Jump to content

Embracing Liberalism


SpiralOut

Recommended Posts

From The Atlantic

The word liberal was one of the many casualties of the Vietnam era.

A generation before, Americans competed to own the term. Anti–New Deal Republicans like Senator Robert Taft claimed that they, not their opponents, were the “true liberals.” Former President Herbert Hoover preferred the term historical liberal.

 

The social turmoil of the 1960s and ’70s ripped away liberal’s positive associations and, in so doing, helped redeem conservatism from the discredit it incurred during the Great Depression. In 1985, Jonathan Rieder, then a sociologist at Yale, vividly described the political evolution of a middle-class Brooklyn neighborhood in which he had lived:

Since 1960, the Jews and Italians of Canarsie have embellished and modified the meaning of liberalism, associating it with profligacy, spinelessness, malevolence, masochism, elitism, fantasy, anarchy, idealism, softness, irresponsibility, and sanctimoniousness. The term conservative acquired connotations of pragmatism, character, reciprocity, truthfulness, stoicism, manliness, realism, hardness, vengeance, strictness, and responsibility.

In 1994, Governor Mario Cuomo of New York, a Democrat, lost his last election to a Republican who devastatingly attacked him as “too liberal, too long.”

 

In defensive reaction, left-of-center Democrats sought to rebrand themselves as something other than liberal. The label that eventually prevailed was progressive. The Congressional Progressive Caucus now numbers 78; it is the largest bloc on the Democratic side of the House of Representatives. There is no “liberal caucus.

 

But a curious thing happens when you banish liberalism from your vocabulary. You rehabilitate illiberalism. As politics devolves into what President Barack Obama recently described as “a hostile competition between tribes and races and religions,” illiberalism seems to be spreading—and not only on the nationalist right, but also on the intersectional left.

The hopeful world of the very late 20th century—the world of nafta and an expanding nato; of the World Wide Web 1.0 and liberal interventionism; of the global spread of democracy under leaders such as Václav Havel and Nelson Mandela—now looks battered and delusive. The triumphalist mood of that bygone world was best distilled by Francis Fukuyama in his 1989 essay “The End of History,” in which he proclaimed liberal democracy the end state of human affairs.

 

Earlier this year, Fukuyama published an update confessing that his thesis had not aged well. Liberal democracy, he said, is not ascending. The world seems to be reverting to “a political spectrum organized increasingly around identity issues, many of which are defined more by culture than by economics.”

We got here through a series of harrowing experiences. The 9/11 attacks reminded us that religious violence is as modern as jet aircraft. The Iraq War discredited the governments that waged it and the elites who urged it, as I did. The financial crisis of 2008 called into question the stability of market economies; the lopsided recovery cast doubt on their fairness.

The euro currency crisis of 2010 revived European nationalism. China’s rise and Russia’s revanchism offered new hope to illiberal rulers worldwide. Mass immigration brought different ethnicities into closer contact, and sparked greater friction. New populist movements targeted the free press and independent judiciaries as enemies. Intellectuals claiming to speak for marginalized minorities rejected free speech and cultural exchange.

 

In this grim new world, former antagonists discovered much in common. Is Julian Assange right-wing or left-wing? Who knows? And does it matter? Is Brexit right-wing or left-wing? Is it right-wing or left-wing to oppose the Trans-Pacific Partnership, nafta, and nato? To distrust vaccines? Across the democratic world, these positions unite the far edges of the political spectrum. Donald Trump and Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of Britain’s Labour Party, share more or less the same opinions about Ukraine and Syria. The hard right and hard left share darkly similar views about Jews.

The extremes agree at a deeper philosophical level as well. Both dismiss the ideal of neutral principles and impersonal processes as illusions, even lies. Both insist that law only masks power, that truth is subordinate to ideology, that politics is war.

But what of those who do not see the world this way?

 
 

If the Trump years have achieved anything positive, it is to jolt a new generation into appreciating the value of the institutional legacies now under attack: Free trade. International partnerships. Honest courts and accountable leaders. Civil rights and civil liberties. Private space for faith but public policy informed by science. A social-insurance system that cushions failure and a market economy that incentivizes success.

 

Surely these things still command the assent of enough of us that we can continue our usual political disagreements—about health care, about taxes, about how to govern schools and fund roads—without demolishing the shared foundations of the constitutional order.

Earlier this year, Patrick J. Deneen of Notre Dame University published a short, fierce polemic titled Why Liberalism Failed. The book, which gained respectful attention across the political spectrum, argued that liberalism had not delivered on its central promises:

The liberal state expands to control nearly every aspect of life while citizens regard government as a distant and uncontrollable power … relentlessly advancing the project of “globalization.” The only rights that seem secure today belong to those with sufficient wealth and position to protect them … The economy favors a new “meritocracy” that perpetuates its advantages through generational succession … A political philosophy that was launched to foster greater equity, defend a pluralist tapestry of different cultures and beliefs, protect human dignity, and, of course, expand liberty, in practice generates titanic inequality, enforces uniformity and homogeneity, fosters material and spiritual degradation, and undermines freedom.

You can read those words, appreciate why somebody might believe them—and still categorically reject them as false and dangerous. The advanced democracies have built the freest, most just, and best societies in human history. Those societies demand many improvements, for sure—incremental, practical reforms, with careful attention to unintended consequences. But not revolution. Not the burn-it-all-down fantasies of the new populists.

 

“What is conservatism?” asked Abraham Lincoln, in 1860, of those who sought the breakup of the existing government of the United States. “Is it not adherence to the old and tried, against the new and untried?” Today we find ourselves in the awkward linguistic predicament of the “old and tried” being advocated by people who call themselves liberals—while those pushing for the “new and untried” call themselves conservatives. “America and the West are on a trajectory toward something very bad,” prophesied the famous pro-Trump “Flight 93 Election” essay of September 2016, which argued that only desperate measures could hope to save the country. The author, Michael Anton (who would go on to work in the Trump administration), compared voting for Trump to playing Russian roulette: putting a bullet in a revolver, spinning the chamber, pressing the muzzle to the temple, and pulling the trigger. And he meant this as a recommendation!

 
 

To protect what was achieved in the wake of World War II and following the Cold War requires beating back the populist enemies of liberal democracy, radical and reactionary alike. For those of us on the right-hand side of the political spectrum, this beating-back will oblige us to face some painful truths about our political home. The Republican Party has disgracefully submitted itself to Trumpism. Recovering will not be easy. But so long as the U.S. retains the Electoral College, the country will have a two-party system. Rehabilitating a tainted party is less daunting than building a new one. To this end, Republicans would do well to relearn what Robert Taft and Herbert Hoover knew about the liberal basis of the American constitutional order.

 

Some right-leaning thinkers and writers are already reappraising the word liberal. The rightist podcasting star Ben Shapiro has favorably invoked “classical liberal values.” Jordan B. Peterson, the left-skeptical psychologist who has recently developed a following among young men, calls himself a “classical liberal,” not a conservative. So does Dave Rubin, the host of one of the most popular YouTube talk shows—he even markets a classical liberal T-shirt. The Republican Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan, has said of himself, “I really call myself a classical liberal more than a conservative.”

So far, though, this designation seems more a way to avoid political negatives—Libertarianism minus Ron Paul’s crankiness! Conservatism without Donald Trump’s brutishness!—than a positive vision. Some of these self-described classical liberals make sensible points about the excesses of left-wing identity politics. But as to preserving competition in the health-care industry in the age of Obamacare, spurring wage growth in a globalized economy, and regaining respect from allies and partners repelled by Trump, fruitful conversations have scarcely begun among right-leaning Americans.

Such conversations might start with the following insights. First, the Trump presidency has exposed great weaknesses in American government and society. Just as Watergate was followed by half a decade of clean-government and market-deregulating reforms, so new policies are needed to ensure that nothing like this shameful presidency recurs. These policies must attend not only to neglected ethical norms but also to neglected social troubles. Extreme class and ethnic divisions enable demagogues on both the left and the right.

 

Second, America and its closest allies are not as globally dominant as they were in the 1990s. China’s economy has overtaken Japan’s as the world’s second-largest, and continues to grow; the Indian economy will soon surpass that of the United Kingdom. In the 21st century, even more than in the 20th, the United States will need allies and partners. America First is America alone; America alone is America defeated.

 
Finally, the United States has borrowed from the future by spending more than it receives from taxes and by releasing more climate-changing gases than it absorbs. Both of these binges must cease if this generation intends to keep faith with the Constitution’s promise to secure the blessings of liberty for posterity.

The Republican Party is losing its ability to prevail in democratic competition. One solution to that dilemma, the Trump solution, is to weaken democracy so that a minority can dominate a disunited majority. The 2018 midterm elections will offer a referendum on whether that method can work. If Republicans avoid too-severe losses, the party will likely continue on its present antidemocratic path. But if the losses are significant, the party might be forced to find its way to a more inclusive politics, one that is less plutocratic, less theocratic, less racially chauvinist. Such an evolution will not be easy, but it can be achieved, if moderate Republicans are willing to fight for it.

 

The liberal Republicans of the 1960s and ’70s faded into irrelevance because they would not go toe-to-toe for their principles. As Mark Schmitt of New America has written, “They were not ideologues, but the opposite. They put loyalty to party, right or wrong, over their other commitments.” His unfriendly valedictory points to a useful lesson: A political faction need not be huge to exert influence over a party, provided it leverages its power by threatening to leave when its core priorities are in jeopardy.

In a 2015 debate among Republican presidential hopefuls, Fox News’s Bret Baier asked each candidate whether he or she would pledge to support the ticket regardless of the winner. Only one refused: Donald Trump. After the debate, then–Republican National Committee Chair Reince Priebus scurried to gain Trump’s signature on a pledge form. Why did no organized group of Republicans serve Trump and his backers a taste of their own medicine? If Trump wins, we leave. In politics, it’s very often the people nearest the exits who claim the most attention.

 

A liberal Republicanism should demand reforms that forbid the corrupt practices of the Trump presidency. It should accept that expanded health coverage is here to stay—about time!—and then work to increase competition, incentives, and fair pricing within a universal system, so as to combat the wasteful American habit of spending more health dollars than any other developed country, for worse health outcomes. It should seek fiscal and environmental balance, by cutting spending, by taxing greenhouse-gas emissions, and by taxing consumption more and investment less.

As increasing numbers of Democrats shift leftward on economic issues, even to the point of identifying as socialists, their party is becoming more statist and more redistributive. Many Americans will reject this approach, and they will need a party to champion their beliefs. At a time when populists muse about nationalizing Google’s data and regulating Facebook as a public utility, liberal Republicans should harken to Theodore Roosevelt’s tradition of restraining monopoly abuse yet upholding free enterprise and private property.

 
While the Democratic Party adapts to America’s new multiethnic demographics by focusing more on group identity and less on individual opportunity, liberal Republicans should oppose both racial preferences and racial prejudice. The next Republican president should as joyously wish Americans a happy Diwali as a merry Christmas. At the same time, the country’s immigration intake should be adjusted to stabilize the foreign-born percentage of the population. Diversity may be an American strength, but so too is unity and cohesion.

In reaction to the Iraq War and the Great Recession, America has turned inward, even as the world has continued to need U.S. leadership. Internationalism, free trade, and alliances should be principles of both parties. Donald Trump has persuaded conservative Republicans to reject them, but liberal Republicans should champion them.

For two political generations, Republicans have proclaimed the purity of their conservatism. But in a democratic society, conservatism and liberalism are not really opposites. They are different facets of the common democratic creed. What conservatives are conserving, after all, is a liberal order. That truth has been easy to overlook in the friction of partisan politics. It must be reaffirmed now, in this hour of liberal peril.

  • Like 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Around the time when Karl Rove successfully convinced South Carolina that John McCain sired an illegitimate negro child, the GOP saw a huge incentive to begin courting deranged morons into their party. They have finally flooded themselves with angry, emotionally fragile lunatics and the dipshit dildo levee has broken. They are now floating around in that human sewage, helpless to the oily currents of fringe idiocy -- can't win cesspools without 'em, can't get smart conservatives like George Will on board with them. Frankenstein with bumper stickers and loud exhaust pipes is loose and he's not wearing pants.

Eventually they'll learn that intelligent, fiscal conservatism without the screeching flatulence is still in vogue and can win elections. Just stop handing they keys to fat loons selling fear and dick pills. 

  • Like 6
Link to comment
Share on other sites

10 hours ago, American Swindle said:

How do you propose we "eliminate" religion?  

kill everyone.

Dogmatic beliefs ain't limited to Judeo-Christian fanatics.  They're just the easiest ones to hate.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I buy what Frum is selling here. I think the Republican party he hypothesizes could win a lot of votes. Hell, even mine if the left radicalizes.

The vast majority of Americans don't want the country torn in half. Appealing to our desire for peace, stability, and tolerance will work once most Americans realize that the cost of furthering the political divide means the end of America.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, ndawg said:

I buy what Frum is selling here. I think the Republican party he hypothesizes could win a lot of votes. Hell, even mine if the left radicalizes.

The vast majority of Americans don't want the country torn in half. Appealing to our desire for peace, stability, and tolerance will work once most Americans realize that the cost of furthering the political divide means the end of America.

This is why the Republican Party only appeals to a minority of voters in this country.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, ndawg said:

I buy what Frum is selling here. I think the Republican party he hypothesizes could win a lot of votes. Hell, even mine if the left radicalizes.

The vast majority of Americans don't want the country torn in half. Appealing to our desire for peace, stability, and tolerance will work once most Americans realize that the cost of furthering the political divide means the end of America.

Well, despite the thread turning to shit right away, I'll play as if it didn't.

I generally agree with this.  Again, I'm center-right, always have been, and suspect I always will be.  I think we need a healthy push-pull two party system, so long as that push-pull is mostly about IDEAS.  Right now, the GOP has created a double jeopardy: it has filled the void with a movement that is repugnant, anti-American, and anti-democratic.  It's bad if that succeeds for  long.  It's ALSO bad if it fails, particularly if it takes a long time to fail.  Because it will create a monster in the opposition -- an opposing party that lurches to the extreme left in opposition to all that the GOP (supposedly) stands for.

But, it doesn't fucking matter.  His thesis presumes something that does not exist within the GOP: spines and balls.  The GOP actually is everything that "Trumpism" supposedly opposes (yes, the irony is fucking rich) - people who are solely concerned with how to hold onto and consolidate power, by any means necessary.  And they'll say and do whatever it takes to do so.  They allowed the party to be dominated by Trumpism, and now they have no choice but to go along with it, if they wish to hold onto power.  And oh yes, they wish to hold onto power.  More than anything else, they wish to hold onto power.  Trumpism is here to stay in the GOP.   The GOP must be saved.  But the GOP cannot be saved, because  it doesn't want to be.  It's like your addict friend - if only he'd admit the problem and go to rehab, he could live.  But he insists that YOU'RE the one with the problem, because you don't respect his wishes.   And he's gonna shoot that sweet Trumpism into his veins, over and over and over, and you get to watch him die a little every day.  Because the addict only recovers when he wants to, and this addict isn't ever going to want to.  The only question is how many other lives he ruins on his way to destruction.

Enjoy the ride, it's gonna be a bitch.

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

19 hours ago, SpiralOut said:

Free trade. International partnerships. Honest courts and accountable leaders. Civil rights and civil liberties. Private space for faith but public policy informed by science. A social-insurance system that cushions failure and a market economy that incentivizes success.

In short form, he defined it right there.

And, I don't think that he DID say that "the left" is inherently "illiberal."  Both a left and a right can function within the realm of classical liberalism.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

22 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

In short form, he defined it right there.

And, I don't think that he DID say that "the left" is inherently "illiberal."  Both a left and a right can function within the realm of classical liberalism.

You just described the Democratic Party from the 1990s to today. Republicans have spent decades building a fascist hate machine while the Democrats have been doing EXACTLY what Frum describes as the goal.

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 minutes ago, bad_teammate said:

You just described the Democratic Party from the 1990s to today. Republicans have spent decades building a fascist hate machine while the Democrats have been doing EXACTLY what Frum describes as the goal.

I won't argue that point.  It's a big reason why I've been voting heavily (now exclusively) Dem in recent years.  The modern GOP really doesn't stand for ANYTHING, other than nihilism, zero-sum selfishness, and good old-fashioned hate.  If I want to vote for a party that's going to work even a little bit towards things like free trade and civil rights, I've only got one choice these days.  Frum's point is that we're a two party system -- it would be good to have TWO choices.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

43 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

But, it doesn't fucking matter.  His thesis presumes something that does not exist within the GOP: spines and balls.  The GOP actually is everything that "Trumpism" supposedly opposes (yes, the irony is fucking rich) - people who are solely concerned with how to hold onto and consolidate power, by any means necessary.  And they'll say and do whatever it takes to do so.  They allowed the party to be dominated by Trumpism, and now they have no choice but to go along with it, if they wish to hold onto power.  And oh yes, they wish to hold onto power.  More than anything else, they wish to hold onto power.  Trumpism is here to stay in the GOP.   The GOP must be saved.  But the GOP cannot be saved, because  it doesn't want to be.  It's like your addict friend - if only he'd admit the problem and go to rehab, he could live.  But he insists that YOU'RE the one with the problem, because you don't respect his wishes.   And he's gonna shoot that sweet Trumpism into his veins, over and over and over, and you get to watch him die a little every day.  Because the addict only recovers when he wants to, and this addict isn't ever going to want to.  The only question is how many other lives he ruins on his way to destruction.

Enjoy the ride, it's gonna be a bitch.

I agree that the current GOP lacks spines and balls, but I don't think it spells certain doom. After all, cowards can find courage in numbers, and, in many ways, the numbers are there for the taking -- not only do I think a great many Americans would indeed be sympathetic to anti-Trump Republicans, but there may be enough in Congress to rally behind a legitimate anti-Trump opposition as a group. But it's a chicken-and-egg game at the moment, where middle of the road Americans and former Republicans won't trust any Republicans in Congress until they see real action, and Republicans in Congress won't take any real action until they see that voters will back them for opposing Trump. The glimmer of optimism I retain is that either the Mueller investigation or Trump's own self implosion could act as a catalyst that finally pulls substantial Republican political capital out of Trump's corner.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Brisketexan said:

I won't argue that point.  It's a big reason why I've been voting heavily (now exclusively) Dem in recent years.  The modern GOP really doesn't stand for ANYTHING, other than nihilism, zero-sum selfishness, and good old-fashioned hate.  If I want to vote for a party that's going to work even a little bit towards things like free trade and civil rights, I've only got one choice these days.  Frum's point is that we're a two party system -- it would be good to have TWO choices.

No. That's not his point.

Article sub-headline: 
Classical liberal values have disappeared from the right and are now disappearing from the left. Someone needs to adopt them. Why not the GOP?

What Frum and other cuckservatives continue to delude themselves about is that the conservative movement in America has ever been, at least in the last 50 years, actually good or even redeemable. They're pulled by the nose constantly into the future and they're always surprised at how wrong they were in the past, but they NEVER think that there's a fundamental issue that leads them to keep being wrong all the fucking time. Gay marriage. War in Iraq. The inequality of wealth. Climate change. And on and on and on.

If they want the center-right, that's great. It's called the Democratic Party and it's been this way for 20+ years and everyone in power in that party is fighting very hard to make sure it remains center-right. There is no space for a center-right GOP and that is not changing.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 minutes ago, bad_teammate said:

If they want the center-right, that's great. It's called the Democratic Party and it's been this way for 20+ years and everyone in power in that party is fighting very hard to make sure it remains center-right. There is no space for a center-right GOP and that is not changing.

You may be right.  We'll see.

I think it's not as complex or sinister as you do.  I think that the GOP SAID it was about a lot of things, and a lot of folks (me included) believed it, because that's what we believed individually, so it made sense to see a party reflect those values.  Of course, the GOP of my lifetime was a trojan horse -- whether that was by intentional design, or it was simply easily exploited by folks who saw the opportunity, doesn't much matter.

And, yes, I see those same values MUCH better reflected in the Dem party of the Bill Clinton-today era.  There's still a good bit I don't care for (but I'm also smart enough to have realized, even back in the day, that there was much in the GOP I didn't care for -- Patrick Buchanan was always a thing).  If I'm looking for the "party of all the things Brisketexan agrees with," it will be a very small party (but we'll eat like kings at our state convention). 

I've said it on here before -- I generally agree with at least 80% of the take/approach of The Economist, which is a magazine of classical liberalism.  The party that best matches up with that approach today is unquestionably the Dems.  Whether the Dems lurch left, and the GOP can/will ever occupy the center right space that it once CLAIMED to occupy, well, that remains to be seen.  I for sure ain't betting on it.  I'm done with the GOP.  Frankly, having so openly and happily adopted/tolerated the evil that has risen to the top, I can't see myself ever forgiving any GOP that still has any connection to the GOP of today (and I can't see a GOP that doesn't still have that connection -- of course, they'll try to whitewash it, claiming at once both that they really didn't have much to do with Trumpism, and besides, Trumpism wasn't THAT bad).

One doesn't reform cancer into being good cells again.  You kill it.  All of it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

 

The article hints at a distinction I’ve been making for years on these boards, in that I’m a “liberal” in the general sense of the editorial perspective of The Economist, not a “progressive” in the sense that Hillary Clinton or Obama or even George Bush are.

 

What that means in practice is that while the ideas nominally espoused by some Republicans are appealing to me intellectually there’s no way I can vote for a Republican in a Federal or Texas election.

 

While the Democrats aren’t a liberal party, the GOP is currently using power in a way that is damaging to the social contract required for liberal democracy to work smoothly and for free market economies to operate efficiently.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 hours ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

The article hints at a distinction I’ve been making for years on these boards, in that I’m a “liberal” in the general sense of the editorial perspective of The Economist, not a “progressive” in the sense that Hillary Clinton or Obama or even George Bush are.

What is that distinction? Can you spell it out in clear terms?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 11/24/2018 at 5:20 PM, SpiralOut said:

Earlier this year, Fukuyama published an update confessing that his thesis had not aged well. Liberal democracy, he said, is not ascending. The world seems to be reverting to “a political spectrum organized increasingly around identity issues, many of which are defined more by culture than by economics.”

I think this largely is at the heart of it. Both parties seem to celebrate and promote the extremes and anti-intellectualism versus pragmatic, long-term solutions, which I get do not play well in a world of twitter. Too much emotion, too little rationale thought on both sides. Complex problems require more than sound bites, but the latter seems to be all that counts.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On November 24, 2018 at 8:59 PM, Chooky said:

Around the time when Karl Rove successfully convinced South Carolina that John McCain sired an illegitimate negro child, the GOP saw a huge incentive to begin courting deranged morons into their party. They have finally flooded themselves with angry, emotionally fragile lunatics and the dipshit dildo levee has broken. They are now floating around in that human sewage, helpless to the oily currents of fringe idiocy -- can't win cesspools without 'em, can't get smart conservatives like George Will on board with them. Frankenstein with bumper stickers and loud exhaust pipes is loose and he's not wearing pants.

Eventually they'll learn that intelligent, fiscal conservatism without the screeching flatulence is still in vogue and can win elections. Just stop handing they keys to fat loons selling fear and dick pills. 

It started with Reagan inviting the evangelicals into the party and giving the Mystics a voice. Science is out, magical thinking is in. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites



×
×
  • Create New...