Hating Republicans Will Not Help Progressives Build a Future For America

[ancianita]

The Reprimand Project goes off the deep end. Its politics are divisive, and I have to say that posts from them just help keep DU’ers in the binary either/or, good/bad mentality.

When we blame Republicans’ leaders with vitriol for whatever the social control battle du jour is, we will not successfully “reprimand” or shame them into changing their minds, to inch them closer to join our causes.

Republican voters were born into the same rigged system we all were, and react in ways they’ve been taught work best to adopt the tough exceptionalism that is America’s “culture" of hardship upon the weak or unfortunate – to toughen themselves for survival.

Why? Because their beliefs and fears go beyond attachment to their party, or social circumstances that their leaders don’t seem to care about.

Keeping people weak and needy is part of a capitalist system that this political system serves. And the Republican voter has been "cultured" through family, church, associates, schools, to trust their belief system's version of how to do the right thing and thrive. Everyday Republicans believe in the old school politics of their regional leaders, and they'll vote party or single value issue over person, unlike true independents.

If we point out inconsistencies and attack them, they turn away from our logic that can't be reconciled with the "program" they have been trained to be loyal to. So when we fault them for everything wrong with this country, they will ask themselves, to whom do I owe the greater loyalty -- the opposition that's smugly correct? or the home party that will keep me safe or get me a "better deal"?

They are going down with their people. Those people are part of a larger political system that we DU'ers are part of also. It's one that is willing to authorize any use of force anywhere in response to any justification that might cause "reasonable suspicion" that the country's survival -- complete safety -- is at stake. Safety first, details later, is a major cultural value for them. For us, it's "not in our name!"

To quote Edward Snowden:

Even their leaders know that if we had a 9/11 attack every year, we would still be losing more people to car accidents and heart disease, and we don't see the same expenditure of resources to respond to those more significant threats.

What it really comes down to is the political reality that we have a political class that feels it must inoculate itself against allegations of weakness. Their leaders are more fearful of the politics of terrorism -- of the charge that they don't take terrorism seriously -- than they are of the crime itself -- or any other hardships the population falls err to.

This includes the tiresome old political saw of abortion and gender body control.

Power comes out of culture. The power of real change comes out of coalition culture, not just playing by voter registration numbers. Please don't harden those who fear and live with Spartan austerity values. Give up divide and conquer political orgs (not trying to pick on the Reprimand Project, really) in favor of those that build common cause with Republican voters.

This hate and guilt mongering is just not going to help people. Such vitriol lingers long after the primaries and general election are over. We can have our candles shine brighter when they shine together, not when we try to blow out another's.

These are Berner values.

[procon]

1. This is a list of grievances without any solutions.

You admonish everyone to don't do this and that, but you omit how -- exactly -- do you want people to go about building any "common cause with Republican voters"? You know, those are the same people who think we are the evil demons from hell, so commonality would be based on what... SPF 30 sunscreens?

I have no idea what you mean by "Berner values", but it takes at least a generation to bring about cultural change. Like the fairy tale Pied Piper, Sanders has been misleading his more impressionable followers into believing they can have it all the day after he is elected. Deceit is not a value most people aspire to.

[ancianita]

4. Okay, thanks. I posted something a few days ago that might be an answer. Let me know.

It's a long post but I think I'm laying it out more here:

We could imagine alliances and affinities that are willing to turn up without badges of ‘right’ and ‘left,’ such as recent American militia movements – patriarchal, nostalgic, nationalist, gun-happy, full of weird fantasies about the UN – who have something in common with us: they prize the local and fear their erasure by the transnational; they don’t want to see their communities go down the tubes any more than we do.

Our political imagination has to define common cause, and we have to directly speak to each other about them. Our courage, respectful efforts and outreach, can create new coalitions like those that have succeeded in Oregon's stopping Nestle’s water encroachment and plastic bottle devastation, or in ending the radiated Nevada nuclear test sites, or in shutting down the WTO when Seattle’s unions, environmentalists, anarchists, indigenous activists coalesced in the 90's, or when Republican ranchers work with environmentalists in coalitions to shut down methane drilling in Wyoming. Defining and listing common cause goals means that activism need not be oppositional. Our old litigious activism now sees potential allies.

