The Greater Evil

Every Progressive movement in my lifetime has ended up being splintered and then absorbed by moderation. Moderation, Centrism, Normalcy, The Golden Mean. These words make us feel safe; protected from the storms blowing at the extremes.
But if we take moderation to it’s logical conclusion, we find that even moderation should be used moderately.
Sometimes one of those storms will come front and threaten the center.
That is what we are facing in Trump and Republican control of our government. I don’t have to go into what those Yahoos want to unaccomplish; we are all acutely aware already.
Which brings me to my real topic, the #DemEnter Movement and how it directly correlates to Bernie’s plans from the beginning of his campaign.
From the outset, Bernie talked about making the Democrats more Progressive. I hope we can agree that the implication was “majority” Progressive. I’ll take it a step further and think in terms of “overwhelmingly” Progressive.
Everyone was delighted to find out just how many Progressives were already in the rank-and-file. It makes you wonder how many more there might have been had the party bothered with a recruitment effort this cycle. It would have to have been pretty early on in NY, for instance, if the leadership had wanted new members to vote in that primary. But they didn’t. That was the first clue that a DemExit strategy could never work.
Jill Stein herself ironically and inadvertently put the final nail in that coffin when she tweeted about the DNC caring more about pushing their choices than winning elections. That being the case, there is no possible pressure on them from outside the party. They can only be fired from the inside. They wanted to answer to fewer Progressives, not more. They were laughing up their sleeves at the exit.
So now we are faced with a deep schism in our party, which allowed the Republicans to co-opt what had been our bulwark since FDR, namely the working class. The shameful aspect of this is that they didn’t take them from us; we forfeited them through our inattention and in many cases outright disdain for them.
The Establishment Wing would like nothing better than to stay with the status quo, which has been one of gradual capitulation to the Conservative fiscal agenda ever since the Clintons hit town 25 years ago and redefined the party. They are blaming everything and everyone for losing the election except their own lack of forward vision and recognition of present reality, and the vulnerability of their candidate.
Well, that status quo has blown up in their faces. If the Republicans pass an infrastructure bill with any kind of juice (on credit, of course) it won’t matter how many tax breaks they give to corporations or who they decide to bomb, they will be in power for the next 20 years.
Is that not enough of a threat to convince we who are already engaged to hurry up and find common ground against a common enemy? There is a lot of room for agreement among ourselves about the dangers we all face together even while we are busy infighting.
The Old Guard has to admit something to themselves; the Republican candidate beat the Democrat on the bases of unfair trade, wars of choice, Wall St. coercion, and lack of trust.
All issues which land exponentially hardest on the working class.
All issues which turned the Democratic Party into Moderate Republicans.
All issues derived directly from the party being moved to the Right by Bill Clinton, with the enthusiastic help and support of his wife.
The Clintons became the Gold Standard for Democrats after two terms ending in a surplus only because living memory of the Gold Standard that was FDR was fading fast. FDR left us with a 40 year Democrat majority that built the middle class and exported their brand of Democratic Socialism to Europe. Bill benefited mostly from the tech boom, while setting us up for big trouble down the road.
That is the source of Bernie’s vision. It’s not new; it’s a rollback of the rollback of FDR Democracy. It’s not impossible or fanciful; it’s been done before. Right here.
The Progressive wing has to admit a few things too. First among them is how unrealistic it is to expect an immediate clean sweep of the leadership. Next would be that everything that occurred in the primaries was politics as usual and can not be taken personally. To win an election against an incumbent, (and she could hardly have been more so, for all intents and purposes) you have to overcome all of that. Bernie knew it when he signed on to run as a Democrat, but his purpose was publicity for the political revolution much more than an attempt to be president. Certainly at that point.
What we as Progressives most urgently need to do right now, is forego any desire for a mea culpa or apology and make it as easy and painless as possible for establishment types to rediscover their inner Progressives.
The party will change or die. I think nearly everyone is aware or rapidly becoming aware of that.
The barbarians are not at the gate anymore. They’ve taken our Capital. We have been reduced to an insurgency, and divided we fall.
There is no feasible alternative course to #DemEnter if we want to have a chance against a Republican Party that is rapidly uniting. The only way to beat them is to provide an example of sane, effective populism to combat their authoritarian bait-and-switch brand, because populism isn’t going away any time soon. It’s been too long in the making, and too desperately needed. There is no time to build a Progressive Party from scratch. Jill’s 1% should be proof enough of that.
When I found Jason Eno’s group #DemEnter I had already been advocating as hard as I could in as many forums as possible for the same idea. I could not believe the resistance I encountered everywhere. I know a lot of it was Trump trolling; the exit would benefit no one but Trump and some members of the DNC, and the tone was exactly the same as the “Berniebros” of such ill repute.
Finding an actual group I could get behind was like reaching an oasis. We probably all used to be in many groups that became deserts.
#DemEnter consists of a lot of folks who already have their hands on the nuts and bolts of the party, including Berniecrats on the DNC itself. It is chock full of great information about how to get involved. Bernie told us we have to take charge of the movement, and Jason and his crew are doing their part and more. There are sub groups for each state and territory.
Those folks know how to get organized.
That’s one facet of what we need to do. The other is to reach out to the ocean of the disenchanted that are still sitting out government by the people. That’s what Bernie’s new position is all about, and having him there is a dream come true for me. Outreach to increase Progressives in the rank-and-file is the key to Bernie’s whole plan. If we build them something worthwhile they will come.
If you are already a member of #DemEnter and are not super busy with the nuts and bolts, please take some time to share the group. If not, please check it out and see if it is something you would be interested in, and then share the Hell out of it. We need all hands on deck.