Brad DeLong's Semi-Daily Journal (2004)

From Pandagon:

Rush Limbaugh on the torture (after a caller likened it to a college fraternity prank):
RUSH: Exactly. Exactly my point! This is no different than what happens at the skull and bones initiation and we're going to ruin people's lives over it and we're going to hamper our military effort, and then we are going to really hammer them because they had a good time. You know, these people are being fired at every day. I'm talking about people having a good time, these people, you ever heard of emotional release? You of heard of need to blow some steam off?

One of the odd things about the 'conservatives' is that they are, apparently, leaderless-- this makes it hard for opposition forces to focus; you end up getting into endless arguments rather than doing the political work that needs to be done.

A lot of what Reich says makes sense, but I also think he's off the mark. Republicans are more disciplined because their party is more centralized, and because at the bottom they are (or traditionally were) held together by a common interest in preventing the post-tax income distribution from being skewed towards the comparatively poor majority. 'Don't take my money' is powerful political glue. Reich seems to hold that a party explictly founded on the proposition that it should 'take that money' dould win an election. The only time that happened, however, was in 1936.

There are a whole host of reasons why political discourse has coarsened over the past three decades. The Republicans were the beneficiaries of that coarsening, which they did much to advance. They successfully managed the PR revolution in national politics, which became increasingly poll driven (consumer driven?). A lot of politics has seemed to be like market research and sales. As to Clinton, his party was suspicious of him, and in a crisis his old friend Joe stabbed him in the back.

A renewed democratic party has to start at the base, in local politics. That's Dean's view and I think he has it right. As Moveon.org says, politics is not a spectator sport. We kind of lost the concept of citizenship along the way.

Looking at the US from Europe, Reichs analysis seams correct. Most democracies have three to four centers of political gravities (parties) with distinct programs and followers and over time changing coalitions. This plus apolitical districting helps.
To get at least a second political center of gravity the US needs a movement to start left of the democrats - antiwar, anti big business, social democratic. What the democrats represent today is the left wing of the far right and stays right of the middle.
What is the democratic opinion on the American Empire Inc. Will the democrats end the big oil grab and heavily tax gas consumption? Will the democrats dicipline Sharons Israel and stop the financial support for the wall? Will the provide a general health care? I have seen no word from Kerry about these issues that differentiate him from Bush light.
There is a urgent need for a new movement. But this can not start with the democrats but will have to start up form grassroots. Take the green movement in Europe as an example. From grassroots to foreign ministers in only 15 years.
Maybe in 2010, when Kerry in his second term or Jeb Bush in his first announce to temporarily increasing the troop level in the middle east to 620,000 something will start.

Can you please give me the source of the Reich material and, if possible, a direct link to it?
Thanks.

"Greed is good", one of the messages of the Bush administration, plays well in America. "I'm not accountable" is another one. Republicans are now role models for the me generation. On the other hand, what, exactly, does Kerry stand for? And by extension, what, exactly, do the Democrats stand for? Damned if I know. The Kerry campaign, sadly, looks rudderless to me and it had better work quickly to define itself and it's candidate and develop some balls on showcasing the many things not to like about Bushco or recent history will be repeating itself.

When I read Robert Reich, I tend to aggree that Edwards is a good choice for the VP ticket. Too far to the left to my taste in some ways, but at least he has opinions and visibility, and impecable populist credentials... But, then again, political prognostic is not my strengh, I was convinced (like many, to my defense) that Dean would win the primaries... I still believe that his boldness had its plusses with the American electorate. But we can't abstract from the right-wing spin, unfortunately, and Dean was too exposed to that, precisely because he had a clear message. Tell me again, what's wrong with exhorting one's base to fight the primaries in other states in a room full of shouting people? In any case, Dean helped to break some of the suicidal rules of self-censorship the Dems had imposed themselves; unfortunately, Kerry seems to be a big fan of self-censorship. I hope history proves him wise...

I wouldn't want to replicate the Republican's movement - quite frankly, their movement is creepy. It seems to require that one live in denial. I wouldn't want to replicate that.

If I had to summarize Liberalism in one phrase, it's "caring for the common man." In the long run, that's the only thing that really ties us together. Aside from that, we're as diverse as you say we are.

I think Reich's ideas have a lot in there that are true. In particular, when it comes to language/communications, the GOP literally owns most of the playing field. It is now conventional wisdom to think that anything the government spends money on is a waste of money, except the military and even if the money is being wasted in some cases, who cares, because we've got the greatest fighting machine the world has ever seen. There is no such thing as a bad tax cut now in the popular perception if you ask me. The GOP, for all of its bad ideas, at least has some common threads that are easily grasped. Strong and assertive military, cut taxes, Guns and God. And they are able to wrap all of this into both soft and hard language that will appeal to a wide spectrum of people. Uniter, not a divider, Compassionate Conservatism, Death Tax, your money, partial-birth, evildoers, Liberal Elites (my personal fave), etc. etc. And of course they've got these phrases going out over the tv and radio airwaves in such an overwhelming ratio compared to anything the Dems could call their equivalent that it's no surprise that this passes for conventional wisdom. There's Air America, Paul Krugman, and few other pocket that have any kind of wide reach, but when you compare that to Fox News, MSNBC, Rush, Savage, etc. etc. it just pales. To get the Democrats response to much of this rhetoric, you really have to make an effort, which a lot of people just aren't going to make. And so with the overwhelming partisan media advantage, is it any surprise that the so-called liberal media of CNN, NYTimes, WaPo, etc. hardly seems all that liberal? The GOP literally owns the playing field!

There's a lot more I could add, but why do so many blue-collar Americans say the word liberal with such disgust? Answer that question, and you will understand what went wrong and what needs to be done.

The implicit assumption of Reich's writing is that the voters -- those bastards! -- would vote Democrat if they could just have it explained to them that choosing to vote Republican is a deluded action based upon pure illusions, or upon naked greed.

With that attitude, I predict that the Democrats will continue to flounder for a long, long time.

If you really would like to see some change in American politics, why don't you entertain the radical idea that those of us who are currently supporting Bush are doing it not because we are blind to his faults, or happy with those faults, but because we agree with him (and disagree with Canada, Europe, the U.N., and the American Left) about some rather important real issues?

Why don't you consider the wild possibility that at least some of us mean and believe what we say, and are in honest disagreement with Reich rather than deluded lumpenproletariat?

Just a suggestion.

"Looking at the US from Europe, Reichs analysis seams correct. Most democracies have three to four centers of political gravities (parties) with distinct programs and followers and over time changing coalitions."

The problem is that this is akin to drawing lessons in American football from soccer. The real issue is how accomodate different political pillars within the same party (American politics are most distant from PR as one can get) and around some common ideology. The Republicans have been very succesful with that. I don't think it's actually impossible for the Democrats to do something similar. For example: sound economics grounded (market friendly as often as sensible) policies with a reasonably distributional goal. Unfortunately, I feel that the left of the Democratic party doesn't want to hear about sound economics and its right does not care about income distribution. Strange, because in many ways it can be called caring about the (now good old) American Dream, or in other words, (true rather than formal) equality of opportunity (not to be confused with equality of outcome.)

Interesting view from Robert Reich but what is your view?

Reich says the GOP is successful because of the clarity of its convictions. As far as the economic issues, I think Reich has this completely wrong if the GOP still prays to the mantle of Reaganomics (which Bush43 certainly does). Reagan preached pro-growth and then proceeded to wreck national savings. Yes, he claimed he wanted to pay for his tax cuts with reductions in spending but never seemed to get around to it. Bush43 makes the same claims as he goes about increasing spending on all sorts of things. If one really believed in conservative economists, why would one practice free lunch fiscal policy?

Republicans are simply exploiting the fact that there is no American Left. For example, a lot of Liberals believe that government can help us by controlling what drugs we take. They are a little troubled by the corruption in the control process, but more dedicated to control than troubled by corruption.

So Clinton relentlessly increases drug arrests through his term, creating the "ex-con" con by which Bush stole Florida. Idealogically this makes William Buckley look braver and more honest than Clinton, and produces the impression that Republicans of principle are as interested in changing the drug laws as Democrats.

Flip thru the playbook and in every case where Clinton could have drawn a line in the sand he chose instead to fold and sell out leftist Democrats.

