Common Dreams: November 3rd Theses

[Raster]

by Adam Werbach

If you're like me, the results of this election opened your eyes to the extent to which the leadership of the Democratic Party is mismanaging our political future. At some point, people like you and me have to get together and communicate these profound misgivings.

We worked hard. We got out the vote. And we still lost by four million votes.

Yes it was close. Yes, we didn't have the best candidate. Yes, the campaign made serious tactical errors.

But the bottom line is this: the Democratic Party is today in the hands of people who have failed to articulate a moral-intellectual vision for America and the world, and you can't win the confidence of the electorate without a vision.

I feel complicit in these failures. I have spent the last 15 years of my life trying to organize the public towards social and environmental change. It's not working.

It's time for a bit of healthy debate.

<snip, much more>

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1112-34.htm

[kcwayne]

1. This is frustrating

I wholeheartedly agree with the key premise of Werbach's articles that we should articulate our vision and dispose of those leaders too timid to do so. As Werbach says, the Republicans have spent 40 years branding "family values" and principles that align with closely held prejudices. Werbach challenges progressives to do the same.

I started to write a long winded comparison of the Republican position and the Progressive position, but just tossed it all out because it boils down to this.

The Republican message is "I hate gays, blacks, Mexicans, Asians, poor people, welfare, and sex. I love my country, Jesus, family, and a strong military to defend these."

Progressives hate Republicans that hate what Progressives are trying to champion. Progressives love everything that Republicans hate, as well as the things they love.

Of course, these are gross oversimplifications, but to articulate a vision, one has to simply and compact the message. It should not be hard for Progressives to mold a message that will be attractive to the things Republicans love, since those are shared values. But if that doesn't draw the numbers it takes to get back in power, Progressives cannot mold a message attractive to the balance without losing what makes us Progressives.