One particularly distasteful aspect of the recent neoconservative attacks on President Obama’s cautious strategy regarding the Iranian protests has been the incredibly smug self-assurance with which they assert that they know vastly more about what participants in movements for social justice are thinking and what they really need then does the “naïve” and “gullible” Barack Obama.
This is, to say the least, a somewhat odd view because not a single one of the leading neoconservatives – not a single one – has ever walked a picket line, much less felt what a policeman’s nightstick feels like when it cracks the thin layer of skin on the top of your skull and sends blood pouring into your eyes. Not a single one of them ever served in any position of any kind in the leadership or even the rank and file of any movement for social justice. Even in the privileged ivory-tower world in which they live, not a single one of them has ever published an article which seriously analyzed the strategy and tactics of any popular mass movement for social justice or basic democratic rights.
But this doesn’t seem to bother them at all. In their view, leading a mechanized tank brigade into battle is a complex task that requires a tremendous amount of specialized knowledge, field experience and study. Advising movements for social justice, on the other hand, is like Karaoke singing – some people may happen to be better at it than others, but anyone has a right to grab the mike.
Several days ago this arrogant attitude reached its intellectual reductio ad absurdum with the publication of an op-ed piece by John Bolton advocating the Israeli bombing of Iran’s nuclear installations. It contained the following assertion:

Significantly, the uprising in Iran also makes it more likely that an effective public diplomacy campaign could be waged in the country to explain to Iranians that such an attack is directed against the regime, not against the Iranian people. This was always true, but it has become even more important to make this case emphatically, when the gulf between the Islamic revolution of 1979 and the citizens of Iran has never been clearer or wider. Military action against Iran’s nuclear program and the ultimate goal of regime change can be worked together consistently.

Bolton is not alone in this view. Writing in Commentary magazine, Max Boot quoted this precise paragraph, describing Bolton’s article as a “compelling and courageous analysis.”
Most people’s first reaction to this notion is a kind of mental double-take. What? Wait a minute — is he really saying he thinks Iranians can be “effectively” convinced to accept the bombing of their country as something that is not directed at them and is even ultimately done in support of their struggle for democracy?
One possibility, of course, is that neoconservatives don’t honestly believe this idea at all. They consider the bombing of the Iranian nuclear sites to be necessary regardless of any collateral consequences it may have and they are simply tossing this notion out to deflect one major objection.
Unfortunately, that’s the optimistic scenario.
Even worse is the possibility that they actually do believe that Iranians can be convinced to view the bombing of at least some 6-14 major nuclear installations – many within 150 miles of Tehran – as ultimately supporting and helping them in their struggle to win greater democracy.
To get some sense of how wildly implausible this notion actually is, it is only necessary to read any of a number of recent commentaries that detail the extraordinarily complex divisions within Iranian society that have emerged since the recent election. These divisions include those within (1) the clerical establishment, where there are at least four major divergent political forces at work, (2) the regular military, elite military, paramilitary and police forces (3) the business community (4) the young (5) the secular nationalists, (6) the urban working class (whose level of support for Ahmadinejad now much less certain than before the election) as well as other social groups and then to try to imagine how the bombing of their country by Israel would strengthen or weaken the position of each of these groups in the struggle for democracy.

