| Now, if you don't think that a white supremacist cultural backlash matters in it's own right, then I first encourage you to reflect for at least a year or so on race and the history of white supremacy in the United States. If you grant that it matters in its own right, but your energy is focused on a particular area, issue or policy and you see the current right-wing attack mostly as a distraction, then please think again.
Consider history. When we think "cultural backlash" what comes to mind first? Ronald Reagan. The 1980's. That was a backlash against the social gains made by blacks and people of color, women, GLBTs, and other important challenger social movements. That backlash also played on economic anxiety (particularly in rural areas). If you are viewing the backlash we're witnessing today primarily as a distraction from the issues you're working on or politics you're working to advance, then consider how the Left fared on policy and politics in the 1980s!
Seeing this as a distraction is only partly true. Machiavellian politicians and operatives clearly use social issues to distract masses of people, using fear rhetoric to incite people to act against their own economic self-interest. It's classic divide-and-conquer/control. It's been a primary strategy of the Right - perhaps especially over the past four decades. And the current health care fight is an amazing case study. But while "distraction" is part of their strategy, it is a huge mistake to think that you can win policy battles while abstaining from the cultural war that's been declared. You can't wish it away. You have to come up with a strategy to engage and win. (This post does not lay out what that strategy may be, but only makes the case for having one.)
Now, we have some clear advantages compared to the early 80s. First, white people are a shrinking demographic. The projected short-term and long-term demographic shifts in this country are remarkably unfavorable to the Right and to the Republican Party. In my more optimistic moments, I think, the Republican leadership is unleashing a cultural force that they will not be able to control and it is going to bite them, haunt them, blow up in their face as they watch their base shrink.
But that thought could inspire a dangerous passivity.
Van Jones' resignation this weekend should be enough to make any progressive realize that we can't ignore the crazies. His resignation is a tangible loss for progressives and social movements, and it could come to symbolize much greater losses.
Unfortunately, the only thing some on the Left seem to be taking from this depressing loss is a reinforcement of their narrative that this Administration and/or The Democratic Party are not our friends. I find John Emerson's recent post, Why is the Democrat Party so worthless? helpful here:
Supporting a candidate or joining a political party is not like falling in love or finding Jesus. It's like making a high-risk, high-stakes business deal with someone who cannot entirely be trusted. You have to keep your eyes open and protect your leverage -- once you've lost your leverage, you've lost everything. Liberals can beg and whine forever, and all Rahm will ever do is laugh. We need to learn deal with Rahm (and Obama) as coldbloodedly as they deal with us.
No one should ever be surprised, shocked, hurt, or heartbroken when a Democrat doublecrosses them. That's what politicians do. Being doublecrossed the same kind of thing as losing a hand of poker. You should figure out what, if anything, you did wrong and get ready for the next hand. (my emphasis)
Honestly, I am still reeling from the idiocy of the Obama Administration's choice to not only not defend Van Jones, but to force him out. But I'm more interested in "figuring out what, if anything, [we, progressives] did wrong [or could have done differently] and get ready for the next hand." This doesn't mean letting the Administration off the hook for ousting Van. It just means I'm more interested in winning than whining, which is why I start by examining the things we do have some control over, the places we do have leverage. I think we have enough leverage that we could have prevented this particular loss. If the large-base progressive organizations that are now pulling together during this holiday weekend to defend Van Jones had put their muscle into defending him (and counter-attacking Glen Beck et al.) early last week, I believe we would have a different situation. We would have provided counter-leverage. We made an error - an understandable strategic error.
Carl Pope discussed this error at length yesterday in his post on Sierra Club's site. He places this episode squarely where it belongs: in the tradition of lynch mobs. And he steps up to take responsibility as a progressive leader, starting with the headline: We All Blew It.
I know few progressives and radicals who would fail to see the racial dimension of Glen Beck's and the Right's attack on Van Jones. And I think if we'd taken the attack seriously earlier, most of us would have done a lot more than we did to defend him. That said, I do know progressives and radicals who seem ambivalent-or at least unmotivated to act-about similar race-based attacks on President Obama. I will state explicitly what I believe to be the implicit logic: "Obama is screwing progressives, so why should we put an ounce of our limited energy into defending him?"
Race-based attacks on anyone are attacks on our society's and our movements' gains on racial justice and equality. The racist cultural backlash we are now witnessing is primarily about having a black president named Barack Hussein Obama. Whether or not we like it, this has become a primary arena for our prolonged struggle for racial justice. Race-based attacks-masked or not-aimed at President Obama are also aimed at our gains. As the term "backlash" implies, gains must always be defended. It would be a huge mistake if our progressive critiques of Obama's politics or policies caused any of us to forget that a black man becoming President of the United States is in itself a profound gain - and to fail to defend it as such.
Perhaps I am imagining this ambivalence - or perhaps it's held by so few people that it doesn't warrant such a lengthy post. I guess it just seems to me like this is an "all hands on deck" political moment, and anecdotally at least, I'm wondering where some of those hands are. Framed more positively, I hope we can all turn some of our attention toward this racist cultural backlash, and integrate an appropriate and strategic response into whatever important progressive work we're engaged in right now.
What I am definitely not saying: I am certainly not saying that people should not critique and push the Administration from the left. Anyone who knows me knows that this is precisely what I do all-day-every-day. I am also not saying that the application of the principles laid out here is simple. |
