The 2012 Elections Have Little To Do With Obama's Record … Which Is
Why We Are Voting For Him August 9, 2012 |
Let’s cut to the chase. The November 2012 elections will be unlike
anything that any of us can remember. It is not just that this will be a
close election. It is also not just that the direction of Congress hangs
in the balance. Rather, this will be one of the most polarized and
critical elections in recent history.
Unfortunately what too few leftists and progressives have been
prepared to accept is that the polarization is to a great extent centered on a
revenge-seeking white supremacy; on race and the racial implications of the
moves to the right in the US political system. It is also focused on a
re-subjugation of women, harsh burdens on youth and the elderly, increased war
dangers, and reaction all along the line for labor and the working class. No
one on the left with any good sense should remain indifferent or stand idly by
in the critical need to defeat Republicans this year.
U.S.
Presidential elections are not what progressives want them to be
A large segment of what we will call the ‘progressive forces’
in US politics approach US elections generally, and Presidential elections in
particular, as if: (1) we have more power on the ground than we actually
possess, and (2) the elections are about expressing our political outrage at
the system. Both get us off on the wrong foot.
The US electoral system is among the most undemocratic on the
planet.
Constructed in a manner so as to guarantee an ongoing dominance
of a two party duopoly, the US electoral universe largely aims at reducing
so-called legitimate discussion to certain restricted parameters acceptable to
the ruling circles of the country. Almost all progressive measures, such as
Medicare for All or Full Employment, are simply declared ‘off the
table.’ In that sense there is no surprise that the Democratic and
Republican parties are both parties of the ruling circles, even though they are
quite distinct within that sphere.
The nature of the US electoral system--and specifically the ballot
restrictions and ‘winner-take-all’ rules within it--encourages or pressures
various class fractions and demographic constituency groups to establish
elite-dominated electoral coalitions. The Democratic and Republican
parties are, in effect, electoral coalitions or party-blocs of this sort,
unrecognizable in most of the known universe as political parties united around
a program and a degree of discipline to be accountable to it. We may want and
fight for another kind of system, but it would be foolish to develop strategy
and tactics not based on the one we actually have.
The winner-take-all nature of the system discourages independent
political parties and candidacies on both the right and the left. For
this reason the extreme right made a strategic decision in the aftermath of the
1964 Goldwater defeat to move into the Republican Party with a long-term
objective of taking it over. This was approached at the level of both
mass movement building, e.g., anti-busing, anti-abortion, as well as electoral
candidacies. The GOP right’s ‘Southern Strategy’ beginning in 1968
largely succeeded in chasing out most of the pro-New Deal Republicans from the
party itself, as well as drawing in segregationist Democratic voters in the
formerly ‘Solid South.’
Efforts by progressives to realign or shift the Democratic Party, on
the other hand, were blunted by the defeat of the Mississippi Freedom
Democratic Party in 1964, and later the defeat of the McGovern candidacy in
1972, during which time key elements of the party’s upper echelons were prepared
to lose the election rather than witness a McGovern victory. In the 1980s
a very different strategy was advanced by Rev. Jesse Jackson and the Rainbow
insurgencies that aimed at building—at least initially—an independent,
progressive organization capable of fielding candidates within the Democratic
primaries. This approach—albeit independent of Jackson himself—had an
important local victory with the election of Mayor Harold Washington in
Chicago. At the national level, however, it ran into a different set of
challenges by 1989.
In the absence of a comprehensive electoral strategy, progressive
forces fall into one of three cul-de-sacs: (1) ad hoc electoralism,
i.e., participating in the election cycle but with no long-term plan other than
tailing the Democrats; (2) abandoning electoral politics altogether in favor of
modern-day anarcho-syndicalist ‘pressure politics from below’; or (3)
satisfying ourselves with far more limited notions that we can best use the
election period in order to 'expose' the true nature of the capitalist system
in a massive way by attacking all of the mainstream candidates. We think
all of these miss the key point.
