> [lbo-talk] a vision..., Michael Pollak mpollak at panix.com, Thu Nov
> 4 06:20:51 PST 2004:
> >Essentially, Rove seems to have shown that the entire previously
> >existing logic of American party politics no longer holds (or at the
> >very least can be and has been temporarily suspended): the idea that
> >heating up your base loses you more votes in the center than you
> >gain on the wing. His argument was that you can use your base
> >issues to split the electorate and then win purely on turnout
>
> That's precisely the strategy that leftists should use: use the
> issues that matter to your base -- class issues like the Iraq War,
> universal health care, public works jobs with living wages for the
> unemployed, shorter workweeks, etc. -- to split the people and then
> win on turnout -- except that leftists can't do this through the
> Democratic Party. We have to do this primarily through social
> movements and secondarily third-party campaigns that serve as the
> movements' electoral expressions.
------------------
But if you can't, as you suggest, mobilize Democrats about "the Iraq war,
universal health care, public works jobs with living wages for the
unemployed, shorter work weeks, etc.", who in heaven's name can you fire up?
Who are you talking about when you refer to your "base"? Republicans? Those
who don't vote? Students and left intellectuals on the Internet? The 200
activists you turned out for a demo yesterday? An idealized working class
which exists only in your imagination?
Or are you saying you'll restrict your efforts only to those Democrats you meet at or in the course of organizing demonstrations, and not look for other opportunities to influence the rest?
MG