November 08, 2004
Post-Election Notes From The Blogosphere : Matthew Yglesias
by Liza Sabater
Matthew Yglesias: Some Thoughts
I can't believe Yglesias is still in his twenties. He's one of the most articulate and insightful political writers in the blogosphere and out. Let me thread through his talking points [presented in italics]:
1. Shouldn't at least part of coping with the "moral values" problem involve some effort to do a better job of convincing people that more liberal positions than the ones they currently have are actually the correct ones?
2. More broadly, you've got to have a strategy for convincing people that at least some of your currently-unpopular ideas are ideas that they should like, not just a strategy for trying to figure out which ideas will be popular.
3. (1) and (2) above are less the task of campaigns than they are something other people need to be doing out in society when a campaign isn't happening.
As Ian Welsh said at The Blogging of the President: 2004 | Moving Right or Moving Left, the Democrats have tried for 10 years to do Republican Lite and have failed miserably. That whole political "strategerizing" has to go.
The question is, what do Democrats stand for? The easy, simple question : Upholding the rights and liberties the Constitution was meant to protect for all. If you allow Dominists frame the language by which you're supposed to explain your politics of equal opportunity for all, you fail. You cannot say, "I oppose gay marriage". You cannot say, "I oppose abortion" --and then proceed to explain how it still should be legal.
Somebody has to bring back Mario Cuomo to the Democratic Party. He is needed more urgently than ever. Cuomo was amazing when confronting religious zealotry. He would not say, "I oppose abortion", when asked about how he could call himself a Catholic and not ban abortion. Nonononononono! This is what Mario Cuomo would say [quote via Alas, a Blog: Mario Cuomo on "Religious Belief and Public Morality"]:
In addition to all the weaknesses, dilemmas, and temptations that impede every pilgrim’s progress, the Catholic who holds political office in a pluralistic democracy—who is elected to serve Jews and Muslims, atheists and Protestants, as well as Catholics—bears special responsibility. He or she undertakes to help create conditions under which all can live with a maximum of dignity and with a reasonable degree of freedom; where everyone who chooses may hold beliefs different from specifically Catholic ones, sometimes contradictory to them; where the laws protect people’s right to divorce, to use birth control, and even to choose abortion.
In fact, Catholic public officials take an oath to preserve the Constitution that guarantees his freedom. And they do so gladly. Not because they love what others do with their freedom, but because they realize that in guaranteeing freedom for all, they guarantee our right to be Catholics: our right to pray, to use the sacraments, to refuse birth control devices, to reject abortion, not to divorce and remarry if we believe it to be wrong.
The Catholic public official lives the political truth most Catholics through most of American history have accepted and insisted on: the truth that to assure our freedom we must allow others the same freedom, even if occasionally it produces conduct by them which we would hold to be sinful.
I protect my right to be a Catholic by preserving your right to believe as a Jew, a Protestant, or nonbeliever, or as anything else you choose.
Tell me, is there anything that says there "I don't believe in abortion"?
Nope. I didn't think so
4. Look at Harry Reid's actual record as an obstructionist before you leap to the conclusion that he's too electorally-vulnerable to be an effective Leader. Has he broken with the party on any major judicial or legislative votes? As far as I can tell, no.
I can't comment on this. I don't know anything about Reid. Here's a thought for all Democrats on the Hill : don't loose contact with the ground troops. Too much Washingtonism has cost you the last two Presidential elections. Bring transparency to the government process. You have at your disposal social networking tools that can become your weapon for opening the government, ironically, to the democratic process. Don't wait for the elections to reach out to people.
4. Stop arguing about the reason Bush won (or Kerry lost), these things are multicausal. Elections are complicated.
No, I don't agree. It needs to be discussed. Not dwelled upon but discussed. What we are doing here is part of that discussion. It does not only need to happen at the DNC level. It needs to happen at the grassroots level as well.
5. Concretely, and in the very immediate future, reality-based individuals (included, but not limited to, Democratic elected officials) need to start talking about Iraq as a currently ongoing war and not a campaign issue.
Agreed.
Iraq encapsulates everything this Republican-Dominionist movement is all about.
6. A desire not to undercut Kerry's campaign has, to a large extent, constrained what reality-based individuals have been saying and doing about this. Now that that factor is gone, we need to start discussing, debating, and advocating various courses of action. My thoughts (like, I suspect, those of many others) on this matter are somewhat muddled at the moment, and only an open exchange of ideas will let people get clearer.
7. Liberals need to learn to talk the talk and walk the walk of nationalism better. Hopefully in some guise that doesn't simply involve invading countries at random. Michael Lind has historically had smart things to say about this, and hopefully will more such smart things to say in the future.
As a post-national netizen and member of the reality-based community, I have a problem with the idea of nationalism. It's a fascist step backwards, never forward.
Why counter try to counter fascism with fascism-lite?
8. Who's figuring out what happened to the Latino vote? That's important. The news that highly religious conservative white people like George W. Bush, though much reported over the past 24 hours, is fairly banal. The fact that Democratic support is waning among Latinos is not banal.
Seems like nobody. Then again, you spoke on this post too soon, in reference to the actual concrete evidence that could explain the huge discrepancies in exit polls. Latinos do not vote just because of abortion or gay issues, mind you. But as with any national issues, Latinohood is relegated to an afterthought.
That said, I don't think Latinos were as big a swing factor in the elections. Now, Asians and the other minorities that have become mainstream (aka: whiteyfied), that's a whole other issue. Call it the Michelle Malkin syndrome. Someone ought to be looking at that as well.
9. Keep in mind that fighting like hell to block GOP legislation and fighting like hell to gain some Senate seats may not be mutually compatible goals. Due to constitutional design, there are many more solid Red states than solid Blue ones. The Senate Democratic caucus is therefore bound to be either small, or else disunited and more conservative than the party as a whole.
And this is why, if they are hip to what has happened "on the ground", they are in more need now than ever to really reach out to the people they represent. They have to connect to the grassroots networks, to serve as loudpeakers to their constituency, not as managers or pseudo-rulers. If not, then they deserve to be swept away by tides, not only of the rising theocracy, but of the progressive movement that is ready to stand up and fight this cultural war.
In The Blogosphere:
David Pell of Electablog* U.S. Ambassador to Cyberspace
Tim Dunlap of the road to surfdom
James Wolcott: Anyone Know How to Make a Noose?
Posted by Liza Sabater in 2004 Elections, Abortion, Accountability, Activism, Christian Fundamentalism, Culture, Culture War, Democrats, Dominionism, Empire, Ethnicity, Fascism, Grassroots, Latino, Politics
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