November 7, 2002
The middle should never be a destination for a political party. The middle is a byproduct of the tug-of-war of ideas. Politics has been trending conservative because the right has been tugging harder than the left. Political territory has to be created through argument and combat. It’s not static space. Civil rights activists understood this when they started out in the 1940s. The founders of the modern environmental movement did, too, in the late 1960s, just as America’s founders did almost 300 years ago.Political territory has to be created through argument and combat. It’s not static space. Democrats: Write it on your eyelids. Write it on the sky. [08:41 PM]
You have no idea how odd the first sentence in the quote sounds to a Canadian.
"The middle should never be a destination for a political party." Someone ought to tell the Liberal Party up in Canada about this. I'm sure they'll immediately apologize for having used an unworkable strategy so successfully over the last century.
It might not be an attainable destination for either major American party given the historical dynamics of US politics... but, you know, that's a rather different thing.
I do agree that Democrats need a group to tug the whole argument space harder to the left. Where is the leftist version of the Christian Coalition? Where are the leftist think tanks? (Who out there on the left has both money and passion to fund them?)
At least for the last decade or so, the Grits' dominance on the federal level has been as much due to the collapse and fragmentation of the Right as to anything else.
As to the assertion that I "have no idea" about how various things might seem to a Canadian: boy oh boy, have you levelled that charge at the wrong blogger. :-)
Quoting myself.
"The Democrats need to move to the center. However, to move to the center, the Democrats need to move *left*."
The Dems are phobic on this one, or many of them. The immediate answer is: "Look what happened to Dukakis and McGovern." And the argument ends there.
Besides changing the agenda and changing peoples' minds, another thing that has to be done is finding new voters (only 40-60% vote in any given election, so there's a pool to recruit from). And DLC Democrats are adamant that we shouldn't try to do that either.
We had (by unofficial estimate) over 74% percent voter turnout in Minnesota, but, well, you know how it went.
I want Paul Wellstone back.
I suppose if he could answer he'd say that he wanted me forward. Hm.
"Where is the leftist version of the Christian Coalition?"
None, I suspect. The left is too darn narcissistic to do any real coalition and consensus building. Which is why protest marches end up as cacophanous Diversity Faires whose message gets ignored while anarchist punks steal the show.
I don't think I'd _like_ a leftist coalition. A liberal one, perhaps. There's a bit of a difference, at least down here.
"Where are the leftist think tanks?"
"Leftist," virtually none. Progressive and liberal think tanks, yes. Their pundits don't get nearly the air time as the corporate brown-nosers in the Cato Institute.
I disagree. A party should know what they believe in and stick with it. If those beliefs are on the left right or center is not important. Saying they must be to the left is saying they must disagree to disagree and that's not a good position for a political party to be in, not if they want to be elected.
I'm not sure who or what "ruprecht" is disagreeing with. I'm not even sure what he or she is getting at, or how it connects to what anyone else has asserted.
It's my impression that a lot of smart Democrats have been making the point that the party's problem isn't that it's too "centrist" or too far to the "left," it's that it doesn't articulate its positions clearly and in ways that give people a sense of how their own lives might be improved by having Democrats in power. In other words, Republicans have recently done a much better job of telling a story.
Now, I do in fact think it often matters what positions we take--as individuals and as members of whatever political groups we choose to join. I have preferences among the various positions on a wide variety of issues. (No duh.) Some of those preferences are to the "left" and some aren't. But that's not the same discussion as this one. Penniman's point is a meta-point about how the Left and the Right have, over the past generation or so, dealt with the lay of the political land. Specifically, Penniman is imputing, Democrats have let other people define what the "center" is, and then scurried as close to it as they can. Whether this strategy has been, on balance, good for the party and for the country is a question to which different readers will have different answers.
OK, sorry, bad wording there. Still, the Grits worked the centre for a very long time, didn't they? They successfully co-opted the major vote-getting issues from either side, so that they became pretty much the default Canadian government, only getting kicked out from time to time for a few years whenever they grew too complacent or arrogant.
And yes, the right is now fragmented... somehow the perceptions of "populist appeal" and "competency to govern" have been divvied up, one each, between two different political parties who don't trust each other. Hmm. Might there be a lesson somewhere in that for the American left?
Even as a conservative, if I'm getting what Patrick is saying correctly, then I agree. One of the Democrats' chief mistep in the past election was a wishy-washy failure to make a hard stand and sell a political ideal. Democrats need to define their own political ground, sell it to the voters.
