Democrats move forward

November 10, 2022

The Democrats have gained deep structural advantages in recent years by leveraging technology, for instance in a decade-long effort that was recently successful, in flipping the Michigan Legislature from Republican to Democratic control, which was powered mostly by grassroots text-messaging campaigns. 

Politically, this shows the appeal of a grassroots progressivism that never gives up, not by showing denial but by being adaptive and flexible in its tactics. 

Grassroots Democrats are interested in these new tactics because what grassroots progressives are mostly interested in is getting their message out there, while it is mainly labor movements that create the platforms and ideologies that get progressives excited. 

Fundraising techniques, which have gotten a lot of attention in recent years, are mainly driven by tech use amongst progressive grassroots Democrats, while labor unions don't need to raise money, so, fundraising is a tactics mostly unrelated to labor. 

Functionally this is done by leveraging people's expectation for nuanced policy against their desire for succinct updates. 

Labor unions set the platform by the economic analysis of the conditions of their members, so the messaging is always linked to the reality on the ground. 

The rise of new unions representing both campaign workers having to do with the Democratic Party, and unions representing knowledge workers like the tech sector and writers, have complicated things somewhat, but every union also eyes some outside group to carry its message, so not as much ha changed in the system as it may appear, except in variety of media representation. 

However, that said, it is in my opinion imperative that running for office be done for the honor, and not be bureaucratized, even if that means not being unionized. 

The divide between platform and messaging means that in the recent case of the Michigan Legislature win, the message might travel to other states that state legislatures are the most influential branch of government on the population, even as the creators of policy have already moved on to other objectives. 

Any immediate and massive change in life for Michiganders has probably more to do with how long the Republicans were in control of the Legislature and how much that change was needed there. 

The political condition of Bernie Sanders' political crew and other progressive movements was strong in Michigan relative to other places in the country and that accounts for the strength in the Democratic condition in Michigan too. 

However, there's a divide between the increasingly youth-led progressive grassroots and the older quasi-legal groups: the one works on messaging and tactics, while the other is increasingly trying to usurp power from the unions. 

"In the room" where weighty decision are made, there is a balance of objectives between swelling the Democratic Party membership, and removing the blinders of fear from the existing membership. 

There are totally speaking two major traditional components to a political party: a commanding presence, and a welcoming face. 

However there is a necessary third component, too: a power that works betwixt and between everything else, and builds consensus. 

It is taken for granted that any group can marshal significant resources to bear on any problem. 

It is often the case, however, as now that mobilization of resources in groups ignores the mobilization of those who make the most creative power with those resources. 

The reason consensus-building power can't operate well in today's Democratic Party is because too much effort has been expended on building up the membership and not enough on inuring the members to fear. 

Although the counter argument will be raised the concentrating on removing fear will focus power in too few hands, the current situation is that work is dissipated within a chaotic membership. 

A reconciliation between the two poles of group membership could be to focus on building political literacy amongst the membership. 

It is not to impede growing the Party membership that educational programming could be offered outside the confines of the Party. 

No condition of a group can remain predominant forever, but it is preferable at this time to make the people in the Party less afraid. 

The labor movement should have a more prominent role, among the other creators of the Party platform, in educating the members about the real condition of society. 

The Party membership needs to understand that deep decisions are made based on deciding the primacy and ordering of methods of achieving goals. 

This may soon change, however, to prefer those with the greatest accumulated wisdom to make benevolent governmental decisions on their own. 

The end goal is not only the restoration of our knowledge of our individual place in the world, but also what we may best do to improve it. 

The system we are creating is not a hierarchy by design, but is rational by design, showing us both where we stand and how we can improve.