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You may not have seen this storyline yet, but I promise you, you will. Basically it argues that the Iranian protesters have been primarily inspired by the American creation of democracy in Iraq. Seeing the Iraqis vote, in this narrative, is what stimulated the Iranians to challenge their own clerical regime. The Fox News PR guys will call it a “tide of freedom unleashed by the United States” and the Iranian protesters will be described – as were the Iraqis — as yearning for American-style freedoms and hoping to make their country more like the U.S.
Regional experts who actually speak the major languages, read the speeches of the Iranian leaders and listen to the commentary in the Iranian street will tear out their hair and sputter that this is a profound cultural misunderstanding of how most Iranians actually think about reform. Consider the following analogy — imagine that in 1963 the then-Prime Minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru – noting on TV the clearly Gandhi-inspired, nonviolent tactics of the civil rights movement – assumed that the movement was actually generally inspired by the Indian example and led the Indian congress to unanimously pass a “Fraternal Resolution of Support and International Solidarity with American Blacks in their Heroic Struggle to create a Hindu Republic in the American deep South.”
Go ahead and laugh. But the notion that the Iranian protesters basic source of inspiration is the U.S. presence and activities in Iraq represents a level of American cultural misunderstanding of their motives that is equally misguided. Unfortunately in the absence of high-quality objective opinion polls, this cannot be empirically demonstrated. Moreover, because this notion serves the profound needs of two groups, it will inevitably become a permanent part of the American political debate.
First, the neo-conservatives. For them, this “made in America tide of freedom” narrative is vital because it justifies the invasion of Iraq. Even in their own eyes, the worst failure of their policy was the absolutely undeniable strengthening of Iran that it produced (“collateral damage” to Iraqi civilians and the sacrifices demanded of US troops were always considered an acceptable “price”) Embarrassingly for them, the replacement of Saddam Hussein with a pro-Iranian Shia government and the immobilizing and overtaxing of virtually every available combat soldier in America in “Blackhawk Down” style urban warfare for 5 years exposed the fact that their feverish fantasy of intimidating the Iranian regime into total submission with implicit or explicit threats of a massive George Patton-style armor/infantry thrust on Teheran (launched from bases in a compliant US-allied Iraq, of course) made them look like pathetically bumbling military incompetents. Today, rather than being seen as the modern-day George Pattons they fancied themselves, the neo-conservatives have become widely viewed as modern-day General Custers.
Thus, for them, the story that the sight of elections in Iraq was the central inspiration for the demonstrators in Iran is vitally important. It makes everything fit together again and makes them once again “right”. They will, therefore, cling to this notion against any and all empirical evidence to the contrary with the fervor of religious pilgrims in Lourdes seeking miracle cures for their ills.
The second and far more heartrending group is America’s military families. It is impossible to overstate the tremendous comfort this narrative promises to provide. They desperately need to feel that the difficult and painful sacrifices they have made have had meaning and have been worth the cost. For the families and friends of the injured and dead, this sentiment is unimaginably profound. They will therefore embrace the notion that the invasion of Iraq has been validated by the protests in Iran utterly and without reservation. It is impossible not to deeply feel and profoundly identify with their feelings.
Thus, for these two groups, the new conservative narrative will stick. For other Americans as well it also has a very strong appeal – one rooted in the psychological mechanism called the “theory of mind” – the mental model people have of how other people think.

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In the continuing argument over ideology and violent extremism in America, conservatives are making some very odd assertions. Check out this statement by conservative San Francisco Chronicle columnist Debra Saunders:

I reject the idea that James W. von Brunn, the alleged Holocaust museum gunman and known white supremacist and anti-Semite, is right wing — as well as the implication that racism and conservatism somehow are connected. The KKK is not welcome at any conservative event I’ve ever attended.

Look at what is going on here – the term “right-wing” and “conservative” are being treated as interchangeable and both terms are being counterposed to “white supremacists” and “anti-Semites” – who are no longer part of “right-wing” ideology. In effect, not only the term “conservative” but also the term “right-wing” is being rescued from any associations with racism and anti-Semitism.
And it’s not just Saunders. There’s actually a whole cottage industry over in the right blogosphere arguing this same notion – that white supremacy is not really a part of any known and recognized “right-wing” ideology. Instead, it is in some utterly unique category all its own or is actually a left-wing idea (please don’t ask for details on this second notion. It goes something along the lines of “racist=Hitler=vegetarian=feminist=Hillary Clinton=liberal”)
But, wait a minute. Wasn’t the whole heroic start of the Bill Buckley/National Review initiative designed to “rescue” true, Burkean conservatism from the nutty and disreputable “right-wingers” of the 50s– the John Birchers, southern racists, anti-Semites, anti-fluoridation paranoiacs and so on? Wasn’t this clean break with the racist, anti-Semitic “right-wing extremists” central to the entire ethos of the new breed of Goldwater-Reagan- conservatives who then rose to the leadership of the Republican Party?

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For liberals and progressives, one of the most baffling — and indeed also infuriating — aspects of the response of conservatives like Bill O’Reilly and Michelle Malkin to the recent murders by right wing extremists is the way that — in the space of just a few paragraphs — they manage to shift the discussion away from the events themselves back into an attack on liberals and progressives for “exploiting” the situation.
Rather than interpreting the actions of violent extremists as requiring a reconsideration of their own rhetoric and positions, for many conservative commentators the violent acts become instead the basis for renewed descriptions of conservatives as the innocent and aggrieved victims of liberal injustice and slander.
It is worth taking a moment to dissect the internal structure of this particular rhetorical and psychological line of argument because it leads to a somewhat counterintuitive strategy for responding to it.
Here, in outline, is the way the argument above is developed by conservative commentators:

1. We conservatives know perfectly well that we are not all homicidal maniacs. Murder is a terrible act that no sane person approves. Therefore, to suggest that the acts of isolated, mentally ill criminals should somehow reflect on all of us conservatives is deeply unfair.
2. The truth is that the acts of deranged extremist individuals do not further the conservative cause. On the contrary, they inflict catastrophic damage on it by allowing our opponents to paint all of us as mentally unstable. No sane conservative – in fact, not even the majority of white supremacists – really believe that lurid murders actually help the larger cause.
3. As a result, for liberals and progressives to attack conservatives as somehow responsible for the acts of one or two isolated maniacs is utterly unfair. It is, in fact, a transparently cynical attempt to exploit the tragedy. That liberals actually stoop to use such tactics is thus vile and unforgivable.

