[lbo-talk] Re: No, actually, I don't believe it.

Brad Mayer gaikokugo at fusionbb.net
Thu Nov 4 13:35:05 PST 2004


Points well taken, with which I am in broad agreement. For a few tweaks, se below. Doled out in parcels: ----- Original Message ----- From: "Carrol Cox" <cbcox at ilstu.edu> To: "Brad Mayer" <gaikokugo at fusionbb.net>; "Yoshie Furuhashi" <furuhashi.1 at osu.edu> Cc: <lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org> Sent: Thursday, November 04, 2004 8:48 AM Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Re: No, actually, I don't believe it.


> Brad Mayer wrote:
>>
>> Man, the ABB crown is really showing its true colors: Screw progressive
>> politics, lets court rightwing ideology instead.
>>
>> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> Kerry had his weaknesses but he also had his strengths. He ran on a very
>> progressive platform-- pro-union, anti-death penalty, pro-choice,
>> pro-education-- with concrete goals to improve the lives of people we all
>> care about. And he never pulled a Sister Souljah maneuver or screwed
>> welfare moms as a political ploy, as Clinton-- a far better politician
>> admittedly -- did to gain moderate support.
>> -----------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>
> Roughly correct, but let's keep a (possibly) important distinction. You
> are, I believe, quoting Nathan, and he was not an ABB, heis a
> _Democrat_, period. We have no particular debate with him: we can teach
> him nothing, nor can we learn from him.

True, but in being a consistent DAAC (Dem at all costs) Nathan does consistently harp on one theme that still generates a lot of confusion in the Anti-Dem Left - the theme of the "progressive potential" of the Democratic Party. Too many think the mistake of the Dems is that they don't go "populist-progressive" enough and instead pander to the reactionary "swing" vote, etc. Sharon Smith falls into this trap in an otherwise decent article:

http://www.socialistworker.org/2004-2/519/519_02_RightWing.shtml

This embodies a fundamental musunderstanding of the existing US political system. It assumes:

1) that the Dems & Repubs are mass parties. They once were, but they are not, now. This misconception comes from a confusion of voters with party apparatus in the electoral context. It has a long history in the (once valid) electoral analyses of V.O.Key onward.

2) and that the Dems must mobilize their "mass base". But per 1) above, voters are passive plebesitory spectators to an occasional politics; they are by no stretch of the imagination "members of a mass political party" in even the most minimal sense, as in the case of comparable countries such as W. Europe and Japan, where there exist permanent party HQs at the national, regional and local level (even), independent of public office. In the USA, public office IS party HQ, thanks to the two-party monopoly of office. They are, in short, state parties, not mass parties.

This means that the Dems _must not_ allow themselves to be locked out of political office, and power, or else they will die, since they have no existence independent of the state institutions (same is true of the Repubs). Given the relatively backwards American context (another subject), this means that the Dems _must_ peel off a slice of the reactonary vote to survive. They must run a Clinton. If they actually do as Newman claims, they will be permanantly locked out and die.

That is why, as soon as I knew that the "latte-sipping metrosexual from Taxachussus" (forgive my sp, you get the point) was to be the nominee, I bet on him to be a Designated Loser. Dems need a reactionary Bubba, not Kerry.

So is Newman just an idiot to talk about the "progressive" Democrats? Not at all, for here we get to the true crux of the Dems dilemma: The must peel off a slice of the reactionary vote (by pursuing a perhaps "lesser evil" brand of reactionary politics) _while at the same time_ making sure the left remains bound to the Democrats. For if the left and progressive movements bolt the Dems and found an independent political party, this will also lead to the Dems' doom. Because, following from all of the above, the Dems' habitual metropolitan voters are indeed well to the "left" of the actual party apparatus, the Beltway apparachiks, themselves - and by these voters I do mean well beyond the overtly political left, into substantial swaths of the metropolitian working class.

So in correctly distinguishing the Newmans from the ABBers, we must also distinguish these from the mainstream of the party apparatus, in order to clear up this key point of confusion.

Let the Democrats be Democrats!

-Brad Mayer



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