The "Angry Left" is worse than the Tea Party

[gulliver]

We liberals pay dearly for the "Angry Left." Next to the Republican Party and their parent company (Fox News), the Angry Left phenomenon may be the single greatest threat to liberalism and the political character of our country.

The key problem in my opinion is that there really is no official "Angry Left." There is no identifiable organization to parallel, say, the Republican Tea Party. That's a crucial difference. Without an official organizational entity, the Angry Left is impervious to self-regulation. Their is no defined "self" to regulate.

Because the Tea Party movement is identifiable, people can be asked unequivocally whether they are 1) members or 2) support the movement. Its leaders can be held permanently accountable, because they can be linked with a real organization for life. That makes the Tea Party careful. Its leaders and members know they have to keep up the neighborhood by keeping the riffraff at bay. They also know that they can be held personally responsible for the rest of their lives if they destroy the Republican Party, so Tea Partiers position themselves as a power block within that party.

Contrast that with the Angry Left. Because it lacks a true organization and name, it's "membership" is anonymous and fluid. All you have to be is angry about something and you are both in the "Angry Left" and not in it at the same time. You can experience camaraderie and validation from like minds, but no one will ever identify you as being part of the "movement." If you are upset about not getting a public option in HCR, you can say so angrily. The guy with horns surgically appended to his skull and a Che poster will probably agree with you, but you don't have to be seen with him. He's sort of in the same group with you, but sort of not.

Well, that is unless you are being characterized by the other side. Republicans will happily connect the dots between the angry, dissatisfied public option intellectual and the "disturbed commie weirdo." The weirdo is on your team as far as the Republicans are concerned. Their Tea Party may have a bunch of people who lick their guns when no one is looking, but the Tea Party is officially defined as normal. The Angry Left is undefined and, therefore, open to definition by enemies. All liberals are the Angry Left if you ask Fox News, Glenn Beck, or the Bush/Cheney rubber-stamping Republican Officer Corps in Congress.

It should be obvious why the angriest of the Angry Left have failed to create a true organization to rally behind. Many of them make their living in political punditry. They simply can't take the economic risk of associating themselves with something that could easily become discredited. Organizations like MoveOn do exist, but they are the old Angry Left and, worse, they ask for money.

The Tea Party had the advantage of Fox News, the Koch brothers, and the whole unofficial Republican payroll provided by friendly corporations. It doesn't cost much to be in the Tea Party. For many, like Sarah Palin, it actually pays. None of that would be true for any hypothetical Angry Left organization.

Given that, the prognosis for the near term is not good, in my opinion. We may be stuck with the political equivalent of fibromyalgia at least through November of this year. If the Dems lose, then the intense pain of Republican empowerment will remind the left critics of the left that there is a real political enemy. We will have succeeded in ameliorating a painful auto-immune disorder by engineering a resurgence of cancer. Then, we'll probably try to cure the cancer with bloodletting.

[leveymg]

1. The Tea Party and GOP obstruction are the smartest things the Repugs ever did

Kept the base together and motivated. Only wish the Democratic establishment had as much common sense.

[JDPriestly]

2. Is there an angry left at all?

Most of what is characterized as "angry left" is common sense.

See this post

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x9055979

It explains how the wealthy are not attempting to retroactively change the tax code so that middle and working class families pay a greater share of the countries wasteful military spending and tax cuts for the rich. It's common sense to insist that the promise of SociaL Security be kept.

Then there is the issue of the War in Iraq.

Bush either lied to us about Saddam's line to Al Qaeda and WMDs or he sent thousands of Americans and at the very lest hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis to their deaths without checking his facts. It's common sense to condemn Bush for the Iraq War regardless whether he lied or simply didn't do his homework.

We punished the Japanese for waterboarding and other torture in WWII. George Washington refused to allow his soldiers to torture, and refusing to torture is a basic principle that guided our military and intelligence leaders for most of our history. It's common sense to know that when you torture a confession or information out of people, that confession or information is likely to be false and that you are violating a basic human right -- the right to remain silent -- for no good reason.

You watch how large corporations in the US cheat, cause environmental damage, steal, lie, do every condemnable act possible, how they squeeze honest small businesses out of the market (think Walmart's campaign to eradicate the competition across middle America), and you know that laws need to be passed to assist small businesses and that antitrust legislation needs to be strengthened and enforced. Common sense. Needs no additional comment.

So, it is easy to label people with common sense and the ability to reason as being the "angry left." But the fact remains that the emperor has no clothes, and eventually common sense, even if you label it the "angry left" will prevail.

