"Dump Corporate Dems" - Going Green at the State Level, to "make Dems do it" at the Federal level

by: metamars

Sun Oct 03, 2010 at 11:58

Bruce Dixon, from the Black Agenda Report, wrote a very interesting diary for OpenLeft called "Moving the conversation forward --- our plan in Georgia"
http://openleft.com/diary/2033...

In that diary, Dixon goes into the substantial roadblocks to primarying bad Dems, including a dearth of plausible allies inside the Democratic Party:

Though Rev. Lowery and some others are dear friends and respected elders, the traditional civil rights organizations have also been captured by corporate donors. Neither they nor labor are any use at all in challenging any elected Democrat.
Primarying these corporate Democrats has many disadvantages, some of which I've discussed elsewhere. The most telling for me are that
1. no news coverage on political issues makes getting people's attention in primary seasons much harder work than it ought to be
2. once the primary season is over, you have to flog the vote out for a slate of corporate Dems who often despise your entire community.

Dixon then goes into the strategy for growing a Green Party in GA, initially in at least the black areas of the state. His plan seems reasonable and do-able, though on re-reading it, I have to confess I'm not sure if he's only focussed on attaining state offices, for the time being! That's how I read the diary, when it came out.

More after the flip

metamars :: "Dump Corporate Dems" - Going Green at the State Level, to "make Dems do it" at the Federal level

Please read Dixon's diary for details of how they intend to make GA go Green.
http://openleft.com/diary/2033...

I assume that his plan is workable. But the question immediatey arises: "Where else is it workable?"

Well, Dixon's plan takes black incarceration as it's signature issue. While that may be fine for GA, I can't see that as being an optimal signature issue for the rest of the country. I'll leave it to others to figure out what an optimal signature issue should be, for each state. Suffice it to say that progressives in each state should be able to figure this out, for themselves, without too much trouble!

What I suggest is that a similar plan (with localized signature issue) be used in, say, 50% of the most progressive states and 50% of the most progressive districts. (For a Day 1 rollout, you can take this to mean 50% of the most progressive districts within the 50% most progressive states.) Furthermore, I suggest that, at least for the next election cycle, candidates for Federal offices not be put forth. Instead, only candidates for state and local offices.

The main reason for eschewing Federal offices is that many progressive Democrat-leaning voters won't consider voting for a non-Democrat, due to fears of splitting votes. Those fears are, of course, based in reality. It's not the purpose of this diary to argue the merits and demerits of either deliberately or accidentally throwing Democrats under the bus, at the Federal level.

Rather, I'm simply pointing out that, by restricting pro-Green political activity to the state level, fears of accidentally throwing a race to Republicans at the Federal level vanish. In the meantime, a loud, explicit message needs to be sent to Dems at the Federal level, viz., "We may not be targetting you during the current election cycle, but we eventually will if you fail to perform." If and when the progressive Dem/Green voting bloc grows large enough, it can then make credible demands of, and threats to, a Congressmen, with a deadline. If the demands aren't met by the deadline, then the threat can be carried out, at the next election cycle. That threat is to replace the Democrat with a Green.

Obviously, the threat is more credible if the respective state has been taken over by Greens, where previously Democrats held sway.

An additional benefit of going this route is that progressive Dems and Greens will learn to cooperate. There is doubtless a learning curve that needs to be hurdled. But if ever there was a natural voting bloc of allies, progressive Dems and Greens would be it.

Oh, yeah, the "Dump Corporate Dems" name I've tentatively assigned to such a political effort or movement is inspired by "Dump Obama". (See also Dump Obama: More Urgent than Ever).Not everybody can handle "Dump Obama", so "Dump Corporate Dems" can be viewed as a gentler path to force the Democratic Party into a more progressive direction.

Also, by making "(Dump) Corporate" part of a signature meme, such a voting bloc can more easily attract independents and even conservatives who don't appreciate corporate influence in America's elections. The end of this video, of Lawrence Lessig lecturing at a recent Coffee Party gathering, has video of real, live conservatives who support real election reform (against corporations).:

N.B.: The diary by Rayne, that Dixon refers to, and is a must-read, is The Angry Left: A Starter Map for the Road Ahead

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"Dump Corporate Dems" - Going Green at the State Level, to "make Dems do it" at the Federal level | 3 comments

Something missing here.... (4.00 / 3)

Well no, actually there's lots missing.

The emphasis on federal office is just plain out of touch with reality. To state the most obvious to an experienced organizer, federal congressional districts are immense things, almost 700,000 persons plus. Races on such a scale require considerable skill and resources, the among the most precious of which are experience and name recognition.

Only the naive, the foolish, and the very wealthy run in congressional districts when they lack the experience and name recognition gained by conducting prior strong campaigns in municipal and county contests, races for state house and senate, most of which are a fraction of the size of a damn CD.

