The Conclusions of a Progressive Democrat's Self-Reflection

On June 3rd, voters in California’s 33^rd Congressional District will have the chance to vote in their state primary for an independent candidate known internationally for her writing and speaking on spirituality, not her politics. Her work is so influential that six of her ten books were New York Times bestsellers and Time magazine included her with yoga and cabala as three things that “have been taken up by those seeking a relationship with God that is not strictly tethered to Christianity."

Marianne Williamson, a life-long progressive Democrat running as an independent, will hear the usual complaints from true believer Democrats, saying it will ruin their chances to do whatever Democrats swear they will do while giving their usual excuses for not doing it.

Running makes spiritual sense to her: “While many seekers have turned away from politics, viewing spiritual and political pursuits as mutually exclusive, I agree with Mahatma Gandhi that ‘Anyone who thinks religion doesn’t have anything to do with politics doesn’t understand religion.’ I don’t believe we can afford to be ‘selectively conscious,’ applying more enlightened principles to only some aspects of human endeavor.”

In a March 11^th radio interview with John Fugelsang, Williamson described her progressive history, decades of fidelity to the Democratic Party, and past support of the current president. But, as she puts it, today “progressives have a codependent relationship to the Democratic Party.”

In 2010, years before launching her candidacy, she wrote: “I see so many people now -- many of them men, interestingly enough -- tangled up in an almost school-girlish, co-dependent, apologetic relationship with this President. As though ‘poor baby’ should be tacked onto the end of every description of his failures.”

“I remember Bobby and I remember Martin. I remember when there was a moral force at the center of the Democratic Party. I see it sometimes still, in a Sherrod Brown, a Dennis Kucinich, an Anthony Weiner, a Marcy Kaptur and an Alan Grayson [today she’d add Elizabeth Warren].

“But they're not reflective of the general tenor of the Democratic Party anymore, and I think we would all do well to wake up to that fact. We elected Obama and then he sort of became someone else. He's doing a lot of good things in various areas, but he's certainly not changing the new bottom line: that corporations get to run the world.”

Now, can those of us who’ve put so much hope in the Democratic Party consider that she could be right? Are we willing to listen to her? Or will we respond with the same old codependent excuses that abused spouses give for their abusers?

I can hear them now: But you don’t know, or give him credit for, the troubles he faces. But he’s doing the best he can. But you just need to be more supportive. But you just need to be more understanding, loving, forgiving. But you just need to better communicate. But he promises to do better (just listen to his speeches). But aren’t you expecting too much from him? But he’s better than the alternative – infidelity is better than death.

From outside codependency, Williamson appears right. And what that means is that her analysis is crucial to an honest debate that we must encourage, not stifle.

It means we’ll need to pick our battles and our candidates. Fred Phelps, after all, ran for governor on the Democratic ticket in Kansas because he too was a lifelong Democrat.

It means we need to speak up loudly, showing we disagree with those for whom we still might cast our vote. It means we need to recognize that in both major political parties the squeaky wheel is big business.

It means that we might have to protest in the meetings of both major parties. Various communities have learned that parties seldom respond to quiet, rational requests.

Protesters, for example, have regularly called President Obama, who has deported 57% more undocumented immigrants per month than his predecessor, the “Deporter in Chief.” Though they’ve been criticized with all the above, though he ran on immigration reform twice, garnering 70% of Latino votes, and though he continued to respond that he had no power to end his reign as the president who’ll win the award for the most deportations; unexpectedly on March 13 the White House changed its tune and told the Congressional Hispanic Caucus that it will review “more humane” procedures, signaling finally that it might slow down the number.

Protests work. Being nice doesn’t when you’re up against moneyed interests buying both parties.

We must face the fact that both parties are part of the power structure that supports what author Mike Lofgren told Bill Moyers is the “deep state” behind the real one. And that, as Frederick Douglass told us: “Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.”

It means that we recognize all elections are important. The Republicans have given up on the functioning of the federal government. Their method is to maintain enough of a rein on national Democrats so that they’ll accomplish nothing. Whether they field a viable presidential candidate has lost importance.

The Republicans and their funders, like the Koch brothers, have turned to the states and municipalities to enact their will. Controlling statehouses, governorships, school boards, and county offices, they believe, will give them the power they want.

This further means that we have to be the change we want. We’ll have to run for offices and encourage other progressives to do so.

In 2010 Williamson concluded: “Should we re-brand the Green Party perhaps, or draft another Democrat to challenge Obama in the primaries in 2012? I don't know what we should do, but I know one thing that we shouldn't do: pretend to ourselves that this man is delivering on what he promised when he first won our hearts.”

So what will we do to change things? In 2014, Williamson’s decided that she’ll just run for Congress herself.