Please do not wail and rend your garments about how there really WAS a difference in 2000. Whatever difference there might have been was cancelled out by Democratic me-tooism on the DrugWar front. Hoist on their own petard, y'might say.

Erich - There are two *kinds* of deception taking place.

Many people are clearly being deceived by the Administration - poor people who think that because of the tax cut, they will receive a large refund on tax day, for instance. That's simple deception, the intentional creation of a false belief by an individual.

But judging by your way of speaking, you're not one of those people. More likely, you're somebody who genuinely believes that conservative economic policy will lead to prosperity, if only you keep on trying it long enough. In which case, we would still count you as deceived, but not by an individual who's lying to you.

The implicit assumption of Reich's writing is that the voters -- those bastards! -- would vote Democrat if they could just have it explained to them that choosing to vote Republican is a deluded action based upon pure illusions, or upon naked greed.

That's not Reich's thesis. That's your strawman.

If you really would like to see some change in American politics, why don't you entertain the radical idea that those of us who are currently supporting Bush are doing it not because we are blind to his faults, or happy with those faults, but because we agree with him (and disagree with Canada, Europe, the U.N., and the American Left) about some rather important real issues?

More strawmen. On 99% of US issues Canada, Europe and the UN couldn't care less either way. Does a Dane care about school vouchers?

A notable exception being, of course, the iraq war. I remember well your diatribes about WMD, the UN and evil Old Europeans a year ago on this forum.Changed your mind yet, or do you stick to your opinions regardless of the facts?

It's about time us big city liberals demand equal rights. LA County has a larger population than 42 other states. Yet each of these states has two US Senators, and we have to share ours with the rest of California. The same principal applies to the electoral college. It's nothing more than affirmative action for Republicans in Wyoming.

I know the founding fathers designed it that way, but they also counted slaves as 3/5 of a person. How about we stop getting counted as 3/5 of a voter?

"How about we stop getting counted as 3/5 of a voter?"

And if I were you, I would happily trade some federal power for that. No irony implied: after all, it is middle and Southern Republican bastion states that typically suck up most federal net subsidies. Play the Tcheck trick: Slovenians, do you want to cecede? Please proceed along the velvet carpet (wouldn't want your feet to touch the ground before you are home by yourself). And this time, all Afro-Americans are simply free and most welcome to move up North.

A good book related to this subject (though hard to get in the US, it's a big seller in Canada) is "Fire and Ice: The United States, Canada, and the Myth of Converging Values". Basically it covers a huge amount of public opinion research done in the US and Canada between 1992 and 2000. It's purpose is to compare the two countries, but the real surprise is what it found going on in the US during the Clinton years (what happened in Canada during that time is simply a modest shift to the left).

Basically during the Clinton era US public opinion took a big swing to what might be called the "dog-eat-dog right". The traditional left shrank slightly, but the traditional right (socially conservative, traditionalist/religious right, economically laissez-faire) didn't grow either. What happened is a massive boost in the number of people subscribing to a sort of nihilistic, screw-everyone-else style view. Rejecting both the traditions of social/religious conservatism, and the cooperation/community ideas of the traditional left. This is associated with a rise in racism, sexism, xenophobia, belief that everyone's duty is to look out for themselves, dislike of immigrants, lack of concern for community, feelings of alienation, "survival of the fittest" worldview, etc., etc.

This is a very, very worrying trend, and this happened in the _Clinton years_ of peace, prosperity, and relative international cooperation. I shudder to think about what the 2004 survey will find happened to levels of xenophobia and so on after September 11.

The relevance to politics is that this basically benefits the Republicans. The shift in attitudes isn't toward the traditional right, but it has led to a big surge in resentment of white Americans against anybody who is not them. They don't like the religious right either, but I doubt they're much worried about it. The Republicans can promote their religious right base without alienating the "it's a dog eat dog world" types too much. And they can get an increasing number of votes by promoting the view that they want the government to give less to the undeserving and spend more effort punishing whoever is supposedly "out to get" average white Americans.

While I find much of what Reich says, I believe there is also a counter point that the Democratic party aligned itself too closely
with many extreme left positions that the
public did not support.

Do not take me wrong, but look at the issue of welfare. A decade or so we were stuck with a big experiment in welfare that had failed.
We had developed a welfare class that many working class people resented. They looked at many of the people receiving welfare and saw individuals that were very similiar to them
who were living on the dole for generations while they had to pay taxes to support them.
Now I know a lot of liberals will say I am wrong, but the fact of the situation was that
the welfare situation was a sinkhole and we were doing nothing to move people out of welfare
and had developed a permanent underclass.
It was a failed policy and Clinton was right in changing it. Yet, who now gets credit for this--
not the demoncrats. We were the responsible one that recognized that our policy was not working and had to be changed. Yes, now we have the working poor but that is a different issue.

Yet the democrats have received no recognization for changing policy and doing something the Republicans could not do. Many of the original Reagan democrats voted for Reagan to get rid of welfare queens. Now they still vote republican despite the fact that it was democrats, not republican that made the welfare
queens go out and get a job. Many of the blue collar that you say vote against there own self-interest now vote republican because of the old perceptions about welfare. What have the democrats to let the blue collar voters know that conditions have changed. Rush rants about welfare queens but they no longer are a problem like they were 20 years ago.

Ian, that sounds pretty right to me. What I have noticed is a terrifying increase in the sarcastic and ironic mentality. They say "nothing matters cause its all crap anyway." In this age where everyone is world weary and can't be bothered, what matters most but the individual? Nihilism is a good way to describe this view and it works especially well for the Republicans today.

Re: Josh Yelon: to summarize Liberalism in one phrase, it's "caring for the common man."

I posit that "liberalism" is as "liberal" is defined in the dictionary:
# Not limited to or by established, traditional, orthodox, or authoritarian attitudes, views, or dogmas; free from bigotry.
# Favoring proposals for reform, open to new ideas for progress, and tolerant of the ideas and behavior of others; broad-minded.

Thus Libralism is not Right or Left (which both tend to be dogmatic). Liberalism IS the center. This might seem to result in the absence of a set of core beliefs or dogmas around which to rally. If you are always willing to entertain the idea that a policy (even one you advocate) is wrong it puts you at a potential disadvantage. The Right and Left get more press, because they tend to be more affirmative in their conclusions. Conservative don't want change by definition. They are scared. The rich are scared of losing money and power. Poor whites are scared of losing their position over blacks. The religiously dependant are scared of losing their philosophical crutch of religious dogma. etc. etc. The conservatives use a nasty little tactic of attacking liberalism by equating it with intellectualism - i.e. the arrogance of academia or theory over common sense. Well this is really the same as the arrogance of conservatism - to assume that you know best. GW's folksy red-neck gibberspeak is a classic example and Limbaugh is another. Liberalism lays a stronger claim to common sense because it dictates one should evaluate ideas both analytically and from a common sense perspective. The Left, well I don't yet understand the "Left" (if there really is one).

So what can Liberals be convinced of (i.e. be conservative about)? I'd start with fairness and liberty, then move on to the belief that progress can be made in the human condition. Liberals are for constitutional democracy (unlike conservatives) because they don't wish to subjugate or obliterate the opposition.

Of course given the power structure of the country, this quickly brings Liberals to positons on many issues that can be described as "caring for the common man".

man, so much to speculate about here...

personally, i think that there are several problems. essentially, we have a two party system that relies on the implicit "good behavior" of its components. Unfortunately, one of the parties has been co-opted by the segment that believes in gaming this system (which has always been eminently gamable).....and they've successfully done it. With an "ends justifies the means" ideology, they misrepresent, misinform, obfuscate, etc., just enough to eke out what they need to get what they want. they promise candy and toys for everyone, while instituting policies that are directly counter to the "meaning" of their promises. of course, the media has forgotten its role to call them on it--partially, because the media system is getting gamed as well. the democrats are left in the doubly tough role of being the "responsible parent" who's trying to be reasonable vs. the "spoiler parent" who shrilly refuses to compromise in the face of unambiguous evidence against their stand. PR-wise, for an electorate loathe to look at numbers and ponder the evolution of systems, the shrill, spoiling parent wins. people want candy, and they don't want to pay for it nor concern themselves with how this candy will magically appear. they also revel in abuse....talk radio is popular for exactly the same reason reality tv is. people like to see others demeaned....and that's certainly a staple of right-wing commentary. rational discourse isn't terribly effective at gaining viewership compared to serial denigrations of people who refuse to agree with a verbally abusive blowhard.

another issue is the structure of the parties at hand. the gop is very organized and passionate. i like to think it's all the misplaced rage and hate (from my own anecdotal experiences with wingers) that really compels them to the degree to which they are driven. however, i can't really understand much of their viewpoints in the first place, so i'm not really in any position what-so-ever to say what really drives them. however, this statements alludes to the point i wish to make here. i'm a rational being that relies on empirical evidence. i'm loathe to opine with any authority on matters that i do not know much about. i like to back up my assertions with evidence and logic (though, certainly, i don't always). thus, i often end up debating other liberals when i believe that their views don't appear to be self-consistent. the left is fractious...part of it is that the majority of the left believes that the "ends do not always justify the means" in that the means are often just as important as the ends. this is a weakness, yet it's not one i'd want to lose. the oft derided "loony left" exists, but fortunately, the more rational amongst the left choose to discount much of their influence.....it's not so for the right. everything is black and white for its fringe elements, and those who are in power play on this worldview....not so much that they really share it, but because it is so exploitable--its their freebie. why it is so, is another long discussion with too many caveats....and i do have work to do!

