Let’s talk about articulating principles
A good friend sent along a Friday Daily Kos post by iLuvReading about Gen Z podcaster Luke Beasley’s trip to Ukraine.
In the video below, Beasley, 23, reflects on seeing the best and worst of humanity near the front lines over his two days there. He witnessed what Vladimir Putin and Russian forces are inflicting on the Ukrainian people. The random attacks seem aimed at demoralizing the populous and draining their will to fight. Back in Kiev, Beasley witnessed the aftermath of a drone attack and delivers a Ukrainian version of “Why We Fight.”
Russian propaganda, he suggested to soldiers, claims Ukrainian soldiers don’t know why they’re fighting. Or that this is Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s war. Or Joe Biden’s fault.
Some would laugh and tell him that they are fighting for their freedom and for their country. When Russians occupy towns, they torture, kill and rape people, they told Beasley. “And so we are fighting for our families. We are fighting for their physical safety and their futures.”
And that, Beasley believes, should make Americans hopeful. In the face of pain, death, and relentless onslaught, Ukrainians are still motivated to stand up for principles.
But more than that, “Many of them said we are fighting for what America stands for. We want to be more like America than Russia.” If only more Americans did.
America is failing their own principles under Donald Trump’s leadership, Beasley observes. “But at our best, it’s exactly right. We should be aligning with principles, the very principles that Ukrainian soldiers and civilians have articulated multiple times throughout this trip.”
Political narrowcasting
Democrats should be aligning with principles too, more than policies and “kitchen table issues,” whatever that’s supposed to mean.
Markos Moulitsas wrote a 2005 Daily Kos post, “The curse of the single issue groups.” The occasion was people insisting that choice was a core principle of the Democratic Party.
No, he argues, not to dismiss defending choice as good policy. He argued that single issue groups had hijacked the party “for their pet causes” instead of for championing universal principles. (I think of sidelining principles to run on a suite of issues as political narrowcasting.)
“So suddenly, Democrats are the party of abortion, of gun control, of spottend owls [sic], of labor, of trial lawyers, etc, etc., et-frickin’-cetera,” Markos complained. “We don’t stand for any ideals, we stand for specific causes. We don’t have a core philosophy, we have a list with boxes to check off.”
Since defeating Jim Crow, embracing equal rights and broadening the franchise, Democrats have had trouble voicing a core philosophy. Or broad principles like a right to privacy or to bodily autonomy, etc., without reducing them to specific policies, issues, or groups of competing marginalized people. As each group fought to gain a voice and greater political equality since the 1960s, Democrats became identified with the times’ loudest voices. Democrats might instead have portrayed each group’s historical struggles and liberation as an expression of deeper principles and values in which the party firmly believes. Say, in equal justice under law and basic fairness. Instead, we’ve made minority allies avatars of principles we fail to mention because we assume those are self-evident.
The behavior is not unlike Democrats passing legislation that lifts all Americans and then not promoting the hell out of what they’ve done so voters actually credit them for it. We incorrectly assume good policies speak for themselves. Donald Trump adds his name to pandemic recovery checks.
Markos wrote 20 years ago:
Problem is, abortion and choice aren’t core principles of the Democratic Party. Rather, things like a Right to Privacy are. And from a Right to Privacy certain things flow — abortion rights, access to contraceptives, opposition to the Patriot Act, and freedom to worship the gods of our own choosing, or none at all.
Another example of a core Democratic principle — equality under the law. And from that principle stem civil rights, gender equity, and gay rights. It’s not that those individual issues aren’t important, of course they are. It’s just that they are just that — individual issues. A party has to stand for something bigger than the sum of its parts.
We’ve forgotten that. Ukrainians under fire have not.
In meetings, I hear our principles acknowledged when people recite the Pledge of Allegiance and someone at the end shouts ALL! But it’s not a principle people identify with the Democratic Party. People see instead a bickering coalition of interest groups jockeying for political product placement. Fail to mention each and every one at every event and be accused of throwing the unmentioned under the bus.
When Black Americans took center stage during the Civil Rights Era, Democrats were perceived as the party of Blacks. Decades later, we were the party of LGBTQ people. Lately, because Democrats include all people in ALL, we are the party whose central focus appears to be trans people. It is something with which our opponents are more than pleased to tag us to “other” us.
Political narrowcasting makes it harder for people who are not [fill in the blank] to identify with Democrats, and easier for many from the dominant culture to back Trump because he centered them in his campaigns. They don’t see the Democratic Party as their advocates or as people who stand for a vision of America that includes them. Because they don’t know what Democrats stand for, just whom we stand with. Or don’t.
That’s contributed to Democrats’ falling poll numbers and independent voter registrations spiking. If we could figure out how to place our principles at the center of painting a beautiful tomorrow, we might pull our beloved country out of the fire.
But then, a lot of the greater “us” in the meantime have rejected American principles wholesale. So I don’t know anymore.
(h/t BF)
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