If Progressives Don't Want More Scott Browns, Then They Have to Organize the Suburbs

There has been much talk in the media about how a left-leaning state like Massachusetts could elect a conservative Republican to fill Ted Kennedy's Senate seat in last week's special election. The bulk of the conversation has run along predictable lines - Republicans gloat about their victory and look forward to taking back control of the Congress, Democrats and tame allies to their left bemoan the loss and figure that Brown won't be able to hold onto the seat. But I'm not so sure about that. It's already widely known that there are more right-wingers in Massachusetts than common wisdom would suggest. The strength of the right in the Commonwealth is submerged in the 50 percent of voters here that are registered as "unenrolled." And there's an interesting thing about these Massachusetts right-wingers - a lot of them are in the suburbs. The stronghold of the "American Dream" of working class ascendancy to the middle class. To the individual house, the 2 cars, the 2.5 kids, the upward mobility. All of which is going to hell as the economy continues to founder - even as the earning power of millions of middle class families has stagnated in the last 4 decades and is now in decline.

In these political economic moments, entitled people who have known long-term prosperity and have come to expect its continuance will start to cast about for someone to blame. Logic would dictate that working people should always look to people in power to blame for their woes - assuming said woes are someone else's fault (which at the level of political economy I'm discussing, I shall assume). But people in power in times like these are always willing to spend a great deal of money and exercise a great deal of political power to convince the formerly entitled people below them that some other powerless group of people are to blame for their problems. And increasingly desperate people that have known some privilege - like the middle-class suburbanites - are quite open to such arguments historically. At least, in the absence of opposing arguments.

Now one of the most important features of suburban living of interest to sociologists has been its lack of collective institutions relative to the urban and rural areas that its denizens migrated from after World War II. Absent the population concentration of the cities, the common occupation (agriculture) of the country and the concomitant lack of collective social institutions - from union halls to grange halls - by the 1960s millions of suburban Americans were truly "Bowling Alone."

Given this lack of political and social life, exacerbated by the rise of the mass media (especially "the blue glow" from TVs in every home), suburbanites are atomized and susceptible to political fear mongering from the right. Does this mean there are no collective institutions in the suburbs and that all suburbanites are raving fascists? No, not at all. But it does mean that suburban progressives are often isolated, and that many people who generally have not involved themselves in politics in the suburbs for lack of an organic connection to larger social movements are looking about for answers to their failing economic fortunes and only hearing any from the right.

The forms these answers take are salutary to the individualist suburban lifestyle, but be they traditional Republicans, right-wing libertarians with a strongly pro-capitalist small government ideology, or the vilest forms of racist and nativist ideologues many of the answers on offer in suburban politics are all of a piece. "Too much government is bad." "Taxes that pay for government hurt business profits and jeopardize individual freedom." "Poor people are drains on the system and not worthy of public support - having failed to succeed in a market economy, and being unable or unwilling to support themselves." "Immigrants, excepting a few success stories and favored nationalities, don't belong here and shouldn't be allowed to participate in our political economic system" (although, in fairness, some libertarians are not anti-immigrant since they believe that individuals should have the right to participate in job markets anywhere in the world - although they don't believe there should be public social programs to support immigrants who are unable to succeed in said markets).

Unfortunately, progressives have responded to this situation by largely ignoring the problem. I believe this is the case for a couple of related reasons. First, left-wing political organizers have been rightly concerned about working with the most downtrodden groups in society - believing that there must be a strong focus on trying to organize poor communities in urban areas. Especially communities of traditionally marginalized immigrants and people of color. Second, many left-wing organizers are philosophically opposed to the individualist high-consumption lifestyle of the suburbs - despite (or perhaps because of) the fact that many of them hail from middle-class suburban backgrounds. A corollary to this second issue is that many progressive activists view the suburbs as irredeemably racist - a not unreasonable view given the fact that the construction of the suburbs was made possible by federal housing loans that were given to millions of white families and denied to millions of families of color until after the Civil Rights Movement. The demographics of many suburbs has certainly racially diversified in the last 30 years - as has their class mix - but there are still many lily white suburbs around Massachusetts.

However, I think we've clearly arrived at a point in American politics where progressives continue to ignore the suburbs at their peril - especially on hot-button issues like immigration policy. And I think the election of Scott Brown is the canary in the coal mine of a major change in the Massachusetts political landscape. Naysayers will respond to this concern on my part by pointing to the still-large number of suburban Democrats in the Bay State. To which I can only chuckle and respond that many suburban Democrats would be called Republicans in any other state. And make the point that being a Democrat does not make someone a left-winger - contrary to the received wisdom of the chattering classes in this country. Would that were the case. At this time, I'd say that most of these white middle-class voters outside the cities are only one job loss away from ditching their "liberal" politics and moving over to the right. I think that the election of Brown shows that they're already doing so in numbers.

So I will conclude by saying - as I have done in progressive activist circles for over a decade - that the answer to the problem of rising conservatism in the suburbs is not to ignore it. It is to engage it. The left needs to start seriously organizing in the suburbs. Because Massachusetts needs the kinds of innovations that progressives can introduce if they put pedal to metal. For example, we need workers centers in every office park to start building workers associations (and ultimately unions) in the un-unionized industrial sectors. We need social and cultural centers to expand the intellectual horizons of suburbanites beyond the "work-sleep-consume-die" ideologies of the last several decades. We need "urban-suburban" dialogues on immigration, health care, and a host of other critical issues to foster genuine understanding in place of hearsay and inflammatory rhetoric. We also need the kind of door-to-door direct outreach that predominates among urban base building community organizations around issues like foreclosures to reach into the suburbs in a serious way. Suburbanites are suffering from job loss, housing loss and loss of health care, pensions and other critical safety nets just like people in urban areas. Progressives can do much to help folks organize together to improve their lot and expose them to a wider world of political ideas and potential solutions to their problems in the bargain.

Such grassroots organizing can also help lay the groundwork for building a strong left third party in Massachusetts. It's actually worth noting that the one left electoral contender currently standing is the Green-Rainbow Party - and they actually have a pretty good base in many suburban communities. But whether the left ultimately goes with the GRP or some other formation, one thing's for sure - progressives ignore the suburbs at their peril.

Try to keep that in mind as we approach the gubernatorial and midterm Congressional elections this fall. There are several months to get things moving. If key progressive organizations can find it in themselves to do so. And to those progressives already working in the suburbs, kudos to you all. Keep up the good work. Hopefully help will be coming your way soon.