“It is not quite the ‘right wing conspiracy’ that Hillary Clinton described, but it is an impressive organization built consciously, carefully and single-mindedly. The Ann Coulters and Grover Norquists don’t want to be candidates for anything or cabinet officers for anyone. They know their roles and execute them because they’re paid well and believe, I think, in what they’re saying.” By way of Blotter Spotter and The Late Adopter, Bill Bradley emerges from hiding to dissect the organizational problems of the Democratic Party. “If Democrats are serious about preparing for the next election or the next election after that, some influential Democrats will have to resist entrusting their dreams to individual candidates and instead make a commitment to build a stable pyramid from the base up. It will take at least a decade’s commitment, and it won’t come cheap. But there really is no other choice.” I agree wholeheartedly…but to help build this pyramid, Senator Bradley, we need to hear much more from you more often.
Category: Progressivism
The Roots Come Alive.
After the general post-election gloominess began to wear off near the end of last year (of course, it hasn’t completely subsided — at times, I think you can still see the cynicism emanating off me like little cartoon lines), I made it a resolution of sorts to start getting more involved in Dem organizing for this upcoming political cycle. So when some friends of mine (and founders of Concerts for Change) alerted me to their forum this evening on “Net Roots and the DNC,” which included A-list lefty bloggers Atrios and Afro-Netizen, former Dean director Zephyr Teachout, Personal Democracy Forum editor Micah Sifry, and NY Dem Party higher-ups Judith Hope and Mark Green, I very quickly decided to go check it out.
All in all, it made for a partial yet intriguing glimpse into the State of the Party 2005, and one I found at turns dispiriting and encouraging (and far more often the latter.) The panel itself was decently engaging, with most of the discussion centered around the imminent battle for DNC chair. (While there were a number of Simon Rosenberg buttons among the attendees, the panel seemed to split between Dean enthusiasts and DNC agnostics, who felt the upcoming election wasn’t of much import regardless of who wins.) There was also some discussion of the role left-leaning bloggers might play in helping to keep the media more attuned to right-wing spin jobs, but, alas, no one figured out how to square that circle just yet.
Former mayoral candidate and Nader Raider Mark Green, charismatic enough in that politico way, closed out the forum part of the evening with some clever but clearly canned remarks for the Young People into that Newfangled Technology stuff. (For example, he advised the crowd to “choose your mentors well,” which, c’mon now, is the same hoary advice Strom Thurmond gave 1000 of us at Boys’ State when I was 17 years old.) He also regaled us with a short US history lesson, which I’ll give him a B+ on — he was spot-on with George Washington plying his constituents-to-be with rum and George McGovern and direct mail, less so with the Lincoln the “real Log Cabin Republican” quip.)
As I said, I found some elements of the evening somewhat discouraging (and not just because I soon realized that my limited socializing skills at these sorts of things had further atrophied since entering academia.) For one, at times I felt the discussion seemed on the verge of degenerating into the worst kind of New Left-era identity politics, whereby the gender and ethnicity of the new DNC chair was somehow more important than his or her vision for the party. [This was driven home by a (white) fellow in the back hijacking the conversation at one point (does this sort of thing happen at GOP events? I always wonder) and loudly enumerating the few minorities in the room (By which he meant black people — Latinos and South Asians went under the radar), all to suggest that the event was somehow a charade and a farce for its lack of proportional representation.]
This is not to say that issues of gender and ethnicity aren’t central to our party’s core principles, or that the all-white-male slate for DNC chair isn’t a disappointment — to suggest otherwise would be imbecilic…even, dare I say it, Summers-esque. But, to my mind, it’s a question of focus. White, Black, Asian, Hispanic, male, female, straight, gay, or bisexual…we Dems just got our asses handed to us by the predominantly white male GOP. At a certain point — hopefully soon — we’re going to have to learn to deemphasize these differences among us and reemphasize our commonality as left-leaning citizens of the republic, rising up together against the corporate-sponsored avarice, imperial ambitions, and narrow-minded bigotry of today’s Republican Party. In other words and IMHO, rhetorically we need to start thinking 1933, and at times I heard way too much 1972 tonight.
(Also, and I know this is a goofy history-geek semantic distinction that I’ll just have to get over, but people kept throwing around ‘progressive’ when they meant ‘liberal.’ Not the same, y’all.)
All that being said, however, my general impression of the evening was quite favorable, mostly because of the energy, exuberance, and organizational acumen on display from the attendees. We may have lost the recent battle in 2004, but much of the online community-building infrastructure seems intact…and, indeed, seems to be here for the duration. I was reminded of the recent scholarship on the rise of the New Right (by Lisa McGirr, Rick Perlstein, and Matthew Dallek, among others), which ably demonstrates how conservatives, soundly defeated in 1964, managed to capture the California governorship only two years later, once Reagan had replaced Goldwater at the top of the movement. For now, the wheels are definitely churning at the grass-roots level…if we can just get the party machinery in order, find a standard-bearer willing to abandon the protective camouflage, and, most importantly, work on a way to articulate our democratic values against the corporate ministrations of the GOP, we might actually get somewhere.
