The Leather Jackets in the Mushy Middle

Posted on December 9, 2004 in Accountability Courage & Activism Mailbox

I’m being asked by MoveOn to tell my state party leaders to tell the DNC to select a leader who will build on the new grassroots. And I am given no name.

There is reason to be concerned about the choice. George Lakoff told Arianna Huffington:

“Democrats moving to the middle is a double disaster that alienates the party’s progressive base while simultaneously sending a message to swing voters that the other side is where the good ideas are.”

I must second this, but something else continues to bother me: where is the talk of empowerment? In it’s drive for power, the Left has adopted part of the Centrist Song which includes long caesuras when the question of what happened to 250,000 votes in Ohio is brought up. The party still treats as crank the admonitions of software security experts who tell us how easy it is to fix the election. It is much easier to feel good about losing an election when you know it has been a fair fight.

Then there is the whole question of how truly progressive the new grassroots of the Party is. My experience in Las Vegas gave me a different impression. When I introduced myself as the guy who coordinated the Middle East groups for PeaceNet during the Gulf War, the training leader — who had served in that war — shot me a look that would have turned me into enough red paint to cover a billboard. When I saw the leather jackets that the up and coming were wearing into the field, I didn’t see progressives but the next wave of sell-outs.

I can’t see these people getting comfortable with African Americans who aren’t musicians or professional athletes.

So I remain skeptical of MoveOn’s claims that the Democratic Party can be reclaimed for the Left. I am convinced that it will continue to be dominated by a middle which does not want to lose its leather jackets and its IRAs. They went out for Kerry because Kerry represented their condescending and compromising values. They lack ideas and they lack courage. Corporate money is just fine with them.

I signed the petition. But I doubt that it will do much good. Come February, we will see yet another mushy middleman. And win or lose, the Democrats will not change much in the years to come.

They remain the party of sellouts and quitters.