A major problem for the left, before, during and after, “the Wisconsin Uprising” is sectarianism, I am convinced. It undermines a basic strength. As I concluded in the past “heat and light” post: “After the fall of Communism, the strength of the left is its diversity, its turn away from dogmatism. Understanding what different actions, movements and institutions contribute is crucial.” It was with this view in mind that I read the discussions here and on my Facebook page on Chad Goldberg’s recent post. Here is a dialogue blending the two discussions.

I appreciated Vince Carducci’s Deliberately Considered comment, even though I wondered how he decided what is radical:

“This discussion is really getting to some good ideas, helping to move beyond the knee-jerk facile reactions to the recall. I think there’s value in both positions, though Henwood is more radical (which I have sympathy with) and perhaps as a result more reductive (which I don’t like so much). Chad Goldberg brings important firsthand experience into the discussion. I do think there’s another aspect to Fox Piven and Cloward’s book that he overlooks. It’s true that the legislative process was crucial to the success of poor people’s movement in the end, but the central thesis of the book is that the substantial gains are usually made *before* legislation not really in tandem. The legislative process, Fox Piven and Cloward assert, is the way in which the grassroots movements were mainstreamed and thus brought under control. So in this regard, I side with Henwood to a certain extent. However, even as a strategy of containment by the so-called powers that be, the fact that the legislative process embedded progressive ideals into the mainstream is important. Examples include: the creation of the Food and Drug Administration, fair labor laws, the Civil Rights Voting Act, and in fact the provisions of labor into what Daniel Bell termed “the Treaty of Detroit.” I’d like to suggest a framework within which both perspectives might be brought, specifically Jean Cohen and Andrew Arato’s work in Civil Society and Democratic Theory. I modify their points to get some alliteration in there as follows: The four “I’s” of social movements. The first “I” is identity, individuals “coming out” whether in terms of sexual orientation or in this case class identity. The second is inclusion, or as OWS has put it, “We are the 99%.” The third is influence, and in this case there’s no doubt that the broad trend of which Wisconsin has been a crucial part changed the discourse within the public sphere. The final one is institutionalization, which is essentially the codification of the progress, as documented by Fox Piven and Cloward, into formal norms that we call laws. It’s this crucial area, which is the realm of legislation but also regulation and judicial process, that is the most difficult to achieve. The labor movement has played a major role, though not always, in pretty much all of the progressive achievements of the last century. The failings are what Henwood is focusing on, perhaps too much. But I do think they are worth taking into account, especially his characterization of what amounts to the spoils system in American labor unions. Naomi’s graphic that illustrates this post is something we all should study. It suggests the work that needs to be done. And all of us need to participate.”

George Finch, on Facebook, also focused on the question of institutionalization of protest and its implications:

“… I haven’t read Poor People’s Movement for some time now, but their contention was that mass movements and disruptions made needed legislation possible as a way to “shut people up” to put it crudely. To say, ‘protest movements have historically been most successful when disruptive protests worked in tandem with—not as an alternative to—electoral volatility.’ is a tad misleading, specially the term “in tandem’. If anything they were saying such movements brought about change, not legislative campaigns or electoral politics. I believe Piven also notes that soon a reaction occurs and the legislation becomes watered down…This is what occurred with labor law through first the Taft-Hartley law. Unions then were more legislative orientated as many are now, and got whupped. I really can’t comment on Wisconsin as I wasn’t there, and you really have to be there to get a feel about what is the best strategy. But from my 30 years of organizing experience at different levels, a priority and one base is getting ‘people support’ and also going against the grain through creative disruptive tactics, which no doubt is tricky and to well thought out ( and not repetitive) . There are other matters and strategies as well, and the Right has been doing it very well for almost 40 years now. They are more savvy about organizing than the left or progressives and the like.”

Getting “people support” is crucial in a democracy. I, as the author of The Politics of Small Things, agree with Carducci and Finch that the creative force of direct social action and protest is crucial. But having an effect requires official action.  As Vince noted there is a tension between the dangers of cooptation and the need to institutionalize change.