Either common sense, i.e., the "angry left" will prevail or our country will turn into simply a nation of indentured servants and slaves to our military-industrial elite. What is it going to be folks? Reason and common sense? Or great-sounding labels like "angry left"? Take your pick.

[gulliver]

14. I'm very angry left, but I'm not in "the angry left"

I'm angry at what the Republican Party did, what they are doing now, and the likely fact that they are going to get away with it. They are, in turn, angry with us, hard as that is to believe. It's really not a good idea to side with them against ourselves in an emotional sense if not in a rational sense. That increases the burden on our party and motivates our opposition.

I agree with the common sense ideas you expressed above pretty much entirely. It needs a mechanism, though. Railing against our own to the point of self-inflicted damage is not wise unless the railing itself is shown to have some kind of common sense likelihood of success.

[nashville_brook]

20. but, how can you know you're not "in" the angry left if there is no official "angry left"?

[gulliver]

24. Don't confuse me! n/t

[JDPriestly]

25. I am not railing against Obama because I want to inflict damage.

I am railing against him because I want him to change his course. He needs to fire a lot of his staff and many of his aides. They are failing him.

He makes wonderful speeches that set a clear, commendable direction, and then there is no real follow-through. That is a staffing problem.

[Poboy]

3. Goofy OP, unrec. -nt

[gratuitous]

4. Damn, looks like another drug test for me

Oh well. Hold out your coffee cup, I'm ready to give my sample.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

5. This post is not flamebait or divisive at all.

No way, no siree.

[alcibiades_mystery]

6. The Tea Party manages to get some of their people elected

The so-called progressives manage to get Republicans elected. There's a simple lesson here: the Tea Party is politically smarter than the "Angry Left."

[JDPriestly]

29. No. The Tea Party has Fox News and CNN.

The Angry Left mostly only has reason and common sense. And a lot of people who think they are part of the Tea Party are actually part of the angry left. They don't realize that the Tea Party is the creation of corporatists.

The clever thing that the right-wing corporatists have done is to shift the anger of the Tea Partiers and others in the middle class right-wing from the banks and corporations at which the Tea Partiers and others in the middle class right-wing are really angry at to the government. They shifted this by controlling the media and therefore controlling the myths of our culture. The right wing controls the culture. That happened in NAZI Germany. That is how the NAZIs were placed into power -- because the culture had been shifted to the right through propaganda.

[EFerrari]

33. Not to mention the Koch brothers and Dick Armey. n/t

[EFerrari]

7. "The angry left" is a right wing construction. Congrats. nt

[mike_c]

8. awesome right wing talking points!

Oh, wait....

Unrec'd. Guess I'm an angry leftist.

[Winterblues]

9. I would rather be referred to as an Angry American

thank you very much....

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

10. Unfortunately, the Democrats are a lot more "angry" at the Left than they are at the right.

But, not to worry. Pissing off the left is standard procedure for the Democratic Party. It worked ever so well for LBJ.

[JoseGaspar]

11. Let me understand this...

20 million unemployed.
10 million underemployed.
8 million jobs gone for good.
$1 Trillion of war (and hundreds of thousands dead).
A general dismantling of many democratic institutions by the last administration and the institutionalization of most of those by the present administration.

... and you are angry at the left because their anger "makes Liberals look bad"?

More, you say that the "Angry Left" is "worse" than the Tea Party, and equal to Fox News... etc. - pretty grand hostility, no?

Sounds like a Declaration of War (by the "Serene Left"?).

But then, you invite "the intense pain of Republican empowerment" to "remind the left critics of the left that there is a real political enemy."

Didn't you just apply for that job, yourself?

[walldude]

23. +1

This angry leftie is getting sick and tired of being the scapegoat for an administration that governs to the right of center.

[Name removed]

28. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

32. Groan.

[Richard Steele]

70. Awesome post, JG! nm

[Fumesucker]

12. Unrecced for a total disconnect from reality on the part of the OP

[TexasObserver]

80. Mega dittos!!

That ending metaphor reminded me of a Gerald Ford analogy about the ship of state, with pitching seas and high winds. Poorly conceived and too long.

[tallahasseedem]

13. I completely agree with you.

Unfortunately it looks as though I am in the minority here. Excellent post though. :)

[Ganja Ninja]

15. I get it, we're the problem. We need to move to the right.

Thanks for the advice.:thumbsdown:

[Lydia Leftcoast]

16. So let me get this straight:

The people who want the Democrats to start acting like Democrats are the enemy, and the people who want the Democrats to appease the Republicans in every way are the good guys.

