Money, mergers, and mobilization

Posted on June 21, 2011 by David S. Meyer

Jarrett Barrios resigned as president of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance against Defamation this past weekend.  GLAAD had received $50,000 from AT&T, and then filed a letter supporting the phone giant’s merger with T-Mobile.  The appearance of impropriety (read: corruption) is so great here that the resignation came quickly, but there is a much larger problem underneath the incident.

Advocacy takes money.  Organized groups pay for office space, computers, stationery, staff, and even advertising and product placement.  Any organization that doesn’t devote a substantial amount of time and effort to maintaining an active inflow of financial support will not be around for very long, and a successful president or executive director will be good at raising funds.

Groups have developed a wide range of strategies for raising money: cultivating rich donors, contracting services, selling products, running ads, maintaining membership, writing for grants, running a door-to-door canvass–and on and on and on.

The most fortunate groups, often faith-based, develop endowments that provide a stable base of support.  But living donors are fickle.  The savvy director has an eye on the political goals of her group–but also a finger in the shifting winds of donors’ priorities.

The challenge is finding ways to secure funding without selling anything–at least anything important.

AT&T insists that its donations to advocacy and arts groups, including GLAAD, the NAACP, and the NEA, were not contingent upon any of those groups taking a position on its proposed merger.  And all of the groups emphatically announced that they did not make political decisions based on financial contributions.  And all of the groups weighed in publicly in support of the merger.  (See Eliza Krigman’s Politico report.)

Making the case that the proposed merger represents a substantial step forward for civil rights or public education requires, minimally, some heavy lifting and conceptual stretching.  But it’s not immediately obvious that the merger would hurt those causes.  Is there something intrinsically wrong with working to curry favor with funders on issues that don’t seem to matter that much–so you can work more effectively on issues that do?

According to the Board of GLAAD, and according to gay and lesbian activists across the nation, there is.  Any group–or individual–that seems to sell its endorsement devalues the positions that it takes for free–that is, on principle.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Politics as product placement

Posted on June 17, 2011 by David S. Meyer

We now learn, thanks to a great piece by Kenneth P. Vogel and Lucy McCalmont (Politico), that political groups are not only buying ads, but product placement as well–at least on the right end of the political spectrum.

The largest and wealthiest conservative groups have been spending millions to buy air time on conservative radio shows.   Americans for Prosperity sponsors Mark Levin, who touts their effectiveness, while Glenn Beck receives a fee for promoting FreedomWorks.  Meanwhile, the Heritage Foundation “invests” in Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, who praise, defend, and fund raise for the groups on the air.  Vogel and McCalmont report:

The Heritage Foundation pays about $2 million to sponsor Limbaugh’s show and about $1.3 million to do the same with Hannity’s – and considers it money well spent.

“We approach it the way anyone approaches advertising: where is our audience that wants to buy what you sell?” Genevieve Wood, Heritage’s vice president for operations and marketing. “And their audiences obviously fit that model for us. They promote conservative ideas and that’s what we do.”

This doesn’t mean, of course, that Beck and Limbaugh and all don’t actually believe the things they say about conservative causes in general, and their sponsors in particular, but it’s worth remembering that they get paid to say those things.

Entertainers on commercial radio, regardless of their politics, are in the business of selling.  The more popular they are, the more they can sell ads for, and drawing lines between the content of the show and the advertisements is dicey business.  We all know when a local disc jockey talks about his good friends at a restaurant, insurance agency, or gym, that there’s a commercial component to this friendship.

Advocacy groups have been buying advertisements for some time now; it’s one way to get their message and their organization out to a broader audience, and this phenomenon has reached across the political spectrum.  With an ad, the group doesn’t have to depend upon an event or a reporter to get the message exactly right.  Money, if you have it, can provide an easy answer to those challenges.  PETA has been buying provocative ads in college newspapers (and elsewhere) for years, and generated real news coverage by doing so.

While PETA trades on provocation, the Alliance for Climate Protection has virtually obscured its politics promising consensus in a series of high profile ads in slick magazine and on television, including this one (left) featuring Nancy Pelosi and Newt Gingrich sitting together.  They are, ostensibly, talking about the need to protect the earth from climate change, suggesting that there can be political alliances on the environment that cross the partisan divide.  (This seems fanciful now).

