What Winning Looks Like

Bernie Sanders won’t be the Democratic nominee. But he’s winning something more important.

Ed Brayton has the best–and most succinct–analysis of the challenge faced by Bernie Democrats. Over at Dispatches from the Culture Wars, he writes:  

It’s time for Sanders fans — and again, I’m one of them — to shift their focus from winning the presidency to building a real movement to accomplish his primary goal, which is to get the influence of big money out of our political process as much as possible. So what does that entail?

First, it means supporting Hillary Clinton in the general election. What is it that is currently preventing us from passing any meaningful legislation to limit the influence of big money? The Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling. If the Republicans win, any hope of adding a liberal justice to the Supreme Court that could help overturn that ruling dies for at least the next generation, maybe more. On the other hand, a Democratic president gets to replace Scalia and there would then be a liberal majority on the court and overturning that ruling becomes entirely plausible. Bernie voters who refuse to vote for Clinton, even if they have to hold their nose to do it, will be cutting off their nose to spite their face and dramatically reducing the chances of achieving Bernie’s top policy priority.

Second, it means building up an organization that can recruit, train and fund candidates who share Bernie’s vision of not only reducing the influence of big money, but also favors stronger regulation of big business — the very thing that the outsized influence of their money seeks to prevent. Overturning Citizens United is just the first step. The second step has to be electing people to Congress who will vote for serious campaign finance reform, not the weak sauce that was McCain-Feingold. This requires money, organization, and professionals who know how to run campaigns and how tothink strategically in politics.

You can rage all you want about how unfair the system is, but that rage doesn’t actually change anything if you can’t translate it into effective legislative action. So yeah, Bernie is going to lose the Democratic nomination. That doesn’t mean he’s going to lose the larger battle. Winning that battle is up to his supporters and those who share his vision, but if all you’re going to do is kick and scream and cry about dark conspiracies, you won’t achieve a damn thing. So if you want Bernie to win something more important than the White House, get your heads out of the clouds and get to work.

Bottom line: Sanders faces a challenge. He cannot win the Democratic nomination. Will he do a reprise of the disastrous Nader “If not me, no-one” ego trip–a position that gave the U.S. eight years of George W. Bush and a vastly more dangerous world, or will he be willing to spend the time and political capital to lead the Democratic party to a more progressive place?

I think he has signaled his willingness to do the latter, because I think he cares about the issues he has raised more than his own importance. At a campaign rally in Oregon, he said

“We need to plant the flag of progressive politics in every state in this country.”

Echoing Howard Dean from an earlier campaign, Sanders also insisted that the Democratic Party as a whole must forge a 50-state strategy focused on restoring civic vibrancy and fueling meaningful outcomes on the key issues people care about.

“The Democratic Party has to reach a fundamental conclusion: Are we on the side working people or big money interests? Do we stand with the elderly, the children, and the sick and the poor, or do we stand with Wall Street speculators and the drug companies and the insurance companies?”….

Now our job is not just to revitalize the Democratic Party—not only to open the doors to young people and working people—our jobs is to revitalize American democracy.”

If Sanders can set the Democratic party on the road to realizing that goal, he–and the American political system– will be the ultimate winners.

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The Trump Doctrine

So, The Donald won Indiana’s primary, and is positioned to win the GOP nomination. Should he (God forbid!) win in November, he’ll have possession of the nation’s nuclear codes, among other unthinkable things.

So how much does he understand about foreign affairs (other than the sexual kind)?

Fact free and incoherent….That evaluation, from one actual foreign policy expert, was one of the nicer reactions to Trump’s ballyhooed “Presidential” foreign policy speech. The Guardian listed ten glaring contradictions within the speech–some within just a couple of minutes of each other.

At the Brookings Institution, trying for a more measured analysis, Thomas Wright noted that there was nothing new (or very specific) in the speech, but identified five “take-aways”from the speech. Those “take-aways” should terrify anyone who has even the slightest understanding of the world and the nature of our relations with other countries: Trump would simply end current U.S. alliances in Europe and Asia (make them all pay for their own defense); he would pursue an isolationist strategy (“He opposes democracy promotion, multilateralism, security guarantees, and, implicitly, keeping the global commons open for use by all nations”); he would “make a deal” with China and Russia (no details–just an assertion by the bloviating, self-proclaimed “dealmaker”). As Wright noted, the speech was intended for the GOP establishment–not the party’s foreign policy experts; and –surprise!–he views policy in this area, as in all others, as all about The Donald.

