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Senators Betray Us

5 comments September 20th, 2007at 09:42pm Posted by Eli

The Senate’s appalling 72-25 vote to condemn MoveOn for its “General Betray Us” ad is yet another reminder that not only do the Democrats have the narrowest of majorities in the Senate, but that progressives (or reasonable facsimiles thereof) have the narrowest of majorities in the Democratic caucus. Only 25 Democrats voted against the MoveOn condemnation, with two or three abstaining or absent.

Although individual members have varied, the totals have been very similar on other key votes where the Democrats have totally folded, such as the authorization to attack Iraq (77-23), the bankruptcy bill (74-25), the Roberts confirmation (78-22), the Alito cloture vote (72-25), and now this. (The Military Commissions Act was almost as bad, at 65-34.) There’s a reliable pool of 10-25 Democrats who are willing to side with Republicans for even the most heinous and unpopular of causes, but never more than a handful of Republicans willing to cross the aisle for votes to end the war, or restore habeas corpus, or support our troops by giving them fair leave time.

Republicans will vote against popular opinion to please their base; Democrats will do it to defy them.

And this anti-MoveOn vote is even worse than all those previous votes, because it explicitly repudiates the base. They didn’t just ignore the wishes of the netroots like they usually do; they actually condemned us. I don’t think this vote discredits MoveOn – hell, I can barely even find any mention of it on the NYT, WaPo, or CNN homepages – but it does discredit the Democrats. If they wanted a “Sistah Souljah moment” where they could demonstrate their independence from the crazy liberal hippies, they should have picked an issue where the overwhelming majority of the population doesn’t agree with us. They should remember that just because that Republicans are shouting and wringing their hands at the incivility of it all, that doesn’t mean anyone else is.

Even more stupidly, by condemning MoveOn, the Democrats not only make it very hard for the progressive netroots to support them, but they also make it very problematic to accept that support if offered. Now that they’ve called us a bunch of irresponsible mudslinging outlaws, they have to keep their distance.

If the Democrats have a strategy, it must be so refined and subtle that only dogs can hear it.

(Please join MoveOn’s I Will Not Be Quiet petition – at least let the Democrats know that we won’t sit down and shut up.)

Entry Filed under: Democrats,Iraq,Politics,Wankers,War