Whither the American (Left) Independent

Check out this interesting article from In These Times which compared and contrasted two political conferences in March, 2008. One was the Left Forum in New York City, “a coming together of the radical wing of the American left, with a concentration of activists from the New York metropolitan area.” The other was Take Back America held in Washington, DC, in which “defeating the right and electing progressives to office serves as the overriding raison d’etre of the conference. Connected to those objectives are: broadening and strengthening the grassroots movement around the country; and advocating on behalf of an ambitious set of social, economic and political issues.”

The author concluded his essay with these observations:

On my flight back to Boston, I was thinking about the two conferences I had just attended. Sadly, one wing of the American left is still stuck in a rigidly ideological view of the world, rendering themselves politically irrelevant. On the other hand, the pragmatic wing of the left has become a real player in American politics and is stronger than it has been in decades.

As an Independent voter who is sympathetic to issues primarily from a leftist perspective this article was revealing to me on many levels. On one level, I am one of those amazed at how the Barack Obama campaign has captured the public imagination this election year and how the contest between him and Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination has resulted in massive voter turnout and political participation in American society in an unprecedented scale–all good things that cannot be denied.

On the other hand, I am quite familiar with the limitations of the two-party system which you can probably gather from the rest of my writings in this blog. I am in fundamental agreement with this pessimistic assessment of American politics as presented here in the Independent Voice:

Partisanship and special interests have corrupted the political process to the point that ordinary Americans have little impact on public policy. Independents know that unless and until we do something about partisanship and special interest corruption, it won’t matter what we think about “the issues” – it will continue to be the special interests and partisan power brokers that make the decisions.

Key reforms to address this situation (again, I quote from Independent Voice) include: campaign finance reform, non-partisan redistricting reform, open primaries, voter-owned elections (public financing of campaigns), opening access to debates, lobbyist reform, instant run-off voting and ballot access reform.

The point I am trying to make is that neither of the major political parties–Republicans or Democrats–have these reform issues as part of their agenda. The Progressive wing of the Democratic party as represented by Take Back America may be sympathetic to these reforms but as far as I can tell these are not high on the Progressive agenda. Progressive Democrats are primarily concerned with winning electoral politics for Democratic candidates by electing better, more Progressive Democrats. It’s a Party revolution from within. They aren’t especially keen on opening up the political process to participation by non-Democrats.

To be fair, it is also apparent to me that the types of reform efforts I list above are also not a big priority in the more radical, ideological American Left. Or at least I haven’t heard of any serious efforts within the U.S. left to push for these types of reforms.

So where does that leave someone like me?

This is the question that I am trying to answer as to where to put my energies, efforts and to throw my support as someone who is deeply interested in political participation and democracy in their most basic sense–not just in terms of party politics.

I hate getting stuck in ideological debates about this issue or that issue from a traditional liberal/progressive versus conservative perspective. I know for one that social and political problems aren’t easily reducible to the traditional liberal versus conservative formula. But I also know that in a world, as I described above, where the opinions of ordinary people have little sway, it is fruitless for us ordinary folks to argue ideology with one another when those who have power, influence, and money on their side set the public agenda–no matter what we think.

And come to think of it, read this OpenLeft post by David Sirota. He reports that Congressional Democrats will thwart any effort to create a national healthcare program, no matter if a Democrat wins the White House come November.

Key points Sirota makes:

First and foremost, to those in Washington who say the nation should just wait for Washington to act on health care and wait for Democrats to win control of Congress and the presidency, this story exposes the glaring failure of that strategy — especially as states move forward into the breach. Health care reform has to be a dual effort — at the federal level and at the state level. And most likely, real reform is going to start in the states — in part, because Democrats in Washington are so afraid of their own shadow and bought off by Big Money interests that they are now acknowledging that they are not serious about fulfilling their health care promises.

[T]his reminds us of the need for progressives to focus on building a social movement, rather than exclusively on winning elections. Democrats are effectively saying that no matter how many elections are won, they will not move forward on the most pressing domestic issue. That’s because there isn’t yet a powerful social movement putting constant pressure on both parties — and instilling fear in both parties. The infrastructure that has been built in recent years is largely partisan rather than movement-oriented — that is, aimed at buttressing the Democratic Party, regardless of what it does. If we are to get health care reform, it will require a movement – not a party.

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Posted in activism, anti-establishment, commentary, democracy, independent, politics, reform
Tags: democratic party