Is the Left Dead?

Is the Left dead? Dr. McClaughlin wanted to know. He asked his "token leftie," Eleanor Clift:

"How badly has Obama damaged his standing with the Democratic left wing?"

The left is not happy, but they're not going anywhere, Ms. Clift responded.

"I think the left has a body of decisions that he's made that they're not happy with. But they're still ecstatic that they have him in the White House, so it's not any major damage."

Dr. McLaughlin: They're not going to go anywhere.

Ms. Clift: No...

Monica Crowley of the right, gleefully suggested that the left is outraged and will be increasingly disappointed by President Obama:

"Well, I think the left is going bananas, based on what I've seen in the blogosphere on the left, because it looks increasingly like Bush was right on a whole range of counterterrorism initiatives that he put in place. From Guantanamo Bay to military tribunals, warrantless wiretapping, rendition, it really looks like Bush was right. And I think that the left increasingly is going to be very agitated by the course that this president is taking."

Nice try, Monica!

This absurd dialogue on The McClaughlin Group shows that the talking heads of the mainstream media just don't get that the political landscape has changed in the internet age.

In the internet age, it's the people who circulated blogs, texts, and e-mails, using them to recruit family members and friends, to register voters, to canvass in PA, and most importantly, to get out the vote. This generation of citizenry, more than any other, feels invested in their president. They helped get him there and they are going to hold his feet to the fire and get the change they want.

Recent events in Washington have only emboldened the left, the grassroots left.

As a member of a few local grassroots organizations in my area, here's the scoop from the ground.

Yes, most of the people I talk to are disappointed with some of the President's recent decisions, but they still love him. They see him as a person of conviction working within a flawed system dominated by moneyed interests, and he cannot make the change we need without strong support.

The grassroots left feels that they are going to have to make their positions known louder than ever to combat the rich and powerful lobbyists seen in Washington. And many grassrooters feel, perhaps optimistically so, that this is exactly what their President, a former community organizer himself, expects of them.

They have absorbed the message he espoused upon accepting the Democratic nomination for President:

"You have shown what history teaches us, that at defining moments like this one, the change we need doesn't come from Washington. Change comes to Washington.
Change happens -- change happens because the American people demand it, because they rise up and insist on new ideas and new leadership, a new politics for a new time.
America, this is one of those moments."

Yes, this is one of those moments. We've seen this moment recently in the fight for healthcare reform. When an expert on the Single Payer Option was not included in Senate Finance Committee Meetings, every day citizens, doctors, nurses, even community organizers, went to the Senate Finance Committee on their own to make their desire for a Single Payer Plan known. As a result, eight of the activists, including 3 doctors were arrested. Mainstream media barely covered it, but e-mails, and YouTube videos promulgated the internet, and citizens started calling, e-mailing, and faxing their Congresspeople in droves.

A group called "Health Justice" claimed in an e-mail last week to have gotten its members to send over 30,000 e-faxes to Congress.

"Your nearly 30 thousand faxes as of this morning are overwhelming the Washington fax machines time and time again... We also know your phone calls are getting through because we have heard that Baucus' office simply hangs up whenever anyone says 'single payer."

In a later e-mail, the group claimed to have inspired 4,000 calls to the White House.
On May 14th, Progressive Democrats of America (PDA), the California Nurses Association, and Physicians for a National Health Care Plan organized a rally in Washington D.C.
At the rally, a freshman Democratic Congressman from upstate New York, confirmed that the left is going to have to speak loud and strong to get the change they need:

"Allow us to get President Obama on the right track. Give him the political cover he needs to make the tough decisions."

Well, if political cover means thousands of people showing up in Washington D.C., Donna Smith, and the California Nurses' Association, are ready to oblige. In an interview after the rally, Smith said, " The people still matter. We do matter in this process, and it's the only thing. If we give up, then we do hand it over to the corporate interests. No human rights struggle in the history of this country's been an easy one. This is a human rights struggle. We're going to win it, but we're going to have to keep fighting and struggling and speaking out. There may have to be more people arrested. There may have to be more brave nurses out there speaking out, but we're going to win this."

Back in primary season, before Barack Obama had won the Democratic nomination, Michelle Obama gave a speech covered only by C-Span. She talked about change and what a Barack Obama presidency would look like.

"Change is hard," she prophesized, "...but in order to embrace this man and a different way of politics, we have to come a little bit of the way... A Barack Obama presidency will be 70% him and 30% us. We have to be ready to be that 30%...

We've got to be ready to put down that cynicism... we can't afford it...

