Norquistian Boogeyman

by digby

Jonathan Chait expands upon his Sunday op-ed, noting that I offered up “a fairly cogent and persuasive, albeit profanity-laced, case against Lieberman.” (I did say shit and fuck once each. Oops, I did it again.)

Chait reiterates that he dislikes Lieberman but is concerned that if Lieberman loses he will become a martyr. I suppose he probably will. But he will be one without a platform in the US Senate. He will do much less damage as a Fox News analyst or an AEI fellow — or even Sec Def reporting to his good pal Dick Cheney. (Even I don’t think he’s worse than Rumsfeld — who is?) In any event, he will no longer be an elected Democrat from a liberal state deriding his own party and enabling the Republicans. That is its own reward.

Chait worries even more that if Lieberman actually wins the primary, or the general as an independent, he’ll be angry and alienated from liberals. Frankly, I’m not sure what that means. Will the man of integrity suddenly begin changing his stance on the issues? If the worry is that he will become more rhetorically abusive toward the base of his own party, well what else is new? He already went on the op-ed pages of the Wall Street Journal and said we were undermining national security by speaking out against the president. His disdain for us (and I would argue in that case, for American values) is manifest already and has been for years.

Chait’s larger point is that the netroots are a danger to liberalism because of our alleged “party line.” He begins with this:

Since I have space here, I’d offer up two prime examples of the party line. The first is Iraq. To be on the side of the angels, one must favor withdrawal and believe that there was no rational case to be made for war given the publicly-known information in 2002.

I find this interesting because to the best of my knowledge, virtually the entire Democratic party is in favor of some kind of withdrawal from Iraq. This is a mainstream position. Indeed, there were only six Democrats in the senate who voted against the Levin-Reed resolution that called for a phased redeployment: Sens. Mark Dayton of Minnesota, Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, Mark Pryor of Arkansas, Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, Bill Nelson of Florida and Ben Nelson of Nebraska. Only one of them is taking heat for his position on Iraq. There is no litmus test — but Blue State Democrats in safe seats who defy their constituents’ wishes on this matter risk being challenged — by their constituents.

The second part of his argument — “one must … believe that there was no rational case to be made for war given the publicly-known information in 2002” is puzzling. After all, the rationale for the war in Iraq was absurd on its face: al Qaeda had attacked us so we attacked Iraq. We could have attacked New Zealand for all the sense it made.

Now I realize that they dazzled a lot of people with a lot of bullshit but the fact remains that even if the publicly known information had turned out to be true it still wouldn’t have made any sense. The world was full of potential threats. Why Iraq? Why then? Why the rush? Why alienate our allies? Why take our eye off the ball? Why not North Korea or Pakistan, both of which at that very moment presented a more obvious threat? Those are questions that have not to this day been adequately answered. Hell, the questions have barely even been asked by the mainstream press.

This was not a tough call on the merits, regardless of the lame demagogic gobbledygook (drone planes anyone?) about Iraq’s “weapons of mass destruction.” That is unless you supported the ridiculous Bush Doctrine that permits the US to “take out” any country that might someday think of posing a threat. Or you agreed with the puerile notion that we had to prove our manhood in the middle east by kicking somebody’s ass — didn’t matter whose. I reserve the right to not support people who thought things like that — or who believed that it made sense after 9/11 to invade a country in the mid-east that had not attacked us. They were very foolish about something very serious.

I do not, however, think that the Democrats in congress believed any such thing. I’m not so naive that I don’t know that the political exigencies of the moment put Democrats in a tough spot. I wish they had had the courage to stand up and say, “wtf?” but the militant zeitgeist demanded that they genuflect to the flag every five minutes or be called terrorist loving traitors. It was not easy, particularly since the memory of the Democratic votes against the first Gulf War seemed fresh to many of those geezers.

