Can the Progressives Ever Win?

Author Laura Flanders Thinks So, and She Wants to Tell You Why

originally published June 20, 2007

Suzanne Shaker

Laura Flanders

Nationally syndicated radio host, political activist and author Laura Flanders will be in Athens this week talking about her newest book, Blue Grit: True Democrats Take Back Politics from the Politicians. Published this spring, the book examines the present-day issues facing the Democratic Party and concerns itself specifically with the disparate relationship between the party’s national leadership and its neglected grassroots activists. Blue Grit emerges not only as a documentary of the days since the Democratic defeat in 2004, but also as a how-to guide for Democratic success. Flanders is the host of “RadioNation,” broadcast on Air America Radio, as well as the founding director of the Women’s Desk at the media watch group Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting, or FAIR. Flanders recently talked with Flagpole from New York about her book and its assessment of progressive politics in America.

Flagpole

In the introduction to Blue Grit, you describe the book as “a snapshot of the American political landscape.” How is that landscape different from that which readers see on network news?

Laura Flanders

Well, for one thing, in the book I report on a picture in which people actually matter. I believe most of the coverage we get in the mainstream media really only brings us the horserace. And while we criticize this horserace coverage, what’s wrong with it is it makes it look as if the only players that matter in politics are the horses running around the track. This book is trying to redirect attention into the stands, into the bleachers, where I say it’s the people, it’s the grassroots activists, it’s the voters, it’s the people with passion on the ground that make the difference.

I also think we’re not the blue-red divided nation that our media led us to perceive with those election night electoral maps. You get the impression of the country as a red vs. blue sandwich: blue on the outside and red on the inside. It’s really not that way. If you look closer at the county maps, this is a very purple place where the victory goes to the candidate that can eek out a narrow margin. Again, the foot soldiers really matter. The possibility for progressive change exists every place.

Flagpole

The idea of a purple America was certainly challenged during that election season. Did the 2004 election season spur you to write this book?

Laura Flanders

Yes. I spent election night on Air America listening to Democratic voters’ hearts breaking from coast to coast. These are people who had dug into their pockets and shared their money, address books and their time with their colleagues to try to get George W. Bush and Dick Cheney out of the White House. They were just devastated. I spent the night trying to cheer people up. I said look, it’s not all bad. There were progressive victories that you might not expect. We saw the minimum wage raised in supposedly red states, Florida and Nevada, through ballot initiatives. Ballot initiatives that won by a two to one majority in every part of those states: rich or poor, rural or urban, conservative or liberal. We saw progressives elected at the local level in Montana in the governor’s race. And I went on like this for a while and I woke up the next morning and thought, “Was I just dreaming?” Maybe I was just kind of kidding myself.

So, as I went off to the country, the question seemed to me either the country is indeed awash in conservative values or someone is just not doing politics right. And what I came back with was the sense that a lot of what our Democratic leaders tell us is impossible is not impossible. Progressives were scoring victories in some of the most unlikely portions of this country and that’s what I wanted to write about.

Flagpole

Who are the Blue Grit Democrats and how is their vision for the Democratic Party different from that of the party’s leadership?

Laura Flanders

They’re both the activists with courage, vision and the tough stuff it takes to achieve the seemingly impossible, and they’re also the folks with the pesky stick-to-it-tiveness that can make those in power kind of uncomfortable. Kind of like that grit in the bottom of your shoe…. So, they are both the grassroots visionaries, but they’re also the organizers: people who are not accepting the limits set for them by the Democratic leadership. Instead, they’re pursuing things like raising minimum wages; changing health coverage laws; working to bring troops home from Iraq; working to change the immigration rules where they live; working for things like marriage equality in a climate that says it’s completely hostile for that; working to preserve women’s reproductive rights at a time when our leadership is being ever more quiet on that topic. That’s how they differ. They see that progressive change is possible, but we just have to work to make it happen. The leadership, I’m afraid, tends to believe that progressive change is scary and you have to concede to the center to get elected.

Flagpole

Why was the Democratic Party successful during the midterm elections?

