There was a post at RedState I read over the weekend, "Defending Against an Alinsky Campaign", that illuminated Glenn Beck's and other conservative tactics recently for me. In graduate school, I took a grassroots politics class in which I read Alinsky's Reveille for Radicals, which actually predated his more well-known and popular Rules for Radicals. In it, he discusses the necessity of taking an opponent, "fixating" on an element or characteristic that could be blown up, "personalizing" it/her/him for the general public to match a negative perception with the name, and "humiliating" it/her/him as much as possible until you win. You see this to a limited extent with Van Jones- which wasn't even reported in many major outlets before he resigned, and certainly much of the public could not name who he was. But you see it to a smaller extent with Yosi Sergant with the NEA. And you see it big-time with ACORN. The two videographers fixated on what could be blown up (getting a few employees to screw up), and then with the noise machine's help, personalized ACORN and made the employees emblematic of the organization as a whole.
The attacks are seemingly unrelated, but I expect to see more that are related to the original personalizations- e.g., a petition asking those affiliated with ACORN to step down. And in some cases, they don't even need to do it. As Paul wrote last night, Democratic members of Congress- many of whom benefited greatly from ACORN's voter registration efforts over the years and advertised their close ties with ACORN- have already distanced themselves. Obama, who himself represented ACORN in a lawsuit and was affiliated in other ways with the group throughout the late 1990s, called for an investigation. I don't see what Obama did as cowardly as Congressional Dems' actions, since even ACORN's chief organizer called for the same, but it adds to the pile-on and keeps the story in the news. It works in what one colleague calls concentric circles- personalize and attack those closest to the organization, then attack those close to those you just attacked, and so forth.
The whole episode got me thinking of response tactics and a failure in organizing to stop this in its tracks. One of my favorite posts by Matt Stoller was one he wrote around failure to stop Alito's nomination and tactics that could have been pursued, but were not. There was organizing here that could have been pursued, but was not. One response that perhaps should have been pursued is similar to what Wes Boyd and Joan Blades of MoveOn.org did in the wake of the Lewinsky scandal- make the ask to "censure and move on". Slap someone/an organization on the wrist, but recognize there are a few bad apples in every organization/corporation, and that there are bigger problems. The advantage to this is that our esteemed Democratic leaders in Congress, in this kind of situation, are looking for an easy out, something to kill this story and give them something to say when a CNN reporter sticks a microphone in their face about it. A resolution is much preferable to de-funding just as a resolution is preferable to impeachment.
Another was to organize to ask for support prior to such a vote. We, including myself, should have organized earlier for a statement of support from those who benefit most/have the closest ties to ACORN, found a Progressive Block that could have blocked a defunding vote (similar to Chris' theory around holding a Block to stand firm on the public option and other key issues), and worked to lock them in. ACORN's tool to ask your member of Congress to stand firm is another step towards this.
The one problem with the latter tactic, at least, is that we operate in a media environment where pressure to de-fund, disaffiliate, distance oneself from, etc. builds like a head of steam in 24 hours, and makes it difficult to organize that kind of larger effort. The Alito nomination and the whip count on health care took months. We didn't have that kind of time. Regardless, once the Senate vote came down, something needed to happen quickly, and it didn't. Progressive movement actors, myself included, have to learn from this episode and figure out where we all went wrong in working to support those attacked. Other organizations/people will soon find themselves in a similar situation. The writer at RedState suggested targeting purple-district Congressional Dems themselves with the same Alinsky tactics and force the already-cautious among them to distance themselves from Obama. I can see this having policy implications, such as around LGBT issues. This can all snowball quickly. It is important to learn from these episodes and figure out a quicker rapid-response.
Last night, at 3:31am, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee launched a petition asking Congress to censure Rep. Joe Wilson:
"Enough is enough. On an issue as critical as health care reform, it's time to stop the lies, the misinformation, and the uncivil disruptions. Rep. Joe Wilson went way over the line by yelling 'You lie' during President Obama's speech, and Congress should censure him immediately."
Sign the petition here.
We set a goal of 20,000 signers by noon. We got 21,000.
And as of 2:15pm, that's grown to 31,000. Help us get to 50,000? Sign here.
Today, we will also be placing $10,000 in online ads -- including blog ads and Google ads, in South Carolina and Washington, DC calling for Wilson to be censured.
In addition, we'll be asking all 31,000 folks who signed the petition so far to call their Representative at (202) 224-3121 to ask them to call for censure.
Why censure? From our PCCC email last night:
Right-wing Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC) played the roll of teabagger by yelling "You lie!" at the president. Let's go on offense...
Censure could be a real possibility if we go on offense now. Sen. John McCain called Wilson's yelling "totally disrespectful." Wilson later called his own actions "inappropriate and regrettable" but repeated the same misinformation he yelled out at President Obama -- about 'illegal aliens'.
Frankly, an apology is not enough. Apologies weren't enough for Van Jones, the bold progressive who right-wingers forced to resign from the White House this past week for remarks taken out of context. And House Rules of Decorum specifically state that it is not permissible to call the President a "liar" -- let alone yell it.
Today, Arlen Specter even called for censure. (Man, I'll miss that guy's newfound boldness when Sestak crushes him.)
Now's the time to push this, and teach the far-right a lesson. Please sign the petition -- and then call your Member of Congress today at (202) 224-3121.
