Over at Asymmetrical Information there’s an interesting piece on the paucity of Big Ideas coming from the left these days:
Conservatives have a few things that pretty much all of them can agree on: the lower taxes are, the better; government programmes and regulations often create more problems than they solve; keep your damn hands off our guns. Pretty much everyone from the Libertarians to James Dobson and Co. can get behind this platform, and sell it to the American public. You can even add “The US military should be able to kick the [expletive deleted] of anyone who threatens us in any way” and keep all but the most hard-core Libertarians. I’m sure there are a couple of other things you could throw in, and still get a platform that is reasonably large, coherent, and agreeable to not only pretty much the entire conservative movement, but a fair number of moderates besides. There are lots–LOTS–of things that the conservatives disagree on, from gay marriage to flag burning. But there are enough that the conservative movement can craft a mission statement and sell it to America.
What’s the liberal Big Idea? Raise taxes? I’d say pretty much all the liberals I know are for that . . . but raising taxes, even “raising taxes on the rich”, is not an ends, but a means, unless you’re the kind of emotional toddler who wants to take other people’s things away just because you can’t have them. And the left (into which I throw moderate Democrats, just as I’ll throw moderate Republicans on the right) does not agree what it wants to do with the taxes it raises. The DLC types (and swing voters) want to close the budget deficit in a (IMHO futile) attempt to build the Clinton legacy. The left-liberals want a big government health care programme, and other sorts of Great Society style social programmes. The far left wants . . . ohhh, a lot of things, but they’re not going to get any of them, so that hardly seems relevant.
She hits on a very important point here. Conservatives disagree on a whole host of issues, but agree on general principles: government should be small, national defense is important, and taxes should be low. You can write it on a notecard. Granted, that is a dramatic oversimplification, and conservatives don’t travel in ideological lockstep like some would claim, but there’s ane element of truth here.
The left doesn’t have big ideas because they’ve become Balkanized by their own form of identity politics. Gays and auto workers have very little in common. African-Americans and Hispanics are as socially conservative as the “theocratic” right. All these groups are united by the thin promise of some government largesse down the road, which is why the closest thing that the Democrats have to a coherent ideology is the belief in bigger and more expansive government.
The problem with that ideology is that the Democrats are dramatically out of step with the movement of society. Look at the changes in society over the past few decades. It used to be that you went to a travel agency to plan a vacation – it was annoying and costly to do it yourself. Now, everyone from Expedia to Travelocity makes it easy for individuals to book flights, hotels, and cars in a few minutes and right from their houses. It used to be that people had to either struggle through complicated tax forms or pay an accountant to do their taxes for them. Now, you can buy a piece of software that can guide you through your taxes in an evening and have your return automatically credited to your bank account. In every aspect of society, things are moving towards the empowerment of the individual over the power of groups.
For all the talk of a “progressive” movement, the “progressives” seem to be a throwback to an older era. As society moves towards further rights for individuals, identity politics are based on group identity over individualism. “Progressive” economics are based on shifting the balance of economic power towards the states – the argument they make is that we should raise taxes to pay for social programs. Fair enough, except that social programs tend not to work, and the left is also trying to wear the mantle of the deficit hawk – those aren’t compatible positions.
One of the reasons for the current political realignment in America is that the policies of the left are contrary to the direction of society. Because of that shift, the left has become increasingly shrill. For all the talk about how Bush is ratcheting up fear, every election cycle we get the same message that Republicans will put Grandma on the street and make Little Timmy eat expired cat food for school lunch. The way in which both John Roberts and Sam Alito were demonized is part and parcel of the left’s M.O. these days – and the way in which no one outside donors to groups like People for the American Way cared is also part and parcel of how effective those attacks have become. The problem with those scare tactics is that they don’t do anything to appeal to an audience who don’t already think that Dick Cheney enjoys a tall glass of puréed puppy in the morning.
