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!