Knowing what the opposition is planning
This time around they even put it in a handy twenty-page guide.
While I have been politically active for the better part of three decades (!) my real political awakening came in two stages: first, becoming a journalist of sorts by starting my writing career back in the mid-aughts, and second, being in political office during the early stages of the TEA Party movement, before the grifters took over.
At its heart, the TEA Party was a true grassroots movement, with a few caveats: certainly there were inside-the-Beltway groups who seen their opportunities and tooks ‘em. But in its infancy, the TEA Party didn’t have a sponsor per se, which enabled them to be more nimble on being the opposition to the Obama agenda. That lack of influence from political groups may have helped the TEA Party succeed so quickly - I can’t think of many other reasons we would have 300-400 people, most of whom were political neophytes or agnostic to the process, come out to downtown Salisbury on a chilly, rainy April late afternoon to air their grievances about the direction the government was taking.
Once I learned about what was going on, I wouldn’t have missed it for the world - even though I almost did because the business I was doing at the time took me to Wilmington that day.
Anyway, while the TEA Party didn’t get its agenda enacted - or elect a president until Obama was heading out the door - they did a good job at thwarting much of what the Obama administration thought it could get away with. That success chafed at a small cadre of Obama’s true believers who, once their golden ticket Hillary Clinton lost the 2016 election, vowed to use what they believed were the TEA Party’s own tactics to gum up the Trump agenda. The group published a Google Doc that became such a sensation that they used it to form Indivisible, which found its own success with the assistance of a more compliant media and Beltway establishment than the TEA Party could ever dream of. Their first victory was flipping Congress in 2018 and, while holding their noses because Joe Biden was way too moderate a choice for them, they topped that by making Donald Trump a one-term president.
It was the part about using the TEA Party’s tactics against them that drew my interest, particularly since the rise of Indivisible coincided with the research and initial drafts of Rise and Fall - thus, I had a case study. I don’t think they have the numbers the TEA Party ever had at its peak, but they have a number greater than zero and, believe it or not, they’re smart people who are simply misguided politically. They have one thing the TEA Party never had, though: a top-down agenda of political changes they wanted to make.
So I read the first Indivisible Guide and I immediately signed up for their e-mail list, and while their average e-mail has a lot of dreck about fundraising, I believed it was worth seeing for knowing what’s on the mind and agenda of the disloyal opposition. And, by gummy, they did a pretty good job enacting the playbook and making the Trump administration less of a success than it could have been. (Also, their insight on members of Congress was straight-up gold.)
Now they are at stage four of their existence: they went from strict opposition of the GOP agenda from 2017-18 to having an opportunity to present an alternate from 2019-20 to their own trifecta in 2021-22. At this point they are on the flip side of where the TEA Party found themselves after the 2010 election - let’s see how the Indivisible leadership tamps down expectations of their rabid followers with this latest advice for them.
So what can we expect from the far Left? Two things, quoting from the latest Indivisible Guide:
To continue to make Republican politicians pay an electoral price for their unpopular extremism locally. That means getting them on-record about their most unpopular positions, making sure everyone knows how out-of-touch they are, and ensuring the entire MAGA brand is toxic.
An even stronger, more broadly appealing Democratic party that can win and maintain majorities. That means setting our expectations for Democrats right away, and consistently pushing them to fight against the MAGA agenda and for a popular Democratic agenda.
(Not sure why I can’t blockquote a list, but regardless you get the point.)
So what do they consider “unpopular extremism?” First and foremost, in the e-mail announcing the Guide they claim that Republicans want to “take away reproductive freedom” and “right to vote.” This from representatives of the party that once claimed they wanted to make abortion “safe, legal, and rare” (to me that would equate to a ban with rape and incest exceptions) and can’t explain why minority turnout in this previous election was up.
Then they talk about how Republicans will “prioritize corporate greed.” That, my friends, is laughable on its face considering how big business has used government to gain market advantage at the expense of mom-and-pop shops everywhere, and that wasn’t stopped in the last two years - in fact, I would say it’s worse than ever since the Democrats had their trifecta. “Never let a crisis go to waste,” indeed.
And then there’s my favorite: “attempt a coup in 2024 if the results don’t go their way.” Now if that ain’t the pot calling the kettle black! Given what’s gone down in the last three years, I’d say the coup already occurred in 2020 when that election was “fortified” by corporate and governmental interests.
Even though I’m barely left of militia and they’re well to the left of Stalin, I encourage my right-thinking friends to get on the Indivisible mailing list, sort of like doing an Operation Chaos that would mess with their heads and make them live up to their set of rules. Our side can bird dog the Left, too.
For example: here in Delaware we only have three federal offices. One is held by a guy who styles himself as a bipartisan, but agreed with Bernie Sanders on 94% of his votes in the most recent Congress. (By comparison, Chris Coons agreed with Ted Cruz just 10% of the time.) He also voted in practical lockstep with fellow Senator Tom Carper, scoring over 90% agreement every term they’ve been together.
Our member of Congress is Lisa Blunt Rochester, generally known as LBR around here. I found the same comparison to another Congressman who’s known best by initials: AOC, who LBR has voted with over 95% of the time. Yet she’s another one who touts the “bipartisan” label.
I will give LBR a little bit of credit for agreeing with Andy Harris about 25% of the time, but agreeing with AOC so much? That’s an indication of where her heart really is, in my estimation.
(By the way, this is the interesting source of voting comparison I stumbled across.)
I bring this up because both Carper and LBR are up for re-election in 2024, and I believe LBR is going to make her move because Carper would be 78 shortly after the start of the next Senate term and I think people are tired of doddering old people in office. Of course, that would also open the House seat to a host of people who would be interested.
As that race takes shape, we need people to ask the hard questions the media in this state won’t ask. Be the “traveling roadshow,” but on the right side. (Ask the aforementioned Andy Harris what I mean and see if he’s paying attention.)
We can sit back or we can go on offense like they do, using the playbook that we created in the first place.