There's a lot of finger pointing, chest thumping and hand wringing over the Senate's impending confirmation of Roberts. As usual, we hear from certain quarters attacks on NARAL -- as if this were NARAL's doing. We read that Roberts is a reasonable man -- as if he actually answered the serious questions anywhere in his melodious responses. We see posts where people have expressed surprise that the Dems folded so quickly--

--to which I have to say:

Why

is

anyone

surprised?

Over and over and over we've seen the Democrats puff up like bullfrogs and speak with such passion about this and that, and then see them go vote for the other thing. Over and over. On bankruptcy. On the war. On the energy pork bill. And certainly in the bevy of confirmation hearings this year.

I think the sharpest analysis was in a dK comment by a gilas girl:

A disagreement here



The "big failure", as you put it, isn't/wasn't even 2000 or 2004, but the failure to get everyone (bloggers included) to see that the immediate problem is the rightward drift of our political system (that's what keeps resulting in GOP victories even when people don't necessarily agree with or want GOP policies). What you, other liberal bloggers focused on electoral politics and most of the general populace don't see is that a massive amount of right wing cultural and public education work lies behind and preceeded all the GOP victories. That's the place where the liberal/progressive blogospohere needs to step in and do some heavy lifting, but they [read you or Armando] CAN'T do that if they've diagnosed the problem as NO DEMS/NOT ENOUGH DEMS IN POWER. The latter isn't the disease, its a symptom of the disease, an outcome, not the underlying cause.

Why this frustrates me is that, unlike thinking one can influence sitting politicians, the problem/issue as I've framed and "diagnosed" it actually IS something that blogs do have some power to change (minus fundraising). But to continually miss that point and focus on the electoral thing WITHOUT doing this other really vital background work will continue to lead to the kinds of frustrations that Armando is now sharing publically.

Blogs can have influence, and important influence, but not the kind everyone here seems to accept as what is needed. That's the failure of imagination here, in seeing a kind of influence that exists elsewhere in the political system and seeking to duplicate it lock, stock and barrell for liberal issues, without taking into consideration the kind of background work that went into that influence on the rightwing side. Yes, the money is important, but the reason the money works so well on the right is because the path for the money was greased with the public education work. The blogs jumped in with money without very much of the greasing, that proved to have some short term success in electoral contexts (a la Dean) and thus the blogs were convinced of said model's "success", without much attention at all to the heavy lifting invisible work that was missing. That, I think is what Armando (and many others like him, including in many instances, you, I might add) have been missing for a long time.

Its an uphill and incremental battle, not nearly as glamorous (or self-satisfying) as the fallacious notion of blogs power that you and others are now critiquing.

So, for me, the question isn't one of individual or serial "litmus" or "progressive purity" tests, but a consistent position of demanding that the progressive rationales always be articulated and voiced on every issue. That's what is really needed, the articulation of progressivism on every issue, win or lose: we need to make sure that progressivism is always part of the public policy discussions from this point on. Even when we know that large numbers of people may disagree with the progressive position as articulated we have to make sure that is it always voiced. To do that, you can't use denigrating sound bytes like "progressive purity" or "litmus tests" which refuse to acknowledge that even in losing its important that the position get a hearing (and the progressive position is never simply "oppose rightwingers", but is always connected to a progressive political philosophy (i.e. democratic tendencies cap anti-democratic ones, or corporate power tends to be anti-democratic power, the Constitution requires Senatorial advise and consent which requires access to information on the nominees, when the latter is unavailable then the confirmation process is an empty shell and thus, unconstitutional in actual practice) and/or progressive policy objective. Of course in the tactics of particular political struggles, compromises are necessary, but refusing to articulate the progressive position properly is not a compromise, its capitulation to the rightward downslide of our political system. That's the one immediate fallacy, I'd like to see the so-called liberal blogosphere learn to correct immediately and work to reverse long term.

On this I agree, and that is why it's so important to always -- always -- discuss the issues, even "pet causes" -- especially "pet causes" -- in terms of progressive values, and then back it up by backing the right leaders.

Frankly, if NARAL should dump Chafee for his vote, they should dump support for every politician for theirs as well. But that's NARAL's call, and what they do is up to them, as an advocacy organization.

Me, I'm going to keep talking about values. I'm going to keep talking about my "pet issues." And I'm going to keep addressing the delusion that "any Democrat will do, and to hell with what's right."

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media girl also blogs at other places.