Known as the Old Professor, Stengel became a favorite of the fans for his colorful language, called "Stengelese," and his sense of humor. His colorful remarks include his famous lament to the unsuccessful 1962 Mets: "Can't anybody here play this game?"
The Democratic Party is like the 1962 New York Mets. Winning is not an option. Facing the worst, and most unpopular President of all time (save only Nixon as he circled the drain), with as many crimes as failures, all the Democrats can seem to do is find more ways to prop him up, and continue his failed policies.
Not only that, but facing political opponents who have built their entire movement on mass and individual character assasination, they have repeatedly turned on each other and their allies when Republicans have taunted them to do so in periodic hissy-fits of manufactured outrage.
This is not simply a matter of adding insult to injury. These attacks on our own most commonly come at opportune times when we should be focusing all our fire on the Republicans. And the person or group that's attacked is invariably someone who's advancing the argument into enemy territory. Rather than supporting them in putting the enemy on the defensive, Democrats turn on them, and support Republican counter-attacks.
The latest example is Pete Stark attacking the GOP for opposing SCHIP. Before that it was Moveon.org for criticizing His Holiness General Petraeus, using language his colleagues and troops had used for years. Back in 2006, there was Kerry flubbing a joke about Bush's inept leadership in sending troops to Iraq. (Bush, of course, never mis-speaks.) In 2005, Senator Durbin was attacked for comparing Guantanamo to Nazi or Soviet prison camps. And in 2004, there was Edwards daring to mention that Cheney's daughter was gay--which was appreciated--followed by Kerry mentioning it, which was attacked. And, of course, there was also Moveon.org letting someone's proposed ad comparing Bush to Hitler on their site. These are just a few of the examples that come readily to mind.
All these cases can be likened to a leadoff hitter getting to second base, perhaps a bit recklessly, and then, instead of the team bringing him home with a cleanup hitter, they join the other side in arguing with the umpire that he was out, since he didn't tag first base.
With the runner declared out, the pressure is off, and no one's under the spotlight to bring him home. Which is good. Because we have no cleanup hitters. We have no front office, either. So there's no one to sign them. No scouts, so there's no one looking for them. No manager, and no batting coaches to bring them along. All we've got is a third base couch, and he's Bob Shrum, whose only job to wave runners off of running home--even when the bases are loaded on a 3-2 count.
But the problem, we are told, is that damn Pete Stark. That damn Moveon.org. That damn Dick Durbin. What were they thinking?
the argument of this series is that just as liberals are more reality-based in their policies, while conservatives cling to inadequate formulations, the reverse is true when one looks at politics--at the art of positioning and maneuver, be it in running elections, or in translating policy ideas into reality.
More precisely, my argument is rooted in a model of cognitive development, in which level 3 corresponds with the stage of normal adulthood in a traditional society, a stage in which the self's subject is defined by the roles and relationships of the social surround, and level 4 corresponds to the next highest level, that of the modern self, which takes those roles and relationships as objects to be consciously and intentionally acted on:
Kegan's Subject/Object Schema of Cognitive Development
Stage
We Are: Subject (structure of knowing)
We Have: Object (content of knowing)
Underlying Structure
1
Perceptions
SOCIAL PERCEPTIONS
Impulses
Movement
Sensation
2
Concrete
POINT OF VIEW
Enduring Dispositions
Perceptions
SOCIAL PERCEPTIONS
Impulses
3 Traditionalism
Abstractions
MUTUALITY/ INTERPERSONALISM Relationship
Inner states
Concrete
POINT OF VIEW
Enduring Dispositions Needs, Peferences
4 Modernism
Abstract Systems
INSTITUTION Relationship-Regulating Forms
Self-authorship
Abstractions
MUTUALITY/ INTERPERSONALISM Relationship
Inner states Subjectivity Self-consciousness
5 Post- Modernism
Dialectical
INTER- INSTITUTIONAL
Self-transformation
Abstract Systems Ideology
INSTITUTION Relationship-Regulating Forms
Self-authorship Self-regulation Self-formation
My argument is that conservative/GOP policies are stuck at level 3--sometimes devolving to level 2--in a level 4 or even level 5 world, while liberal/Democratic political practice (campaigning, legislative manuevering, making arguments in the media, etc.) is every bit as backwards as conservative/GOP policies are.
And more often than not, when some Democrat does step up their game to question the level 3 assumtions of Versailles (implicitly or explicitly, intentionally or not) they will be shot down--not so much by the Republicans, but by other Democrats (even many in the blogosphere) who will either leave them stranded at second base, or else join with the Republicans in persuading the umpires to call him out, for failing to tag first.
This diary was inspired in part by this exchange in comments yesterday. There is a fundamental disconnect here: progressivesouls just can't seem to understand the point I'm making--you don't attack your own guy when he's advancing the argument, even if he does so imperfectly. You take advantage of the gains he's made and put them on a firmer foundation. Maybe afterwards you take him aside in private. But not in public. That is simply giving aid and comfort to the GOP, which is, of course, the enemy of normal Americans (Katrina, Iraq, SCHIP, etc.).
At one point in this exchange, progressivesouls writes:
I swear every time I read a post that starts out by saying I am buying into righty talking points I know that post is not going to make much of an argument. Suggesting that a fellow progressive is a righty is the action of a desperate person with no real argument IMO.
While this may very well often be the case, it most certainly is not the case here. In fact, my entire argument has been about how the Democrats act from a place of being embedded in the level 3 assumptions that the GOP continually manipulates from a level 4 position. This is not at all the same as saying "that a fellow progressive is a righty." Rather, it is saying that even a fellow progressive (and not just a DLC clone) is going to be shooting themselves in the foot so long as they remain stuck in level 3 thinking, while the GOP runs level 4 rings around them.
We have to get smarter, people. We are already much smarter when it comes to policy. We know this without doubt. But we need to apply that same intelligence at the same level of cognitive development in the realm of political gamesmanship, or we will continue to defeat ourselves over and over and over again.
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