There is a name for the candidates who conduct such races. Generally they are called losers.

That's why I didn't even mention running for Congress in my earlier post, not even once. Gotta have a longer time horizon than the next one or two or three election cycles or you will never escape the duopoly.

As for your doubts as to whether black mass incarceration is a winning issue in places other than GA, I promise you that this is THE issue which the Democratic party's base (guess who that is?) fervently and urgently wishes it would address, nationwide... in Indiana and Illinois, in California and Texas, in New York and Connecticut and Alabama. It won't. It can't. As Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow points out, scaling back the machinery of mass incarceration to 1980 levels would mean the loss of one million jobs, of cops, bailiffs, bail bondsmen, judges, prison staff, contractors of all kinds, you name it. They would constitute a lobby that would stop at nothing to preserve itself.

And that inability, that unwillingness will ultimately be fatal to the Democratic party, because we will eventually steal a great part of its base out from under it, not just in Georgia, not just in the South, but across the country.

This is the kind of thing that has to begin in black communities and spread outward from there. That's just a fact of live.

The early and mid-20th century struggles to unionize the now-vanished meat packing industry has a set of instructive lessons. For decades blacks were excluded from most of the jobs, except when one or another white union went on strike, and black workers were brought in as scabs. The white-organized unions of course would not admit blacks, and so invariably set themselves up for failure. They just could not let go of their white skin privilege, even when it kept their wages down.

Finally, blacks organized their own union, which after it sewed up the black workers, opened its doors to whites. It was only then that the stockyards were successfully organized. I do not expect a movement against mass incarceration to begin in white communities. But when confronted by an overwhelming black movement pointing to the clear injustice of the nation's universal but rarely acknowledged social policy of mass incarceration we'll be able to get a big enough chunk of whites to go along with us, and change the calculus.

And again, this stuff has a longer time horizon than one or two election cycles. Furthermore, since it's about building a social movement rather than winning elections, it is indifferent to Republicans winning a few races as the Democratic party collapses. So I can understand how it makes no sense to some. So be it.

"If you want that good feeling that comes from doing things for other people, then you have to pay for it in abuse and misunderstanding..."
Zora Neale Hurston

by: bruce.dixon @ Sun Oct 03, 2010 at 23:05:17 PM CDT

by: you @ soon

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Well, I've specifically argued against pushing for Greens at the federal level (0.00 / 0)

That is, until there are significant wins at the state level, and until there is a big enough voting bloc of progressive Dems and Greens within a state to have a serious run at federal office.

Now, before confidently running a Green for federal office, there will still be an indeterminate period of time which will be required to reach that stage, and during which period of time the voting bloc will nevertheless develop the ability to exert pressure on Dems at the federal level. (That's the argument, anyhow.) The following describes a penultimate stage, but wasn't meant to imply that this penultimate stage could be reliably reached in only 2 or 3 election cycles:

If and when the progressive Dem/Green voting bloc grows large enough, it can then make credible demands of, and threats to, a Congressmen, with a deadline. If the demands aren't met by the deadline, then the threat can be carried out, at the next election cycle. That threat is to replace the Democrat with a Green.

I've suggested trying this strategy for at least 2 or 3 election cycles, before giving up on it. However, I wasn't suggesting that 2 or 3 election cycles would necessarily be enough time to determine if this strategy could be a complete success. Rather, I have suggested that 2 or 3 election cycles would probably be enough time to determine if it shows indications of generating pressure at the federal level, at all.

What I have stated, elsewhere, is that I believe Americans could throw off plutocracy in as little as 8 years. However, that would require the development of democratic infrastructure that doesn't exist, now. It would also require a trans-partisan, cooperative approach, where it's generally understood that the clear and present danger is primarily plutocracy, and that citizens can fight other ideological battles, amongst themselves, after the plutocracy is defeated.

And, of course, it requires leaders to step forward.

The history of the meat packing organization was very interesting. While I'm not convinced that its lessons will naturally and effectively apply to your strategy in the way you expect, I would suggest the following: Make a theoretical case for coming mass white incarceration. The argument would follow from the long-term trajectory of increasing homelessness and joblessness that we are on, plus the dramatic rise in gang membership in the US over the last few years. Without making any value judgement, at all, it's possible to plausibly predict an increase of crime related to just the need to survive. Since throwing people in jail is so profitable for the owners of jails, there is plenty of motivation to expand the profit base into poor, homeless white people, even if their motive was just to put food in their bellies, they didn't hurt anybody, etc.

I don't recall any specifics, but during the GW Bush administration, there was talk about a law being passed that seemed to presage neo-debtor's prisons in the US. Given the massive level of personal indebtedness in the US, I think everybody will be able to relate to that issue, if you can construct a plausible scenario for their future incarceration, or that of their children, along that pathway.

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by: metamars @ Mon Oct 04, 2010 at 10:10:34 AM CDT

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