12 Steps to Regime Change

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#3: Communicate Our Vision

To make a difference in American society, we need to bring millions of undecided voters over to our side. We can do this if we articulate a positive vision of the future. Most Americans like to be on the winning team, so we need winning ideas and leaders who can carry our message forward. Merely attacking conservatives and their failed policies doesn't help. This actually reinforces the image that we don't stand for anything positive. We need to articulate our own clear, bold, optimistic message. Progressives can offer a vision that draws on the deep history and powerful stories of people working together to make this country strong, to protect ourselves and one another, to care about the health and safety of all Americans.

#4: Confront Our Weaknesses

Now, let's be honest about ourselves. Many populist and progressive movements suffer from a compulsion to repeat the same strategies, no matter how many times they fail. Moving forward requires acknowledging what doesn't serve us. Single-issue politics, particularly, has been the Achilles' heel of progressive politics. Conservatives understand that individual issues need to be linked to an overall moral and ethical perspective. As University of California linguist George Lakoff explains in his groundbreaking book Moral Politics: How Liberals and Conservatives Think, "They fit the issues together, develop conservative value-based language, and then highjack American virtues like freedom and compassion and give them conservative definitions. . . . Progressives in contrast are hampered by the plethora of issues, rather than the overarching value perspective."

The long-standing leftist approach of "letting a thousands flowers bloom" has not added up. Battles on hundreds of fronts, competing for attention and funding, will not bring us political power. Too many voices often cancel each other out, and the confusing cacophony drives many people away.

#5: Be Realistic

Diving into electoral politics, for many progressive activists, will be a big change. Many of us have viewed party politics as tainted, trivial, or hopelessly uncool. Single-issue campaigns offered a measure of purity, shielding us from the ambiguity, corruption, and tough compromises of real-world politics. But alas, despite its enormous flaws, the dirty arena of elections and legislation is where change, for better or worse, is made.

Jonathan Schell, author of the peace movement classic The Fate of the Earth, says, "Rejecting elections . . . is like an admission of defeat. It's very bad to admit defeat when you're in a movement."

Finally, progressives need to take another look at how think tanks and foundations can influence the public's thinking about politics. Pat Robertson and other right-wing organizations have engaged in outrageously partisan campaigns while maintaining their status as tax-exempt foundations. Still, many liberal foundations remain gun-shy about aggressive public education efforts.

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