The winter solstice of 2009 arrived as a grim metaphor for the current politics of health care, war, and a lot more. “In a dark time,” wrote the poet Theodore Roethke, “the eye begins to see.”
After a year of escalation in Afghanistan, solicitude toward Wall Street and the incredible shrinking health care reform, we ought to be able to see that the biggest problem among progressives has been undue deference to the Obama administration.
In recent months, the responses from the progressive base to the Obama presidency have often resembled stages of grief – with rotations of denial, bargaining, anger, depression and acceptance.
Mobilization of progressive movements to pressurize Obama in the White House and Democrats on Capitol Hill has always been essential. It hasn’t happened. Instead, among Democratic loyalists, reflexive support for the latest line from the administration has made it easier for Obama to move rightward.
In 2010, we should concentrate on generating the kind of public information, vigorous debate and grassroots organizing that could shift the center of political gravity in a progressive direction.
At every turn, progressives should be putting up a fight – not only in all kinds of venues outside the electoral system, but also inside the Democratic Party. Winning elections will require doing the methodical and difficult work of running candidates in Democratic primaries, sometimes against entrenched incumbents.
For instance, that’s what stalwart antiwar progressive Marcy Winograd is doing in her challenge to Congresswoman Jane Harman in the Los Angeles area. Across the country, dozens of strong progressives are running for Congress with a real chance to win. They need our volunteer help and our financial support.
In some Congressional districts with many progressive voters, Blue Dog Democrats are running for re-election without any declared primary opposition so far. That should change.
It’s time for progressives to get out there and fight the good fight in election campaigns. We should do what our conservative and centrist and mushy-liberal adversaries least want us to do. They don’t want more progressives to seriously engage in electoral battles.
This year, left to their own devices, the Democratic leaders on Capitol Hill and in the White House have managed to demobilize the progressive base that swept them into office. The latest nationwide polls are foreshadowing grim consequences; Republicans express far more eagerness to vote in 2010 than Democrats do.
In Washington, the conventional wisdom of top Democratic strategists has run amok, continually splitting the difference with Republicans. All year long, we’ve seen Congress undermine basic progressive principles, whether for health care or peace or economic justice or environmental protection or civil liberties.
Despite the Democratic Party’s leadership, we have a huge stake in thwarting GOP ambitions and in replacing tepid Democrats with progressives. It might be more comfortable to just engage in the politics of denunciation – but we also need to change who is casting votes on Capitol Hill.
Among progressives, in these dark closing days of 2009, there’s a surplus of frustration, anger and despair. Let’s transform those downbeat energies into fuel for the imperative political work ahead.
We’re not backing down in the face of Trump’s threats.
As Donald Trump is inaugurated a second time, independent media organizations are faced with urgent mandates: Tell the truth more loudly than ever before. Do that work even as our standard modes of distribution (such as social media platforms) are being manipulated and curtailed by forces of fascist repression and ruthless capitalism. Do that work even as journalism and journalists face targeted attacks, including from the government itself. And do that work in community, never forgetting that we’re not shouting into a faceless void – we’re reaching out to real people amid a life-threatening political climate.
Our task is formidable, and it requires us to ground ourselves in our principles, remind ourselves of our utility, dig in and commit.
As a dizzying number of corporate news organizations – either through need or greed – rush to implement new ways to further monetize their content, and others acquiesce to Trump’s wishes, now is a time for movement media-makers to double down on community-first models.
At Truthout, we are reaffirming our commitments on this front: We won’t run ads or have a paywall because we believe that everyone should have access to information, and that access should exist without barriers and free of distractions from craven corporate interests. We recognize the implications for democracy when information-seekers click a link only to find the article trapped behind a paywall or buried on a page with dozens of invasive ads. The laws of capitalism dictate an unending increase in monetization, and much of the media simply follows those laws. Truthout and many of our peers are dedicating ourselves to following other paths – a commitment which feels vital in a moment when corporations are evermore overtly embedded in government.
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