To be clear: I do not advocate that progressives should split from the Democratic party, and form their own party. I’m not even sure we should use fusion voting, if Question 2 passes.
I *do* advocate, and emphatically, that progressives should have a caucus in the Democratic party. That caucus should be a political entity in its own right, with a separate website, media presence, process for endorsing candidates for office, and possibly a fundraising arm.
The purpose of the caucus would be to coalesce progressive strength within the Democratic party, to allow progressives to act cohesively to reform the party and to hold officials accountable to progressive principles.
Another purpose of the caucus would be to shift the center of power in political media coverage. For better or worse, the media landscape of the past 16 years has portrayed political power in this state as a balance act between Republicans and Democrats. Even after Healey loses, there will be temptation in the news media to perpetuate that narrative, even though it will no longer be valid. Progressives have more power in this state than do Republicans, and they deserve more media coverage in order to promote and circulate their ideas. A progressive caucus within the Democratic party which can visibly demonstrate its electoral and legislative might will rapidly draw media attention away from the Republican party, and start to shift the narrative of political coverage.
The twinklings of such a caucus are already very much active. On the one hand you have a constellation of groups I would call collectively the “netroots”: DFA groups, PDA groups, the MA blogosphere, a group of rowdy drunkards, and of course the MA Roots Project.
On the other hand you have larger, more established, very powerful groups, like MassEquality, Neighbor to Neighbor, SEIU, and the state AFL-CIO. I would call these groups collectively the “establishment progressives.” Quite often the netroots see eye to eye with the establishment progressives, although we do have our differences. (There are, of course, some differences of opinion within the netroots, but these are comparatively rare.)
I propose that the netroots and the establishment progressives together form a progressive caucus within the Democratic party, for the purpose of highlighting and coalescing the strength of the progressive movement in Massachusetts. Each group would have some share of representation within the caucus, and the caucus would have the power to endorse candidates for office in the Democratic primary. The caucus would also make a concerted effort to publicize its candidates and its shared vision for Massachusetts; for example, it could coordinate on proposing amendments to the Democratic party platform.
The hope is that such a caucus would facilitate communication and coordination within the progressive movement, and would help to shift the statewide political debate and media coverage from a Democratic/Republican axis to a progressive/conservative Democratic axis.
I can imagine any number of problems or objections to this idea. What are yours?
(Cross posted to Blog for Cambridge)
There basically already is — though I’m not saying it is as effective as it ought to be.
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The Mass Alliance is a coalition of groups including the ones you mention above. http://www.massallia… (The AFL is the one group you mention in the “establishment progressives” list that is not part of it, but they really shouldn’t be — they are more often than not on the opposite side from the progressive groups on the elections that most matter, even though they are on the SAME side, and valuable allies, on the most important issues.)
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There has traditionally been a progressive caucus in the legislature, but the the promotions of legislators such as Byran Rushing and Jim Marzilli into leadership roles has actually hurt, as they have mixed loyalties. Ironically, the fact that there is a somewhat more progressive (or at least not as conservative) speaker has taken some of the will away from the progressives to push against him.
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The new groups have generally wanted to do thier own thing. PDM is a member of Mass Alliance, but the most active PD chapters — Somerville and JP — aren’t part of it. Sad, but that’s how we progressives too often do things.
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There have been efforts for years to have a more unified progressive movement, but they have typically failed because too many people disagree on emphasis, minor issues, or process. It’s one of the drawbacks of the fact that we think too much. Plus we have no actual strategic plan.
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It needs to be done, or it needs to be done better, but you gotta know the history of the efforts before trying again. (Especially because there’s a lot of older activists who have gone through this who are none to pleased when some of the new activists say “we’re going to do this brand new thing” with no interest in hearing about and/or learning from the past.)
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I was at a pub recently where someone was arguing about whether the band Green Day was “punk.” I bring it up because one of the kids in the argument dismissively yelled “what are you talking about, Green Day INVENTED punk.” (I was listening from another table, and was very amused.)
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Point is that it’s hard to take someone seriously who has no understanding that these things have happened before.
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Another problem is that there are a lot of well established “leaders” in the progressive community who are hacks — but influential nonetheless. It helps nothing to list them, but you’ve seen them. They don’t really like the idea of losing the power that they have, so they will often go out of thier way to prevent the kind of changes and that would help increase our collective power.
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It will take a very delicate approach to improve our unity and effectiveness.
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So maybe I’ll leave with this question: Is this caucus you envision going to do something that can not better be done through, say, the Mass Alliance or around the leadership of a group of progressive legislators rather than create ONE MORE set of meetings we need to go to? (Oscar Wilde said the problem with Socialism is it takes up too many evenings!)
thanks for the excellent comment!
