Buying into political messages

The Democratic Party believed that Scott Walker's demise in the Wisconsin gubernatorial recall election -- which seemed like a reality after the standoff between the Walker administration and pro-union Wisconsinites -- was all but a given. Too bad Tom Barrett, the Milwaukee mayor who Walker beat for the job back in 2010, was burned even worse by Walker this time around.

Amongst the numerous things that I deal with on a daily basis -- you know, the web design thing, being a caretaker, and being a college student -- I even had time to ponder what took place in Wisconsin. The dejected left are calling it a case of not enough strong organization, grassroots and financially, against the Walker's Republican Machine; those on the right are championing it as a victory that justifies their small government, personal responsibility ideology.

I'm not really against the idea of unions. I'm not very crazy about paying union dues, but I support the premise behind unions in that they're basically advocating better pay and conditions for its member workers. Of course, there's additional tenets to union mechanism that turns into a shenanigan of semantics (i.e., the United Auto Workers being blamed, and partially rightfully so, for nearly destroying the American automotive industry), but when it comes to premise, I only mean it from the bottom line. However, this post is not about unions. This post is not even specific points about ideology.

Leading progressive writer Robert Scheer wrote on his website Truthdig.org that the triumph of Scott Walker is more or less an indictment against the Democratic Party's inability to create a message that contradicts the Tea Party.

I'll disagree and agree. I'll disagree on the fact that the Tea Party is still a relevant, unified political movement in the way that a lot of political pundits and the media portray it to be. Personally, I think the Tea Party movement has morphed into simply being the hard-right sector of the Republican Party because some of the Tea Party's favorite sons and daughters make their tubthumping be as much about social conservatism as it is about fiscal conservatism, the original core advocacy of and source of passion for the Tea Party. I'll agree on the fact that the Democratic Party doesn't have a viable alternative message against hard-right conservatism.

Chris Bridges, who is indeed a socialist and also a writer on Truthdig.com, wrote a critical piece a few months ago about the Democratic Party accosting the Occupy movement, and hoping to mold it into an analogous response to the Tea Party Movement in the Republican Party. Not only it didn't work, but the Occupy movement became its own worst enemy -- "Occupiers" being "Occupiers" for the sake of being "Occupiers", and not in the interest of coming up with a coherent, unified political message where there was an actual end to justify its means. The Democratic Party's response to the Tea Party movement was more or less dashed -- not to mention, the Occupy movement was not only neoliberal and progressive in nature; there was enough of it that could be considered classically liberal in nature and it can be said that quite a few of those that subscribed to the Occupy movement probably identified themselves as libertarians.

Now to the point of this whole post: if you have a message and the means of that message has ends that justify that message, then people will buy it. In a way, it goes back to American romanticism -- if you work, you will prosper; hand outs unnecessary. Granted, I could have put that in a more poetic way, but this is a blog and not a book, and I have no intention on writing a book.

How the means of a political message is justified by its ends is the main difference between American (neo)conservatism and its apparent acceptance and American neoliberalism and its apparent standing as a political pejorative: anybody can accept the conservative message, no matter the socioeconomic standing or educational level; not everybody can accept the neoliberal message (or classical liberal/libertarian message even), except by those of a certain socioeconomic standing or educational level.

So what does all of this mean? What transpired in Wisconsin was not so much a validation of Walker's policies amongst Wisconsinites, but more of a case of more people on one side (in this case, conservative Republicans) that bought into a message and was mobilized against Barrett. The same thing could be said in the late April to mid May delegation fireworks amongst Ron Paul supporters.

The irony of it is, that despite the prevalent cynicism in the United States politically, it was people buying into a message and being mobilized by it that put Barack Obama into the White House. For the first time in a while, the Democratic Party actually had a coherent, clear message. Indeed, that clear message raised expectations astronomically, and unrealistically, and thus far the President is paying for it heavily, as expected.

But don't take it from me -- it's how politics work. Always has, always will.