Blue Grit: True Democrats Take Back Politics from the Politicians
Laura Flanders
Penguin Press, 2007
240 pages • $25
Review by MONIQUE DOLS
THE MIDTERM elections of November 2006 broke through the conservative stalemate in U.S. politics. Voters used the election to reject Bush’s policies and to register overwhelming opposition to the war in Iraq. In particular, the election gave lie to the conclusion that many drew in the wake of the 2002 and 2004 elections that America is divided into two irreconcilable camps—a vast sea of conservative heartland “red states” interspersed with occasional islands of embattled, liberal “blue states.”
Following the Democrats’ defeat in the 2004 elections, many liberals laid the blame on voters who were supposedly too pro-Bush. This view legitimized the party’s strategy of “bipartisanship” and appealing to the middle. For some commentators, this strategy was vindicated in the Democratic victories of 2006.
But for Laura Flanders, host of RadioNation on Air America Radio and author of Blue Grit, the election results indicated quite the opposite. Flanders traveled the country to talk to people who are fighting for “change in unexpected places.” In her research, she found that the Democratic Party’s base is far to the left of the official party. She argues that “the mental picture that progressives in general tend to have of this country is not just snobbish; it’s wrong on the local details and self-defeating.” What Flanders finds is that, in “the local details,” people’s opinions in the “red states” on all of the most contentious issues of the day are much more nuanced than most progressives would believe.
Flanders argues that the Democratic electoral gains were due more to the work of local progressives than to the strategy and effort of the national party. She sees the party at a crossroads. Will it continue to follow the strategies of the “Penthouse Democrats” who are disconnected with the needs of working-class people, and never seem capable of putting up a fight? Or will the party follow the strategies of the “Blue Grit” Democrats who are the progressive grass roots of the party who get their hands dirty fighting the Right? Flanders warns:
Nobody has been talking to some folks for two decades—nobody but the organized Right. The question for Penthouse Democrats, on the other hand, is do they want to be the Blue Grit party? Rank-and-file people are taking politics back from their politicians for a reason: their lives and their communities demand relief. If the Penthouse Democrats don’t respond, those same people just might take their skills and savvy someplace else.
A common view among liberals after 2004 was that gay marriage lost John Kerry the election. As Flanders points out, however, this was not the case, since Kerry did not actually fight for gay marriage. While antigay initiatives passed in many states, progress was nevertheless made in those places where local Democrats did fight homophobia. In Cincinnati, for example, months of vigorous effort by the Restore Fairness Campaign succeeded in repealing Article XII, which had legalized discrimination against gays. Most of the gains in support for repeal came from areas of the city with a conservative reputation. As Flanders remarks, “Kerry campaigned in Cincinnati with the losing instead of winning side.” When Kerry visited, he brought local leaders on the stage who were not a part of the Cincinnati for Fairness Coalition, and he could not bring himself to even use the words “gay marriage.”
Over the past thirty years, the right wing has indeed gained ground in many places. But states such as Utah and Montana, Flanders points out, “did not just ‘swing’ right.” They were “pushed by a well-financed GOP that saw potential for power in the region, and an organized movement of the extreme Right that used violence and threats of violence to intimidate the opposition.” In the 1980s the Republicans and corporate-backed groups poured major resources into states like Montana and Utah to beat back progressive gains that had been won in the 1960s and 1970s. By the end of the 1980s, neo-Nazi groups had risen in some places, and groups such as the Militia of Montana were training in the Montana Rocky Mountains.
This well-organized assault, spearheaded by the Right, was not countered by the Democratic Party. The party’s common view is that the proposal of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) lost Utah for the Democratic Party. But the defeat was not a foregone conclusion. While the traditional Mormon Church put significant resources into organizing the state to oppose the ERA, there was also significant support for the ERA among Utah Mormons. Sonia Johnson, a leading Mormon proponent of the ERA, was excommunicated by the church for her support for the bill. This sparked a movement that included Mormons chaining themselves to the Salt Lake City Temple in protest of Johnson’s excommunication and Mormon husbands “ordaining” their wives in solidarity. The Democratic Party, notes Flanders, “beat a retreat” on the ERA rather than putting support and resources behind Johnson and the pro-ERA movement among Mormons. Lorna Vogt, a progressive Utah Democrat told Flanders, “It’s convenient to see the LDS [the Mormon Church] as this hulking monster, and in some ways it is…. But I think that some people use it as an excuse not to organize our own structures.”
Flanders argues that winning progress on any number of issues requires a fight. “Shifting the frame” of U.S. politics on “cultural issues” such as gay marriage, abortion rights, affirmative action, and immigrant rights will require an unapologetic movement. She contends that, “rarely has real change occurred because politicians polled the nation and adapted their views to please…. Minority-led movements for social change have done more to reframe the way Americans think about themselves than any think tank or message shop.”
While Flanders does a fantastic job of pointing out the need for a fighting national party, her own research raises the question of whether the Democrats can be that party. Flanders uses the experience of the civil rights organizers who built the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party to challenge the official all-white, pro-segregation Democratic delegation at the national convention in 1964. The anti-racist delegation was never seated. This example, says Flanders, shows how the Democratic Party “has never” represented the interests of its base. “One reason,” Flanders offers, is that “the power of the old party machine never did pass to the grassroots activists who had forced that party’s transformation of the 1960s. It got bottled up in Washington instead.”
Unfortunately, Flanders does not explain why the civil rights movement failed to relocate the power base of the Democratic Party. Nor does she explain how more recent movements to capture the party for its voting base could fare any better than the civil rights movement did—which, after all, was one of the strongest social movements in U.S. history.
Both major parties answer to their overwhelmingly corporate donors. They do so in different ways, but when push comes to shove, they both serve the interests of those donors over the interests of working and poor people. Unlike the Republicans, the Democratic Party relies largely on a working-class base, whose own action can occasionally push the party to concede reforms. But the party must also simultaneously discipline the base’s expectations not to ask for more than what the system can handle. In this way, the Democratic Party acts as a conservative factor until its hand is forced by the pressure from people who won’t settle for lowered expectations.
It’s good news that Flanders’ research shows that most ordinary Americans stand far to the left of official politics. This creates opportunities not seen in decades to make major progressive advances—and raises the question of how best to harness this potential. Flanders’ book is a welcome contribution to the discussion. She makes a compelling case for the potential to build a fightback now, though the strategy of reforming the Democratic Party has proven a failure again and again. In order to best move forward, the grass roots’ hard work and energy—which Flanders so vividly illustrates—needs to be organized into an independent alternative to the two-party system.
