Issues are more important than elections

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the way we do politics in this country. Not just the approach of politicians, but how politically engaged people who care about social justice issues direct our time, energy, and funds. I’ve watched us go from talk of universal health care to a bill that might very well die, or might empower the insurance companies by forcing everyone to buy from them, create a working class tax increase to pay for expanded access, further restrict access to abortion… It seems we have to admit the opponents of health care reform are doing something right and we’re doing something wrong. OK, probably a lot of somethings plus events that cannot be controlled (the loss of Ted Kennedy as a leader in this fight was a huge blow). The issue that’s stood out to me, though, has been the focusing of grassroots energy on winning elections more than on winning on issues.
You need power to win in politics. But what is winning? The point of politics should be to win on our issues. Elections are important – this couldn’t be more obvious after recent events in Massachusetts. We need politicians in place who will be willing to enact our agenda. But hey look, there’s a Democratic majority in the House and Senate and a Democrat in the White House, and real health care reform spent the past year falling apart.
Right now winning is defined primarily as getting candidates into office. This makes sense for politicians and the parties that support them: their goal is to be in power, to get more powerful. Once in office politicians are unlikely to act on our issues unless it would hurt them politically not to. Corporate interests are pumping money into Washington to push their agendas. So action from constituents is crucial to get politicians to enact an agenda we support.
It took a lot of work to get Barack Obama elected. I wasn’t part of that organizing, but I saw many friends give up their free time and personal lives to dedicate themselves to the campaign. This is the sort of work that was needed to get a candidate into office. But that’s the easiest part of the process. Pushing elected officials to enact an agenda we support takes a lot more work. Many people have dedicated their lives to fighting for universal health care, and many more have been working non-stop this past year to pass health care reform. But this work needed to be done at a scale larger than the Obama campaign, and that just hasn’t happened.