Our elections
are about money and the balance of power
Money is obvious, particularly in light of the Citizens
United Supreme Court decision. The balance of power is primarily
at the level of the balance within the ruling circles, as well as the
level of grassroots power of the various mass movements. The party that
wins will succeed on the basis of the sort of electoral coalition that they are
able to assemble, co-opt or be pressured by, including but not limited to the
policy and interest conflicts playing out within its own ranks.
The weakness of left and progressive forces means we have been
largely unable to participate, in our own name and independent of the
two party upper crust, in most national-level elections with any hope of
success. In that sense most left and progressive interventions in the
electoral arena at the national level, especially at the Presidential level,
are ineffective acts of symbolic opposition or simply propaganda work aimed at
uniting and recruiting far smaller circles of militants. They are not
aimed at a serious challenge for power but rather aim to demonstrate a point of
view, or to put it more crassly, to 'fly the flag.' The electoral arena
is frequently not viewed as an effective site for structural reforms or a more
fundamental changing of direction.
Our politics, in this sense, can be placed in two broad
groupings—politics as self-expression and politics as strategy. In an overall
sense, the left needs both of these—the audacity and energy of the former and
the ability to unite all who can be united of the latter. But it is also
important to know the difference between the two, and which to emphasize and
when in any given set of battles.
Consider, for a moment, the reform struggles with which many of us
are familiar. Let's say that a community is being organized to address a
demand for jobs on a construction site. If the community is not entirely
successful in this struggle, it does not mean that the struggle was wrong or
inappropriate. It means that the progressives were too weak
organizationally and the struggle must continue. The same is true in the
electoral arena. The fact that it is generally difficult, in this period,
to get progressives elected or that liberal and progressive candidates may back
down on a commitment once elected, does not condemn the arena of the
struggle. It does, however, say something about how we might need to
organize ourselves better in order to win and enforce accountability.
In part due to justified suspicion of the electoral system and a
positive impulse for self-expression and making our values explicit, too many
progressives view the electoral realm as simply a canvass upon which various
pictures of the ideal future are painted. Instead of constructing a
strategy for power that involves a combination of electoral and non-electoral
activity, uniting both a militant minority and a progressive majority, there is
an impulsive tendency to treat the electoral realm as an idea bazaar rather
than as one of the key sites on which the struggle for progressive power
unfolds.
The Shifts
within the Right and the Rise of Irrationalism
Contrary to various myths, there was no 'golden age' in our country
where politicians of both parties got along and politics was clean. U. S.
politics has always been dirty. One can look at any number of elections
in the 19th century, for instance, with the Hayes-Tilden election of 1876 being
among the more notorious, to see examples of electoral chicanery.
Elections have been bought and sold and there has been wide-spread voter
disenfranchisement. In the late 19th century and early 20th century massive
voter disenfranchisement unfolded as part of the rise of Jim Crow segregation.
Due to gains by both the populist and socialists is this era, by the 1920s our
election laws were ‘reformed’—in all but a handful of states—to do away with
‘fusion ballots’ and other measures previously helpful to new insurgent forces
forming independent parties and alliances.
What is significant about the current era has been the steady move
of the Republican Party toward the right, not simply at the realm of neoliberal
economics (which has also been true of much of the Democratic Party
establishment) but also in other features of the ‘ideology’ and program of the
Republicans. For this reason we find it useful to distinguish between
conservatives and right-wing populists (and within right-wing populism, to
put a spotlight on irrationalism). Right-wing populism is actually
a radical critique of the existing system, but from the political right with
all that that entails. Uniting with irrationalism, it seeks to build
program and direction based largely upon myths, fears and prejudices.
Right-wing populism exists as the equivalent of the herpes virus
within the capitalist system. It is always there--sometimes latent, at
other times active—and it does not go away. In periods of system
distress, evidence of right-wing populism erupts with more force. Of
particular importance in understanding right-wing populism is the complex
intersection of race, anti-immigrant settler-ism, ‘producerism,’ homophobia and
empire.
