A Progressive Majority -- What It Is and How to Build It
by Mark SolomonAt the Jack London Museum in the Sonoma foothills, there's a large poster on display from around 1907 advertising a talk by Jack London on "The Coming Crisis." If ever there was an always timely, all-purpose and perennially relevant topic, that's it.
When we tote up outrages like an administration that abets environmental disaster, a budget resolution that shreds the last vestiges of decent social payments, worsening carnage in Iraq, insane threats to nuke Iran; a White House knee-deep in corruption, chicanery and contempt for the Constitution; a House bill that criminalizes millions of undocumented workers and those who help them; festering brutality, torture illegal rendition and denial of human rights to prisoners held across the world; near-genocidal widespread joblessness and incarceration among African American males; aggressive campaigns to undermine reproductive choice, gay marriage and other personal decisions -- the crisis isn't just coming. Its here.
But crisis always provokes response -- the most visible at the moment the awakening of undocumented immigrants and their supporters demanding a fair and secure path to citizenship. Their huge demonstrations have shaken Congress and have signaled the emergence of a potentially powerful component of progressive struggle with great significance for forging coalitions to defeat the right.
As the Iraq war grinds on with steadily rising death and injury to civilians and military, demonstrative action will surely grow as counter recruitment and other anti- war efforts are growing. Recent referenda in Wisconsin and various opinion polls show deep antipathy for the war running through even traditionally conservative regions. Iraq remains a crucial, potentially determining issue, especially in the forthcoming elections.
Lingering outrage over Katrina with its inseparably linked racism and poverty uncovered in the wake of the hurricane, a health care crisis, wage stagnation, dead end jobs, deeply rooted government corruption, disquiet over unilateralism and preventive war -- all of these factors, and more, have contributed to Bush's plummeting polls and are the basis for building and consolidating a progressive majority.
Another crucial element enhancing such prospects is the emergence of fissures in the dominant right wing coalition. The Iraq quagmire has nearly ruptured the right's consensus about the use of US military power to unilaterally dominate the global system and radically reshape the Middle East. The immigration issue has for the moment sundered the alliance between corporate bigwigs hungering for cheap labor and xenophobic nationalists. Bush's reckless run up of debt has alienated fiscal hard-liners. A solid front of religious conservatives that formed the backbone of the anti- abortion movement has weakened, especially among Catholic clergy who have broken from the right wing consensus to support undocumented workers. Exposure of rampant Republican corruption has brought down Tom DeLay; the Abramoff scandal has begun to engulf other Republicans while the Plame affair is now creeping into the Oval Office itself.
Prospects for a progressive majority are also influenced by events around the world. Zbigniew Brzezinski has said that Bush is facing a global "populist tide" capable of stifling the administration's foreign policy objectives. That tide runs through Latin America where new and varied forms of struggle against corporate globalization is led by new and imaginative left and progressive coalitions. The tide is running through Europe from the winning alliance of unions and youth in France that saved job protection, to a center-left coalition that defeated Berlusconi in Italy. The tide also runs through Africa, Asia, the Middle East and the Pacific Islands where daily battles take place against the ravages of the global system and against US imperial ambitions. At times that resistance is complex and even regressive, but the general trend against the hegemony of corporate globalization and US military power is unmistakable.
A progressive majority is more than numbers. It is an organized, unified, coherent force able to impact the political process and ultimately overcome the dominant corporate politics -- connecting constructively with the rest of the world and promoting a domestic culture of democracy and justice.
A progressive majority must be a coalition of center and left. The center generally has no systemic political philosophy save pragmatism whereby it tends to shift around issue-by-issue, at times pressured from the left or right. It is moderately liberal, does not see US global policy as necessarily imperialist, but often opposes the negative consequences of US foreign adventures. Domestically it favors government intervention to curb the worst corporate abuses and social ills while not seeing government as a sure vessel of big business and military power.
The left, clearly smaller, embraces many currents but generally shares a systemic critique of the dominant system and a consistently critical estimate of US foreign policy. Under present circumstances where the bankruptcy of the right is exposed and where it is beset by mounting difficulties and growing resistance, the left can influence the center to join with it to forge a common minimum program to alter the country's political course.
