There was a great deal to learn about candidates Kucinich, Clinton and Edwards from the Grist.org Global Warming: America’s Energy Future Presidential Forum; for those who missed it, the blogosphere came through where the traditional media would not, with no less than four concurrent liveblogs giving perspective.
But of all the things said during the forum, it was Hillary Clinton who made perhaps the most telling and instructive statement of the entire day. In a response to a question asking how her climate change initiatives would succeed when her healthcare initiatives had failed, she said something that encapsulated for me the difference between her campaign and those of the other leading Democrats in the field. Unfortunately, the actual video of of the event will not be able until later in the day, so a close paraphrase of her statements cobbled together from the liveblogs will have to do for now:
I certainly remember healthcare very well. Everybody is for change in general, but when it gets to the particulars, people start peeling off. And then people worry you’re not pure enough, and then the perfect becomes the enemy of the good. And then your allies aren't happy, and your adversaries are thrilled because we're divided. As a thought that you can take away from this forum: there is no way we will ever get a piece of legislation that everyone here can agree with.
Incremental change is the only way to go unless there’s some major event like Pearl Harbor or 9/11: if Al Gore had been president, we would have had an energy and climate change program after 9/11. But ultimately, it’s imperative we get something passed and implement it, so that we can persuade Americans that it won’t be disruptive or lower their standard of living, but will actually create jobs and do good. We'll have to put together a smart coalition to withstand the attacks that will come. I'm aware of the difficulty, but I feel confident. emphasis added
I know that there has been more than enough Hillary-bashing of late, and I've made my disapproval of her candidacy quite clear already. Much as this will sound like yet another Hillary-bashing piece (which it must inevitably be to a certain extent), it is really designed to condemn an entire philosophy of governance that has put been responsible for untold harm over the last 20 years.
This philosophy says that the American people are comfortable with the status quo and have a fundamental fear of change. It says that a leader must overcome this handicap not by doing the right thing and letting the people follow, but rather by taking incremental steps toward change in order to show the people that change is not painful.
This was the governing philosophy behind the presidency of Bill Clinton: outside of welfare reform and NAFTA (both of questionable value), no major changes or significant overhauls of public policy were made. Of course, Bill Clinton had an excuse: the landslide Republican victories in 1994 and the subsequent fervor of their opposition to his presidency made the prospect of dramatic leadership challenging at best.
Yet if Hillary Clinton does win the presidency, she will in all likelihood have a Democratic Senate and a Democratic House to work with--quite possibly with significant majorities in both chambers. Even so, we are seeing the same rhetoric insisting on the need for incremental changes that we might see from an embattled leader in the face of virulent opposition.
The biggest problem with this philosophy for today's Democratic politics is that, as Markos says in his two Newsweek articles that should be required reading for all Democrats in or running for office, the American people don't like Bush, and they're desperate for change. Even if one wished to argue that a strategy promoting incremental change was good politics in the 1990s (a proposition with which I would strongly disagree), it certainly isn't good politics as we approach the second decade of the 21st century.
Democrats who propose standing strong in support of fundamental changes to America's foreign, energy, and domestic policy have historical reasons to take heart as well. Whether it was the FDR's New Deal in the wake of the Great Depression, JFK's space programs in the wake of Sputnik, or LBJ's forceful actions on civil rights, the American people have shown themselves largely able and willing to meet extraordinary challenges in the face of major crises and domestic dissatisfaction. The opportunity to take such steps again in concert with the American people on issues from healthcare to climate change to wartime foreign policy is available to any progressive leader who wants to take the mantle of leadership and make them happen.
Beyond the political arguments against the philosophy of incremental change, however, are the pure policy arguments. Even were it good political strategy or easier to implement, we simply do not have time to wait for the strategy of incremental change to work. On climate change, on the hollowed-out economy, on the increased turbulence in the Middle East, and on a host of other issues, the decay to world stability and sustainability is occurring at an increasingly rapid rate of change. If we wait two years to begin the process of incremental change so that we can make more moderate changes five years from now, it will already be too late. As I said months ago in The Time for Radical Change is Now:
In short, the stepping-stone changes we as progressives are attempting to make in American politics are too little, too late. We don't have five, ten, twenty years to do something about global warming, about the hollow economy, about the oil-military-industrial complex.
The time for demanding radical change and serious guts from our politicians is now. Small-scale gains and trading out Republicans for Democrats on a case-by-case basis, election by election, isn't even close to enough. We need major, serious change--and quickly. We need the current crop of Democrats to stand up and fight; we can't wait another ten years.
Otherwise, the long-term planning required of government will be superfluous: the painful changes that are demanded of us now, will be forced upon us tomorrow or else we, as a democratic nation, will fall into the dustbin of history. Either way, it won't be pretty.
For a host of reasons, then, the philosophy of incremental change espoused even today by Hillary Clinton and so many Democrats in her ideological camp must be rejected. My objections to her candidacy are not personal or even political: they are philosophical. Were she to show me tomorrow that she had rejected that philosophy of governance, she could have my primary vote. As it stands, I cannot see myself voting for her over any other Democrat in the field for this reason alone.
Regardless of what happens in January primary, however, this is a philosophical battle that we as a progressive movement must wage with establishment Democrats with fervor and immediacy. For both political and policy reasons, it is a fight we cannot afford to lose. Real transformative leadership is possible: all we need is the will to accomplish it, and the American people will follow.