Michael Maiello's picture

    A Tepid Defense Of Political Extremism

    One doesn’t have to crawl far on the Web to run into stories or commentaries about whether or not the Occupy movement will help or hurt Obama and the Democrats.  It’s a natural topic to want to discuss, especially at places like Dag, where the relative merits and demerits of Barack Obama and mainstream Democrats will remain heated topics through the election and, win or lose, well beyond it.


    So far as Obama goes, I’ve come to the happy conclusion that I would vote for a credible primary challenger from the left, were one to exist, and that I will consider voting third party, so long as I remain in a safe state.  I would also consider voting for a third party here in my solid blue state in exchange for a pledge from an on-the-fence swing state progressive sucking it up and voting for Obama.  I would call this tepid support for the President, but I do believe it is support.


    This is already not the first time I’ve expressed this view, and I can’t imagine writing it over and over again through November 2012.  Further, even if I changed my mind entirely and became a harder core Obama style centrist, I can’t imagine I’d have much original to say about my transformation.


    These are, ultimately, very old arguments.  They predate Obama.  They were old when I first encountered them during the Clinton years, and were certainly old back in 2000.  Then there are all the old side discussions we can have, like about the character and motives of Ralph Nader, or Moveon, or the Occupy people. Of course, we can debate pragmatism vs. idealism and Utopianism vs. Realism.  We’re kind of always having that debate, and by “we,” I mean both bloggers around these parts and humans generally.


    But I do think we’re getting too caught up in the hows of the debate and in the art of the possible.  Look, I get strategic voting.  I get having blue ribbon panels come up with debt solutions and banking regulations.  I get why it’s good to have a list of priorities and communicable (and even reasonable) demands.


    But not everything that happens on the left has to happen within the framework of the President, or the Democratic Party.    They can.  But they don’t have to.  The White House exists to run the executive branch of the government.  The Party exists to attempt to bring control of all branches of government to its members.


    We humans might have very different needs and desires.  So the Occupy movement may seem to be all over the map, and in a lot of ways it is.  This will make it very difficult for the more “hands on” elements of politics (the president, the congress, the party) to really make use of it.  There will always be part of the agenda that the hands on elements can use, but also many, many things it cannot.  Changing student loan terms might be on the table.  Radical shifts in drug or foreign policy is probably not.  Some will see this as evidence that the Occupy movement should choose a few doable things, concentrate on them and, ultimately, hone its message.

    I think that the party and its operatives certainly see it that way, because that’s how they see everything.  Within the mainstream party there is also a tendency to not want to change too much or too many things.


    Say what you will about groups like Third Way (and I have) but their polling data tells a remarkably consistent story, which is that people who identify as moderates or independents are not willing to believe that life can get much better than it is right now.  No Third Way report will tell it that way, and I don’t mean to say that people are happy.  It’s that they have generally accepted that to live is to suffer and that this is about as good as it gets.  They are, in a word, Panglossian.


    The Party, and I would include Obama here, has reacted to this with a series of proposals that would tinker around the edges.  It might raise tax revenue, for example, but from very few people.  A health care plan that is sold with the line, “but don’t worry, you can keep your present plan,” before anyone knows what the new plan even is.  A three-year end to the Iraq war and a little war in Libya.
     

    That changes sometimes happens incrementally, that it almost never goes as planned and that society evolves slowly are also not new concepts.  They are not necessarily often true (sometimes change is delivered in bold strokes) but they are true enough that you can say them without provoking too heated a response.  
    But here’s something else to think about: changes never happen when the Panglossian impulse dominates.  

    People who exist closer to the extremes of American politics are the anti-Panglossian elements.  They are wild and unpredictable.  They might threaten to replace your safe Mitt Romney with a radical alternative.  They might nominate a witch as a national candidate.  They might vote for Nader in a close election or not show up at all two years after showing great enthusiasm and voting predictably.

    Inconvenient though they might be to candidates, party types and people in government, these extremists are necessary.  They are the only people telling us that things are more deeply wrong than the vast middle or the caretakers in government are letting on.

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    No need to be tepid about this, Destor. So far, OWS is not about party politics, so good.

    If we are always focused on the next election, we are always failing. For it is possible to win an election and lose the world.

    Our focus should be on always advancing to the left, regardless of party, without respect to candidate, regardless of elections. Always a leftward narrative. Always a bias toward the left.

    Elections will take care of themselves.


    We're all anti-Panglossians now. Ha!   I've thought for a long time now that the 'Tepid for Obama' voter would be the deciding factor in 2012.   The best of all possible worst case scenarios.  "Vote for Obama, he's somewhat better than the other choice",  neither inspires nor energizes, but it may be the President's winning strategy..  I think too that the issue for most people now isn't whether or not things will improve, (we're all resigned now to the fact that they won't), the question is, whether or not you think things will get worse or much worse.  We're way past the time when people believed that their lot in life will, gosh darn it, get a whole lot better with a change in Presidents or a turnover of the control of Congress. Even in 2008, I think our collective hope for change was not so much for some rosy apple pie and rainbows scenario, but simply for someone smart to come in and try to figure out how to fix the incredible mess we'd gotten into (thanks to Republican idiocy), and try to slow the rate in which our lives were hurtling to oblivion.  I am sad to say I had secretly and momentarily hoped for much more, but as is always the case in the 21st century, reality hit me over the head with a lead pipe.  "Happy Days are Here Again" is a tough sell in this day and age. 


