How the progressive blogosphere gets co-opted by the Democratic Party

TalkLeft continues their discussion of “the transformation of the once Left blogosphere into the Democratic blogosphere” wondering how this could have happened. It’s because that is a primary function of the Democratic Party. They play good cop to the Republican Party bad cop. Come on in kid, we’re reformists here too. You’ll fit in just fine. You can trust us. Well no, actually you can’t trust them.

Peter Camejo, in his Avocado Declaration, describes in detail how such a transformation, the co-optation of independent political movements by the Democratic Party, happens.

When social justice, peace, or civil rights movements become massive in scale, threaten to become uncontrollable and begin to win over large numbers of people, the Democratic Party begins to shift and presents itself as a supposed ally, always seeking to co-opt the movement, demobilize its forces, and block its development into an alternative, independent political force.

Democracy remains a great danger for those who have privilege and control. When you are part of the top 1% of the population that has as much income as the bottom 75% of the people, democracy is a permanent threat to your interests. The potential power of the people is so great that it puts sharp limits on what corporations can do. The ability of the Democratic Party to contain, co-opt and demobilize independent movements of the people is a critical element in allowing the continued destruction of our planet, abuse, discrimination and exploitation based on race, gender, sexual preference and class, and the immense misdistribution of wealth.

Here’s a key point:

The Democratic Party through trickery co-opted the powerful and massive rise of the Populist movement at the end of the 19th century precisely using the same “lesser evil” arguments now presented against the Green Party. [written in 2004 by Camejo, an active Green Party member]

Progressives who are getting sucked into the Democratic Party machine should carefully study what happened to the Populist Party of the 1890’s. Some of them thought they could partner with the Democrats or even join the party, and continue reform from within it. Others thought they could trust the Democratic Party. Both were wrong. The Democratic Party back-stabbed the Progressive Party and played a major role in its destruction. It could happen to you.