What makes effective activism is a question I roll around in my mind quite a bit. There were a few incidents at the Netroots Nation conference that made me think about it. In one incident, there was a panel called “What To Do When The President Is Not That Into You” that featured several controversial panelists – Lt. Dan Choi, Jame Hamsher and John Aravosis.
Lt. Dan Choi, who was discharged from the military for running afoul of its anti-gay Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy, provided a visual when an Organizing for America volunteer stood up and asked him to support Obama in 2012. The man said he did not support gay marriage — “civil unions?” he offered weakly — and Choi promptly ripped up an Organizing for America flyer he had been given and threw it back in the man’s face.
The four panelists — Choi, immigration reform supporter Felipe Matos, America Blog writer John Aravosis and Fire Dog Lake Founder Jane Hamsher — said they are planning to hold the White House’s collective feet to the fire for its decisions on civil rights, whether it would hurt Obama’s reelection chances or not.
Is this effective activism? What do we mean we say effective, anyway? If the idea of activism is to get attention to your cause, I would say this was very effective. All the major news organizations led with this story. In fact, THE story from the conference was that the left is disenchanted with Obama despite the poll results showing 80% approval from conference attendees (almost identical to approval numbers from the Democratic party as a whole). If the idea is to persuade people to your side, perhaps not.
Another incident involves Michele Bachmann at the Right Online conference (held in the same hotel as Netroots Nation). An LGBT activist attempted to “glitterbomb” Bachmann as she was walking off the stage.
Would you call that effective activism? Watching the video I didn’t understand what was happening and wouldn’t have except for the accompanying story. Did the activist get attention for her cause or did she generate sympathy for Bachmann?
In my opinion, activism needs several ingredients to be effective:
1) It gets attention to the issue
2) The message must be clear and concise
3) It must convince people to join your cause
It’s that third one that is very tricky and the hardest part. Let’s talk about some real successes – like the NRA, LGBT marriage rights and the Tea Party. These three groups all have something in common, they fight the long game. The NRA is probably the most powerful lobbying group in the nation. They do this by exercising political power – money & voters. In other words, they participate in the political process. They keep track of votes in Congress and issue ratings to lawmakers. Many lawmakers (especially Republicans) are desperate to stay on the NRA’s good side.
The LGBT marriage rights activists also exercise influence through money and voters. They’ve also unleashed a very powerful campaign for marriage rights by showing sympathetic people and the struggles they go through that others take for granted. So here we see the power of messaging.
The Tea Party is a bit different. I wouldn’t say they had a clear and coherent message. However, they directly took over the machinery of the dispirited Republican Party and quickly became a power player in that coalition. They also exercised their influence by running candidates in elections and winning. Taking out a few incumbents (like Mike Castle) really helped them as well.
There really is no one way to win, there are many. I think the things that the effective groups had in common was doing the hard work. Working phones, giving money, going to meetings are all hard work and not glamorous. Influencing politicians involves both carrots AND sticks.