Bob Perillo underscores the dangers of my position. He writes on Facebook:

“Jeffrey: I respect your position, but I don’t share it, and on several levels. First, the possibilities you see, I don’t see. In fact, just the opposite. The Obama administration has engaged in a crackdown on OWS that would have had liberals shrieking had Republicans done it (coordinated arrests across the country, HR-347, the strip-search rule, etc.). OWS and other social movments may move Obama to change his rhetoric at times (particularly from now to Novemeber), but his actions against these movements are simply repugnant and indefensible. More importantly, having a Democrat with “liberal” bona fides (real or imagined) in the White House has provided corporate power with a priceless asset that openly right-wing Republican administrations have never been able to deliver: the capacity to co-opt, confuse, and demobilize social movements. At a time when global corporate capitalism is imploding, and the response of the rich is to exploit the crisis in order to force everyone else to make the kinds of concessions they could never think of demanding otherwise — that is to say, at a time when popular uprisings are not only possible but practically inevitable — the ability to demobilize social movements is critical.

Wisconsin is a prime example. The anti-war movement is another. One can only shake one’s head in morbid admiration as people who vigorously protested Bush’s warrantless wiretapping remain silent about, or actually express support for, Obama’s administration that he’s running a death squad out of the Whiter House.

It’s not that I want Romney to win. But one shouldn’t dismiss the value of actually having a “progressive” opposition to the executive branch again.”

And I agree there is value in progressive criticism. But opposition doesn’t make sense to me. I write this the day after Obama moved forward on undocumented young adults. Not perfect, but a definite advance. This and much more suggests to me that while criticism of specifics makes sense, opposition doesn’t, but I do respect Perillo’s position, as I don’t agree with it.

On Facebook, the most heat was generated over appraisals of the union movement. Chad wrote his piece with a post Doug Henwood published in his Left Business Observer in mind, quite critical of his attack on labor.

Henwood replied:

“I have never come across such a bunch of thin-skinned, paranoid, defensive people as those in & around the labor movement, except maybe the hedge funders who were offended when Obama slipped and called them fat cats. If you criticize, you’re embracing the right. Not all are like this – I’ve gotten a lot of support for what I’ve written from rank & file teachers, laborers, Teamsters, and even one SEIU VP. They at least know that telling comforting tales would be suicidal at this point.

Also, how is the fact that 38% of union HHs voted for Walker not an indicator of union failure to educate and mobilize the membership?”

Goldberg in turn replied:

“I do not object to all criticism of labor but criticism that (1) adopts and starts from the assumptions of the right and (2) is too sweeping. To conclude that unions are an ineffective means to mobilize popular support for social justice because Walker survived a recall election is to set the bar absurdly high. He was only the third governor in U.S. history to even face a recall election. Yes, thirty-eight percent of voters in union households (not 38% of union households) voted for Walker. I’m open to constructive suggestions for more effective ways to educate and mobilize our fellow citizens in Wisconsin and elsewhere–that would indeed be a useful contribution–but it’s an insult to the tens of thousands of volunteers who made a million phone calls and knocked on two million doors in the largest GOTV effort in Wisconsin’s history–and this after the severe blow that Act 10 dealt to union resources–to suggest that unions made no attempt to educate and mobilize.”

This point was amplified by Anya Paretskaya:

“To begin with, I also find Doug Henwood’s post that Chad Goldberg takes issue with problematic and on some points plain misinformed. It would do Mr. Henwood good to get some of his information not from twitter but at least from Wisconsin local media, if he couldn’t come observe things first hand. First, the recall effort was carried out by United Wisconsin, a grassroots organization not affiliated with “the unions” (yes, WI AFL-CIO and individual state unions provided support of various sorts both during the signature collection and the campaign); none of its leadership are union members, even though the one public employee on the board could have joined his university’s faculty and academic staff union. And as Chad just pointed out, Tom Barrett – I agree he was a terrible choice to run against Walker – wasn’t “the unions’” choice candidate: some of them supported another candidate in the primary and tried to dissuade Barrett from entering the race.

Second, a dispatch in another WI publication illustrates the point that both Chad and Jeff make about the educational and organizing potential of electoral campaigns. This story (to my knowledge barely reported outside of WI) is about a completely grassroots recall campaign against the state senate majority leader. The progressive challenger, Lori Compas, lost in this very conservative district. But I think this should be the takeaway from this electoral strategy: “…before the recall effort started, most of [her supporters] had felt alone, as progressives in a firmly Republican district. ‘There were several people who didn’t know a neighbor a block away was just as involved and just as engaged as them until they were canvassing on a street corner together,’ one Compas support[er] said. ‘And strangers became friends quickly.’ ‘I think a lot of us felt very isolated seven months ago, felt like “I’m the only one in my town who has concerns, or I’m the only one in my town who’s paying attention,’” Compas said. ‘And now we see no, they’re everywhere.’” Compas herself, a total newcomer to politics and largely apolitical before last year, plans to remain engaged particularly with the issues of money and transparency in government.

