http://www.mydd.com/story/2007/2/20/171442/313


On Persecuted Super-Majorities
by Chris Bowers, Tue Feb 20, 2007 at 05:14:42 PM EST

One of the side benefits to the Democratic victories in 2006 that I have particularly enjoyed have been the massive reductions in the number of proclamations that "Democrats won't start winning elections until they start talking about X." Now that we have actually started winning quite a few elections during the 2005-2006 cycle, it has become a little more difficult for people to proclaim that Democrats won't win any elections until "they" start following someone's prescribed advice. Just to be clear, freely admit I am as guilty as anyone else along these lines. Throughout 2005-2006, I argued, among other things, that Democrats will not win in 2006 unless they start talking about withdrawal from Iraq, unless they identify themselves as Democrats in commercials, unless they run candidates in far more districts than they typically had during the past two decades, etc. I would argue that the difference between the type of advice I gave was in that it offered specific recommendations to make for 2006, rather than sweeping statements about what Democrats need to do in general. Decide for yourself if you think that distinction holds any merit, because I won't belabor the point any longer.

Anyway, now that the old "Democrats won't start winning elections until they do X" line of discussion has been tabled at least until our next major electoral defeat, it has been replaced by a new line of whining. Now, the most common complaint you will hear from the people who used to say "Democrats won't start winning elections until they do X," is that "Democrats won because of X, because aren't treating X as a valued member of their coalition now that they are in power." Rhetorically, it is pretty much the same argument: Democrats either need or needed X in order to win, and any perceived slight against X is bad because it will lead to continuing / future Democratic defeats. No matter what X is-- Rahm, faith, the netroots, labor, populism, centrism, the fifty-state strategy, progressivism--X is essential to win, and thus X must be respected at all costs.

As irritating as these discussions can be, and despite their frequency to morph into self-defeating meta, I neither expect them to go away entirely, nor do I expect to stop engaging in them myself (I often step in to defend the netroots as the X in these discussions, for example). I would, however, like to see some ground rules laid down when we engage in these discussions among Democrats and progressives. Specifically, I would like to see two rules:


- As always, don't attack Democrats and progressives in the same way Republicans would. That means dropping uses of liberal strawmen, and avoiding any of the following: Democrats are too weak on defense, moral values, or standing up for their principles.


- Second, if the X you are defending actually represents the majority of a coalition, don't attack a minority X in the coalition for somehow persecuting you within the coalition. Not only is engaging in such an attack both absurd and morally questionable, it is also structurally identical to the long-term conservative tactic of blaming a mythical and / or relatively powerless minority for the problems of the majority: Jews, blacks, immigrants, a liberal elite, judges, teachers, unions, seculars, gays, etc. It never ceases to amaze me how conservatives successfully convince people that persecuted minorities are actually to blame for the problems of the majority in this country. (And no, attacking unequal wealth distribution is not the same thing, because it targets both inequality and the location of the majority of wealth).


I bring this up for two reasons. First, polling from CBS News suggests that a plurality of Americans now believe that people who hold strong religious beliefs are under attack in this country (see table 15, about a third of the way down, in this link). Pardon my pun, but how in God's name is it conceivable that a small minority, the roughly 10% of the population that is not religious, is somehow responsible for violating the rights of the other 90%? The absurdity of this position is compounded by the fact that people without religion are by far the least welcome participants within American public life, as recent polling by Gallup has shown. Somehow, a small group that the majority of Americans find to be offensive, and who are regularly lambasted in public for ever expressing their beliefs in public, are oppressing the other 90% of the population. That is so utterly absurd it is the sort of thing that could come out of the worst propaganda machines from ideological one-party states the world has ever seen. In order to hold prominent positions in public life, American seculars are basically forced to "stay in the closet" about their beliefs, and yet the 10% of the country that must go through that ordeal are somehow oppressing the other 90%. Yeah, that makes sense.

