About the “base”: Another futile note to some of my fellow progressive bloggers

Stupak-Pitts stinks and we need to work to make sure it’s stripped from whatever sort of health care bill manages to make it out of the Senate.

But while we’re at it can we please find other ways of talking about it that don’t assume that “Women” are a monolithic voting bloc and that the thoughts, needs, interests, concerns, and voting records of all women happen to be exactly the same as those of left-leaning, mostly white, mostly urban and coastal dwelling intellectuals, academics, and bloggers.

While we’re at it, can we find a way of talking about the Democrats’ “base” as if it isn’t made up exclusively of the same cohort of left-leaning, mostly white, mostly urban and coastal dwelling intellectuals, academics, and bloggers.

Just for instance, the base includes an awful of of African-Americans, men and women, who are on the whole much more socially conservative than the rest of the base, and it includes an increasing number of Hispanics, men and women, quite a few of whom are Catholic.

I don’t think we have to pull a Lord Saletan or go all over Amy Sullivanish to do this, nor do we have to give up or hedge on principles.  I just think that we can find a way to advocate for things without talking as if of course every good Democrat and liberal thinks like us.

Comments

[Meeee]

I think that we're missing a big opportunity here to demand government funded birth control -- all sorts of, including the morning after pill and condoms. We can fight the amendment later... If we reduce considerably the number of abortions needed, it will be much easier to get abortion back to govern. funded health care.

[Dutch]

Perfect, Meeee.

The "GOVERNMENT" funds nothing. Nada. Zip. Bupkiss.

Citizens fund everything. Ev. Ree. Thang.

Y'all keep pretending that some staff leads Obama into a special room of the White House where he squats over a velvet tarp and strains until little gold bars fall out his ass.

Keep forcing people to pay for values they abhor. All this talk about an incumbent bloodbath in 2010 used to sound ridiculous to me. Please. Keep it up. Make it historical.

[Rana]

Okay, then, Dutch, can I opt out of my taxes being spent on war and subsidies to oil companies? Hmmm... why is that never an option - while refusing to support things that directly affect my life and well-being are okay and written into law?

Either all spending is on an item-line opt-in basis, or it's not. Preferentially picking and choosing which groups get special treatment as far as their tax dollars are concerned is not acceptable. Given the headaches of tracking every individual tax-payer's preferences, it makes much more sense to do the "large pot of money" approach, and everyone accepts that some of those funds will support things that one disapproves of, in order to fund those that they do.

Lance - thanks for the reminder - it's always good to respect the differences within the larger group.

[J.]

"I just think that we can find a way to advocate for things without talking as if of course every good Democrat and liberal thinks like us."

We try, and then we prove the saying that "I belong to no organized party - I am a Democrat." I think your advocacy issue has to focus on the point that we intend to give people the full freedoms they should enjoy as a responsible and law-abiding member of society. No one is more special than another, and so to our pro-life Catholics in the Dem party, I would say "help us make abortions rare by expanding the full range of health services for women, but don't ruin the lives of those women seeking alternatives to giving birth in the meantime."

[Linkmeister]

J., with some groups you might succeed with that argument. The Church isn't one of them. Have you seen their latest threat to the DC City Council? It's objecting to anti-discrimination laws which include same-sex marriage partners, so

They are threatening to stop taking public money to provide social services unless the D.C. council changes the bill.

Let me get this straight: The church is saying, "Unless you bow to our demands, we’ll stop taking your money"?

Hmm. More sensible threats, please. I suspect there are other social agencies in DC which would like to get their hands on the money now being disbursed to Catholic Charities.

[Chris The Cop]

Dutch I would take issue with the notion that "Citizens fund everything. Ev. Ree. Thang."

The problem is that spending is so Bizarro-World over and beyond receipts and the deficit so crazy-large that it is truer to say NO ONE IS FUNDING EVERYTHONG - we're just spending money we don't have and will never have again. Can any one picture any scenario where a $10 trillion deficit will get reduced to even $9 trillion? At that level, the idea of TAXPAYERS supporting the government loses all meaning--yu might as well say it's the Bureau of Engraving and Printing that decides.

This began with Reagan, stopped with (as much as I hate to admit it) Clinton, resumed with a vengeance under Bush 2 and is being perfected by Obama and the Democratic Congress. ($250 gifts to seniors BECAUSE there was no inflation?)

I do agree that if the 2010 elections were held tomorrow, there would be a bloodbath. Say what you will about the NY 23rd--and Lance said quite an eloquent lot--if there was one state Dems could lose in an off-year election that should scare the snot out of the DNC chair, it would be New Jersey. If they can lose there, almost everywhere else is up for grabs.

[Ian Welsh]

The Church is run by pharisees. Gay marriage is more important to them than tending to least of God's children. Quite seriously, if there is a God, they will burn eternally in hell.

[Lance]

Ian, don't get me started on the Church. Actually, I'm already started. See today's post later this morning.

Chris, is the gov't supposed to stop doing anything until we've paid off the bill for Bush's irresponsibility? We could do that. We would need to cut everything to the bone, turn the country into California, except maybe we'd have the fortitude to raise taxes on everybody, not just the rich and the corporations, and then in five or six years we can start over from scratch? If people thought like that Ron Paul would be President.

[Lance]

PS. Chris, apparently it's not over up in the 23rd. As for Jersey, I really think that one was an up or down vote on Corzine. I'm more worried about Virginia.

[Chris The Cop]

No but the gov. could alter its mind set, scale the health reform bill to something more manageable, like targeting the uninsured instead of altering EVERYONE's benefits, and put forth a more realistic estimate over how much it would cost.

I disagree about NJ: VA was slowlu tilting towrads the Dems for years and finally made it only to tilt back. Jersy is about as blue as it gets.