What I and many other members of the labor and progressive movements can agree with Mr. Henwood on is that the Democratic Party isn’t always the best ally for unionists and progressives – although I am far from suggesting that DP and GOP are one and the same (just remember the 14 WI Democratic senators who left the state to delay, as they couldn’t really prevent, the passage of the anti-union bill and their firm opposition since to most of Walker’s legislative initiatives from the environment to healthcare to pensions). Labor, the progressive left, and the country as a whole would certainly benefit from the end of the two-party system. But given the institutional constraints it is not clear just how to achieve it in the near future.”

Henwood replied:

“Anya Paretskaya: I love the emerging consensus of the defense. You can’t talk critically about labor unless you’re an organizer yourself, and you can’t comment on Wisconsin unless you’re there. Well that really opens things up.

John Nichols, who is not unfamiliar with Wisconsin, told me that the unions were the ones who decided on the recall strategy and led it at every step.

Yeah, I’ve heard all about the educational potential of election campaigns. In this case, this defeat has greatly strengthened Walker and the war on labor nationally.

If labor/progressive forces want to stop losing they’ll have to start asking some serious questions of themselves. This sort of defensive fog is damaging.”

Henwood clearly is making a couple of crucial points: not only insiders have the authority to judge the Wisconsin events, especially since they have significance that goes way beyond Wisconsin borders, and it is crucial to ask serious and critical questions about the state of the labor movement, its role in Wisconsin and more generally.

Yet, I fundamentally agree with Paretskaya and Goldberg. Although far from perfect, the labor movement has contributed significantly to a more just society on many issues. As they have weakened, the struggle between capital and labor has shifted in favor of capital, against not only union members but the less advantaged as a whole. The leadership of the labor movement may need reinvigoration, its direction may need correction, but it has played a crucial role in the struggle for social justice. The Republicans want to re-write history by taking labor out, as we have observed here. Progressives should not aid in this enterprise.

After the fall of Communism, the strength of the left is its diversity, its turn away from dogmatism. Understanding what different actions, movements and institutions contribute is crucial. Dismissing potential allies a bit too enthusiastically, as I believe Henwood does concerning labor, and others do concerning the Democrats and especially Barack Obama, consolidates conservative power. More about that in my next post, in which Paretskaya’s point about the educational and organizing potential of electoral politics will be addressed, as will her concerns about the two-party system. A key to my concerns: the need to act politically in way that takes into account real political constraints and limitations, looking for openings for creative action, not imagining openings that don’t exist.

I want to take this opportunity to respond to two recent blog posts which reflect upon the usefulness of electoral politics in the wake of the Wisconsin recall election: one by Jeffrey Goldfarb (“On Wisconsin,” June 6, 2012) and the other by Doug Henwood (“Walker’s Victory, Un-Sugar-Coated”). I am in basic agreement with Jeff Goldfarb’s main points, though I have a few of my own to add. With Doug Henwood, I am in strong disagreement.

Elections matter, as Jeff Goldfarb argues, and not just presidential elections. Elections are what enabled Republicans to gain power in state legislatures and the U.S. House of Representatives in 2010. Their electoral success in Wisconsin is what empowered them to legislate a radical assault on labor and public services there. Unless they are dislodged from power through elections, they will continue to use their power in familiar ways. But ironically, even as the right demonstrates the effectiveness of electoral politics, some radicals are now arguing that the left should abandon elections.

Following Walker’s victory on Tuesday, a longtime friend of mine wrote that Wisconsin’s unions should have organized a general strike instead of fighting Walkerism by means of elections. This is almost surely an erroneous conclusion. Exit polls showed that 38 percent of voters from union households voted for Walker in the recall election, suggesting that solidarity was neither broad nor deep enough to pull off a general strike. Moreover, rather than forcing a repeal of Walker’s anti-union legislation, a strike in Wisconsin would more likely have ended like the 1981 PATCO strike, another iconic instance of government union-busting that reportedly inspired Walker. I do not oppose strikes and other forms of disruptive protest under all circumstances; I only insist that anyone who cares about the consequences of their actions must use these methods intelligently. Their effectiveness depends on the ability of protesters to surmount a host of practical obstacles, well documented in sociological studies of social movements, including the likelihood of severe reprisals. Without some serious thinking about how protesters might withstand reprisals and overcome other obstacles, calls for a general strike—both those made in Wisconsin in 2011 and those made retrospectively now—are nothing but foolish bravado. Lastly, to insist on either disruptive protests or electoral politics is a false choice. As Frances Fox Piven and Richard Cloward showed in their classic study Poor People’s Movements, protest movements have historically been most successful when disruptive protests worked in tandem with—not as an alternative to—electoral volatility.

