Laura Flanders, author of Blue Grit, has a chat with Amanda Marcotte over at Pandagon. Amanda writes that she pursued the interview because she "was so impressed with her (Flander's) various recommendations for the Democratic party on how to revitalize themselves by tapping the progressive movement..."

Regarding political sea changes and the (much hoped for) rise in progressive awareness and action, Flanders sez:

I don’t believe in random swings of opinion; what you have are swings of organizing. You can change opinions, but it’s not just magic – it takes work. That’s one of the things we can learn from the Right: states like Montana didn’t just “swing to the right” in the 1980s – they were pushed by conservative groups. Corporate-backed anti-environmentalists calling themselves the “Wise Use” movement and Christian Right groups like the Christian Coalition literally poured in money and built leadership. They also serviced their base.

Servicing their base, rather than merely exploiting them. Novel idea, that. And even if the GOP never delivered the most extreme packages (death to gay abortionist artists who mock the Jesus comes to mind) they paid attention to their base in a way that the DLC/Democratic Party is seemingly incapable of doing. It is immanently possible that we who care about Democratic issues but are not Beltway Power Players annoy leadership because they see themselves as the adults at the cocktail party, while viewing the perfervid progressive base to be children who are to be shown off to company and then sent to bed so mommy and daddy can talk with their grown-up friends. And then I think keys are thrown into a bowl and Kevin Kline passes out. Or maybe I dreamed it.

Read the whole interview here. +++