The problem of the moderates
Chris at Open Left has a good one today, achingly obvious, yet still worth the read, So-called “Moderates” Have Become the Problem:
These so-called moderates are the real barrier to the progressive change that the country needs right now. As such, we should be directing our fire at them, rather that at the right-wing. Currently, the right-wing has no power whatsoever unless the moderates in Congress choose to side with them. And yet, it is the right-wing that progressive media keep aiming most of their attacks…
Wingnuttery is a tempting and easy target. Further, after eight eyars of the bush administration, attacking it has also grown into a real habit for progressives. However, after the electoral successes of 2008, the political reality has changed, and we need to change with it. Now, we have to direct our ire at the so-called moderates impeding real change, until such point as the congressional leadership and Obama administration have delivered more of what they promised during those long years when we all worked our asses off to get them elected.
He’s right; wingnuttery is a pathetically easy target – if it weren’t, this blog would’ve gone the way of OJ Simpson’s career a long time ago. It is so easy to mock them, due to the outlandish, ridiculous, reality-challenged, Rapture-ready outlook they have. It’s not so easy to mock the moderate corporate sell-outs -what is going on is a bit more nuanced, and there’s no Joe the Plumber/Sarah Palin level of glaring mental deficiency to continually poke fun at and make silly photoshops of. It takes a more measured “this is how they’re fucking up progress” approach, which obviously requires a higher level of discourse (and persuasion).
It’s often easy to say that if you don’t stand for something, you stand for nothing, which is how I tend to characterize a lot of so-called “moderate” positions. Real change comes from the die-hards, whether it be left or right, to use that tired dichotomy for a second. These moderates apparently do stand for something – the preservation of corporate power, nothing more, which is not change by any stretch of teh imagination.
We need more primary challenges. I was talking to Jack about this at the BBQ this weekend. As one who only nominally buys in to the “more, and better Dems” thing (in actuality, I just want more better people there in general, and believe that the Dem party structure is part of the problem, not the solution), I believe there needs to be some serious Stalinist purges challenges to the Dem status quo. We’ve seen glimmers of that with people like Donna Edwards and such, but it needs to go much, much further than it has. And no, I don’t put any hope or faith in the Dems, I’m just realistic that our options are truly limited at this particular point in time, with the way the system is currently structured.
