Movements Need Politicians-and Vice Versa
Frances Fox Piven and Lorraine C. Minnite
This article appeared in the October 22, 2012 edition
of The Nation.
October 2, 2012
http://www.thenation.com/article/170307/movements-need-politicians-and-vice-versa
 
The familiar question of whether we work on electoral
politics or on movement politics is fraught with emotion
and argument about whether movement or electoral
politics is more effective for the left. We think it is
the wrong question. Both are needed, and without both,
neither is effective.

In historical fact, movement politics and electoral
politics are continuously intertwined. The fundamental
dynamic is triggered when politicians have to deal with
voter blocs composed of the same people to whom
movements direct their appeals. We can see this dynamic
on both the right and the left. The Tea Party picked up
steam when Republicans eager for re-election began to
repeat its slogans. So did the labor movement of the
1930s gain momentum from Franklin Roosevelt's rhetorical
appeals to the "common man," just as the civil rights
movement was energized by Lyndon Johnson's echo of the
movement refrain "We shall overcome." When politicians
echo a movement's demands, they signal a degree of
vulnerability to its constituency, and the movement
gains traction.

It's also worth remembering that when politicians are
dependent on electoral blocs that are also movement
constituencies, they will often hesitate to use the full
arsenal of the state's repressive capacities against
movement actions and may even make uncertain efforts to
protect movements-as when Robert Kennedy, as attorney
general, grudgingly tried to protect the Freedom Riders.

Moreover, movements make gains when an electoral regime
is forced to offer concessions to heal the widening
rifts that the movement is causing in its electoral
base. The demonstrations and marches against the
beginning of the war in Iraq are often cited as a
measure of the impotence of movement politics. We think
rather that the problem was that the antiwar movement
did not speak to an antiwar voter bloc that Bush and the
Republicans depended on, so they could simply ignore the
protests. By contrast, a smaller immigrant rights
movement has pressured Barack Obama, who depends on
Latino votes, to use presidential authority to void the
deportation of undocumented youth. Similarly, looking to
LGBT voters, Obama responded to the gay rights
movement's demands, ordering the end of "don't ask,
don't tell" and reversing his position on gay marriage.
And in one of the environmental movement's most
important recent victories, Obama denied a permit to
build the Keystone XL pipeline after activists staged
months of mass nonviolent civil disobedience in front of
the White House.

This is why the diverse protests we call Occupy need a
Democratic victory in 2012: not because Democrats on
their own will magically implement the movement's
agenda, but because Democrats depend on some of the same
constituencies that the movement represents and to whom
it directs its appeals. The overlap creates space for
movements to grow and thrive. They win policy reform to
the degree that they are able to leverage these
electoral opportunities. Progressive hopes for a bolder
second Obama term thus depend on the vigor of the Occupy
movement and the degree to which it sparks activism and
defiance among the other great movements for social
justice that have always been important in American
politics.

To be clear, we don't think Occupy activists should drop
their work on foreclosures or student debt or worker
rights in favor of joining the election campaign by
knocking on doors or staffing the phone banks or
whatever. After all, not only is it unlikely that many
Occupy activists, disgusted as they are by the hypocrisy
and corruption of electoral politics, would do so, but
their movement work is actually a contribution to the
campaign. Think of the impact of Occupy on the national
discussion, with its slogans about Wall Street and the
99 percent, along with its encampments and general
assemblies and twinkling fingers! It has made extreme
inequality an issue no one can ignore. Even the
Republicans are campaigning as the party of jobs and
economic recovery.

___________________________________________

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