If nothing else, it speaks volumes that conservative direct-mail pioneer Richard Viguerie is worried about what he sees from the online left — he’s a guy who knows a thing or two about political organizing, and how quickly the worm can turn. Matt Drudge and GWB, we’re coming for you.
Don’t Call it a Comeback.
Found while pursuing prospectus research, Yale professor Robert Johnston argues for reviving progressivism as political theory. “As scholars, we rarely know if we are really in the middle of a paradigm shift. The signs are hopeful, though, for in the last few years a series of brilliant books have appeared to make the case for the democratic — and often radically democratic — nature of much of progressive reform.“
Bobos on Progressivism.
Interrupting my usual enjoyment of the Sunday NYT crossword this past week was the magazine’s cover story, in which conservative media darling David Brooks tried to outline a new “progressive conservatism” for 2008. Given my interest, historical and otherwise, in reviving progressivism in any form, I applaud Brooks for giving it the ole college try here. But this piece suffers from a couple of serious problems.
For one, there’s not much “new” here. Writers like Michael Sandel have already thoroughly outlined this project, the case for a Hamiltonian revival was done better in Michael Lind’s Hamilton’s Republic, and even George Will anticipated much of Brooks’s argument on government, culture, and fostering independence twenty years ago with Statecraft as Soulcraft.
More problematic, Brooks seems totally unacquainted with his own party. “[A]lmost every leading official acknowledges that we should have as much of a welfare state as we can afford.” Oh, really? On education, “[m]ore and more conservatives understand that local control means local monopolies and local mediocrity.” Coulda fooled me. “Most Republicans, happily or not, have embraced a significant federal role in education.” Well, somebody should tell these guys.
I don’t want to harsh on Brooks too much, because at least he’s trying to make the case for something close to a progressive resurgence (“But through much of American history there has always been a third tradition, now dormant, which believes in limited but energetic government in the name of social mobility and national union.”) But first he’s gotta realize that he’s standing on the shoulders of giants here, and should say as much. And, more importantly, if we really wants to see a return to progressivism, he’s probably looking in the wrong party. As Bill Moyers recently and eloquently restated, progressivism was ultimately a reaction against the corporate domination of politics that afflicted the Gilded Age, and somehow that doesn’t seem to bother the current GOP too much. Dubya and Rove apparently aspire to be William McKinley and Mark Hanna respectively, and the closest thing the GOP had to a TR is now gleefully prostrating himself before his corporate overlords. So, we’re probably going to have to search elsewhere for our Teddys, Woodrows, and Crolys these days.
Pass it On.
“You are the heirs of one of the country’s great traditions — the progressive movement that started late in the l9th century and remade the American experience piece by piece until it peaked in the last third of the 20th century…Its aim was to keep blood pumping through the veins of democracy when others were ready to call in the mortician…While the social dislocations and meanness that galvanized progressives in the 19th century are resurgent, so is the vision of justice, fairness, and equality. That’s a powerful combination if only there are people around to fight for it. The battle to renew democracy has enormous resources to call upon – and great precedents for inspiration.”
By way of a friend of mine, Bill Moyers recounts the Progressive Story of America. The whole thing’s worth a read…and I for one think it’s great to hear the Progressives get their due. (Along the same lines, this month’s Prospect has a special report entitled “A New Progressive Era?”, with contributions from, among others, Sean Wilentz, James MacGregor Burns, and John Podesta.) Progressives take a lot of flak in the Academy, some justified (they were silent on lynching and generally really lousy on race), some not (ridiculous amounts of ink has been spilled lambasting them for being middle-class, bureaucratic, and/or unSocialist.)
Consume and Progress.
Another wave of updates over at the Orals site:
| Lizabeth Cohen, Making a New Deal: Industrial Workers in Chicago, 1919-1939. Lizabeth Cohen, A Consumer’s Republic: The Politics of Mass Consumption in Postwar America. Alan Dawley, Struggles for Justice: Social Responsibility and the Liberal State. John Dower, War Without Mercy: Race & Power in the Pacific War. Jackson Lears, Fables of Abundance: A Cultural History of Advertising in America. Daniel Rodgers, Atlantic Crossings: Social Politics in a Progressive Age. Robert Wiebe, The Search for Order, 1877-1920. |
Building Back to Basics.
