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My text for the day, as a minister friend sometimes says, comes from the following comment posted by a Dkos supporter on the My Left Wing Blog.
On a side note, the underlying basis of this fight is the same old battle between the centrist and radical left.
IMO Dkos is in fact centrist and that comes because of its size.
My belief is that the radical Left doesn’t have the numbers to fill a blog the size of Dkos, and even if they did, they would splinter based on their disavowal of hierarchy.
In other words, the power to move the things you want moved require size and structure.
Until those to the Left of Kos get that, this argument will continue ad nauseum.
Jake’s Guilt
As it is with the texts used for sermons, sometimes what seems an insignificant incident can reveal a great deal and so it is with this comment which explains not only what I call the Blog Wars but also the current battle waging for the soul of the Democratic Party, the contest to choose the next Democratic presidential candidate, and finally the most important of all, the conflict raging for the future direction of this country.
Language is the key to understanding all of these, especially in the context of this post. We will excuse the author’s grammatical confusion and sometimes indecipherable phrases, giving him the benefit of the fact that it was a comment and he was angry. But with Dkos and some Democrats emphasizing decorum, one wonders how long he will last among the snobs.
Had the author not been named Jake, I might have assumed the comment came from the likes of a Rush Limbaugh or an Ann Coulter. Perhaps it did or from one of their imitators who prowl the net at all hours of the night, for Dkos these days seems to be attracting some strange characters. In the first three lines alone the writer manages to work in the phrase “radical left,” although he isn’t always consistent with his capitalization (should we honor the left by capitalizing it or do we diminish it by putting it small letters?)–a hint that perhaps Dkos is accepting Limbaugh ditto heads on his site.
The use of this phrase dates back at least to the 19th century, but every time I read the words I have no idea what the writer is talking about. But then I am one of those contrarians who never has bought this left/right stuff. I know a lefty in baseball but not in politics. But what is a radical lefty? The writer seems to imply–as Limbaugh does–that being a radical makes being on the left somehow worse.
When confused by definitions, the best thing to do is to turn to old faithful, Mr. Webster, who now is online. Merriam-Webster Online gives us four interesting and contrasting definitions to choose from: root, fundamental, extreme and (slang) excellent or cool. Given the writer’s obvious bias, I would assume he means the third, but it is his apparent ignorance of the first and second that will provide the basis for this post.
For at least a decade–and some would argue as far back as Walter Mondale’s candidacy–the Democratic Party seems to have conceded the point made by the mainline media that the country has become more conservative. So Democrats became like someone trying to get into an exclusive club who takes on all the airs of an upper class snob, their copycat manners apparent to everyone but themselves.
Democratic strategy over the last decades has focused on moving to the right. But, as I argue in The Strange Death of Liberal America, what if that weren�t true? What if, in fact, contrary to the dominant myth, the rightward tilt had nothing to do with the Republicans and everything to do with the Democrats abandoning their principles?
Polls seem to indicate this theory has some validity, for a majority of Americans consistently have supported measures strengthening Liberal America’s four cornerstones including increasing funding for education, fewer tax cuts for the wealthy, opposition to media concentration, and increased protection of voting rights. What if in fact so-called “fundamental American values” were Liberal America’s values?
This brings is to the main point of the comment: “the underlying basis of this fight is the same old battle between the centrist and radical left.” Now given the awkward grammar of the post I am not sure whether the writer means “centrist left” or merely “centrist.” I would think the later since the former is not only a physical but philosophical impossibility.
This poster has the sound of a Democrat who has been around for awhile–or is trying to sound like one–because the argument put forth in the last two presidential campaigns by Democratic candidates was that they were centrists or moderates. Even further they implied the American people were centrists or moderates. Forget for minute where that got us in those two campaigns and let us move to the heart of any sermon: values.