In the US, right-wing populism stands as the grassroots defender of
white racial supremacy. It intertwines with the traditional myths
associated with the “American Dream” and suggests that the US was always to be
a white republic and that no one, no people, and no organization should stand in
the way of such an understanding. It seeks enemies, and normally enemies
based on demographics of ‘The Other’. After all, right-wing populism sees
itself in the legacy of the likes of Andrew Jackson and other proponents of
Manifest Destiny, a view that saw no inconsistency between the notion of a
white democratic republic, ethnic cleansing, slavery, and a continental (and
later global) empire. ‘Jacksonian Democracy’ was primarily the complete
codification and nationalization of white supremacy in our country’s political
life.
Irrationalism
is rising as an endemic virus in our political landscape
Largely in times of crisis and uncertainty, virulent forms of
irrationalism make an appearance. The threat to white racial supremacy
that emerged in the 1960s, for instance, brought forward a backlash that
included an irrationalist view of history, e.g., that the great early
civilizations on Earth couldn’t have arisen from peoples with darker skins, but
instead were founded by creatures from other planets. Irrationalism,
moreover, was not limited to the racial realm. Challenges to scientific
theories such as evolution and climate change are currently on the rise.
Irrationalism cries for a return to the past, and within that a mythical
past. A component of various right-wing ideologies, especially
fascism, irrationalism exists as a form of sophistry, and even worse. It often
does not even pretend to hold to any degree of logic, but rather simply
requires the acceptance of a series of non sequitur assertions.
Right-wing populism and irrationalism have received nationwide reach
anchored in institutions such as the Fox network, but also right-wing religious
institutions. Along with right-wing talk radio and websites, a virtual
community of millions of voters has been founded whose views refuse critique
from within. Worse, well-financed and well-endowed walls are established
to ensure that the views are not challenged from without. In the 2008
campaign and its immediate aftermath, we witnessed segments of this community
in the rise of the ‘birther’ movement and its backing by the likes of Donald
Trump. Like many other cults there were no facts that adherents of the
‘birthers’ would accept except those ‘facts’ which they, themselves, had
established. Information contrary to their assertions was swept
away. It didn’t matter that we could prove Obama was born in
the US, because their real point, the he was a Black man, was
true.
The 2012 Republican primaries demonstrated the extent to which
irrationalism and right-wing populism, in various incarnations, have captured
the Republican Party. That approximately 60% of self-identified
Republicans would continue to believe that President Obama is not a legitimate
citizen of the USA points to the magnitude of self-delusion.
The Obama
campaign of 2008 at the grassroots was nothing short of a mass revolt
The energy for the Obama campaign was aimed against eight years of
Bush, long wars, neoliberal austerity and collapse, and Republican domination
of the US government. It took the form of a movement-like embrace of the
candidacy of Barack Obama. The nature of this embrace, however, set the
stage for a series of both strategic and tactical problems that have befallen
progressive forces since Election Day 2008.
The mis-analysis of Obama in 2007 and 2008 by so many people led to
an overwhelming tendency to misread his candidacy. In that period, we—the
authors of this essay—offered critical support and urged independent
organization for the Obama candidacy in 2008 through the independent
‘Progressives for Obama’ project. We were frequently chastised by some allies
at the time for being too critical, too idealistic, too ‘left’, and not willing
to give Obama a chance to succeed. Yet our measured skepticism, and call
for independence and initiative in a broader front, was not based on some naïve
impatience. Instead, it was based on an assessment of who Obama was and the
nature of his campaign for the Presidency.
Obama was and
is a corporate liberal
Obama is an eloquent speaker who rose to the heights of US politics
after a very difficult upbringing and some success in Chicago politics.
But as a national figure, he always positioned himself not so much as a fighter
for the disenfranchised but more as a mediator of conflict, as someone pained
by the growth of irrationalism in the USA and the grotesque image of the USA
that much of the world had come to see. To say that he was a reformer
does not adequately describe either his character or his objectives. He
was cast as the representative, wittingly or not, of the ill-conceived
‘post-Black politics era’ at a moment when much of white America wanted to
believe that we had become ‘post-racial.’ He was a political leader and
candidate trying to speak to the center, in search of a safe harbor. He
was the person to save US capitalism at a point where everything appeared to be
imploding.
