In the last post, I defined the formula that Conservatives use, knowingly or otherwise, to achieve the considerable political success we have seen in the last thirty years. Note here that there is a difference between political success and policy success, the latter defined here as policies resounding to the benefit of the wider society rather than a few elites.
In this post, I seek to define a similar formula for Left-Wing success. The Left can achieve political success, despite the efforts of its parties, particularly in Australia and America, to the contrary. We turn to the elements of the formula now.
The first thing you must do is immediately, and irrevocably, ban any and all third-party political donations (that includes unions – we must be consistent). This turns elections from battles of donors to battles of ideas (remember those?). This allows you to focus on the issues, and more importantly focus on the issues unrestrained, that is without any thought as to which interest group (or individual) you might be putting offside. If they cannot fund your opponents, their opinion is, for all intents and purposes, irrelevant. Let them vote or run for office themselves if they seek to influence the discussion. Money must be removed from our political system if ideas are to carry the day. I am aware that the removal of third-party money helps your opponents as well, since they are similarly unrestrained, but your policies are superior to theirs, so this should not matter.
Second, you must fearlessly advocate popular policies, regardless of what the rich, the media or your opponents say. Such a demonstration of political, and policy, conviction can only help your cause. Protection, and indeed extension, of the social safety net (pensions, medicare etc), a green technology revolution, a broadband network for the future rather than one based on archaic technology that is quite literally protected by plastic bags when it rains, taxing the rich and corporations and so on. The rich are likely to protest this latter move, but there is a response to this.
Let them cry persecution, or socialism or whatever other absurd strawman they will concoct to decry policy designed to benefit all of society. Indeed, run with this: expose them (or better yet allow them expose themselves) as the greedy, self-interested and petulant children that they are. You will be able to do this precisely because you are not beholden to them for campaign donations. As you can see, the first pillar frees you up to implement the second.
This response to the rich protesting having to contribute to the society in which they flourished sets the tone for a general response to criticism for the left: your policies resound to the benefit of the wider society – revel in that. Elite protest against popular policies in a democracy is the equivalent of gasoline in a firehose: it will blow up in their faces. You are right on the issues: you serve the people, and your policies benefit them. By definition, there are far fewer wealthy people in a society than there are less well-off. Those numbers are critical: there are fewer wealthy votes than poorer ones, so appeal to the larger demographic by definition will yield success.
I am advocating a return to FDR style social democracy: popular policies funded by taxing, like the rest of us are, those who have achieved wealth in our society. How do I know this method of governance is successful? Simple – FDR was elected – and re-elected – and re-elected – four times in all. It was his time in office that led to the creation of term limits for US Presidents (also a useful admission from the conservatives that they could not compete in the marketplace of ideas and policy). FDR is often called ‘a traitor to his class’ – but his response is equally excellent ‘I welcome their hatred’ – there was a social democrat with political conviction. He had popular policies and pursued them fearlessly, so fearlessly in fact that laws had to be passed in order to prevent him from being re-elected.
The Left is correct on policy – it is high time that this began to yield results in a so-called Democracy.
CA
criticalanalystsite 