That started to change for me during the build up to the Iraq War and the 2002 elections.
More below the fold...
I saw the country being pushed toward an irrational and unjustifiable invasion by a radical group of extremists in Washington. Not only was our media generally complicit with the pro-invasion pitch, but the opposition party -- my Democratic Party -- was too weak to make a serious effort to resist.
Now, I had fully supported the war in Afghanistan to destroy the Taliban and eliminate al Qaeda. But any thinking (and honest) person knew that Iraq was completely different -- if Afghanistan was about eliminating a threat; Iraq would be about projecting US power in the Arab world for the sake of doing so. And Iraq was the riskiest and dumbest place to attempt such a gamble. It did not take a rocket scientest to see that the invasion would tend to unite Muslim factions against us (instead of dividing and isolating our specific enemies) and that Iran would be the most likely beneficiary if any type of representative government was installed in Iraq.
"The Republicans have lost their minds." I thought. And also: "Wolfowitz is the being consulted as an expert on this? God help us."
But mostly I asked: "Where are the Democrats?"
I asked that question many times. The media was, as usual, no help at all. Their stories just went around the tired old themes about the Democrats lacking ideas or the Democrats being divided. To me, those themes were lazy and dumb: the party has always been a free-for-all but that never stopped it from having bold leaders who were willing to, you know, lead.
After reading widely among activists on the internet, I eventually came to the following view:
What the Democratic Party is lacking is infrastructure.
Organized labor is a shadow of what it was and people (especially young people) are highly mobile and less likely to know or care about their local party organization.
The lack of a reliable Democratic organization to turn out our base means that our leaders have felt more pressure to chase the "center." This was manifested in Clinton's triangulation strategy, which worked OK for him but was hell on the party overall.
As soon as Democrats started searching for the safety of the "political center" instead of feeling confidant that they could stand up proudly for their principles and still win elections, the center started moving suddenly to the right. And that so-called center has been moving to the right rather briskly since 1994, when the crazies took over the Republican Party. They may seem nice, but whenever it matters they will vote for whatever insanity or corruption is on order from the extreme right. (Hi Tom!).
So what's the answer? Get involved. Do more than vote.
And here's the thing: blogging or reading blogs does NOT qualify. Blogging is fine for ranting or venting, and that's all well and good as long as everyone agrees and understands that it's like the online equivalent of being on the Bill Maher show.
Do more than vote means volunteering for candidates you support by finding ways for those candidates to reach out to real live voters. (And everyone is free to pick whatever primary candidate they like -- just please support the winner and the party after the primary!) Do more than vote means knocking on doors and making phone calls. It means contributing if you have the means to do so. It means considering joining your local Democratic committee and then fully supporting ALL the nominated candidates running in that committee's precincts.
Most of all, do more than vote means a commitment to the Democratic Party as a (generally) progressive organization and putting that organization -- warts and all -- above whatever pet issue you may have and above whatever desire for influence or authority you may have (if you have that desire, be a candidate and not an activist).
The tide is starting to turn, and anyone who heard Jim Webb's rebuttable to the State of the Union must recognize that some of our most recent additions to the Democratic Party have proved to be among our strongest and most unapologetic leaders. And they have brought many new people into the party. That is a wonderful thing, but it won't last if this great new energy is not used to build up the Democratic Party and attack the current crop of odius Republicans, but is instead used to form a competing faction bent on undermining the existing Democratic organization.
In the long term, we need people to make a habit of getting involved for the party because a stronger Democratic Party will tend to produce more and better Democrats.
You may not like them all. But this isn't about you -- it's about our country and where it's heading without a strong Democratic Party.
Sean Corey
Vienna