Lessons From the 2006 Midterms: Will Democrats Disappoint Again?
Friday, 16 September 2016 00:00 By Michael Corcoran, Truthout | News
Analysis
(Photo: Stephen Melkisethian / Flickr)
Change is coming to Congress. The Democrats are favored to win back the
Senate this November. The odds of them winning back the House are long,
though not impossible. In any event, as the most recent data from the
University of Virginia's Center for Politics shows, major gains by the
Democrats in the 115th Congress are expected, in part due to the influence
of Donald Trump.
For all the Democrats' flaws, this development will likely open a path for
progress on some crucial issues. For six years, the obstructionist GOP
Congress has blocked most worthwhile legislation: student loan reform,
unemployment benefit extensions, immigration reform and much more. Filled
with global-warming deniers,¬ this Congress also stood in the way of
desperately needed environmental regulations. But if the Democrats gain
seats in the new Congress, what can we expect on these and other key issues,
including war and militarism, trade, income inequality and criminal justice?
To consider this question, it is useful to examine the 2006 midterms and
their aftermath. The Democrats gained 31 House seats and six Senate seats,
and dominated the state elections as well. It was a "Blue Wave" election,
celebrated wildly as a strong rebuke of George Bush's illegal, unprovoked
invasion of Iraq, which was the most important issue to voters in 2006.
Americans wanted the Democrats in Congress to end the war, as did most US
troops by that time. Democrats, well aware of this, rode this antiwar
opposition into power¬¬¬. (This same sentiment, notably, is one reason
Barack Obama beat Hillary Clinton in the 2008 primary.)
For more original Truthout election coverage, check out our election
section, "Beyond the Sound Bites: Election 2016."
Unfortunately, however, the Democrats didn't end the war. Democrats were
unable, and some seemingly unwilling, to put any teeth in their "antiwar"
measures. Instead, they kept giving Bush hundreds of billions of dollars in
funding to continue (and even expand) the very war Democrats had a "mandate"
to end. By doing this, the party enabled the ongoing destruction of a
country. These Democrats were never held accountable for their empty
campaign promises, and some activists became disillusioned and/or turned off
from the party as a result.
The capitulations of the Democratic Congress after the 2006 election were
indeed discouraging. But they can serve as a learning tool today, as we face
a new election. "There are lessons," Noam Chomsky told Truthout, referring
to the aftermath of the 2006 election. "The more serious lesson is not to
quit and go home once the election is over. That's when the real work
starts: to hold the feet of the candidates to the fire. Same this time
around."
This is especially true given that many Democrats, in attempting to win over
members of Bernie Sanders' army of grassroots supporters, are now running
pseudo-populist campaigns and making bold claims on matters like trade,
income inequality and campaign finance. Remembering 2006 may help
progressives prevent the next Congress from repeating the betrayals of 2006.
The Audacity of False Hope
On November 8, 2006, a nation woke up to the news that incumbent Virginia
Sen. George Allen was conceding his Senate race to his Democratic opponent
Jim Webb. This was the decisive 51st seat in the Senate -- meaning the
Democrats were taking back both branches of Congress, surpassing even the
most optimistic projections. That same morning, President Bush acknowledged
that the election was a "thumping," and ousted his defense secretary, Donald
Rumsfeld. The defense secretary took the fall because he was, as Time
described him in 2003, "the Godfather of the Iraq War."
In 2006, President Bush's war, which was enabled by the infamous votes of
22 Senate Democrats, including Hillary Clinton and John Kerry, was
especially bloody and was growing increasingly unpopular within a public
that once overwhelmingly supported it. Many younger voters had spent every
day of their adult lives with Bush as president and the war raging on, one
day after the next. After all these years, there was finally hope that this
war might end.
