When I started blogging back in 2006, I was amazed at the vibrancy and activism on the left. I was not aware of how much work had been done to counter the takeover of the web by a shallow libertarianism and scary extremism (both are still there, of course, but hardly a huge presence). As summer turned to fall, as it became clear (to me, at any rate) that the Republican Party was headed for a disastrous mid-term election result, I got the sense that liberals and progressives knew there was blood in the water. Networks for fund-raising, hooking up volunteers with campaigns, get-out-the-vote drives, and all the other necessary work for winning elections seemed to be all favoring the Democrats. The liberal blogs and websites were putting out information that was hitting hard at a variety of politicians; the best known, I think, was the whole "Macaca" business that ended George Allen's Senate career in Virginia. The Act Blue network, or whatever it was called then (Blue America, maybe?) was giving money to a variety of candidates around the country.
The '06 elections were landmark not only because of the huge turn-around in Congress, or the huge turnout for a mid-term election. They were landmark because of the fantastic network of people around the country, connecting, coordinating, doing the grunt work of knocking on doors, making phone calls, pooling resources in GOTV efforts, publicizing information in order to achieve the outcome they wanted. It really was democracy in action.
Barack Obama, a seasoned community activist who had spent his adult life in and around Chicago politics, built on his own understanding of how to coordinate a campaign as well as the internet infrastructure in place from the '06 elections, and built huge momentum through the primaries, and then left this structure in place for the general election. While, in my own mind, the results of the election were only in doubt for about five days in September of last year (Sarah Palin was receiving far too much press attention that seemed to ignore all sorts of questions that needed to be asked and answered), Barack Obama never let up, and the numbers kept growing and growing - and he won not only overwhelmingly, but with the drive continuing to rise.
For some reason, I think many of those same activists believed that electing a Democratic Congress, and then a Democratic President, would be all that was needed in order to get an agenda favorable to liberals and progressives through Congress. Far too many people sat back and waited for Pres. Obama, Speaker Pelosi, Majority Leader Reid, Majority Leader Hoyer, and other senior Democrats not only set the agenda, but make the case for that agenda. When it became clear, relatively quickly, that it wasn't going to happen this way, far too many on the left - bloggers, commenters, ordinary citizens - started to whine about how "the system is broken", "it's all the media's fault", "Obama's no better than Bush" (this last is a horrible, and fallacious, thought) - rather than continuing to work for the change they want. While there is still quite a bit of that spirit around - the Act Blue network is still fund-raising for candidates; some major liberal bloggers continue to get information out, including contact information for members of Congress on issues on import - there is too much hand-wringing, too much complaint that Obama isn't progressive enough (I thought we knew that going in to the election), that senior Democrats are in thrall to various corporate interests who pay large sums of money to keep them in office.
Apparently, while able to organize a couple major election cycles around negative ideas - get rid of the Republicans in Congress (first) and the White House (second) - it seems to be more difficult to organize citizen action on positive ideas. Poll after poll continues to show the popularity of the public option in health care reform, yet without any organization, without some serious threats backed up by both numbers and money, these poll numbers are meaningless. Poll after poll continues to show the popularity of holding senior members of the Bush White Hous, including former VP Dick Cheney, accountable for any alleged crimes they may have committed while in office, yet without an organized effort for a systematic investigation that would include the possibility of legal sanctions if criminal activity is discovered and proved in a court of law, those polls mean nothing.
I guess the point of this little rant is quite simple. While there is certainly enough evidence to blame the media for their role in liberal frustrations, and the way money is influencing votes of members of Congress, or that Pres. Obama isn't as liberal as me, let alone Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, we need to accept some responsibility for failing to continue the pressure. While I wrote not long ago that I'm not in favor, for a variety of reasons, at wholesale primary contests against sitting members of Congress if this or that piece of legislation doesn't pass, I would certainly think that a campaign of targeted primaries, if well-funded and with enough organization to provide a serious threat to an incumbent, would certainly be a wonderful idea. We need to do more organizing on health care reform, more phone calls, more letters, more face-to-face visits with members of Congress and their staffs. We need to keep the pressure up, let them know that our pet issues are not just our pet issues, but America's issues; policies to make our country better.
If health care reform, or cap-and-trade, or a legal inquiry in to the Bush Administration, or a repeal of DOMA fail, we the citizens who elected this Congress and President, will be as much at fault as the larger institutions of our civil society that are fighting against them. Democratic citizenship is not just about winning elections, but getting things done. All of us share that responsibility, and all of us share the blame when it fails.