Second, and although I tried to avoid this discussion like the plague because Jim Wallishas once again played the persecution card on behalf of the religious left within the Democratic-progressive coalition. I was loathe to bring this up, because avoiding discussions of religion at all costs for fear of blowback against your beliefs is something you learn to do as a secular, even on the left. Before I go any further, keep in mind that Jim Wallis is on recordstating the following:



Wallis believes that seculars, who make up a minority within the Democratic coalition, have too much power within the Democratic coalition. Wallis believes that seculars have too much power in the Democratic Party even though there isn't a single Democrat elected to federal office who is on the record as being a secular or an atheist. Wallis also clearly states that the power of seculars in the Democratic Party should be reduced, even though he doesn't name any seculars who should see their power reduced. It was nice of him to state that seculars should play some role in the coalition, however. I also particularly like the part about him having some secular "allies." What's next, claim that he has "lots of friends" who are atheists? Maybe I should apply to be Wallis secular friend, ala Steven Colbert's ongoing application process to find his next black friend.

I don't know what we seculars did to deserve this. What secular members of the coalition have bashed the concept of faith in public? How exactly have we kept people of faith down in the Democratic coalition? Besides me and a few other bloggers, who even are the prominent secular members of the coalition? In what ways to we seculars hold too much sway over the Democratic Party, and in what ways should it be reduced to prevent us from causing further damage? Even though we occupy an adjoining closet, are we still taking up too much space in the meeting room by staying in the closet? What further hole should we seculars crawl down before we are no longer holding people of faith back?

After Wallis received some pushback to his post from Pastor Dan, among others, Ryan Beilerposed the following question in a subsequent post:


My question is why any progressives feel the need to publicly address "issues of liberal intolerance of religion." Should we simultaneously address issues of liberal weakness on national security? Is there even a question that one could address that could better reify a long-term argument, such as their endless claims that liberals are oppressing people of faith? And why is liberal intolerance of religion even an issue? What issue should we address next--GLBT intolerance of heterosexuals? Jewish intolerance of Christians? Surely, the ways in which a closeted minority are oppressing 90% of America are indeed among the most pressing issues we face as a nation, and at the root of our social problems today.

Frankly, it is frustrating to me that I am even writing this. Screeds of this sort are designed to draw attention to the person making them, and I am obliging Wallis by taking the bait. Jim Wallis seems to be another in a long line of Democrats from the DLC-nexus that thrive off the media attention they generate for attacking Democrats and progressives through utilization of the same liberal strawmen Republicans use. I just can't let that pass. Yes, I very much want to build a broad progressive coalition that will include religious diversity among other forms of diversity, but that is never going to happen if members of the coalition decide to make a name for themselves by attacking liberals and progressives in the same bullshit manner conservatives have done for decades. Wallis even engages in this attack while admitting Markos didn't attack religion. At the beginning of Wallis's piece, he states:



Wallis uses what he admits is not an attack on religion by Markos to bring up how religion has been attacked in the past. But by the end of the piece, he goes ahead and groups Markos into those attacking religion anyway (emphasis mine):



Wallis seems so used to attacking a strawman secular left that hates faith that he at first admits Markos was doing no such thing, and then, at the end of the piece, goes ahead and implies Markos was attacking faith anyway. And, as I already quoted above, by the time another writer on the same blog made a follow up to Wallis's post, what Markos wrote has been seamless merged with "liberal intolerance of religion." Thus, even when we seculars are not attacking religion, I guess we still are attacking it somehow.

This can be accurately extreme desperation to find any reason to attack seculars for being hostile to religion and persecuting the religious left within the Democratic coalition. It is as though Wallis and other writers on his blog fear irrelevance if they can't find reasons to argue that the Democratic Party is hostile to religion. That is utterly Lieberman-esque.

I have a different deal to propose to Wallis. If you stop claiming that you are oppressed by a minority, if you stop arguing that secular should have less influence in the Democratic coalition, and if you stop attacking liberals in the same manner as conservative attack us, then maybe we can actually work together here. Even though you made your name by doing so, I would hope that you don't want to just be somehow who talks about how Democrats talk about religion. Instead, I would hope that you actually want to be a Democrat who talks about religion, and who acts and lives in a way that is in accordance with that religion. If there is a person or cabal of some sort within the secular left preventing you from doing so, let me know, and I will help you in that regard. Until then, don't claim that people like me are somehow holding you and the Democratic Party back, and don't act surprise when we push back against you for making such claims.