Trump spent quite a lot of time talking about how important it is that other leaders respect the American president. He complained about foreign leaders not meeting President Obama when he stepped off Air Force One. He spent a couple of minutes on Obama’s unsuccessful effort to win the Olympics for Chicago. This gave us a window into the temperament of a President Trump—he would read a lot into what others said about him and on his personal rapporteur with other leaders. He would likely to be drawn to men like him.

As I copied and pasted that quote, cold shivers went down my spine…..

At Dispatches from the Culture Wars, Ed Brayton also analyzed the speech, albeit a bit less dispassionately.

But even though it was a pre-written talk that has taken weeks and weeks to prepare, it was little more than a slogan: “America first.” ….

Boy, that’s original. Guess who used it first? Pro-Nazi Charles Lindbergh, who created the America First Committee to defend Hitler’s aggression and criticize Jews who were advocating that America get involved in WW2.

You expected more from a guy who retweets sentiments from Mussolini, and accuses a political rival’s father of complicity in JFK’s assassination?

Why did I come away from this “important” speech with a distinct impression that The Donald couldn’t locate–or spell– most countries with which we have strategic interests if asked to point to them on a map–let alone identify America’s long-term global interests?
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Giving Voice to My Fears….

Andrew Sullivan has a lengthy new article in New York Magazine. It’s terrifying. And it’s hard to dismiss.

For Democrats looking at the polls and anticipating a “wave” election if Trump is the GOP nominee, Sullivan’s article should be required reading–a cautionary tale, and a frighteningly hard-headed analysis of how, yes, it could happen here.

A few paragraphs will give you the general tenor of the article, but I really, really urge you to click through and read the whole thing.

Sullivan’s thesis is that America is ripe for tyranny.

In the wake of his most recent primary triumphs, at a time when [Trump] is perilously close to winning enough delegates to grab the Republican nomination outright, I think we must confront this dread and be clear about what this election has already revealed about the fragility of our way of life and the threat late-stage democracy is beginning to pose to itself…..

He considers, at some length, the function of so-called “elites” in a constitutional democracy, the pluses and minuses of “direct democracy,” and the varying diagnoses of contemporary ills.

The evidence suggests that direct democracy, far from being throttled, is actually intensifying its grip on American politics….

Sullivan’s description of the role played by the media in the age of the Internet is particularly perceptive.

What the 21st century added to this picture, it’s now blindingly obvious, was media democracy — in a truly revolutionary form. If late-stage political democracy has taken two centuries to ripen, the media equivalent took around two decades, swiftly erasing almost any elite moderation or control of our democratic discourse. The process had its origins in partisan talk radio at the end of the past century. The rise of the internet — an event so swift and pervasive its political effect is only now beginning to be understood — further democratized every source of information, dramatically expanded each outlet’s readership, and gave everyone a platform. All the old barriers to entry — the cost of print and paper and distribution — crumbled….

The web’s algorithms all but removed any editorial judgment, and the effect soon had cable news abandoning even the pretense of asking “Is this relevant?” or “Do we really need to cover this live?” in the rush toward ratings bonanzas. In the end, all these categories were reduced to one thing: traffic, measured far more accurately than any other medium had ever done before.

And what mainly fuels this is precisely what the Founders feared about democratic culture: feeling, emotion, and narcissism, rather than reason, empiricism, and public-spiritedness. Online debates become personal, emotional, and irresolvable almost as soon as they begin. Godwin’s Law — it’s only a matter of time before a comments section brings up Hitler — is a reflection of the collapse of the reasoned deliberation the Founders saw as indispensable to a functioning republic.

Yes, occasional rational points still fly back and forth, but there are dramatically fewer elite arbiters to establish which of those points is actually true or valid or relevant. We have lost authoritative sources for even a common set of facts. And without such common empirical ground, the emotional component of politics becomes inflamed and reason retreats even further. The more emotive the candidate, the more supporters he or she will get.

Anyone who cares about America, and especially anyone who dismisses the very real threat posed by a Trump candidacy–the very real possibility that he could win– needs to read the entire essay.

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Strategy and Delusion

This political season just keeps getting weirder and weirder.

As Indiana voters prepare to cast ballots in tomorrow’s primary, we are coming to grips with the fact that there is an unreal reality-TV personality leading the GOP field–a lead largely attributable to the repulsiveness of his nearest competitor. (I mean, when have we ever heard a Presidential candidate described by members of his own party as “Lucifer” and ” a miserable son-of-a-bitch”? When have we ever heard a U.S. Senator explain his  endorsement of that candidate as a choice between a gunshot to the head or poison? Because there might be an antidote to poison…)

Every day brings a new “you’ve got to be kidding me” moment. Last week, it was a story from Talking Points Memo, outlining the Trump campaign’s strategy for going after Bernie Sanders’ supporters.

Are you done laughing hysterically?