Still, 22 Democratic senators and Jim Jeffords voted against the use of force resolution, so it’s not like this view was way out there. And I have no doubt that not one of those 23 saw even the remotest justification for war with Iraq. (I seriously doubt the rest of them did either.)

Today, most Democrats who voted for the resolution have found ways to publicly distance themselves from that moment. I think they know that history is going to judge them harshly for their weakness. It will judge America harshly. But while I do insist on my prerogative to boldly assert that up was up and down was down back in 2002, I’m not suggesting that every Democrat who voted for the war be booted out of office. I haven’t seen any evidence that anyone is doing that. You will recall that Democrats, including the entire blogosphere, supported John Kerry and John Edwards in overwhelming numbers, both of whom voted for the war. It just ain’t so that we are hardline doctrinaire on this subject. (At least until Commandante Markos orders us to be.)

As for political writers who continue to insist that the war was rational in 2002, I no longer respect their opinions. So what?

Chait’s other example of a party line is that we bloggers demand that everybody kiss our asses:

To be in the good graces of the activists, one must believe not only that the rise of Internet activism has some potentially positive ramifications, but to signal that one accepts a Manichean battle between virtuous people-powered activists and corrupt Washington insiders.

I am unaware of that requirement, but speaking for myself I could not care less if people believe that we are the second coming or even that they think “the rise of Internet activism has some potentially positive ramifications.” (I do have to wonder how much you have to hate internet activism to think that there aren’t even any potential positive ramifications of it, though.) Perhaps there are those who feel that politicians must signal that they accept the “Manichean battle between virtuous activists and corrupt Washington insiders” but I didn’t get the memo. Requiring everyone to see us as heroes is a little grandiose, even for the elite blogofascist cabal.

It should be noted that the observation that the political establishment is corrupt is pretty mundane stuff, however. It’s been a staple of politics forever. And the belief that “the people” need to take back control of their government is also pretty mundane. It’s even got a name. It’s called populism. Only the delivery system is new. After nearly two decades of DLC corporatism and Democratic losses, did anyone not anticipate that that there might be exactly this sort of backlash? Whose fault is that?

It’s certainly fair enough to criticize populism on the merits. There are ongoing debates within the blogosphere on that very topic. I will admit that defending the political establishment probably won’t find you Kos level readership (a sad reality of which I’m sure that the publishers of TNR are all too well aware.) But the blogging marketplace is wide open to anyone and if someone wants to defend the establishment they are free to do so and there are plenty of blogs that do it. There are even official establishment blogs. The worst thing they face from people who disagree is criticism.

Chait quotes Kevin Drum who wrote:

Last I heard, Grover Norquist had built an entire career on insisting that every last Republican politician kiss his pinkie ring and pledge never to vote for a tax increase. And the Republican Party seems to have done pretty well as a result.

and then adds:

I think the citation of Norquist is telling. Some of the liberal internet activists consciously fashion themselves after Norquist (who, by the way, fashions himself after Lenin) and would like to replicate on the left the comintern-like apparatus he has constructed on the right. It is true that the Norquist mentality has helped Republicans win elections. But plenty of conservatives wonder whether it has actually helped advance conservatism. Government, after all, has grown under Republican rule, and the fact that it now funnels more of its largesse to GOP-affiliated interests is of small comfort to honest conservatives.

(That’s actually a cheap shot at Drum. He was making a rhetorical argument not advancing that theory.)

If there are those in the blogoshpere who are consciously fashioning themselves after that corrupt putz Grover Norquist, I’m unaware of it, and I think I’d know. The only people anywhere who are wearing that particular tinfoil are the writers of TNR.

Certainly Democrats of all stripes have awakened to the notion that the partisan infrastructure the Republicans created must be met with something. We are at a huge disadvantage. But that isn’t a netroots thing. Ask John Podesta or Simon Rosenberg or any number of others who are working to set up think tanks and publishing houses and all kinds of organizations that have nothing to do with the netroots. I honestly don’t know what the hell he’s talking about.