By this train of logic it becomes possible for the commentator to end up – often only 30 or 45 seconds after beginning – delivering an angry attack on liberals and an impassioned depiction of conservatives as the innocent victims of unjust persecution. The sheer audacity of the strategy leaves liberals aghast and fuming.
In fact, to liberals and progressives, this line of argument appears so obviously like a cynical debater’s trick aimed at misdirecting the attention of the audience that the immediate reaction is to adamantly reassert the original accusations.
But note what happens psychologically when this is done:

1. The audience of an O’Reilly or Malkin knows with absolute certainty that they personally as individuals absolutely do not approve of murder. They therefore find the remaining steps in the conservative argument logical and convincing.
2. In contrast, liberal arguments that begin with the premise that there is a relationship between the acts of violent extremists and the opinions expressed by O’Reilly and Malkin are not only rejected – they actually become proof of the conservative charge that liberal critics are unfair and unjust. Thus, paradoxically, instead of refuting the conservative narrative, arguments of this type are absorbed into it and actually validate and become evidence for it.

The alternative, more effective strategy is to appeal to what Drew Westen calls people’s “better angels.” In talking to the audiences of commentators like O’Reilly and Malkin, liberals and progressives should begin by immediately reassuring these audiences that liberals and progressives emphatically do not believe that the audience in any way actually condones violent acts. Quite the contrary, it is precisely because they do not approve of violence that they should want to show their rejection of violent acts by joining together with all reasonable Americans in supporting President Obama’s call for a new tolerance and civility in political discourse. The acts of violent madmen should make all decent Americans want to commit themselves even more firmly to seeking common ground with, and rejecting demonization of, other Americans with whom they may disagree.
Notice what this does:

1. It deprives the conservative narrative of the “we are being unfairly smeared” argument and keeps the focus on the evil of the violent acts themselves. (This, it should be noted, is most emphatically not the topic upon which the conservative commentators wish to linger).
2. It places the O’Reilly’s and Malkins’ of the world in the position of having to either directly endorse or reject Obama’s call for greater civility and tolerance (This, it should be noted, is most emphatically not the question they want to debate).

It requires a certain degree of discipline to argue along these lines when, on an emotional level, many people’s primary desire at times like these is to express outrage and assign blame.
The main purpose of political debate, however, is not to provide therapeutic outlet for the debater, but to win the struggle to convince other Americans. For this purpose, the strategy of “appealing to people’s better angels” will invariably prove far more productive than the more viscerally satisfying alternative.

It has unfortunately now become clear that despite certain promising trends in the December elections in Iraq, in general the situation is sharply deteriorating. The Sunni “awakening councils” – whose pacification was a critical part of the reduction in violence — have not been paid since last winter when responsibility for their payments was passed to the Shia army. Instead of the jobs and assimilation into the Shia-dominated army that they were promised, many “awakening council” members have been arrested and others have gone into hiding. Bombings have once again become regular and frequent events. All the major religious and ethnic groups are preparing for a renewal of fighting.
It now appears that even a “best-case” scenario for Iraq is a continuing level of sectarian violence that resembles past eras in Northern Ireland. The “worst-case” scenario is a return to the full scale, grotesquely violent ethnic civil war of 2006-2007.
The Republicans, because they are out of power (and committed to their “take no prisoners” propaganda strategy) are already beginning to prepare utterly opportunistic attacks on Obama and the Democrats regardless of what actually happens in Iraq.

• If Obama decides to slow the withdrawal of troops from Iraq (assuming this can be negotiated with the Iraqi government) Republicans will criticize him for failing to achieve a clear “victory”–i.e. to completely suppress the ethnic violence.
• If Obama sticks to his current plan for withdrawal while conditions worsen, Republicans will attack him for “losing” the war in Iraq that the surge had “won”.

