How I would describe the division within DU

[Jim Lane]

94. In defense of Modified Neo-Penguinism

Your summary of the penguin position has a connotation of an extreme conclusion: that all we have to do in 2016 is nominate a ticket of Sanders/Grayson and we'll win with 400 electoral votes. I don't think many DUers believe that.

The parallel extreme conclusion on the other side would be: the Democratic Party should move as far to the right as possible, so that it is just barely to the left of the Republicans, because that way we'll pick up all those centrists who think the Republicans are too conservative. I don't think many woodchucks on DU believe that (although their eponym might -- you'd have to ask Tom).

I reject the first position because it assumes that the necessary "large and disaffected political base" is already out there. Those scores of millions of people are indeed out there but they're not a base -- not yet, anyway. The Democratic Party can't just suddenly run a bold progressive ticket and expect that it will instantly overcome the effects of decades of timidity, co-optation, and outright betrayal.

Nevertheless, I feel closer to the first position than to the second. The woodchucks, starting from the premise that the disaffected voters can't be mobilized to swing the very next election, often seem content to write them off entirely. The woodchuck strategy seems to be to assume that each major party has its 40% of the vote pretty much guaranteed, and that the way to win the next election is to wrestle with the elephants (hey, you started this animal metaphor) over the people who are up for grabs -- specifically, for the swing voters from last cycle's electorate. Woodchucks therefore shy away from anything that might be depicted as "radical" or "fringe" by the corporate media. Their reasoning is that such campaigning might alienate the cherished swing voters, who are assumed to be ideological centrists. There's a big problem with that approach, though. The right wing's superior media operation produces a constant conservative drift in the policy set that the MSM commentariat treats as being worthy of discussion. As an example, anyone who today proposed a return to the tax rates that existed under Richard Nixon would be dismissed as a far leftist who was engaged in class warfare. They're even trying to make "populist" a dirty word.

My statement of position is along these lines: There exist scores of millions of adult citizens who are disaffected and who seldom or never vote, but who could be mobilized to vote if they were convinced that it would do any good; and progressive politicians are the ones who can, albeit gradually, convince them of that. We saw some evidence of this in 2008. Obama won more votes than any other candidate in history, and it was partly because he inspired an expansion of the electorate.

In 2012, Obama's share of the popular vote dropped (from 52.93% to 51.06%). It's also notable that, although the population increased over those four years, the total number of votes cast for President dropped (from 131.3 million to 129.1 million). I believe that both these declines are related to Obama's failure to hold the allegiance of the new voters he had inspired in 2008. One can debate the extent to which this was his fault. I personally believe that he was partly to blame, both by being too conservative (as in going along with making permanent most of the Bush tax cuts, including big benefits for the rich) and by being too nice to Republicans (as in not using "Give-'Em-Hell-Harry"-style speeches to call attention to Republican obstructionism and to, for example, the success of the stimulus package). Obama was also partly not to blame, because there actually was Republican obstructionism, and it's easier to sell results than blame, and because hopes for him were so high that some disillusionment was inevitable.

The lesson I draw is that the penguin approach is the way to go but that it won't be easy and won't happen overnight.