And so we need to go into the general election considering this: no wing of the Democratic Party is ever so good that it can’t stand a little revision, and no party wing's goals are ever so impossible and broken down that a try at fixing them is out of the question. That's how unity can exist without uniformity or loss of our values -- through common cause coalition building.

We cannot chain our new president in old mental, comfortable binaries. We can build a new power space that a female presidency can provide, in which we can find common cause with at least half the population. It could be a list of more humane domestic spending priorities. The president's space of common cause could develop with the Joint Chiefs – who already see climate change as the #1 security crisis for America's and the world's future -- and commander-in-chief, plans to implement green energy, communications, mobility, of the military, both to save it from losing its essential mission, and to save the planet's inhabitants from much devastation. This new presidential space can find common cause in that space to “better” use security technology to protect rather than sloppily kill innocent women and children in conflict zones. Or prevent conflict zones through prioritizing safety through climate impact response policies.

New political coalitions within THIS party can practice what activist coalitions win with. These coalitions can redefine this party. We can demand a new political space that a woman president can create -- to shift the paradigm that the ends are not as important as the means. We can join this president in privileging means that will actually define new ends. Don't remind me of past arguments about any leader's inability to change. We all can change.

We in this party can show the 1% who believe their money will run "their" American show, that the solutions that money can NOT buy are COLLECTIVE ones; that from THIS party of ideas come coalitions whose ideas work. That OUR coalitions put our common causes ahead of our differences -- that they are the source of "our" successes, even as they try to appropriate those successes as their own.

Because some of the things we need to do within our party we can do to win voters from across parties. AND I posted this in response to kpete's "You're What's Wrong..." in the GD threads.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/12512016898

[procon]

17. There are too many Republicans who see "Democrat" and just reflexively take a fighting stance.

They are armed with years of indoctrination and the propaganda is real and it makes perfect sense in their reality. There are always a few outliers who might be persuaded to break away, but their numbers are too small to have much of an impact.

It might be somewhat easier to sway certain Democrats, and many of Hillary's supporters have said they are quite amenable to voting for Sanders, but his own followers seem united in maintaining their never Hillary postures no matter the consequences.

Stitching everything together seems unworkable.

[pscot]

20. Choosing up sides

and vilifying the 'enemy' isn't working all that well either. Like it or not, we're all in this together.

[cyberswede]

2. Not sure what you mean...

by this:

This includes the tiresome old political saw of abortion and gender body control.

Do you mean we need to compromise with people who have discriminatory views on those issues?

[ancianita]

6. What I mean is that the Republicans have had a chance to get rid of abortion, and maybe they

still try, but there's a lot they gain in votes from voters who vote single issue and voters who think Christian values are going downhill, and voters who want traditional roles restored to the mainstream culture of this country.

They cannot give up their fight because it keeps their voters committed to religious believer systems, so they can maintain viability politically even as they continue to undermine economics and education for the average American in service of the dominance of their capitalist owners' very different goals.

[cyberswede]

11. Thanks...and I agree

Keeping abortion alive as a hot-button issue keeps people voting for Republicans.

[cali]

24. Wake up. They are well on their way to succeeding at doing away with abortion rights.

Jaysus.

[ancianita]

26. Wake up to a majority of states that will still allow it if SCOTUS were to strike down Roe. That's

called states rights, and many of them are nevernever going back.

The fights don't get past the appellates.

[cali]

27. That is fucking cold comfort.

You are cavalier about women losing a constitutional right.

[ancianita]

30. Not at all.I don't believe they're well on their way to anything but using it to win a few elections

There's no cold comfort in struggle. They're just better at being against, when otherwise, the fuckers got nuthin.' We need to keep remembering that they're only raison de etre is to take from the population, not give, and pander voters with the illusion of moral or economic privilege that they serve up like the steaming pile it is.

My whole frame about unity is about not taking anything about oppositional politics for granted, and that we'd better see victories as temporary and not act like every win lets us go home.

