The Politics of Provocation
“It’s always been that way around here.” Those seven words are the barrier to progress. Those seven words are the reason not to put forth effort and the excuse for our failures. Examine it, if you will; the phrase contains no logic or argument, holds no fact or philosophy, yet for many of us that phrase holds all of the absolute power that any despotic tyrant of history or even fiction, ever dreamed of possessing.
Why, I ask you, do we allow those seven words to dangle over us like a hangman’s noose. We rant and rave for the need and desire for political change. As a collective, we cry out about our circumstance but at the first hint that action might be required, someone inevitably speaks the phrase and ala-kazam; like some horrid magic spell our efforts are diminished, our progress denied, our hopes dashed and our spirits lowered.
If Democrats in this area are to make any progress, we must make an effort to change the way we react to this phrase. We must countermand its mystical properties with sheer force of will. We cannot forget these seven words, as I dare say our opponents will chant them like some malevolent mantra. I do think we should counter them with something to the effect of “No more!”
If it is true that so-called average people only think about political issues for five minutes a month, isn’t that what we should work to change. If membership in our opposition party is tribal and traditional, then doesn’t behoove us to create an environment where those long held traditions are held to scrutiny?
Before we can do that, before we create that conversation, we must have faith that Democratic Party ideals and Democratic Party principles are right and good and true. We must also be willing to defend them and more importantly we must be willing to carry them into battle. We must be aggressive, no, we must be relentless. We must make them defend their ideas; we must make them defend their traditions. We must be willing to pick a fight and be ready to mix it up when the fight comes. We must provoke them.
I know the very idea of being controversial in any way shape or form is abhorrent to some. Yes, it will be a step into the unknown for many of us. What alternatives do we have? This is not some academic debating society, this is politics. It’s about the acquisition, expansion and sustenance of political power, it’s mean business and it’s time for us all to understand that. The old “you catch more flies with honey…” argument is indeed a tender notion but honestly how effective has it been these past twenty years?
Since the traditional media is, for all intensive purposes, a propaganda tool of our opponents, and their strategy seems to be ignore us and we’ll go away, we must subvert traditional media and use other means. We must spread our truth like a virus, in any way we can, leaving door hangers, flyering parking lots, managing LTE’s, holding neighborhood town hall meetings and anything else we can think of to get our message to the voting public. Yes, we must be innovative but we must also be provocative.
We must be provocative to get attention to our message. We must be provocative to create that environment where issues are discussed. We must be provocative because nothing else has worked.
What are we afraid of ? We might lose an election, we can hardly do worse than we are doing now.
