Left Center Left

I still think Massachusetts progressives are in danger of missing the forest for the trees in this governor race. Michael Forbes Wilcox reports,

At one point (when Texaco and Coke were mentioned), people hissed. Deval addressed the hissing immediately. He was not angry. He simply said that hissing was not productive, so let’s talk bout the Coke and Texaco issue. People were amazed. His response was not in the form of a reprimand, it was more Clintonesque - let’s solve this problem together.Â

This confirms what others have noted, that some progressives are supporting Patrick with some reservation given the candidate’s work history in high profile corporations. On a tactical level alone, this mindset is misguided. Plenty of voters work in corporations, often corporations with some dodgy policies to their name. They may feel uncomfortable about said dodgy policies and actions, and in any case probably don’t identify their interests fully with Fortune 500 corporations, especially in the political sphere. But it has to be off-putting to see the liberal-left branch of the Dems convulse with ideological purity tests. Not everyone can have a “proper” job like Jill Stein.

And on the substance the hissing is equally maddening. I happen to think that anti-corporate populism is a misguided philosophy, substituting villains for a political analysis that seeks to understand how villainy happens without villains. And I’ll note that there’s an anti-corporate populism of the right as well. But say that corporations are the problem, the key logjam that’s keeping the political sphere and the government from solving problems. What on earth does hissing at Deval Patrick do to change that?

One of the things I disliked most about the fundamentalist zealots of my hometown was their tendency to confuse moralism for morality. I’m ashamed to say that progressives are giving the fundies heavy competition in that pursuit.