For millions, who Obama actually was, came to be
secondary to what he represented for them. This was the result of
a combination of wishful thinking, on the one hand, and strongly held
progressive aspirations, on the other. In other words, masses of people
wanted change that they could believe in. They saw in Obama the representative
of that change and rallied to him. While it is quite likely that Hillary
Clinton, had she received the nomination, would also have defeated
McCain/Palin, it was the Obama ticket and campaign that actually inspired so
many to believe that not only could there be an historical breakthrough at the
level of racial symbolism—a Black person in the White House—but that other
progressive changes could also unfold. With these aspirations, masses of
people, including countless numbers of left and progressive activists, were
prepared to ignore uncomfortable realities about candidate Obama and later
President Obama.
There are two examples that are worth mentioning here. One,
the matter of race. Two, the matter of war. With regard to race,
Obama never pretended that he was anything other than Black. Ironically,
in the early stages of his campaign many African Americans were far from
certain how ‘Black’ he actually was. Yet the matter of race was less
about who Obama was—except for the white supremacists—and more about race and
racism in US history and current reality.
Nothing exemplified this better than the controversy surrounding
Rev. Jeremiah Wright, followed by Obama's historic speech on race in
Philadelphia. Wright, a liberation theologian and progressive activist,
became a target for the political right as a way of 'smearing' Obama.
Obama chose to distance himself from Wright, but in a very interesting way.
He upheld much of Wright's basic views of US history while at the same
time acting as if racist oppression was largely a matter of the past. In
that sense he suggested that Wright's critique was outdated.
Wright's critique was far from being outdated. Yet in his
famous speech on race, Obama said much more of substance than few mainstream
politicians had ever done. In so doing, he opened the door to the perception
that something quite new and innovative might appear in the White House.
He made no promises, though, which is precisely why suggestions of
betrayal are misplaced. There was no such commitment in the first place.
With regard to war, there was something similar. Obama came
out against the Iraq War early, before it started. He opposed it at another
rally after it was underway. To his credit, US troops have been withdrawn from
Iraq. He never, however, came out against war in general, or certainly against
imperialist war. In fact, he made it clear that there were wars that he
supported, including but not limited to the Afghanistan war. Further, he
suggested that if need be he would carry out bombings in Pakistan.
Despite this, much of the antiwar movement and many other
supporters assumed that Obama was the antiwar candidate in a
wider sense than his opposition to the war in Iraq. Perhaps ‘assumed’ is
not quite correct; they wanted him to be the antiwar candidate who was
more in tune with their own views.
With Obama's election, the wishful thinking played itself out, to
some degree, in the form of inaction and demobilization. Contrary to the
complaints of some on the Left, Obama and his administration cannot actually be
blamed for this. There were decisions made in important social movements
and constituencies to (1) assume that Obama would do the 'right thing,' and,
(2) provide Obama 'space' rather than place pressure on him and his
administration. This was a strategic mistake. And when combined with a relative
lack of consolidating grassroots campaign work into ongoing independent
organization at the grassroots, with the exception of a few groups, such as the
Progressive Democrats of America, it was an important opportunity largely lost.
There is one other point that is worth adding here. Many
people failed to understand that the Obama administration was not and is not
the same as Obama the individual, and occupying the Oval Office is not the same
as an unrestricted ability to wield state power. ‘Team Obama’ is
certainly chaired by Obama, but it remains a grouping of establishment forces
that share a common framework—and common restrictive boundaries. It
operates under different pressures and is responsive--or not--to various
specific constituencies. For instance, in 2009, when President Zelaya of
Honduras was overthrown in a coup, President Obama responded--initially--with a
criticism of the coup. At the end of the day, however, the Obama
administration did nothing to overturn the coup and to ensure that Honduras
regained democracy. Instead the administration supported the 'coup
people.' Did this mean that President Obama supported the coup? It
does not really matter. What matters is that his administration
backtracked on its alleged opposition to the coup and then did everything in
their power to ensure that President Zelaya could not return. This is why
the focus on Obama the personality is misleading and unhelpful.
