Oliver Willis

1 Response to “Shorter Peter Beinart”

1. 1 El Cid
   Aug 26th, 2007 at 1:34 pm

   As someone who deeply detests Peter Beinart, the historical section of his commentary isn’t bad — his main question is why the netroots believe that they can achieve success working in Democratic Party related activities whereas previous liberal and leftist principled activists seemed to reject that option.

   Beinart seems to come up shallow with his analysis of what would happen should Democrats win, because his view is that this would discombobulate the netroots, and besides, having abandoned a ‘revolutionary leftist’ perspective how could the netroots threaten the ‘pragmatists’ in power with anything?

   Beinart seems not to have noticed that the netroots is currently dealing with that very problem — they are simultaneously working for even more progressive and liberal victories while remaining fully cognizant that Democrats in office or soon to be office are always able to abandon the principles which got them there.

   That’s why he snips about Mike Gravel at the end. He seems completely to be avoiding the issue of Gravel’s current sheer crankiness and nuttiness, as though us ordinary blog readers are weirdos who only remembers what Gravel did with the Pentagon Papers.

   What Beinart signs off with is the snarky hypothetical that if the netroots get their big Democratic win, then soon those Democrats when in power will forget about the netroots, and hey, what will you do then?

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