How Not to Defeat a Right Wing Coalition: A War of Movement

In an opinion piece released today author Steve Phillips argues that the Democratic Party is pursuing precisely the wrong strategy for defeating the Republicans in upcoming midterm elections. His argument echoes others in saying that the Democrats made critical strategic errors in 2016, and that their biggest was pursuing swing voters to the detriment of encouraging base and progressive turnout. Phillips gives some damning statistics here, particularly regarding African American turnout in some of the key states that won Trump the election.

While we should remember that low African American turnout was related to voter suppression as well as an enthusiasm gap, Phillips is right. If the Democrats allow the Republicans to shift the political center to the right, as they have for the last few decades, they will lose — all the while ignoring the potential progressive coalition it could build on its left. If the Democrats fail (again) to give their constituents something to vote for rather than only something to vote against, they will not only lose the upcoming elections but will play into the Republicans’ and conservatives’ decades long strategy to move the center of political discourse to the right.

This problem is bigger than the wonky issues raised by Phillips, and concerns the next fifty years rather than the next four. When the political center is conceded to the right, left politics can take decades to recover, if it does so at all. France and Britain have faced this issue, with their left parties flailing over the past few decades in the wake of neoliberal compromising. Conversely, building a governable and electorally viable left coalition takes decades — Salvador Allende ran for President of Chile three times before his finally successful one in 1970.

Building power takes time, and is simply impossible if you give in and fight on the territory determined by your opponent. No strategist in the world would tell you to accept where your enemy wishes to do battle. Political coalitions aren’t found in poling data — they’re built by organizing.