In taking exception to an election reform plank that was included in the evolving netroots platform, Chris Bowers has come down in opposition to platforms in general. I have to disagree on that one, because instead of a basis for exclusion, I see a platform as something around which you can begin building a solid alliance.
As an example, there's a tangible benefit to having an entity called the Democratic Party which is defined by a statement of principle. It's well enough understood that a given Democrat probably doesn't endorse every plank, such that Democrats can then define themselves by their agreement or disagreement with it. What would it mean to say that someone was a liberal Democrat without a generic mean of Democratic political goals? It's a way, though admittedly not the only way, to define who you stand with.
If the netroots, such as it is, ever wants to have more influence than it has now, there needs to be greater alliance building and better organization. There need to be goals. People need to feel like individual they trust are working on the issues they can't be experts on. They need to believe that when it comes to their own major issues, someone has their back.
Take labor organizations, as another example. They're caricatured by the right as being tools of the Democratic Party, but that belittles the exceptional party discipline Democrats maintain in their favor. They get from Democrats what the NRA gets from Republicans: full cooperation.
The House Agriculture Committee is one place where you can see this in action. It's where Blue Dogs go to pleasantly pass time in the company of other conservatives and a resolutely grim atmosphere for a progressive. But when a vote comes up for including prevailing wage requirements on federal funding, every one of those conservative Democrats is on board. There's no breaking ranks.
Not every member of the alliance that makes up the Democratic party gets that kind of consideration. Obviously. But there's a tangible entity to work with and be defined by or against. There's an ordered set of other potential allies that you can go to, as a member of this political alliance, and have some degree of affinity with -- even if you've got no other natural means of introduction. It shows what it's eventually possible to accomplish.
What are we doing? Who are we doing it with?
I don't want to get too existential, but if a group can't answer those questions, its influence is going to reach a certain natural limit and then stagnate. Its projects are always going to be ad hoc, each alliance and working group reinvented from scratch.
And maybe that particular plank wasn't well considered. Perhaps the buy-in and consensus of trust isn't developed enough to start crystallizing a collection of writer/activists into a more definite affinity group. But I think the former is a conversation worth having in good faith, and the latter, a goal worth working towards.
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