They will fight a renewed ERA Amendment, too, which is still waiting to be revived, and probably will be no matter who the Democratic president is. Because it's time.

The Berner movement is letting them know that we're here and we're not fucking leaving.

[cali]

34. Then you are ill informed regarding reproductive rights which

they have radically diminished

[ancianita]

36. In some states. Far from a majority. I've not kept up with it as I should, I know.

[Wounded Bear]

3. But it feels so good.....

Sorry, couldn't resist a bit of

Point well taken. Blind, irrational hate will certainly do no good. That just continues and escalates the basic problem that nobody is talking to each other.

We need well thought out strategies that counter the hatred and bigotry, and we need to somehow wrest political power from those who are currently fomenting hatred of us, the progressives, liberals, and the "left" in general for political and monetary gain. Difficult task indeed.

[ancianita]

7. Oh, I know. I KNOW how good it feels. I'm fighting it within me because it hasn't fuckin' worked.

We are hardened by it, both hearts and minds, and we're going to be the ones -- as we've been in the past -- to find a way out of this binary mindset trap that keeps our military taking all our money while we live in Sparta.

[philosslayer]

5. Fail

The mess we are in is owned by Republicans / conservatives. Entirely.

[ancianita]

9. You're right. Now. How will that get you any concessions from them in the next congressional session

[philosslayer]

12. It would be preferable to beat them

Rather than get concessions. Remember the ACA? Passed with ZERO Republican votes. THAT is how you do it.

[cali]

25. Nothing will.

[emulatorloo]

28. Nothing will, except getting them out of office.

I def agree with you about talking with and reaching out to sane Republican voters. There are some who are persuadable.

[Iggo]

8. I just make sure I never vote for them.

Ever.

No matter what.

[ancianita]

10. Hell, yeah. But it's not been enough, I'm realizing.

[Democat]

13. It is possible that young Republicans can be reasoned with

But many older right wingers will never vote for a Democrat no matter what.

Focus on young voters if you want to win over Republicans.

[ancianita]

14. I have seen, as an old left winger, that that doesn't have to be the case. I've developed

common cause with them -- like their desire to keep social security intact, to keep their kids doing better than they have, to keep us from growing enemies abroad -- because they are beginning to see beyond why "both parties do it" arguments!

I'm happy to deal with young people -- I taught both high school and college classes. Most of them, when they get together, talk each other out of their parents political conditionings, anyway.

[Trajan]

15. Maybe we can get all perfectly civil and respectful and stuff

So they can continue to smash our faces into the mud, day in and day out ....

"How to be a victim ..."

[ancianita]

16. Are you putting words in my mouth? Maybe that's just how you see the effort of bridging differences.

Some things work. Some don't. I'll never let manners, civility or deference be the standard for appropriate responses to outrageous actions or politics.

But as Martin Luther King said, "Violence is not in those who confront power, it's in those who respond violently."

Outrage, reprimand and recrimination create a violent charge to politics that hardens sides to the point of frozen standoff that we have in Congress right now.

We liberals showed we can be tough -- Bill Clinton did it -- but if you want toughness for the good and well being of others, authoritarians just aren't having it. So we've got to find another way.

If you look at progressive successes over the last twenty years, you'll see that coalitions of different groups from different classes, races and genders -- together -- got things done because they looked squarely at their common problems. Their methods, though more arduous than the well known playbook of today's electoral politics, got solid results that stand to this day.

[HughBeaumont]

18. Oh, great. The "liberal smugness" canard. Again.

Don't be mean to Republicans. Don't be mean to people responsible for hate crimes, income inequality, more scandal than you can shake a stick at, financial shenanigans or endless wars of folly. Follow rules . . . rules that you have to follow to try and talk with people who follow no rules whatsoever. Be the "better person".

It's perfectly OK that Republicans are the way they are. What harm are they causing the world? They're just normal people who happen to have a difference of opinion. Being the better person wins worlds.

