Make the case, and trust the public
There is an interesting topic raised in Krugman's latest column, responding to the Eric Cantor primary defeat: "movement" conservatives. Krugman defines this as the "fix" by which the 1 percent "buys" the conservative base by accepting their priority on social conservatism in order to pursue their objectives of reduced taxes and smaller government. Krugman gives credit to Thomas Frank, whose book "What's the Matter with Kansas?" (titled lifted from the essay that brought William Allen White to the public eye) first put this thesis on the map.
I expect Krugman would be willing to admit there is much oversimplification in this analysis, but as a starting point it clearly captures an important truth. This alliance has existed almost from the time Nixon forged the "Southern Strategy" to take advantage of the wedge issue of busing for school integration, and when fundamentalists emerged from their religious near isolation as Roe v Wade gave them a handle at about the time the end of segregation took away the resistance by the Southern clergy to engaging public issues. However, the "anti-government" movement has never been monolithic, or spoken with one voice, and tracing its evolution (in broad strokes) gives some idea of the complexity at work.
First, I would note that the movement began with real intellectual chops. Milton Friedman, in particular, not only said things no one else dared to say, but unlike the disconnected sound bites that emerged from early neo-con thought, his theme was considered, had deep roots, and held together as a generality even when individual applications sounded crazy. That made it persuasive to a broad swath of the intelligentsia. Some supporting material such as Buchanan and Tullock's "government failure" analysis and the Law and Economics movement similarly made valid points with the contrarian appeal of flying in the face of platitudinous bilge which dominated reporting on the left.
Second, up until the Right faced the task of actually legislating in 1994 (the Reagan Administration was far from a triumph, and Bush I had competence without crowd appeal, the opposite of the Reagan combo), they still put a premium on effectiveness rather than ideological litmus tests. It is hard to remember that in 2000 when George Bush slipped into office with a theme of "compassionate conservatism" they still looked something less than legitimate, because "big ideas" like privatizing Social Security (and repealing Glass-Steagall and cutting capital gains taxes) smelled suspiciously like cordite.
So how did we get from there to the Tea Party?
Gail Collins' column on Cantor gives a strong clue. She notes that Cantor's upset may have been as simple as his attack on his opponent for being a "liberal college professor", relying on the notion that college professors would seem worse to conservative voters than professional politicians. Movement conservatism has long had anti-intellectualism deeply embedded, and the conservative reaction to intellectual elites may have fooled some exploiters working for the 1 percent into thinking that the faultline between liberals and conservatives could be painted successfully as a split between arrogant intellectuals bent on social engineering, on one side, and solid citizens relying on common sense, on the other. Krugman falls into the liberal version of that oversimplification himself (and some posts of mine may have sounded similar), portraying anti-intellectualism as a fig leaf for racism and religious zeal.
There is certainly an element of racisim in the Tea Party and the world of Talk Radio and Fox News ranters that have puffed up the wounded egos of the provincial voters for decades, undoubtedly manipulating them as cynically as a televangelist. But watch out when anyone reduces a strong movement to such stark antagonism. Their anti-intellectualism is part of an anti-elitism and anti-cosmopolitanism that is not owned by plutocrats wielding attack ads.
The truth of the "counterculture of ignorance" shibboleths, such as Intelligent Design and school prayer, is that they stand for a kind of solidity of values in traditional society that has a genuine and powerful appeal, not through cynicism but exactly the opposite, through knowing what life really takes. David Brooks taps into this regularly by promoting attention to the values of community that sometimes seem under assault by an unrestrained Federal Government and the infamous "activist courts". When we liberals say, "It takes a village" all too often we mean "it takes a court order."