So, what’s the difference between an advertisement and product placement?

A simple start is that commercials and ads are designated as such.  The radio or television program or magazine editor has no influence on content, and doesn’t explicitly endorse the product.  We can ignore ads; if we pay attention, we can do so critically, knowing they are commercial speech.

This creates at least two problems for advertisers today: viewers are sophisticated and cynical–at least they think they are; and technology keeps making it easier to avoid even noticing the ads.  A viewer with quick reflexes and a DVR can watch an hour of television in 44 minutes, skipping all the ads without even getting up for a snack.

So advertisers have been skillfully sneaking into the programs.  When lifeguard David Hasselhoff opens his fridge to offer a new lifeguard a cold drink, be sure that you’ll see a case of whatever root beer anted up the most money.  When Wayne goes for pizza, Mike Myers is financing his movie.

Morgan Spurlock, in Pom Wonderful Present: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold, has had more fun with this than I’m capable of.  Suffice it to say that product placement is so ubiquitous that grade schoolers watching tv enjoy playing “Who paid for that?”

Is there something different about politics?  It’s not like Limbaugh et al. are selling their shows (much less their souls) to causes they despise.  Organizations on the left, according to Vogel and McCammon, haven’t been playing this game–and they would be unlikely to go after the conservative radio audiences anyway.  But groups on the right, even as they agree on matters of public policy, compete with each other for attention and donations, and general primacy in the larger conservative movement.

Americans for Prosperity (funded by the Koch Brothers) and FreedomWorks (led by Dick Armey) grew out of Citizens for a Sound Economy, splitting because of differences on leadership and political priorities.   Are Glenn Beck’s political commitments so strong that he wouldn’t allow the two to bid against each other for time on his show?  Is his integrity so developed that he would discuss controversies within the organization? Do his audiences know that he’s paid to tout organizations that he says impress him?

Are some rhetorical questions too obvious to ask?

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

How the courts disappoint

Posted on June 16, 2011 by David S. Meyer

American politics has provided some updates on our concerns about the courts and social movements (see: “You can’t count on the courts”).  Be sure that activists will be disappointed–and that they are extremely unlikely to give up.

In Wisconsin, the State Supreme Court overturned the ruling of a lower court judge who struck down the anti-union provisions of the dramatic state budget.  She had ruled that the budget process, which included the flight across state lines of all the Democrats in the State Senate, violated Wisconsin’s open meetings law.  The State Supreme Court divided 4-3 on the question, and the majority included David T. Prosser, Jr., who has only recently survived an unusually contested re-election campaign.  Often uncontested, Prosser’s re-election was the first chance for disgruntled Democrats–and others–to voice their opposition to Governor Scott Walker and the budget bill at the polls.

It won’t be the last. 

Democrats and organized labor have launched recall campaigns for eight Republican state senators–all those eligible for recall.  If they win three, the Democrats will gain control of the body.  Clearly, the recall campaigns will consume both activist attention and a great deal of money from organized labor in Wisconsin–and across the nation.  Expect conservative and Republican money to flow into the state at the same time.  It will be like a mini-economic stimulus plan focused on media and political consultants.

Meanwhile in San Francisco, Federal Judge James Ware upheld Judge Vaughn Walker’s decision to strike down a ballot measure prohibiting same sex marriage in California.  Now retired, Judge Walker has acknowledged a long-term intimate relationship with another man, and supporters of the marriage ban argued that Walker’s sexual orientation compromised his objectivity in the case.

Disappointed by the decision they were, nonetheless, undaunted, and plan to continue appeals which could ultimately end in the Supreme Court of the United States.  Of course, this isn’t all of it; they’ll also be engaged in ongoing battles with advocates of same sex marriage across the states.

I don’t claim to be expert on reading the courts–on the same sex marriage issue, all the experts seem to fixate on Justice Kennedy as decisive.  By the time a case reaches the Supreme Court we’ll be reading dispatches on the movies he watches, his exercise regime, and what he has for breakfast each day.

