Mark Warner and the netroots

Garance Franke-Ruta has a good article in the American Prospect about Mark Warner's lukewarm reception at YearlyKos.

This paragraph says it all:

Still, all the griping was clearly having an impact on Warner’s internet strategist Jerome Armstrong by Sunday morning, who dismissed the snipers as “ideological” and “pretty left wing.”

“It wasn’t going to be a love-in to begin with,” Armstrong sighed as the final brunch session of the conference wound down. “This was a great opportunity for bloggers to meet Warner. But also, the whole blogosphere and broader press was focused on this event. Coming here was a no-brainer.” [American Prospect]

Yes, a lot of the criticism was ideological and left wing. Clearly, Garance understands what negative connotations those words have for some influential figures in the netroots movement.

The netroots must have some ideological flexibility in order to be effective. It's a structural constraint imposed by our model.

Like every other faction in American politics, our power depends upon our ability to raise money. Luckily, blogs and other websites are proven conduits for small donor dollars and campaign finance laws have changed in favor of small donors.

The netroots works by focusing national attention on a handful of races where our support can tip the balance. These races are chosen because they are low-hanging electoral fruit. We don't control where these opportunities arise. Sometimes the best pickup opportunities occur in places where a left liberal Dem isn't electable, but where a moderate or a conservative might have a chance. It's also important to remember that the netroots can't order up candidates a la carte. Our strength is our ability to connect local Democrats to a network of supporters around the country. The catch is that we've got to work with the flesh-and-blood citizens who are willing to run for office in their communities. We can't expect to dictate the finer points of our agenda from afar.

When pressed, most progressives will agree that a moderate Democrat who's willing to fight hard for his or her stated principles is still better than any Republican. Besides, a Democratic majority is worth a lot to progressives for its own sake. Suppose we retook the House or the Senate by keeping the Dems we've already got and replacing a few Republicans with conservative Democrats. That in itself would be a huge step forward. At least Russ Feingold and John Conyers could hold official hearings and call witnesses under oath.

However, even if you agree that the compromises imposed by the netroots model are acceptable, they remain unpalatable. I think some of the leaders of the netroots are trying too hard to market the movement as non-ideological. It's just not true. There's a big difference between someone who's willing to support a candidate who disagrees with them on a couple of important issues and someone who really doesn't care what a candidate stands for as long as they have a "D" after their name.

The leaders of the netroots should be careful not to get out of touch with their rank and file in their eagerness to sell blog power to the widest possible range of mainstream Democrats. Progressive ideology runs deep in the netroots. So far, the netroots has been able to mobilize the rank and file because they've chosen candidates who represent a reasonable compromise between electability and ideology. Our leaders ignore the ideological side of the equation at their peril. Pure winnerism won't mobilize the netroots, it never has and it never will.

Comments

[CMike]

53% of Americans want a timetable established to get our troops out of Iraq. 47% want our troops out in a year or less.

I'm guessing 95% of likely presidential candidates, both Republican and Democratic, want to stay the course in Iraq or some variation thereof, like; let's check back in six months or let's stay but stay with more body armor for the troops.

If not Garance Franke-Ruta, there are lots of pundits who want to pass along the following advice. First, netroots should avoid aligning itself with the far out leftist position held by the majority of citizens who, after all, only live here. Second, netroots should be willing to accomodate the needs of those who run, or want to run, the country.

[Jeffrey O]

Check out Mark Crispen Miller's letter to Salon about the election fraud issue. The underlying subtext of this issue is that we have descended into a quasi fascist regime and our elections as a means to express our collective will have been thwarted.

This may be a cynical view, but it deserves some real serious scrutiny and the Kos people are so invested in THIS democracy that they can't even entertain the FACT that it may really not be a democracy at all.

The slide from freedom, and democracy to facism is gradual like the frog in who won't jump from the water as it is brought to a boil. We are that frog. Our democracy HAS been stolen.

Indeed, we may not live in the complete Orwellian nightmare, but truth and the pursuit of it have little place in the media and in the halls of congress.

The disenfranchized are afraid to declare that something is amiss because of being labelled sore losers and spoil sports... how dare you dis the democracy that we love and cherish. Very Rovian. Gore backed down, Kerry backed down and the Kossacks think that the netroots can inspie change through elections. Gimme a break.

