grassroots progressivism

In another thread, someone wondered why the Democrats have no popular movement similar to the Tea Party. Everyone is outraged by the Tea Party, but it seems very hopeless.

So what can be done, in 2012 and in general? How can the country be repaired? What can an ordinary person do to fight voter apathy and media lies?

Yes! I finally got a thread spin-off for myself. Yay...

Seriously, though, perhaps they could just rally their voting base? I mean, everyone goes on about how the lower economic classes always vote Democrat; well, mobilize that. They seem to be the most obvious choice for a grass-roots movement; their the very heart of the party and, as I understand it, it's biggest voting bloc. They are the Democrat equivalent of Republican middle class people.

The thing is the progressive movement I think happened at the beginning of the 20th century.However,are you talking about a second wave progressive movement.Just so you know people this is not the first time.

Well, the Tea Party, as stupid as it is, seems to have something they feel they can rally around. That's how movements and parties start, right?

The Democrats apparently don't feel quite that strongly. They probably should, but it doesn't seem like they do.

The Progressive Movement specifically was in the early 20th Century, but progressivism, lower-case p, is not dead. Part of the problem, perhaps, is that not everyone agrees on what "progressive" is, however. The thread name is a misnomer. It would be better titled "Grassroots American Liberalism," or "Grassroots Movement for the American Left," since that's more what he's going for.

If you want to get into character you should dress how they did in the early 20th century.

It won't be that bad you can dress like characters from vaudville like the barber shop quartet.

Or even better you can dress like characters from Urban Sinclair's"The Jungle" Read up as much as you can from socialist early 20th century literature.

P.S. I don't support the progressive movement but I will have fun giving you suggestions how to present your self.

My inclination would be to argue that the Democrats need to make it look like they're genuinely worth supporting, rather than just the best available choice in the two-party system. On the other hand, the Republicans don't seem very coherent either . . .

edited 31st Jul '11 10:49:44 PM by feotakahari

There are two movements I am aware of: The Coffee party (You can guess what that's from. :P) and the Redneck party, named after a famous battle that I've never heard of.

We could also ban alcohol and pretend like it will work, just like that! Oh, wait, that gave us the Mafia and fueled a ridiculous cultural backlash that resulted in the Great Depression because it downgraded responsibility. Nice Job Breaking It, Hero, much?

Still, my point stands: he's talking about American Liberalism, not Progressivisim.

edited 31st Jul '11 10:48:15 PM by USAF713

Enkufka@I also get the joke about the Coffee Party because it comes from the fact that Americans drank coffee in protesting the sell of tea which was being taxed.

This ban of tea for coffee made the hot drink one of America's long favorite beverage.

edited 31st Jul '11 10:52:42 PM by jazzflower14

It seems everyone has their own theory what caused the Great Depression...

Ok, ok, not entirely. But it certainly helped create the culture that gave rise to the "invest on margin" idea that so permeated the stock market.

Here's a question for the OP. Or anyone in general. If you want to start a grassroots movement, what exactly would you be basing it on? You don't have a movement if you can't stand for something specific.

I don't understand why we'd want another Tea Party. I guess I admire their enthusiasm and persistance, but in many respects they seem rather alarming.

I;d like a coherent social democrat party that can get elected. But since thats impossible, I'll settle for the democrats being more coherently liberal.

It's actually existed for quite a while, generally they call themselves the "Netroots". Daily Kos is probably the main hub of it, but there are many other communities as well. The problem is one where anybody even moderately to the left is assumed to be a proto-communist. The right has been very successful with this.

One interesting fact about the left, is that the left isn't REALLY interested in a massive welfare state. There are elements that ARE interested in it, mostly in the middle. Wut? It's true. It's more of a neo-liberal thing. Generally if you look at what the netroots want, is that they want a lot of well paying jobs. There are exceptions, generally speaking there's the (probably correct) opinion that health care is an impossibly broken market that can't be fixed and needs to be made public. Also, the banks shouldn't have been bailed out but they should have been nationalized then sold back off.

But those things really are the exceptions rather than the rule, believe it or not.

One final thing. The yearly netroots convention, Netroots Nation, got far more attendance than the national Tea Party conference, which probably suffered by being run from the top down instead of the bottom up to be fair. I believe that they were trying to get representatives from each local group instead of just an open convention. Which probably says a lot about things.

