even discussing “austerity.” We can’t shift gears like this and think we’re attracting anyone to our side.
- Keep in mind, most swing voters don’t like the right wing any more than we do, and they have no intention of voting that way. A major Republican strategy is to get swing voters to stay away from the polls. When we trash Democrats, it dovetails nicely with the right wing's message, and take away the one choice the moderate voter has on election day. If it's a certainty that all Democrats suck, who wants to vote for one?
Elections are not about issues, they’re mostly about overall tone. Swing voters aren’t stupid, they’re just not political junkies. They just want a sense that the candidate will be competent, and do the right thing when the time comes. If their choice is between Mitch McConnell or Joe Schmoe, if they don’t like McConnell, that doesn’t automatically mean they’ll vote Schmoe. If the overall message in the election is that Schmoe is a, well, schmoe, then they'll stay home.
It’s the moderates staying home that’s killing us, folks. If you call yourself a progressive, then encourage people to vote. The negative rhetoric coming from the far left dovetails nicely with the negatives coming from the right, and it’s costing us elections. And losing elections is costing us this country. If you don’t see that, it’s hard to take you seriously as a progressive. The root word of progressive is “progress.” If we don’t win elections, we don’t make progress.
It’s really a simple concept.