This propaganda strategy requires almost no effort for the GOP. It is, in effect, a perfect “no- lose” situation for them. They just have to avoid inadvertently insulting the work of General Petraeus and the military while they attempt to assign the entire blame for whatever transpires onto Obama and the Democrats.
What should Democrats do in response? The first and most urgent challenge will be to present a unified and coherent response to the Republican attacks and to avoid the appearance of internal disarray. This will not be easy because there are at least three quite distinct strategic views about Iraq within the Democratic Party — and more if one includes the formerly Republican neoconservative military strategists who — in an extraordinary case of instant mass epiphany — all rediscovered the virtues of principled political nonpartisanship around 11:03 P.M. last November 4th (as one observer acutely noted, “they did not flee the sinking Republican ship; they teleported”).
But, even as Democrats continue to debate alternative military strategies among themselves, they can, without contradiction, also present a unified response to Republican attacks. The basic theme of this response should be that there is a fundamental difference between responsible and irresponsible criticism. Obama, General Petraeus, and the other military advisors face deeply difficult, “no easy answer” trade-offs regarding how to allocate limited troops and deal with deeply rooted interethnic violence. Republicans who want to criticize Obama’s strategy therefore have an obligation to confront key questions like the following:

• In order to deal with the current shortage of available troops, should the U.S. bring back the draft? Should it hire 50,000 or more additional paid mercenaries to fill the gaps? If a Republican is not in favor of these steps, then he or she must explain where the troops will be found to carry out any broadened U.S. mission before he or she criticizes Obama.
• To deal with rising ethnic violence in Iraq, should the U.S. resume the payments to the “Awakening Councils, even if the Maliki government objects? Should the U.S. redeploy increased numbers of American troops to Iraq’s major cities to maintain peace between Shia and Sunni? If not, then Republican critics must explain exactly what alternative strategy it is that they propose before they criticize Obama. Demanding “victory” is not an alternative military strategy – it is a goal.

When Republicans attack Obama without honestly answering these kinds of questions — as they most surely will — Dems should consistently make three parallel points about the difference between sincere debates over military strategy and the following key phrase — “irresponsible political posturing”:

• Partisan demands for “victory” or “success” which do not include a realistic plan to provide the troops and resources needed to achieve those goals are irresponsible political posturing.
• Partisan accusations that Obama’s strategy “is failing” or has “failed” which do not offer a coherent alternative strategy are irresponsible political posturing.
• Partisan attacks on Obama and the Democrats as showing “weakness” but which offer no alternative strategy are irresponsible political posturing.

In short, Democrats should respond to Republican attacks on Obama by insisting that Republicans have a patriotic obligation to the troops and to the county to offer serious and responsible military alternatives rather than empty partisan rhetoric. The American people understand that there are no easy, magic solutions in Iraq. If the Republican “alternative” is to pretend that magic solutions exist, they will not receive the support of most Americans.
Democrats should as their very first response to Republican attacks consistently and repeatedly assert the basic demand that Republicans avoid “irresponsible political posturing” on this issue. Democrats should insist that if Republicans engage in this kind of shamelessly irresponsible behavior, they do not even deserve to be answered; they deserve to be condemned and ignored.

Devotees of opinion polling had a really delightful time last week. They had front-row seats for a heavyweight match between two really major contenders – Democracy Corps and the newly founded Resurgent Republic.
The match started when Stan Greenberg called out Whit Ayers, the pollster behind Resurgent Republic, on two issues – the way Resurgent calculated partisan identification and the phrasing of their questions. (Greenberg’s initial statement can be found here)
Ayers replied (here) and then Jon McHenry of Resurgent and Andrew Baumann of Greenberg, Quinlan, Rosner Research – which does D-Corps surveys — took up the party ID question here — with Nate Silver jumping in as well.
For polling methodology fans, as the saying goes, “it don’t get much better than this.” But for non-methodology buffs, the second issue — of question phrasing — was really more engaging. Stan sharply questioned the language of one question – on equality vs. opportunity — and also made the following observation on Resurgent Republics’ questions about Obama’s budget.

Your Republican leaders would have been well served had you asked first whether voters favor or oppose the budget, without describing it – as Democracy Corps does routinely. That would have shown a majority or large plurality in favor of the budget, as in all other polls. Instead, your survey begins with this stunningly biased description: “President Obama has proposed a budget for next year that would spend three point six trillion dollars and have a deficit of one point four trillion dollars.”
That would be okay if you think that is all voters will learn from the media and Democrats about the budget. I suspect they are already hearing about inherited deficits from Bush, the funding for the jobs recovery plan, health care reform, education and energy independence, and about deficits cut in half – all aspects of the budget. Don’t you think the leaders and groups you are advising deserve to know how this might really play out?

Ayers replied:

We followed the initial question about the budget with a series of left versus right arguments. We say, for example, “Candidate A says that investments to address unmet needs in education, energy, and health care are necessary to bring the country out of recession.” We think that is a fair statement of one of the arguments made on behalf of the budget. While we can quibble about a phrase here or there, I am confident that a fair-minded person who reads the entire series of arguments will conclude that we have done an honest job capturing the perspective of the left on the budget.

