Remobilizing the Demobilized

Republicans cannot win the midterm elections. They are walking shitpiles of failure, corruption, racism, anarchy, insanity and proud stupidity. They cannot win.

The Democratic Party, however, can very easily lose. And probably will, unless we get out there and vote for them, even though they don't deserve it.

At the Nation, Chris Hedges remembers Obama's forgotten base:

That is the tragic and perilous irony of this political moment: the people with the most faith in the president and the Democratic Party are the hardest hit by the continuing economic disaster; it's this brute fact that's driving the so-called enthusiasm gap between liberals and conservatives. More than frustration with the lack of a public option or anger at a White House that seems to relish insulting the "professional left," the flagging enthusiasm among Obama's '08 base is the product of a kind of cognitive dissonance between hope and reality. "Like a lot of people in my generation, I was really inspired by you and by your campaign and message that you brought," a 30-year-old law school graduate told the president during a live town hall on CNBC recently. "And that inspiration is dying away. It feels like the American Dream is not attainable to a lot of us.... I really want to know, is the American Dream dead for me?"

And here's where we get to the perilous part. Even if most of the midterm outcome is already determined, the margins matter tremendously: just a few seats, possibly decided by just a few thousand votes, could make the difference between a Speaker Pelosi and a Speaker Boehner. Which brings us to another certainty: as bad as things are right now for Obama's base, a world in which Republicans control one or both houses of Congress is going to be far, far worse.

At No More Mister Nice Blog, Aimai explains how we got here, and points to the way forward.

Obama and the Dems demobilized their troops and sent them home before the job was half done, hell--before it was even begun. And we are paying for it now. ... I have wondered for a long time how to get real progressive issues and people in front of the camera long enough for an actual, real, progressive version of a third party--or hell even of the Democratic Party--to get some traction with the media. But it never seems to happen--I mean not since Haymarket or the Wobblies or the old Union strikes. There are a gazillion reasons for this historically having to do both with our media markets, corporate interests, and etc...but at the present moment it definitely arises from two phenomena: the media and the Democratic Party.

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The Democrats made a stunning error in demobilizing after the election. Its basically the same decision that Bush made in re the Iraqi army and its one that every government faces in a post war period. The Dems and Obama thought that winning the election meant it was time to turn the process of governing over to the governing class. They thought they didn’t need voters and rallies and money and agitation from the bottom up. They demobilized, shut down fundraising and organizing, told lots of funders to take a chill pill and basically, as Atrios observed today, told us all “I got this.”

I thought at the time it was a huge mistake. And it was—because they needed the raw, angry, energy of their voters to push through the health care bill, and now at the midterms. But you can’t tell people you don’t need them and then turn around and two months before a major election tell them you do need them. They get frustrated, complacent, rusty, disconnected. All armies do. You’ve got to keep your people in the game, keep them feeling needed and listened to. If you want them to be there to fight for you when you need their voices and their votes.

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But all is not lost. Far from it. Like I said people need to be needed. They need to be asked to do things. They want to do something, anything, to improve their lives and the lives of their neighbors. Obama and Reid and Pelosi need to come forward and say something shocking:

"We screwed up. We took your massive mandate and we came into power and we thought that we would be able to come into Congress and do what you asked. We relied on the good faith of the Republican party, its Senators and its Congressmen to put country ahead of pique. That was a mistake. In all the transitions from Republican to Democrat, and Democrat to Republican in the entire history of this country since we've had parties we have had no experience of the minority party simply being willing to burn down the house rather than permit the majority to do the work of the people. We came in facing two wars, a massive housing crash, skyrocketing unemployment, Bush's deficit spending, tax cuts, years of regulatory neglect of our mines, water, and food supply plus the looting of the treasury for Bush's TARP program and we thought the Republicans would actually let us try to fix a few of these problems for you. We were wrong.

We'll never make that mistake again. Its customary for the party in power to lose a few seats during a midterm election. That's because people often think that the government can get along without their input. They stay home because they are too busy, or they think things are going OK, or they want to punish the government because things aren't going OK. Well--if that's why you are planning to stay home think again. Things are not going OK. If the Republicans get into power in the House and Senate this country will go down in flames. We can't afford them. We can't afford their indifference to your plight, we can't afford their tax gifts to their wealthy friends, we can't afford their borrow and spend policies, we can't afford to let them repeal the health care protections you and your children rely on. We're sorry to have to ask this, we thought we didn't need your help, but if ever we needed you to through your shoulder to the wheel now is it. Come back to the fight with us. After we win we promise to invite you back to the table. We need you."

No, I don't think Obama or Reid or Pelosi is going to say that, so I'm saying it for them.