The Reich article is very interesting, and makes some good points. I think your response was cut off.

Best way to endear yourself to conservatives: Respond to with "I would believe that too, if I got all my information from right wing talk radio."

They weren't going to listen to anything you had to say anyway, so don't worry about pissing them off. Culture war? Bring it on!

This is nothing more than the whinings of a sore loser who could not win in MA despite an overwhelming Democratic majority. Some people are better pundits than politicians. Maybe because Reich came in as an outsider disconnected from the base, he thinks the base is not there. How does Reich think Barney Frank gets re-elected? Ted Kennedy? Cambridge is not South Boston, nor Roxbury nor New Bedford. Cambridge voters alone are not numerous enough to win a MA election.

Honestly, anyone who runs a campaign on the slogan "I said to my wife, 'Honey, why do people seem to take such an instant dislike to me?' And she shrugged and said: 'Saves time.'" deserves to lose.

Reich whines about Clinton policies, but Clinton delivered on the one policy that mattered most: JOBS. There are all sorts of social problems in the US that are difficult to solve because of the lack of a social safety net. But the minute, someone is employed, they are immediately connected to a network that can help them advance and connect them with social services, health care, job training, etc. There are a lot of social benefits provided to employees that are unavailable to the unemployed. Even though Clinton could not expand social programs very much, he delivered on jobs and the social programs that accompany them. In addition, Clinton shifted the tax burden off the lower class and more toward the wealthy by increasing the percent on the upper bracket and increasing the EITC. Most Americans don't know what EITC is, but it means a lot to the poorest workers. Clinton delivered in spite of a GOP Congress that opposed him every step of the way.

Bill Clinton connected with the Democratic base because he grew up poor, grew up with poor blacks and never lost his roots. Clinton used his appeals to his base to ratchet up the heat on the elitist Republicans.

Kerry connected with that Democratic base during his time in Vietnam. Kerry is using the Vietnam veterans to re-connect witht that base nationwide. He wins in MA which means he is connecting to the working class.

There is nothing wrong with the Democrats that they cannot win or will not win. Incumbency is difficult to overcome. Voters will rally behind a candidate that understands their position and will fight for them. The biggest problem for Democrats is that many of their best leaders that grew up in poverty, understand the working class and could rally support are blacks that have to overcome the racist attitudes still prevalent in much of America. This is another reason why it is so important for Democrats to keep pounding away at racism in America.

Seen from a European standpoint it wasn´t so much the a failure of the democrats in building a "movement" (whatever that is supposed to mean if you have no clear ideals) as more the success of the GOP in rebuilding and holding on to their central core from the 1960´s and on with Barry "In your heart you know he´s right" Goldwater. He lost big, but he did set something in motion.

"#Not limited to or by established, traditional, orthodox, or authoritarian attitudes, views, or dogmas; free from bigotry.

# Favoring proposals for reform, open to new ideas for progress, and tolerant of the ideas and behavior of others; broad-minded. "

Okay, let's reform Social Security, a program that disproportionately taxes blacks. What, we can't touch the legacy of FDR? Oh. Okay, how about we bring about Martin Luther King's dream and judge college applicants by the content of their high school transcripts, SAT scores, and character as revealed in self-composed essays -- instead of based on skin color? No? Okay. How 'bout we develop a meaning for "states' rights" that is NOT an accusation of post-civil war reactionary racism? No? How 'bout we allow public elementary school boards to experiment with unorthodox, untraditional, and progressive teacher payroll systems, instead of merely unorthodox curricula? No? How about we actually put reforms like abolishing individual non-militia gun ownership, legalizing gay marriage, line item vetos, term limits, and balance budget requirements to a voter's referendum?

No?

Just how progressive are we talking, here?

Conversation at the Strada

He had translated and rephrased the question, instead of "En que momento se habia jodido el Peru", the question became, "where did we fuck-up". That crisp october evening, looking across lifeless Bancroft at the deserted campus, closed by the martial law edict, I could only wonder why I hadn't seen this shit coming.

"Had Clinton told Americans the truth - that when the economic boom went bust they would still have to face the challenges of a country concentrating more wealth and power in fewer hands - he could have built a long-term mandate for change."

I think the above is a reasonable message and a reasonable battle cry and it has clarity. Too bad we have to rely on a near billionaire to pull the message off.

Clinton pretty much showed how debased the Democratic party had become.

I would add that not only is wealth and power too concentrated, it's in the hands of the truly corrupt. I could probably come close to stomaching a nation run by conservatives with true traditional conservative values. What he have is corporate rule aided and abetted by right wing fundamentalists.

But maybe we need to focus on this message for now. Get rid of Bush. Not good for the country. Not good for the world. A dangerous man for a dangerous time.

Is this enough. I don't know. But it beats any other message we don't have and will not have before the election.

Bakho,

"This is nothing more than the whinings of a sore loser who could not win in MA despite an overwhelming Democratic majority."

Reich was beaten in the Democratic primary, not the general election.

Pouncer,
You can't deny that "states rights" as it is used by conservatives is often code for "racism" yet Conservatives didn't allow Florida to pick electors according to it's laws. Let's look some more: Social Security reform (usually code for let's give WallStreet a cut of everybody's SS and let's free the rich from any sense of community) - if the issue is why blacks don't get their "fair share" maybe what needs to be addressed is either other aspects of race that decrease life expectancy, or lifting the taxable income limit for SSN.
Affirmative action in college admission - let's use some common sense. The issue is not just how an individual is affected, but how society as a whole (lots of individuals) are affected. (BTW Bakke wasn't beat out by a couple of blacks for his spot, he was beat out by lots and lots of whites and asians.) This is a large topic but in summary I still support some forms of affirmative action because of the undeniable conditions of race in this country. The backlash against affirmative action was in the main, manufactured (albeit the issue of "tokens", as in "a token black" is real). The question is whether it could have been reformed without it since the "Left" attacks any criticism. Here is an example of "Left" that is really a conservative group protecting their own - not a "Liberal" position. Conservatives attacked affirmative action to destroy it and its objectives, not to improve things. They offered no alternative and as such I find them morally and intellectually bankrupt by and large.
You list a bunch of things, some of which we probably agree on, but politics is the art of getting along. Getting along is not shouting dogma back and forth. (Although strangely, it seems that the voting public is so busy living that all they hear are the loudest shouts and they make their decisions based on 30 second ads and newscasts.)

The aberation is not the left's pragmatism, but the right's passion. American politics is only periodically passionate, and so the passion needs explaining. We are now entering the fifth decade of the conservative counter-revolution (if we date from Goldwater; fourth if we date from Roe v. Wade). The 'Sixties' (lasting through the early 70s) represented the most radical and sudden social change in the country's history (I'm probably missing something here, but very radical in any case) since it reached into the most intimate realm of the family and sexuality - the feminist movement, sexual revolution, abortion, gay rights - and so impinged on the sphere governed by religion and brought forth a politicization of religion. Unlike in the other industrialized countries, this coincided with radical change along the country's key identity axis - black/white - and a national foreign policy humiliation. The Perfect Storm - sex, race, nation. Since America is particularly religious, racist and nationalist (and unlike many, I'd say racism is the least consequential of the three), the resulting counter-revolution has been longer and stronger than one would've imagined. This is what the left is up against.