"I was a teenager during the 2006 midterm elections and was ardently opposed
to the wars on Iraq and Afghanistan. I had hoped that getting a Democratic
Congress elected would at least help bring these conflicts to an end," said
Chris Longnecker, an activist who later went on to help found the Occupy
Wall Street movement. "The duplicitous nature of the Democratic politicians
swept into office during these elections helped open my eyes to the
ineffectiveness of attempting to pursue social justice through elections,
political parties and the state."
To understand why Longnecker and others felt deceived, one must remember the
extent to which Democrats used the horrors of the war to get elected in
2006. Consider this New York Times article from just days after the election
ended, entitled "Democrats Turned War into an Ally." The article reflected
on Rahm Emanuel, then the head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign
Committee (DCCC), lamenting that the violence in Iraq had fallen off the
front pages and the evening news due to Bush's weeklong commemoration of the
September 11 anniversary. How could Democrats win if this unpopular war was
fought uncovered, he asked, frustrated that the carnage of the war -- which
he had supported with vigor -- wasn't paying as many dividends as it had
previously.
"Iraq was the driving factor behind everything," Emanuel said to the Times,
regarding the war's impact on the election. "And October [2006] was a
disastrous month [in Iraq]." After the election, Emanuel was praised
endlessly. The Democratic Congress was "The House Rahm Built," said the
Chicago Tribune.
A "Shamefully Timorous Congress"
Emanuel's enthusiasm about the fact that October 2006 was one of the
deadliest months in Iraq would be slightly less disturbing if the Democrats
had then used their power to stop the war in the next two years, but that
was far from what happened.
"The Democrats ran against the war," said Stephen Zunes, professor of
politics at the University of San Francisco, in an interview with Truthout.
"But in Congress, they caved to pressures and claims that if you didn't fund
the war, you didn't 'support the troops."
This is not to say Democrats did absolutely nothing. But only a handful were
serious about ending the war; most were happy enough to simply appear to
oppose the war.
"Despite promising during the 2006 election campaign that, if given the
majority in Congress, they would challenge Bush on the war," Zunes said,
they chose to "side with President Bush, and not the American public."
The efforts the Democrats did make were often purely symbolic. For instance,
in February 2007 the new Democratic-controlled Senate passed a "non-binding
resolution" criticizing Bush's handling of the war. As The New York Times
rightly noted, "such resolutions are not laws and have no practical effect."
But it did allow politicians to stand in front of a microphone on C-Span and
claim the moral high ground.
A few other measures attached timetables for withdrawal (more than a year
down the road) to the funding of the war -- funding Bush could not get
without the help of a Democratic Congress -- but these types of bills (like
H.R. 1591) were, of course, vetoed by the president. After the veto, the
House relented and offered up essentially the same bill (H.R. 2206) with no
provisions to end the war, but $124 billion to fund it. To their credit,
House progressives like Reps. Dennis Kucinich, Peter Welch, Maxine Waters
and Barbara Lee would not lend their votes to the war effort. Meanwhile, the
Senate was far more supportive of the war, but H.R. 2206 drew 12 no votes
from Senate Democrats, including from Obama, Clinton (both running for
President by this time) and Bernie Sanders. A complete summary of
legislative action from the 110th Congress as it relates to ending or
limiting the war is available from the Center for Media and Democracy.
Further, as author and activist Norman Solomon documented at the time, some
progressive groups were as timid as the Democrats. Moveon.org, Solomon
noted, failed to support any serious legislation from House Progressives
that called for an end to the war. When asked why Moveon.org didn't take a
firm stance on withdrawing troops, the group's then executive director, Eli
Pariser, told Solomon: "We're seeing a broad difference of opinion among our
members on how quickly the U.S. should get out of Iraq. As a
grassroots-directed organization, we won't be taking any position which a
large portion of our members disagree with." Historian Howard Zinn later
responded to the group's lack of pressure against the Democrats in Congress
with notable exasperation and anger.
