This morning, Democrats regained consciousness after last week’s electoral‑judicial knockout with the headachey feeling that party strategists had been so impressed with their 2008 success that they had treated themselves to an extended vacation. Republican Scott Brown’s improbable Massachusetts Senate victory took advantage of Democratic complacency and has put the entire health care reform package in jeopardy. Conservative Democrats carefully removed their spines and are disavowing efforts to pass health care legislation immediately. Then came the Supreme Court’s overturning of campaign finance reform (along with two important precedents) in order to recognize corporations’ natural rights to First Amendment protection. When the Anti‑Federalists insisted on the Bill of Rights, what they most feared was the tyranny of government over the bribing power of monstrously large corporations. “Give me liberty, or give me death!” Patrick Henry said. “Or oligarchy! You know, whatever.” Meanwhile, gay marriage has been debated in San Francisco with hardly a peep from the Democrats, essentially telling millions of children that the party of the big tent is somehow too small for both their parents. The Democrats are fractured ideologically and organizationally, and last week’s shit show is only the latest development in the ongoing disintegration of organized political party power. The Republican Party is threatened too, with Tea Partiers, Palinites, Marc Rubios, and Charlie Crists all drawing attention and power away from the central party apparatus.
This siphoning of power away from the main party organization is rooted in troubled relationships with grassroots activists on both sides. Unfortunately for Democrats, Republicans have managed to capitalize on the fervor of their Birthers and Tea Partiers, even though these groups resist efforts to impose a larger party structure and message. Even more remarkable is the seeming ideological coherence of the Tea Partier crowd. Their pseudo‑populist calls for free markets and small government have gained an impressive hold over followers and reverberate up through the boosterism of bandwagoners like Michele Bachmann and even Sarah Palin. When wingers fight the party establishment, they tend to win and will surely be aided by the piles of money that corporations can throw around thanks to the Supreme Court’s recent ruling.
The Democrats, on the other hand, have managed to absorb their supporters into the Barack Obama support group Organizing for America or alienate them from the process by allowing Joe Lieberman and Ben Nelson to feed their egos on the entrails of the democratic process. But the party has taken a backward approach to grassroots activism. Instead of riding the wave of enthusiasm, gathering crowds for rallies and campaigns, the party shies away from it’s own left wing, neglecting to aid natural allies in fights with the far right by simply failing to engage.
Nowhere is this discrepancy more evident than in the fight for marriage equality, currently on circus trial in California. Proposition 8, the subject of the current hearings and a stain on the legacy of 2008’s progressive electoral victories, saw the clash of far right evangelical money with leftist civil rights advocates like Equality California. When Prop 8 failed, observers noted the inadequate funding for opposition groups, and indeed Obama’s silence on the proposition further alienated supporters of marriage equality from the Democratic Party. Now the measure is on trial in San Francisco, and the administration hasn’t so much as blinked at it. By ignoring such an important opportunity to defend civil rights, the Democratic Party is marginalizing itself. Unlike the Tea Partier crowd, lefties lack coherent vision without the guidance of a major party. It’s a problem whose consequences have come up over and over in the past year, such as in Maine’s marriage equality fight and in the lost race to fill Ted Kennedy’s seat in the Senate.
Democrats need a major dose of courage, and the grassroots are one place to find it. Instead of running away from the good fights, Democrats need to encourage activist campaigns, allowing good ideas to filter up through the grassroots in exchange for financial support from above. Howard Dean’s 50‑State Strategy remains a good start, encouraging local activists to build up their own local organizations with party money. Loud, vigorous support for issues like marriage equality should be the Democrats’ main point of pride and should not treated as an embarrassment in front of disapproving Republican colleagues. With all his talk of bipartisanship, Obama’s Democrats are forgetting the benefits of real partisanship, which takes advantage of activists’ aggressive politics to give those in power cover and support to actually defend progressive convictions.
Sarah Leonard is a Columbia College senior majoring in history. Kate Redburn is a Columbia College senior majoring in history and African studies. Shock and Awe runs alternate Mondays. opinion@columbiaspectator.com
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