Pen-Elayne on the Web

The Coalition of the Hopeful

[Sorry, I tried to post this in the morning but Blogger was down, at least the portion of the server dealing with this blog, and then we went to The Movie and dinner and I've only just gotten home...]

One of my favorite magazines is called Hope. It's essentially about people who are making positive differences in the world around them, and it's a great source of inspiration. The latest issue of In These Times seems to have taken a few pages out of that magazine. In an article entitled "Reasons to Hope: Bush Catalyzes a Nascent Protessive Movement" (which doesn't yet appear on the biweekly mag's website), Cynthia Moothart has an interesting quote from ITT founder James Weinstein:

People have to understand that the major parties are not political parties in the European sense. They are coalitions of parties and provide an arena in which people can operate and express themselves. That's what the Republican right did. They represent only about 20 percent of Republicans, but they have organized and pushed their ideas and their organization and now have effective control of the Republican party. That is why it makes sense to run in a Democratic primary instead of staying on the outside until that whole process is over and then run as a third party. That way you won't be totally ignored - and appropriately. [emphasis mine]

This reminds me of what Grover Norquist advised at the What Liberal Media? panel last March. He prefaced by saying something along the lines of, "I feel like I can give you liberals this advice because I'm confident that you won't follow it, which is good for our side," and then proceeded to talk about how, back in the '60s, conservatives were in the same kind of factionalist disarray, and they gradually decided to avoid the fighting in pursuit of power, got their act together, and now lo and behold they hold that power.

And the power to actually effect substantial change is what it's all about, now more than ever as the minority 20% that Weinstein mentions has managed to do so within the Republican Party to the great detriment of our country and indeed the security of the world. It also ties in nicely with what Tony Kushner said in his Mother Jones interview which lots of bloggers have been quoting:

The system isn't about ideals. The country doesn't elect great leaders. It elects fucked-up people who for reasons of ego want to run the world. Then the citizenry makes them become great. FDR was a plutocrat. In a certain sense he wasn't so different from George W. Bush, and he could have easily been Herbert Hoover, Part II. But he was a smart man, and the working class of America told him that he had to be the person who saved this country. It happened with Lyndon Johnson, too, and it could have happened with Bill Clinton, but we were so relieved after 12 years of Reagan and Bush that we sat back and carped.

In a certain sense, Bush was right when he called the anti-war demonstrations a "focus group." We went out on the street and told him that we didn't like the war. But that was all we did: We expressed an opinion. There was no one in Congress to listen to us because we were clear about why they couldn't listen. Hillary Clinton was too compromised, or Chuck Schumer -- and God knows they are. But if people don't pressure them to do better, we're lost.

Now I admit it, I’ve been a supporter of a multi-party system since 1980 when I voted for John Anderson. But these quotes have really made me rethink that strategy. I'm a lot more comfortable voting Democratic rather than third party henceforth if I view the Democratic Party as a coalition of smaller parties, caucuses, whatever you want to call them, than as a great monolith. After all, I'm the one who's reminded folks repeatedly, while working the Friends of Lulu booth at comic conventions and posting online at comics-related sites, that women are no more a monolithic reading group than men – so why expect voters in any one party to be a monolithic group as well? We're all individuals with our own agendas and hopes and dreams, and the only way to realize them is to make our voices heard effectively. As Tom Tomorrow says, "Together, we will get through this." And we must. We don't currently have the luxury of living in an ideal world, but we have the necessity of working towards that ideal world in the way we currently exercise our franchise. Progressives can't afford to continue to marginalize ourselves. Compromise is not abandonment, and neither is it a dirty word. We must give up something to receive something greater. And for me, if the something I give up is voting in a general election for the third-party Presidential candidate who most embodies my ideals and the something greater I receive (along with the millions of other like-minded souls who similarly exercise their franchise) is the ability to influence the eventual Democratic candidate away from DLC conservatism and towards progressive causes I support, it's more than worth the compromise. (That said, at this point I do intend to support the most progressive Democratic candidate, Dennis Kucinich, in the party primary, as one of the ways to voice my particular preferences.)