On same sex marriage, the tides of history are somewhat easier to read, and they favor the advocates of marriage equality.  Although same sex marriage is available in only a few states, public opinion has changed quickly, and continues to move toward acceptance of extending the institution.  Most notably, the polls suggest a deep generational divide, with young people overwhelmingly in support of same sex marriage.

I have a harder time reading the tides on labor in Wisconsin–and across the country.  The mobilization against the budget was dramatic and invigorating for Labor and the left.  But organized labor has just lost similar battles in Indiana and Ohio.  Wisconsin has become a test case for assessing whether new Republican majorities have overstretched their mandate–and if their opponents can take advantage of it.

Much rides on the outcome.  And the answer won’t come from the courts.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

A second cut on circumcision, politics, and rhetoric

Posted on June 10, 2011 by David S. Meyer

Crusaders against circumcision (intactivists) face the same sorts of challenges as activists on a wide range of other causes.  They want parents to choose not to circumcise their sons AND they want the government to prohibit circumcision–and punish adults involved in circumcisions.

[This really is a recurrent movement story: Think about animal rights activists who want to promote vegetarianism as a personal choice–as well as legal restrictions on the use of animals; think about anti-abortion activists who wish to promote adoption–as a personal choice–while simultaneously limiting legal access to abortion.]

It looks like the intactivists are making progress on the first front, individual choice–or at least riding some sort of wave of history: the percentage of newborn boys circumcised in the US has declined substantially in the last few years.  All the physicians I’ve seen quoted in the run of news accounts have emphasized parents’ choice.  With parents making different choices, boys and men are far less likely to face social stigma or discrimination on the basis of foreskin status.

Promoting non-circumcision means making that choice attractive–and making a very widely accepted choice–problematic.  Here, rhetoric matters, and strategic choices about images and language are consequential in mobilizing support–and provoking opponents.

Jena Troutman, the Santa Monica activist who abandoned her referendum campaign, pushes non-circumcision as healthy, natural, and attractive.  Her website is chock full of pictures of happy baby boys–diaperclad.

Matthew Hess, the author of the Foreskin Man comic, projects more alarm–and more vitriol.  He, literally, demonizes those who perform circumcisions, thus far, a doctor and a mohel.   On the left, you’ll see his hero battling a physician who takes sadistic pleasure in performing a procedure that is, by all other accounts, quick and routine.  The rhetoric is provocative and polarizing–hardly peculiar for social movement activists–but maybe not the smartest strategy.

Most of us are not inclined to see physicians treating children as monsters who derive pleasure from a baby’s pain.  We might distrust someone who offered a portrayal at odds with our own understanding of the situation.  The portrayal of the mohel–understandably–spurred a debate about anti-Semitic imagery.  (But Hess is clear that he has nothing against Jews or Muslims–only those who circumcise.  Arrgh.)  Identifying and demonizing an enemy is likely to inspire–and mobilize–those who already agree with you.  It’s likely to be off-putting to others, and may well provoke your opposition.

I’m ill-inclined to offer psychological explanations for why someone believes what he does.  That said, Hess’s description of his analysis and his commitments is likely to stir pause among would-be supporters.  San Diego’s City Beat reports, quoting Hess:

“I was in my late 20s when I just started to notice a slow decline in sensation,” Hess says. “Year after year, it started to get a worse and worse after sex. I went to a urologist, and he didn’t have much of an answer. It struck me that my circumcision could have something to do with this. I researched online and quickly found a lot of information about what’s lost. That made me pretty angry.”

City Beat reports that Hess has been engaged in therapies to restore sensation–and, for nearly a decade, working on legislation to ban circumcision.

