The Democratic Party and Its Base

Jane Hamsher nails it in a stern letter to Elizabeth Edwards telling her never to embrace rightwing attacks on the Democratic base:

There are any number of ways you can answer that question well and none of them involve attacking MoveOn. They’re out there on the left so you can look “moderate.” They’re saying what needs to be said, opening the conversation up so John Edwards isn’t considered the left-wing fringe loon that nobody should listen to. Understand that they have contributed a lot to the anti-war movement and that from a practical standpoint, the Edwards campaign needs the solid support of the base to get where he needs to go and everybody’s feeling a bit played this week because nobody other than MoveOn seems to want to take on the carefully orchestrated dog-and-pony show that just bought us a few more Friedman Units of war. And we’re not very happy when the people we defend turn around and start kicking them for it.

We love you. We want to love you.

Knock it off.

Elizabeth Edwards is as close to the Netroots as any mainstream Democrat. So why doesn't she understand the 11th Commandment, as Ronald Reagan famously called it: "thou shalt not speak ill of a fellow Republican."

The problem for Democratic leaders is they simply don't understand who their base is. They think their base consists of a broad group of working people and retirees who care about jobs and wages and benefits like health care.

They don't think this working-class base actually thinks, it just kinda eats - like a herd of cows grazing on grass - and doesn't think much beyond its next meal, or maybe the Social Security check that will pay for meals when it gets too old to graze.

They don't think this working-class base really cares about "big" issues like war, justice, Constitutional rights, capitalism, and the future of the planet.

So when they encounter Democrats who do care about these "big" issues, they think we're a bunch of pain-in-the-ass lefty agitators who speak for nobody but ourselves.

Where do they get this idea of their base? In part from campaigning on the streets, where they meet lots and lots of people who are not their base - including non-voters, independents, and Republicans. And in part from going to fundraisers with rich special interests where activists are never seen or heard. 

Jane sees a deeper problem - they're afraid of us:

I realize many Democrats are just as frightened of the progressive movement as they are of the Republicans and were probably quite gleeful about getting to take MoveOn down a peg, but this only goes to underscore how woefully out of touch they are with what is going on in this country and how distant the perspective of the voting public is from the wisdom of the beltway brahmins.

Why would they be afraid of us? First, because we make demands on them that conflict with the demands of the special interests they want to extort money from in the form of campaign contributions. Second, because we expect our demands to be met - with action, not talk. 

So how do we make our elected Democrats take us seriously?