It was about a year ago that I decided to support Edwards. I did so for many reasons (which I discuss here and here) but for one reason above all others: I believed he would be the most progressive candidate among the top-tier. And so he has; he is. On virtually every important issue--health care, taxes, trade, climate change, poverty, even foreign policy--he's running to the left of Obama and Clinton. We've arrived at the point whereprogressives have to concoct reasons not to support him.
More important than any single position is this:
No more pontificating, no more vacillating, no more triangulating, no more broken promises, no more pats on the head, no more `we'll get around to it next time,' no more taking half a loaf, no more `tomorrow.
Undergirding his campaign is the belief that the Democratic Party needs to more progressive. Clinton certainly doesn't share this belief. And Obama, for all of his attributes, doesn't seem to, either. In any case, it's neither an organizing principle of Obama's campaign nor part of his rhetoric. Obama clearly thinks Democrats should be more open to religion and more adept at projecting a muscular foreign policy. But if Obama thinks Dems need to be more unabashedly progressive, more heedless of Republican smears and frames, he's not saying so.
Like John McCain in 2000, Obama offers a reformer's critique, that D.C. needs to be cleansed of the cynicism and corruption wrought by $$$. It's an important belief, one that Edwards shares, but even if all the lobbyists on K-Street were to spontaneously combust from guilt, there would still be one political party bent on serving corporations and the rich, a party that for the last thirty years has made Democrats insecure and self-doubting, scared to be themselves. Republicans don't try to marginalize and demonize Democrats just because Corporate America wants them to but because they themselves want to. And by the way, K-Street lobbyists aren't going to spontaneously combust from guilt.
That's why it's exciting to see Edwards build frames in which a new politics can be played. Rather than trying to out-hawk Republicans, he's redefining what it means to be tough on terrorism. This is the best moment of the race so far, the best moment any candidate has had.
It is now clear that George Bush's misnamed "war on terror" has backfired--and is now part of the problem.
The war on terror is a slogan designed only for politics, not a strategy to make America safe. It's a bumper sticker, not a plan. It has damaged our alliances and weakened our standing in the world.
As a political "frame," it's been used to justify everything from the Iraq War to Guantanamo to illegal spying on the American people. It's even been used by this White House as a partisan weapon to bludgeon their political opponents. Whether by manipulating threat levels leading up to elections, or by deeming opponents "weak on terror," they have shown no hesitation whatsoever about using fear to divide.
But the worst thing about this slogan is that it hasn't worked. The so-called "war" has created even more terrorism--as we have seen so tragically in Iraq. The State Department itself recently released a study showing that worldwide terrorism has increased 25% in 2006, including a 40% surge in civilian fatalities.
By framing this as a "war," we have walked right into the trap that terrorists have set--that we are engaged in some kind of clash of civilizations and a war against Islam.
The "war" metaphor has also failed because it exaggerates the role of only one instrument of American power--the military. This has occurred in part because the military is so effective at what it does. Yet if you think all you have is a hammer, then every problem looks like a nail.
And unlike Bill Clinton and most of the other Democrats who play on the national stage, he doesn't concede that big government is bad, or that a balanced budget is beautiful. On the contrary, he proudly advocatessocial spending, as if oblivious to decades of Democratic cowardice:
[T]here's gonna be hard judgments that have to be made--my commitment is to have universal health care, to do things that have to be done about this energy situation and global warming, because I think they're enormous threats, not only to the people of America but to the future of the world, for America to lead on some of these big moral issues that face the world, and I think America has to do something about poverty, I just do. Those are higher priorities to me than the elimination of the deficit.
And his rhetoric and framing grows ever sharper, ever more progressive. How long have we been waiting for a leader who sounds like this:
Real change starts with being honest -- the system in Washington is rigged and our government is broken. It's rigged by greedy corporate powers to protect corporate profits. It's rigged by the very wealthy to ensure they become even wealthier. At the end of the day, it's rigged by all those who benefit from the established order of things. For them, more of the same means more money and more power. They'll do anything they can to keep things just the way they are -- not for the country, but for themselves.
Is Edwards engaging in class warfare? You betcha. About time a leading Democrat did. If you help John Edwards become president, then you'll have a good answer when your grandchildren ask what you did in the class war. You see, the stated and demonstrated rationale of his campaign is to fight inequality. The monstrous power held by the few at the expense of the many causes unnecessary hardship and agony. It hurts, it maims, it kills. It threatens what Thomas Frank calls the Middle Class Republic. It threatens our democracy and our freedom. And because power corrupts, because economic insecurity breeds fear and fear breeds militarism, because corporations have a vested interest in war and place profits above all else, the disproportionate power of the few threatens humankind.
Call it what you will--our class war, our bleeding wound, our dirty open secret--it's the problem of our time, and John Edwards has chosen to spend his political life addressing it.
He's changed, critics say. He's gotten bolder, perhaps--that's a good thing--but he's long been a populist fighter. Let's listen to the Nation's John Nichols talk about his tenure in the Senate:
[...I]n the Senate, Edwards was willing to stand up on a number of anti-corporate issues more so than most Democrats. It's the reason that not just Ralph Nader has kind words for him but also people like Ted Kennedy and remember, internally within the Kerry campaign, Ted Kennedy was advocating for Edwards. Because he saw Edwards as a gutsy guy who is willing to take on some bigger issues and to do some rough stuff with it. I think that's where the appeal is, to a lot of the older Democrats and even non-Democrats who see Edwards as a relatively young guy with a little bit of spark.
If everyone from Hillary Clinton to Mike Huckabee now talks about our class divisions, it's in part because Edwards began to do so at the national level in 2003, when it was a deeply unfashionable thing to do.
Tonight—tonight—somewhere in America a 10-year-old little girl will go to bed hungry, hoping and praying that tomorrow will not be as cold as today because she doesn't have the coat to keep her warm; hoping and praying that she doesn't get sick as she did last year, because it means 24 hours waiting in an emergency room to try to get medical care; hoping that her father, who lost his job when the factory closed and has not been able to find steady work, will actually get a job that allows him to provide for his family. She's one of 35 million Americans who live in poverty every single day, unnoticed, unheard. Well, tonight we see her, we hear her, we embrace her, she is part of our family and we will lift her up.
It was on the advice of no consultant, at the suggestion of no poll that Edwards took it on himself in 2003 to speak out against inequality. His policy prescriptions have evolved in the last four years but the wound targeted by those prescriptions has stayed the same.
John Edwards is this century's most prominent progressive populist, the candidate most likely to give more power to more people. This alone makes him worthy of the presidency.