A center-left coalition needs to formulate that broadly agreed upon common program that accommodates the holistic outlook of the left and the pragmatic outlook of the center. The three essential components of that program would most likely be a) a constructive global policy for peace and environmental survival; b) economic and social justice; c) defense of constitutional and human rights.
A common program does not imply unprincipled compromises that can only reduce the coalition to an ineffectual echo of the dominant political culture. Quite the contrary, a coalition of center and left has to grasp the interconnections between issues. It has to forge unbreakable connections among issues of class, racial and gender justice as well as peace and economic survival. Within the amalgam of left and center there must be a convergence of diverse social forces -- trade unionists, communities of color, white collar workers, immigrants, women and men, gays and straights, old and young who recognize in the coalition's concerns a strong responsiveness to their needs. Thus, an organized progressive majority that stands with undocumented workers also demands a living wage, union rights and massive jobs programs for all -- undercutting corporate divide-and-conquer strategies seeking to pit oppressed nationalities against each other.
To suggest that such an interconnected basic program, linking for example the struggle against racism to economic justice and peace, would not enlist support of the center is defeatist and does not reflect the possibilities of this political moment. At the same time, a progressive majority is not, nor can it become, a vessel of ideological uniformity. An anti-imperialist outlook, for example, cannot be a compulsory condition imposed by left forces. For the anti-war component, in particular, a clear distinction has to be made between a broadly based peace movement and an anti-imperialist movement. Failure to make that distinction sows division and ironically undercuts the building of a majority capable of stopping imperialist wars.
This does not imply that the left should abandon efforts to advance a systemic analysis aimed at influencing the coalition. The near-dissolution of the peace movement after the Vietnam War ended was due in significant measure to the failure of much of the movement to grasp a deeper understanding of imperialism and its aggressive nature. The left has a big role to play in educating, in advancing a transforming political culture and in deepening the politics of the progressive majority. But those objectives must never become conditions for forming and sustaining coalitions. Such a posture is a prescription for disaster.
The April 29 "March for Peace, Justice and Democracy" in New York City is a significant milestone toward building a progressive majority. The convergence of major peace, environmental, civil rights, women's labor, youth and veterans' groups to engage together in a broad multi- issue demonstration can be a starting point for launching similar forms from the grass roots to the national level. Every effort should be expended to make the march a resounding success.
(It should be noted that the need for a coalition of left and center forces that could minimally coordinate a calendar of activities is also underscored by April 29. On that day, the Democratic Party has called upon its supporters to engage in a nation-wide "neighbor-to- neighbor" canvassing effort. Such conflicts like this might in the future be avoided with cooperation and coordination.)
Developments such as the April 29 March, embracing diverse constituencies and a range of interrelated issues, can have a major impact on the absolutely crucial 2006 and 2008 elections. That organized progressive majority is an independent movement that impacts the electoral process by advancing those issues with clarity and persistence. The coalition would inevitably embrace a variety of views toward electoral politics and the two-party system. But it would be united in its stand on the issues. That itself would have measurable, powerful impact on the coming elections. The strength of anti-war sentiment and activity has already compelled would-be-again Presidential candidate John Kerry to advance a rigid timetable for the withdrawal of US forces from Iraq and for politicians of both parties to edge away from Bush's deadly war policies.
The building of a progressive majority does not have to depend solely upon the actions of the leaders of national organizations. At every level, activists can a) submit resolutions to their trade unions, political action groups, religious, senior, women's student, civil rights, gay, etc., organizations calling for programmatic cooperation with other progressive groups; b) petitions and Internet appeals to all progressives can be launched to advance a common program; c) meetings, conferences, symposia of the broadest range of progressive groups can be organized to forge cooperation; d) articles, leaflets and brochures aimed at promoting a cohesive progressive majority though a common program can be produced and disseminated; e) coalitions at local and regional levels can be organized around one or more crucial issues as a basis for building a more permanent, organized progressive majority.
The stirring of progressive activism is a hopeful sign. But hope is not enough. Greater cohesion and cooperation across wide political and social lines are needed. There is need for a new spirit of unified struggle guided by a commitment to the issues that are links to pull the entire chain of victory for peace and justice. Let's dedicate ourselves to achieving that victory.
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