"It's as if, before the Civil War, abolitionists agreed to postpone the
emancipation of the slaves for a year, or two years, or five years, and
coupled this with an appropriation of funds to enforce the Fugitive Slave
Act, he wrote of the war funding bill that Moveon.org decided to support, in
a piece in The Progressive magazine. "When a social movement adopts the
compromises of legislators, it has forgotten its role, which is to push and
challenge the politicians, not to fall in meekly behind them. We are
citizens. Whatever politicians may do, let them first feel the full force of
citizens who speak for what is right, not for what is winnable, in a
shamefully timorous Congress."
The Power of the Purse
One defense that members of the 110th Congress can make for not ending the
war is simple: The GOP had the White House. Bush had his veto pen and a
clear willingness to use it. Legislation, however, was not the only option
available to Democrats for ending the war. They could've used the "power of
the purse," said Zunes.
"All they needed to do was to refuse to pay for the war," he said.
"Democrats have used the power of the purse before."
Indeed, as Zunes wrote, in 1970 Democrats used this power in their refusal
to fund President Nixon's reckless expansion of the Vietnam War into
Cambodia. Yet, after the 2006 election, the Democrats continued to approve
each funding bill, effectively handing the president a blank check to
continue the war unabated.
If Democrats do take the Senate this year, they very well may try to claim
they must reluctantly relent on some bill because they don't have 60 seats,
or because the GOP controls the House. But this won't be true. In 2006,
Democrats refused to use their own powers to end the war, making their
antiwar rhetoric effectively meaningless at best, and dishonest at worst.
Public Pressure and Primaries
The Democrats' ongoing, de facto support for the war in Iraq, said Solomon
in an interview with Truthout, shows that "public sentiment does not, on its
own, create massive pressure."
"The war was unpopular, but yet it continued. You need to have a massive
outpouring of movements making pointed demands and threats, including
supporting primary challengers," he said. "You need to play hardball, even
with people who are, ostensibly anyway, your friends."
Indeed, there is legitimate concern that, as they did after the 2006
election, Democrats will eventually support -- or at least fail to
sufficiently oppose -- issues they are now running against. The debate over
the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is a key example. While the majority of
congressional Democrats oppose the trade bill, efforts to oppose it formally
in the Democratic Platform were rebuffed, mostly by Clinton supporters.
There has long been legitimate concern among progressives that Clinton's
stated opposition to the TPP is not serious. If she does support the trade
deal, it could provide cover for congressional Democrats to get in line.
That is, unless they feel doing so may cost them their seat. Donna Smith,
executive director of Progressive Democrats of America (PDA), says she
supports using the threat of progressive primary opponents as a tool to hold
Congress accountable.
"Today, a lot of Democrats are running on the progressive platform that
Bernie Sanders helped create," Smith said in an interview with Truthout. "If
they don't adhere to it, they should know that they do not get this support.
I think primaries are a great way to apply pressure."
Ten Years of Changes, Both Good and Bad
Of course, since 2006, much has changed about the political landscape. Since
the 2008 Economic Crisis and the recession that followed, the public has
become far more concerned with economic inequality and other class issues.
Large-scale organizing efforts like Occupy and the Sanders campaign have
mobilized many people around economic injustice. In recent years, Black
Lives Matter and the broader Movement for Black Lives have been a powerful
force exposing police violence against Black people, and the wider
manifestations of anti-Black state violence. They have never been afraid to
protest or pressure Democrats.
"This type of organization wasn't around in 2006 -- not to this extent,"
said Smith. "This gives us new tools to hold Congress accountable that were
not as powerful 10 years ago."
On the other hand, since 2006, other issues have slipped from mainstream
public consciousness. Notably, war and peace are no longer front and center,
although the "madness of militarism" persists now, just as strongly as it
did in 2006. Among current concerns are rising tensions with Russia, a civil
war in Syria, US-backed coups in Latin America, a failed state in Libya and
the ongoing presence of US troops in Afghanistan and Iraq.