For those who have observed how the ENTIRE electoral process plays out in this country... from the fact that only rich and powerful even get a chance to mount a campaign in the first place, to the corrup campaign finance process, to the coopted media which is owned by the oligarghy with "their" owner's interests first and foremost as filter for conveying the news, to the election suppression, disenfrachisement of the black vote, to the non verifiable and easily hacked black box voting touch screen system being forced upon us... to the refusal to even investigate legimate claims about issues... the vote, 9.11, Abu Graib, Katrina, war profiteering and on and on and on.

In the end there are the desparate Kossacks who cling to the notion that that can vote democracy back into this nation. (how naive!). Democracy is something which has historically been fought for as the oppressive class does not permit themselves to be voted off the island.

So as we the frog is boiling to death... we cannot and will not be permitted to vote to have the flame snuffed out. Our votes will be illusions as we slip off into deeper and deeper embedded fascism.

So long as we are just chatting away to each other... and not DOING anything no one up there really cares... It's the ILLUSION of freedom that the blogs are and YKos was.

If you need evidence that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely... Look at your senator Lindsey... the "radical" Ms Clinton...

In actual fact our hope for a just word will come from complete collapse of this system... probably economic... this seems likely... as the economy is like a runaway train now... or actual old time rise up rebellion and that seems rather unlikely... especially since we have so many prisons and are building detention camps right now.

Tin foil territory? I don't think so but this again is a put down of those who are still drinking the kool aid that come november the pendulum will swing back...

Make sense?

[mudkitty]

We're fucked.

[jeffrey O]

Excuse the typing and typos... I am too lazy to write AND edit my spew... I hope you can read thru the goo(fs).

[Joe S.]

Lindsay,
I mostly agree, but you do make one unwarranted assumption: that the "left blogosphere" is uniformly left. I don't think so. The Grand Heresiarch of Shrillness--Krugman--is a fairly conservative Democrat. A large number of A-list bloggers are in the conversative-to-moderate ranks (by D standards, that is.) Consider Atrios or Josh Marshall or Kevin Drum.

So a lot of us actually PREFER moderate to left Democrats, but are quite happy to support effective left Democrats, like Paul Feingold or Barney Frank. We view left Democrats as current allies and potential future adversaries. We do not view them as enemies: either current or potential. Adversaries can be friends. We save the "enemy" designation for the Republicans, and hope that the left Democrats view us the same way we view them. There is nothing wrong with compromising disagreements.

The right blogospheric Democrats differ from the right mainstream Democrats in one significant respect. The right mainstream Democrats still view accommodation with the Republicans as a desirable thing. The right blogospherians have given up on it. I could even argue that the right blogospherians hate the Republicans more than the left blogospherians do. After all, the best anti-Communists were always the socialists.

[razor]

Shorter version: yes, there is a cultural war being fought out with who controls the government, and don't forget it just because some tactical concessions have to be made to win the war.

It's known as a losers approach. Rightly so. From the perspective of someone who believes in democracy and liberal values.

[John Emerson]

I had it explained to me recently that a lot of the present "left" blogosphere is reformed moderate Republicans: Kos, Aravosis, probably Greenwald, and several of the BOP News people. That's been the DLC plan all along -- let the Rs move to the far right, and have the Ds scavenge up the disillusioned non-loony Republicans.

There just aren't enough left-liberals. I don't like it, but a more aggressive, less whipped version of the DLC is the best we'll get. And of course that's much better than having the Armageddonists and PNAC controlling the American military.

All those guys (including Atrios) assure us intermittently that they're "not all that liberal", and several of them have stated their intention of "doing well by doing good".

I actually partly agree -- you can't run a political movement in your spare time, and you can't demand that talented people live on minimum wage income while they do their work. But there will be costs; once the Democrats take power, if they ever do, we're going to start to hear Armstrong, Kos, and the rest of them telling us to forget about various liberal dreams. Art of the possible.

I've been told that there's actually a lot of liberal / Democratic money, but that it seems to go to the wrong places with too many strings attached. Often someone with money who's regarded as rabidly liberal will actually have a few conservative skeletons in their closet (e.g. anti-labor views, Likud sympathies, intellectual-property interests, etc.), and people with deep pockets set their own rules.

[Jeffrey]

They not only set them, but we must play by them. America has failed because it does not represent the needs and wishes of the vast majority of her citizens. It is all about the myth about climbing up the economic ladder to the comfort of the middle class and beyond.

The class conveyor sounds nice and all the "success" stories are always contin ually paraded in the MSM so we can all be assured that the conveyor is working.

All well and good. Democracy is one thing and one thing we don't have... and social and economic equity and justice is another thing and we surely don't have that at all.

