The Do Nothing Strategy: An Expose of National Progressive Politics

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In my experience, the conventional wisdom around a controversial issue usually begins with: “Political reality dictates that it can’t be done.” Ask the experts on almost any issue, they’ll tell you the same thing. Whatever reason they give, the real reason for such advice is that their funding, power and prominence comes from protecting the status quo. The next time you’re told about “political reality,” ask yourself how the expert giving the advice benefits from maintaining the status quo. Then move forward in spite of this advice. The experts told Maryland NARAL that we could not unseat anti-choice incumbent legislators from pro-choice districts. We ignored them and carried forward the momentum of our electoral victories to make history and codify Roe v. Wade.

Since that first experience, when the strategy was actually named and detailed, it has become painfully clear to me that The Do Nothing Strategy defines much of the national, progressive community’s approach to issues today, whether articulated or not. It’s true on every progressive issue on which I have had direct personal experience.

The Endangered Species Coalition Steering Committee

I moved on to direct the National Endangered Species Coalition (ESC) not realizing at the time that The Do Nothing Strategy had beaten me there. America’s national environmental organizations who made up the Steering Committee of the ESC had become giant bureaucracies where self-perpetuation, the quest for funding from large foundations, and the desire for a seat at the political table has replaced environmental protection as the primary goal. It’s arguable whether environmental protection even remains on the list of goals for some national, environmental organizations. At best these groups have been out of touch with the public and grassroots activists, engaged in destructive competition for media coverage and funding and resistant to change for more than a decade. At worst, they have been cavorting with industry to destroy the environment, just as the recent series of articles about the Nature Conservancy in the Washington Post, entitled, Big Green: When Conservation and Business Fail to Mix, have made painfully clear.

During my tenure as Executive Director, from 1993-1994, the Coalition worked to build a national grassroots force in order to reauthorize and strengthen the Endangered Species Act. A strengthened Endangered Species Act (ESA) would protect us, safeguarding species upon which we rely for medicines. Endangered species also identify problems that could be threats to human existence, just like the canary in the coal mine. The ESA protects ecosystems like wetlands, which purify our drinking water and forests which filter our air. It protects private property from corporations that benefit financially from the destruction of our natural heritage. It helps to ensure our long-term economic viability by contributing to the tourism, fishing, pharmaceutical and agricultural industries.

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