DMV Liberalism

I want to believe in pendulums. Obviously, political tides do change. I’m just not entirely sure how, precisely, they swing or whether the swings can be considered regular, back and forth to the same place, in the way a pendulum implies. The history of political tides might look more like a sailboat tacking in a certain direction; you hope that the arc of history actually does bend toward justice. But who knows?

A year ago, it seemed we had reached the end of the pendulum swing to the right that had begun in 1980. The public seemed open to government activism–at the very least, open to the idea that governance was necessary. If you believe, as Ronald Reagan said in his 1981 inaugural address, that “government is not the solution to our problems,” you tend not to pay much attention to governing, and sooner or later you wind up with the head of the International Arabian Horse Association running FEMA. George W. Bush seemed the ultimate bankruptcy of a movement that was never very far-sighted to begin with (indeed, it was militantly short-sighted), a philosophy plausible only to times of peace and prosperity, and thumpingly callous even then.

I would like to believe that 2008 was a political hinge-point, as 1932 and 1980 were. But I wanted to believe that in 1992, and I’m sure Republicans wanted to think Dwight Eisenhower’s election in 1952 was a sea change, and Democrats in 1976, and so forth. If there’s any solace in the iffiness of the moment, it’s that 1933 or 1981–truly the beginning of new political eras–probably didn’t seem so certain, either. Franklin Roosevelt came to office touting budgetary conservatism–he even cut payments to World War I veterans–and made a wary transition to the Keynesian welfare statism during his first year in office; the fate and nature of the New Deal was very much uncertain in early 1934. Ronald Reagan’s tax cuts didn’t seem to put much of a dent in Paul Volcker’s recession in 1981–indeed, Reagan would have to raise taxes dramatically in 1982. (The Gipper’s 1981 poll numbers look very much like Barack Obama’s in 2009, hovering around 50 percent–he was saved by an economy that revived just in time for his reelection, as Obama may be.)

The point is, there’s no such thing as a clean break when it comes to history. Pendulum swings, if they exist, have ragged edges. The right may be philosophically exhausted these days, but it has considerable vestigial influence over the media and the public. The politics of the past 30 years was very different from the politics that came before. It was far more intimate and intense. It was defined by the exploitation of new technologies: more sophisticated use of polls, focus groups and direct mail; cable news networks and talk radio, and, of course, the Internet. All these made the prevailing political philosophy–in this case, Reaganite conservatism–more influential in the lives of average citizens than ever before; after all, it was a direct, surgical response to their prejudices as measured by political consultants. It will take some time, and some clear-headed, strategic liberal governance to change existing assumptions and prejudices, if such a turn is possible absent a disaster even more dramatic than last year’s economic collapse.

After 30 years of non-stop cynicism about government action, it’s going to take hard proof, over time, for people to begin to believe that government can help make them more secure and prosperous. This is especially true in a mature democracy, with rutted special interests, on both sides, bending every significant legislative action to their needs. After 30 years of militaristic jingoism passing for foreign policy (and after 100 years, since Theodore Roosevelt, of Caucasian neo-colonial assumptions), the idea of diplomacy and multilateral cooperation seems soft and turgid and passive. One hopes, perhaps in vain, for a few clear-cut diplomatic victories.

The sad reality is that preferred conservative courses of action–tax cuts, racing to Baghdad in three weeks–may be short-sighted and ultimately counterproductive, but they do give the appearance of effective action more than, say, a universal health-care plan that won’t take effect until 2014 (and even then won’t have much of an impact on most people) or attention to an abstract climate crisis, or the containment and deterrence of Iran. This is a structural defect of liberalism in a world where infotainment passes for information: It’s too complicated, and it takes too long.

And yet we know that complicated long-term adjustments are going to be needed in both domestic and foreign affairs if the country is going to continue to prosper, and perhaps even survive. I believe that the public might, over time, be convinced of that, too–but it must be done carefully; gradually, in most cases. This means incremental change, certainly at first, until trust is built. It also means that liberals are going to have to reform themselves–and free themselves of some of the defensiveness and bad assumptions that became embedded in their psyche over the past 30 years.

There are three essential adjustments that liberalism needs to make if progressives hope to launch a tide as influential as Reagan conservatism. It has to focus on governing effectively, it has to embrace the future rather than the past (even when its interest groups represent the status quo), and it has to regain public support for the notion of true progressivity.

• 1
• 2
• 3

Post a Comment

Name

Email

Comments (you may use HTML tags for style)

Verification

Note: Several minutes will pass while the system is processing and posting your comment. Do not resubmit during this time or your comment will post multiple times.