Morning navel-gazing
by Tom Sullivan
The survey on the site Political Compass offers people a chance to plot their place on the political "map" and maybe see who their neighbors are. The Guardian's "long read" by Pete Davis today focuses on the sectors from left to leftier.
It's a bit of navel-gazing, but lays out (more or less) the divide between the liberal (“establishment wing”) on the one hand and the leftwing ("populist wing") of the Democratic Party. It's descriptive more than prescriptive:
Loyalty to the party generally is often bound up in loyalty to party leaders. The party’s liberal wing tends to get excited about party leaders’ personalities, and is more likely to share, say, Obama or Hillary memes, watch West Wing fantasies about party staffers and follow the path of rising stars. This loyalty extends to the wider network tied to the party, too, such as liberal-leaning news anchors and commentators, and party-aligned Hollywood stars such as Meryl Streep.What the leftwing sees:
Leftwingers think this level of loyalty is bizarre, especially when it comes to politicians they believe do not deserve it. Leftwingers are generally less likely to express loyalty to leaders, and more likely to pledge themselves to issue campaigns that bubble up from extra-party institutions, such as labour unions or racial justice and environmental groups. They respond to liberal attacks of “Why aren’t you knocking on doors in the general election?” with “Why aren’t you joining the Fight for $15?” (a national grassroots campaign for fairer wages led by fast-food workers). Leftwingers believe liberals cannot think for themselves on issues – that they wait to get the go-ahead from the party establishment before they offer any support. To leftwingers, the liberals’ shorter-term issues, such as the Russia investigation, are just distractions unless they are embedded in more fundamental issue campaigns.
A narrative has coalesced of a party that has been corrupted by corporate campaign donations; that is complicit in conservatism’s rise, through its capitulation to Reaganomics and Bush-era militarism; that has displaced its working-class base to make room for a professional, managerial class; and, most damningly, has replaced its democracy-enhancing New Deal ambitions with a minimalist grab-bag of meritocracy-enhancing, technocratic band-aids.What the establishment sees:
A narrative has emerged to unify this wing as well: a story that casts the Democratic party as the entity that has overcome unprecedented Republican attacks to give voice to and fight for the interests of marginalised people in American politics.Those prone to taking surveys like Political Compass will find themselves in there somewhere. Whatever his leanings, Davis tends to offer more advice to leftwingers than to the establishment Democrats. He recommends something he calls “vigorous critical loyalty”:
Vigorous critical loyalty would work by separating the times for vigorous party loyalty and the times for vigorous internal criticism. A Democrat practising vigorous critical loyalty would, near the general election or a critical vote in Congress, demonstrate vigorous loyalty to the party, mustering support for the Democratic candidate or bill while holding criticism for later. But during a primary campaign, and during ordinary legislative time, a vigorous critical loyalist would fight vigorously for her ideals, unafraid of criticising party leaders, supporting primary challengers, and advancing outside issue campaigns.That mouthful will be a tough sell in certain quarters, but for the most part was what I observed here. A lot of activists get uncomfortable admitting it.