On Being a Progressive Legislator

"It’s the hardest vote I've taken;" so said Al Franken of his vote for Obama's tax deal with Republicans. Franken explains his vote by declaring in a post on Huffington Post that "This isn't a great deal by any stretch of the imagination. But I got into this line of work because I wanted to stand up for Minnesota families trying to put food on the table and build a better life for their kids. And, for them, the only thing worse than a bad deal would be no deal at all. That's why I voted yes yesterday -- and why I will continue my fight for economic policies that create jobs, address our deficit problem, and build new opportunities for Minnesota." I find thus mea culpa disingenuous, shallow, and short sighted.

Disingenuous, because he would have us believe that those who voted against the Deal did not face the same fundamental issue of deciding between the immediate and the momentous. Does he really believe that Bernie Sanders, who made the role of excessive wealth in producing our current situation so clear in his eight hour filibuster, did not face the same situation?

Shallow, because Franken apparently believes that his job as a progressive is to pass laws for the benefit of the people. That belief leads directly to beltway politics in which the decisions, indeed the debate, is the province of a few elected "representatives." To the contrary, the job of a progressive is to educate and inform his constituency so that they can be the force he or she brings to the national legislature and so that when push comes to shove, as in this case between the wealthy and the rest of us, the people are prepared to fight. Had Franken done what Sanders has done his whole political life, namely meet with small groups of constituents not just at election time but routinely and in that context listened acutely and intelligently putting what he knew to be the case in Washington together with what his people knew to be the case at home and, in discussion, had offered a synthesis to be considered with those of his constituents, had he done these things, as Bernie has, he would not have to indulge in such childish angst. I have watched videos of Bernie interacting with small groups of his constituents. I have watched him conducting a high school class in civics which consisted largely of listening to their answers to questions he posed and responding to questions they posed. Bernie sees the job of the politician as including a large commitment to create an informed, comprehending constituency and listening carefully and intelligently to them. These are things that, I suspect, have never occurred to Al Franken. They are however essential to an effective progressive candidate. In progressivism the people are the power, not money. It is therefore incumbent upon progressive politicians to develop the best informed, most comprehending, constituency possible so that when push comes to shove, when you have to decide between immediate benefits and long-term disaster your people understand and are with you. People will sacrifice the immediate for the future if the alternatives and consequences are clearly laid out. The people who accepted FDR's leadership were not afraid to occupy General Motors' plants in a massive sit down strike. Their wives brought food to them despite the threats from General Motors. Earlier than that workers had to confront hired thugs in the Pullman strike and were machine-gunned in their tents in the Colorado miners' strike.

Finally, Franken's defense that he voted for the Deal so hungry people would continue to have food and shelter, if not a job, is even in this context, short sighted. Did he explain to his people that the social security tax, Franken disingenuously refers to it as a payroll tax, was a first step to weaken social security by depriving it of revenue and was intended to condition people to this process? Did he remind them that ever since LBJ used it to fund the Vietnam War they have let government raid their Social Security fund and that Congress had not seen fit to protect these funds by prohibiting their use for other purpose? We now have billions of dollars in IOUs that Congress now says there is no money to repay. Again, by continuing the Bush tax cuts we are transferring even more money to the wealthy. Did Franken lay out the enormity of the debt that this generation is imposing on those very children he seemed so concerned for?

In short, sacrifice, big time, is going to be necessary if the people are to wrest control of America from the wealthy. Due to technology and corporate and political takeover, the wealthy are deeply entrenched in our society. They control the production and distribution of our national product. They control our means of communication. They are heavily in the business of defining life for our citizens. It reminds one of the military's complaint about the difficulty of fighting insurgents because they are so thoroughly integrated into their society. Think of corporations as huge multidimensional insurgents focused on overthrowing our democracy and what we face becomes clearer. The insidious power of these proponents of privilege make it clear why progressives have a primary duty to educate, to communicate and to listen so that the people and the leadership progressively become one.

I have used Bernie Sanders as something of a paradigm of what a progressive politician should look like in our search for more of the same. However, I am conscious of the fact the Sanders functions in a small state with many small towns and it may be said that large states and major cities may not be susceptible to this level of citizen involvement.

To such concerns I would point out that large cities have realized Bernie's style of progressive politics. In the 1960s Saul Alinsky, using collegial and intensive involvement with Chicago's primarily Black poor people was able to develop organizational structures that empowered these people to better their lot through effective political measures. This was done on a neighborhood by neighborhood basis. A second way for progressive politicians to emulate Bernie's approach in the context of larger jurisdictions is by focused television or radio engagement. FDR did this on a national scale with his Fireside Chats in which he conveyed to ordinary people the state of things and what was being done. I remember, as a young teenager, our family sitting around our Majestic radio listing to these chats. Everybody respected Roosevelt and knew he would have something of substance to say. Again, you may have noticed that television evangelists are able to accrue a substantial audience by the intimacy they convey over television. That same intimacy can be conveyed over radio. I member (old people are forever uttering that phrase) when the soap opera "Ma Perkins" had a favorite character eliminated. There was massive outrage and mourning. These things demonstrate that we can create the intimacy necessary for politicians and people to work together in a joint effort to educate and improve a world that we have let technology dominate. Progressives need to investigate the use of public access channels on their local television cable stations. They need to investigate low power television, which can provide well-targeted, cheap broadcasting to local communities. Religious groups and now corporations are actively scooping there up. Why have we not seen Amy Goodman, Al Franken, Ralph Nader and other progressives pushing an effort to acquire some of these licenses for progressive purposes? I think the answer is that we are too focused on issues and candidates to focus on the people. We can create an environment for progressive, people-powered, politics to flourish. Where is the organized, MoveOn-like effort to do this?

Bob Newhard