Because of their unwillingness to take an unpopular stand in a wartime climate, Dems have been missing the idealism that resonates so strongly with the voters (this was Wellstone's greatest success, he *believed* it, and you knew that he did). The Democratic party *must* move to the left in order to be something other than a watered down reflection of the GOP. The attempt to play to the "center" while still reflecting a solid idealogical difference from the GOP had disastrous results. Some of the salient points are illustrated by conservative columnist Michael Long:
"Cases in point: slow-walking Bush war requests in the Democratic Senate, stalling the Homeland Security bill in favor of wrangling on behalf of big-donor union constituencies, holding hostage the (admittedly useless) airport security legislation unless new unionized workers were promised, and providing political shelter for the offensive "blame America first" fringe of the far left. "
You can't do that to a wartime America. People are scared of being killed. They want to believe that their government will keep that from happening.
I think this is good news for conservatives, because I think the further left they move, the more support they'll lose. I think the one thing that could possibly save the Democrats in '04 are the following things happening:
1.) The economy going totally into the drink.
2.) The war in Iraq going badly (and solidifying the kind of anti-American international sentiment that the left has predicted will come about as a result.
Otherwise, it's 4 more years of President Bush. The Democrats need a unified political vision. I just don't think the vision of the far left is a vision that will sell now, or even in '04.
The one total shock for me was Ehrlich in Maryland. Holy cow! 40 years!
Maybe I misunderstood. The topic said it was not the "Center" versus "Left" Debate but the quote was: "Political territory has to be created through argument and combat. It's not static space." The linked article talks basically about giving up the center and fighting tooth and nail over everything (which is the center vs left debate).
I read this and see Democrats defining themselves as anti-Republicans instead of for the things they believe in. Perhaps I read it incorrectly, what do I know, I'm a centrist..
I think that the Democrats who zizka is quoting do have it right in one sense. Activist liberal candidates don't play well on a national level. As much as I adored Paul Wellstone, I was very glad when he decided not to run for president. I wanted his voice to be one among many--part of the larger discussion--but I didn't really want to hand him the reins, and I didn't think he stood a chance of being elected.
Of course, I now think that I may have been short-sighted. I still don't want him to have been the Democrats' choice for president, but he would have forced the other candidates for the slot to define themselves differently. It's hard to be ashamed to have liberal views or to call yourself a liberal, when there is a charismatic person next to you asking "What's wrong with liberal? I'm proud of being a liberal!"
That's what has happened in far too many recent elections. Republicans have been pointing fingers and shouting, "Look at the liberal!" And the Democrats have resorted either to looking sheepish or to saying, "Not me."
Instead, liberal politicians need to stand up and do for Newt's little list of words what George Carlin did for obscenity. He used them, and it took their power away. Not all of it, and not quickly, but it happened. It needs to happen again.
After all, dialog is awfully tough when one side is mute.
Something I've said half a dozen time or more in the last few days:
What happened to the Enron/ corporate corruption issue. This is a major issue, hurt a lot of people, probable long-term effect.... But the Dems couldn't capitalize on it.
Well, look at Lieberman, DLC superstar. Senate point man on Enron AND Arthur Anderson point man in the Senate. "It's just as bad to do too much as to do too little" End of issue.
Before the Enron story broke, anyone who had advocated the kinds of things needed to prevent this kind of thing would have had it carefully explained to them. "You can't be anti-business, and look what happened to Dukakis and McGovern."
For the Dems to define themselves, they're going to have to go somewhat in the more-liberal diection, and they're going to have to marginalize people like Lieberman. They don't have to buy the whole liberal package, but they have to unload some of the forced centrism of the DLC.
The big question is dealing with the indentured media, and I don't know the answer to that one.
Patrick,
You could have at least flamed Ruprecht for incorrectly assuming that you were opening a discussion on how Democrats can actually win. His comment wasn't germain because the discussion is about how to fight, not what to fight for.
If winning is really the goal, then it ALWAYS matters what position you take. If Democrats don't fight from their platform but instead launch their next campaign from some other strategic hilltop, they will lose their ground even if they win the battle. (I didn't mangle my metaphor like Penniman85territory is either gained or lost, never "created". Or was that liberal-speak for inventing issues?)
Most of the talk about how the Republicans won is coming from Democrats who can't fathom the possibility that Joe Six Pack has awoke from his politically correct utopian stupor and detests organic material encrusted liberal fingers picking half his wallet to give a quarter of those stolen dollars to bums, criminals, aliens, and the pedophile next door.
Democrats, mutilate your bodies and pollute the sky with this: It's not about standing for SOME thing. It's about copping to THE things you already believe.
But go right ahead. Redefine liberalism before the next election. Polish and spin the Democratic Party package which contains liberalism as attractively as you can. The majority is no longer buying it.
