The face of Democratic moderation
I have been pushing the idea that now is not the time to be running on radical overhaul of our healthcare system, or our system for paying for college, or our tax code. A lot of people assume that’s just privilege talking, but it’s not.
I would be a massive beneficiary of the aforementioned policies, because, much as I am embarrassed to even admit it, I am 48 years old, do not have health insurance, and still owe around $80,000.00 in student loans that I am struggling to repay.
The reason I don’t support making these policies part of the platform of this election’s Democratic nominee is that I feel that they steal energy and clarity from the most important issue facing us today — rooting out the corruption that has infected our political system.
In my view, reasonable, decent people can differ on how healthcare ought to be paid for, and even whether government should be involved in paying for it at all. Reasonable people can differ on how education should be paid for. They can disagree on taxes, social spending, military spending, prayer in schools, even the legality, morality, and ethics of abortion.
What they should not disagree on is that we ought to have free and fair elections and that people who hold office and who choose to serve in government should behave legally and ethically and should be working in good faith to promote the best interests of the general public rather than working in their own narrow self-interest or in the interest of powerful parties who manipulate our politics from behind the scenes.
The overwhelming, overriding priority in the upcoming election must be the preservation, and, to some extent, the full realization of liberal democracy in this nation so that future generations of Americans can make informed choices about the course of this nation.
A lot of words are used to describe political ideology in this country. Too often, I believe the meanings of words are collapsed, confused, and muddied, and that leads to confused, muddled thinking about politics.
There are words that we associate with Democrats — liberal, left, progressive — and words we identify with Republicans — conservative, right, fundamentalist.
Then there are words that we do not particularly associate with either party — radical, moderate, populist, partisan.
Most of these words are mutually defined by their opposite. Left means to side with those who have less privilege in a society, right means siding with people who have more privilege. But some words are not.
The words “conservative” and “liberal” are taken to be opposites. I, however don’t take them to be opposites in an absolute sense, rather they ought to be seen as opposite ends of a spectrum of liberalism. Conservatism is just a more cautious and restrained liberalism.
At its core, liberalism means respecting individual freedom. Thus, opposites of liberalism are traditionalism, and authoritarianism.
Most of us see and respect the value and need for the existence of some sort of authority, some value to tradition. To the extent that we allow the need for authority and tradition, we allow conservatism to temper our liberalism.
“Progressive” has in recent years been one of the more popular words used to describe Democrats, and the further to the left they are, the more liberal and progressive they are considered. This represents somewhat of a misunderstanding of progressivism, which grows, at least in part from the existence of the concept of “progressive taxation.” Progressive taxation means that the higher a person’s income is, the bigger the percentage of that income that is paid in taxes becomes. It is particularly confusing because progressive politicians have generally championed a progressive tax system. But “progressive” in progressive taxation refers to an progressively increasing tax rate as income increases. “Progressive” in progressive politics means believing that government can be used intentionally as an agent of societal improvement.
The opposite of progressive in the sense of “progressive politics” is actually laissez-faire. Laissez-faire, according to google translate, literally translates as “let do” I was always taught “let it be” or “leave it alone”. In any event, the idea is that the government should do very little to intervene in private behavior. In practice, that idea has had the most purchase when it comes to government intervention in commercial behavior, as opposed to purely private behavior, though many libertarians believe in a much more widely applicable laissez-faire-ism. Theoretically, laissez-faire would seem to be the most liberal political philosophy, but in practice its greatest champions have been oligarchs who want to be able to run their businesses like sovereign autocracies.
That brings me to the word moderate. Moderate does not mean trying to straddle the line between left and right. Or socially liberal and economically conservative. The opposite of moderate in politics is radical.
Moderation versus radicalism is less about ends and more about means. A moderate and a radical might have the same objective, but the radical believes in charging ahead believing that most people already agree with them, or if they don’t, then once people witness the radicals bold leadership and come to understand the righteousness or the radical’s cause, people will follow the radical’s lead.
The moderate favors a more incremental approach. Building a consensus and implementing their plans gradually in order to be better able to deal with unforeseen consequences.
My theory is that a good leader should generally take a moderate approach to governance, but that a great leader needs to recognize when they are dealing with a crisis that requires a radical response.
A lot of people will agree with that framework, but will have an extremely low or extremely high threshold for taking radical action.
Many people will focus on the urgency of the need in order to determine whether radical action is required and will argue that the misery, injury, and death that could be avoided by implementing their plans immediately create a moral imperative for immediate radical action.
But focusing strictly on the harms to be addressed and the ends to be achieved is no way to go about planning a course of action. You have to have a comprehensive view of your present needs and what is needed to move toward your objectives, and you need to prioritize and plan your actions in a manner best calculated to satisfy your present needs and move toward your objectives based upon the resources available to you, the obstacles faced, and the desirability of the objectives.
I firmly believe that we are currently in the midst of a crisis, the result of which could be the loss of our democracy. Donald Trump did not receive the vote of the majority of Americans. He has never had the approval of a majority of Americans. He routinely does things that would have ended the presidencies of presidents who came before him. And yet, Republicans in Congress are united in supporting him.
Republicans in Congress are united in supporting Donald Trump, but conservatives are not. Representative Justin Amash, someone with whom I have little common ground when it comes to economic policy, stood up and courageously called for Donald Trump’s impeachment when the Mueller report came out and was promptly drummed out of the party. Amash has nothing to gain from taking this stand and it has severely damaged his prospects for reelection, but he is following his conscience and doing his constitutional and patriotic duty.
William Kristol, the former editor-in-chief at The Weekly Standard, a man who I thought was a political hack to his core, has taken an unrelenting stand against Donald Trump, and, as a result, his magazine was shut down unceremoniously by its right wing owner.
It’s relatively easy for people who never had any home on the right to denounce Trump, but I think we should honor, support, and make common cause with people who do not share most of our views, but who have proven to have the character to stand up to Donald Trump and the Republican Party on principle.
That’s why I don’t think this election should be focused on what we can do to ease the lives of ordinary Americans. Thus election should be focused on calling upon ordinary Americans of good will and common sense to put aside their normal differences for one election cycle and stand up for our Democratic heritage and the right of our children and grandchildren to grow up in a democracy.
I’ve been disappointed in the smallness and vagueness of our Democratic field. We need our Democratic nominee to be the standard bearer for democracy. I want a candidate who will promise to get to the absolute bottom of the corruption in our system and to focus his or her energy on ending it.
Which brings me around to the title of this diary, “Let America be America Again,” which I think should be the slogan of our nominee. It is the title of a poem by Langston Hughes, and I believe it contains the right message for our time, an appropriate response to Trumpism.
Following is an excerpt from the beginning and conclusion of the poem:
Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.
(America never was America to me.)
Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed—
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.
(It never was America to me.)
O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.
(There's never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this "homeland of the free.")
[snip]
Sure, call me any ugly name you choose—
The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people's lives,
We must take back our land again,
America!
O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath—
America will be!
Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain—
All, all the stretch of these great green states—
And make America again!
