Blue People

Asymmetry

Just finished reading Paul Waldman's "Being Right is Not Enough", which falls into the general category of "advice to Democrats and/or progressives", a category that has been well-filled since the defeat of John Kerry in 2004. Waldman's book is tight and crisply written, showing good rhetorical skills, but most importantly an unsentimental grasp of the predicament in which progressives find themselves today.

The core of Waldman's thesis is that progressives must set aside the notion that ultimately they will win because the public sides with them on the issues. In Waldman's view this is a necessary but not sufficient condition, because clearly conservatives have been winning elections even as polls and studies show that on most issues the majority of the public disagrees with them. What Waldman advises most of all is "getting tough", responding in kind to the brutal attacks which typify Republican campaigning in the Karl Rove era. Waldman's poster child is the failure of the Kerry campaign to respond quickly and forcefully to the "Swift Boat" attacks, possibly because the Kerry forces believed - wrongly - that their candidate's record as a decorated veteran provided an impregnable shield against such attacks.

The problem, as always with such books, is that description is easy, prescription is hard. While Waldman makes a creditable effort, the sad fact is that few of his suggested slogans could resonate with the public the way conservative slogans do, and at times Waldman seems well aware of it. He even knows why: today's conservatives are mining the dark side, the destructive side, of human nature, and the hard fact is that giving in to these dark emotions and impulses provides a kind of gratifying "rush" that is available only in this context. There's a reason why, in earlier times, public executions were festive occasions.

Today's Republican party is carrying out - and profiting from - the kind of ceremonial public murder which in earlier times was associated with, say, the Inquisition, or the Jacobins. Its purpose is at least twofold: first, to serve as an outlet for the dark emotions mentioned above, and second, to intimidate. The difference, of course, is that victims of the Republican party don't (usually) die, at least not physically, but certainly the kind of deep, paranoid, vicious hostility directed by Republicans at liberals is a close relation to that directed by the Inquisition at "witches" and heretics.

This is not a pattern of behavior, politically successful though it may be, that can be emulated by progressives. While there seems to be little doubt that progressives are going to have to find a way to use anger and resentment as political tools, it can't be done quite the way that conservatives have done it. And progressives can't really make resentment the bedrock of their platform, the way conservatives have. The progressive platform must remain idealistic and positive at its core, no matter how boring this stance may be within the context of the political campaign.

This asymmetry is at the heart of the progressive dilemma, and unless the political climate changes considerably (which it may finally be in the process of doing), running tough, effective campaigns that nevertheless remain true to progressive ideals is going to be an exercise in futility. The hard fact is that people respond much more readily to negative appeals, so we can unfortunately expect to be treated - for the foreseeable future - to the spectacle of campaigns working to outdo each other in their harshness, crudity, and brutality.

What a prospect for American democracy.

Hard Cases

It's said that "hard cases make bad law". Given the state in which we find American politics today, one could make an analogy concerning the relationship of national traumas to the political developments which follow in their wake.

The recent - and powerful - example is, of course, September 11, a trauma which was followed by the so-far disastrous "Global War on Terror". But a quick scan through postwar American history reveals the same pattern, over and over again. Here is a partial list of shocks that have been inflicted on the American body politic since the end of WWII:

The Russian A-bomb
The "loss" of China
The Sputnik launch
The Cuban missile crisis
The Kennedy assassination
The Tet offensive
The RFK/MLK assassinations
The first oil embargo
Watergate
The second oil embargo
The Iran hostage crisis
etc.

Many if not all of these events were, for the most part, unforeseen, and were experienced as sudden and unexpected. In reviewing the list, one could argue that what is now seen as a placid, even boring era was in fact thoroughly riven with disturbance and crisis. And what is now most noteworthy about virtually all of these events is that fact that our responses to them have ranged from the inadequate to the disastrous.

America is a country that has long believed that is exceptional, in many dimensions, but most importantly in the moral dimension. In simple terms, we have always believed ourselves to be "the good guys", and that grossly evil acts are invariably committed by others (a belief greatly reinforced by the Nazi atrocities of the 30's and 40's). In a testament to the ability of the human mind to construct its own reality, this vision has withstood all challenges, even in cases where Americans have perpetrated acts which, when done by others, are roundly condemned. The adoption of slavery and the extermination of the native population are only two of the most obvious examples.

American politics during this era can be seen largely as the attempt to preserve the traditional idea of American moral exceptionalism, even as the evidence accumulates that in fact Americans are people just like everyone else, and that America is - to a great extent - a nation like all others. How could it be anything but a relief at this point to once and for all throw overboard the notion that American is different, a kind of pure shining knight that hews to a higher standard than other nations, and that we are as a result not subject to the same standards as others? Are we not at last exhausted from the effort of maintaining this fiction, a fiction that at some obscure level we recognize as such?

The first of the shocks listed above that affected me personally and emotionally was the JFK assassination, an event that to me stands only with 9/11 in its total disruptive horror. Looking back now, it seems clear that America has never really come to terms with this event, with the notion that our own acts, our own policies, could have horrific unintended consequences, a phenomenon now known as "blowback". And this analysis remains true whether or not the accused assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, was a "lone nut" or part of a conspiracy. Either way, the JFK assassination was in a very clear sense something that we did to ourselves, as were others on (and not on) the list.

We seem to have this idea, outstandingly present in the current occupant of the White House, that only intentions matter, that if our intentions are good then we remain blameless, no matter the actual outcome of our actions. Our intent in attacking Iraq was to create a peaceful, prosperous, democratic society, and it is on the basis of that intent that we wish to be judged, not on the basis of the squalid wreck that Iraq has in fact become. The same is true, to a lesser extent, of Afghanistan. And it is true of virtually all our well-intended interventions going back at least to Mossadeq in 1953.

How is it that we keep making the same mistake over and over again? Why are we always so baffled when yet another adventure turns out badly? It can only be our lack of talent for introspection, our inability to perceive ourselves and our motives as merely ordinary, not "exceptional".