There are two ways to analyze the Trump plan. The approach most favorable to the Trump campaign begins with the thesis that Americans are irremediably ignorant. (It isn’t that farfetched; after all, the fact that Trump is winning the GOP nomination is pretty compelling evidence that a significant percentage of the population is missing a few synapses.) Sanders is attracting angry voters, Trump is attracting angry voters, ergo, Sanders’ voters will move to Trump.

If, however, as I believe (and devoutly hope!), Americans really aren’t that far gone, the notion that Bernie’s supporters would even consider Trump is ludicrous.

The rap on Bernie is that he wouldn’t be able to accomplish his campaign’s goals: greater social equity, more government transparency, fairer treatment for marginalized constituencies, a higher minimum wage, free university, more equality….in short, despite the decibels at which he delivers his message, the message itself is a kinder, fairer, gentler world–an aspirational social justice writ large.

The rap on Trump is that he doesn’t have positions on most of these issues (or, apparently, even know some of them exist), but to the extent he does, his goals are exclusionary and bigoted: deport immigrants, reject Muslims, put women back in the kitchen (unless they’re good-looking, in which case they can work–albeit for less pay than men), piss on America’s allies and assume the role of world bully. Trump’s goals–to the extent he can articulate any– are dangerous, mean-spirited, uninformed and frequently unconstitutional, and his rhetoric consists of playground-level insults.

Some of the people supporting Bernie may not like Hillary Clinton. Some of the more rabid among them may even stay home in November–unthinkable as I find that. (I also doubt that Bernie has Ralph Nader’s monumental ego and willingness to screw the country to service it.) But a strategy based on the notion that people rallying for economic justice and fundamental fairness can be convinced to go to the polls and vote for Donald Trump is just further evidence that Trump’s narcissism has overpowered his already tenuous connection to reality.

If there ever was such a connection.

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There’s Another Explanation….

Inside Higher Education has recently joined the chorus of–or at least, provided fodder to– those who equate more education with leftist indoctrination.

Americans with college degrees are to the left of the majority of Americans who lack a college degree. And a new study by the Pew Research Center shows that those who have attended graduate school are even farther to the left than those who have only an undergraduate degree.

File this under “And what else is new?”

The academy has been accused of inculcating “elitist,” liberal, unrealistic attitudes ever since I can remember. The widespread suspicion of people who choose the “life of the mind” over commerce or honest labor is at the heart of contemporary efforts to judge the value of universities by comparing job placement statistics. (It’s okay if you just attend college to acquire skills for the marketplace, but be careful that your job training isn’t subverted by some artsy-fartsy detour into learning for its own sake.)

When you learn more, evidently, it turns you liberal.

To some extent, that’s undoubtedly true. The real problem with today’s facile equation of educated people and political liberalism, however, is that the definition of  terms like conservative and liberal, never very precise, have changed over the years–and rather dramatically, at that.

Today, we dismiss as “liberal” the person who sees issues as complex, who changes her mind about a policy if new evidence suggests that previous understandings were incomplete, who relies on evidence rather than unsupported assertion. (A contemporary liberal is unlikely to sign that petition to keep trans people out of restrooms, for example, because there has never been a reported problem.) Today’s liberal is less likely to believe something because a religious figure has proclaimed that “God said so,” and more likely to accept scientific consensus about things like the age of the earth, evolution and climate change.

In short, today’s liberal looks a lot like the 18th Century Enlightenment figures who gave us science, empiricism and the social contract.

While my students have difficult believing it, liberalism so understood used to be common in the Republican party. Republicans and Democrats used to occupy broad areas of agreement, differing primarily over the policies most likely to achieve agreed-upon ends. Back then, those shared worldviews were labeled “moderate.”

As the GOP turned into the God Squad, and those areas of agreement diminished, “Republican” became synonymous with “conservative” and “Democrat” became another word for liberal.

As a result, when educated people identify as liberal these days, they don’t necessarily mean left-wing populist or socialist.  They certainly don’t identify with the Left as it developed in Europe. They don’t even necessarily “feel the Bern.”

These days, what they mean is something like “I’m not one of the nut-cases doing grocery shopping with my open-carry weapon. I don’t throw rocks at gay people, or burn copies of the Koran, and I don’t forward racist, sexist and anti-Semitic emails. I’m not one of the people calling myself ‘pro life’ when I’m really just pro-birth and anti-woman. I’m not stupid enough to think American can deport twelve million people, or carpet-bomb the Middle East or reverse same-sex marriage. I understand that issues are complicated, that facts matter, and that people who don’t look like me have rights too.”

Today, someone who says those things is a Democrat. Or– in contemporary parlance– a liberal.

It wasn’t always that way.

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