No Struggle,
No Progress
President Obama turned out not to be the progressive reformer that
many people had hoped. At the same time, however, he touched off enough
sore points for the political Right that he became a lightning rod for
everything that they hated and feared. This is what helps us understand
the circumstances under which the November 2012 election is taking place.
As a corporate liberal, Obama's strategy was quite rational in those
terms. First, stabilize the economy. Second, move on health
insurance. Third, move on jobs. Fourth, attempt a foreign policy breakthrough.
Contrary to the hopes of much of his base, Obama proceeded to tackle
each of these narrowly as a corporate ‘bipartisan’ reformer rather than as a
wider progressive champion of the underdog. That does not mean that
grassroots people gained nothing. Certainly preserving General Motors was
to the benefit of countless auto workers and workers in related industries.
Yet Obama's approach in each case was to make his determinations by first
reading Wall Street and the corporate world and then extending the olive branch
of bi-partisanship to his adversaries on the right. This, of course, led
to endless and largely useless compromises, thereby demoralizing his base in
the progressive grassroots.
While Obama's
base was becoming demoralized, the political right was becoming energized
It did not matter that Obama was working to preserve capitalism. As
far as the right was concerned, there were two sins under which he was
operating: some small degree of economic re-distributionism and the fact
that Obama was Black. The combination of both made Obama a demon, as far
as the right was concerned, who personified Black power, anti-colonialism and
socialism, all at the same time.
The Upset
Right and November 2012
We stress the need to understand that Obama represents an irrational
symbol for the political right, and a potent symbol that goes way beyond what
Obama actually stands for and practices. The right, while taking aim at
Obama, also seeks, quite methodically and rationally, to use him to turn back
the clock. They have created a common front based on white revanchism
(a little used but accurate term for an ideology of revenge), on
political misogynism, on anti-‘freeloader’ themes aimed at youth, people of
color and immigrants, and a partial defense of the so-called 1%.
Rightwing populism asserts a ‘producer’ vs. ‘parasites’ outlook aimed at
the unemployed and immigrants below them and ‘Jewish bankers and Jewish media
elites’ above them. Let us emphasize that this is a front rather
than one coherent organization or platform. It is an amalgam, but an
amalgam of ingredients that produces a particularly nasty US-flavored stew of
right-wing populism.
Reports of declining Obama support among white workers is a good
jumping off point in terms of understanding white revanchism. Obama never
had a majority among them as a whole, although he did win a majority among
younger white workers. White workers have been economically declining since the
mid-1970s. This segment of a larger multinational and multiracial working
class is in search of potential allies, but largely due to a combination of
race and low unionization rates finds itself being swayed by right-wing
populism. Along with other workers it is insecure and deeply distressed
economically, but also finds itself in fear—psychologically—for its own
existence as the demographics of the USA undergoes significant changes.
They take note of projections that the US, by 2050, will be a majority of
minorities of people of color. They perceive that they have gotten little from
Obama, but more importantly they are deeply suspicious as to whether a Black
leader can deliver anything at all to anyone.
Political misogynism—currently dubbed ‘the war on women’---has been
on the rise in the US for some time. The ‘New Right’ in the 1970s built
its base in right-wing churches around the issue in the battles over abortion
and reproduction rights, setting the stage for Reagan’s victory. In the
case of 2012, the attacks on Planned Parenthood along with the elitist dismissal
of working mothers have been representative of the assertion of male supremacy,
even when articulated by women. This in turn is part of a global assault
on women based in various religious fundamentalisms that have become a refuge
for economically displaced men and for gender-uncomfortable people across the
board.
The attack on ‘slacker,’ ‘criminal’ and ‘over-privileged’
youth, especially among minorities, is actually part of what started to unfold
in the anti-healthcare antics of the Tea Party. Studies of the Tea Party
movement have indicated that they have a conceptualization based on the
"deserving" and "undeserving" populations. They and
many others on the right are deeply suspicious, if not in outright opposition,
to anything that they see as distributing away from them any of their hard-won
gains. They believe that they earned and deserve what they have and that
there is an undeserving population, to a great extent youth (but also including
other groups), who are looking for handouts. This helps us understand that much
of the right-wing populist movement is a generational movement of white
baby-boomers and older who see the ship of empire foundering and wish to ensure
that they have life preservers, if not life-boats.
