Democrats’ losing battle with the left

I like to think of myself as somewhat of a pragmatic liberal. While my ideals sit far to the left on the spectrum, my hopes and expectations for my politicians lie more in the realm of “what I could reasonably expect them to do”. As much as I’d love single-payer health care, federally legalized gay marriage, both wars ended, Gitmo closed, drugs legalized and a whole host of other issues, expecting that to happen any time soon is unrealistic.

This is where I appear to split with many of my lefty friends.

Right now, Barack Obama and the Congressional Democrats have a very, very big base problem. Support for both the president and Congress is dwindling not because the country is rebuking their liberal policies, but because the base is starting to turn on them for not being liberal enough. Not only is the entire right voting against the health care reforms, but we find an unlikely unity of Blue Dogs and progressive hero Kucinich in opposing it from the Democratic side.

As an icon of the left, Dennis Kucinich has no right-wing equivalent. For all of the Bush years, there was no ultra neoconservative that refused to support Bush’s policies for not going far enough. There were no Republicans voting against the PATRIOT Act because it wasn’t aggressive enough. No one opposing the huge tax breaks because they were too modest. The Ron Pauls of the GOP opposed Bush-era policies for not being “truly conservative” at times, a far different charge.

Reason being there is no such conservative force like what we have in the progressive sphere. Freepers, FOX, and Rush spent more time defending Bush and the GOP against liberal attacks than they ever did howling that the party’s elected officials were being too soft. When Bush’s major legislation efforts came along, the right was behind him all the way. Efforts to privatize social security were heralded by groups like The Heritage Foundation, in stark contrast with how the Center for American Progress has criticized the health care bills for being too ineffective.

It’s possible that liberal politics are, by their nature, far more ambitious than conservative politics. Liberals are forward thinking, conservatives backward thinking. I don’t say this in a derogatory way, either. Listen to their own rhetoric. The most common cry from conservatives is how liberals have corrupted the country and that we need to go back to a better time, most often in reference to Reagan. From liberals, it’s that we need to move forward in this or that field.

What was the laundry list of expectations for the Bush era? Tax cuts, some conservative judges on the bench, maybe some deregulation, but mostly to put a halt to the liberal takeover. Compare this with the cornucopia of expectations that faced Obama upon his arrival. Aside from rolling back nearly everything Bush did, the liberal base wanted the end of two wars, Krugman-type Keynesian economic liberals wanted stimulus bills at least double in size, gay rights groups wanted DOMA and DADT both repealed, Obama got into some hot water because he wasn’t taking cries for nationally legalized pot seriously, and everyone wanted true single-payer health care. Just for starters. The worst Bush had to deal with was the anti-immigration crowd.

These disparate groups almost ensure that getting any one of those policies to pass is an uphill battle, whereas the modest ideals of tax cuts and deregulation are universal enough to keep all of the right together on any efforts towards those goals. Worse still, as the GOP is largely a pro-corporate party, they rarely (if ever) have to face down an industry backlash against legislation in the way of the current health care bill. Trying to force through such ambitious goals requires overcoming quite a few obstacles.

This leaves even the most ambitious Democrat in a tough bind: water bills down enough to make it through, or pass nothing at all. Get bitched at for folding, or for inaction. Because let’s face it, if it was a five vote margin on the bill that passed, imagine what would have happened in the House had the abortion clause not been in there or if the public option was as full as many of us had hoped.

Unfortunately, that’s the reality of the situation. Republican opposition is a near guarantee, but Democratic support is not (to wit: 39 Dems against the bill, one Gopper for it). As the right wants to stop the liberal takeover, anything with a whiff of progression will have a built-in red blockade, and so the battle becomes making sure the Democrats are in unison, which they often aren’t. Evangelical Democrats aren’t big on the gay rights, most moderate Democrats won’t go for a huge stimulus bill, Blue Dogs are obviously not going for governmental health care.

As such, crafting bills means accepting that a great many bills just aren’t plain going to pass. No amount of Town Halling will change their minds. As true as it is that if the Democrats all voted in unison they’d be unstoppable, the fact of the matter is that Democrats rarely vote in unison unless it’s something like the Franken amendment or against Bush legislation. Full-on repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act? Timetable in Iraq? Forget it.

This means we liberals need to ask ourselves how far we’re willing to bend on our convictions for the sake of passing legislation. If we clamp down and say nothing short of exactly what we want is acceptable, then say hello to a few years of total non-action followed by a destructive election. But if we do the opposite and play loose with our ideals then whatever does pass runs the risk of being useless anyway.

Right now, it seems that the left is erring too far on the side of the former. This becomes an issue because it provides incredible ammunition for right-wing pundits to show how “even the left is abandoning this president” as polls show dropping support for Congressional leaders. They’ll strip context out of it to be sure, but it could still prove an issue to the swayable middle, and those are who will decide 2010, 2012, and 2016. Meanwhile, if the left continues to hold up the impossible standard, not only can moderates be swayed away but without base support, the party is dead in the water.

I’m not saying the left should throw up its hands and just accept whatever happens. Far from it. But right now the Democrats are in a lose-lose situation with the liberal base. Either the base is pissed off at watered down bills or pissed off that bills aren’t getting passed. The only third option is for the Dems to introduce the bills exactly as the base wants and watch as they get shut down. The health care debate could have been over a while ago, and not in a good way, if Pelosi or Reid had attempted to introduce a single-payer bill.

Nor am I saying that anger at watered down bills is bad, but it’s important to get our targets right. Pelosi, Reid, and Obama? Not necessarily. The Democrats that are standing in the way of the bills’ passing? Definitely. The Democrats at large can only do so much, and getting angry at them for not swaying the minds of the opposition is less productive than taking those calls and emails and sending them at the opposition itself.

Okay, rant over.