"There has been no real roll-back of US war measures. We still have a mass
media oriented toward continuing war, and a failure of the Democratic Party
rank and file to force a move against it," Solomon said. "These very
tendencies that existed 10 years ago still exist today." Solomon has also
been critical of the Sanders campaign for deemphasizing "foreign policy,
military spending and war."
Another change has been Citizens United, which has made it much harder for
voters to influence members of Congress, given that members are pressed
every day by countless lobbyists and donors representing the titans of
industry. This is especially difficult in the Senate, where incumbents hold
office for six years before voters get to chime in.
Congress Must be Moved "Kicking and Screaming"
As the 2006 election showed, a big victory for Democrats is not necessarily
a big victory for progressives. "Progressive Democrats don't lead so much as
they are dragged kicking and screaming," Zunes said to Truthout.
The night the Democrats won the 2006 midterms, many progressive groups
celebrated -- and then proceeded to tacitly endorse those Democrats'
failures by refusing to challenge them on core issues.
This can't be the case after the 2016 election. The 2006 election was
largely a bait-and-switch operation organized by Rahm Emmanuel. Mainstream
Democrats used public discontent to win an election, but then ignored it
once they were governing. Today, once again, there is widespread discontent
-- and this time it is far more organized. If it remains organized, and
people are willing to put serious pressure on Democrats in Congress, perhaps
we can avoid a repeat of the debacle of 2006.
Copyright, Truthout. May not be reprinted without permission.
MICHAEL CORCORAN
Michael Corcoran is a journalist based in Boston. He has written for The
Boston Globe, The Nation, The Christian Science Monitor, Extra!, NACLA
Report on the Americas and other publications. Follow him on Twitter:
@mcorcoran3.
RELATED STORIES
Democrats Wrap Up Occupation of House, Continue Embrace of Bush National
Security Policies
By Sam Sacks, The District Sentinel | Report
Election 2016: The Greatest Show on Earth
By Tom Engelhardt, TomDispatch | Op-Ed
Bernie Sanders Launches New Organization, but Key Staffers Quit in Protest
By Amy Goodman, Democracy Now! | Video Report
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Lessons From the 2006 Midterms: Will Democrats Disappoint Again?
Friday, 16 September 2016 00:00 By Michael Corcoran, Truthout | News
Analysis
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(Photo: Stephen Melkisethian / Flickr)
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Change is coming to Congress. The Democrats are favored to win back the
Senate this November. The odds of them winning back the House are long,
though not impossible. In any event, as the most recent data from the
University of Virginia's Center for Politics shows, major gains by the
Democrats in the 115th Congress are expected, in part due to the influence
of Donald Trump.
For all the Democrats' flaws, this development will likely open a path for
progress on some crucial issues. For six years, the obstructionist GOP
Congress has blocked most worthwhile legislation: student loan reform,
unemployment benefit extensions, immigration reform and much more. Filled
with global-warming deniers, this Congress also stood in the way of
desperately needed environmental regulations. But if the Democrats gain
seats in the new Congress, what can we expect on these and other key issues,
including war and militarism, trade, income inequality and criminal justice?
To consider this question, it is useful to examine the 2006 midterms and
their aftermath. The Democrats gained 31 House seats and six Senate seats,
and dominated the state elections as well. It was a "Blue Wave" election,
celebrated wildly as a strong rebuke of George Bush's illegal, unprovoked
invasion of Iraq, which was the most important issue to voters in 2006.
Americans wanted the Democrats in Congress to end the war, as did most US
troops by that time. Democrats, well aware of this, rode this antiwar
opposition into power. (This same sentiment, notably, is one reason
Barack Obama beat Hillary Clinton in the 2008 primary.)
For more original Truthout election coverage, check out our election
section, "Beyond the Sound Bites: Election 2016."
Unfortunately, however, the Democrats didn't end the war. Democrats were
unable, and some seemingly unwilling, to put any teeth in their "antiwar"
measures. Instead, they kept giving Bush hundreds of billions of dollars in
funding to continue (and even expand) the very war Democrats had a "mandate"
to end. By doing this, the party enabled the ongoing destruction of a
country. These Democrats were never held accountable for their empty
campaign promises, and some activists became disillusioned and/or turned off
from the party as a result.