    Nice piece, Destor. When you wrote:

    But here’s something else to think about: changes never happen when the Panglossian impulse dominates.

    it reminded me of what George Bernard Shaw wrote in Man and Superman:

    The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.


    By the way, been busy working so forgot to thank you for this.  A Shaw comparison made my week!


    I might have used the word "radical" or maybe "unconventional" instead of "extremism" but to my way of thinking, to fail to notice and try different approaches when business as usual isn't cutting it is what truly requires explanation.   Sometimes it just takes a lot of folks getting visibly worked up for the system to respond.  At all.  And hardly always in constructive ways that address the legitimate grievances that led folks to get worked up in the first place.   


    It can be said that the anti-Panglossian elements are necessary.  One only need to look to the artists and their role in society.  The danger, as it has always been, in my opinion is when one takes the easy road of 'if an anti-Panglossian element is needed and necessary for a society to evolve in a positive way, then any element which can be characterized as anti-Panglossian should be embraced.' Anti-Panglossian elements may with the best of intentions make the situation worse.

    A simple example is shock art.  One significant role that art plays in the modern world is to 'shock' people - to get them to look at the world differently by doing something extremely provocative and profane.  Yet this does not mean that any one particular piece or performance of shock art is of redeeming value simply because it attempts to play this role.  The difficult path is to deeply engage the piece or performance, to look not only at the surface but the deep context in which it occurs.


    I have read this a few different times now, Destor. I think you have really put your finger on something very uniquely considered. I like the "panglossian" framing. It's really helpful in understanding my own transformation from the "Gotta vote Dem or die!" position to one much more desperate and uncomfortable, perhaps best explained as "Does my vote really matter in the long run? Isn't the democratic system itself irretrievably broken, and quite purposefully so?"

    I no longer trust any politician who has to rely upon the wealthy and the corporations to gain and maintain their position. (IOW, you can read this as "virtually ALL politicians" in this pay-to-play system.)

    And most deflating of all, I no longer even trust the integrity of the voting process itself.

    That's a tough spot to be in. And, yes, it makes me and others like me quite wild and unpredictable. But it also assures that we will not fall into the panglossian trap of believing that this is simply the cards we are dealt. I cannot imagine a worse outcome than continuing to play along with the status quo, hoping for change.


    I would extend your list and include gerrymandering and the structural flaws inherent to our congressional institutions in particular the Senate (rural state dominance, minority filibuster, WY=CA, etc.).  But you largely capture my thoughts as well.  Truley deflating. 

    I have recently discovered Roberto Unger.  I have just ordered his book, but this interview really resonated with my current thinking.  

    http://theeuropean-magazine.com/385-unger-roberto/386-the-future-of-the-...


    Hey Sal. Thanks for the link. Fit perfectly with some other stuff I was doing. Q


    Q! You can't drop a hint like that and then saunter off.  What are you working on? Any links you could share? Or maybe even a posting? 


    Hey Sal. This was a background piece I did (pretty crappy, but it was just aiming to get some of the basic nutrients into the mix.) Not sure when, but more serious pieces should follow - there and perhaps also posted at other sites. Trying to figure out how I can write about stuff I actually know first-hand, and may have had a... hand... in implementing. ;-)


    Great piece, Destor. And powerful last paragraphs.


    Footnote to this discussion that I'd like to add on coming across this in John Nichols' recommended book The 'S' Word

    Wisconsinite Robert La Follette in 1924 sought the presidency as a progressive Republican on the Progressive party ticket in most states (on the Socialist Party line in others), embracing the Socialist Party endorsement in the course of winning 16.6% of the national vote for a campaign to "break the combined power of the private monopoly system over the political and economic life of the American people..."

    La Follette said: "Free men of every generation must combat the renewed efforts of organized force and greed to destroy liberty...".  His platform called for the government takeover of the railroads, elimination of private utilities, easier credit for farmers, outlawing of child labor, the right of workers to organize unions, increased protection of civil liberties, an end to U.S. imperialism in Latin America, and a national referendum before any president could lead the country into offensive war.

    The Democratic party's nominee that year, John Davis, won the nomination as a compromise candidate on the 103rd ballot.  His opposition to the KKK cost him support in the South and elsewhere.  Davis and La Follette combined took about 45% of the popular vote and 149 electoral votes between them (136 of those going to Davis).  A supporter of mandatory, "separate but equal" state segregation, Davis' final appearance as a litigator before the U.S. Supreme Court came in support of state segregated schools in a companion case to Brown v. Board of Education.  Coolidge won without leaving the White House to campaign.

    Also this (from wikipedia bio of him):

    In 1957, a Senate Committee selected La Follette as one of the five greatest U.S. Senators, along with Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, John C. Calhoun, and Robert Taft. A 1982 survey asking historians to rank the "ten greatest Senators in the nation's history" based on "accomplishments in office" and "long range impact on American history," placed La Follette first, tied with Henry Clay.

    and this:

    In 1911, La Follette set up a campaign to mobilize the progressive elements in the Republican Party behind his presidential bid. He made a disastrous speech in February 1912 before a gathering of leading magazine editors that caused many to doubt his stability. Most of his supporters deserted him for Theodore Roosevelt[citation needed].

    Embittered, La Follette opposed both Roosevelt and William Howard Taft in the 1912 election. When his former ally, Governor Francis E. McGovern, supported Roosevelt, La Follette broke with him, allowing the conservative Republicans under Emanuel Philipp to take control of Wisconsin in the decisive 1914 election. La Follette's forces were out of power in the state from 1912 to 1920.


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