Former Clinton Chief of Staff John Podesta aims to resurrect the progressive think tank, using the rise of similar conservative organizations in the ’60’s as a model. This sounds like a great idea, although, if the Center for American Progress is in fact serious about re-contemplating the party’s first principles, I suspect it’ll be only a matter of time before they run into trouble with the DLC establishment.
Resurgent Left Flank.
The Washington Post surveys the revival of the Left. No new ground is broken in this article, and as I’ve said numerous times before, progressives and liberals are not the same creature (Pt. II), but it’s nice to see lefties back in the Democratic equation for the time being…let’s hope it lasts beyond the primaries. The protective camouflage Republican-lite strategy of the DLC may seem like a good battle plan at first, until one realizes that, by embracing the tenets of the right — even as diluted Third Way “centrism” — the Democratic party will be forever fighting on the GOP’s turf.
Moreover, what the DLC consistently fails to understand is that swing voters care more about vision and integrity than they do about the left-right axis…hence McCain’s “Straight Talk” popularity last Presidential cycle. Many voters perceived in 2000 that Gore didn’t stand for much of anything (particularly after his schizophrenic debate performances), and soured on him – Thus, what should have been a Democratic cakewalk instead became close enough to create the conditions for the Bush-Harris-Scalia junta’s coup.
Many people aren’t flocking to Howard Dean right now because he’s a hardcore lefty, because by his own admission, he’s not. They’re flocking to him because, unlike most other Dems right now, he has a clear, consistent vision, and without vision, the people – and the Democratic Party – perish. Whether it be progressive, liberal, libertarian, communitarian, what have you — the vision animating the Democratic party should come from the left, not from the poisoned well of the bigoted, money-gluttonous right.
In sum, the left should not be browbeaten into right-lite submission by pandering DLC political careerists constantly invoking the spectre of George McGovern and 1972 – it’s time to be the party of Franklin Roosevelt and Robert Kennedy again.
Update: Not two hours after I wrote this post, John Judis compares Dean to McGovern in Salon. I agree that Dean’s got some serious problems in the South, but, c’mon, y’all. It’s getting so that George McGovern has become the new Godwin’s Law among Democratic circles.
Truth and Consequences.
Misread misanthrope or principled truthteller? Louis Menand and Leon Wieseltier battle over the legacy of George Orwell. Only recently in my readings (in Menand’s Metaphysical Club and James Livingston’s Pragmatism, Feminism, and Democracy) have I encountered this notion that the pragmatism of the Progressives (such as Oliver Wendell Holmes, William James, and John Dewey) eventually leads to the same moral relativist conclusions as post-structuralism (in fact, Livingston argues that much of the postmodern devotion to figures like Foucault and Derrida is mainly a reflection of the European indifference to, if not ignorance of, American scholarship – James and Dewey came to the same philosophic conclusions decades earlier.) And, indeed, Herbert Croly’s 1909 The Promise of American Life, considered the bible of the Progressive moment, attacks abolitionism for much the same reasons as Louis Menand – that it was dangerous and destructive in its reliance upon absolute moral certainty. (Sadly, to say the progressives had a moral blind spot when it came to America’s racial dilemma is an understatement.) But, then again, the “prophetic pragmatism” of Cornel West is cleary infused with a moral sense that is based on certain underlying truths. (“Like Foucault, prophetic pragmatists criticize and resist forms of subjection, as well as types of economic exploitation, state repression, and bureaucratic domination. But these critiques and resistances, unlike his, are unashamedly guided by moral ideals of creative democracy and individuality.”) So, I’d say that, while I fall somewhere between Menand and Wieseltier on the subject of Orwell, and while I usually find Wieseltier to be a pompous ass (his own attack on Cornel West comes to mind), in the end I side with those who say keep the aspidistra flying. To paraphrase Orwell, all truths may in fact be equal, but some truths are more equal than others. It may involve some intellectual doublethink, but one can recognize that a truth may have some basis in subjectivity and still hold it – and fight for it – with conviction.
Clipped Left Wing.
Bloggers of the Left, Unite! (Via LinkMachineGo.) As Lake Effect has noted before, I’m positive Lefty bloggers aren’t the rare breed the author thinks they are – a quick browsing through the portal will lead you to dozens of well-written progressive and liberal blogs (Ethel the Blog, Tomb of Horrors and Monkeyfist, for example, to name three off the top of my head.) In fact, I’d hazard to say that the majority of blogs are probably of a lefty bent. Unfortunately for balanced discourse, though, Sullivan and Reynolds both seem to have captivated huge (by blog-standard) audiences almost right from the start. I’d be lying if I didn’t find their immediate popularity considerably annoying, but oh well…that’s just sour grapes. After several years of writing this blog, I’ve found its best not to dwell on the (lack of) readership…Therein lies madness.