The extraordinarily committed are at the heart of any social movement, and opponents will look to counter a movement by disparaging its champions.  Successful movements are always comprised of coalitions, and the recurrent question is how rhetoric, tactics, and personnel aid or hinder in recruiting allies.  The controversy over Foreskin Man led Jena Troutman to put her referendum campaign on the back burner, suggesting that Matthew Hess brings energy, commitment, and liabilities to his cause.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Anti-circumcision campaign cut short

Posted on June 9, 2011 by David S. Meyer

Male circumcision dates back to a deal that Abraham made with God, as far as I know; most Jewish and Muslim parents still circumcise their sons to show that they’re keeping their end of the bargain.  Of course, in many rich countries, lots of other people circumcise sons.  There’s some scientific evidence of some health benefits, particularly reduced transmission of AIDS, and some vigorous debate about adverse consequences.  Meanwhile, the percentage of newborns circumsized has declined over the past couple of decades.

But the cut itself is provocative, particularly when you think about it absent religious context.  In Santa Monica, Jena Troutman (above), a lactatation consultant, launched a campaign to ban circumcision in her town, making the cutting of foreskins a crime.  She started to collect signatures to get a proposition on the ballot for the November election, following a similar effort in San Francisco–where voters will address the question in November.

Initiatives and referenda are good tools for campaigns that can generate broad soft support, and good places for majorities to restrict what minorities can do.  (Witness the repeated referenda campaigns on same sex marriage.)  The populist legacy of voters making policy directly requires even more dramatic oversimplification of issues than regular politics.  Hyperbole and polemic are required elements of such campaigns, and the ballot initiative is a blunt instrument for making policy.

And activists against circumcision (“inactivists” is their preferred term) have a variety of reasons for their campaigns.  Ms. Troutman says that she’s just trying to save babies from harm, and explains her ideas, with music, on her website.  Baby boys, the argument goes, are born perfect, and the cut is cruelty.  By analogy, ritual circumcision of boys is very much like female circumcision, now almost universally called Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) and recognized as cruel, dangerous, and misogynistic.

But there’s a longer history of campaigns to ban circumcision, and it’s less about protecting babies than protecting society—from Jews.  Over hundreds of years, some states have banned the practice intending to isolate, stigmatize, and ultimately eliminate Judaism.   Jewish leaders were ready to see the referendum as a continuance of this anti-Semitic tradition, despite Ms. Troutman’s protestations:

For me, this was never about religion. It was about protecting babies from their parents not knowing that circumcision was started in America to end masturbation (Fox News report).

But Troutman was not alone in her campaign, and in movement politics, as elsewhere, you are judged by the company you keep.  Troutman’s ally, Matthew Hess, wrote the bill she was pushing, as well as the measure in San Francisco.  Hess is committed to the issue, and his comic book series that advances his position, Foreskin Man.
We expect movements to sharpen their arguments, often at the expense of complexity, and the comic book form isn’t the most suitable for nuance, but:  Hess’s books are filled with images that push obvious anti-Semitic buttons.    On the left, see Hess’s villain, Monster Mohel, sporting stylized beard, hat, and prayer shawl.  The heroes look conspicuously Aryanized.
The images, rhetoric, and Hess himself made the charge of anti-Semitism very credible.
So Jena Troutman backed off, abbreviating her campaign.  She and her allies will look for new opportunities to advance their claim without the encumbrance of Matthew Hess’s apparently broader agenda.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Politics, Power, and Movements: Sidney Tarrow at Cornell

Posted on June 2, 2011 by David S. Meyer

I’m honored to participate in a conference recognizing the work of Sid Tarrow, who has been a major force in developing the study of social movements in political science and sociology–and a major force in my development as a scholar.

The Einaudi Center for European Studies at Cornell has posted the conference agenda, along with links to the papers, for interested readers.

Posted in academic | Leave a comment

How Repression Works, American-style

Posted on June 1, 2011 by David S. Meyer

Scott Crow (right), an anarchist who has organized anti-corporate and animal rights events, used the Freedom of Information Act to get his FBI file; he received 440 pages, with much of the material blacked out (NY Times report).

Crow reports being subjected to ongoing surveillance, from both cameras and large men in large air-conditioned cars.  The file also reports that the FBI asked the Internal Revenue Service to investigate Crow’s tax returns, but the IRS said that he earns so little money that it wasn’t appropriate.  (It’s not legal either.)