Laura Flanders

Well, I think, for one thing, you had a lot of people in the years between 2004 and 2006 deciding maybe the Democrats didn’t know all there was to know about how to run elections and deciding to organize for themselves and get active in new ways. The margin for the Democrats in the House was really won by candidates like Carol Shea-Porter in New Hampshire’s First District; candidates who have been told, as she was, that her district wasn’t worth the fight. It was held by a Republican. It wasn’t winnable and if anyone could win it, then she couldn’t win it. She was told by Rahm Emanuel, the head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, she was way too far left and too far out there with her opposition to the Iraq War. Nonetheless, she went ahead and fought. She raised money on the Internet. When there was no money coming from the higher-ups, she was able to raise it from below. She pulled together a camp staff of largely retired grandmothers, and she’s in the House today. There is a lot of activism on the Internet at the grassroots [level], new voters showing interest in a congressional race that have never shown interest in such a race before. There is new money being raised in new ways. I think a congressional race was a chance for a lot of people to send a signal that they were not only fed up with the Republicans, but they weren’t going to wait for the O.K. from the Democrats before they got involved behind candidates they actually cared about.

Flagpole

In your book, you seem to believe the GOP has previously connected better with its base. How can the Democratic Party connect more efficiently with its base?

Laura Flanders

You’ve a sort of ironic situation on the right. You have the Republican policies certainly servicing the elite, but the party’s organizers have a very healthy respect for their mass base. The Democratic Party, on the other hand, has created what I call a penthouse party: this all top-floor suites with very little respect for the need for forces on the street. And it’s the Blue Grit Democrats I’m worried about that are trying to change that.

Flagpole

Who is the Democratic base?

Laura Flanders

It’s no mystery. It’s people with incomes under $50,000 a year; an overwhelming majority of Democratic people are living in cities. It’s people of color, women, particularly single women, African Americans, Latinos, it’s young people. The demographic is also gay and lesbian people, Native Americans. The Democratic base isn’t hard to identify. It’s just been the case that the Democrats have tended to treat that base with complete disdain. On the one hand, you have the Republican Party kind of currying favor with their base and the people of their margins - whether you’re talking the Christian right, or the NRA - making promises to their base because they know those are the ground troops, the foot soldiers who will turn the race their way and get the vote out. On the Democratic side, you have this lovers’ relationship because they treat their base like lepers. And the groups at the margins, whether it’s the war movement or the fair trade movement, they kind of keep them at arm’s length.

Flagpole

How soon can we expect to see the Blue Grit Democrats impact national elections?

Laura Flanders

Well, I think we have seen an impact already. Not enough of one to satisfy those Blue Grit Democrats I’m talking about, of course. Don’t forget they’re a pesky bunch. But the election of ’06 certainly indicated that grassroots money, 'net roots money, grassroots activism, candidates with courage, and candidates with heart can change the face of Congress. What we’ve seen in this Congress so far is the party leadership - that a year ago didn’t even want to talk about resolutions to bring troops home from Iraq - was being forced to debate different variations of resolutions, all of which claim to want to bring those troops home….

There’s progress happening. People are cutting their teeth. I think it’s going to take a while for these Blue Grit Democrats that I’m saying are a tide rising on the left of our political spectrum to decide for themselves whether the party is going to change to reflect their activism, their engagement and their agenda - or not. In which case, I think there is every possibility that those same activists could decide to take all their savvy and skills and go somewhere else.

Flagpole

Here in Georgia, the Republican Party is more powerful than ever. Is there hope that Democrats can turn that around?

Laura Flanders

Well, they certainly couldn’t do worse than they’ve been doing. And part of why I wrote this book was to point out Democrats weren’t just doing badly because the majority of Americans didn’t agree with their opinions. They weren’t doing well because in many parts of the country, the Democratic Party nationally has just written off the state. There hasn’t been a functioning Democratic Party in Georgia on the ground doing any kind of grassroots work for longer than most people can remember. Now, Howard Dean is paying every Democratic Party in the states to hire four staff workers. It makes a big difference. So yeah, the Republicans have been cleaning up in a third of all the states in the country because the Democrats weren’t even trying.

Flagpole

So they’re doing better?

Laura Flanders

Let’s hope.

Aubrey Smith

WHO: Laura Flanders
WHERE: UGA Student Learning Center, Room 148
WHEN: Tuesday, June 26, 5:15 p.m.
HOW MUCH: FREE!