Cynics and the malaise of the Left

I recently received an email from a friend in reply to someone's concern that Bill Clinton's book will somehow hurt the Kerry campaign (emphasis mine):

Actually Kerry has done really well just keeping a low profile lately and letting Bush screw himself.

And it has been a refreshing reminder with Clinton's re-emergence what it's like to have a president who can talk policy and frank personal stories with out sounding like a fetal-alcohol-afflicted second grader.

I hope it makes folks expect more from their current leaders... and then come to the conclusion that these guys don't have it.

But then again the cynic in me wants Bush re-elected so that he has 4 more years of bad karma to really put the nail in the coffin of this craziness so we never see it again. I fear Kerry would have a brutal presidency and the media would hound every small preceived mistake. Heaven forbid if there's a major attack under his watch or the economy has more troubles.

I'm hoping that the cynic in my friend will go into hiding on voting day. :)

This brings up an important point. Unfortunately, this view is shared by many progressives, and chief among them, if you actually buy what he is saying, is Ralph Nader (of course, his status as progressive is now in doubt, considering his current GOP philandering -- in Oregon and Arizona -- and the right wing Reform Party pandering). This is the view which, more unfortunate than ironic, hurts the progressive cause more than any right wing ideology. It's the idea that you're willing to lose in hope that that others will eventually come to their senses and see that your side is the correct one. Hoping for a revolution. This is disappointing and discouraging to me.

To me, progressives who think this way are missing the point. Just as our modern world has been a source of lament for those conservatives who can't accept the way our society has changed and evolved, ironically so too has it become for the idealogue progressives. They fail to be realistic in how they regard the world, on how it is not black and white from their end either. Since the golden age of liberal activism, the 1960s, the world has come a long way in terms of social, cultural, and economic progress. In a negative way, it has resulted in the widening of the gap between the rich and the poor. But positively, it also resulted in the growth and power of the middle class, the result of "leveling the playing field". This is another irony of the progressive movement. Forget about the right-dominated super-rich. The more the middle class grows in prosperity (those in the upper tier of this class might as well be considered "wealthy"), the more the lines between "conservative" and "liberal" are blurred within the class. More importantly, the richer it gets (or perceives it's getting), the more it is dependent on the current system of power (including the two party system), and the more it doesn't want to see its own power and influence slip. This makes it difficult, if not impossible, for there to be a scenario where one political extreme will be so heavily denounced that the other extreme will wipe it out completely. Despite everything that's gone wrong with the Bush presidency so far, there will not be enough of a backlash to move it in our direction permanently. The power structure and spin machine will see to that. His supporters will cling to every last shred of rationality to backing their guy and defending him. Currently, there is a liberal backlash against the conservative mainstream. As we've seen in the past, this backlash usually leads to the general ouster of that establishment. But then eventually, this leads to a backlash against the left. This is the ebb and flow of politics and society. This is the way it's been since the beginning of organized civilization.

In fact, if you really want to be cynical, you can say the result is that the Left will never, ever, be firmly in power. The system of power is firmly in the hands of corporations that control our information, reward the right wing, and perhaps control how we vote. The best we can do is push for a balance, to move society to (gasp!) the center (oh sure, I'm talking about spreading wealth and power around to everyone else -- the lefty ideology -- but it's more to balance out the power of corporate-dominated right). This is disheartening for those looking for utopia, but we shouldn't lay down and give up and let Bush win. Because then it makes it that much harder to keep whatever limited control we have on our lives. Our progressive victories of the past (civil rights and liberties, separation of church and state, medical breakthroughs, reproductive rights, gay rights, truly fair taxation) will be attacked, distorted, and perhaps done away with (eventually) with the Right in power. Our environmental decline will steepen sharply if we stay with the current administration's policies of rewarding polluting corporations, loosening EPA standards, pulling out of eco-treaties, fighting wars to keep our oil interests. And if not only for oil, wars will be fought just to spread this ideology, under the guise of "anti-Terror", "liberty", "freedom", and "democracy". Of course, the cynic in me says that ideology will never be the real reason. It's oil, baby.

This is what we have to lose. We can't forget that.

We progressives need to be realistic and see the system for what it is and work within it to push our agenda. We can't afford to let Bush win -- whether it's because of not voting due to hopeless apathy (or worse, ego-centric protest of the two-party system), or because of dividing our votes between also-ran spoilers/idealogues and viable candidates. When the opportunities are there to take back some of the power, we shouldn't waste them. This is one of those opportunities -- Bush and the Republicans are vulnerable. If we progressives can work together -- vote together -- we can take back the White House and Congress. If we win, then we can push leftward, hold our flawed president accountable. We can hash out ideals later. As Eric Alterman says, "Let's just deal with those issues when we get there...(for all the problems that Kerry presents) wouldn't it be great to have those problems?"