The opposition has certainly come out in force. There are a lot of factors at play here – it’s often easier to get people to act in opposition than to build support. Money is a huge factor – the health care industry obviously doesn’t want real reform and they’ve done a very good job of staying behind the scenes thanks to the conservative movement’s success in building a strong, well funded, and trusted propaganda arm. Too many people only get their “news” from talk radio and Fox News. Poor and working class white folks who would actually benefit from universal health care have been misinformed and outright lied to, and then organized by folks like Glenn Beck (when he and his colleagues are busy being the All Gold All the Time Home Shopping Network) to voice opposition to health care reform at a massive scale and in incredibly visible ways.
The left doesn’t have these sorts of structures in place to organize support for its agenda. Part of this can be traced back to Reagan’s privatizing of social services. When the government got out of the business of helping its people, folks on the left had to fill the void. Funding, resources, and individuals have to go to providing direct services. Meanwhile, the right has funded think tanks to develop a vision and ways of articulating their arguments. And they’ve put in place the networks for spreading their message.
When Rock the Vote released their clueless, misguided “Hold Out for Health Care” ad it hit me like a ton of bricks. Here was a perfect representation, in visual form, of what happens when folks put so much energy into getting politicians elected they lose site of what issues matter (homophobia, transphobia, racism, and ageism come to mind from watching the video) and any sense of how to fight effectively to pass legislation. I get that Rock the Vote has a specific role to play as an organization, but the ad speaks to larger movement problems: when you put most of your resources into getting politicians elected and then don’t know how to push to get good laws enacted you’re doing politics wrong.
The overall movement for health care reform is struggling, but the reproductive rights movement has had some of the largest and most visible losses. Organizations fighting for abortion access are in a particularly difficult position. Too many resources have to go to direct service work. Funding for anything related to abortion is hard to come by, since the stigma has been built up so well. But the fact is the reproductive rights movement hasn’t had a win for 37 years. It’s been 37 years of slowly chipping away at abortion access. I know the fight is hard, but shouldn’t it be obvious that tactics have to change in a big way when we’ve been losing for this long?
We went into the health care reform process saying no changes to the abortion status quo, which is now the Hyde Amendment. Even though the status quo sucks. And even though abortion was going to come up any way – of course it was, I don’t understand how anyone in politics could have imagined otherwise. It’s an easy divisive issue, a surefire way to derail the political process. So what would have happened if we demanded more? If we said that Hyde wasn’t acceptable and that if we were going to increase access to health care abortion had to be included? I keep wondering if we would have ended up with Hyde as the worst case scenario for abortion in health care reform, instead of the Stupak/Nelson language that goes beyond an already awful “status quo.”
Stupak and Nelson have the tea bagger movement behind them, a large and growing network of folks willing to speak directly to their elected officials in opposition to health care reform in general and abortion access in particular. It seemed clear to me from the shouts of the crowd at the Stop Stupak Day of Action on the hill that while the leaders of mainstream reproductive rights organizations may be willing to accept Hyde as the status quo, their constituents are not. There needs to be better communication between organizations and supporters so the folks in Washington can speak for what the grassroots really want. And these organizations need to understand what the grassroots want so they can help organize us, help us act as one large movement. What if we’d seen a grassroots movement expressing as much opposition to the current state of abortion access from the left as we’ve heard from the right?
The prioritizing of elections over issues is part of the prioritizing of power politics over issues. In Washington it’s all about who you know, how you’re connected, and maintaining your relationships with power to build your own power. The games of power and connections that take place in Washington are important. But when we engage in this work we have to do so in a way that is about gaining power to win on our issues, not gaining power for its own sake. And when leadership gets too enamored with their own power and connections we have to hold them accountable.
The post on Daily Kos titled Feminism Fail has generated important discussion and critique. I think the piece is flawed and misses some harsh realities, but it’s not all wrong. The big organizations are out of touch with the grassroots, and have been for too long.
Grassroots organizing is vital. It’s how people come together to push their government to act in their interests. Lately the tools of grassroots organizing have been used very well by the Obama campaign and the manipulators of the tea bagger movement. I would never pretend that a grassroots movement for health care reform doesn’t exist, or that it’s not passionate and organized. But we heard from elected officials during the Stop Stupak Day of Action that they’re hearing from the opposition much more than they’re hearing from us. And the opposition message is everywhere – tv, radio, town hall meetings, newspaper letter sections, the streets. Standing inside this movement it certainly doesn’t look as massive and organized as the Obama campaign or the tea baggers (yes, I know the tea baggers look like an angry, wild mess, but it takes a lot of organizing to turn out that many people).
There are plenty of critiques to level at the President, Members of Congress, and the Democratic party. In fact, they’re largely responsible for the existence of a politics built more around their attaining of power than fighting for our issues. Howard Dean (yep, same guy who said “Kill the bill”)’s big tent approach to winning a Democratic majority has led to a party so wide there’s a large and organized base of vocal opposition to real health care reform from within party ranks. I don’t identify as a Democrat, but I know they’re the major party that comes closest to acting on my agenda, almost always falling far too short. So I know they need to be pushed to do a better job, or they need to be replaced.
The problems aren’t just with those we send to Washington, though. Because we can’t just trust them to do what we want if we only pay attention every four years. Those of us in social justice movements need to constantly be thinking about how we’re doing this work, and when we’re losing we need to think critically, and we need to think big. I want a health care win, I want wins on a lot of issues we’ve been losing on for far too long. I know a lot of organizations and individuals who are doing this work want those wins too. I know there is a committed movement for health care and abortion access. But we’re losing, so we need to do better. And I think this requires breaking out of a system of doing political work that makes politics more about the individuals being elected than the struggle for change.

Boston, MA

Jos Truitt is Executive Director of Development at Feministing. She joined the team in July 2009, became an Editor in August 2011, and Executive Director in September 2013. She writes about a range of topics including transgender issues, abortion access, and media representation. Jos first got involved with organizing when she led a walk out against the Iraq war at her high school, the Boston Arts Academy. She was introduced to the reproductive justice movement while at Hampshire College, where she organized the Civil Liberties and Public Policy Program’s annual reproductive justice conference. She has worked on the National Abortion Federation’s hotline, was a Field Organizer at Choice USA, and has volunteered as a Pro-Choice Clinic Escort. Jos has written for publications including The Guardian, Bilerico, RH Reality Check, Metro Weekly, and the Columbia Journalism Review. She has spoken and trained at numerous national conferences and college campuses about trans issues, reproductive justice, blogging, feminism, and grassroots organizing. Jos completed her MFA in Printmaking at the San Francisco Art Institute in Spring 2013. In her "spare time" she likes to bake and work on projects about mermaids.

Jos Truitt is an Executive Director of Feministing in charge of Development.

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