Well, OK – I’ll bite. I’m a fair-minded kinda guy. Let’s go and take a look at those other questions.
To start with, here’s the full text of the question that Ayers cites above:

Q.22. Candidate A says that investments to address unmet needs in education, energy, and health care are necessary to bring the country out of recession.
Candidate B says that the Obama Administration is taking advantage of the recession to make massive increases in government spending that will hurt our economy in the future by nearly tripling the national debt in ten years.

Hmmm, this really doesn’t seem particularly unfair to anyone. It reasonably poses a Democratic “investment in unmet needs” perspective against a Republican “spending and debt” focus.
But, inconveniently for Republicans, on this question the Democratic position wins hands down 51% to 43% – a net plus of 8%
Conclusion? The question seems fair and the Democrats solidly win.
But now let’s look at the other questions in the same series about the budget. In fact, two things start to happen – the questions themselves get more and more favorable to the Republican position and – surprise, surprise – the Democratic advantage declines.
For example, when Ayers takes away the notion of “investment in unmet needs in education, energy and health care” from the Democratic position and replaces it with the much more vague and undefined “spending to stimulate the economy” here’s what happens:

Q.19. Candidate A says the proposed level of federal spending is necessary to stimulate the economy and keep us from sliding into a depression.
Candidate B says the proposed level of federal spending will make the economy worse by doubling the national debt in only five years.

The Democratic advantage slips to 2% — 48 for candidate A vs. 46 % for candidate B
Well, from a Republican point of view that’s a whole lot better, but it’s still not good enough. As the saying goes, “they ain’t goin’ for the draw, they’re goin’ for the win”. So what would happen if we pushed the matter even further – by focusing a question just on the issue of increasing government debt alone — and also by throwing in an ad hominem attack on Obama — and also by changing the subject in the middle of the question – all at the same time.

Q. 21. Candidate A says that increasing the debt is a necessary step in fighting a serious recession.
Candidate B says that President Obama is being hypocritical by adding more than nine trillion dollars to the debt after attacking Republicans for growing it by two trillion dollars.

In this case, the result is no better –a two point Democratic advantage still remains – 48 to 46%. Dang, those pesky Democrats are just damn stubborn.
OK, that does it. It’s time to take off the gloves and really get to work. Let’s see what happens if we use extremely cold, abstract and uninvolving words for the Democratic alternative and then sharp, punchy, TV sound-bite language for the Republican alternative:

Q. 18. Candidate A says the proposed budget is a reasonable response to a serious recession and collapse of the financial markets.
Candidate B says the proposed budget spends too much, taxes too much, and borrows too much.

Mmmm,– we get an 8 point Republican advantage on this one – 43% for candidate A (who sounds an awful lot like Mike Dukakis at his most wonky) and 51% for candidate B (who sounds a lot like Newt Gingrich when the cameras are rolling and 15 microphones are stuck in his face). Now that’s more like it.
But, hey, since we’re trying out stuff here, let’s see what happens when we go for the “full Limbaugh” – on the Democratic side a flat, post-lobotomy monotone and on the other a veritable kitchen sink of slogans – “squandering money” “pork barrel projects” “bailouts” “big spending” “few jobs”

Q. 25. Candidate A says the federal government has to do more during times of economic crisis, and spending by the government stimulates the economy and creates jobs.
Candidate B says the federal government is squandering money on pork-barrel projects, bailouts, and big spending programs that create few private sector jobs.

Whoa, now that’s some really big roundhouse punches getting thrown here. But confound it; we seem to have hit a wall. This question only produces the same 8 point Republican advantage as the last one. 43% for candidate A, 51% for candidate B.
Oh well, it doesn’t look like there’s much more tinkering we can do with these budget questions without throwing in the well-known (at least on the rightroots internet) facts that Obama is a wanted international Moslem terrorist and also Joe Stalin’s illegitimate Black grandson.
OK, now I admit I’m being a good deal more than slightly tongue in cheek here, but the point is serious. When Ayers says “I am confident that a fair-minded person who reads the entire series of arguments will conclude that we have done an honest job capturing the perspective of the left on the budget,” anyone who doesn’t burst out laughing like a hyena simply has to be getting a paycheck from the RNC.
But Ayers is not foolish or wasting his clients money. These questions are useful. They essentially represent message research to determine just what “works” and what doesn’t and how far the Republican message has to be favored to outpoll the Dems. When Resurgent Republic drafted these questions they had a pretty good idea of how they would poll. But by trying out a variety of question wordings side by side, they provide a more precise idea of just how much changes in rhetoric and language can actually influence the debate.
But as for their larger political significance, I’ll leave the final word to Stan Greenberg in his message to Ayers:

For years, James Carville and I pushed Democrats and liberal groups to examine inherited positions in new times, but you are at risk of doing the opposite – urging Republicans to stay the course on key arguments with self-deluding results.
In some cases, you prove competitive or you win the argument by presenting the Democratic argument as flat but the Republican, full of emotive terms. In Democracy Corps, we always try to use the language actually used by our opponents.
Nothing is more self-defeating than attributing to the Democratic argument the language and themes Republicans use to attack Democrats rather than the language Democrats use themselves. In effect, your survey has you winning an argument with yourself.