If the metaphor is flawed, it's because real estate is an imperfect model for the range of political discourse--specifically because, in political discourse, new "territory" really can be created, whether or not that makes for a tidy metaphor.
I think we'll leave the gnash and froth about "liberal-speak" and "the pedophile next door" for another day.
Do you want to feel good or do you want to win? By all means, a move to the left (as in government spending on social programs, tax increases for the wealthy, universal healthcare) will allow the Democrats to feel good about themselves. Just don't expect to win a presidential election for a long time. Look - you don't have to go hard right like Lieberman (he makes Bush almost look moderate) but I really, really don't want to go back to the futility of the pre-Clinton days.
Oliver, why don't you ask what my actual positions are, before assuming I'm trying to line the Democratic Party up with the platform of the Worker's World? Start with the fact that I'm a businessman. And a capitalist entrepreneur. And a supporter of Nancy Pelosi for the House leadership post. And you know, it's just a hunch, but I'll bet you a lot of Pelosi's own hometown supporters are businessfolks and capitalists as well. Or do you suppose Pelosi got elected to Congress from one of the wealthiest parts of the US mumblety-ump times entirely on the support of backpackers and granola fanciers? Get real.
I agree with the Oliver Willis who writes things like "I can't stand these 'weak as water' Democrats. Maybe we need to have a 'Boot Camp for Wussy Democrats' run by Bill Clinton and James Carville. Did you guys learn nothing over the last eight years?" What puzzles me is how that Oliver Willis manages to co-exist with the guy who fawns over Harold Ford, the right-wing Democratic Congressman who voted for banning human cloning, for banning "partial-birth abortion," for the bought-and-paid-for "bankruptcy reform" bill, and for the flag-burning amendment, of all things. In fact, you can take this to the bank: in the American Heritage Dictionary, next to the definition of "wussy Democrat," there's a picture of Harold Ford. Yet somehow Oliver Willis thinks Harold Ford is the fresh new face that will lead the Democrats out of the wilderness. It's a puzzle, to be sure.
I think the Oliver Willis who gets all fluttery at the thought that those big bad Republicans might call us names like "liberal" and "San Francisco Democrat" should take a piece of advice from Electrolite's favorite right-wing libertarian, Jim Henley, and grow a pair. No, I don't think the Democratic party should adopt the platform of Ralph Nader. I don't agree with the platform of Ralph Nader. But I sure do think we need to stop trying to be Republicans Lite. The Democrats who won in 2002, fighters like Jennifer Granholm and Janet Napolitano, did so by being Democrats, not by being gelded fearful me-too Nellies. And not by crusading against abortion rights or carrying water for the credit-card industry. Have some self-respect. Grow a pair.
When people talk about "territory" in a discussion of the strategy of political campaigning, I think of those little grids that pop up after you take one of those online political position surveys, which show where you are on the fascist vs. libertarian axis in one direction, and the liberal vs. conservative axis on the other.
That's the political issue space that we're discussing moving the Democrats around on, isn't it?
Maybe. I suspect all such maps have one or another bias, and more than one hidden assumption, built into them.
Patrick, I'm not sure how "grow a pair" is better than phrases you take strong exception to (like "shut ... up"). It is catchy, but many of us Eloi don't share the joy of wind-in-your-face, muscular libertarianism (eg, facing snipers and Iraqis with a confident smile, a concealed weapon, and/or the promise of massive retaliation) that Henley has. I like Henley, too, but that's not a slogan I subscribe to any more than "anti-idiotarianism."
Meanwhile, Oliver's on your side on a lot of things. I mean, if you agree with a "Clinton boot camp for Wussy Dems", people who considered Clinton "Republican Lite" may not see too much daylight between the two of you.
I don't agree with Oliver's particular points for Dems to avoid, but his general one may not be off base: it's possible to overreact to this election. A small number of Senate seats changed hands based on fairly close elections, that's "all" -- except that it had a catastrophic effect. In fact, it may show the most gumption (to use a cornier phrase) to *not* engage in massive soul-searching after this election: good team, bad managers, might be a fair assessment. Yet there are lots of issues that united most Dems all along: protecting the environment, court appointees who aren't right wing zombies, fairness for investors, sticking up for the little guy generally. They don't include some of the issues you may wish united Dems, like opposing the Iraq confrontation.
I also put Ford at about 1.5 for 4, not 0 for 4, on the issues you raise -- I think human cloning should be limited to the extent that reproductive cloning is abhorrent to me. Similarly, partial birth abortions seem abhorrent to me, but I'm not sure about that issue; partial points for both.