The defenders of the 1% are an odd breed. Obviously that
includes the upper crust, but it also includes a social base that believes that
the upper crust earned their standing. Further, this social base believes
or wishes to believe that they, too, will end up in that echelon.
Adhering to variations of Reaganism, ‘bootstrapping’ or other such
ideologies, they wish to believe that so-called free market capitalism is the
eternal solution to all economic problems. Despite the fact that the
Republican economic program is nothing more or less than a retreading of George
W. Bush's failed approach, they believe that it can be done differently.
Empire,
balance of forces and the lesser of two evils
The choice in November 2012 does not come down to empire vs.
no-empire. While anyone can choose to vote for the Greens or other
non-traditional political parties, the critical choice and battleground
continues to exist in the context of a two-party system within the declining US
empire. The balance of forces in 2012 is such that those who are arrayed
against the empire are in no position to mount a significant electoral
challenge on an anti-imperialist platform.
To assume that the November elections are a moment to display our
antipathy toward empire, moreover, misses entirely what is unfolding.
This is not a referendum on the “America of Empire”: it is a
referendum pitting the “America of Popular Democracy”—the progressive majority
representing the changing demographics of the US and the increasing demands for
broad equality and economic relief, especially the unemployed and the
elderly—against the forces of unfettered neoliberalism and far right
irrationalism. Obama is the face on the political right’s bull's eye, and
stands as the key immediate obstacle to their deeper ambitions. We, on
the left side of the aisle, recognize that he is not our advocate for the 99%.
Yet and quite paradoxically, he is the face that the right is using to
mobilize its base behind irrationalism and regression.
That’s why we
argue that Obama's record is really not what is at stake in this election
Had the progressive social movements mobilized to push Obama for
major changes we could celebrate; had there been progressive electoral
challenges in the 2010 mid-term elections and even in the lead up to 2012 (such
as Norman Solomon's congressional challenge in California, which lost very
narrowly), there might be something very different at stake this year.
Instead what we have is the face of open reaction vs. the face of
corporate liberalism, of ‘austerity and war on steroids’ vs. ‘austerity and war
in slow motion.’
This raises an interesting question about the matter of the
"lesser of two evils," something which has become, over the years, a
major concern for many progressives. Regularly in election cycles some
progressives will dismiss supporting any Democratic Party candidate because of
a perceived need to reject "lesser evil-ism", meaning that Democrats
will always strike a pose as somewhat better than the GOP, but remain no
different in substance. In using the anti-‘lesser evil-ism’ phraseology,
the suggestion is that it really does not matter who wins because they are both
bad. Eugene Debs is often quoted—better to vote for what you want and not
get it, than to vote for what you oppose and get it. While this may make for
strong and compelling rhetoric and assertions, it makes for a bad argument and
bad politics.
In elections progressives need to be looking very coldly at a few
questions:
1.
Are progressive social movements strong enough
to supersede or bypass the electoral arena altogether?
2.
Is there a progressive candidate who can
outshine both a reactionary and a mundane liberal, and win?
3.
What would we seek to do in achieving victory?
4.
What is at stake in that particular election?
In thinking through these questions, we think the matter of a lesser
of two evils is a tactical question of simply voting for one candidate to
defeat another, rather than a matter of principle. Politics is frequently
about the lesser of two evils. World War II for the USA, Britain and the
USSR was all about the lesser of two evils. Britain and the USA certainly
viewed the USSR as a lesser evil compared with the Nazi Germany, and the USSR
came to view the USA and Britain as the lesser evils. Neither side
trusted the other, yet they found common cause against a particular enemy.
There are many less dramatic examples, but the point is that it happens
all the time. It’s part of ‘politics as strategy’ mentioned earlier.
It is for these reasons that upholding the dismissal of the 'lesser
evil-ism' is unhelpful. Yes, in this case, Obama is aptly described as
the lesser of two evils. He certainly represents a contending faction of
empire. He has continued the drone attacks in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
His healthcare plan is nowhere near as helpful as would be Medicare for
All. He has sidelined the Employee Free Choice Act that would promote
unionization. What this tells us is that Obama is not a progressive. What
it does not tell us is how to approach the elections.