:wtf:

[suzie]

43. Sounding as racist as Republicans in expressing undending contempt for Barack Obama with the same

kind of virulence as the far right, that's now "acting like Democrats"?

Sorry, this child of the 60s remembers LBJ and MLK. And treating the first black president with as little respect as the Tea Partiers is just never gonna seem like a Democratic value to me.

[walldude]

46. Please provide links to racist anti-Obama statements on DU

If you are going to state something like it's a fact you better have links to prove it.

[suzie]

47. Try reading the last sentence in the OP linked to below.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=433&topic_id=424905&mesg_id=424905

[Lydia Leftcoast]

51. Yeah,

we're all crypto-racists and that's why we're angry about coddling Wall Street, pushing corporate welfare for the insurance companies, and continuing the Iraq War in an underhanded way and the Afghanistan War overtly. Yeah, if we weren't racists, we wouldn't be angry about any of that stuff. :sarcasm:

[suzie]

53. So the statement in that last sentence is not racist?

[Lydia Leftcoast]

56. I'm not responsible for what other people say

:shrug:

What other people say is irrelevant to my views.

[proud2BlibKansan]

74. "But then, she didn't know how to game the caucuses."

That's the last sentence. Sorry I don't understand what you are implying. :shrug:

[suzie]

77. Omigosh, I meant to say, "Next to last sentence".

[H2O Man]

17. not

[nashville_brook]

18. wow, been watching much FOX news lately, b/c that's all you hear on there

[LynneSin]

19. I have this to say about the Angry left as someone who is left but not necessarily angry...

...if the Angry Left got their way, this world would be an amazingly beautiful place to live in regards to the environment, our health and our ability to find a job and provide for our families.

Unlike if the Teabaggers got their way - which means it's every person for themselves.

Perhaps I need to get a bit angrier but I would never begrudge what the Angry Left fights for!

[gulliver]

22. That is what keeps me on the left.

We share an awful lot in common with Republicans, but in practically every point on which we differ, the left position is better reasoned, more humane, and technically far better for the world. The Tea Party is just irrational for the most part.

The problem with a free-floating, left-vs.-left anger is that it weakens our position. It's not that I disagree with those on the left who are angry. I agree with them. I just like things that work and don't like things that don't.

[Edweird]

21. Good luck with that.

[Forkboy]

26. I pity the idiots that aren't angry.

[walldude]

27. Wow so you want us gone then? Because you are not the first

to try to kick us to the curb. But what I find hilarious is that I have just been called "worse than a tea bagger" and in the same breath was told that people like me are going to cost the Democrats the election.

So you don't want to hear my opinion, you don't want me in your little club of "non angry liberals" but it's my fault that you are going to lose the election? :rofl: :rofl: Fucking brilliant. Really. Good luck with that.

Hey I have a better idea, how about you only play nice with people you agree with 100% of the time. I'm sure you, yourself and you will have a grand old time.

[depakid]

62. No, they want to insult you like impudent schoolyard bullies

and then insist you to go out and work for them for free and give your hard money to the DCCC & the DSC.

Brilliant tactics, eh?

[Starry Messenger]

30. You missed a spot on your monocle polishing. n/t

[Arkana]

31. Listen, I'm no fan of the Jane Hamsher crowd, but this is patently false.

No matter how angry they get, the left does not call the President a Kenyan Marxist usurper or not-so-subtly hint that someone should shoot him or wave racist signs calling him a monkey and a witch doctor.

[gulliver]

35. I should make it clear that I'm not saying "morally worse"

I'm saying the Angry Left phenomenon is worse for liberalism and the country than the Tea Party phenomenon. The morality is all on the side of the Angry Left. I'm just saying the phenomenon makes liberals as a whole less powerful with no sign of improvement on the horizon.

[G_j]

34. where did you get the phrase "the angry left" from?

just curious..
:shrug:

[QC]

63. It's a popular right wing figure of speech.

It's amazing how many of those are now in common use around here, but I'm sure that's the purest coincidence.

[Marr]

36. Already planning to blame liberals for DLC losses, huh?

You're really getting a head start!

Maybe sometime before 2012, you'll be able to decide whether liberals are irrelevant or, as you suggest here, vitally important. If we're irrelvant, stop blaming us for your team's fuck ups. If we're vitally important, encourage your idols to govern in a way that reflects that reality.

