Political Strategy in the Age of Mediocrity: The Four Positions

During the Bush Reign of Terror anyone with a conscience was Outside Fringe.

During the nebulosity of the last year, political positioning was also a bit nebulous.

Now that Obama has been declared a success by the Establishment however, new lines have been drawn. Their IS now a clear Democratic Establishment that like it or not…you ARE working within, or without. This is not a conscious drawing of lines by some entity, this is a function of human nature and human cognition. The human brain unconsciously makes these distinctions and there is not much anyone can do about it.

You are either Inside the Establishment….which is not bloody likely for anyone here.

Or an Inside Agitator.

Or an Outside Agitator.

Or Fringe.

In the simplest terms:

Inside Agitators take a position of agreeing with the general goals of the Establishment while agitating and pushing Left. They acknowledge that for The Party to succeed it is often necessary to not try to do the right thing because of political implications.

Outside Agitators do not make a pretense of adhering to Establishment goals and push Left. They only care if the party succeeds when the Party is doing the right thing. They acknowledge the existence of political implications. But do not view them as a priority.

Fringe disagrees with or doesn’t care about Establishment goals and yells its head off for doing the right thing no matter what the political implications.

It doesn’t matter what YOU think you are. You will be labeled with one of these positions depending on what you write and what you push for. Labeled by the Establishment and labeled by anyone not as far Left as you.

All of these positions are needed, all can be effective. But by recognizing how your work is labeled you have the option of adjusting your work and your rhetoric to clearly fall within a category, and thus exploit the strengths and weaknesses of that category to be the most effective advocate you can be. You may even choose to adjust your rhetoric and position so far as to change categories, for increased political effectiveness. Though I recommend against that. That threatens to take you into the realm of phoniness. And authenticity is one of the most effective tools of advocacy.

But the point, as always, is doing what works. What is most effective, by acknowledging how we are perceived, we can alter those perceptions, using minor adjustments, to make us more effective.

And always remember, politics is blood sport, so you better be able to defend whatever position you take.