The right is now revolutionary, the left conservative (trying to conserve the victories of the 60s). On the the religion/sex front, the left appears to be fighting the right to a draw, with the evidence suggesting the young favor the left (certainly this is dramatically so on gay rights). Here there seems little to do but to hold the line and not be naive that evangelicals can be convinced in large numbers to throw God overboard for Mammon. On race, the left also seems to be consolidating the victories of the sixties, as overt racism declines and quiet, modest non-quotas Affirmative Action is being accepted as the de facto equilibrium.

It is on the ever potent nationalism front where the left is getting trounced, something which appears to be off Reich's radar screen. The most interesting thing in Mann's The Rise of the Vulcans was his account of the Ford administration. Kissinger's analysis of Vietnam and Watergate was that America had to scale back its world ambitions and accomodate itself to relative decline. Cheney and Rumsfeld disagreed and, more politically attuned domestically, saw there was a huge political market for American revanchism and, thirty years later, there still is.

Vietnam established the left as unpatriotic (read: anti-nationalist) and detente made the center-left cosmopolitan (read: unpatriotic). And the great problem is that this is true. The left is cosmpolitan and anti-nationalist, especially its elite, and it won't do to insist that this is really a higher form of patriotism. I am cosmpolitan. Brad is cosmpolitan. It is a good thing (within limits!), but not for winning elections. Now that gay marriage is page one news, nationalism is the American love that dare not speak its name.

It was the extreme over-the-top nationalism of the Bush administration, evident before 9-11 but unbounded after, that produced the passion of the Dean campaign. And yet the overwhelming consensus among the left - a consensus I share - is that we cannot run against the war. We cannot run against American chauvinism. That way lies madness. And so we are faced with the comical situation where John Kerry - as quintessentially cosmpolitan anti-nationalist elite leftist as one could order up - feels he must essentially endorse George Bush's foreign policy, only with the cavaet of somewhat less of the same. Here lies the problem, but where lies the solution?

I've said nothing about money - the focus of Reich's analysis - because the right's counter-revolution is not about money. The rich are just freeloading on it (see Stan Greenberg's analysis of the rich men component of the republican coalition; they disagree with the rest of the Republican base on God, sex, race, and are lukewarm on nationalism) at great cost to us all.

When GOre ran in 2000 he was derided for being to centerist and that was why Nader ran and funneled off the votes he needed to win. When he went to the left to offset the view he was too centerist he was declared to leftist. The dem's also have a problem with politicians who are centerist yet pro-gun or anti-choice or. THe republicans for all their yelling and screaming have a way to make what we do sound elitist and crazy and what they propose sane sounding. We don't have the equivalent to Rush but Gore seems to be on the right track with Air America and his newly announced plans to purchase a cable station/network. In addition like a rubber band the electorate always snaps the other way when it makes a change. So even though Clinton was a centerist the response was to elect what they thought was a centerist republican who took his squeek by election as a mandate and ran with it, using the republican control of the senate and congress to assist him in getting all the goodies they have wanted for years enacted. Despite controling both houses he has not been able to get his energy policy approved, could only get his medicare policy approved by lieing, etc.

If Kerry can get on message we can get the presidency back and perhaps narrow the margins on the house and senate majorities, there is also a shot at getting the Senate back.

"Does a Dane care about school vouchers?"

Well, Denmark has school vouchers. And Sweden has added private accounts to Social Security.

That's the real problem the Democratic party has today -- the Scandinavians are "radical right wingers" compared to it.

I like Robert Reich. But I too think his analysis is flawed in this case.

Without going into a full-on essay, here is the short explanation of what I think went wrong: we didn't bring our "troops" home from the cold war, when it became clear that "the other side" had surrendered.

We therefore became an American reflection of the very thing we were organized ourselves to oppose.

Angry- The most radical and sudden change was in the South after the Civil War.

GW Bush was not elected based on foreign policy. In fact, he ran as something other than the policies he has implemented: compassionate conservatism (whatever that is) education, humble foreign policy. The only thing he delivered was tax cuts and they are not popular. Bush was rejected by a majority of the voters and squeaked by only because his brother controlled the electoral machinery in Florida. His economic policies are not popular now. People give him high marks for striking back at someone after 911. However, his foreign policy is not popular. Iraq is seen as a commitment not a preference. If Kerry can point to a way face saving way out of Iraq the voters will support it. Americans are not happy with spending 500 billion per year on the military and defense. In fact, there is very little about the Bush agenda that would get a majority of American votes. The May 5 poll has the GOP Congress job approval at only 38%, Bush at 46%, the economy at 36% and only 36% say the US is on the right track. This is not good news for the GOP, but events between now and Nov can change things. If the election were today, Bush would lose in most of the Midwest. He would have to make up OH votes somewhere else.

Bernard- Thanks for the correction on Reich's loss to OBrien in the primary. The same reasons apply to that loss. Reich could not carry the core Democratic voters, only the elites. He did not connect.

Nice little propaganda note, Glass

Are you willing to take the 50-60% of GDP to government you see in Sweden in exchange for private Social Security contracts and school vouchers?

I'd make the trade for just 40% or so? Deal?

Actually if somebody made the deal of proposing a large voucher experiment at the price of a decent prep school (15,000 $/year minimum) funded by new taxes rather than cuts in other services lots of progressives would take it. But underfunded vouchers paid for by cuts in other services, no thanks. Private SS accounts whose sole purpose is to destroy the system? I don't think so.

Point of information: The Democrats controlled both Houses of Congress in the US from roughly 1940 to 1994. It is the Congress that makes the laws, not Presidents (veto excepted).

Reich is right that Republicans have done a great job advancing their control starting in the early 1990's and continuing today. But they have a program of ideas that they (as a group) generally agree on and can articulate, and they have done a good job convincing people to vote for them and these ideas.

Democrats are still operating in the 60's and 70's: the war on poverty, a women's right to choose, the war on drugs, quagmire, welfare, etc, etc. Those ideas, and they way they are presented, are simply not winning votes. Perhaps folks are just tired of hearing what amounts to a 30 - 40 year whine?

"I'm a member of no organized political party. I'm a Democrat."

"Actually if somebody made the deal of proposing a large voucher experiment at the price of a decent prep school (15,000 $/year minimum)..."

The NEA would stop it in its tracks. Which is why all the "liberals care" baloney is just that.

Bakho,

OT I suppose, but I don't agree with you as to the reason for Reich's loss. My impression, as a resident of MA, is that he failed across the board. He was seen as someone who came into the race feeling entitled to the nomination, and irritated at least some "elites" by coming across as a BS artist posing as a deep thinker.

Reich: "And they have a coherent ideology uniting evangelical Christians, blue-collar whites in the south and west, and big business."

That's just silly. There is no coherent ideology that unites blue-collar people and big business.

I fear that leftists will remain a majority of citizens, but continue to hold a minority of political power, as long as Roe vs. Wade is the law of the land. Roe vs. Wade is the dynamo that powers the right-wing machine. Our only hope is that the Supreme Court finally overturns it for whatever reason, throwing the issue of abortion rights to state legislatures and the Congress.

When that happens -- when the right wing finally wins its prized battle -- the left will win the war. The unelected Supreme Court doesn't confer sufficient political legitimacy to legal abortion, but when elected state legislatures legalize it (and most of them will, after a shakeout of several years), abortion will have political legitimacy.

Here's the bonus: The Republican Party is shackled permanently to the anti-abortion issue. With Roe vs. Wade the law of the land, Republicans who aren't anti-abortion zealots can feel relatively welcome in the party. But with the overturning of Roe vs. Wade, the anti-abortion zealots will make abortion the party's only issue. Moderates will leave or will be driven out. Where will they go? Right into the Democratic Party, which will position itself as the party of antizealotry and fiscal responsibility.

When Reich says the Republican Party has a coherent ideology that unites evangelical Christians, blue-collar people and Wall Street types, he ignores the fact that the Party's only coherent ideology unites evangelical Christians. With the repeal of Roe vs. Wade, it will fade into a "Christian Republican" party, with considerable power in places such as Utah and Texas, but a minority in most of the country.

Steve:

"Point of information: The Democrats controlled both Houses of Congress in the US from roughly 1940 to 1994. It is the Congress that makes the laws, not Presidents (veto excepted)."

Please try again, Steve. That was from the Rush Limbaugh School of History.

