As I recently wrote in the New York Times, the Citizens United decision has led to an unprecedented saturation of money in politics. The effects of money in American politics was already quite pernicious, but this ill-considered decision released a flood of anonymous money which completely upends the ability of the non-elite 99% to have any meaningful say in politics.
Or, does it?
Read the rest here.
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Marches don't have the same impact anymore. The key today is building the infrastructure for future battles (creating effective organizations, building a legal team and a legal strategy for fighting in the courts, building institutions, building a media platform of your own, educating the public about what is going on, voter education, etc) and Progressives don't do this very well. Leaders of the Civil Rights movement understood this...and planned protests and sit-ins that served a larger purpose at the time. Protest efforts back then often coincided with some sort of legal strategy and economic boycotts that were specifically targeted. The lack of vision to build institutions, build long-term strategy, groom political candidates of their own, to come up with some sort of formal structure...is the reason why the Occupy nonsense fizzled (as I predicted). It's also why the public began to see this effort as a nuisance (which I also said would happen). Shutting down banks, blocking roads, damaging property, diverting local funds from other important public services to extra police service for protesters, etc...started to become a burden on ordinary people. Disjointed messages from groups with no structure and no clearly stated (and reachable) goals is a recipe for failure. Always has been...always will be.
This is why Conservatives are able to do so well... even though their brand and their product is horrible. Progressives have the superior product... but can't sell it. This is why when you break down most of the provisions of the Affordable Care Act... most people support it. But when you lump the program together and call it "Obamacare"... people don't want it. It's all about brand messaging... and no one can do it better than Republican strategists. Progressives couldn't do good PR/political strategy if their lives depended on it.
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