Ironically enough, it’s Bush that appears to be illustrating the most why Big Government doesn’t work. If I were a believer in some kind of political “rope-a-dope” in the White House to make the Democrats embrace smaller government I’d say that the plan is working brilliantly. However, I don’t believe that and think that Bush’s “compassionate conservativism” is really just another term for “being a budgetary squish” and that it’s an experiment doomed to failure. It has forced the issue of fiscal sanity towards the forefront of our political culture, but the fact is that as long as the government can run up masses of debt the idea that we can spend our way into smaller government just doesn’t work.
The Bush Administration may be doing a wonderful job of pissing away the GOP’s narrow electoral advantages in advance of the midterms, but in the long run it’s the left that has the most to worry. Elections aren’t won by wonkish policy proposals (Kerry, Gore in 2000) or hatred of the Other Guy (Dean, Gore today). They’re won be an ideology that can reach across party lines and capture the vital center. The left doesn’t have one, and their ideological instincts cut against the grain of American society today. As one commenter wryly notes: “A number of people look at the government and don’t see FDR trying to pull the U.S. out of Depression, they see Patty and Selma at the DMV.” Empowering the state over the individual just doesn’t work in an age when individuals are more empowered than ever before. So long as “progressivism” stands in opposition to individual liberty, it will never be a dominant force in American politics.
My main problem with the GOP is that they pay lip service to two of the three principles you’ve listed above- small government and lower taxes- and as for the third, the jury is still out.
Unfortunately, the only Democrat who has actually proven that he’d do a better job on those matters isn’t eligible for re-election, and no one in his party seems to want to touch his legacy with a ten-foot pole.
Democracy in America: the ability to pick between a kleptocrat or a crypto-socialist.
“Gays and auto workers have very little in common.”
Except for, of course, those auto workers whose sexual preference is homosexual. Geez, gays and auto workers have as much in common as brunettes and teachers. Being gay is about whom you go to bed, being a car worker is about where you work. Discounting the possibility of sleeping at work, those two groups as categories have no impact on each other, whatsoever.
J.
“Conservatives disagree on a whole host of issues, but agree on general principles: government should be small,”
Conservatives used to agree on that. With the rising tide of evangelicalism, the Republican party base is beginning to equate conservatism with antiquated, discriminatory “moral values”….and moral values alone. Millions of self-defined conservatives have zero interest in smaller government and haven’t a clue how badly their lives would be impaired if the party’s Chamber of Commerce wing go their way on everything.
“African-Americans and Hispanics are as socially conservative as the “theocratic†right.”
Bullshit. Back that strawman up with statistics.
“In every aspect of society, things are moving towards the empowerment of the individual over the power of groups.”
Which is great for the fast-dwindling number of people with the means to follow through with this pseudo-empowerment of the individual. More choices for the few and no choices for the many is a net negative….which goes a long way to explain why two-thirds of Americans believe the economy is on the wrong track, much to the frustration of gated-community dwellers seeing nothing but bounty in their bubble.
“every election cycle we get the same message that Republicans will put Grandma on the street and make Little Timmy eat expired cat food for school lunch.”
Cite a single elected Democrat who have relayed this message and you might be able to avoid looking like a complete idiot.
I was tracking you until you brought up Expedia and tax software as examples of empowerment of the ordinary person. Those are simply conveniences, and have nothing to do with influence over the basic policies that shape our lives. Between a royal presidency and an imperial judiciary, the right to vote for candidates whose differences amount to competing slogans becomes ever more irrelevant.
We have a president who many people voted for imagining that they were putting a conservative in office. He has never vetoed a spending bill and does everything he can to sabotage any effort to enforce the country’s borders; he has spent a couple of thousand lives on a “war on terror” while insisting that the fount of terrorism, the politico-religious system of Islam, is “a religion of peace.” Meanwhile, when voters pass any state proposition that their worships the federal court judges disagree with, they immediately scupper it by declaring it unconstitutional.
The fact that most conservatives agree on a few principles, and that they represent a numerical majority, means nothing in a sham democracy where both major parties and the federal judiciary go their own sweet way and the tame mainstream media cheer them on as long as their own liberal agenda benefits.