UPDATE (4:30pm): Petition is up to 35,000 signers.
UPDATE (6:53pm): Petition is up to 39,500 signers.
I've been wrestling with this diary for a day and a half... basically as Iraq has moved into the background, I've spent a bit less time thinking about it, but then I saw something on TV that I had to write about. Here goes...
The horserace narrative has swung back into full tweety ahead over the weekend. But more troubling to me than the Clinton/Obama back-and-forth (and let me say, pretty much all of the Democrats running for Prez are equally complicit in Iraq in my eyes) was what Clinton repeated over and over during her interview on Meet the Press on Sunday. Her rationalization for her vote on the 2002 AUMF was 1) it was her understanding that the vote was not for actual use of force but rather for the threat of force 2) she thought inspectors would go back in 3) she found out later Bush was deceiving Congress (and the American people) by going in unilaterally on an inflated / fabricated case for war. In this characterization, Bush is the one who bears the full responsibility for the war. Here's what she said on the transcript:
Well, I have said that obviously, I would never do again what George Bush did with that vote. He misused and abused the authority that was given to him, in my opinion. And we can't turn the clock back. I've taken responsibility for it.
...
I, I would not have given President Bush the authority if I knew he would deliberately misuse and abuse it.
...
It became clear in retrospect, Tim, once people started writing books and information came out of the administration, the president had no intention of letting the inspectors do their job. That's not what I was told by the Bush White House. That's not what we were told in constant briefings from high-level Bush administration officials. That's not what the president told the country in his speech in Cincinnati shortly before the vote. If you remember, he said this vote was the best chance to avoid some kind of confrontation.
Clinton is saying that Bush abused the power of war under false pretenses, and deliberately misled the country by lying about his intentions. Okay, I think we all can agree with that.
But this begs what should be a very obvious question, one that Russert did not ask.
One of my biggest complaints about the Democrats we have in Washington is that (most of the time) they don't seem to understand how to throw a coordinated, strategic punch-- that is, how to have a broad push-back against conservatives and conservative messaging when political opportunities present themselves. Fortunately, Mitch McConnell's comments today provide the perfect opportunity for Democrats to do just that. Today, Greg Sargent at TPM brings us this little nugget of news, courtesy of a Kentucky newspaper:
Uh oh -- looks like GOP Senate leader Mitch McConnell has got a problem on his hands. Check out what he said about the death of American troops in Iraq in a meeting with constituents this week, according to Kentucky's Grayson County News-Gazette:
"Unfortunately, most of our friends on the other isle are having a hard time admitting things are getting better; some days I almost think the critics of this war don't want us to win. Nobody is happy about losing lives but remember these are not draftees, these are full-time professional soldiers."
Imagine, just for half a second, what the response to this would be if you switched in "Harry Reid" for "Mitch McConnell" in the attribution of that quote. I'm sure you know what I'm talking about.
In this hypothetical situation, we'd see immediate reactions from top Republicans condemning Reid for degrading the lives of the troops. Bill O'Reilly and the crew at Fox News would devote endless hours of airtime to making Reid a troop-hating, un-American girly man human pinata. Michelle Malkin might even have a stroke out of sheer self-righteousness.
Policy-wise, we'd see Republican staffers planting anonymously sourced rumors to their favorite reporters calling for a Congressional vote to condemn Reid's comments. Dutifully, these reporters-- eager to reinforce the false narrative of Democrats as troop-haters-- would write their stories. We'd see the noise machine amplify and echo those calls for a censure vote, building momentum. We might even ultimately see such a censure vote take place, as Republicans eager to distract Americans from the real issue of Iraq desperately tried to focus on something else.
We know what would happen if a Democrat had made such a comment. So how will we react, as a movement and a party, now that we have seen the Senate's Republican minority leader belittle the deaths of thousands of courageous young American men and women? We shouldn't be afraid to play hardball on this debate.
McConnell's comments sought to downplay troop deaths in order to advance a very specific Republican narrative (Hey, the surge is working!). By pushing back hard on his comments we have an opportunity to discredit the message and the messenger by going on the offensive. Having Congress vote on a resolution to condemn McConnell's disgusting comments would not only put the GOP off-message and on the defensive, it would put the very issue McConnell tried to minimize front and center.
Such a vote would bring immediate, specific focus to the 3,886 young Americans killed for Bush's failed war. The Republican presidential candidates would be forced to issue awkwardly-worded non-condemnation condemnations of McConnell, while Democrats would further re-shape the narrative that it's the Republicans who really don't support the troops. Most importantly, in a year when McConnell himself is up for re-election, it gives Democrats an opportunity to hammer McConnell over and over again, while putting the Congress on record condemning him by a huge margin.
We know what would happen if the situations and parties were reversed. What I'm wondering is, are Democrats strong and smart enough to take advantage of McConnell's blunder? Or will this issue be buried by the backslapping, "bipartisan" Democrats who'd rather not roil their comfortable beltway waters?
Maybe the Senate and House should vote to censure Ann Coulter for this lovely comment:
If we took away women's right to vote, we'd never have to worry about another Democrat president. It's kind of a pipe dream, it's a personal fantasy of mine, but I don't think it's going to happen. And it is a good way of making the point that women are voting so stupidly, at least single women.
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Last night, at 3:31am, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee launched a petition asking Congress to censure Rep. Joe Wilson:
