Politics has never been a pillow fight. It has always been intense. But since the days of Reagan, those on the left have usually felt it was necessary to be the adults in the room when surrounded by ignorant, greedy, or downright crazy people on the right. The right wing knows that we will ultimately be patsies, and they have used this to their advantage and our peril, over and over and over.
Nothing will change until WE change. I am not suggesting that we abandon our values or suddenly become irresponsible jerks on the political stage. I am suggesting, however, that the progressive-minded must give up the idea that we will win people over through persuasion, with polite appeals to their intellect and reason. That will not work. We have tried it for 35 years and things are only getting worse.
What will work is for progressive America to realize we have some strong assets, and to use these assets aggressively and ruthlessly to drive this country forward.
The things I am suggesting can be started today and produce some benefits in the near term. However, we must realize this is a problem that has been created over multiple generations and we need a strategy that will work over multiple generations to reverse the damage done by the right.
Without an organized opposition ...Let’s not kid ourselves. We are not organized. The closest thing we have come to an organized message in recent years was during the peak of the Occupy and Black Lives Matter movements. And in both of those cases, there was no real strategy. There was no real call to action. The action (other than mostly random protests) was never really defined.
This is not an opposition. It is a rabble. And don’t look to our Senators, Congressmen, and Presidential candidates for such leadership. Most of them aren’t progressives in the first place. And those who are genuine progressives are constrained by a Washington machine that is bigger than any of them. For example, during the Obamacare debate, we could not even get a single word of consideration for single payer or even for Medicare to negotiate drug costs.
Districts are so Gerrymandered now that we have no real prospects of ever capturing a Governing majority in the House, and one can count on the fingers of two hands the number of real Senate progressives service today. And then there is the structural over-representation of the smallest, most repressive states in the Senate and Electoral College.
We may win a national election here and there, but we are never really going to turn the course of this country from Washing DC.
We have assetsand it is about time we started using them vigorously.
BrExit, or should I say CAExit? Given the grim picture painted above, it is tempting to throw up one’s hands and say “Let’s just move to Canada” or “Maybe California should just secede from the USA.”
Let me be clear. I am not talking about secession. I am talking about using our assets to drag along the most ignorant parts of America with us. The strategy may sound a little like secession. It is not.
The facts are that the so-called red states, on average, are wards of the state. There are exceptions such as Texas and Georgia, but on average, the strongest red states are net takers from the blue states.
On average, the best universities are in the blue states (again with many good exceptions.) The red states have much greater poverty, higher incidence of teen pregnancy, higher rates of morbid obesity, lower IQ, and much lower lifetime earnings expectations. Let’s get real. The blue states have been carrying this country all along. And I mean no disrespect to the fine progressives living in red states. I live in a red state myself. I am simply saying we should recognize the reality as an asset.
We will never persuade Trump/Romney/McCain voters to vote for our candidates through force of logic. These voters are, by and large, fearful people with limited knowledge of the world. They respond to fears, not reason. We need to give them reasons they can understand for coming with us.
This will not happen overnight. It will take generations, but we must start now.
Bring out the heavy weaponsThis strategy recognizes that California is the technology center of the country and New York is the financial center. And not coincidentally, these are both progressive strongholds. Before we lose these strongholds, we need to build a progressive structure that becomes a direct challenge to the power center in Washington DC. How can this be possible without full-on secession?
I do not claim to be a Constitutional authority. However, I believe there are plenty of smart legal minds out there that can find ways to do everything I am suggesting while remaining in line with the US Constitution. And if we have to play legal hardball from time to time, so be it. With that lengthy preamble out of the way, here is the proposal:
The progressive stronghold states would quickly move to establish a “Progressive Planning Council”, which at first would be a multi-state advisory panel, being the first shot over the bow of the Trump administration. Ultimately this council would grow to include many states, and eventually be a body elected by popular vote in the participating states.
The council would act something like ALEC has done to advance repressive legislation nationally. But in this case, the activities would be highly transparent. We are proud of the progressive policies we would advance and invite the whole world to watch this process.
The Council would function somewhat like Brussels in the EC, except that it would never seek to be a governing body itself. Instead, it would be a clearinghouse for progressive standards. In order for a state to be a member in good standing, and thereby enjoy the considerable benefits of membership, they would have to enact legislation that is consistent with the standards maintained by the Council. States would have the freedom to craft their own legislation, and would be given a reasonable time to pass this legislation, but the laws would have to meet the minimum standards specified by the council. Her are some examples of legislative standards:
States must participate in the Council’s carbon cap-and-trade system State laws must prohibit all discrimination against LGBT States must adopt a minimum wage that is a living wage States must recognize health care as a human right and put plans in place for 100% coverage by xxxx date States must ban military-style automatic weapons except in special circumstances, ban magazines greater then 10 rounds, ban all gun show transactions, etc. States must recognize a 12-year education as a basic human right and make programs available that enable every citizen affordably to obtain a college degree if they are able and committed to the effort. States must be participants in the National Popular Vote program www.nationalpopularvote.com and so on. I offer these not as a manifesto, but as an example of the issues the Council would involve itself in. And what are those benefits?The progressive legislation itself would be a major benefit for millions of red staters. But we should recognize that some hardball will be necessary. This is where we start to get into some dicey conflicts with the Congress and the Interstate Commerce Clause. But I say, “bring it on.” These benefits are what will force Washington to respond with more democratic, progressive policies at the national level.
A primary benefit will be a “Buy Progressive” law that each participating state must adopt. This says that purchases by the participating states must give preference to other progressive member states when there is a choice of sources. The California state budget alone is $170B. The state budgets of all the progressive states would approach a trillion dollars. Most of that would be consumed and sourced within the state but there could easily be $100B a year in interstate preferences for progressive states.
Another example of benefits could be treatment of any residents of progressive states as in-state for college tuition purposes. A San Diego student could pay in-state rates at the University of Minnesota and a student from Buffalo could attend UC at the in-state rates.
There must be hundreds of similar benefits that would be perfectly Constitutional. The point here is not that this would be a huge economic factor. The point is to make red state residents fear that they are being left out of something good. Fear motivates.
And please note that there is no reason why Canadian provinces could not join this organization as well.
Is this realistic?Would this ever replace Congress? Would this ever cause the USA to crumble?
I doubt it, and I am not advocating for that. What it could do is force Congress and the individual non-progressive states to enact more progressive legislation and benefits to its citizens in order to keep the Council from overtaking Congress. Again, fear motivates.
The IS realistic. In fact, we already have a structure in place with the Zero Emission Vehicle (ZEV) initiative. There are already 10 states participating in that incentive system that functions very much in line with what I am describing above. California is the founder, and is joined by
Connecticut, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island and Vermont (see www.zevfacts.com/...)
That already looks like a good list of states to step up to the next level to become charter members of the Progressive Council. They represent about 1/3 of the nation’s GDP. That’s a pretty big deal. And over time, it is easy to imagine they could be joined by Minnesota, Washington state, Illinois, Virginia, and maybe Pennsylvania. That would be well over half the nation’s GDP. This would be a major threat to Washington DC, which is a good thing IMHO.
The time is now. Big parts of America are looking for a way to stop Trump, the Tea Party, the alt-Right and all the other existential threats that are today’s GOP.