The recent much-discussed report on “Rightwing Extremism” by the Department of Homeland Security has raised a very important issue of definition: What precisely is right-wing “political extremism” and how does it differ from other concepts like “the radical right” or “hard-right conservatism”?
For most Americans, the most critical — and in fact the defining — characteristic of “political extremism” – whether left or right – is the approval of violence as a means to achieve political goals. Opinions on issues, no matter how “extreme” or irrational they may be do not by themselves necessarily make a person a dangerous “extremist.” Whether opinions are crackpot (e.g. abolish all paper money) or repulsive (e.g. non-whites should be treated as sub-humans), extreme political opinions are not in and of themselves incitements to or justifications for violence.
But there is actually one very clear and unambiguous way to define a genuinely “extremist” political ideology — it is any ideology that justifies or incites violence.
Underlying all extremist political ideologies is one central idea – the vision of “politics as warfare”. While this phrase is widely used as a metaphor, political extremists mean it in an entirely concrete and operational way. It is a view that is codified in the belief that political opponents are literally “enemies” who must be crushed rather than fellow Americans with different opinions with whom negotiated political compromises must be sought.
In recent decades we have unfortunately become accustomed to political opponents being defined as “enemies” rather than fellow Americans, but the notion was profoundly shocking when Richard Nixon first used the term in his famous “enemies list.” It marked a tremendous change from generally collegial attitudes of Senators and members of Congress, where a certain basic level of civility was almost always maintained, even among the most bitter political opponents. Unlike many other countries, until the Nixon era American politicians generally saw “politics” as the job of achieving rational compromises among democratically elected representatives and not as the task of crushing, purging or liquidating political enemies, as was often the case in totalitarian countries.
Watergate and the election of Jimmy Carter temporarily derailed the trend toward defining politics as warfare, but the notion got a powerful “second wind” in the 1980’s – which came from two main sources.
The first was the culture and doctrines of counter-insurgency and covert operations that blossomed in the Reagan era. In combating insurgent movements, U.S. counterinsurgency doctrine carefully studied Leninist organizations and frequently imitated their strategy and tactics in order to dismantle them. The basic philosophy was frequently to “fight fire with fire” using any available tactics, including even blatantly undemocratic and morally indefensible ones.
During the Reagan years, there was a massive expansion of extremely secret counter-insurgency programs – primarily in Central America and Afghanistan – that were conducted outside the formal structure of traditional civilian-military control. Among the people involved in these programs, an ethos of loyalty developed to the secret military/intelligence hierarchy that was conducting these operations rather than to the formal elected government.
The hero and symbol of this trend was Oliver North. By showing up in his military uniform at congressional hearings called to investigate his role in the illegal funding of counterinsurgencies in Central America and Afghanistan (although he was actually a political appointee of the Reagan white house at the time and not on active military duty) North dramatically embodied the view that his primary loyalty was to the covert military/intelligence command running the secret operations around the world and not to the majority of Congress that had specifically prohibited the actions he had coordinated. He became a symbol of a perspective that viewed the majority of Congress (that had voted against funding the Nicaraguan “contras”) as an internal “enemy” just as the Nicaraguan Sandinistas were an external enemy.
By the early 1990’s this general point of view had become deeply entrenched among many right-wing conservatives. As conservative talk radio shows grew in popularity, many hosts like Rush Limbaugh repeated and refined this militarized and combative version of conservative ideology.
These views became even more extreme after the fall of the Soviet Union. In the conservative view, Liberals quickly replaced communism as the principal “enemies” of America. Conservative leader Grover Norquist expressed the view quite clearly when talking to a former college classmate. He said: “For 40 years we fought a two-front war against the Soviet Union and statism in the U.S. Now we can turn all our time and energy into crushing you. With the Soviet Union it was just business. With you, it’s personal.”