Never mind the 900 or so state representative seats we've lost in 6 years. Never mind that Democrats aren't going to control the House any decade soon. Or that the Senate is now under the control of a 74-year-old obstructionist hyper-right winger. Or that a openly sexist, racist birther corporate CEO is now potentially poised to become president (see, there I go with that toxic name-calling again!!), which means that the Supreme Court could fall 7-2 in favor of the Roman Catholic Church. Forget about the fact that they control the media, religion and corporations. Put aside the fact that, because of this fact, they are allowed to control America's narrative through intimidation, brevity and psychological projection.

YOU PLAY BY THE RULES! Rules that we, as progressives, specifically have to follow, but they don't. Because reasons. Just shut up and be nice to them because stop teh hatin.

[ancianita]

21. I'm not saying what you think I'm saying. I don't mean what you say I mean at all.

I agree with everything you say. Partisan fire is good when it's about the 99%, I'm right there.

Still, the feeling of being right only works for us until we can find a common point at which our efforts work for them, too.

If you'd not join them with the "for us or against us," "good/bad" binary argument, you could honestly find that there really are Republicans who don't want to be against everything we value. They are as stuck with hardened corporate agendas as we are.

I'm not saying that compromise and concession are our only tools, either. The Obama method has not worked. Allowing our party to pick our corporate leadership hasn't worked either.

And one democratic socialist president won't undo all their control that you decry, either. But to win by strategies and tactics one has to develop a game plan that's creative, not trapped in already controlled institutions that get bought by the minute.

This is larger than party politics. It's beyond binary fights. Americans are good at solving problems, winning a big election, then going home too soon. And that's also how we got here. Victories are always temporary.

And the frustrations we feel are rooted in the idea that victories should remain permanent. But there's so much to solve that victories are always temporary.

The sense of how things should be needs time for a big population to digest, which is one reason Obama won. To now get this big population to not be seduced yet AGAIN by a "Big Man will right things" argument is going to take strengthening people to see citizens' work as an ongoing thing -- in order to consolidate previous victories.

Like Michael Moore's latest film says, we came up with the civil rights ideas, the NASA and environmental ideas, women's rights, whistleblowing, and their effects around the globe are outpacing us, in that we see how we're still stuck with conservatives who still fight those ideas and co-opt them -- and that's all evidence of the power of our ideas. And when you think about the successes, most of them have taken us all, over time, by surprise, because we worked at finding ways that our "enemies" can also gain from them.

Seriously. How do you map the US Supreme Court's 2003 ruling that struck down the last laws criminalizing gay and lesbian sex? The usual rule-bound story is that power rests in nine robes; the more radical model is to hold up the gay Texas -- Texas! -- couple who chose to turn their lives inside out to press this lawsuit over years. In the end it also was a cultural ecology that made the nation rethink its homophobia, creating societal changes that the Supreme Court only assented to.

And all these ways of gaining freedom came from collective power that starts with US. The rest of the world, as Michael Moore's film shows, gets it. Someone here had better stop with the infighting and figure out how we can't. I claim it's our mindset of old school revolution and binary thinking, and I believe Berners do, too.

Just open up to how to consolidate victories. It's the collective solutions that last and become THE NEW RULES.

[libodem]

19. Yeah, but

[ancianita]

22. In a nut shell.

[libodem]

23. .

[Cosmocat]

29. It takes two to tango

The whole "con" thing is build on the foundation of dehumanizing the evil liberal.

The R party is pretty disparate, but that is the glue to it all.

A common enemy.

As is, the "vitriol" ratio is 1 bit of vitriol per dem to 1,000 bits of vitriol per rep.

I am pretty sure that a 0 to 1,000 ratio isn't going to somehow magically make the pods start to deal in reason and reality.

[ancianita]

31. You'd be surprised at the effects lib vitriol has on them right now. Thus, Trump!

Thus, Bernie. But the vitriol toolbox is from the master's tools, and you can't tear down the master's house with 'em.

Oligarchic insiders can use all this heat to simply solidify their pandering to losers when the election is over, in order to start this binary drama all over again in the next cycle.

Berners are calling for new tools and whole nother tool box. And they'll use it, win or lose.

[Cosmocat]

50. Wait

Rs all vitriol all the time and any bit of "vitriol" from the left comes from everyone other than Berners?

THAT is the fantasy land you are living in?