The capitulations of the Democratic Congress after the 2006 election were
indeed discouraging. But they can serve as a learning tool today, as we face
a new election. "There are lessons," Noam Chomsky told Truthout, referring
to the aftermath of the 2006 election. "The more serious lesson is not to
quit and go home once the election is over. That's when the real work
starts: to hold the feet of the candidates to the fire. Same this time
around."
This is especially true given that many Democrats, in attempting to win over
members of Bernie Sanders' army of grassroots supporters, are now running
pseudo-populist campaigns and making bold claims on matters like trade,
income inequality and campaign finance. Remembering 2006 may help
progressives prevent the next Congress from repeating the betrayals of 2006.
The Audacity of False Hope
On November 8, 2006, a nation woke up to the news that incumbent Virginia
Sen. George Allen was conceding his Senate race to his Democratic opponent
Jim Webb. This was the decisive 51st seat in the Senate -- meaning the
Democrats were taking back both branches of Congress, surpassing even the
most optimistic projections. That same morning, President Bush acknowledged
that the election was a "thumping," and ousted his defense secretary, Donald
Rumsfeld. The defense secretary took the fall because he was, as Time
described him in 2003, "the Godfather of the Iraq War."
In 2006, President Bush's war, which was enabled by the infamous votes of 22
Senate Democrats, including Hillary Clinton and John Kerry, was especially
bloody and was growing increasingly unpopular within a public that once
overwhelmingly supported it. Many younger voters had spent every day of
their adult lives with Bush as president and the war raging on, one day
after the next. After all these years, there was finally hope that this war
might end.
"I was a teenager during the 2006 midterm elections and was ardently opposed
to the wars on Iraq and Afghanistan. I had hoped that getting a Democratic
Congress elected would at least help bring these conflicts to an end," said
Chris Longnecker, an activist who later went on to help found the Occupy
Wall Street movement. "The duplicitous nature of the Democratic politicians
swept into office during these elections helped open my eyes to the
ineffectiveness of attempting to pursue social justice through elections,
political parties and the state."
To understand why Longnecker and others felt deceived, one must remember the
extent to which Democrats used the horrors of the war to get elected in
2006. Consider this New York Times article from just days after the election
ended, entitled "Democrats Turned War into an Ally." The article reflected
on Rahm Emanuel, then the head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign
Committee (DCCC), lamenting that the violence in Iraq had fallen off the
front pages and the evening news due to Bush's weeklong commemoration of the
September 11 anniversary. How could Democrats win if this unpopular war was
fought uncovered, he asked, frustrated that the carnage of the war -- which
he had supported with vigor -- wasn't paying as many dividends as it had
previously.
"Iraq was the driving factor behind everything," Emanuel said to the Times,
regarding the war's impact on the election. "And October [2006] was a
disastrous month [in Iraq]." After the election, Emanuel was praised
endlessly. The Democratic Congress was "The House Rahm Built," said the
Chicago Tribune.
A "Shamefully Timorous Congress"
Emanuel's enthusiasm about the fact that October 2006 was one of the
deadliest months in Iraq would be slightly less disturbing if the Democrats
had then used their power to stop the war in the next two years, but that
was far from what happened.
"The Democrats ran against the war," said Stephen Zunes, professor of
politics at the University of San Francisco, in an interview with Truthout.
"But in Congress, they caved to pressures and claims that if you didn't fund
the war, you didn't 'support the troops."
This is not to say Democrats did absolutely nothing. But only a handful were
serious about ending the war; most were happy enough to simply appear to
oppose the war.
"Despite promising during the 2006 election campaign that, if given the
majority in Congress, they would challenge Bush on the war," Zunes said,
they chose to "side with President Bush, and not the American public."
