> >...the Dems, by siphoning
> >off potentially radical energies and by muddling policy by apeing the Repugs
> >are the greatest threat to progress. At best, we might work to see the New
> >Dems get trashed so that progressives can build a real oppositional party.
> >Unfortunatively, the McGovernites tried this strategy and ultimately failed.
> >...
> >
> >Michael Perelman
>
> Now do we understand why the McGovernites failed so convincingly? If there
> was ever a time to build a truly social democratic party in the U.S., it
> was during and in the immediate aftermath of Nixon...
The New Deal Democratic Party coalition was built on a racist foundation, with its limits as such institutionalized in various significant ways, as discussed, for example, in _The Color of Welfare_ by Jill Quadango, who then goes on to show how the Great Society/War on Poverty programs were doomed by this foundation. Any attempts to actually challenge or reform the racist foundations were fragmented and halting.
While the post-McCarthyite left had a high profile and intense energy level, this basic situation did not favor them at all in building a social democratic movement, not at the time when white backlash was being so skillful nurtured in the working class -- particularly in union bastions.
For all our obsessing about racism in instances where its importance (not existence) is murky at best, it's amazing how easily we overlook such a fundamental, unambiguous role it played in our recent past.
Even today it's not clear what kind of national strategy might have been successful in the late 60s and early-mid 70s, so it's bound to be futile if we base our discussions on what might or should have been at that time. I'm not saying we should ignore that period -- just that it should not dominate and determine our thinking.
Our most powerful democratizing forces have ALWAYS resided outside the party system -- the Abolitionists, the Suffragists, unions, the Civil Rights movement. It takes decades of organizing outside the party system before the constellations of forces shifts sufficiently for some form of accomodation to become acceptable.
It's rather pointless to discuss formal structures (reforming existing parties, forming third parties, etc.) and strategies related to them in the abstract, without taking account of these powerful forces that alone can make ANY such structures and strategies viable.
Instead, we ought to be focusing on the history of democratizing social movements, and ask what kinds of political structures would be more favorable to them. Proportional Representation in legislative elections is clearly one that would, as is the use of the single tansitive vote (STV) in elections for executive offices. This combination would facilitate third party formation, and provide a foundation for party expansion and coalition governance, so that people would not face the dilemma of fearing they are "throwing their vote away". This in turn would put further pressure on the Dems not to drift ever farther to the right.
So long as we retain our current electoral system, there are fierce obstacles to consolidation of left electoral power which will always constitute an enormous drain on our energies, even when we do manage to acheive scattered success. Neither strategy -- forming a third party or building a progressive force within the Democratic Party -- can succede so long as the electoral structure remains as it is, a choke-point to strangle the energies of movements from below.
-- Paul Rosenberg Reason and Democracy rad at gte.net
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