The Activist's Handbook. Randy Shaw
in November, former police chief Frank Jordan, drew strong support from elderly tenants who, having reaped no benefit from Agnos on rent-control issues, went instead with the law-and-order candidate.
Jordan failed to muster a majority, however, necessitating a December runoff between him and Agnos. That election crystallized the deep hostility that rent-control activists felt toward the mayor. Agnos and tenant activists met soon after the runoff campaign began, and, for the first time since Agnos took office, tenants spoke bitterly of his betrayal of their interests. I began the meeting by confronting the mayor with my belief—shared by many others—that he had sabotaged vacancy control by waiting until November 1991 and then breaking his promise to fund the campaign. Agnos agreed he had broken his promise, claiming his “political survival” was at stake. The meeting continued in this vein, with tenant activists torn between their anger at Agnos and their fear of aiding Jordan.
Agnos lost in the runoff—glaring proof of his personal unpopularity. Although I ignored his campaign in the general election, I believed his reelection was preferable to four years under his anti-poor, pro-landlord opponent. I contacted dozens of tenant activists about working for Agnos in the runoff but made no effort to change their minds when they declined to participate. They had good reason to shun Agnos, and I was not about to jeopardize my credibility by defending him. Some savvy political activists refused to endorse Agnos in the runoff, and though I took a different approach, their position was understandable.
Rent-control activists made a major tactical error at the beginning of Agnos’s term in establishing a relationship with him based on friendship rather than fear and in allowing him to substitute promises for action. When, right after taking office, the mayor sought to mediate between landlords and tenants, rent-control activists should have refused. Tactical activism required tenants to make it clear at the outset that, having helped elect Agnos, they were now entitled to results. Silence in the face of a politician’s initial betrayal sends a clear message that your constituency feels itself too weak, too confused, or too afraid to merit respect.
Suppose Agnos had employed the tactics of most politicians and expressed hurt and dismay at rent-control activists’ refusal to meet with landlords. Suppose he had also claimed that the activists were being “unreasonable,” were only “shooting themselves in the foot.” What should have been the response? Tactical activism would have had the rent-control activists give the mayor an ultimatum: either be our ally or be widely publicized as our betrayer. The activists should have declared that the campaign was over and that the time had come for results, not promises. By thus demonstrating their willingness to stand up for their agenda, rent-control activists would have conveyed a sense that they believed in the power of their constituency and were not afraid to take on the mayor. Had they done so, one of three possible results would have followed. First, and most likely, Agnos would have backed down. He was not seeking a political fight with tenants, but merely trying to manipulate them in furtherance of his own agenda. Second, Agnos might have sought to divide the activists by offering to meet with whoever was willing to attend. This strategy probably would have failed, because rent-control activists unified enough to give the new mayor an ultimatum would not be so easily divided. Third, Agnos could have announced his refusal to work further with rent-control activists. This would have been the most unlikely scenario of all, because a new mayor hardly wants to break with a main campaign constituency early in his term.
Had rent-control activists carefully analyzed the tactical and strategic avenues available both to them and to the mayor, they would have recognized that they would gain more credibility with the mayor by refusing his delaying tactic than by agreeing to it. Because they caved in at the outset, Agnos came to count on their subservience to his political agenda in the years ahead. The result four years later was a landslide defeat on rent-control activists’ chief issue, the temporary decline of San Francisco’s once-powerful tenant movement, and the election of a new mayor openly beholden to real estate interests. The bright hope of the Agnos years ended in tragedy for progressive interests.
The model of the relationship between rent-control activists and Art Agnos has been repeated many times with other constituencies and other elected Officials throughout the country. San Francisco’s rent-control activists are certainly not alone in erroneously identifying elected Officials by their promises rather than their actual performance. And to their credit, when Willie Brown was elected as a “pro-tenant” mayor in 1995 and began breaking commitments after taking office, San Francisco tenant activists responded differently. Tenants became the first group to hold a protest event against Brown, encircling his car in a direct action that brought multiple arrests. Unlike Agnos, Brown saw tenants as a constituency that would cause him trouble if he failed to deliver on his commitments. The most sweeping pro-tenant legislation in the city’s history would pass during Brown’s first term.
Today’s self-styled progressive politicians are uniquely adept at using their power and winning public personalities to distract social change activists from their agendas. These politicians are experts at the psychology of “win-win”—they know how to make their campaign supporters feel bad for demanding action instead of promises. Moreover, their patronage power enables them to make strategic allies of social change leaders. By appointing such leaders to prestigious boards, commissions, or task forces, the politician can display loyalty to social change constituencies without implementing their agendas. The elected Official can also use these leaders to suppress dissatisfaction with Official policies at the grassroots level and to provide press quotes disputing charges that the officeholder has betrayed her or his base. Neighborhood activists who have toiled for years in obscurity are understandably flattered at being invited to meet with the mayor, the governor, or a legislator. It is not easy to attend such a meeting and then strongly oppose the Official’s reasonable-sounding plans.
Political leaders have such an array of tactics to divert social change that tactical activists must demand results and the fulfillment of campaign promises. Once activists understand and accept this fundamental relationship between social change groups and elected Officials, they will avoid the principal pitfalls preventing change. Elected Officials spend millions of dollars on campaign consultants to develop tactics and strategies to woo voters; social change activists must engage in their own, less costly but equally productive tactical sessions to create the relationships with politicians necessary to achieve progressive aims.
PURSUE YOUR AGENDA, NOT THE POLITICIAN’S
Self-styled grassroots officials are also effective at subordinating activists’ agendas to their own. This commonly occurs when politicians and activist groups start out on the same page but then find their agendas diverging. In one typical scenario, a politician commits to an issue and then learns that certain other constituency groups oppose it. The politician does not want a big political fight with the opposition group, but he or she also does not wish to be seen as having betrayed the social change organization. The solution? Reframe and repackage the activists’ agenda so that the politician can claim “victory” and convince the activists of the same.
Politicians commonly accomplish this by vowing action to address a problem but then forming a task force to find the “best” solution. The creation of a task force is an ideal strategy for new-style “win-win” politicians to subsume activists’ agendas into their own. They subtly switch the agenda from “We demand action now” to “We created a task force to address this critical problem.” As the politician gives victory pats on the back, the activists’ goal of getting something concrete done disappears.
Task forces sponsored by government Officials are usually boondoggles. Approach them with caution. Elected Officials seeking to avoid real change often use them as appeasement measures. How many times have you seen the announcement, amid great fanfare, of a new task force, one that will take twelve months to produce a report on an “urgent” problem? Task forces are excellent weapons for slowing activist momentum. They can divert activists from their real goal, and nearly always eat up a lot of time that could be better spent. Yet serving on a task force can be an attractive proposition for a grassroots organizer, who may get no other sign of recognition from the powers that be. However, such Official flattery can undermine activist goals. Similarly, serving on a task force may appeal to politically ambitious activists whose real agenda is personal advancement. Those personal goals often end up conflicting