Domestic surveillance is back!  The Times reports:

Other targets of bureau surveillance, which has been criticized by civil liberties groups and mildly faulted by the Justice Department’s inspector general, have included antiwar activists in Pittsburgh, animal rights advocates in Virginia and liberal Roman Catholics in Nebraska. When such investigations produce no criminal charges, their methods rarely come to light publicly.

In the wake of the September 11 attack on the World Trade Center, Congress rushed to pass the Patriot Act, which allowed the government new liberties in investigating potential threats.  In the public debate, the image of these threats was always young Arab men with Saudi Arabian passports who might fly planes into buildings in pursuit of a divine pay-0ff.

But there aren’t so many such people.  It’s easier to track domestic activists who organize openly–and in English.  Most of the anti-terror action we’ve seen from the US government has been targeted at environmental and animal rights activists.

Scott Crow says that virtually all of the organizing meetings he sets up include police and FBI informants, identifiable because they have obviously eaten more protein and spent more time in the weight room than the other attendees.

The Constitutionality, justice, and wisdom (is this a good way to spend police time and money?) is all subject to question.  I’m interested in what you think; here, however, I just want to talk about how this kind of repression is supposed to work in a liberal democratic country like the United States.

Repression is all about setting boundaries of acceptable political conduct.  In authoritarian states, which use a panoply of tactics to limit activities, assembly, and speech, very little is permitted, and all kinds of people end up sharing common grievances against the government.  That’s why, when such states open up a little, they encounter far more dissent than they imagined.

In liberal democratic states, effective repression targets a narrower band of people, and it’s usually justified in terms of limiting particular tactics (violence!), but Crow’s surveillance suggests that the US government views some ideas as more likely to lead to violence.  This should be scary.

Repression works in the United States when most Americans are convinced that those subject to prosecution are crazy and/or dangerous–that is, not like them.  It’s all about maintaining a border between “radicals” and more mainstream activists who might make more moderate claims more moderately.  In disparaging and distancing themselves from those people, the moderates effectively maintain the boundaries set by the government.  Thus, labor unions and civil rights activists in the 1950s and early 1960s steered clear of people who might have a Communist past, sometimes explicitly and proudly.

Repression falls apart when those moderates become convinced that the targets of government scrutiny aren’t so dangerous or different after all, and make common cause with them, at least in challenging the government.  They like to say that it’s like the canary in the coal mine, the more radical, committed, and sometimes less coherent, are the easier targets for repression, but someone else is always next.

Activists struggle to find ways to protect their own radical flanks, without necessarily throwing in with them.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

More on the Tepid TEA (Party)

Posted on May 29, 2011 by David S. Meyer

Every time I log on to the world, there’s more evidence that the Tea Party movement’s moment is passing.

We see the strength of American social movements in their organizations, their ideas, and their activities.  (We’ve covered much of this over the past few months, here, here, here, and here–and elsewhere.)

On this last point, the signs of decline are hard to ignore–and opponents are quick to point them out.

At ThinkProgress, Alex Seitz-Wall posts a list of Tea Party demonstrations, this year and last, noting much smaller turnouts and even fewer rallies.   Are we getting to the bottom of the tea pot?

(There’s a similar story, with numbers and sources, at there’s a similar story, with numbers and sources, at the anarchist site, Infoshopnews.)  And here’s a table Moveon posted:

Demonstrations and rallies are only part of a social movement’s repertoire, but for a movement, the  numbers game is unavoidable–and unwinnable over even the medium haul.

The frequent, and sometimes relatively large, demonstrations Tea Partiers staged over the 2010 set a baseline of comparison that activists will be hard-pressed to surpass.  Organizing large demonstrations takes a lot of time and money, and getting people to turn out requires a sense of urgency and efficacy.  It’s not always the appropriate priority for a social movement.

Republicans, expressing more and less credible fealty to Tea Party ideals (not always well-defined), made huge electoral gains in 2010, and now are trying to find ways to deliver on their promises.  Much of the politics has moved indoors.