[Rex]

32. Sorry, but you are way too late and if we hate or love Republicans won't change anything.

Maybe you haven't noticed, but the HATE comes from the GOP side and it NEVER diminishes. EVER. So you want us to keep trying to compromise with a group that refuses to work with us or will try to undermine us at their first convenience?

Goodluck with that, Obama tried it for 8 years and got nothing but misery from it and the GOP.

What YOU need to do is change GOPers minds about how they feel about US...not the other way around.

[ancianita]

35. Compromise isn't in the Berner toolbox. Finding common cause that can benefit the other

side is what got the ACA. Now to move on from that temporary victory and consolidate it toward the next set of issues.

Yes, Obama tried compromise for 8 years. It got a bunch of movements going because suddenly people remembered him saying, "I can't do all this for you all by myself." And what did most of the Dems do at mid-terms? They fuckin' went home too soon!

Let's say after the downtickets win more Dem seats, they get more lobbist/military contractor cash when they give up votes for single payer, or a tax raise on the .01%, or close the hedge fund loophole, or eliminate transaction fees in some areas, as examples. (Off the top of my head, now, don't go tongue lashing my negotiating ability, which I don't claim to have.)

I AM working on changing voting GOPers minds about how they feel about US -- by saying that they are us in each and every issue they bring up.

OUR ideas are the potent ones and they know it. Or they wouldn't be so reactive.

It's on the ground Repub voters who just don't have to have their leaders' crap dished back at them. They've learned from us and are moving over to the Democratic side in the General.

I continue to hope.

[Blue_Tires]

33. Neither will hating half of the Dem party...

And Snowflake is the last person who should be quoted on this forum...

[ancianita]

38. Why do you say that. Please explain. Hell, I don't even know who 'Snowflake' is.

[UnFettered]

37. All the hate

Is one of the biggest turnoffs about politics to me. I personally see hate coming from both sides. We all need to be working together as AMERICANS to make things better and not hate and judge each other because of an D or a R.

It's all slight of hand. When we're all occupied with fighting each other we're not focused on the real forces pulling the puppet strings behind the curtain.

I personally put a lot of blame for this on the media who keeps this perpetually going. It's sad news today is about the equivalent of a reality tv show. There is very little disscusion about the issues and policy or any real journalism for that matter.

I wouldn't loose faith people are listing on both side believe it or not. Myself in the not so distant past was a GOP voter myself as hard as it is to admit. lol
I just woke up one day, I said why am I voting for these idiots. They didn't represent how I felt politically nor did I support there policy's.

When I talk politics with people I know. There are many issues we can find common ground on. There are things we even outright agree on like corporate welfare, but I am younger as are they.

[ancianita]

39. Welcome to DU, UnFettered. Thanks for the thoughtful post.

[Skittles]

40. uh huh

one side is pro-senseless war, pro-guns.solve.everything, pro-torture, misogynist, homophobic, xenophobic, anti-science, anti-worker, anti-poor, anti-choice...... WHAT'S NOT TO HATE???

[ancianita]

42. You know, my whole OP is about the voters and you bring up stances taken by their leaders

who, they are learning, have stoked their fears about this president.

Our side is winning with the story of who we are as a people. Obama has helped that along immensely.

If we Democratic voters don't displace our lashing out at each other during the primary onto them, they're more likely to listen to how this party's nominee will help them make more gains and take fewer losses than their own party will hand them. They're weary of all the austerity talk, corporate talk.

They'll look at the guy who'll flip flop every five minutes and see that the way he's campaigned is the way he'll govern.

They gave Obama a shot because he explained better, let his opponent "please proceed," and if Hillary will do the same thing, Trump will proceed, also, to hang himself with the average Republican voter.

[Skittles]

47. our side

alrighty then

[UnFettered]

43. Maybe some

Not all honestly there are a lot that don't support the majority of that stuff. I know I was once one myself. The reason people vote one way or another is much more complicated than a stereotypical generalization. The majority I know and talk politics with don't fit the mold you described. The hostile position you described is the main reason a lot don't cross over the line.