We have stood by while defense of a kind of absolutistic freedom of speech has turned into social chaos, when a suggestion of standards is jeered as censorship. The attack on Sistah Souljah was portrayed as a success for distancing Clinton from the loony left of interest group trough-feeding, and no doubt it did that, but it also distanced him from the "anything goes" ideology that makes the ACLU set of issues dominate the social agenda on the left. The Clintons "get" that social chaos is a real phenomenon, observable in high schools but also on into the 20s of kids who have no sense that they know how gender relations is supposed to work in the age of female empowerment.
If it sounds like I am arguing that we should take the values of social conservatives seriously, then I am making my point. But not because I am a social conservative. I think what "movement liberals" refuse to see is that the arrogance of the thin slice of leftist intellectuals mirrors the arrogance of the Koch Brothers and Mitt Romneys. We did think we could do social engineering, and we still do. But somewhere along the line we lost the belief that we could persuade the public rather than just seizing control with our superior intellectual credentials as justification.
Liberals quite literally hold social conservatives in contempt. They do not believe it is possible to persuade them, being convinced that they have discerned the true nature of the trap these sorry people are caught in, and how nothing short of a total reform of society will make them see the light. We have lost the belief that our solutions can be demonstrated and their success will be persuasive, rather than having to be imposed.
If we pay attention to the sea change in views of gay marriage, we will see quite a different dynamic at work. Social conservatives want their values respected. When they see that happening, they are willing to listen, and can, by and large, be persuaded by simple humanity. When instead they feel top-down imposition, the pushback is likely to be visceral.
Had the economy not melted down in 2008, Obama would have had a very different career. He might not have been elected, but I think he would have anyway, if only because of socially conservative African-American voters in the swing states of Ohio and Florida. He probably would not have brought in the Affordable Care Act, which would have been too bad, but his persuasive side would have gone on display instead. Frankly, I think Obama understands the middle of the road voter as well as the Clintons do. Most importantly he is able to articulate vision, including a vision of healing society that resonates very well with solid middle Americans.
It is not too late for the Democrats to put that message together for 2014. Instead of coming across as those who know better, they can be the party of 1996 that believes both public and private sectors have their strengths and it is possible to put the two together properly. Perhaps because he is black, Obama gets that values are not anti-intellectual. He believes rhetoric matters because he has seen great changes - he is, after all, America's first president of color. Only Obama has really shown that we can make the case and trust the public, if we are willing to be patient. The party needs to follow its leader.
I expect Krugman would be willing to admit there is much oversimplification in this analysis, but as a starting point it clearly captures an important truth. This alliance has existed almost from the time Nixon forged the "Southern Strategy" to take advantage of the wedge issue of busing for school integration, and when fundamentalists emerged from their religious near isolation as Roe v Wade gave them a handle at about the time the end of segregation took away the resistance by the Southern clergy to engaging public issues. However, the "anti-government" movement has never been monolithic, or spoken with one voice, and tracing its evolution (in broad strokes) gives some idea of the complexity at work.
First, I would note that the movement began with real intellectual chops. Milton Friedman, in particular, not only said things no one else dared to say, but unlike the disconnected sound bites that emerged from early neo-con thought, his theme was considered, had deep roots, and held together as a generality even when individual applications sounded crazy. That made it persuasive to a broad swath of the intelligentsia. Some supporting material such as Buchanan and Tullock's "government failure" analysis and the Law and Economics movement similarly made valid points with the contrarian appeal of flying in the face of platitudinous bilge which dominated reporting on the left.
Second, up until the Right faced the task of actually legislating in 1994 (the Reagan Administration was far from a triumph, and Bush I had competence without crowd appeal, the opposite of the Reagan combo), they still put a premium on effectiveness rather than ideological litmus tests. It is hard to remember that in 2000 when George Bush slipped into office with a theme of "compassionate conservatism" they still looked something less than legitimate, because "big ideas" like privatizing Social Security (and repealing Glass-Steagall and cutting capital gains taxes) smelled suspiciously like cordite.
So how did we get from there to the Tea Party?