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These two terms have been around for so long that the reality of their present uselessness may not seem immediately obvious. But, in fact, there are actually three very different political groups who are lumped together inside the vague term “the left” and six or seven very distinct meanings of the term “centrist.” For any serious intra-Democratic political discussion to be productive, Democrats have to start making the effort to clearly distinguish between these differences.
In the case of the term “the left,” the problem is obvious to any Democrat who listens to Fox News. Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity, Glen Beck and their imitators relentlessly hammer away at a succession of straw men called “the loony left”, “the hard left”, “the extreme left” and so on — a powerful group who, they assert, have substantial if not total control of the Democratic Party.
Aside from other political commentators, the only specific examples they offer are — not really surprisingly – such powerful and influential figures as junior professors at small state colleges, eccentric elementary school teachers in communities no one has ever heard of before and a variety of well-known (or just as often barely known) Hollywood actors – individuals whose views or actions are confidently asserted to reflect the absolutely typical or dominant attitude of the entire Democratic community.
The truth, on the other hand — as all serious observers know perfectly well — is that there are actually three profoundly distinct groups that compose “the left” and they are so different that it is essentially useless to make any generalizations about them as a whole.

1. The first group is the traditional social movement organizations dedicated to causes like the environment, civil liberties, labor and so on. The most distinctive characteristic of these groups are their single issue focus and political strategy of bargaining with candidates to win their support.
2. The second group is the multi-issue, internet-based organizations like MoveOn and Daily Kos. Their political stance tends to be militantly partisan and pro-Democratic but not ideologically extreme. Surveys have shown that the political attitudes within this group tend to resemble traditional post-war liberal and progressive views.
3. The third group is the genuine “radicals.” These days they are less often doctrinaire socialists than eclectic ecological/peace/anti-establishment militants. They are concentrated among graying tenured faculty members and young energetic protestors in movements like the anti-globalization coalitions. Although their attitudes are asserted to be the dominant ones in the Democratic coalition, in fact they generally have relatively little interest in standard electoral politics and rarely become involved in the grass-roots organizational activities of the Democratic Party.

The differences between these three groups are generally greater than the similarities, a fact that is relatively obvious when comparing the authentic radicals and the others, but is also evident between the netroots and the traditional organizations (The Daily Kos’s Markos devoted an entire chapter in his book Storming The Gates to outlining the Netroots’ disagreements with traditional single-issue organizations)
Since Obama’s paradigm-breaking campaign, there has mercifully been far less abuse of the general term “the left” within the Democratic Party then in the years preceding. But Democrats nonetheless need to officially retire the phrase and replace it with more specific discussion of issues and questions concerning the positions and actions of the three distinct groups.
Meanwhile, the term “centrist” is, if anything, even more desperately in need of retirement than “the left”. It does not only refer to several different groups, but more confusingly to a cluster of fundamentally different concepts — each of which needs to be clearly distinguished from the others.
When Progressives criticize “centrism” they are generally focusing on three very distinct and specific political behaviors or characteristics (1) an excessive conservatism in ideology, becoming at the extreme nearly indistinguishable from Republicanism (2) a marked timidity or even cowardice in political strategy and (3) corruption in financial and ethical standards.
It is not hard to understand why grass roots Democratic activists who live outside Washington find it relatively easy to feel that these characteristics do all substantially overlap in the group generally known as the “beltway insiders.” From a distance, these people all appear extremely intimate and chummy – appearing on the same think-tank panels and sitting amiably side by side on the Sunday talk shows, referring to each other by first names in the most friendly and collegial way.
But, regardless of how many canapés and podiums the “Beltway insiders” share together, the three characteristics above simply do not necessarily imply each other or overlap. Lumping them all indiscriminately together conceptually in a single term “centrism” is intellectually sloppy thinking and is deeply detrimental to the quality and usefulness of progressive thought.
Let’s untangle the distinctions.

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At first glance, this may not seem obvious. After all, the most serious estimate of the events’ size – by Nate Silver – suggests that as many as 250,000 people around the country may have participated. That doesn’t sound like a failure.
But, put into context, it is.
The context I’m talking about is what the conservative backers of the events hoped –and in fact desperately needed – to happen.
The objective of the campaign was to demonstrate that there really was a significant grass-roots surge of opposition growing to the Obama administrations’ economic and political agenda – a surge of opposition that was not reflected in the opinion polls. To be a success in these terms, the events had to convincingly show a genuine and spontaneous groundswell of “ordinary folks” coming out in cities, towns across America. If the protests turned out to be just a spring break reunion of the same, pissed-off gang who showed up for the Sarah Palin rallies last fall, it would be a huge failure.
Here’s how the FreedomWorks website put it:

“These events are not simply showcasing conservative ire, but recruiting volunteers to join the ranks of FreedomWorks as we march on to our membership goal of a million activists committed to liberty; a force capable of not only doing battle with the Left, but winning.”

