Consensus (kənˈsensəs)
Noun; General Agreement
The primaries in my state of Ohio are over. Now we wait on the big general election in November. The parties have picked the candidate they want representing them for whatever office and they throw their weight behind them. They are the consensus.
Consensus is a problem we as progressives have and need to face. We generally want; Medicare-for-all, $15 minimum wage, paid family leave, college tuition, etc… But for some, it’s not enough. That’s where primary battles come in. Competition is great, as capitalist America would say, the winner when businesses compete is the consumer. That holds true for primaries too. Imagine there is a strong movement from the left that wants big changes in healthcare and college cough and the two opponents are a progressive, and a left of center democrat. Now maybe by the end of the election the progressive edges out a win. Heck even the left of center democrat wins…but now they’re talking more about healthcare, tuition. Is that a win for the consumer still? The message has shifted and can be built upon. I call that a win.
Now imagine there’s two good progressives in the race, along with a blue dog democrat. In this case both progressive candidates together have 55% of the vote, and the blue dog has 45%. “That’s great news!” you may think, but come primary day, the numbers don’t add up how you expected. Both progressives wind up with 20-something percent, meanwhile the blue dog kept his 40–50%. In the end, blue dog wins, while shifting little if at all on the issues. That is a loss for the voter.
Why did the first example have a good result while the second a poor one? What was this topic about…Consensus. Since no other progressive had entered the first race, the progressive vote was locked behind the one candidate, however in election two, the progressive vote was split and they couldn’t take any away from the blue dog candidate.
“But we’re progressives…I want to vote for the candidate that will best help their constituents, mine was better at this and this than the other one who just didn’t go far enough.”
It’s a completely fair point, and one that may hurt the movement at the same time. Splitting the vote like we do sometimes is just kicking ourselves in the foot. We’ve witnessed it first hand in campaigns already. The most recent being in the Ohio Gubernatorial primary, where we had a far left candidate in Dennis Kucinich with a pretty left candidate in Joe Schiavoni. The progressive ballot was split and couldn’t get enough support to push them over the establishment pick. Now after it was all said and done, both Dennis and Joe combined didn’t have enough to take down the winner of the Dem primary, but if the progressive wing could have stuck together with one candidate, who knows how close it could’ve been.
During the primary, there were several strong candidates and could have made for an even more interesting debate. However candidates started being strong-armed by the party to get behind one certain candidate. This is how the establishment wins. They pool all their resources (including bringing one candidate to tears because they didn’t want to share their lists) into one candidate so votes go to just that person. It’s not right and it’s not democracy, but it works.
This is how we win. This is where all those progressive organizations come into play. When you see a group like the Political Revolution, Our Revolution, DSA etc… get behind a candidate and ENDORSE someone, it’s telling the voters “Hey, this is the person we believe is the best one for the progressive future of our country…get out the vote for them.” The consensus should be that all progressive vote for that candidate. Sometimes it doesn’t work that way and that’s when progressives lose. Thinking back to some of the beginning votes I had in the Political Revolution, I remember one case in a Washington primary, where I went against everything I’ve just written. I voted and we endorsed a candidate whose opponent was endorsed by the local Our Revolution group. Looking back, it was a bad call for me and and bad call for Political Revolution. There is strength in Solidarity, that’s why Bernie always finished his messages to us with that.
We have a loooong hard battle to still fight, but our message is clear. Let’s give ourselves a lift, let’s stand in solidarity, let’s listen to our progressive organizations and organize around the consensual candidate. “When we stand together, we win.”
In Solidarity,
Chris (Shkeebs)