A biased media filled with millionaire reporters is a not insignificant factor. How does this play out?

Republicans tell a lie.
Democrats correct it.
Newsies report both sides as just alternative opinions.

Bush et. al. perpetrate the most outrageous falsehoods almost every day and the press simply swallows them whole and reports them with a straight face. Democrats? Dont you dare lie about that blowjob!!!

Substitute "postmodernism" for "nihilism." Of the two parties, the Republicans have most fully embraced the "cultural logic of late capitalism (Jameson). Simply put, for the time being, their time is now.

Well if anybody actually makes all the way down here they can feel free to point out the faults of what I am about to say, but we'll see how many people make it down here.

I'd like to piggy-back on apav's comment of,

"So what can Liberals be convinced of (i.e. be conservative about)? I'd start with fairness and liberty, then move on to the belief that progress can be made in the human condition. Liberals are for constitutional democracy (unlike conservatives) because they don't wish to subjugate or obliterate the opposition."

Speaking from what I'd call the liberal wing of the liberal party (i.e. Seattle where I choose to live), the problem seems to be that, socially, the democratic beliefs are in essence 'live and let live' while the republicans are 'live and think as we do, as jesus did'. Gay marriage, the war on drugs, etc., us liberals up here in seattle don't really care what you do in your home, whether it be making out with your 'partener' or praying to jesus or allah.

Ok I've said nothing new yet, but here is what I feel is the real problem with the democratic mentality, how do you tell someone to think and act like you do when your philosophy is 'do what you want'. Its easy to attack and attack and attack as the republicans do, but its consistant with their philosphy of making everyone like them. How do democrats attack others for not thinking like them, when fundamentally they belive that everyone should be able to think for themselves as long as you don't harm others or annoyingly push your views on others?

I also belive that this plays into the academic/elite argument, we're all just sitting back allowing religious zealots to think for themselves assuming that eventually they'll come around, or at the very least die off and their children will get educations and come around. Remenber, just a genration ago republicans were against interracial (not just inter-sex) marriage, but eventually the plurality of biggots died off or just came around.

Sorry for the length of this rambling. My real point is that its hard to get a majority of democrats to rally around a central issue and then go forth and beat their enemies brains out loud and wide with this message, when fundamentally we believe that all should think for ourselves and come to our own moral conclusion, and then be happy in our decision regardless of what anothers personal decision on the same issue was.

I basically agree with Reich but find it depressing to keep having to argue the issue. Democrats seem to be unwilling to deal with the great white unwashed.

The Democrats seem committed to desperate ad hoc campaigns every four years without any long term strategy beyond the swing voter strategy.

They also seem committed to a media-heavy campaign which a.) fattens up the media, who are fundamentally hostile to the Dems, and b.) sells the Democrats to the big money donors. We paid the TV stations a lot of good money to throw the election to Bush.

DLC types I've talked to are fiercely hostile to what they call "pandering to the base". But if you're hostile to your own base, eventually you lose it. Most people don't vote Republican, but they just stop caring.

Whenever I suggest for looking for new voters in the discouraged-voter pool, centrist Democrats adamantly oppose the idea with every argument that they can dream up. "Non-voters don't vote". Well, yeah, but the idea is to turn non-voters into voters. "That's been tried", they say, but the resources haven't really been put into it. The Republicans do this kind of thing as a long-term plan, rather than just right before elections.

There's a lot of evidence that the higher the voter registration and turnout, the better the Democrats do.

I think that a "movement Democrat" approach would take control of the party away from the DLC types, which is why they oppose it. Too many Dems are far too hostile to "movement Democrats", and I think that some of them would rather lose with the DLC than win with a non-centrist. I've seen the strategy proposed that Dems just wait for the moderates to be driven entirely out of the Republican party and then move into that space, producing a two-party system consisting of the Eisenhower Republicans (= D) versus the DeLay Republicans. To me that would be a disaster; to them, it is the goal.

I've heard here on SDJ repeatedly about the things that should have been done along with free trade, welfare reform, balancing the budget, and the other Republican or bipartisan accomplishments of the Clinton Administration. But the good things didn't happen. As a result, in a lot of ways Clinton carried water for the Republicans while leaving behind a weakened party.

Conservative fringe candidates got .7 % of the vote in 2000, while Nader got 2.5 %. Switch those numbers, and Gore has too solid a lead for the Supremes to erase. And the Republican fringe is much nastier than the Democratic fringe -- neo-Confederates, Armageddon Christians, "exterminate the brutes" warbloggers, etc.

Actually, I blame it on the economists, ie, the younger generation of liberal economists -- guys like DeLong and Krugman. They sold out the American people when they convinced Clinton (who didn't know better) that free trade would benefit everybody, with no ifs, ands, or buts. Those ifs, ands, or buts are the American people. They are what the next Democratic party (though it may go under a different name) will be about, if the day ever comes.

Since both Republicans and Democrats are united on creating and subsizing and running a fascist state in the Holy Land and since both parties seem to want a rape/torture police state of fascist leanings in Iraq....

This means we will get it here, too. Eventually, the rape camps will open here and Americans will be carted off. And all the stuff about democracy will be thrown aside, once and for all.

Seems we hate democracy with an astounding passion. Everyone hates it. Terribly.

NEWS FOR TODAY: the oil producing nations are pumping oil as fast as they can, none are following the restriction guidelines and the price of oil is UP UP UP!!! Thanks to consumption outstripping available oil. This means, we arrived at the fearful Hubbert Peak of Oil and from now on, there will be less and less oil that will cost more and more and....

This means we are doomed. We will fight WWIII over oil and most of our cities will be annihilated which is why Bush is pushing the Star Wars system through even though it doesn't work and China will easily outstrip it by launching fake nukes and anyway, most of the nukes will come on container ships or more likely, cargo jets, anyway.

Wasn't America fun? We all think we will be millionaires if we only kill enough people.

Holden writes:
>
>That's just silly. There is no coherent ideology that unites blue-collar people and big business.

Not true. Robert Reich writes (or at least hints) about how such an ideology could be constructed in his book _The_Work_Of_Nations_. Hint: blue collar people *are* a big business.

The Democratic Party wasn't listening to him when he was pushing it then (before he was Secretary of Labor), and they still aren't listening to him now. Zizka is exactly right about why.

All I would add is a little extra clarification of the position I staked out above: the reason the DLC is so hostile to "movement Democrat" politics is, I argue, that they are fundamentally not ready to admit the Cold War is over. That would mean having to revisit the unresolved issues of labor/management relations that were effectively buried when it became clear to everyone that Communism Must Be Destroyed.

Bush talks captitalist and acts socialist. He spends money left and right and mortgages rich people's property with an ever larger national debt.
If you are a lower income, very lower wealth, individual, what's not to like?
When are you going to figure out that the Republicans are the socialist party? The very image of a modern conservative president is a former union leader, Ronald Reagan!

My vote is mainly Vietnam, the end of the draft, and the resultant heavy Republican tilt to the military. When two sides are fighting it out, an uncommitted person is more likely to choose the side that controls the money, the jobs and the guns. Not to say that liberals *can't* win elections. They can and will win this year mainly due to the manifest incompetence of the Bush administration. But they are fighting, and will continue to fight, on uphill terrain until they close the money/jobs/guns gap.

What America Needs is a far right wing party.

Seriously.

Your post ends with just "What's". What's what?

Democrats controlled the house and senate up until the mid 90's. They now are a slim minority in the congress and the senate is nearly tied. The current Republican president is one even a lot of Republicans are embarrassed about but support because the alternatives are (in their eyes) worse. Democrats held the Presidency through the 90's despite wide spread scandal and only are failing to cinch the Presidency now because of the weakness and incompetence of their own candidate.

So exactly how are Democrats failing? If one counts "failing" as "not dominating" then perhaps. But even now they control a lot. If it weren't for the war on terror they'd have a Republican president who outside of environmental issues was very unlike the right wing.

The problem is largely that both Republicans and Democrats nominate incompetent people. Clinton was a fantastic pick for the Democrats and tried to bring them out of the cold war into the present. Unfortunately he was so outrageously irresponsible in his personal life that Republicans were able to "block" him in large measure. But most of the problems that we could attribute to the Democrats we could attribute to the Republicans.

Reich's text is from this op-ed.