[gulliver]

39. I am a liberal and not in the DLC or even for them.

I'll probably blame the Angry Left phenomenon for our losses if we don't somehow wake up and start fighting Republicans. By the nature of the Angry Left, though, it won't be possible to blame individuals. Basically it will be a Tragedy of the Common situation, I think. Too many people smacking the same mule until it bolts or faints. Everyone thought they were just trying to get the mule to go. No one realized they were hurting it, because too many people were trying to do the same thing.

[HughMoran]

65. Can you form a response without "DLC" in it?

[Marr]

67. I think so. Can you pass by one?

Let's play a game. I'll track the number of times I feel a compulsion to type "DLC", and you track the number of times you hyperventilate over the term.

[HughMoran]

68. lol

At least I'm making a valid point.

[Silent3]

37. The Right has people and ideas that are at least as crazy and discreditable...

...as the craziest of the crazy (not just "angry") Left, but somehow the Right has managed to mainstream their insanity.

People on the Right can be in bed (sometimes even literally) with Christian Dominionists who openly advocate replacing the Constitution with the Bible and replacing democracy with theocracy, and that's just a ho-hum footnote in the news you'd have to dig to find out. If someone on the Left merely talked to a Communist once outside of a confrontational diplomatic event, however, it's a major media news scandal.

The only problem is the incredible double standards for whose angry, crazy people get the most attention, how little or how much it takes to be labeled angry and crazy, and whether they're these people are treated by the media as scary way-out-there people (so typical for people with left-leaning viewpoints), or merely as if they're a legitimate "other side of the debate" (angry, crazy people on the Right).

[walldude]

42. So tell me, which ideas on the "crazy left" are

crazy and discreditable? Is it illegal wars? Rights for gays? Well funded public education? Safe Social Security? Health Care for all? Strong middle class? Strong Unions? A clean environment? Safe food and water? Yeah those far lefties are a bunch of fucking lunatics. Lets lump them in with the "Obama is a Kenyan, Nazi, Socialist, Muslim, who has been raised since birth to pull the ultimate scam on America" folks. And then complain when they sit out the election.

[Silent3]

49. What the media does is treat advocacy of those things...

...you mention, especially if we're talking about Fox, as if they're equivalent to, say, advocating complete unilateral disarmament and surrender to terrorists, man/dog/child marriage, public indoctrination camps, over taxation, giving all of our money to lazy bums who don't deserve it, "tree huggers", etc.

But surely you don't think that the list of issues you listed completely describes "the left", and that we don't have our own crazies and extremists? The left has MIHOPpers and ardent anti-capitalists and anti-vaxers and PETA, people who think all modern medicine is dangerous poison and that we should all be treating disease with herbs, crystals, and Reiki, people chomping at the bit to go all French Revolution and start up the guillotine for anyone who they consider "too rich". Some of the loudest voices here on DU have a very conspiratorial view of the world -- every damn thing that doesn't go their way is because a global cabal of Oppressors arranged it that way.

My point was that the media treats even moderate Left positions as if they're the crazy stuff, if not fully as crazy as the craziest, as something justifiably treated as a "slippery slope" leading to leftist extremes. The Right, on the other hand, gets away with have quite large and measurable numbers of certifiable nut jobs -- birthers, deathers, Dominionists, people who think Obama is out to impose world-wide Sharia law -- and all the media on a whole seems to say is, "Move along! Nothing to see here!".

[Yeshuah Ben Joseph]

38. Is the anger of the left not justified?

Even the Son of Man threw the moneychangers out of the Temple back in the day.

[socialist_n_TN]

58. Yeah, I didn't notice anything about him throwing out

the poor. The moneychangers were thrown out. The guys who made money off of money. What DO we call those people nowdays????

Oh yeah. We call them CAPITALISTS.

[Art_from_Ark]

76. It wasn't merely that they were making money off of money

They were making money in a temple. Sort of like today's televangelists

[Touchdown]

40. Brain farts really should not be written down.

Just a pointer.: hi:

[Lilith Velkor]

41. !!!

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

Brilliant. K&R. :thumbsup:

[Lyric]

44. Complete and utter FAIL.

I could be more articulate, but this post really doesn't deserve the effort. If you don't like liberals, you're in the wrong damned place buddy.

[JVS]

59. +1

[LoZoccolo]

45. I agree with much of your message, but want to comment on one of your predictions.

We may be stuck with the political equivalent of fibromyalgia at least through November of this year. If the Dems lose, then the intense pain of Republican empowerment will remind the left critics of the left that there is a real political enemy.