So I may not be completely Of The Body here. That's OK, I hope; I won't ask anyone to grow a pair, and I'll check around to inform myself more about those issues.
In the spirit of civil and democratic discourse,
I remain
Your faithful reader,
Thomas Nephew
...make that, reproductive cloning *research* is abhorrent to me.
The problem is, you guys equate DLC with "weak as water". Yet the DLC is the only movement within the Democratic party that seems to have accomplished anything within the past 10 years.
I also don't like words being put in my mouth. For the Republicans, Bill Clinton is a "tax and spend liberal". I could care less what the Gingrich-wing thinks. I worry about Democrats preaching class-warfare, patting ourselves on the back because *we know* we're right and getting our asses handed to us in another election.
Wow, Thomas, I'm glad you made that correction. Saved you, and all readers of this thread, the long Xopher discourse on Why Reproductive Cloning Is A Good Thing.
I'm extremely dubious about the research to get there.
"[...] many of us Eloi don't share the joy of wind-in-your-face, muscular libertarianism (eg, facing snipers and Iraqis with a confident smile, a concealed weapon, and/or the promise of massive retaliation) that Henley has."
You know, if "facing Iraqis" with "the promise of massive retaliation" is a species of "wind in your face, muscular libertarianism," then US defense policy has been "libertarian" since 1945.
In other words, our default policy is "if you attack us, you're in big trouble." When this became an expression of the "libertarianism" you's elaborately mocking, I'm unclear. Except that, yes, the country is currently run by radicals who are determined to change our diplomatic and defense policy into that of a global empire that attacks and conquers regardless of whether we're being attacked. And since it's important that Democrats stick to "the center", it's important that Democrats be 85.7% as imperialist as Cheney and Rumsfield--and equally important that the policy of the United States for most of its previous existence now be marginalized as an expression of fringey "wind-in-your-face, muscular libertarianism." Also, we have always been at war with Eastasia.
All that aside, I do think you and Oliver are leaping to assume more distance than exists. For instance, I wouldn't call on the Democrats to adopt a policy of simple rejectionism where military and security issues are concerned; that would be just as shortsighted as the me-tooism I've already condemned. As a lot of smart people have pointed out, it's a dangerous world and Americans want to vote for politicians who they feel will keep them from getting personally blown up. I agree very much with Heather Hurlburt's terrific Washington Monthly article that Democrats need to get a lot smarter and better-informed about defense and security issues. Gary Hart was saying this twenty years ago, but everyone decided his sex life was more interesting, so nobody listened to Gary Hart.
Regarding the DLC, exactly what have been its great accomplishments? Did the DLC elect Bill Clinton twice? Or was perhaps the DLC at its most effective when it was run by brilliant gut politicians like Bill Clinton? The DLC today seems to embody all the flair and political joi d'esprit of a hall monitor.
Finally, as for "class warfare," it's happening, but we didn't start it. Once again, I'm a businessman, and I'm all for bourgeois liberal democracy. It's far from extreme to point out that the current regime is spearheading an attack by the top few percent of society on the economic well-being of the overwhelming majority of us. But when you start Viewing With Alarm about "class warfare" in response to (for instance) the ascension of a moderate liberal like Nancy Pelosi, well, all I can think is that if the Republicans were to announce that the national debate is now between the Republican method of suicide (handgun) and the Democratic method (hanging), you'd obligingly go out and buy a rope.
I'm not an ideological purist of any sort. (Nobody who defends Jim Henley and "class warfare" in the same post is.) I'm usually the person in these arguments arguing against purism and for coalition politics. I've said before that I'd be happy to see a moderate national Democratic party, so long as it was vigorous in its moderate positions. I certainly don't require that Democratic leaders agree with me about everything. I've voted for years for Democrats who've declined to oppose the death penalty. I don't want the party to marginalize itself. But I think you and Oliver are still fighting the last war in your heads--oh, horrors, people will think we're George McGovern. And I especially think it's weird of Oliver to be simultaneously so anxious to see Democrats who kick butt and take names, and so ready to condemn even the merest hint of "class warfare", his term not mine. Sorry, but the minute you start asking questions about where wealth and resources go, and suggesting that perhaps some should go here and not so much there, you're vulnerable to someone crying "class warfare." Oliver Willis can level the charge against Nancy Pelosi--and Glenn Reynolds can level the charge against Oliver Willis. We can't simultaneously press the interests of the broad middle class and inoculate ourselves against anyone, anywhere, crying "class warfare." Can't be done. Thus, my invocation above of Jim Henley's catchy slogan, the one that caused Thomas Nephew distress.
