Question: How Come The Left/Liberals/Progressives (Pro Or Not) Don't Get To Have Any Leverage ???

[WillyT]

How come WE seem to be the only ones told to STFU and Get Behind Our Dear Leader???

How come it's never the Blue-Dogs, the Party "Establishment", the DLC, or the Third Way ???

Just throwing it out there...

:shrug:

[MannyGoldstein]

1. Because we're not organized.

Until we organize, we have a problem.

[provis99]

2. who else are we going to vote for?

When you've only got one party choice, that party can totally ignore you.

[Little Star]

28. Bingo!

[LoZoccolo]

29. You usually have multiple candidates from which to choose in the primary. n/t

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

3. Because pandering to the right works as long as we hold our noses for the "lesser of two evils".

[BzaDem]

8. But why do you think it doesn't "work" if you don't vote for the lesser of two evils?

It is much easier for a party to move to the center in response to fewer votes. For one, the voters who vote to enable the opposition party are (by definition) taking an irrational action. Whatever opinion you have of that action, it is generally not possible to please someone who doesn't take rational actions. In addition, a vote from R to D changes the margin by 2, whereas a vote from third party to D just changes the margin by 1. So they literally get more "bang for the buck" by moving to the right in response to irrational voting action.

So it would seem that a strategy that didn't involve voting for the best viable candidate just increases the incentives for the party to move to the right. The more that don't act rationally, the more the party moves to the right. (At least until those who didn't vote for the best viable candidate collectively recognize the consequences of their actions and change their voting behavior in the future, such as in 2004.)

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

21. If that's their choice to abandon the left and their own principles, so be it.

Holding one's nose and voting for the lesser of two evils sure as hell isn't working. Is it?

The Democrats ran a candidate in 2008 who made slightly leftist speeches, had slightly leftist slogans, and a majority congress. What did he do? Turned right.

[BzaDem]

26. If things are going badly for someone, they don't say "not burning down my house sure

as hell isn't working. So I'm going to burn down my house."

In general, just because X isn't working doesn't mean the opposite of X is any better (or isn't much worse).

[UpInArms]

4. we are a "focus group" or

just "fringe"

...sigh...

[alc]

5. Who will you vote for in 2012?

If you already know, you don't matter.

And if you're in a solid blue state you don't matter.

Parties are focused on power, not issues. They use issues to get power and if they have your vote then your issue doesn't matter

[Lorien]

6. Because the media supplies the leverage, and the media is corporate

no fairness doctrine = no voice.

[RKP5637]

13. Exactly!!! n/t

[BzaDem]

7. It's very simple. When the blue dogs say "no" to a policy, the "nos" form a majority of Congress.

Progressives on the other hand unfortunately do not have (and have never had during the Obama administration) a majority in Congress.

A more general question is why parties try to appeal to the center. But that is simply because the center is (by definition) not far on either side, and would actually prefer (from a policy perspective) the other side on various issues if the party in power doesn't agree with them.

[unkachuck]

9. betrayal....

....we're constantly betrayed by the phony Progressive politicians we support serving their corporate masters....

[RKP5637]

16. Money talks and has power, we just talk. The phony Progressive politicians know

the real wealth of this country will kick their asses from one border to the other if they don't fall into line. So we vote the phony Progressive politicians into office, and the real wealth and power in this country gives them their marching orders.

And M$M ensures the propaganda works to appease TPTB. And the masses, for the most part, are kept ignorant and in a very strange and twisted way in this country do the bidding of those that will serve them worst. It's so F'ed up it's unbelievable.

[Fumesucker]

10. Because the Democrats hate progressives far more than they could ever hate teabaggers..

If you took a poll of Democratic politicians and told them if they could eliminate either the Teabaggers or the DirtyFuckingHippies there's not an iota of doubt in my mind the DFHs would be dead meat.

[DirkGently]

11. No one fears the left. We don't show up to rallies with guns strapped to our legs.

[INdemo]

12. Let me get back with you on that one

...from a die hard liberal Democrat..

[joshcryer]

14. You're asking this on a forum whose majority bashes Obama.

What a preposterous question when you look at it that way.

[leftstreet]

17. Maybe if Obama acted like he was actually ON the left, that wouldn't happen n/t

[tblue]

24. Do progressives have any leverage with Obama?

Quit feeling sorry for him. He's not your baby. Feel sorry for the people who are suffering, losing their homes, still without healthcare and jobs, and those having predator drones dropping bombs on their children. Obama will be fine for the rest of his life. Who told him being president was a cakewalk? Oh it's so hard. Yes it is! So you have to adjust and be strong and stop being every freaking body's victim. Poor Obama. Really? He's a politician! He's not helpless! And if he is, why should he remain president?