Unfortunately, I saw these people eschew any responsibility for the Supreme Court justices nominated during the Bush* terms, asking why I was bringing up old news about the 2000 election in connection with it. I think we'll see denials of cause-and-effect rather than an assumption of responsibility.

[whatchamacallit]

48. Clicked on this post and stepped onto a flaming bag of dog shit

Thanks for the really bad joke.

[tabasco]

50. They all voted for Reagan in years past.

That worked out well.

[WVRICK13]

52. You're Joking Right?

How can any Democrat not be angry at the bullshit coming from the Republicans and from some of our own party. I am not happy with the new political set point being slightly right of center because I am a liberal. I could debate this issue for days but then that would get me labeled as an angry leftist. You DAMNED right I am ANGRY, enough of this fucking pandering to the assholes who seek to destroy the middle class in America.

[marmar]

54. ........

:boring:

[L0oniX]

55. pfffft ...smell it.

[saltpoint]

57. I think it's fair to attack the Baggers on the grounds of

stupidity alone.

There are many other things not to respect about them, of course. They are as thick as a brick and full of themselves. But mostly, they're stupid.

The Left assails the status quo from the library, or a magazine editorial room, or a community center, and on various blogs, for example, and in almost all cases, a vigorous education backs the words (whether self-directed or not), and significant ideas frame the debate.

I definitely don't see any learning or ideas exchange coming from the Baggers.

They're stupid.

[socialist_n_TN]

60. Damn right I'm angry. I'm as angry as I was in the 60s

and back then I was a Trotskyist. And I'm angry for the same reason as I was back then. My government is either directly or indirectly (through cowardice and negligence) trying to kill me. That's going to make me angry EVERY time.

[depakid]

61. Nice Republicrat hit piece

:thumbsdown:

[Jakes Progress]

64. Are you claiming to be a part of the "complacent right"?

OOOOOHHHH. Scary. Scary.

[WhollyHeretic]

66. I'm pretty sure it's the "flaccid center" that's the problem

[mitchtv]

69. NO! I won't shut up

[CTyankee]

78. Heh. My "angry left" neighbor and I routinely joke about our "rants."

Our conversations verge toward the "yesterday I was on a rant about..." and we start in...occasionally I calm him down or he calms me down...that's why I sometimes ask him for advice but most of the time it's a political issue. Sometimes he's the best sounding board...

[DCBob]

71. Being angry is not the problem.. its the irrational and misdirected anger many on the left have.

The target of their anger should be the Republicans and conservatives.. not the Obama administration and mainstream Democrats.

[NuttyFluffers]

72. better to be politically angry than politically cataleptic.

catalepsy |ˈkatlˌepsē|
noun
a medical condition characterized by a trance or seizure with a loss of sensation and consciousness accompanied by rigidity of the body.

in politics, being hypnotized into a numb state where one is left into a insensate rigidity is a prescription for political suicide. since 1992, how has that been working for us? perhaps the change with Dean's 50 state strategy and direct engagement has been better, no?

[ibegurpard]

73. what a load of shit

n/t

[laughingliberal]

75. unRec for another liberal bashing post nt

[Douglas Carpenter]

79. "Republicans fear their base and the Democrats hate their base"” - David Frum

If your point is that the "angry left" needs a cohesive organization, message and movement and perhaps its own "Ronald Reagan" to define the movement and lead - I totally agree.

Those who believe in the Great Society and New Deal, significantly reduced military spending, reject the concept of endless military interventions, reject so-called "free market economics" or modified neo-liberal economics, and generally don't believe the Democratic Party should be the new version of the old moderate Republicans - representing the left-wing of Wall Street - and the left-wing of the Pentagon - but should be a true progressive party that stands for real publicly sponsored universal health care, an vastly improved economic security net and an America at peace with the world and socially and economically just at home - well where do they go? The simple fact is, this group comprises the vast majority of ordinary rank and file Democrats however they may define themselves and however lacking in cohesion their message may be.

[bvar22]

81. ...but NOT angry enough.

When The Left (Working Class FDR Democrats) finally get ANGRY Enough at the sell out Republican Appeasers,
we may actually see some "CHANGE".
Until then, it will remain warmed over Republican Policy Status Quo.


"There are forces within the Democratic Party who want us to sound like kinder, gentler Republicans. I want us to compete for that great mass of voters that want a party that will stand up for working Americans, family farmers, and people who haven't felt the benefits of the economic upturn."---Paul Wellstone