Free market capitalism is as much the reason for the ascendence of america as it will be for her fall. The old rising tide does not raise all ships, but like the tsunami sinks lots of the little guys. Look at the stats for literacy, infant mortality, and even health care for adults and you can see for all our wealth creation, only the wealthy make out in america. The workers are simply not part of the success story.

Workers are and have always been the means to the end called wealth. All you need to do is to see who workers are treated by corporations who fall over themselves in setting up operations offshore to avail themselves of labor which is virtually slave labor. Apple is getting hoisted on its own petard on this lately.

Out mechanism for change is law... taxes and the appropriations of those taxes by the congress. What we have is an entrenched military established like a huge cancer in the gut killing us from the inside. We have legislators passing out tax cuts and putting the burden on the lower income taxpayers and their progeny and we have laws which neither regulate business or protect our environment. We have a government for and by the wealthy... paid for by the workers.

And then we have those pie in the sky dreamer who think that they can "take back america" at the ballot box. How niave!!!!!!!!! Sure there are many people outraged at what's going down... and chafing at the bit to cast their ballot or phone bank or leaflet or crash the gate. But in the end they will be co opted or shut down and the march to the right and the new fuedalism will continue unabatted.

We are well past the time that we need a revolutinary change in america... and it didn'[t happen... and it will not happen... not at the ballot box nor in the courts, nor in the streets. Blog on... nothing will change... in 06 or 08...

[Td Raicer]

>We're fucked.

Yes, that's helpful. (Actually I like being fucked, but that's another story...)

>We are well past the time that we need a revolutinary change in america... and it didn'[t happen... and it will not happen... not at the ballot box nor in the courts, nor in the streets. Blog on... nothing will change... in 06 or 08...

To which the only reply is Grow Up. The world is imperfect because human beings are imperfect. There is no ideal society, never has been, and never will be, and no Revolution has ever produced one. The rich will always do better than the poor, injustice will always be a part of our life experience, and water will remain wet.

Deal with it.

We muddle through life individually, so we shouldn't expect to do better than muddle through collectively. There is still a difference between okay and better, between okay and bad, and between bad and worse, and nothing has demonstrated that better than the rule of W.

I'm not suggesting one give up one's ideals in order to win. But there is a difference between political idealism and political fantasy. If no changes that can possibly be made are good enough for you, it suggests you are more interested in feeling apart and superior than actually making things better. Despair, after all, is easy. Change requires effort.

So you are a Libertarian, or Anarcho-Syndicalist, or Socialist, and the US is never going to be any of those things. Boo hoo-if you can find your model nation, go live there. If you can't (because there isn't one) you better dial down your expectations of what politics can do.

What remains is that the US can be a better place than it is now. Maybe a only a little better, maybe a lot better. But better.

So yes, let's fight Lieberman, and Hillary and the DLC, and support the Lamonts in their battle for the Democratic Party. But there is too much work to do to waste time moaning because Reality refuses to match up with some personal ideological ideal.

(My ideal society would be a Divine Monarchy with me as God-Emperor, but you don't see me crying because it remains, um, improbable.)

[Cranky Observer]

Personally, I was a typical middle-aged technical white guy on the typical road from youthful liberalism to middle-aged conservatism when the 2000 election campaign and the W Administration rudely brought me up short and jerked me back the the 1/4 mark on the left-right fuel gauge. I would be happy to vote for a candidate who is fiscally conservative, socaially libertarian, and who keeps a tight leash on crime and foreign policy.

Problem is, all the candidates who meet that description today are either labeled or actually ARE "far left". The moderates and non-existant "conservatives" are pushing or enabling an agenda I can only classify as Radical.

So it was back to the "far left" for me.

Cranky

[revere]

I don't like Jerome's characterization of discontent with Warner (whose views on the war are pretty lame) as being labeled ideological and left wing. I am left wing but not ideological in any sectarian sense. Jerome's statement plays into the hands of the Dem Right and the Republicans, isn't accurate and is a piss poor response to a legitimate discontent with a key issue for many of us. I am in my mid sixties and not involved in partisan politics although I am an active political blogger who is concerned with progressive issues in my profession (public health).

To repeat: I am a person of the left (and proud of it) but not far left, I am not sectarian and I don't like being marginalized by people who should know better like Jerome. If this is his idea of Crashing the Gates, God help us.

[revere]

Forgot to change the URL of the blog on my sig (we just moved). Lindsay was kind enough to note our change of address and we are proud to be her favorite public health blog. Majikthise remains my favorite blog for all sorts of reasons, not the least the superb writing and clear thinking. Thanks Lindsay.