It does occur to me that I'm not entirely living up to Teresa's widely-quoted advice for liberal activists:
Be polite. Most especially, be polite to people who don't have a perfect understanding of all the fine points of your political analyses. Explain how you think this point here, which they do agree with, hooks up to that point over there. They may thereupon decide they agree with that one too; whereas if you denounce them for not understanding that second point, they may decide they don't agree with any of your points, so there!, and will undoubtedly decide that you're a jerk. Nobody will ever think you're a genius because you're berating them.
I'll probably fail in the future, too, but meanwhile I do apologize to Nephew, Willis, and others for getting a bit more heated than necessary.
One important thing to remember, when discussing the choice between 'moving to the left' vs 'standing up for what we believe in':
If the Democrats in the House and Senate simply started standing up for what the Democratic Party stands for, it would constitute a huge move to the left:
1) Repealing tax cuts on the rich.
2) Enforcing the laws against criminal corporations, and making sure that there are effective laws.
3) Refusing to confirm GOP nominees who were clearly unfit to serve (Ashcroft and Pitt come to mind, but I imagine that most of Bush's nominees would fit).
4) Demanding and enforcing accountability from the Bush administration. That means that, if a administration member lies to, misleads, or withholds information from Congress, fillibustering the living sh*t out of things that that official wants. Before the eleciton, it would have mean bringing them into testify, and holding them in contempt of Congress the minute that they tried weaseling.
Patrick wrote, Maybe. I suspect all such maps have one or another bias, and more than one hidden assumption, built into them.
True. But what's missing is a third, vertical dimension, and maybe a fourth. When we're talking about new territory, I think we're talking about a distinction along a third dimension between two points that are identical on the 2-dimensional map. What that might be, I don't know; but remember that the 2-dimensional map is itself an elaboration of a traditional 1-dimensional liberal/conservative scale, that didn't seem to have a place for, e.g., libertarians on it.
Interesting . . . well, no, entirely predictable:
The local paper's (The Oregonian) commentary section has at least two gloating "The Democrats would do better if they were more like us!" editorials.
Don't drink that Kool-Aid, no matter how sweet...
Patrick, thanks for your replies. (Which somehow didn't get e-mailed to me, despite subscribing to the thread.)
I'm familiar with deterrence. What I failed to express, in favor of an all too arch and retaliatory formulation to "g.a.p.", is that the one thing worse than a war to disarm Hussein is *actually carrying out* massive retaliation. I've reluctantly come to believe that scenario is too likely for my taste if Hussein acquires nuclear WMD: he is not deterrable, he does not think inside the standard foreign policy box. I may well misunderstand Henley, but I think Hussein's deterrability doesn't matter to Henley's views about Iraq. If I'm right about that, that seems like simple acute empirephobia, and like some other libertarian positions that seems more doctrinaire than sensible to me.
I don't claim I'm certain about Hussein's undeterrability. But the fact (well, opinion) that it even seriously comes into question is important, I think. I honestly don't see how anyone can be anything but regretful, anxious, and uncertain about *any* choice in this issue.
All of this is off the topic of the thread and of your comment, though. The "g.a.p." slogan as I've understood Henley's use of it raised the issue for me (as do some other posts by the Stand Down right field squad), but I should have left Iraq out of it as far as this thread goes, and I should have resisted the temptation to "elaborately mock" the point of view. I apologize.
As for the rest of it, DLC, class warfare, whither Democrats: as issues they pale by comparison, but for what little it's worth, I agree with most of what you said. Maybe that's inconsistent with what I said above, I don't know. I'm just not sure about what I and the party I favor should therefore do. Barry's to-do list isn't bad.
Hey, Barry, the Democrats are for more than just being against Bush!
We are, as Buglosi said, for working people. We're for ordinary folks who want to make a living, take pride in their work, secure their own and their children's futures.
And we're for holding our country to its highest ideals of justice and freedom. That would include the micro as well as the macro, of course.
That's pretty simple, isn't it?
Um, horse cookies. The center is a very real place. Purists. Sheesh.
Avedon wrote:
"We are, as Buglosi said, for working people. We're for ordinary folks who want to make a living, take pride in their work, secure their own and their children's futures.
And we're for holding our country to its highest ideals of justice and freedom. That would include the micro as well as the macro, of course."
Well, that's great, but how is that different from what Republicans say what they are for? My in-laws, for instance, are all 'working people', and they are all faithful Republican voters, every one.
Hard-Hitting Moderator: Teresa Nielsen Hayden.
Comments on It's not about the stupid "center" versus "left" debate.: