Thinking back over the six years I have spent full-time in politics, there have been only three occasions when I was a part of a campaign that seemed to legitimately frighten powerful interests. Here is what comes to mind:
That's about it. There have been many other good, creative, insurgent efforts of which I am proud to have played a part--No residual forces, Bush Dogs, Donna Edwards, Use it or Lose It, Freeze Out Fox News--but nothing else that really seemed to get under the collar of powerful people and institutions over a long period of time.
Thinking about all of this, I can't help but wonder--weren't the best efforts, even if they did not directly lead to either electoral victory or immediate legislative action, the ones that really scared the bejeebus out of powerful interests? Aren't the best indications that we are really onto something as progressive activists when Village media, Democratic Party leaders, and moneyed corporate interests all freak out over what we are going? Unless they are scared, how do we know that our actions hold the potential for real change?
Fear was certainly rife in the Village with the Dean campaign, which legitimized both the progressive netroots as a major new fundraising source and opposition to the war as a mainstream political viewpoint (not to mention a majority viewpoint within the Democratic Party). It happened with the Lamont campaign, which made it clear the Democratic inaction and complicity on Iraq troop deployments would not be tolerated in the party (I still believe that was the final catalyst for making withdrawal from Iraq the official Democratic position). In a slightly different way, it also happened with the Googlebomb campaign, which resulted in not only almost every national news outlet calling me for an interview, but also resulted in Google actually changing its search engine formula in response.
Unless elected officials, Democratic Party leaders, mainstream media pundits, and corporate political operations are scared of the progressive grassroots, how will they ever take our concerns seriously? After working in politics for six years, I think it is pretty obvious that they won't. Democrats wouldn't be caving on the public option and climate change legislation if they were scared of the progressive grassroots. Instead, they are clearly more scared of the corporate political operations pushing them to cave on those issues. In the end, politicians are responsive to those operations which they fear. Right now, they are not afraid of us.
We need to start looking for more campaigns that will actually make Democratic Party leaders, mainstream media pundits, and corporate political operations frightened of the progressive grassroots. I submit that such campaigns will be a lot more effective in engendering change then serving as supplemental activist and media operations for already powerful political institutions. Helping elect Democrats, and helping them pass legislation, is all well and good, but it is a lot more effective when we are scaring them at the same time.
In the short term, just about the only campaign we could join that I can think of that would actually scare the powerful interests I have listed here is Representative Joe Sestak's potential campaign for Pennsylvania Senate. Other than that, I can't think of too much. However, I would like to hear from you, both when it comes to what you think of my overall argument in this post, and when it comes to finding more ways to actually scaring powerful interests with progressive, grassroots activism.
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