And here is Debbie Ellis Dooby, grassroots coordinator for FreedomWorks in Georgia:

“I think of what General Yamamoto said after he had been told of the attack on Pearl Harbor. He said, ‘They have just succeeded in awakening a sleeping giant’. I think that’s what’s happening now, the awakening of a Silent Majority”

The organizers did not necessarily think they would reach their goals immediately, but the urgent political and public relations objective they urgently needed to achieve was to exceed the size of the major peace, anti-Bush and pro-immigration demonstrations of the preceding years. They needed to be able to say that “the real America” had now come out, dwarfing the puny demonstrations of the “Loony Left” and their followers.
They didn’t succeed.
As Chris Bowers details, the February 15th 2003 anti-Iraq invasion protests produced substantially larger crowds in major US cities — in New York – 100,000, in Los Angeles – 50-60,000, in San Francisco – 150,000, in Seattle – 50,000, in Chicago – 10,000.
And then there were the 2006 “national day of action for immigration justice” demonstrations – several hundred thousand people participated in Washington, DC, more than 100,000 in Los Angeles and the same in Phoenix, Arizona. 30,000-40,000 turned out in Atlanta and lesser numbers in scores of cities.
By contrast, according to Nate Silver’s estimates the biggest Tea Party – in Atlanta, where Sean Hannity spoke, attracted around 7,000 people. Then came Denver, Phoenix, Madison, San Antonio, Olympia, Lansing, Jacksonville, Oklahoma City and Dallas with around 4,500-5,000 participants in each. At the next level were cities like Sacramento, Tulsa, Hartford, Sioux Falls, Cincinnati, and Nashville -with 3,000-4,000 each. Smaller cities across the country had correspondingly smaller turnouts.
All together, Silver estimated about 250,000 participated across the county – significantly less than either the anti-war or pro-immigration protests.
And don’t think for a moment the conservative movement wasn’t absolutely desperate to beat those comparisons. The best proof is the complete absence of headlines trumpeting the “historic” turnout numbers on the Fox website today. Somewhere in the graphics department over at Fox HQ graphic designers have been deleting useless files with all sorts of lurid background visuals they had prepared for today – – visuals covered with flags, eagles and headlines saying “A Million Patriots stand up for America”, “The Silent Majority Shows Obama Its Muscle”, “Biggest Grass-Roots Protests in US history Shake Obama Administration To Its Core”, “Million-Plus Tea Bag Protesters Send Obama unmistakable Message” and so on.
In fact, the ultimate effect of the Tea Bag Party protests was, in political terms, actually counterproductive. Rather than impressing and intimidating the Obama administration and impressing non-base voters, the relatively modest size of the protests has reassured the administration and had no effect on most Americans. A protest movement needs tens of thousands of people to show up in a range of major cities to make a significant political impression, it needs thousands of people in mid-sized and smaller cities and hundreds in small towns. The Tea Bag protests were, in general, an order of magnitude smaller in each category. In fact, they looked like just what they were – gatherings of the rock-ribbed conservative base that everyone already knew was out there.
Bottom line: in political terms, the demonstrations didn’t move the dial at all. Result: the big, really big winner of the day was Barack Obama.
The day was also an unmitigated – and I mean really unmitigated — disaster for Fox news. They went way, way out on a limb to promote the Tea Party protests, making them a critical test of Fox News’ ability to actually mobilize conservative voters and get them on the streets as opposed to just selling them barbeque grills and preparation H. Fox head Roger Ailes, who is usually quite savvy, let himself get caught in the trap of allowing the size of the events to become a decisive “show of strength” of the network’s political clout. Instead it turned into a disastrous “show of weakness” that clearly demonstrated that Obama does not have to fear them in the future.
Rupert Murdoch, despite his recent protestations, may very well be just as conservative as Ailes. But this was just stupid, and Murdoch doesn’t like stupid. It’s a damn good bet that he won’t ever let Ailes pull this kind of stunt again.
Obama must be smiling.
P.S. Unlike Fox News, FreedomWorks and the related coordinating groups actually did pretty well. They ended up with the lists of local organizers and the recognized “clearing house” websites for the protests.
They may very well find, however, that hearty “salt of the earth”, grass-roots types don’t take orders like the nice little CPAC interns with neat suits and ties that they are used to. They are going to have a bit of a culture shock when they try to tell a pot-bellied guy with a “Don’t Tread On Me” teashirt, a grey pony tail , a Mossberg 12- gauge pump, and a vintage Harley to follow their orders because they know better than he does what’s best for America.
That, however, is a discussion for another day.