There are two main reasons that have been very seriously hobbling the Democrats since the mid-Sixties. One we can't do anything about: the fact that we finally threw Southern white racists over the side and thus lost a huge block of kneejerk support in the South -- which is still having a very serious effect on Democratic strength in the South despite the fact that the place is becoming gradually but steadily less racist.

The other we can do something about: the fact that the people -- with considerable justice -- doubt that the Democrats are serious any more about military security. This, of course, is the legacy of Vietnam and of a good deal of justified revulsion among liberals over some of the filthier fascist regimes we were allying ourselves with for strategic reasons during the Cold War. But the fact that voters thought that the Democrats were not taking America's OWN security seriously enough was nevertheless devastating to them during the last part of the Cold War -- and the fact that they're STILL trying to pretend that military security isn't the most important issue, at a time when there is no even remotely conceivable excuse for doing so, is still devastating them. (Consider their diastrous "let's ignore it" attitude toward security issues during the 2002 campaign -- or, for that matter, Kerry's continuing, and excruciatingly obvious, vagueness about his own strategy against Islamic Fascism.)

Also keep in mind, however, that -- even with those two blocks of cement on their feet -- the Democrats aren't doing that badly any more. Keep in mind that back in the Forties and early Fifties (let alone before the Depression), the GOP was regularly winning nationside DESPITE the incredibly, mindlessly solid support Democrats got from the "Solid South". Now the South has completely flipped -- but the Dems are STILL running almost as strongly against the GOP nationwide as they were then, because their support OUTSIDE the South has very considerably increased. (Thus that parade of big, important northern states -- New Jersey, Michigan, Illinois, California, Washington -- that Carter lost in the close race of 1976 but Gore won in the close race of 2000.)

I wrote about this as part of a discussion with other bloggers, BOP News, etc., here: http://seetheforest.blogspot.com/2004_05_01_seetheforest_archive.html#108369081048523328

Excerpt:

The Right has built up this marketing/communications machine with the intention of moving America's opinions to the right. Think about how this affects elections -- the Right has this machine in place pounding out "ideas," telling people lies like "Social Security is going broke," "lawsuits are out of control," "children are trapped in failing public schools," and "tax cuts increase revenue." After hearing this over and over, and hearing the Right's proposed solutions, THEN along comes an election, and the Right can just plug in a generic candidate who spouts the slogans Americans are pre-conditioned to expect.

Meanwhile Progressive candidates have to start FROM SCRATCH, each election cycle, explaining to Americans about things like single-payer insurance and what the term means... and have to do it ALONE, and have to raise the money themselves to communicate to the public... It's a nearly-impossible task when you think about it.

Here's a good story on how the Right is accomplishing so much: http://www.mediatransparency.org/stories/apparat.html

Two good reference sources: http://www.commonwealinstitute.org/information.html

And

http://www.commonwealinstitute.org/reports/tort/Section1.html#t2

I think that there are a couple of factors going on here. One is that the Republicans are more pragmatic, for lack of a better word, than the Democrats. It was obvious with only a moderate bit of thinking that voting for Nader was the equivalent of not voting at all. Regardless of the way you feel that things should be, the rules for the US presidential election are what they are. We generally have winner-take-all elections, and until that gets changed, you're better off holding your nose and voting for the most viable candidate that's closest to your beliefs. Republicans have communicated this message to their party, Democrats have not. This is why Al Gore is not president.

Secondly, people are much more prone to believe that they're getting a good deal than that they're getting screwed. It's why scammers tell them this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity or a lothario will say "I've never said this to anyone else, but..." This makes it easier to sell tax cuts to the rich, but that just means that Democrats need to work harder. Hell - marketing companies sell demographic information based on zip code that includes family income - send a flyer to every house in your district that says "George Bush raised your taxes by $X. John Kerry would cut them by $Y. Who are you going to vote for?"

PS - I am a Republican, but the Bush administration has me to the point where I really can't see how Kerry will be any worse for most things I find important - including national security.

Sigh...at this point, this discussion is generating more heat than light. Still...

My thoughts on this matter can be seen at:
http://www.livejournal.com/users/randwolf/12253.html

From that essay:

The core problems, it seems to me, are that there are no nationally visible opposition leaders in the USA and that a geographically distributed minority can rule the USA. It's not a new problem that the presidency turns into a petty throne; the first instance was probably the presidency of Andrew Jackson. But it has gotten much worse with the advent of television: since the presidency of Kennedy. It has become possible for any charismatic figure to sit in the chair of president or governor and there be no opposition that will be heard as widely as that figure's. Real charisma, even, isn't required; an acting coach is enough.

To which I will add that it seems to me that dominance of the USA by minority elites seems to be a common thing in our history; the period 1960-80, like the Reconstruction, was unusual for its openness. It follows that our institutions are not very democratic. Me, I'm reading Lani Guinier--I think she knows something about this.

One liberal think tank, the Rockridge Institute (www.rockridgeinstitute.org) has been voicing a similar view for a few years.

Frankly, I don't see a lot of people buying the GOP hokum. Yes they have a hard committed core, but there is the swing voter block that switches based on their perceived interests. They are smart enough to recognize that Bush is a screw up. If they are comfortable that Kerry can handle the job, then there tendency to abandon another Bush failure will happen. If they think Kerry cannot handle the job, they will have a more difficult choice. However, the decision will not be clear until October.

Thanks for you perspective on Reich, Bernard. I have not lived in MA for several years now and only hear what my friends there tell me. Are MA voters having buyers remorse? What is with that death penalty push? I thought that the mere mention of "Salem" would still quash that bad idea.

What's wrong with American politics? -it's unpopular. Miserable participation rates. Folks feel like it doesn't matter.
So Stirling is right! We need a new party.
And seriously, this is brilliant: a far right wing party.
Let's start it Now.

Brad quotes: ... it looked as if Bill Clinton's New Democrats - the forerunners to Tony Blair's third wayers ...

The term "third way" is used by Socialist renegades to cover up the implementation of the policies of their former ideological opponents.

Are we arguing welfare reform all over again? Welfare had serious flaws that Republicans were quick to jump on. Eliminating welfare is not an option. Democrats ended up defending welfare, warts and all, while Republicans called to end it without a realisitic plan to deal with the fallout.

Government checks to welfare recipients is the most inexpensive way to run a welfare program in the short run. Anything else, job training, child care, incentives may pay off in the long run but not in the short run. Politicians with election cycles of 2 or 4 years are attuned to the short term. It is more difficult to affect longer term solutions without bipartisan agreement.

Clinton moved the welfare issue off center by agreeing to reforms. The short term costs turned out to be pretty painless because the unemployment rate dropped substantially. However, now that unemployment is up, the costs are higher. Like the rest of our infrastructure, it is underfunded.

Republicans gather support for these initiatives because American can do wants to solve problems not let them linger. By opposing any reform, Democrats are seen as part of the problem and not the solution. The Clinton strategy of engaging in the debate was productive. We can admit that there is a problem. We can admit that the Republicans have proposed a different policy. However, defense of the status quo cannot be a simple "because I said so". Democrats need to engage in the debate and address the new problems that would be created by a change in the status quo. This can be pushed back at the GOP, as these are new problems that your policy would create. What then? Why is your policy better than the status quo?

Clinton used the welfare reform issue to get the GOP to enact a number of social welfare programs related to getting people to work. The Clinton idea to make work pay much more relative to welfare was a big win for the poor who moved into the job market. Democrats should not shortchange that legacy.

Bakho,

Some buyer's remorse, I think. I doubt the death penalty thing will go anywhere - hard to tell. Looks to me like Romney is taking some aggressive positions to get himself into the national GOP picture, possibly in 2008.

Thanks for the book recommendation, s9. I'll check it out.

reich doesn't go back far enough. building a grassroots movement is something that the conservatives started in the early seventies. focusing on clinton is off by about 25 years.

something to think about:

if opinion polls are any guide, the majority of the american public believes in programs created or posed by the american left. here i'm talking about protecting the environment, protecting consumers, protecting workers. the only area this falls apart is on racial issues (and given the racialization of poverty i'm including welfare here).

liberal became a seven letter word not because it was attached to policies folks agreed with, but because it was attached to racial policies folks disagreed with. and the democrats never had the heart to call the conservatives on the implicit use of race--a losing strategy every time.

"What's wrong with American politics?...."

Hmm, Reich's article is on line (for subscribers) at
http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/Start.asp

It is titled "Dismal Democrats".