The biggest two issues brain washed in most GOP votes I Know are there scared of increased taxes/ government and religion. Now I will say there are a small pocket of bigoted racist mixed in there also they are in the minority though.

I have been on both sides there are a lot of people that are open to new ideas and conversation. Then there are some that are a loss causes, you just don't talk politics with these people.

I live behind enemy lines so I talk to them every day. I have found the way you go about your point of view is paramount. I can make the most conservative of voter often agree with many of my positions if I don't come across as openly hostile. There are more people than you think that don't fully believe in the the GOP platform, but vote it for one reason or another. The more they move right the more voters we stand to pick up if played tactfully.

[Skittles]

46. it's pretty much their official party platform

the reason republicans are all for voter ID bullshit is to stop people from voting, because that is much easier than pushing their shitty ideas

[Albertoo]

41. Agreed

I think a majority of both Republicans and Democrats have more values in common than differences. It's the radical fringes which create unconstructive divisiveness
(Cruz and his fundies, little Marco, Bobby Jindal and their Tea Party,
some ultra Sandernistas who won't vote for Hillary)

[JCMach1]

44. Because playing nicey nicey with Repugs has worked SO WELL for Obama...

no thanks..

They are not living on the same planet.

[ancianita]

45. My OP was an extended response to another thread, "You Are What's Wrong With America Today."

What's going on now builds on how coalitions of people -- who either hated or feared each other -- have gotten progressive things done in this country with or without party help.

We can learn from them because they are the only people really living on the planet of reality. And when they move, establishments start to crumble.


http://www.democraticunderground.com/12512016898

And then I examined how the Berners really see revolution for the country.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/12512022214

[The Straight Story]

48. I'd be fucking happy if progressives would stop hating each other:

We are all sexists, racists, love hillary, hate her, love bernie, hate him, love america, hate it, etc and so on.

You think people around here hate republicans?

Maybe, but I think they hate each other more. And that is what makes DU suck.

[ancianita]

49. I hear you. I'm trying to resist the tailspin DU is in because of this primary.

The year I signed on was the year that DU's unified enthusiasms saved my sanity over what I'd seen the media and the Repub politics of racist destruction doing to this country.

DU seems worn out with all media bullshit, polling, or online alarmist narratives used for fundraising and mobilizing. We get obsessed with the easy notice of the downside of it all.

This country so much bigger than most, that the struggle seems endless.

DU needs to remember that one person who's furious at us compels more of our attention than the 99 who love us.

So we have to look around, let the dust settle, and notice that this election is not all there is to getting the people's hope back together.

DU needs to start over by the end of June. Brush off the cheap hits and hurts. Get on with making this a place where political power grows from a culture of hope in action.

Because the world is going to change whether we're present for the long haul or not.

Today there was a victory that came out of a primary that woke much of this country up.

There's official recognition of the progressive wing of the Democratic Party during election time! It's not perfect, but I'll take "better."

The old head progressives know how far we've come in the last fifty years. They're lining up to bring in a discouraged electorate, to win new victories against the Dark Lords of The Deal.

We've seldom known the effects of our efforts, but the world is feeling them. What we have to act on is far more rewarding because it can make us great again to our world neighbors, our kids and grandkids.

[liberal N proud]

51. Stop compromising with a group that is unwilling to compromise

Republicans are the problem, not the solution.

[apcalc]

52. "Give up divide and conquer". .you mean work with people? All kinds of people?

Those are Hillary values. She has known this for a long time.
Move the meter closer to the good...

[Vinca]

53. I couldn't disagree more with an idea.

For years, now turning into decades, Democrats have been the spineless, let's-sing-Kumbaya doormats for Republicans. They never give in, we always do. Then we complain when abortion rights go away and poor people go hungry while fat cats get tax breaks. If anything, we should ramp up the vitriol and shame them out of existence. They don't "do nice."

[ancianita]

54. Yes, we've been too willing to be on the losing end. We're still the ones with ideas and

we've gotten them out there during the primaries.

Repubs waste a lot of money being the reactive party.

Over time we've made our point nationally, and will even more in the general.

I don't think we'll ever sing Kumbaya or be doormats again.

I'm optimistic that this party will shift left, at least domestically.