What does a “centrist” STAND FOR? Jim Higtower published a book with the great title The Only Thing in the Middle of the Road are Yellow Stripes and Dead Armadillos. Yet there are those in the Democratic Party who still believe in Clintonist triangulation, a complex geometry that at its heart is a mind game that says if the Republicans say they are for “x,” we will say we are for something just a little bit different. They want to spend $100 billion on the military; we’ll settle for $90. They want to limit voting rights; we’ll settle for one or two fewer limits than what they want. In Strange Death I likened this to a drunk trying to pass a sobriety test by walking down Mr. Hightower’s yellow line, as we all stood by wondering if the besotted “moderate” might fall on his rear end.
Kos himself and the Dkos website have made it a point that they are for �winning� and that �winning� means candidates who are centrists or triangulators. Curiously as I was writing this post the mail brought the newest copy of Sports Illustrated with a great story on how John Wooden put together his first national championship team. Now if there is a definition of �winner� you can�t do much better than John Wooden. The article quotes player Doug McIntosh, �The word win never escaped his lips. He just asked us to play to our potential.�
Now what does that mean for the Democrats? When my son was playing high school ball I was able to ask Coach Wooden to send him an autographed copy of the famous Wooden Pyramid of Success because I wanted him to learn the game was about more than just dribbling and shooting. The top of that pyramid is �competitive greatness� supported by �faith� and �patience.� In other words competitive greatness is about values.
That is what the Blog Wars, the battle for the Democratic Party and nomination and the struggle for America�s soul are all about. What values do we believe in? What values will we fight for?
�Play to our potential.� And what is America�s potential? Since the long before Europeans invaded these shores through the Bill of Rights up to the New Deal, America has been about potential, about the belief that every child born in this nation will have an equal chance to become a contributing member of this democratic society.
At the heart of that potential is a belief in equality, what �left� Paul Wellstone called �the American justice tradition.” Will we provide a level playing field so that every American has an equal chance to reach his or her potential? The Republicans have never believed in equality. They have believed that somehow �the market� would allow the �best� to rise to the top. We all know what the market did to American workers before the government stepped in to level the playing field. Using government to level the playing field was the idea that created the modern Democratic Party.
So now we are back to the meanings of the word �radical.� If we take the word to mean �roots� or �fundamentals� then those who believe in the level playing field may well be radicals, but those are the kind of radicals who made this nation great. Radicals like Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman.
The Blog Wars and the other battles are about whether those of us who believe in fundamentals shall prevail or those who believe in �winning.� It is curious that those who believe in winning already are behaving like Republicans, taking their cues not from Harry Truman but Joe McCarthy as they seek to silence dissent or any conversation about �roots� and �fundamentals.�
Even more troubling are the commenter’s words, “the power to move the things you want moved require size and structure.” These say in as plain an English as the writer is capable of, that in the end it is all about power. Like all who worship power the writer implies he has the numbers on his side, but numbers are not principles and besides in terms of numbers Dkos is a flea on an elephant’s rear end if you are talking about America or even the American media. But to modify a phrase, power is the last refuge of scoundrels.
If the Democratic Party does not return to its roots, it will lose the next election just as it lost the previous two. Why? For two reasons. First, a party must stand for something besides “me-tooism” and second, the fundamental value of equality is THE fundamental American value. If you polled the American people very few would argue with that, making equity the so-called “moderate” or “middle-of-the-road” value.
If you don�t know what those roots are then spend some time searching online for the speeches and works of those who made the modern Democratic Party. So far I have posted two of them�one by William Jennings Bryan and Woodrow Wilson. What you will find running through all of these leaders is a commitment to equity.
Dkos and other blogs have little sense of the fundamental value of equity, refusing to honor reciprocity in blogroll posting and going out of their way to avoid linking to those who don�t think like they do. Maybe that is why they feel compelled to insult everyone else. In an earlier post I likened this to high school, but things are becoming more serious. The foul odor of groupthink and ideological purity is in the air as the ayatollahs of Blogdom seek to have their will.
As for the Democratic Party, I have heard little about equity so far in this campaign and frankly it scares me. For this silence may signal the last breath of the Democratic Party. Principles will always persist. They may have to go underground for awhile, but sooner or later they resurface. Equity has a long history of doing that not only in America but around the world.
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