Translating what's wrong with Democratic politics as "What's Wrong with America's Politics" is perhaps symptomatic of one of the things wrong with Democratic politics these days.

This guy is great!!!!!! My thoughts exactly!!!!!

Can we agree Daniel Patrick Moynihan was an ideal example of an intelligent, hard-working, idealistic, patriotic, good-hearted, long-term-planning modern "liberal"?

But when the question came up about "reform" to the welfare system, this was Moynihan's response:

"This is a bill that would repeal Title IV A of the Social Security Act of 1935 that provides aid to dependent children. It will be the first time in the history of the nation that we have repealed a section of the Social Security Act. That the [Clinton] White House should be eager to support such a law is beyond my understanding, and certainly in thirty-four years' service in Washington, beyond my experience.

I regret it."

Clinging to the past, nostalgic for the golden age, decrying the modern tendency to tinker with time-honored traditions ...

This may have been a modern politically "liberal" position but I don't see how the dictionary definition of the term applies.

Can we agree that Albert Gore Junior is a good example an intellegent (etc) modern "liberal"?

How did he get himself into the position where every idea his rival offered was 'a risky scheme'? A more progressive leader might have (accurately) explained that this or that proposal was 'a half-measure' or 'a band-aid instead of a cure' or some other description that acknowledged the both the problems and the need for progress; including the need to take risks, to go forward -- with less than perfect knowledge but in the confidence that solutions could be found? But that's not what happened. The "liberal" sang the old hymns to the traditional orthodox rites and rituals of the six-decade-old "New" Deal.

It's not about change, or progress. It's about holding on to existing powers. For BOTH parties. Are the Republicans going to abolish the Dept of Agriculture and give up the powers it gives them over the red states? Not a chance. Will the Democrats tinker with the Department of Labor? About as likely.

I'm prepared to entertain suggestions that one or another leaders of this or that party is slightly more or less competent, or honest, or pragmatic, than another. Again, I _like_ Moynihan. I liked Bob Dole. I kinda think Pete DuPont is funny. I think Hillary Clinton is kinda cute for an old broad... But I don't particularly see that one wing of the political bird has any great monopoly on any particular virtue, and certainly not on the boons of progress, creativity, and empowerment. And certainly not when the debates continue to revolve around the "New" Deal and the Vietnam "War".

Bernhard worte (near the beginning of this thread)

"To get at least a second political center of gravity the US needs a movement to start left of the democrats - antiwar, anti big business, social democratic."

This rings true - and still, is apparently a very "European" way of looking at plitics (as someone else pointed out).

To add to the confusion, I am posting here a statement I got from an American friend (via a news group) who apparently is trying to enact what Bernhard is proposing (1.), and my reply to it (2.) - just to let you guys see how people in Europe (center-left liberals in Europe, that is, certainly not everybody) react to American ideas and political discussions:

1.

Published in Counterpunch.org

How to Stop the War: Launch a Demonstration Against John Kerry

By Sonali Kolhatkar

With the launching of the new fiercely partisan and influential liberal
radio network nationwide, Air America, John Kerry seems poised to whisk
the presidential nomination for the Democratic Party and could even win
simply because he is not Bush.

According to an unnamed former Bush official, “Kerry might wage a more
effective war on terror than Bush because he was likely to take a more
complex approach, looking at broader threats while coupling military
force with "soft power" such as alliance building and a battle for
hearts and minds” (Reuters, 05/03/04 “Bush or Kerry, 'War on Terror'
Unlikely to Change”).

What is the massive anti-war movement in the United States to do when
the difference between the two major candidates extends to the use of
“soft power”?

While there are certainly some differences between the two candidates
and Kerry is likely a shade better than Bush, should we settle for his
Bush-like stand on the war? The common Democratic refrain goes like
this: “I trust John Kerry to do what’s right for America. After all, his
record in Vietnam and the amazing antiwar speech he gave after returning
from Vietnam spoke to all the things that need to be done to bring this
country back on track. And anyway, I’ll vote for Anybody But Bush”.

But why should we trust our leaders? What role does trust play in a
democracy? I trust my family and my friends and even they screw up
sometimes and break my trust.

Perhaps we ought to judge Kerry by his more recent speeches rather than
what he said 30 years ago when he was an anti-war activist, war veteran,
and someone less invested in the current establishment. Kerry
whole-heartedly embraces Bush’s “war on terror” as a legitimate concept.
We laugh at the simplistic rhetoric of Bush’s “good vs. evil”. But John
Kerry calls it “a clash of civilization against chaos”. Bush’s rhetoric
may be more religious and emotional, but Kerry’s is just as judgmental
and generalized.

Certainly the “war on terror” is not all we should judge candidates by.
George Bush’s domestic economic policies have ravaged the poor and
middle class. But lest you thought that Kerry’s economics would be
kinder and gentler than Bush’s, Warren Buffet, Kerry’s economic advisor
downplays any difference between the two saying the election will simply
be a “referendum on George Bush”. He even said, “The Kerry campaign is
quite unimportant compared to how people feel about Bush when they go
into the voting booth”. Consider the presidential poll results which
consistently hover around 43-46% for either candidate. Any lead falls
within the statistical noise.

If John Kerry wants our votes, John Kerry ought to earn them. By this I
mean it is up to us in the anti-war, or pro-justice movements to
demonstrate that we weren’t kidding when we marched in the millions
against the war in Iraq. It is up to us to send a warning sign to John
Kerry or whoever turns up as the alternative to Bush that he has to work
to earn our votes. Simply being ABB (Anybody But Bush) does not qualify
him.

When ten million people marched against Bush’s war in Iraq last year, he
glibly dismissed us as a “focus group” simply because he could: Bush
does not need us to get re-elected – he already has support of about 40%
of the voters. But why should the other 40% hand over our votes to Mr.
“Bush-lite” Kerry without a fight? Imagine a march of over a million
voters all across the United States, not against the idiot Bush who has
not earned the right to be a public servant anyway, but against John
Kerry. Imagine hundreds of thousands of voters demanding that Kerry
adopt an anti-war and anti-occupation position publicly and fast if he
wants any assurance of beating Bush at the polls. Imagine these voters
insisting Kerry adopt a progressive agenda on Iraq, Afghanistan,
Palestine, the USA PATRIOT Act, welfare reform, and other life-and-death
issues.

This will accomplish two things: it will remind public officials
everywhere that voters will not succumb to a “lesser of two evils”
approach which often means that candidates need only be a shade better
than their incumbent opposition. And, it will remind public officials
that once in power, that same constituency will not hesitate to take to
the streets again to hold them accountable to their promises.

One only has to look at the recent election in Spain to see this in
action. When the Spanish incumbent prime minister, Jose Maria Asnar
stood for re-election after defying his people’s wishes, he was promptly
ousted and replaced with the socialist Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero
whose campaign platform was based on a pullout of troops from Iraq.
What’s more, once elected, even more Spaniards than expected turned out
for the anti-occupation demonstrations of March 20th, reminding Zapatero
that his election was not based on an act of faith – he would be held to
his promises. As a result, Spain has taught us a lesson in democracy:
the electorate determines the actions of its elected representative. The
electorate’s relationship to the elected after all, is supposed to be a
master-servant relationship. Hence the term “public servant”.

We have to hold Kerry accountable before he gets elected while he is
still in the position of having to court voters. Rather than “backing
Kerry”, we need to stand in front of him, to remind him who’s boss: the
people of the United States of America, not a Democratic presidential
candidate who thinks he can mimic an idiot (Bush) and laugh his way into
the White House.

Sonali Kolhatkar is the host and co-producer of Uprising, on KPFK 90.7
fm, Pacifica Radio (www.uprisingradio.org
). She is also the co-Director of the
Afghan Women’s Mission, a US-based non-profit working in solidarity with
Afghan women (www.afghanwomensmission.org
).

2.

Yes, true. Largely true.
Although I have a few misgivings and objections.

