I previously wrote a piece titled, So Long as the Rs Treat Politics as War, the Ds Must Treat Biden as Their Commander-in-Chief. A commenter wrote in to protest that the idea of applying that military kind of discipline to our non-military governmental process was inappropriate: Nobody should have to obey orders, the right to dissent should be respected.
I replied with these points:
- Don’t you agree that it is essential to the nation that the Democrats prevail?
- Don’t you agree that the Democrats’ prevailing means getting enough public opinion on their side that the Democrats win elections and run the country?
- Don’t you agree that essential to the strategy for getting public opinion to be favorable to them — which it obviously was not last Tuesday, when the Democrats lost one governorship they would have won had the election been a while ago, and almost lost another that was expected to be a blowout — is to accomplish things the people appreciate AND pass voting rights legislation that can block the Republicans attempt to institute minority rule in states they control.
- And then the last pieces: I would assert that the only sensible way that the Democrats can be effective — given the tight margins in both houses, and the complete unity of the Republicans with their anti-democratic refusal to protect voting rights that used to pass unanimously — is to have complete unity and a good decision-making process.
- The only reasonable way of proceeding is to have someone call the plays, and execute a coordinated strategy. Room for discussion, but at the end of the discussion, it was General Eisenhower, as commander of the allied forces in Europe, who would make the decision whether to go or not go on that rainy night before D-Day. Someone has to have the final say.
- With 100% unity required, someone has to have the final say. And the way things are set up, it is obvious that it is only the President of the United States who can play the necessary role: hearing all the inputs, and then deciding the course of action.
- That Joe Biden is president is the fruit of a whole lot of process to yield a decision on to whom we would give the powers of the presidency. And we are actually pretty fortunate in many ways that we’ve got Joe Biden in the position to be the play-caller. He’s got the best intentions and a solid team.
- If Biden could call all the plays, it is entirely clear, the proportion of plays that make things better in America would be considerably more than usual, I would assert.
- Therefore, under these circumstances, a military-like pact to obey the leader with his final say is required of the Democrats. Otherwise, the likelihood of the Republicans destroying America as a democratic society is dangerously increased.
It’s really a matter of keeping one’s eye on what the ultimate goals are, and what are the means to those goals. We appreciate the right of dissent because it is part of what it means to be a free society. But right now, the continuation of the United States as the “free society” we have historically (more or less) been is threatened. When discipline is required, people exercise it. There are times to evacuate in an orderly way, times when people need to be silent so an announcement can be heard, and times when people need to act in a coherent way that maximizes their collective effectiveness.
Saving American democracy requires such discipline now, from the only political party in the nation that is part of the solution. (While the other is, frighteningly, the heart of the problem.)