The efforts the Democrats did make were often purely symbolic. For instance,
in February 2007 the new Democratic-controlled Senate passed a "non-binding
resolution" criticizing Bush's handling of the war. As The New York Times
rightly noted, "such resolutions are not laws and have no practical effect."
But it did allow politicians to stand in front of a microphone on C-Span and
claim the moral high ground.
A few other measures attached timetables for withdrawal (more than a year
down the road) to the funding of the war -- funding Bush could not get
without the help of a Democratic Congress -- but these types of bills (like
H.R. 1591) were, of course, vetoed by the president. After the veto, the
House relented and offered up essentially the same bill (H.R. 2206) with no
provisions to end the war, but $124 billion to fund it. To their credit,
House progressives like Reps. Dennis Kucinich, Peter Welch, Maxine Waters
and Barbara Lee would not lend their votes to the war effort. Meanwhile, the
Senate was far more supportive of the war, but H.R. 2206 drew 12 no votes
from Senate Democrats, including from Obama, Clinton (both running for
President by this time) and Bernie Sanders. A complete summary of
legislative action from the 110th Congress as it relates to ending or
limiting the war is available from the Center for Media and Democracy.
Further, as author and activist Norman Solomon documented at the time, some
progressive groups were as timid as the Democrats. Moveon.org, Solomon
noted, failed to support any serious legislation from House Progressives
that called for an end to the war. When asked why Moveon.org didn't take a
firm stance on withdrawing troops, the group's then executive director, Eli
Pariser, told Solomon: "We're seeing a broad difference of opinion among our
members on how quickly the U.S. should get out of Iraq. As a
grassroots-directed organization, we won't be taking any position which a
large portion of our members disagree with." Historian Howard Zinn later
responded to the group's lack of pressure against the Democrats in Congress
with notable exasperation and anger.
"It's as if, before the Civil War, abolitionists agreed to postpone the
emancipation of the slaves for a year, or two years, or five years, and
coupled this with an appropriation of funds to enforce the Fugitive Slave
Act, he wrote of the war funding bill that Moveon.org decided to support, in
a piece in The Progressive magazine. "When a social movement adopts the
compromises of legislators, it has forgotten its role, which is to push and
challenge the politicians, not to fall in meekly behind them. We are
citizens. Whatever politicians may do, let them first feel the full force of
citizens who speak for what is right, not for what is winnable, in a
shamefully timorous Congress."
The Power of the Purse
One defense that members of the 110th Congress can make for not ending the
war is simple: The GOP had the White House. Bush had his veto pen and a
clear willingness to use it. Legislation, however, was not the only option
available to Democrats for ending the war. They could've used the "power of
the purse," said Zunes.
"All they needed to do was to refuse to pay for the war," he said.
"Democrats have used the power of the purse before."
Indeed, as Zunes wrote, in 1970 Democrats used this power in their refusal
to fund President Nixon's reckless expansion of the Vietnam War into
Cambodia. Yet, after the 2006 election, the Democrats continued to approve
each funding bill, effectively handing the president a blank check to
continue the war unabated.
If Democrats do take the Senate this year, they very well may try to claim
they must reluctantly relent on some bill because they don't have 60 seats,
or because the GOP controls the House. But this won't be true. In 2006,
Democrats refused to use their own powers to end the war, making their
antiwar rhetoric effectively meaningless at best, and dishonest at worst.
Public Pressure and Primaries
The Democrats' ongoing, de facto support for the war in Iraq, said Solomon
in an interview with Truthout, shows that "public sentiment does not, on its
own, create massive pressure."
"The war was unpopular, but yet it continued. You need to have a massive
outpouring of movements making pointed demands and threats, including
supporting primary challengers," he said. "You need to play hardball, even
with people who are, ostensibly anyway, your friends."
Indeed, there is legitimate concern that, as they did after the 2006
election, Democrats will eventually support -- or at least fail to
sufficiently oppose -- issues they are now running against. The debate over
the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is a key example. While the majority of
congressional Democrats oppose the trade bill, efforts to oppose it formally
in the Democratic Platform were rebuffed, mostly by Clinton supporters.