While certainly the "war" "on terror" is a dangerous idiocy, I agree with sen. Kerry and a lot of other people that
terrorism IS a danger to democratic societies
liberal democracies should fight terrorism as best as they can (which of course is different from invading Iraq, but I would not object to a serious attempt at hunting down Bin Laden and some of his Saudi millionaire friends; I am all for equal rights for Palestinians to have their own state, just as Isreal, but I think that there IS, after all, a difference between an elected premier like Sharon and a Hamas terrorist; yes, and I DO think there is a "clash" between democracy, human rights, rule of law - and fundamentalism and terrorism; and YES, terrorists are my enemies as well, and I don't like to underestimate their dangerousness just for the sake of "peace" at all costs). Of course, we should fight terrorism politically, also by bringing more justice to the world, by removing the roots of frustration and hate that lead to terrorism. But in the end, as long as there are terrorists, you got to stop them soemhow, even by "police" violence.
"soft power" is not completely out of the question (cf. Ignatieff, "imperialism light" - he has some points there that we should at least be willing to discuss frankly)
I am a European, so I am not involved in US politics - but here in Europe, "Anybody but Dubya" is a very popular issue, and to us, sen. Kerry appears not only more intelligent (which hardly is difficult when compared to the Bushies), but truly politically more agreeable in that he criticises unilateralism, is in favour of ionternational politics being based on the rule of law (i.e. the UN and Security Council's mandates) etc.

His economic policies seem more sound as well (his stand on budget deficits, for instance - there IS something like economic sustainability as well).

So Europeans could very well understand a critical attitude towards Kerry, and any attempt to get a few planks of his plattform nailed down to get a firm commitment to issues raised by the anti-war movement - but we would not understand a hostile attitude towards the only one that can spare us (i.e. the world) four more dangerous years of Bush, Rumsfeld, Cheney and the whole bunch of idiots or corrupt Halliburton lobbyists.

I am certainly not trying to tell Americans how to handle their affairs. I am just trying to express my feelings to American friends.

Sincerely,

"Looking at the US from Europe, Reichs analysis seams correct. Most democracies have three to four centers of political gravities (parties) with distinct programs and followers and over time changing coalitions. This plus apolitical districting helps.
To get at least a second political center of gravity the US needs a movement to start left of the democrats - antiwar, anti big business, social democratic...

Posted by Bernhard "

Absolutely brilliant. Let's urge Howard Dean to follow this brilliant advice.

Adrian

Isn't it obvious that the increasing size and wealth of the middle class along with the reduction of the bottom classes have doomed the Democrat redistributive strategy?

It's the middle class that hates taxes, not the rich or poor.

Adrian

"Isn't it obvious that the increasing size and wealth of the middle class along with the reduction of the bottom classes have doomed the Democrat redistributive strategy?"

By all measures income distribution has grown much more unequal since the 1970's. No one argues that it hasn't. Sinced the income tax is progressive, although only mildly so (overall the U.S. tax system is actually regressive), this has meant a growing share of taxes paid by those whose incomes are growing. I would add that most tax redistribution occurs to the middle class and this "redistribution" was largely Democratic in origen. (Think about heavily subsidized public higher educationn, Social Security, and Medicare). Why Reich doesn't consider this, and further, goes on about "dedicated funding sources" I don't know. It is even at odds with what he has said about this in the past.

Krugman points to this growing inequality as the origen of the increasingly bitter nature of politics in the United States. One only have to look at the posts here to pick out how bitter this is. So why does Reich leave this out?
Of course there are "bold" plans, including prescription drug plans. If one wants to consider this why hasn't this growing inequality spawned more radical movements (left) movements? Lower middle class income has been largely stagnent for twenty years and they make up a substantial portion of the populaztion.

The biggest losses for Democrats since 1980 have not been among suburban voters but among America's giant middle and working classes - especially white workers without four-year college degrees, once part of the old Democratic base. These are the same people who have lost the most economic ground over the last quarter-century.

The only truth in this piece. What is omitted is that the party screwed these people starting with the Reagan tax cuts going forward. The biggest fraud was trickie dick gep********, who lead the income tax cuts/increases in FICA taxes in RR's first term that just killed the lower and middle class.

Brad, if you there, please explain to the class that a payroll tax is not a tax on income it is a tax on jobs.

My 2 cents is that no demo will be elected president and no demo congress until the party proposes elimination of FICA taxes and replacement with VAT and also, the elmination of tax deductions for health care.

The true W Bush.

PRESIDENT PRAYS IN PRIME TIME WITH RADICAL RIGHT: Tonight, "for the first-time in prime-time viewing hours," Christian cable and satellite TV outlets nationwide will broadcast the president's participation in a National Day of Prayer ceremony with evangelical Christian leaders at the White House. The event, which has come increasingly under the control of the religious right since the 1980s, and is now "headed by two prominent evangelical women: Vonette Bright, widow of Campus Crusade for Christ founder Bill Bright, and Shirley Dobson, wife of Focus on the Family founder James C. Dobson," is raising concern for some civil liberties groups and religious minorities. Though the event's organizers deny it amounts to a political endorsement, National Day of Prayer spokesman Mark Fried characterized things this way: "We're in an election year, and we believe God cares who's in those positions of authority."

What are now considered mainstream ideas like a 40 h work week started off as wild radical ideas from the far left. I think this is what Bernard means by a party that is to the left of the Dems.

I agree. We need a soak the rich party that rapidly gains in strength to put the fear back in the leisure set and get them to negotiate a deal with the Democrats. Part of the support for FDR social programs on the right was fear of a socialist or communist takeover. The GOP is no longer afraid to engage in class warfare.

From the point of view of Republicans, I think Michael Barone's "Hard America, Soft America" describes what's going on in the heads of Republicans, and how they see themselves as on the side of the angels. Put simply: the inefficiency and customer frustration at the DMV makes regular people distrust any politician who suggests more government as the answer.

Harold McClure:

"Reagan preached pro-growth and then proceeded to wreck national savings. Yes, he claimed he wanted to pay for his tax cuts with reductions in spending but never seemed to get around to it. Bush43 makes the same claims as he goes about increasing spending on all sorts of things."

Reagan *tried* to control spending, but Congress was unwilling. As for Dubya, I suspect that he woudl be willing to institute actual cuts if he thought he could get away with it. Having a majority in both houses isn't the same as *controlling* them - the Dems can still block stuff (as Miguel Estrada can testify). And the Spectral Republicans (aka RINOS) prevent any party unity on fiscal issues. I'd suggest that Arlen and the gang read Henry Hazlitt's _Economics in One Lesson_ and Milton Friedman's _Free To Chose_.

Holden:

"That's just silly. There is no coherent ideology that unites blue-collar people and big business."

What about free markets? The stuff that makes large and small businesses healthy ensures that they can continue to generate employment.

"Big Business" rhetoric tends to focus on corporate welfare and criminal and noncriminal managemet misdeeds. But these are not products of free markets. The first is a government problem - the State is far to willing to give businesses money. One day some sports franchisee is demanding taxpayer funds for a stadium, the next day Enron wants $1 billion for a business startup in Dabhol, India. This must end.

A WorldNetDaily article "The condottieri of capitalism" addresses part of the second problem:

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=32520

"Much has been written about the failure of capitalism with regard to the chicanery practiced by the executive officers of companies like Enron, Worldcom and Tyco. But it is not the capitalists who were guilty of misdeeds in any of these situations – for in a free market system, it is not the executives who are the capitalists, it is the shareholders.

"Management is not ownership. While there is occasionally some overlap between the two, the average CEO holds only a very small percentage of a company's total shares and those only because they have been given to him by the ownership. But America's capitalists have been imprudent to place their trust in a group of mercenaries with no more loyalty to their shareholding employers than had Francesco Sforza to the Visconti of Milan."

Many corporations exhibit ownership's failure to keep management accountable. Fixing this problem requires a combination of tying pay to performance and crafting rules so that accounting sleight-of-hand can't mask true performance.

The issue of corporate crime is much the same, except that government in addition to the firm has a grievance against the crooks. Once again, accountability is the key. Also, government regulations should not be so Byzantine that honest mistakes can't be mistaken for fraud. I've heard mention about OSHA levying fines on companies because of honest mistakes in paperwork. That is just plain wrong. And somehow government should provide disincentive to legalistic overzealousness on the part of its agents.

Alan K. Henderson wrote, "Reagan *tried* to control spending, but Congress was unwilling."

Evidence?

"As for Dubya, I suspect that he woudl be willing to institute actual cuts if he thought he could get away with it."

Doesn't appear in his own budget. It's hard to control spending when discretionary spending is 50% military and military spending is up. (Don't talk about controlling mandatory spending, at least not Social Security, because for now SS is running a surplus.)

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