Idealism, Democracy, and an Argument Against Growing Up

From August 2006:A response to Ed Kilgore: Scroll down for piece about Feingold attacking centrists.

So, on one hand, yeah that’s me. DLC = bad; activist Democrats like Dean and Lamont = good. I am a MoveOn member. I went to see Fahrenheit 9/11. I’ve done all those activist-y things like marching in protests, reading Huffington Post, and wishing like hell that Al Gore would make another go at it. And yeah, I do think Feingold’s “rant” was a profile in courage. Yup, you know me so well, Ed. And you know the funny thing? You think that I have the DLC pegged in the same two-dimensional world-view as the one you use to see me.

But, before you “blah, blah, blah” and “bark bark woof woof” through my viewpoint, or dismiss me as naïve because my political coming-of-age came during a “truly weird series of events,” and lacks the wisdom that comes from contradictory evidence, just try to understand what led up to my satisfaction on Tuesday night…

It isn’t that people like me (what did American Prospect call us? New New Democrats? MoveOn Democrats?) take it as gospel that the DLC is a bunch of soulless, corporate sell-outs that hurt the Party, provide cover to the Administration, and desperately seek the approval of FoxNews. These may be the conclusions that we reach, but please give us a bit more credit for sophistication than that. You honestly believe we can’t tell the difference between Bob Shrum and his “old interest-group liberalism” and the DLC because hell, to us, you’re all just The Establishment. We can create the boogey-man much easier without making the distinction, right? But just maybe we CAN see the difference, and choose to reject both. Maybe we see that activists are really shut out of both processes – by back-room deals and pet issues from the old Democrats, and by the constant taunts of “undisciplined,” and “unelectable,” and yes, the desire to compete for corporate cash from the DLC. Both are elites, both are anti-populist (And not the kind of populists that you claim “indiscriminately attack corporations” and “look nostalgically to a pre-capitalist past,” but Jacksonian populism, you know, little “d” democrat.) But back to Tuesday night…

Do you think that when I watched Ned Lamont get up there to claim victory, I cracked open a beer and said “Yeah, there’s a big F*** You to the DLC!” Naa… I wasn’t thinking about you guys. I was thinking about idealism. I remembered Al Gore’s concession speech, and the near-immediate calls to move on from that election from Republicans, the media, and even Democrats. I remembered Dick Gephardt standing on the White House lawn in support of Bush’s war resolution and realizing that for the first time I was out of step with my own party. I remembered the day Howard Dean dropped his Presidential bid, and everyone in Democratic circles – yourself probably included – enjoyed the moment (and, in the case of Al From and Will Marshall, reportedly bumped chests at a “victory” party). Well, I’m in my mid-20s, and I admittedly lack the wisdom that your experience might bring you, but I do know that I had invested quite a bit of idealism in that race, and maybe you should’ve taken a little less satisfaction in squelching that idealism and giving me a list of reasons why I needed to grow up. But I didn’t need to grow up. I needed to stay motivated. Because on Tuesday night, idealism won, and I got to celebrate the victory I had wanted for so long.

I know what you would say – that we haven’t cornered the market on idealism. That the centrist stance of the DLC is a reflection of actual principles, and not cunning calculation. But, if that’s the case, why is it that you feel the need to reassure that it is “really and truly a debate among Democrats about how–not whether–to drive Republicans from power.” If your stance is about principles and not political expediency, why is your only qualm with our politics about process and strategy?

I could give you the facts that you expect from someone on my side. I could talk about the need for our Barry Goldwater, and prepare my rebuttal for when you explain that that could never work on our side because the country is inherently more conservative than liberal, and how we tried that with McGovern, blah blah blah, woof woof, bark, bark. I could paint you in that two-dimensional corner and assume that you were a Lieberman supporter in the Presidential primary, or I could take that second look and acknowledge that you supported John Kerry from the start. Of course, that would be me giving you the kind of nuance you regularly deny people on my side. I could attempt to be witty and match your own Note-ish, Hotline-ish, and generally dismissive tone when writing about you. But no. I just wanted you to know why I was so excited about Ned Lamont, and why I was happy to read Russ Feingold’s comments. Maybe there is even a bit of dissonance in you – I can’t help but notice that you haven’t quite tipped your hand about your endorsement in this Connecticut Senate race. Maybe you have allowed yourself those rare moments where you stop playing defense and actually empathize with the rabble-rousing, MoveOn Democrats and the idealism we allow ourselves to feel about the political process. And hey, even if you don’t, can you at least give us the respect of not caricaturing our beliefs by assuming we know nothing about yours?