Netroots, who are meeting now in Vegas, need to figure out who they are beholden to, if anyone and what to do about their obviously conflicting agendas.
DailyKos: The “Liberal” Netroots: An army beholden to Democrats or an independent force to be reckoned with?
Given the record of scorn displayed toward progressives who organize with their own agenda in mind (e.g. Emanuel calling liberals “fucking stupid” as they ran ads against Democrats opposing the public option), it’s no surprise that progressive voices would be reluctant to tug the conversation in their direction. Instead of incurring the fire of the Obama Administration, many probably would rather focus on the reactionary Tea Party faction growing within the Republican Party and simply tackle that instead of the failures of the Democratic Party during Obama’s first two years in office.
Why should they be afraid? So what if the White House gets pissed at them? Or are they also trolling for patronage and favors from the same establishment they, at times, disagree with? You can’t have it both ways. You can’t want to be a member of the club and then attack it at the same time.
Unfortunately, this ignores the reality that Democrats have failed to rebuff the growing rancor of anti-government sentiment in the GOP and offer an alternative message; in fact, that Tea Party message is effectively dragging the Democrats toward supporting a political agenda more conducive to a vastly unregulated free market system that Democrats admit has gotten us into the mess we are in today.
Maybe they should embrace, or at least examine, anti-government sentiment to determine why people are so pissed, rather than brush it off as coming from a bunch of racist goobers. Because by failing to do so, they make themselves inadvertent defenders of the government, and thus part of the establishment they claim to want to change.
Democrats have gradually become more and more the party of “no” to progressives.
The “netroots” will meet and focus on primaries and electing better Democrats, using blogs, Twitter and other social networking technologies to turn “red states” “blue”, how to improve online organizing, the current state of progressive media, etc… However, this is an event receiving sponsorship from the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee (DLCC) and the Democratic National Committee (DNC), which contribute to the maintenance and polishing of the Democratic Party’s image.
So The Democratic Party is saying “no” to progressives and Netroots while funding them, so that Netroots can help elect more Democrats even as they rage against the system they are increasingly working for and being co-opted by.
Like I said, muddled. This is a common problem with groups wanting to change the system while working within it. They see no systemic problems with the establishment and say once they take control, then things will be different. But it often doesn’t work out that way.