How can we grow a nascent Dump Obama Movement?

This is mostly a re-posting of an answer to a comment in the FDL diary  Last Call for Nominees: Who Should Primary Obama? Just discussing Dump Obama will never turn it into a movement. There seems to be a lot of enthusiasm for Dump Obama at FDL. Great, but that fact and $1.00 will still only get you a cup of coffee at McDonald’s. Hopefully, a sub-goal of a Dump obama movement will be to help dispel the notion that political activity which is limited to ‘making statements’, ‘raising consciousness’, etc. is some kind of slam dunk, which can never be a complete waste of time and energy. An even worse situation: a preponderance of informational activities can provide a diversion from effective organization.

This is mostly a re-posting of an answer to a comment in the FDL diary Last Call for Nominees: Who Should Primary Obama? Just discussing Dump Obama will never turn it into a movement. There seems to be a lot of enthusiasm for Dump Obama at FDL. Great, but that fact and $1.00 will still only get you a cup of coffee at McDonald’s. Hopefully, a sub-goal of a Dump obama movement will be to help dispel the notion that political activity which is limited to ‘making statements’, ‘raising consciousness’, etc. is some kind of slam dunk, which can never be a complete waste of time and energy. An even worse situation: a preponderance of informational activities can provide a diversion from effective organization.

A better question is: How do we grow a nascent Dump Obama movement? Practicing “blogging to the choir” will all but guarantee that Dump Obama remains a curiosity. For Dump Obama not to end up being completely marginal (or even a joke), thinking and effort needs to go into organizing for growth. *

I think we should be thinking in terms of pre-existing groups that can be approached at their local chapters, so that we can pitch Dump Obama to a potentially large audience, without the need for spending lots of $$ and/or time that would be required to reach large numbers of people individually.

I can easily think of 2 such groups – local chapters of college fraternities, and local chapters of labor unions. (If a Dump Obama candidate adopts an agenda that is entirely consistent with a religious body, I’d say approach local religious groups, also. However, I’m doubtful of this premise.)

To encourage FDL followers, who may have no experience with making direct political appeals or public speaking, to take the plunge to be an evangelist, I think a kit of some sort should be make up, including a DVD and slide show, which go into some political and economic history, (including Dump Johnson and the recent Citizen’s United vs. FEC monstrosity) and show how the Dems and Repubs have tag-teamed America’s decay. A complete lecture should also be written out to go with each slide show. Evangelists should basically memorize the details of the script, so that they can talk naturally just from notes, while showing the slideshow. A few copies of the DVD (which gives rights to freely copy it) should be handed out at the presentations. The DVD should also be uploaded to youtube, of course.

Ideally, two versions of the above kits should be produced, one targetting union members and the other students.

Approaching student fraternities may be particularly easy – you can offer to make the presentation once or twice during their normal dinner time. They wouldn’t have to set aside any special time to give a listen. I’ve a friend who recently landed a job checking tickets for a dinner club at Princeton, and he’s had the opportunity to meet a great many students this way. People are relaxed when they’re eating amongst friends and colleagues. I don’t think it’s a big step to get them to listen to something critical to their future, and that the response will be at least friendly.

Probably the most successful outcome of such a presentation is not getting converts to a Dump Obama movement (and it should be emphasized, of course, that Dump Obama is merely a spark for a movement that persists well beyond a single election cycle). Rather, the most successful outcom of such a presentation is getting evangelist-converts, who will take it upon themselves to repeat the evangelization process to other students (at least).

When I was in college, there were lots of fraternities….

🙂

* related to this issue were some points made by activist physicist Denis Rancourt in a recent interview by Kevin Barret (more info here), about propagating knowledge not necessarily being a threat to the Powers That Be. It’s more important to get people on the same page organizationally than informationally.