Now, while Rick has some good points, this stuck out:
“I was tracking you until you brought up Expedia and tax software as examples of empowerment of the ordinary person. Those are simply conveniences, and have nothing to do with influence over the basic policies that shape our lives.”
No, they have quite a bit to do with the policies that shape our lives in that they’re what the GOP has been promising- and failing to deliver.
We’ve had six years of solid Republican control, six years of promises of an “ownership society”. Where is this “ownership society”? Where are our individual social security accounts? Where are our school vouchers? Medicare and Medicaid reform? Deregulations to help small businessmen and entrepreneurs? A balanced budget?
Oh yeah. Nowhere.
Just like the Federal Marriage Amendment, these were false promises used to get elected. The real business of the Bush Administration and the GOP congress is looting the treasury and distracting the people and the media with a prolonged Asian war.
And the Democratic party is too &@*#^ stupid to do ANYTHING with this.
At least Clinton could actually hold the GOP to some of their promises, such as Welfare Reform, capital gains tax cuts and fiscal discipline. But what do I hear every time Clinton comes up in a conversation with a left-liberal? Usually a rant about how that bastard sold out to the Republican party. Gimme a break.
(Sorry for the rant, but I’m a little ticked off. If you can’t tell.)
Nicq,
I agree with you that W is a faux conservative, and that country club Republicans have nothing to offer except what benefits their “I’ve Got Mine” Society.
Why do I keep thinking of the episode of The Simpsons with the gay steel mill workers?
OK, how about gay rights activists instead. Union members tend to be conservative on social issues, although still strongly Democratic in voting habits.
http://pewforum.org/docs/index.php?DocID=26
“The survey underscores an important and often overlooked fact of American politics: African-Americans and white evangelical Christians are remarkably similar in their views about the role of religion in politics, yet they come to sharply different partisan conclusions. Both groups think the country would be better off if religion were more influential, both defend the role of religious leaders as political spokesmen, and both share similar views on important social issues, such as assisted suicide and gay marriage. Yet their attitudes toward President Bush and partisan politics are almost diametrically opposed. White evangelicals lean strongly toward Bush and the Republicans, and African-Americans lean strongly against both the president and his party. These two groups  both of them highly engaged and religious  stand as important countervailing forces in American public life.”
Except that doesn’t have anything to do with the point. The large-scale, long-term societal trends do not point towards more government control over individual choices – quite the opposite in fact. Sooner or later the explosive growth in government will hit the ongoing trend of increased personal autonomy in society and government will lose.
http://www.educationnext.org/20053/10.html
“The food lobbying groups and congressional Democrats quickly charged the Republicans with stealing food from children again. One senior Democrat, James Clyburn of South Carolina, took to the podium in the House of Representatives to excoriate the Republicans for their “mean-spirited attack [and] hatchet job being waged against child nutrition programs.†And the New York Times joined in with an editorial, “The Return of Ketchup,†calling the child nutrition proposal “gratuitously mean,†certain to “imperil mothers, babies and hungry school-age children.—
That is why Bush’s approval figures are in the toilet. I support the Presidents strongly on the war. I don’t like his domestic policies. Many conservatives feel the same way.
Sadly, you’re right. Divided government under Clinton did a lot for the economy, mainly because Clinton (especially after 1996) governed like a Republican. He cut taxes, reformed welfare, and helped found the WTO.
I don’t think they were false promises. I think they were promises that Bush intended to keep, but simply didn’t have the political will to back them up. Bush may have a spine of steel abroad, but he’s always been a squish at home.
If the Democrats weren’t so hopelessly clueless, they’d be able to wipe the floor with the GOP. Sadly for them, (and for the country) they are clueless, and the GOP is at least starting to wake up and realize that they’re doing a great job of pissing off their base.
Bush is hardly the arch-conservative he’s made out to be, but the fact that the Democrats stink more is a testament to their weakness.