[xiamiam]

25. its a perfect question..we didnt start out relationship with obama that way...we voted for him

all of us..every single one of us who is complaining..we've got that right..the other thing is that, we're smart and come to conclusions sooner as our bs instinct is honed

[bluestate10]

37. Agree. nt

[kenny blankenship]

15. Only YOU can decide if someone else gets to take your vote for granted.

Speaking for myself, I'm all done with supporting assholes like that.

[kestrel91316]

18. Because we're the majority.

Oh, wait......

[Tatiana]

19. There is no solidarity amongst labor in our country, unlike our Euro counterparts.

It has only been of late that union workers have taken a cold, hard look at what voting Republican has gotten them. Make no mistake, I know plenty of union brothers and sisters that voted for Dumya in 2000 and 2004. Why? Because of religion, because of their conservative social values, and because they like forceful personalities.

What I can't figure out is why we can't run some authentic Democrats who can appeal to idiots like this, but aren't corporate whores.

[Festivito]

20. Because free speech ain't free. It costs a lot of commercials run...

And the more commercials one promises to run, the better the coverage, the more the coverage, the more friendly the coverage; the better the speech sounds, and the freer you are to be heard.

If one does not run commercials: One gets little or no leverage, one gets to be one of the only ones told to STFU, and you get told to Get Behind Our Dear Leader.

It's about the small group of richer and richer rich folks. It's not about the Blue-Dogs, the Party "Establishment", the DLC, or the Third Way...

More and more, as they have more and more and more, it's about the rich folks.

[w0nderer]

22. because when they say it, you do it?

if you tell someone to bend over and kiss your feet and they do
you'll tell em it again

if you tell someone to bend over and kiss your feet and they don't (or punch you in the nose)
you might try once more (and get another no or punch in the nose)
but sooner or later you learn 'don't mess with...'

the left as a 'unit' hasn't taught anyone 'don't mess with us or else' for a long time

[tblue]

23. Because so many Dems work so hard to undermine us.

We are a minority, even though we have been right all along. In every sense of the word.

[quaker bill]

27. We aren't organized and don't produce consistent votes

You get influence when you produce cash and bankable performance at the polls. When you don't show up because you want to "punish" the party, your influence is over.

[tomp]

32. hogwash.

when we vote we have no influence either. that's pretty much the point of the op.

the center right reacts to the radical right while the center "left" does not react to the progressive left. the radical left isn't even in the picture.

the influence is totally unbalanced based on the numbers of people involved.

[quaker bill]

41. Sorry, one election is insufficient

Given our history of going third party and not showing up. Political relationships and power are built over time. They require maturity, patience, and continued support. We start gutting our own side at the drop of a hat. You don't ever get influence or any power that way. It is called self-marginalization, look it up.

[tomp]

43. not quite sure what you're talking about here.

where did you come up with "one election" as a response to what i wrote? and "our history of going third party and not showing up," what's that about?

of course power is built over time. how do you see me arguing against that in my post?

it seems to me you are supporting the strategy of supporting obama (read: democratic party entrenched power) while building up opposition to obama.

your post seems full of straw men and illogic.

[LWolf]

30. Because it's the Blue-Dogs, the party Establishment, the DLC, and the 3rd way

that Democrats have elected and turned leadership over to.

They are in charge of the party until we vote them out.

[LoZoccolo]

31. I can see two reasons.

1. There is a near-constant emphasis on fucking up the Democratic Party amongst the progressives of whom you speak. Not all progressives, and probably not even most progressives. This becomes evident when people criticize the strategy of withholding votes, withholding support, making other sorts of threats - if someones criticize this strategy, or criticizes people engaged in it, the common refrain is that the left is being pushed out of the party, or that they are making no place for progressives, as if the use of these tactics is a core, inseparable value of being progressive. It's not, and these actions are alienating to people whose problems are being solved by the Democratic Party. And yes, people care about the issues where we are making progress, and will defend that progress by protecting the Democratic Party from attacks which threaten to take away even that. And then there is the issue of intellectual dishonesty, this idea that Obama is no better than Bush* or any of the other myriad manipulative lies that we see; this is disrespectful to the rest of the party, and you can expect disrespect in return. Partisan politics will nearly always involve compromise, and in return for the compromise, you get greater numbers to support those policies on which you can gain consensus. You'll just have to play nice with the rest of the party, those other citizens who belong to it, if you want them to consider what you have to say. Deal with it.

2. On the flip side, there is little to no effort to gain consensus on these progressive issues, to take the case for them to the rest of the Democratic Party membership. There is really no way around this in a democracy, and if they did this, they wouldn't have to ask for favors or leverage, or make threats to the candidates that the membership did choose; the progressive candidates could skate into the nomination with a progressive majority in its membership. You'll just have to do the work of making more progressives. Deal with it.

