Grassroots Redemption

Ben Rhodes has an off-left inkling about a Democratic resurgence.

the sledgehammer’s about to hit the face.

Good speechwriters are sneaky: they can leave ideas behind once the exact memory of what was said has faded, or even while the words are fading.

Ben Rhodes is a former speechwriter for Barack Obama, so he is one of the best at that. In his recent essay, Democrats Can Stop Trump and Save America, he lays out what seems to be an analytical pitch for younger Dems to take the tiller and subtly inch the party ‘off left’¹ by rejecting extremism on both sides (a nostalgic and conservative impulse), and wrest control of the party from its corrupt and venal gerontocracy.

Rhodes:

The Democratic Party, in its current form, cannot lead the opposition [to Trump and MAGA] that is required. Faced with a relentless onslaught from Mr. Trump, the party has lost touch with an electorate that sees it as emblematic of what they hate about politics, a polarized culture, overseas commitments and an economy where being middle class doesn’t feel like enough to get by.

He checks key boxes: middle class, polarized culture, distrust of foreign entanglements, and the economy ain't shit. Note: there is no progressive message here: very ‘off left’.

The party has a credibility gap rooted in its initial willingness to support Joe Biden’s decision to run for re-election while warning that the stakes were existential.

The subtext: leadership covered up Biden's incapacity until it couldn't.>

There is opportunity in this drift to reimagine what the party stands for, how it will fight its way back and who will lead it.

The pony in the bag of horseshit?

Rhodes is saying that the Dems as a whole must walk away from 'a top-down Washington strategy, stale talking points about democracy and the middle class and its own circular firing squads.'

Calling for regional -- district-level? -- policy? A la Marie Gluesenkamp Perez? He hasn't mentioned off-left politicians or even explicitly talked about a drift to the right.

Biding your time works only if the normal rules of political gravity still apply, and they don’t — not anymore.

That's an understated confrontation with Schumer's capitulation to the Continuing Resolution.

“The idea that we should sit back and let them collapse is ridiculous” Mr. [Chris] Murphy told me. “They are going to define their project as something legitimate if we don’t define them as something corrupt.”

A direct counter to 80-year-old James Carville's 'rope-a-dope' strategy.

Recently, the most promising signs have been seen in the actions of ordinary people protesting at Republican town halls and the enormous crowds that turned out in several states to see Bernie Sanders rail against oligarchy. Something is stirring. To succeed, the opposition must become a movement out in the country rather than a party trying to discover a formula in Washington.

Grassroots protests against GOP politicians who are defending the indefensible. 'Occupy'ing town halls, Tesla dealerships, post offices, and VA hospitals.

Rhodes makes a series of comments about former successful protesters who won over authoritarian regimes. Are these distant analogies or practices to apply?

He's more inspiring with his litany of grassroots protests:

Spotlight harms that will come to everyday people, not bureaucracies or the prerogatives of a loathed institution like Congress. Protest at shuttered facilities in communities, not agencies in the capital. Make noise however you can. Amplify the voices of people out in the country. Hold town halls where Republicans are afraid to. Boycott the businesses of specific billionaires, like Elon Musk. File lawsuits. Sign petitions. Organize communities, including deep red ones. Support people who get arrested. Create a culture around the movement.

Ordinary people, not politicos; out in the neighborhoods, not in the Halls of Congress. Bottom-up, like Occupy, not top-down, like the Biden/Harris campaign.

“It is easier to invite someone into a movement if all you both must agree on is one issue, not a dozen" | Chris Murphy.

This is the argument for fluidarity, not solidarity: we don't have to agree on every issue; we only need to agree on this issue, right now. Be like water, not stone.

Rhodes does a mini profile on Andy Kim, a NJ Senator: is he just young? He's not old and corrupt, like Dem leadership?

This country is being destroyed from within, and yet what are we talking about? We don’t need a detailed new policy agenda from Democrats that they can’t implement now and that most people will never read. We don’t need politicians fanning out on podcasts about sports or culture or conspiracy theories where they’ll make awkward guests.

Show leadership by letting a new generation ascend. Look for people like Andy Kim who are showing courage and creativity in communities. Amplify those voices so there is a resistance that doesn’t feel manufactured.

Yawn. Is this an appeal to the Party’s leaders?

Wes Moore -- another Kim, but from Maryland. What do they stand for? Democracy? Anti-gerontocracy?

I believe that most Americans don’t want to rip health care away from veterans, defund schools or deregulate cryptocurrencies so that billionaires can scam ordinary people without consequence. I believe that most Americans do not want to destroy the economy through stupid trade wars or go in search of minerals in Canada or Greenland to suit the boundless ego of our president. I believe that most Americans are sick of culture wars that force us to care about the political views of athletes, the restroom policies of some school on the other side of the country or the programming decisions at the Kennedy Center. I believe that most Americans would rather raise their kids in a society that values empathy and not cruelty.

Nostalgia for the America that was? That is a form of conservatism, resisting the turbulent upset of overturning enduring foundations of culture (even if they aren’t progressive). And note the subtle digs against progressives hogging the mic:

I believe that most Americans are sick of culture wars.

We are united because we all want extremists to STFU. Without saying it out loud, his whole subtext is a shift to the center, at least, and perhaps a big step to the right. He rejects the extremists in the Democratic tent and says that progressives shouldn't be calling the shots. He never mentions immigration, but it’s an elephant in the room.

Those are the connected messages Rhodes wants to leave in your mind after the reading is done.

• We need a distributed, grassroots revolution against both the MAGA rape and the party elders’ acquiescence and corruption.

• The old verities stand, that these are rights, not privileges: public health, public education, economic prosperity, and care for those most in need.

• We should be united against extremism and culture wars (which is a shift into the off left).

• Fluidarity, not solidarity": people can come together in support of a single issue — the postal service, equal pay, labor laws, whatever — and won’t be thrown out of the resistance unless they sign up to fight equally hard for every last cause.

In particular, Rhodes only touches on or hints at the last two points. But we are at a juncture where a mainstream Dem like Rhodes can suggest that we have arrived where we are, out in the weeds, because political extremists in the party drove away ordinary people directly into the arms of MAGA.

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See also

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1. My preferred term for ‘conservative left’ (a la Marie Gluesenkamp Perez), similar to Adam Jentleson’s ‘supply-side progressivism’ (which isn’t progressive), or ‘Blue Labour’ in the UK Labour Party.