Politics for Pragmatists

By Jan Frel, AlterNet. Posted March 30, 2006.

Jerome Armstrong and Markos Moulitsas Zuniga are the founders of MyDD and Daily Kos -- two of the most influential political blogs in America, with web traffic numbers that compete with the circulation of major daily newspapers.

Relatively recent entrants onto the political scene, Armstrong's MyDD and Moulitsas's DailyKos have quickly become the centers of discourse about the Democratic Party and progressive politics. Ninety-nine percent of that discourse is not written by Armstrong or Moulitsas; the community format of their blogs allow for anyone to join in the conversation or start their own, and thousands of people have taken part.

Armstrong and Moulitsas are co-authors of the new book, "Crashing the Gate," which offers readers an extensive look into their understanding of the political dynamic in Washington, the state of the Democratic Party and the promise of people-powered politics.

"Crashing the Gate" is not a work of political theory. It's a fairly broad exposition and critique of the progressive-Democratic Party apparatus -- from think tanks to state party systems to the political consultants -- and its practices. The book has received endorsements and plaudits from writers in the progressive press to mainstream giants like the New York Times.

AlterNet caught up with Armstrong and Moulitsas to discuss their book and the pragmatic approach to politics that upholds it.

Jan Frel: I think a lot of folks were surprised at the heavy tactical focus of your book. Is that a product of the role and expertise you guys see yourselves as having in progressive and online politics -- tactics rather than ideology?

Markos Moulitsas: There are plenty of people in our party who can handle policy and wonk out with the best of them. But clearly we don't have many people who can win. Rather than let our wonks go to waste, we'd like to get Democrats elected so we can set them free. Thanks to the current Republican regime, modern politics is a zero-sum game. If you're in power you run the show, if you're out of power, you get nothing.

Jerome Armstrong: We looked at the problem of branding and messaging in the beginning of the process of writing this book, but the closer we looked and the more people we talked to, the more we realized that there were huge structural problems that had to first be addressed, to even get to the point where we can go further.

Certainly, we believe in progressive values that stand for things like environmental regulation, personal liberty as opposed to social theocracy, taxation that shares wealth to ensure societal stability, and a global compact in a world that is interconnected. But those are issues for candidates to run on and be elected on (and for others to then follow).

There is a pragmatic strain with which we approach politics, and that is reflected by the focus of the book. Part of the problem with Republicans is that they are too ideological. We are more interested in making sure that the structure around which we are running progressive candidates is sound, rather than whether or not the candidate is 100 percent aligned with us on all of the issues.

The only prescriptive focus of the book is to broaden the election strategy beyond the battleground mentality that dominates Democratic consultant thinking. We wish to bring about the realization that we have to contest every election if we are going to become the national party again. We are not looking to win with 50.1 percent -- we want a more systematic approach.

Frel: Markos recently wrote: "What every Democratic challenger should do at this point is run against D.C. Not just against Republicans, but against the entire frickin' town. It's a mess. It's a disaster. Run against it. Run against Pelosi. Run against Frist. Run against DeLay. Run against Biden. Run against the Democratic consultants. Run against the whole lot of them."

I saw some of that in your book -- that the problems are as much the Democratic consultants as DeLay or Frist -- but "run against D.C." and "disaster" seems to me another strain. Do you think our national political system at this point is redeemable, if only there were majorities of sensible outsider Democrats? Do you think it's the necessary starting point?

Moulitsas: It would be a start. But the "run against D.C." is a short-term tactic for 2006. The book takes a long-term view of building a broad new progressive movement. So it's really two separate issues altogether.

Jan Frel is an AlterNet staff writer.

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