It's because of two reasons:

1. The last time they had a genuinely popular movement they could cultivate with impunity was the civil rights movement of the 1960s. There are no equivalents today. Feminism is largely seen as "done" and those who continue to push it are perceived heavily as Feminazis. (The problem with the vocal ones overshouting the mainstream feminists.) Gay rights simply isn't big enough to turn a national election in their favor.
2. People have had nearly 50 years since the Civil Rights era to see the results of the Democrats most cherished accomplishments in the welfare state. What do we have to show for it? Nothing really. Poverty levels today are actually higher than in 1965 (14.3% today vs 14% then) so the welfare state didn't ultimately combat poverty. In 1965 health care was widely affordable for everyone except the absolute most destitute. Nowadays you have Medicare/Medicaid costing the taxpayers a fortune and the private sector has gotten expensive in part because of it. Then you have the 2-3 generations of welfare moms and kids who don't know what it is like to work for a living leading to only three outcomes in life of either being killed, being in a gang, or being in jail (oftentimes related to one of the first two).

On the flipside, those who opposed the welfare state have 45 years of evidence and "results" to rally around among other things. Simply put, the Democrats don't have anything to pull from or promise that will fundamentally change the voting demographics.

As iopposed to the other side who had legislative control for most of those last 20 and used it mostly to destroy those programs and point to it as proof they dont work?

The biggest problem is Keynesian economics are a non-starter thanks to the republicans adamantely refusing to abandon their ridiculous supply side insanity. Progressive programs dont work without a robust keynesian economy. (not that reoublican programs work any better with the austrian system)

edited 1st Aug '11 6:10:45 AM by Midgetsnowman

This. That is why Grover Norquist and his ilk have intentionally racked up so much national debt over the years. It wasn't to combat 'big government'. It was to cut off the possibility of pursuing social spending programs. Happily, the average American has the attention span of a moth.

Love that self-fulfilling prophecy. "Government sucks! And we're going to obstruct it as much as possible to make sure it continues to suck!" Seriously, Tom, when you're earnestly telling people that a given major faction of government hasn't achieved anything positive for half a century, you're full of shit.

The issue with the left is that there's no one thing you can use as a rallying flag. It would take years to undo the damage that rightist propaganda has slapped on the 'wealth redistribution' concept that's most applicable to the current economic situation. Gay rights? Not everyone is gay. Welfare? Again, stigmatized beyond belief. Attacks against corporate welfare? It's not enough to stand against something, you need to stand for something.

The Tea Party has a simple, coherent and appealing (if insane) goal. No one likes taxes. If you want a similar movement on the left, you need to find something like that that appeals to everybody.

Someone really ought to tell the Democrat politicians this, for that matter. They're all over the place.

Mayhap if people rallied behind Bernie Sanders, but you need a more charismatic face for those talking points.

edited 1st Aug '11 7:29:01 AM by Karkadinn

I say rally behind Willie Nelson or Warren Buffet.

Both extremely Good examples of leftists at their best and most persuasive.

edited 1st Aug '11 7:33:53 AM by Midgetsnowman

Erm well , I wouldn't go so far as to put Warren Buffet forward as a great humanist, being that he favors population control and such.

But yes. The top billionaires know that without safeguards, capitalism will self-destruct. Those guys are already so rich that they're practically removed from the system, so they can see the chessboard more clearly than others.

He's still leagues more moral than most right-leaning billionaires.

So what kind of slogans could be used? The Tea Party seems to be about killing "big government". I guess the equivalent would be opposing big corporations. And it's a simple message that people can believe in, without much knowledge of economics. But it is strangely ineffective politically, even after the banking collapse and BP.

Let's look at this question from a more pragmatic angle.

The Tea Party was essentially an astroturf campaign that pumped up something extant (fringe rightism, inclusive of Baptist fundies, Libertarian isolationist nutjobs, and militarist jingoists) with huge amounts of money. What's the closest thing on the left?

Unions. Labor unions, consumer unions, small business unions, all of these things took a small tithe from the wages of the American working class, combined it with the pent up rage from centuries of oppression, and used it as the motive force to hammer in the leftist economic agenda from the late 1800s until the unions were shattered in the late 1970s-1980s.

Right now however, the left is broke. Republicans outspent Democrats by a gigantic margin, and what funding Democrats do get is largely from the same corporate lobbies as the Republicans. Astroturf or not, there is no financial driver for a grassroots movement like that on the left today.

Oh, and the internet? Does anyone remember the Howard Dean campaign in '04? Tons of hype online, everybody laughed off the other candidates… Then, oops! Everybody forgot to ACTUALLY VOTE FOR HIM and he vanished like a puff of hot air, because the “blogosphere” he'd been relying on to support him is in fact nothing but an ephemeral circle of ego petting blowhards.