Meantime, the Tea Party’s rather ill-defined agenda has allowed elected officials to run with it off in different directions.  Rep. Paul Ryan’s budget, which included the end of Medicare as an entitlement, is one direction that hasn’t commanded enthusiasm at the grassroots. Senator Rand Paul voted against it.  And Senator Paul, who claims, with some credibility to have been a Tea Partier even before the Party started, has been working against the renewal of the Patriot Act and funding America’s current wars–not positions that have generated much enthusiasm from his Republican colleagues in Congress.

When you have an institutional ally, taking to the streets seems less urgent, particularly when there are alternative ways to pursue politics, like lobbying and campaigning.  Right now, the most important alternative for Tea Partiers seems to be the unfolding campaigns for the Republican Party’s presidential nomination.  Most of the hopefuls are trying to find ways to demonstrate their commitments to Tea Party voters within the Republican Party primaries, without hampering their ability to tack to the center during a general election campaign.  It’s not pretty.

Most people try to find the most direct and least disruptive way to get what they want from politics.  For most of those who supported the Tea Party last year, it’s no longer through large rallies.  Organizers know this–or should–and try to find ways to take advantage of what their supporters do want to do.  Sometimes, it’s local politics; sometimes it’s national campaigns; sometimes it’s just giving money.  We’ll watch to see how much of any of these alternatives is actually happening.

When the turnout at the grassroots diminishes, the Tea evaporating, what’s left will be more intense, even bitter.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

You Can’t Count on the Courts to ________ Social Change

Posted on May 27, 2011 by David S. Meyer

“Scarcely any political question arises in the United States that is not resolved, sooner or later, into a judicial question.” This is a tag from Alexis de Tocqueville’s monumental Democracy in America, published well over 150 years ago.

This is only half the story, however, as scarcely any judicial question arises that isn’t, sooner or later, turned into a political question.

Activists on the left and the right are often unduly focused on the courts, generally expecting far too much from judges, and then invariably overly outraged when they’re disappointed.  I think a lot of this has to do with a mythic misunderstanding of the most familiar Supreme Court decision in America, Brown v. Board of Education.

The most appealing way to understand that iconic decision is to see a Supreme Court, led by the politically savvy Earl Warren, recognized a social injustice (racially segregated schools) and an error in Constitutional interpretation (Plessy v. Ferguson), and fixed them both with a unanimous decision.

Activists love that version of the story, because it suggests that justice will prevail, even in the absence of popular support, political resources, or sustained activism.  This is the wrong reading of Brown and the history of segregation in America, and teaches exactly the wrong lessons to activists today.

Today’s lesson is that a judicial decision doesn’t end the political conflict.  (Steve Boutcher and I published this argument in longer form a few years ago.)

This week, courts handed down decisions that pleased and infuriated political activists.

Wisconsin circuit court judge Maryann Sumi struck down the extremely controversial provision in the state’s budget that eliminated almost all collective bargaining in the state.  It wasn’t about the content of the legislation; rather, in the haste to handle a resistant Democratic minority, the legislature’s Republican majority violated Wisconsin’s open meetings laws.  (On the political battle, see earlier entries, including here.)

But that case will percolate up through Wisconsin’s courts to an increasingly politicized state supreme court, which might rule differently.  Even if not, Governor Walker still enjoys substantial majorities in the state legislature–although recall elections are on the horizon–and can pass the bill again.  It’s not that the respite provided by the court doesn’t matter, it’s just that it doesn’t end the larger political battle.

Meanwhile, the United States Supreme Court upheld a provision in a 2007  Arizona law that provides strict penalties for employers found to hire undocumented workers.  They’re required to use E-Verify to vet their workers.  The 5-3 ruling turns on technical assessments of E-Verify’s reliability and interpretations of the text of the Immigration and Reform Control Act of 1986.  On these points, and on many others, the well-educated and well-intentioned Supreme Court justices differ.

This ruling IS NOT about Arizona’s more recent, and even more provocative immigration legislation, nor does it provide a reliable prediction of how the Court will rule on that issue–when it reaches the Court.  The laws are different, and the personnel and politics of the Court could easily be different by the time that case is argued.

