What Theory of Change Will Win the Progressive War?

by Thomas Neuburger

When the Social contract breaks from above, it breaks from below as well.
     —Yours truly

A "theory of change" in modern progressive parlance is the method by which one gets from A to B, from a world with employer-controlled health care, for example, to Medicare for All, a universal, government-controlled program. It's the nuts and bolts by which the goal is achieved.

One theory of change, if we keep with the Medicare for All example, may be to mobilize grassroots pressure via petitions, letters and demonstrations, then couple that with the election of so many House and Senate progressives that the bill would have to pass. Another theory of change would be to elect a strongly pro-M4A president (a Sanders, say) and let him use the hammer of the Executive Branch to pass the legislation. Or both. A third might be to elect a Medicare For All "practicalist," an Elizabeth Warren, who proposed taking the M4A path in a sequence of chunks, with phase two, the real move, occurring after the midterm congressional election.

But theories of change have to be likely, or at least convincing. For the Medicare for All example, the counter-argument would be that none of the first two methods has worked (witness the Sanders campaign, who lost to Medicare For All opponent Joe Biden), or will work (just how fast to do we have to replace those House members and senators again?). As for the practicalist, you'd have to believe that phase two would actually be likely to occur.

Collapse as a Theory of Change

I recently argued, with respect to global warming, for a theory of change that essentially surrendered the field, admitted that any "practicalist" solution was doomed to fail, and opted instead for that last hope of the desperate — massive, sudden events-driven change, the kind of chaos that, admittedly dangerous, might still open the door to previously locked-out solutions. (See "Poised on the Brink: A Tale of Hope and Change" for that argument.)

Thinking more broadly (as if climate destruction wasn't broad enough), a progressive theory of change would have to be able to head off the kind of electoral revolution that brought Donald Trump to power in 2016, or worse, the kind of extra-electoral revolution that a partial or total meltdown of the economy — with no solution in sight that wasn't pro-corporate — would cause. A real, national, in-the-streets revolt, in other words.

But not a Paris Commune–type revolt with barricades. More like a rolling mashup of George Floyd-Fergusson protests cum national rent–student debt strikes, dogged by police and FBI provocateurs, with a heavy dose of Boogaloo Boy anger and nihilism thrown in. Look again at the graphic at the top and see if you don't see a potential Boogaloo Boy in one of the shots. Those people are angry too, and we're making more of them daily.

What Does the Devil Say?

Horrible to consider such a route, chaos as a theory of change. Yet the "devil's advocate" argument that this is all we have left goes something like this.

The devil asks:

What's the argument that says what progressives are doing now to change Democratic Party leadership is working?

Today we have Pelosi and Schumer. Tomorrow we'll have, post-Pelosi, some corporate vassal running things in the House, and as president (if we're "lucky") an old pro-corporate conservative Party hack, a husk these days, whose policies will be driven by young pro-corporate conservative Party hacks eager to advance their careers "advising" him. 

To make things worse, much of his base will include anti-Trump Republicans, people who actually like him, and who see him as the Jeb! they never got, thus completing the transformation of the Democratic Party into the competent wing of the Republican Party.

On the opposition side, our high-profile progressive champion, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, just bent the knee, calling Pelosi the "mama bear" of the Party, a comment widely noticed by the already disillusioned who had high hopes for her.

Looking at that landscape, where are we winning?

I'm not sure how to answer him. I'm not sure how to say, "It's working this way; it's working because of this."

I don't want to say the situation is hopeless (though others do). I just want to find a way out that actually works. Otherwise, we're left with "hope for sudden change" — a collapse that opens doors for everyone, the best and the worst — and the absolute last choice any sane person would pick as a way to fix the world.