Doug Henwood, a contributing editor to The Nation and the publisher of Left Business Observer, echoed my friend’s rejection of elections in his blog: “channeling a popular uprising into electoral politics,” he commented, was a “horrible mistake.” In his view, unions would have been better off supporting a “popular campaign—media, door knocking, phone calling—to agitate, educate, and organize on the importance of the labor movement.” This suggestion dovetails with Jeff Goldfarb’s argument that progressives must work to shape “how the broad public understands the problems of our times” or, put differently, “to win hearts and minds.” But as Jeff understands, this kind of education is entirely compatible with and indeed a necessary part of electoral politics, and it is in fact precisely what Wisconsin union members were doing when they made a million phone calls and knocked on two million doors in the weeks before the recall election.

Just as “giving up on electoral politics, or blaming Obama, … is extraordinarily foolish,” in Jeff Goldfarb’s words, it is equally foolish to give up on or blame organized labor for the outcome of Wisconsin’s recall election. This is precisely what Henwood does in his blog post. Labor unions aren’t popular, he argues, because the anti-labor right is correct about them: rather than fight for the public interest or the needs of the working class as a whole, he insists, they are a special interest who care only about the wages and benefits of their “privileged” members. The right has always depicted labor unions this way, but it is astonishing to see an avowedly progressive intellectual embrace the most anti-labor elements of the right-wing vision about America. It suggests that progressives need to start within our own ranks if we want to shape how the public understands the problems of our times.

Contrary to Henwood’s sweeping condemnation, organized labor has used its political clout since the New Deal to promote full employment and decent wages and to improve health care, education, and housing—for all Americans, not just union members. Furthermore, Henwood ignores the efforts within the labor movement since the 1990s, documented by sociologists Kim Voss, Dan Clawson, and others, to reach out to groups that were previously alienated from unions (students, immigrants, and so forth), organize the unorganized with innovative grassroots strategies (e.g., the Justice for Janitors campaign), and build a new “social movement unionism.” Lastly, Henwood’s characterization of unions is contravened by their role in Wisconsin, where they spearheaded a broad-based recall movement that was motivated by far more than the loss of collective bargaining rights.

Rather than dismiss the entire labor movement, progressives should support this kind of unionism—indeed, they should join unions whenever and wherever possible. While recent events in Wisconsin and elsewhere have undeniably weakened organized labor, they have also shown the extraordinary commitment, energy, and public-spiritedness of union members. Progressives still need unions to help realize their political agenda.

While it is a mistake to give up on electoral politics or unions, we need to do more than participate in elections. We need to fight to ensure that the electoral process is fair and inclusive. One of the chief reasons that Wisconsin is so politically polarized at present is that what we have seen there is not ordinary partisan politics within stable and consensual rules. Rather, the radical right is using its monopoly on political power in Wisconsin to alter the electoral process itself. After the 2010 election Wisconsin was effectively a one-party state with virtually no checks or balances: Republicans controlled the governor’s office and both houses of the state legislature, and they held a majority on the state’s supreme court. Moreover, the agenda of Scott Walker and Republican legislative leaders was closer to the radicalism of the Tea Party than the moderate conservatism of previous Republican administrations. They sought not merely to enact their agenda but to ensure that it could not be undone. By crippling public-sector unions and thereby eliminating an important source of funding for the political opposition, gerrymandering legislative districts, and passing a highly restrictive voter ID law that will skew the electorate in its favor, Walker’s party has worked ruthlessly to give itself a permanent advantage and to cement its grip on power for the foreseeable future. (Although the June 2012 recall election appears to have given Democrats a razor-thin majority in the state senate, they are likely to lose it in November when the new legislative districts will be in effect.) This strategy has implications at the national as well as the state level.

Wisconsin State Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, speaking on Fox News in March 2011, boasted that if their efforts succeeded, Obama would have a “much more difficult time getting elected and winning the state of Wisconsin [in 2012].” Add to this state-level corruption of the electoral process the untrammeled flow of corporate money into American politics as a result of the 2010 Citizens United Supreme Court decision and the electoral dice begin to look frighteningly loaded. Effective resistance to this power grab will require both symbolic work and material resources. Progressives must work to win over hearts and minds but also to safeguard democratic institutions.