Of course, it’s not just the immigration issue percolating up to the Supreme Court.  This week, a federal judge in Virginia ruled that corporations can make direct contributions to political campaigns.  Activists also wait, with a mix of optimism and dread, for cases about same sex marriage and mandatory health insurance to reach the Supreme Court, scrutinizing every sigh in oral argument and looking for signals.

No judicial decision on any of these matters is going to put the issue to rest; rather, it will provide a target and stepping stone for, uh, more politics.  Brown appeared at a relatively early point in the modern civil rights movement’s history–before Rosa Parks refused to move, and lots of contested politics followed.  And lots of schools remained (and remain) essentially segregated, if not by statute.  Nor did Roe v. Wade resolve the issue of abortion rights; it provided a basis for much more litigation, activism, and very polarizing politics–up to, at least, this point, nearly 40 years later.

The savvy activist knows that the judiciary is a place to make claims, and that a decision (good or bad) can be useful in raising money and mobilizing the base.  But it’s only one place.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , | 4 Comments

The Movement Veto and Medicare

Posted on May 25, 2011 by David S. Meyer

When Democrat Kathy Hochshul won a normally Republican Congressional seat in special election in upstate New York, all of the party regulars weighed in with their distinctive spins on what this means or doesn’t mean for the elections coming up in 2012.  (This is normal politics; take a look at the glee with which Republicans greeted the election of Senator Scott Brown in Massachusetts.)

The Democrats are having an easier time of it, arguing that Republicans in competitive districts are going to have to spend a lot of time explaining their votes for Paul Ryan’s budget, particularly the conversion of Medicare into a voucher plan subsidizing private insurance.  Critics are quick to note that this will save money only if coverage is restricted and that most people are unlikely to be able to afford to buy the coverage Medicare now provides.

Understandably, voters–who generally support Medicare–are upset.  The Republican answers [a) we won’t change anything for anyone over 55; b) this is the only way to save Medicare; or c) the Democrats are worse] haven’t worked so far.  Rep. Ryan says this is because Republicans haven’t been clear and steady enough–and the Democrats are attacking them with tv ads.  (Shocking!)

The Republican Party’s leadership has so far enforced discipline on this budget–only four House Republicans voted against the budget; only five Senate Republicans voted against it.  But candidates will make their own calls as they interpret the tea leaves of this special election and the many polls that will follow.

Social movements in the US are closely tied to mainstream politics and parties.  The Tea Party reminds me of a number of movements on the left, animated by mostly middle-class, educated, white people who are normally engaged in mainstream politics.  I’ve made comparisons with the nuclear freeze movement in the recent past.

Over time, social movements can enforce something of a veto within a political party, most successfully in national elections.  Although a few Democrats who oppose abortion rights and a few Republicans who support them get elected to the Senate, it’s hard to imagine that a candidate for the presidential nomination could win with the wrong position for her party.

Many movements are easier for candidates to fudge.  In 1984, six of the seven Democratic candidates supported a nuclear freeze, in accord with a strong political movement and strong popular support (consistently over 70%) (much stronger, in polls, than the Tea Party).  But they coupled their support for a freeze with other positions that contradicted it–like advocating new nuclear weapons systems.  In effect, they defined a freeze they could support without alienating people who might otherwise vote for them.

Is the Tea Party really tagged with the Ryan Budget and the end of Medicare?  (In Orwell’s terms, this is ending Medicare to save it.  Or was that Lt. William Calley?)  If so, that’s a rough spot for the movement which expressed other, more popular, goals.  If so, candidates seeking to cultivate movement support in the primaries are going to have a lot to explain to independent voters once they win nominations.

While the freeze was organized around a specific policy proposal that institutional supporters redefined and diluted, the Tea Party’s core goals were never so sharply articulated–and there’s a great deal of conflict among national Tea Party groups–and between those organizations and grassroots groups–on just what the movement is about.  (Ask about immigration or social issues to see.)

By hanging the Republican Party and the movement on a very specific–and very unpopular–program, Paul Ryan and the Republican leadership have served neither very well.  I’m certain Democratic consultants are grateful.  The open question at the moment is whether movement activists or Republican regulars will be the first to defect from the proposal.  (I’d bet on the movement.)

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment