The Political Universe 01.10.06
Posted by Jason Easley on 01.10.2006
Where have all the liberals gone?
There is something that has been bothering me. Every time I read a left leaning magazine, book, or article, the word liberal is absent. It is like the word has been banished from the political lexicon of the left. Instead those on the left like to refer to themselves as progressives. There is one small problem with this though; they are not progressives at all. Liberalism is not the same as progressivism.
Where have all the liberals gone?
The liberals are still alive and well. Conservative attacks on the word liberal were so strong that they actually forced the liberals to see themselves as a bad thing, and thus they changed their name. Liberalism is an ideology with a long history. The core values of liberalism are individual freedom, freedom of thought, democratic government and equal opportunity. At the core of liberalism is the belief that society's problems can be solved through government intervention. Liberals also tend to have an optimistic and utopian vision of the world.
As linguist and author George Lakoff has written, every word invokes a frame in the readers or listeners mind. A frame is the image or definition that we connect to a word. That image can be positive or negative. At one point in our history, the word liberal evoked a positive frame. When one thought of a liberal they thought of FDR telling us we have nothing to fear, but fear itself, or JFK and his New Frontier.
Republican electoral success over the past decades can be tied to their ability to create a new frame for the word liberal. Conservatives changed the frame of the word liberal to invoke image of American impotence like Jimmy Carter during the Iran hostage crisis, and wasteful government spending like LBJ's Great Society programs, or morally questionable characters like Bill Clinton.
As Republicans had more success with this strategy Democrats became weary of being tarred with the slur of being a liberal. In fact now, most Democratic candidates go out of their way to prove that they are not liberals. The Democrats have stopped defending their frame of the word liberal, and have adopted the conservative image.
To me, this is one of the key reasons why Democrats have been floundering in national elections. Democrats cut their ties with their past and forgot who they were. It all started with the defeat of Dukakis in 1988 by Bush Sr. Bush was able to define Dukakis as a northeastern liberal who was weak on crime and weak on national defense. This along with a healthy degree of subtle racism, via the Willie Horton ad, powered Bush to the presidency.
The truth was that Dukakis did look like an idiot riding around in that tank. Dukakis was also reluctant to fire back at Bush's allegations, and his unwillingness to counter attack probably cost him the election. Bill Clinton learned from the mistakes of 1988, and in 1992 ran a more populist, but not liberal, campaign.
The Clinton campaign team was just as skilled at its Republican counterparts at creating frames. Clinton also tossed away the liberal frame. He spoke about the economy and the value of work. However, as president, it was Clinton's dismantling of the welfare system that cemented the demise of the term liberal. In liberal terms it was unthinkable that a Democrat could support such a dramatic change in welfare.
Clinton found success as president by stealing popular Republican issues and making them his own. While this was good for the Clinton presidency, it was bad for the Democratic Party. When it was time for campaign 2000, Al Gore made one serious mistake. He let the Republicans frame the Clinton presidency in terms of its moral shortcomings. Gore was so afraid of being lumped in with Clinton that he did not use the powerful asset of the still sitting, and popular president, to help his campaign.
Gore did not want to look amoral or liberal, so he undercut his own campaign. Gore tried to win the election using Republican frames, and he mostly succeeded in winning the election, but not the presidency. In 2004 John Kerry tried to avoid being labeled a liberal by seeming tough on national defense and terrorism. Once again, Democrats made the mistake of engaging in passive campaign that did not look to establish their frames and images of the election. Kerry spent almost all the campaign on the defensive and lost.
By now, Democrats are so frightened of the word liberal that they now call themselves progressives. Only the safest of Democrats, like Ted Kennedy, admit that they are liberal. Other liberals have adopted their new mask of progressivism, and they hope that a simple change in terminology will help them return to election night glory.
What a progressive really is
The Center for American Progress defines progressivism as,"A non-ideological, pragmatic system of thought grounded in solving problems and maintaining strong values within society." Progressives are not interested in the big government vs. small government liberal/ conservative battle. Progressives are only interested in finding the best solution to the problem. Sometimes the best solution will be public, other times it will be private.
Progressives are not burdened with the optimism or pessimism of liberal or conservative ideology. Progressivism does look to promote fairness and equality. Fairness does not mean that everybody will think the same or get the same benefits in life. What is does mean is that everyone should start with a level playing field, and it is each individual's skills, talents, or motivations that will take them to where they want to go in that life.
Progressives believe that people should be active in politics, and that our democracy should be open and fair to all citizens, and that the best ideas don't come from elites in think tanks, but from the grass roots of America. As you can see progressivism is not the same as liberalism, and I resent those liberals who are too frightened to be what they really are. Liberalism has a long and rich tradition in the United States. The Democrats have nothing to be ashamed of.
I think Democrats are going to keep losing elections until they take control of the national debate and start framing it in their own terms. The reason why the Democratic Party appears to be drifting is because it has chosen to cut itself off from its true identity. Howard Dean and Nancy Pelosi are not progressives, they are liberals. I wish the cowardly liberals would stop hiding and leave us true progressives out of their war with conservatives.
A moment with Crow
We are now 5 years removed from the recount debacle of Election 2000. This week's question is do you think this election will be remembered as historically significant?
I think the 2000 Presidential Debacle will be remembered as one of the biggest events in American politics. Certainly, it will be recorded as a vastly significant turn of events in recent (last fifty years) American history. What else, seriously, can rank higher? McCarthyism, the Vietnam War, Watergate, the Cold War cools...and then...what? I say Florida.
It's not only a big story because only some 500+ votes (if I recall correctly) determined the result, but that ultimately, those votes didn't even matter. In fact, none of the citizens' votes mattered. In the end, Bush was ushered in as president based on ONE vote-- one conservative Supreme Court Justice. Most people will remember it for the month long delay in establishing a president; many will try to push a conspiracy theory, but for me, it's the day the right wing forced democracy to call in sick.
And then, to further prove its historic significance, look what's befallen us in the last five years...
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