I continue to be somewhat surprised at the attitude I find among the cognoscenti about what is expected from the activist wing of the party. From what I gather, the base is assumed to be trained seals who will clap and do tricks on command but placidly accept the blame when things go wrong. And it upsets the serious people greatly when it fails to do that. In other words, the base is the party's doormat.
The problem is that in a polarized political world, intensity matters. And I hate to tell the Democrats, but the Republican base has it and theirs doesn't. You can browbeat the rank and file all you want, you can exhort them to support things because it's "the best you can do" but I think that most people who study human behavior would say that this is not a very good way to motivate large numbers of people to do something. If what you need is a bunch of energetic, engaged citizens, hectoring and nagging them about their "duty" or patronizingly explaining to them like a bunch of children why they should be cheerleading something they don't feel invested in, probably isn't going to get the job done. I'm sure that's very frustrating, but it's a grievous mistake to believe the only people you have to patiently and consistently persuade to donate, work and vote for you are elites ans swing voters because the rubes are locked down with nowhere else to go.
More importantly, the best and the brightest saying that everyone should just trust them is about the worst message I can imagine right now. As a progressive type who respects expertise, I even used to buy that to a certain extent. But since I have now been alive long enough to see these so-called experts delude, double deal and disillusion more times than I can count, I'm not willing to suspend my own judgment anymore. And I would guess that in this economic environment the Democratic base has gone beyond the "trust but verify" stage to the "I'll believe it when I see it" stage as well.
It is clear that they believe that a nice Barack Obama speech and a lively messaging campaign will do the trick , but they'd better wake up. The trained seals are not responding to that anymore. In fact, they are looking a lot more like killer whales at the moment and some respect for their power should probably be paid.
Winston Churchill said something about Americans that may apply exactly to the Democrats: "They always do the right thing after they've tried everything else".
"I'll believe it when I see it."
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