Approaching
November
The political right, more than anything, wishes to turn November
2012 into a repudiation of the changing demographics of the US and an
opportunity to reaffirm not only the empire, but also white racial supremacy.
In addition to focusing on Obama they have been making what are now
well-publicized moves toward voter suppression, with a special emphasis on
denying the ballot to minority, young, formerly incarcerated and elderly
voters. This latter fact is what makes ridiculous the suggestion by some
progressives that they will stay home and not vote at all.
The political right seeks an electoral turn-around reminiscent of
the elections at the end of the 19th century in the South that disenfranchised
African Americans and many poor whites. This will be their way of holding
back the demographic and political clocks. And, much like the
disenfranchisement efforts at the end of the 19th century, the efforts in 2012
are playing on racial fears among whites, including the paranoid notion that
there has been significant voter fraud carried out by the poor and people of
color (despite all of the research that demonstrates the contrary!).
Furthermore, this is part of a larger move toward greater
repression, a move that began prior to Obama and has continued under him.
It is a move away from democracy as neo-liberal capitalism faces greater
resistance and the privileges of the "1%" are threatened.
Specifically, the objective is to narrow the franchise in very practical
terms. The political right wishes to eliminate from voting whole segments
of the population, including the poor. Some right-wingers have even been
so bold as to suggest that the poor should not be entitled to vote.
November 2012 becomes not a statement about the Obama presidency,
but a defensive move by progressive forces to hold back the ‘Caligulas’ on the
political right. It is about creating space and using mass campaigning to
build new grassroots organization of our own. It is not about endorsing
the Obama presidency or defending the official Democratic platform. But it is
about resisting white revanchism and political misogynism by defeating
Republicans and pressing Democrats with a grassroots insurgency, while
advancing a platform of our own, one based on the ‘People’s Budget’ and antiwar
measures of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. In short, we need to do a
little ‘triangulating’ of our own.
Why do we keep
getting ourselves into this hole?
Our answer to this question is fairly straight forward. In the
absence of a long-term progressive electoral strategy that is focused on
winning power, we will find ourselves in this "Groundhog Day"
scenario again and again. Such a strategy cannot be limited to the
running of symbolic candidates time and again as a way of rallying the troops.
Such an approach may feel good or help build socialist recruitment, but
it does not win power. Nor can we simply tail the Democrats.
The central lesson we draw from the last four years has less to do
with the Obama administration and more to do with the degree of effective
organization of social movements and their relationship to the White House,
Congress and other centers of power. The failure to put significant
pressure on the Obama administration--combined with the lack of attention to
the development of an independent progressive strategy, program and
organizational base--has created a situation whereby frustration with a
neo-liberal Democratic president could lead to a major demobilization. At
bottom this means further rightward drift and the entry into power of the
forces of irrationalism.
Crying over this situation or expressing our frustration with Obama
is of little help at this point. While we will continue to push for more class
struggle approaches in the campaign’s messages, the choice that we actually
face in the immediate battle revolves around who would we rather fight after
November 2012: Obama or Romney? Under what administration are
progressives more likely to have more room to operate? Under what
administration is there a better chance of winning improvements in the
conditions of the progressive majority of this country? These are the
questions that we need to ask. Making a list of all of the things that
Obama has not done and the fact that he was not a champion of the progressive
movement misses a significant point: he was never the progressive
champion. He became, however, the demon for the political right and the
way in which they could focus their intense hatred of the reality of a changing
US, and, indeed, a changing world.
We urge all progressives to deal with the reality of this political
moment rather than the moment we wish that we were experiencing. In order
to engage in politics, we need the organizations to do politics with,
organizations that belong to us at the grassroots. That ball is in our court,
not Obama’s. In 2008 and its aftermath, too many of us let that ball slip out
of our hands, reducing us to sideline critics, reducing our politics to so much
café chatter rather than real clout. Let’s not make that mistake again.
Published on Alternet (http://www.alternet.org)
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