Optimism in a Time of Crisis

Think of this as Volume 15, Number 14 of A-Clue.com, the online newsletter I've written since 1997. Enjoy.

For the rising tide in any political era a period of crisis is no fun.

I was on the Right in 1971 and know of what I speak. While the crazies of that time were enjoying their rage and their protests and their drugs and their loud rock music, pushing back against the President to create agencies like the EPA, CPSC, and OSHA, controlling the culture and ending the war, conservatives could do little other than  seethe. (And drink. Most were alcoholics well before they were able to legally buy liquor.)

This despite the fact they held the White House, they had made what they considered good gains in Congress, and that the President was (overall) reasonably popular.

This is where the Next Crazy was born, with the Left blowing off steam everywhere, seemingly surrounding all those who were simply patriotic, hard-working, trying to do the right thing. Nixon, who had always been partisan, and surrounded by ruthless men, slowly became completely paranoid. This is where the Plumbers came from, and all the other horrors of the Watergate era.

It happened because he lost faith, and because those around him lost faith in their majority and their eventual victory. That's the warning I take from it, anyway.

We're seeing the same Nixonian twist today, but it's more of a grassroots phenomenon. Read any liberal blog, from DailyKos to Firedoglake to Atrios, and what you're going to find are depression, raw anger, inchoate rage at the other side and what they're doing.

Well, history is here to tell you the truth. The other side is going crazy. The other side is burning out. The political right in this country has a lot more in common with Charlie Sheen than any commentator is willing to admit.  (For the best coverage of the crazy, visit the Sheen Family Circus.)

Majorities are made in the middle. They're sustained by businesses and by middle-class values. Movements which leave that reservation are, in time, destroyed by their own hand. What looks like fun turns out, in the clear light of the next day, to have been a bad political trip.

Where is the left of 1971? Lost, gone, forgotten. For that matter where are the Liberty Leaguers  of the 1930s? The crazy of today is a pale imitation of these Hitler-lovers. How about the Populists of the 1890s? Long ago devolved into racists, religious nuts, or socialists, disappeared under the waves. And here in Atlanta, I saw a billboard just recently with Abraham Lincoln's portrait on it – yet no one defaced it. The Confederacy is dead.

The purpose of an American political crisis is always to let the crazy out, to give the crazy enough rope to hang itself with. That's the great thing about democracy, when it works. You don't have to beat your enemies. They beat themselves.

So it is today.

This is not to say the anger of the rising tide is a bad thing. It is, in fact, a very very good thing, a necessary thing. The responsibility of the Netroots is to act in the face of the crazy, to organize in the face of it, to become a more coherent political force so it can not only defeat the crazy, but push this President and future Presidents in the direction it wants them to go.

What is that direction?

• It starts with rules we all learned in kindergarten, like using your inside voice, respecting the other person, seeking compromise rather than confrontation.

• It continues with some assumptions, that government is not always evil, that we must face our troubles together, that the only internal enemy is the enemy inside ourselves.

• It believes in evidence, in experts and expertise, in knowledge, in learning, in science, not just the market but a regulated market, not just in freedom but in ordered liberty.

• It's hopeful, it's self-confident, and it gets down to work rather than spending its days tearing the other side down.

Before the crazy (whatever its source) can truly start to recede, there has to be a time of flood, where the craziness of the crazy is fully revealed and the rest of us have a chance to separate its words from its deeds, then grade the deeds.

You've got to let the dopers overdose. You've got to let the Liberty Leaguers march in their Nazi uniforms a while. You have to see how impractical and crazy the Populists really are. You have to fight the war.

In our time, we need to be resolute, organized, and a little more self-assured. Understand that the TV is no longer “the media” – we on the Internet are now the dominant medium. Understand that our neighbors see the overreach of people like Scott Walker and will never forget it, especially if we remind them of it each day. Understand where the Koch Brothers are coming from (energy as something you burn, wealth something that comes from the ground) and know that we now have alternatives that work (which we didn't have in Jimmy Carter's day).

Most of all we need to know that there will be a tomorrow, and another tomorrow after that, and the way we make that tomorrow better is by working hard today. Building the new industries, organizing against the crazy, telling the truth to one another and everyone else. Staying strong in the face of the crazy, like the Greatest Generation withstood the Hippies, and never letting our kids forget the struggle and the values that get us through.

Sarah Palin, Scott Walker, Charles Koch – they're the receding tide. They're beaching, they're dying, and it makes them crazy. Be resolute in the face of that and you'll win through. Stay strong, be the grown-up, and they will burn themselves out. They're doing it right now.

Tomorrow is going to be better, because we and not they are going to create it.