OWS vs. voting?

These dispiriting statistics from Frank Viviano (cross-posted from Salon.com) makes it kind of hit home that voting does matter. Although he fails to cite a source for these numbers, if they are even partially accurate then this represents a pretty spectacular failure of American democracy in a time of crisis.

"In 2008, more than 65 million Americans cast Democratic votes in congressional races, a 13 million-vote edge over the Republicans. In 2010, the Democratic vote plummeted to an abysmal 35 million, 6 million less than the GOP, which took decisive power in the House and paralyzed the Senate.


We think we know this story. But the truth is, we haven’t begun to absorb its full details and implications yet:

•The number of voters under 24 who bothered to go to the polls in 2010 dropped by a stupefying 60 percent, and those between 24 and 29 by almost 50 percent. Altogether, the participation of young people – who had been overwhelmingly pro-Obama in 2008 – declined by 11 million votes.


•Among over-65-year-olds, the core of the Tea Party movement, the voting numbers barely changed, from 17.6 million in 2008 to 17.5 million in 2010.


•The African-American vote fell by 40 percent, and the Hispanic vote by almost 30 percent.


•Among the mostly white voters who earn more than $200,000 per year, the turnout fell by a scant 5 percent, from 7 million to 6.5 million.


•Voting by those with annual incomes under $30,000 dropped by 33 percent, more than six times the figure for the affluent.


In effect, the abstainers turned a potential Democratic landslide into a full-scale collapse – with nightmarish consequences for civil rights, for the U.S. and world economies, and for social programs that range across the board from healthcare and educational funding to employment programs, pension benefits and the sagging national infrastructure."

Viviano calls this a "massive progressive cop out" and to some degree it is but it is also hard to say just how much. How many self-conscious progressives stayed home versus how many "moderate" Democrats were dispirited or disillusioned? It is difficult to say exactly what happened, teabag momentum, the feeling of betrayal, delegation or abnegation of responsibility to Democratic elected officials. There has been quite a bit of speculation that the president really doesn't believe in progressive ideals, he's actually a moderate republican, and so on. I would like to forward an alternate frame.

In The Vital Center Schlesinger made a distinction between doughface progressive "wailers" and radical democratic "doers" in our liberal tradition. The doughface in his conception was "a democratic man with totalitarian principles" who runs from responsibility and freedom, surrendering the chaos of liberty for the protective embrace of communist discipline. In our contemporary situation, voters largely abdicated the responsibility for involvement after electing Barack Obama, and once in he feared actually being responsible for the consequences of big decisions. This explains why to some degree why his cabinet was stocked with doughfaces like geithner and summers, progressive men with banker's principles. It seemed that the entire Democratic governing coalition was held captive by lack of vision and fear. Fear of trying something different, fear of being held responsible for the radical actions necessary to get our society back on track.

Schlesinger's wailer as well, was a liberal utopian who was afraid of the real world. They simply wanted to criticize but not actually change things, much better to craft the perfect rhetorical flourish to condemn greed, oppression, and the like. Therefore, wailers don't actually want power. Combine this with the decay of intermediate forces, unions, clubs, even party structures and you can see how someone that perhaps started out with principles could become unmoored when faced with that kind of fear. Without intermediate forces to support liberals once in power, or threaten them when they waver it is no wonder they fall prey to special interests.

I probably qualify as a wailer, so does Mr. Viviano at least in so far as his activism is limited to writing "blame the victim" articles for liberal commentaries. This story does reek of finger wagging, "tsk, tsk" you dumb proles, look what your laziness did. Now you are forced to "occupy" things and suffer the tear gas and truncheons because your fellow Americans were too busy to show up. Take this quote: "The leaders and foot soldiers of the civil rights era fought with unflagging commitment, and King himself was martyred, in a two-decade campaign for the voting privileges that 2010 abstainers dismissed as unworthy of an hour’s time on a single Tuesday in November. The Wall Street demonstrators are now debating an even broader boycott of the 2012 presidential election." Shame on you!


Unfortunately for my fellow wailers, American activism doesn't work like that. In the aggragate, it is much harder to get people to show up than appeals to past accomplishment or sacrifice. Yet, energy and activism does get going and has accomplished things. Viviano has a pretty short sense of history if he thinks the civil rights movement accomplished its work in two decades, this leaves out the seven decades of activism prior to it, and the four since of trying to defend the progress in the face of apathy. Unfortunately as well, Democratic efforts on behalf of civil rights neglected other elements of the New Deal coalition and contributed to the fracturing of liberalism we see today. The progressive movement has some similar features in OWS, denial of opportunity, exploitation for the benefit of their economic masters. I don't want to equate the two too closely but movements for change take time, collectively there is a sense of impatience and the same desire for instant and painless results.
But SNCC and the SCLC were intermediate structures that could focus energy and maintain pressure even when popular commitment waned. OWS could be an intermediate structure that a greater number of people can focus on, a human face for all the frustration out in the country. The teabag movement, with all of its corporate money, conservative media coverage, guns, racism and furious anger on the shadows instead of the substance, was really scary. I worried that there would be armed pot-bellies in front of the polls last November, but I still went. It is really hard to believe that your ideas matter when there is no centralizing movement, no structure to explore and find out others may have similiar beliefs. TV commercials don't do much compared to real organization.

So, wailers need to understand order of causation, it would be great if a great critical mass of people could cut through the crap and do their civic duty without prodding but how often has that ever happened? Freedom is a great thing, but people will rarely fight for it. There needs to be something else, a real goal. Similarly, democracy is a great thing, but it tends to dissipate rather than focus energy for change. Especially on the left where everyone has a different opinion on what is important, what the strategy should be, and what the goal is. In the end, direct action and voting are important, we need both if there is to be any change for the good.