I would welcome a little more organization and communication in the netroots and look forward to the medium maturing as an effective way to advance liberalism. But all we’ve got right now is a very loose confederation of activists, writers, gadflys and humorists — and millions of readers — who all agree that Republicans (and Joe Lieberman) are bad for the country and we are doing whatever we can to replace them. We also tend to agree that something has gone awry in the Democratic party — the fact that we are completely out of power being the big clue. We discuss that a lot. Some bloggers raise money for candidates. Some write emails to each other about topics they are interested in and try out new ideas on each other. Is that really so threatening?

It is true that the Norquist mentality has helped Republicans win elections. But plenty of conservatives wonder whether it has actually helped advance conservatism. Government, after all, has grown under Republican rule, and the fact that it now funnels more of its largesse to GOP-affiliated interests is of small comfort to honest conservatives.

Yes, isn’t that something? Now that it is falling under its own venal, corrupt weight, all the “honest conservatives” are suddenly realizing that it isn’t conservative at all. How very convenient. Chait is falling for the oldest trick in the book and my regular readers know exactly what I’m talking about. Conservatism cannot fail, it can only be failed. (If you want to see a purge in full glory, keep your eyes on the right if they lose the election. Nobody does it better. Not even Stalin.)

Chait claims the blogosphere is paranoid and sectarian and he worries what it will do to liberalism. I’m frankly worried about the paranoia and sectarianism at The New Republic, a magazine I’ve been reading for 30 years. This notion that Kos is some sort of commander of the blogofascist empire is ridiculous. Kos is a successful, respected blogger, but believe me, I don’t take orders from anybody and I don’t know any other bloggers who do. The blogosphere is a kind of organism. To the extent there’s a hierarchy, it’s not manufactured, it’s organic, and there is no recognized leadership — there’s readership. This idea of a Stalinist comintern is a misunderstanding of epic proportions. The blogosphere has the most open distribution of power of any human endeavor I’ve ever participated in. If a certain amount of groupthink occurs, it’s certainly no more than what you see at the DLC — or The New Republic.

People in Washington need to wrap their minds around the fact that this stuff really is bubbling up from below and it’s real. Bloggers are merely in the vanguard of a rising leftwing populist sentiment around the country. It is a predictable reaction when a party ceases to be responsive to its voters. Liberalism has been moribund for some time now. This is a chance to at least begin the process of resuscitation and could be used by the political establishment as a useful counter-weight to help drag the country back from the brink of rightwing extremism.(If that’s what they want, that is.) Smart politicians will accept this and find a way to use its strength strategically, not fight it.

Jay Rosen wrote in the comments to Chait’s post:

In my view… The TNR writers just cannot accept that liberal opinion journalism of the insider variety has been invaded or at least affected by the unbelievably crude, overheated and totally unsavvy writers in the Kos, Townhouse orbit, and that people in politics, specifically the Democratic party, actually pay attention to these activist-loudmouths. The “perch” they thought TNR represented just isn’t the same in the Net era, which to them isn’t fair. They hate it. They wanted their turn to sneer at the unsubtleties of left activists so as to demonstrate TNR-style Washington savvy.

They went to good schools; they know people on the inside. They want those gates (around liberal opinion journalism) back up. The gates were good to them.

I didn’t say it, he did.

I would just again point out that the characterization of the “Kos Townhouse” orbit as being a group of “unbelievably crude, overheated and totally unsavvy … activist-loudmouths” is only partially correct. (I proudly wear the labels, others may not.) But to the extent you believe it’s true, keep in mind that it reflects the frustration of millions of politically active progressive citizens who have been scapegoated and derided for decades by the political insiders who now find themselves on the other end of the attack. These people are the base of the Democratic Party. If people think the party can prevail in this modern hyper-partisan era by continuing to insult its most active and ardent supporters, then have at it. But no one should be surprised then when those supporters decide to take matters into their own hands. Democracy is untidy that way.

.