Gail Collins' column on Cantor gives a strong clue. She notes that Cantor's upset may have been as simple as his attack on his opponent for being a "liberal college professor", relying on the notion that college professors would seem worse to conservative voters than professional politicians. Movement conservatism has long had anti-intellectualism deeply embedded, and the conservative reaction to intellectual elites may have fooled some exploiters working for the 1 percent into thinking that the faultline between liberals and conservatives could be painted successfully as a split between arrogant intellectuals bent on social engineering, on one side, and solid citizens relying on common sense, on the other. Krugman falls into the liberal version of that oversimplification himself (and some posts of mine may have sounded similar), portraying anti-intellectualism as a fig leaf for racism and religious zeal.
There is certainly an element of racisim in the Tea Party and the world of Talk Radio and Fox News ranters that have puffed up the wounded egos of the provincial voters for decades, undoubtedly manipulating them as cynically as a televangelist. But watch out when anyone reduces a strong movement to such stark antagonism. Their anti-intellectualism is part of an anti-elitism and anti-cosmopolitanism that is not owned by plutocrats wielding attack ads.
The truth of the "counterculture of ignorance" shibboleths, such as Intelligent Design and school prayer, is that they stand for a kind of solidity of values in traditional society that has a genuine and powerful appeal, not through cynicism but exactly the opposite, through knowing what life really takes. David Brooks taps into this regularly by promoting attention to the values of community that sometimes seem under assault by an unrestrained Federal Government and the infamous "activist courts". When we liberals say, "It takes a village" all too often we mean "it takes a court order."
We have stood by while defense of a kind of absolutistic freedom of speech has turned into social chaos, when a suggestion of standards is jeered as censorship. The attack on Sistah Souljah was portrayed as a success for distancing Clinton from the loony left of interest group trough-feeding, and no doubt it did that, but it also distanced him from the "anything goes" ideology that makes the ACLU set of issues dominate the social agenda on the left. The Clintons "get" that social chaos is a real phenomenon, observable in high schools but also on into the 20s of kids who have no sense that they know how gender relations is supposed to work in the age of female empowerment.
If it sounds like I am arguing that we should take the values of social conservatives seriously, then I am making my point. But not because I am a social conservative. I think what "movement liberals" refuse to see is that the arrogance of the thin slice of leftist intellectuals mirrors the arrogance of the Koch Brothers and Mitt Romneys. We did think we could do social engineering, and we still do. But somewhere along the line we lost the belief that we could persuade the public rather than just seizing control with our superior intellectual credentials as justification.
Liberals quite literally hold social conservatives in contempt. They do not believe it is possible to persuade them, being convinced that they have discerned the true nature of the trap these sorry people are caught in, and how nothing short of a total reform of society will make them see the light. We have lost the belief that our solutions can be demonstrated and their success will be persuasive, rather than having to be imposed.
If we pay attention to the sea change in views of gay marriage, we will see quite a different dynamic at work. Social conservatives want their values respected. When they see that happening, they are willing to listen, and can, by and large, be persuaded by simple humanity. When instead they feel top-down imposition, the pushback is likely to be visceral.
Had the economy not melted down in 2008, Obama would have had a very different career. He might not have been elected, but I think he would have anyway, if only because of socially conservative African-American voters in the swing states of Ohio and Florida. He probably would not have brought in the Affordable Care Act, which would have been too bad, but his persuasive side would have gone on display instead. Frankly, I think Obama understands the middle of the road voter as well as the Clintons do. Most importantly he is able to articulate vision, including a vision of healing society that resonates very well with solid middle Americans.
It is not too late for the Democrats to put that message together for 2014. Instead of coming across as those who know better, they can be the party of 1996 that believes both public and private sectors have their strengths and it is possible to put the two together properly. Perhaps because he is black, Obama gets that values are not anti-intellectual. He believes rhetoric matters because he has seen great changes - he is, after all, America's first president of color. Only Obama has really shown that we can make the case and trust the public, if we are willing to be patient. The party needs to follow its leader.
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