Everybody has to be engaged in the political process, not just Tuesday, but every single day. If you have any leaders who want you to believe that all you have to do is vote for them and go back to your lives as usual, be suspicious, because you have to be at the table of democracy forever. Because the minute you turn your back and you walk away, somebody is going to come and take your seat and they are going to make decisions about your lives that have nothing to do with you... I'm sorry. It requires work! You're going to have to do this work!"

Well, the grassrooters on the Left, are alive and well, and ready to work. And, Ms. Clift, they are going somewhere, to Washington D.C., in fact, on June 25th to demand healthcare reform along with workers, organized through their unions. Get ready, that other 30% is coming!

Comments

[VivaZapata]

Sometimes it seems like Obama feels that the election itself was the needed change and now it's ok to coast on the big disturbing issues. When conservative legislatures are against government funded health coverage because the government can do it cheaper and more effectively, you have to question why the administration doesn't use this to say, "Well what needs to be represented, insurance companies or the well being of the people?"

[SkeeterVT]

It's not that the Left is dead; far from it. Rather, it's the Left's belief that they represent the majority of Americans that is dead.

The Left is being forced, kicking and screaming, into accepting the fact that they were outvoted by moderates in last November's election -- and that without moderates' support, President Obama would not have won the election.

A new Gallup Poll out on Monday shows that liberals (21 percent) are outnumbered by both moderates (34 percent) and conservatives (40 percent), regardless of party affiliation -- or the lack thereof.

Among Democrats -- who make up 45 percent of the electorate overall -- moderate Democrats outnumber their fellow liberal Dems, 40-38 percent, with conservative Democrats bringing up the rear at 22 percent.

Among independents -- who now comprise 34 percent of the electorate -- moderates outnumber liberals, 45-34 percent, with conservative independents at 34 percent.

Only among Republicans -- whose ranks have fallen to a record-low 20 percent of the electorate, and still falling -- conservatives overwhelmingly dominate, 73 percent to 24 percent moderate GOPers, with liberal Republicans nearly extinct, at a paltry 3 percent.

Truth be told, neither the Left nor the Right have been very good at acknowledging their minority status in the American political spectrum. And neither side has been willing to face up to the fact that moderates rule the roost and that they both must cater to moderate voters in order to form a winning coalition.

[wattnot]

The idea that if you don't stay engaged in democracy someone else will come and take your seat is one of the truly profound insights of our time. Being interested in and committed to the politics of our world cannot be delegated to someone else. Giving someone else the right to speak for you politically is the same thing as watching Jane Fonda doing abs exercises, or swallowing a tablet, in the hope that you will get fit yourself.

[freelyb]

I think I will adopt Obama's philosophy about Obama himself. He was a pragmatic choice, not the ideal. We can only change so much at a time.

[HJBoitel]

Great piece. Gets to the heart of the political change we are experiencing in these United States. Unfortunately, the labels "left" and "right" tend to obscure the major issues that divide us. Rational vs irrational" or, perhaps, "patriotic vs self-serving" are better suited to describe where the major political battle lines are drawn. Within the rational and the patriotic there is plenty of room for honest and valid differences of opinion that can be resolved democratically. Within the irrational and self-serving, neither logic nor virtue matter. Hate, fear, manipulation and dishonesty reign.

President Obama is the right person at the right time, He is burdened with the task of cleaning up the cumulative trash of right wing hypocrisy and dishonesty. People of good will, regardless of where they are on the rational, truly patriotic, political spectrum, will cheer him on

HJBoitel

[bingvangorden]

Bingo. Nailed it. The people who think the left are just mortified with Obama can't grasp simple criticism. Anything that's said questioning policy is considered an attack. It's black and white thinking. They can't grasp the possibility that someone might still support Obama while discussing their dissapointment in some of his decisions. Honestly, some people have to manufacture drama.

[aspertame2]

"Black and White" ? Don't know when getting all persnickety about that oath to defend the constitution became a "far left" thing, but I do see the Democratic Party veering further and further right, spurned on, perhaps, by impotency in the GOP (sending pragmatists and lobbyists scurrying across the aisle). I see an ACLU which is pretty much branded as the epitomy of Far Left, and "Fascism" being Orwellianized (is that a word?) as a word to the point where nothing really means what is used to mean. So, no, center does not look so center to me.

I am pleased that an Obama administration has succeeded Cheney's. I voted for Obama. Yet more and more, I find that the Democratic party is, despite its rhetoric, just a little too right for me. That may come to critical mass for more than a "fringe few" one day, but for now, it's just not a terrific time to be the kind of progressive who remains slack-jaw appalled at Obama's backing off universal heath care, defense of the "Executive Presidency" prerogatives forwarded by the last administration, etc. I think if the decimation of the Middle Class effectively goes unchecked even as "The Economy" recovers, my generation may live to see another political party "flip" as in generations past - the old DNC could well become the new, somewhat more socially libertarian GOP.