Hacked Off, But Finding A Way Forward

What can I say about the forced retirement of Paul Hackett by the Democratic party establishment that I haven't said before in other circumstances?

Well, I can say that Hackett dropped in my estimation by saying he would leave politics entirely. I would have hoped he could show the guts he obviously had as an active serviceman and continued his political creer, perhaps as an independent. By dropping out entirely he invites criticism that he didn't really have the courage of the convictions that led him to try becoming a political animal in the first place.

Matt Stoller gets that part perfectly right:

Don't follow Paul Hackett's example. Be smart, be strategic, and put pressure where it works. Don't bite off more than you can chew, and do not drop out of politics. Fight professionally, fight aggressively, and fight like it matters, because it does. But don't pretend, as Hackett did, like you don't have responsibility for your own actions and that it's some big evil system out there putting you down. Yes, that system exists, and yes, it sucks, but that means that you have to go into politics with an understanding that you are facing entrenched people who are going to fight you tooth and nail. Hackett is pretending somehow that he shouldn't have had to fight for power. Maybe that's true, maybe it's not, but it's fundamentally a naive worldview that you should not emulate.

In politics, we will fight and we will lose elections, and we will keep losing, until one day, we win. That's what an intraparty struggle means; we have to just take power against savvy insiders.

And Matt makes the important point that "If you are angry at Schumer or Reid, and I have had issues with both at various times, it doesn't matter unless you can figure out a way to make them feel it. We haven't figured out how to make them feel it yet, because their political survival and success is based on factors that we haven't impacted yet (local media and big dollar donors)."

Steve Clemons is on the same tack:

One can't change the Democratic Party establishment if one remains dependent on that party's good graces and preferences. In this case, Rahm Emanuel and Co. began to choke Hackett because he wasn't playing ball the way that Rahm wanted or needed him to.

A successful insurgency won't care what Emanuel does. The insurgents will see victory behind both short-term defeats and short-term wins.

But I also feel the same pain that "pessimist" at The Left Coaster feels:

It is time to abandon the Democratic Party and seek to establish a real opposition to Bu$hCo. It is clear that there is no other option. Every chance they have had to do something to halt the destruction of America, they have found some way to drop the ball. They don't want to win. they don't want to try.

They must want a one-party state.

However, I do have a way forward.

There is a way in which the "insurgent" left can pressure the establishment of the Democratic party and still walk seperately from that establishment when it feels the need. That way is by something akin to the old Polish Solidarity movement.

I wrote this back in October:

For the sake of the Left rather than the sake of the Dems we don't need a schism between those two opinions that would weaken our voice.

The objective, then, is not to convince the left to join the Democratic Party but to convince the Democratic Party to wholeheartedly join the left. The internet and advocates for the left such as bloggers will have a huge role to play in this effort. We must outreach to the unions, to interest groups, to smaller parties of the left and to Democrats and forge a true leftwing coalition. By not being part of the Democrat party apparatus we can advocate for fusion politics. We can convince Greens and Dems not to run against each other but instead to put up the best candidate and party in any given election, for instance. We can help workers unionize or at least organize in trade associations. We can aid the Coalition for Change to become stronger by backing their campaigns and by encouraging them to remain independent of party affiliation while aiding all parties of the left with funding and manpower in campaigns. We can form a fundraising base, a think tank and a possible pool for future staff and even elected officials who hold the interest of the people as paramount as well as being a voice to the media or in the absence of mainstream media coverage. We can be facillitators of communication and policy reform at every level.

The name for that coalition, independent of party and thus able to pressure Democrat leaders just by the possibility of backing others (think Pennacchio as an Indie in PA, or Bernie Sanders, as two for instances), is American Solidarity.

American Solidarity should not be a party or even affiliated to a single party but a communications, focus and fundraising umbrella for all kinds of lefties. Hells, even lefties who want to stick with the Dems can join (maybe they CAN convince the Demlicans to change) - just dont ask that American Solidarity restrict itself to supporting the Dems because it should be casting its net of support wider than a single party. Folks who don't like it don't have to join but the tent should be big enough for every Leftie.

I don't want to run such a coalition myself but will do my bit to get it moving if I can. The real leaders should be people like John Conyers, the aforementioned Sanders and Pennacchio and people like Matt and Chris at MyDD. I would gladly hand the torch to them.