Although a progressive-labor coalition failed to unseat Scott Walker in the Wisconsin recall election, and this failure will undoubtedly embolden those who wish to imitate him outside of Wisconsin, the struggle will continue in Wisconsin and elsewhere, at the state level and the national level. We must fight a war of position and not a war of maneuver. I can attest that for many of us Wisconsinites, the failure was heartbreaking and bitter, but we can perhaps take courage in the words that Max Weber famously uttered in 1918:

Politics is a strong and slow boring of hard boards. It takes both passion and perspective. Certainly all historical experience confirms the truth—that man would not have attained the possible unless time and again he had reached out for the impossible. But to do that a man must be a leader, and not only a leader but a hero as well, in a very sober sense of the word. And even those who are neither leaders nor heroes must arm themselves with that steadfastness of heart which can brave even the crumbling of all hopes. This is necessary right now, or else men will not be able to attain even that which is possible today. Only he has the calling for politics who is sure that he shall not crumble when the world from his point of view is too stupid or too base for what he wants to offer. Only he who in the face of all this can say ‘In spite of all!’ has the calling for politics.

The people have spoken, and they have decided that “fat cat teachers,” and not greed gone wild on Wall Street and beyond, are the source of their problems. A deep disappointment. A defeat. This was my initial response to the results of the special recall election in Wisconsin.

I noticed a Facebook post blaming Obama and the Democratic Party. They betrayed the grassroots. He who engages in a crazy militaristic foreign policy killing innocents abroad was denounced. This is irrational, self-defeating and irresponsible. Politics is about alternatives, and the direction the country would go if it follows Wisconsin’s lead last night is profoundly problematic. There is a deep seeded problem in our political culture that must be addressed at the grassroots and in the Democratic Party.

Big money surely played a role, as John Nichols at the Nation quickly declared, reflecting on whether people’s power can overcome money power. But something more fundamental is at issue. How the broad public understands the problems of our times. Somehow in Wisconsin, at least last night, the Tea Party’s diagnosis of our problems made more sense than the view of those engaged in and inspired by Occupy Wall Street. This was my first reaction this morning.

This afternoon I feel a bit less alarmed, though still deeply concerned. There is considerable evidence that the campaign itself made a difference. With the 7 to 1 spending advantage of the Republicans, many Wisconsinites seemed to be critical of the idea of the recall absent major malfeasance in office. They, along with Walker’s most passionate supporters, prevailed. The Democrats were not as united as they needed to be. Their message was muddled. Yet, despite this, in fact, there was a progressive advance. The Democrats took control of the State Senate. Governor Walker won’t be able to count on the rubber-stamp approval of his proposals anymore.

And oddly polls indicate that if the election were held today, Obama would win in Wisconsin decisively. Wisconsin with a long and deep progressive traditions, including a distinguished record of supporting labor unions, would re-elect the President, but conservative Wisconsin, the state that elected Joe McCarthy to the Senate, affirmed Walker and his very aggressive deeply conservative (really reactionary) policies.

In the end, the results tell us what we already knew about the upcoming election, and not much more. As in Wisconsin, the Presidential election is going to be not only about the incumbent and his party, but, more significantly, about Obama’s and Romney’s competing political approaches and personalities. It is often noted the Democrats will try to make the election a choice, while the Republicans will try to turn it into a referendum on Obama and the present state of the economy. But because the principles upon which the two men will be running are so strikingly different, it is hard for me to believe that it will just be a referendum. It is interesting to note that few national commentators observed the Wisconsin recall as being about Walker himself and the state of the state under his leadership, which it was formally. Rather the big principled issues have been emphasized, for and against unions, for and against austerity as an economic policy, sharply highlighted by none other than Sarah Palin.

The election results present a big challenge to those of us on the left. The union movement and not only public employee unions, has suffered a serious blow. The momentum of the Occupy movement has been turned. The focus on inequality is in danger of being lost. It was not a good day.

But giving up on electoral politics, or blaming Obama, as I read on Facebook, is extraordinarily foolish. Two strongly competing visions about America are in competition, on the economy and much more. Elections matter, as was revealed last night. For the general public, Wisconsin announces some of the key issues that lie ahead: blame teachers and their unions or finance gone wild for our present fiscal woes and depressed labor market. Address the problems by working for a more just economic framework, or by breaking unions. For the left, the challenge is to engage, and to link grass root concerns with the Democratic Party and truly reach out to the general public. I observed how powerful this worked in the case of the anti-war movement and the Dean campaign in The Politics of Small Things. I showed how this became the base for the Obama campaign and how it contributed to the project of Reinventing Political Culture, in my book by that name. The task is to win hearts and minds. If we don’t, the trouble suggested by the results last night will come to define our political reality.