“There’s something happening here; what it is ain’t exactly clear.” The 50-year old lyrics of Buffalo Springfield’s protest anthem went through my head as I watched angry constituents confronting Reps. Jason Chaffetz in Utah and Diane Black in Tennessee last week on a range of different policy issues.
What exactly is happening? Over the past month we’ve seen Women’s Marches, airport protests, and now town hall activism, but what exactly is this movement? There’s a lot of chatter about how the left is mounting its own version of the Tea Party. But here’s the thing: you can’t turn protest into a movement if the best working title for your movement is “The Liberal Tea Party.”
So, let’s try out a different working title: “The Progressive Patriot Party.”
Why The Progressive Patriot Party? Well, for starters, it’s a lot better than “Liberal Tea Party.” But, more importantly, if Democrats want to win hearts and minds in advance of the 2018 midterm elections, they will need to show that protest, progressivism, and patriotism are mutually inclusive. A name that symbolically shows that is an important first step—it signals that the three pillars of the movement are as American as apple pie.
In order to be successful in the long-term, Progressive Patriots will need to start focusing on how to frame their values, messaging, and tactics.
First, identifying a core set of values will be the way the movement grows its coalition and the glue that holds it together. A message of compassion, tolerance, and fairness provides a starting point, and would paint a stark contrast with the current administration’s extreme positioning on policies like immigration.
At times, preaching tolerance will be like walking a tightrope. The satirist Tom Lehrer once quipped, “I know there are people in the world who do not love their fellow human beings—and I hate people like that.” The Progressive Patriot movement would be wise not to fall into the trap of becoming dogmatically intolerant of all forms of intolerance.
Second, effective messaging will be the key medium through which Progressive Patriots will preach the underlying values of the movement. By prioritizing the norms of civility and decency over political correctness, the movement will be better positioned to build bridges than burn them. This will allow activists to lay the groundwork to win back Forest County, Wisconsin, Lake County, Michigan, and the 200 or so other counties that voted twice for Obama before flipping to Trump in 2016.
Winning hearts and minds won’t be achieved through lecturing working class voters on micro-aggressions—it will be done by showing them, over and over, that President Trump is a con artist. The message should be clear and consistent: Trump is an indecent and narcissistic person who cares more about his own financial gain and ratings than he does about the welder in Waukesha or the teacher in Pittsburgh.
In attacking Trump, the Progressive Patriot’s message needs to stay positive. It should reject the notion that the “world is a total mess,” while remaining both optimistic and clear-eyed about the real challenges confronting the country. If Trump continues selling Twilight in America, the Progressive Patriots need to counterpunch with their own brand of Morning in America.
Third, the movement needs to be smart about its tactics. Regardless of who instigates, boycotting speakers and burning property at Berkeley plays right into Trump’s tiny hands. It allows him to pursue a Nixonian strategy of divide and conquer going into his 2020 reelection bid (if you don’t buy the parallels, take a look at the electoral map of the 1972 presidential election as a warning sign).
In considering tactics, the Progressive Patriots could learn a thing or two from the Tea Party. Funding and organization are important, especially at the grassroots level. Forming local associations that meet regularly will be more important in the long-term than any single protest or Facebook group. Following the adage that all politics is local, local organizing groups should listen to their communities and focus on the issues that are most relevant to them. While resistance will play its part, this is about building something longer-term. Harnessing the local labs of democracy can help with the ideation process.
The movement should first set its sights on the 2018 midterm election. The task ahead is to build a political machine that wins back state legislatures and governorships, not to stall for time and find a messianic presidential candidate that can beat Trump in a wave election in 2020.
What happened in the suburbs of Salt Lake City and Murfreesboro last Thursday signaled the beginning of something. The opportunity for Progressive Patriots is there: harness the rage into a sustainable movement that yields victories at the ballot box in 2018 and beyond.