Lean Left

I agree with the emotion here, but I don’t think that the sentiment is that correct:

We can fucking count, out here. We know what 51 means. We know what 257 means. We’re not morons. And all the procedural whatsit you argue today, about ConservaDems and Blue Dogs, doesn’t mean shit. You had it, and we worked hard to give it to you, and we see you calling things impossible which are just very hard, and we get fucking annoyed, because we don’t get to get away with that shit. Not at our jobs and not in our lives.

Now, it is true that the Dems made a mistake taking the GOP negotiations seriously. But that was always going to happen. The first time personal friends – -and keep in mind, that is what we are talking about here in the Senate — betray you, it is going to be hard to come to grasps with that. But that mistake was not fatal to the Dem majorities. Health care was always going to be extremely hard to do. And it is true that the Dems did make tactical mistakes quite a bit – -especially on the size of the stimulus and the timing of the HCR benefits.

But this post ignores that there were real structural impediments to the Dem agenda. And two of them are partially the fault of progressive Dems, or at least their continued existence is. The second impediment are conservative Dems willing to sell out the nation and the Dems to look “moderate” to the beltway press. By focusing so much on “more” Democrats at the expense of “better” democrats, and by attacking the notion of interest groups and ideology, the progressive netroots and campaign worker class empowered people like Nelson and Stupak.

The second is obviously the rules of the Senate. We had an opportunity to blow up the filibuster in the Bush years, and we did not take it. Nor did we spend the next few years organizing for around the principle of majority rule or fairness in the Senate. We still aren’t. Right now, today, every progressive, every union organizer, every interest group spokesperson should be screaming about how the filibuster killed the economy and how the Dems must, if they want dollars and votes, reform the Senate right effin now. It should be a litmus test for organizational support. But that isn’t happening.

Why did health care get done, even in the imperfect version it was, despite all of the damage it was doing to the party standing and despite the opportunity costs and despite how it easy it would have been to let it go at several stages? It got done because it was the last big item that all but the most venal corporate suck ups and power hungry dweebs that interest groups and Dems voter made their representatives care about. Nelson and Stupak, for all their faults and bad ideas, really did care about getting health care coverage for most Americans. Lieberman might have, but even he couldn’t kill it outright.

Unless and until progressives and their interest group allies coalesce around a few basic principles and reforms, the Dems will be in similar situations the next time they are in power. Yes, the leadership made some terrible mistakes. But there were very real structural problems, problems that the progressive left and campaign class did nothing to alleviate and much to exacerbate. It’s cathartic to blame it all on the Obama and the Dem leadership. It just isn’t true.

So the midterms are tomorrow, and all the indications are that the Democrats are going to get their clocks cleaned. Barring an unforeseen miracle, the Republicans are virtually certain to retake the House, and the Democrats are likely to just barely hang on to the Senate (the most likely outcomes show the Democratic caucus — which includes two independents — dropping from 59 seats to 51). Bad news for Democrats and progressives, no doubt. But not quite as bad as it could be.

How can I say that? The answer is simply the Senate. For two reasons. First, as I said, it looks very likely that the Democrats will retain their majority there, albeit barely. But when you look at the list of Democratic senators who are likely to be replaced with Republicans, it suddenly doesn’t look all that dramatic. Here are the Senate seats that the Democrats are predicted (by FiveThirtyEight.com) to lose:

• Dorgan, ND
• Lincoln, AR
• Bayh, IN
• Feingold, WI
• Specter, PA
• Reid, NV
• Bennet (Slazar), CO
• Burris (Obama), IL

Of those eight seats, only two (Feingold and Burris) can be said to come from reliably liberal districts, and only Feingold can be really be viewed as being anything like a progressive champion. Half that list (Dorgan, Bayh, Lincoln, and Specter, the last the result of a politically-expedient party switch) reads like a who’s who of Republican Lite.

Now it seems possible that Lieberman could switch caucuses after the election, but the loss of Lieberman would hurt almost as much as losing Dorgan (which isn’t much).

No doubt, the Feingold loss is going to hurt, especially since he’s one of the few principled senators left (from either party). And while Reid has roughly 75% as much personality as a paper plate, he seems to at least have been an effective senator, so his loss hurts a little bit, too. But it’s not like we ever had a strong progressive majority in the Senate to lose. That was always at best an illusion.

As for the GOP, with them about to gain a majority in the House and a near equal presence in the Senate, it will fall to them to put forward their agenda for moving the country forward. And we all know that they simply don’t have one. And worse, they’ll now have to actually start openly dealing with the Tea Party instead of just playing footsie. If you thought the “Religious Right” got whiny and petulant when their preferred party gained power and proceeded to take them for granted and ignore their agenda, just wait and see how the Birther/9-11-Truther-dominated Tea Party takes that.

Of course, I could be totally full of shit here, and this really could be Armageddon for people who care about anything other than corporate profits and low taxes for the wealthy. Discuss.