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i definitely appreciate the idea of not doing something which has already been done before. i’ve heard of groups like the commonwealth coalition faltering because of exactly the kinds of personality conflicts and power plays you mention.
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the only new ideas i bring to the table, i guess, are a) the “netroots” should be at the table, and b) the group should be a part of the democratic party. i obviously have a vested interest in a), as i participate in the netroots in at least three ways (blogger, DL organizer, DFA organizer), so no big surprise there. as for b), i’m actually not terribly hung up on that, but i think that if progressives want to eclipse the republicans in terms of power, they better start acting like a party in as many ways as they can. that starts by recruiting and running candidates in as many races as possible and on as many levels as possible (not just state leg., as the Mass Alliance seems to do), and doing aggressive media outreach work. in this way, the difference between my idea and M.A.’s project may be one of emphasis and degree rather than a whole new concept. it is also quite different from the idea of a caucus within the legislature, as its concerns are not purely legislative and its officers are not legislators.
And, on top of everything you’ve mentioned, there’s the sheer confusion aspect of everything.
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For example, the Progressive Democrats of Cambridge is not a chapter of the PDM; they are a chapter of the Progressive Democrats of America (which, apparently, bear no connection to the PDM).
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The Progressive Democrats of Somerville is not a chapter of the PDM or the PDA; they are a chapter of Democracy For America.
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There are simply too many groups with virtually identical ideologies but competing leaderships and organizational identities.
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None of these groups are big enough or powerful enough to do things on their own, and they don’t coordinate together well. To draw an analogy, the Republicans are a well-trained crew team, the Democrats are an out-of-shape team, and the progressives are a bunch of people sitting in a boat, each of them flailing madly with a paddle. They’re not working together, and they are not nearly as effective as they might be.
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Shai is right that something needs to be done, but good luck getting it to happen!
We’re not the Judean People’s Front! We’re the People’s Front for Judea, you wanker.
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Though I am unfamiliar with all of the organizations listed in this thread, the frustrations listed by dcsohl and others above reminded me of the funny scene in Life of Brian.
But I’m not thinking about this stuff until November 8. I’m very interested in seeing what happens next, but I’m going to wait until after I recover from my hangover. 🙂
Good stuff and I wholeheartedly agree with you and Susan. Though Susan isn’t being totally honest. From what I know of her the hang over never really goes away! Just kidding!
on election day 🙂
“it could coordinate on proposing amendments to the Democratic party platform.”
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Can anyone explain what amending, or writing the entire, platform would accomplish?
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Takes 3 legs to support an organization worthy of the name “political party”:
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1) A platform process
2) An electoral process
3) A disciplinary process
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People who are registered as “Democrats” proudly refuse to implement a disciplinary process. Hence the “Democratic Party” is not really a political party.
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Republicans have dollar discipline: If it puts (or keeps) a dollar in their pockets, they’re for it, and the planet be damned. So their platform derives quite strictly from their particular disciplinary “process” (“logic” might be a better term in their case). And given their single-minded focus on dollars, they have enough of those to finance an effective electoral process, which includes generating and broadcasting effective propaganda.
I didn’t mean to imply that a Progressive Caucus would spend that much time working on the party platform and organizing to change it. if that’s how it ended up doing business, I’d be very disappointed.
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rather I meant to suggest it as the kind of thing the caucus could do to express its own internal principles and priorities.
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also, i think your description of discipline differences among the parties is very simplistic. the republican base is quite a complex group of people, each with their own motives and rationalizations for how they vote. so is the democratic base. to be sure, the republican leadership (at least in Congress) has a very sophisticated disciplining mechanism which the democratic leadership doesn’t; but beyond Congress, I don’t see how that same analysis holds water.
But I imagine that a single leader in a progressive caucus will have to be extrodinarly gifted at getting diverse opinions to gel and work together.
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Also, with at least three – that means there are three “leaders” two of which might not want to give up their leadership role…
One thing that would help is any such progressive caucus to make a concerted effort to reach out to the west-of-495 folks. This very well could already be going on, but I know a lot of the progressive groups have a base in the Boston area and thus are seen as being “Cambridge/Somerville” type groups (not that there’s anything wrong with that).
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The western part of the state is routinely ignored in the political discourse. If a proposed progressive caucus makes a special effort to focus on geography as well as just political leanings, western residents might see the caucus as a way to finally have a voice. Since the western part of the state is quite progressive as it is, it seems like an easy match.