There has long been legitimate concern among progressives that Clinton's
stated opposition to the TPP is not serious. If she does support the trade
deal, it could provide cover for congressional Democrats to get in line.
That is, unless they feel doing so may cost them their seat. Donna Smith,
executive director of Progressive Democrats of America (PDA), says she
supports using the threat of progressive primary opponents as a tool to hold
Congress accountable.
"Today, a lot of Democrats are running on the progressive platform that
Bernie Sanders helped create," Smith said in an interview with Truthout. "If
they don't adhere to it, they should know that they do not get this support.
I think primaries are a great way to apply pressure."
Ten Years of Changes, Both Good and Bad
Of course, since 2006, much has changed about the political landscape. Since
the 2008 Economic Crisis and the recession that followed, the public has
become far more concerned with economic inequality and other class issues.
Large-scale organizing efforts like Occupy and the Sanders campaign have
mobilized many people around economic injustice. In recent years, Black
Lives Matter and the broader Movement for Black Lives have been a powerful
force exposing police violence against Black people, and the wider
manifestations of anti-Black state violence. They have never been afraid to
protest or pressure Democrats.
"This type of organization wasn't around in 2006 -- not to this extent,"
said Smith. "This gives us new tools to hold Congress accountable that were
not as powerful 10 years ago."
On the other hand, since 2006, other issues have slipped from mainstream
public consciousness. Notably, war and peace are no longer front and center,
although the "madness of militarism" persists now, just as strongly as it
did in 2006. Among current concerns are rising tensions with Russia, a civil
war in Syria, US-backed coups in Latin America, a failed state in Libya and
the ongoing presence of US troops in Afghanistan and Iraq.
"There has been no real roll-back of US war measures. We still have a mass
media oriented toward continuing war, and a failure of the Democratic Party
rank and file to force a move against it," Solomon said. "These very
tendencies that existed 10 years ago still exist today." Solomon has also
been critical of the Sanders campaign for deemphasizing "foreign policy,
military spending and war."
Another change has been Citizens United, which has made it much harder for
voters to influence members of Congress, given that members are pressed
every day by countless lobbyists and donors representing the titans of
industry. This is especially difficult in the Senate, where incumbents hold
office for six years before voters get to chime in.
Congress Must be Moved "Kicking and Screaming"
As the 2006 election showed, a big victory for Democrats is not necessarily
a big victory for progressives. "Progressive Democrats don't lead so much as
they are dragged kicking and screaming," Zunes said to Truthout.
The night the Democrats won the 2006 midterms, many progressive groups
celebrated -- and then proceeded to tacitly endorse those Democrats'
failures by refusing to challenge them on core issues.
This can't be the case after the 2016 election. The 2006 election was
largely a bait-and-switch operation organized by Rahm Emmanuel. Mainstream
Democrats used public discontent to win an election, but then ignored it
once they were governing. Today, once again, there is widespread discontent
-- and this time it is far more organized. If it remains organized, and
people are willing to put serious pressure on Democrats in Congress, perhaps
we can avoid a repeat of the debacle of 2006.
Copyright, Truthout. May not be reprinted without permission.
Michael Corcoran
Michael Corcoran is a journalist based in Boston. He has written for The
Boston Globe, The Nation, The Christian Science Monitor, Extra!, NACLA
Report on the Americas and other publications. Follow him on Twitter:
@mcorcoran3.
Related Stories
Democrats Wrap Up Occupation of House, Continue Embrace of Bush National
Security Policies
By Sam Sacks, The District Sentinel | ReportElection 2016: The Greatest Show
on Earth
By Tom Engelhardt, TomDispatch | Op-EdBernie Sanders Launches New
Organization, but Key Staffers Quit in Protest
By Amy Goodman, Democracy Now! | Video Report
Show Comments