Again, I don't speak of all progressives, but neither do I think are you speaking of all progressives.

[killbotfactory]

33. Why would a politician go out on a limb for the left...

When they will withdraw their support and spam the media about what a failure democratic politicians are at the first instance of adversity?

The first half of the last century the left was organized and took on a brutal political enemy. It took nearly 50 years to achieve a large amount of their goals, and then the movement fizzled towards the last half of a century as the reforms took hold and the urgency and injustice of the past lost it's impact due in large part to the wealth those policies, and the labor movement, created in the non-rich classes.

We want Obama to replace decades of organized political pressure from the left with executive order and the "bully pulpit" within four years and deliver on every promise made. Actually, the left wants him to go further than the promises he made, and damn him for not doing that. It took less than two days after being elected before he was being called a sellout by the left. And because delivering on everything the left wants is literally impossible, the left descends into irrelevancy by flooding the left wing media with anti-democrat/Obama diatribes, "holding their nose" to vote, or staying home altogether.

Where the fuck would we be now if the left got pissed off and withdrew their support from FDR for not turning around an economic depression (or for fixing a giant laundry list of problems like jim crow, healthcare, etc.) halfway into his first term, allowing the pro-business anti-new deal republicans back into power?

[Claudia Jones]

35. unbelievable

The pressure from the left on FDR was vastly greater than anything that has been leveled against the current administration.

I notice that you call people on the left "they" rather than "we." Yet you demand that we all see you as an ally.

[bluestate10]

39. The intellectual dishonesty of the far Left is what I detest the most.

FDR is held up as their great iconic standard and Obama is judged a failure by that standard. But the far Left ignores the fact that FDR's first term was nearly a total waste, the New Deal came in the second and subsequent terms. The far Left ignores that fact that FDR aligned with southern conservatives like Huey Long to get policy done and often left out, to a large extent, certain classes of society. The far Left glosses over the fact that it was Truman that integrated the armed forces and kicked off broad-based integration of society. The far Left ignore the fact the FDR, during his second through fourth terms had super majorities in Congress that allowed him to legislate the New Deal. I wish that I could just say that the far Left was just out of touch, but instead I must say that what I see from them is knowing distortion of facts, in particular when it boils down to hurting democrats with the distortions.

[ecstatic]

34. We need a main focus, right now the ideas are too scattered

Outrage on everything from Obama playing golf to healthcare. Our vitriol should be saved for issues like healthcare so that it actually MEANS something. Tone is also a problem. Right now the left's tone is very disrespectful. I cringe when I read these boards. All I see is mocking and name calling of our President. It's very childish.

The teabaggers have one central focus (or so they claim). We need to focus on our main issue and stop letting petty issues take up so much space on the air waves.

When everything is an outrage, people end up shutting out the entire group as a bunch of whiners. Also, people who don't agree with every outrage are called names, like "third way," etc. That's just stupid. Just because we're not in agreement on everything doesn't mean we are conservative, etc. We just have different methods/ideas of how to get things done.

Those are the reasons IMO. I'm sure people will disagree and call me Third Way etc.

[bluestate10]

40. I totally agree. You hit the nail on it's head. nt

[bluestate10]

36. Demands without a rational path to achieving those end goals.

I am one of the most virulent critics of progressives on this site and have been set to ignore by pretty much all progressives, but my end objectives really are not much different from theirs, BUT, me sense of how to get to those end goals is vastly and irreconcilably different. I am willing to set aside my desires to achieve important intermediate term goals, I don't see the same sense of unity from progressives. Once we have eliminated republicanism is national and local policy, I am all too willing to split off from progressives and go my way, but to do that now is horrifically stupid, I realize that, but don't feel progressives do.

[readmoreoften]

38. Because to participate in elections you need a lot of money.

And champions of the working class don't have as much as those flooded with corporate money. Those with corporate money aren't going to stand up for the people by definition because it threatens their funding.

The destruction of labor's arsenal by throwing dues money to the Democrats is another huge factor in this. If Labor supported more strikes with their money or funded another party we'd be better off. At this point, the Democratic Party exists to provide the illusion of an alternative so a real leftist movement can't develop.

[quaker bill]

42. Leverage is taken, not given.

First you have to be a sufficiently important part of a coalition, through support, cash, and consistent voting to matter. Once you matter, you have a fulcrum. With a fulcrum, you can use a lever. Without one, you are hanging in the air. Once you have a place to stick it, then you must begin to use it. Before that, you are simply blown off as unreliable.

[Odin2005]

44. Because we are a threat to the PTB, that's why.