When I asked last weekend if anyone noticed the 1990s were over, one of my core points was that progressives needed to stop being afraid of our own shadows, stop being hesitant and scared to be honest about what we believe in, and quit believing what our enemies say about us. This is one of the most important things we need to keep in mind, no matter what we believe about the health care bill, President Obama, progressive activism, or whatever other issue dominates our conversations.
That's why I was saddened to see CatM make that error in her otherwise fine diary.
She wrote:
I am, however, a pragmatic progressive. I accept that my views do not constitute the views of the majority of American citizens. I accept that we will never succeed in electing a candidate who supports my views in the near future. Further, I recognize that if we did elect a candidate whose views reflected my own, said candidate would never be able to transform those views into law under the current Congressional two-party system.
I don't know if she read my earlier diary or not. But I wrote it to debunk precisely this kind of incorrect claim.
It is absolutely untrue that our views are minority views. By almost every available measure, progressive views are the majority's views. Progressive ideas are America's ideas.
Let me take a moment to show you precisely why that aspect of CatM's idea is so very wrong, and should be rejected (the rest of her claims notwithstanding).
We'll start with health care. The most recent poll I could find, from CNN earlier this month, showed 53% of voters supported the public option. That's in range with other polling over the course of the year that's shown support for the public option to be at 50% or higher, in some cases and states much higher.
These numbers are confirmed when you look across the issue spectrum, as the Center for American Progress did in a study earlier this year (PDF). If you go to page 10 of the report, and look at Table 1, you'll see that majorities of Americans hold progressive views on many, many, MANY issues. An example:
- Government regulations are necessary to keep businesses in check and protect workers and consumers.
Strongly agree: 32%
Total agree 73%
Neutral: 15%
Total disagree: 12%
Strongly disagree: 5%
Don't know: 0
Mean (1-10 scale, 10 is "strongly agree") 7.1
The study does conclude that "American ideological attitudes tend to converge in the middle," but felt it safe to say that "The American public may be classified as solidly progressive but not excessively so."
So why would CatM feel that her progressive values are in the minority, when the studies show this is just not true?
Unfortunately, it's because she's come to believe what our enemies say about us. (note by eugene: CatM says in the comments below this is not actually the case.)
In the 1990s, progressive ideas were marginalized by Democratic leaders and media who claimed that after 12 years of Reagan-Bush that the American public had decisively turned right. Although there was nostalgia for the cultural products of the 1960s, the success of Reagan seemed to indicate that there was no nostalgia for its leftist politics. This, despite the fact that progressive activism helped Clinton win the 1992 election, as Clinton himself espoused many progressive frames on the campaign trail.
Progressives were told that our ideas were not only wrong and unpopular, but that we were responsible for Nixon, Reagan, and everything bad in the world merely because we stuck to our guns. While the right and the center were lauded for holding true to their values, we were attacked for doing so. Even though - or probably because - progressive ideas remained quite popular even in the 1980s and 1990s, those who opposed those ideas and values tried to convince the world that in fact, progressive ideas weren't popular.
The right said this to try and defuse our populism and our ability to win votes and get policies enacted. The neoliberals (centrist corporatists) said this to try and stop progressive Democrats from blocking corporate-friendly deals like NAFTA, welfare reform, or the gutting of our financial regulations in 1999 and 2000.
Ironically, even though we're told that progressive "purism" is somehow to blame for Republicans returning to power, the evidence here too shows the reverse is true: that it is neoliberal corporate policies that cause conservatism's resurgence. It does so by demobilizing progressive activism and alienating swing voters.
We have seen this happen several times since 1980. Jimmy Carter was the first Democrat to embrace neoliberal policies (Reagan merely took it to a much greater degree). Carter's neoliberalism led Ted Kennedy to run a failed primary challenge and caused swing voters to shift to Reagan. Bill Clinton's neoliberalism demoralized the progressive base, and caused enough swing voters to shift to Bush to let him seize power in 2000. (The fact that Clinton also caused enough progressives to shift to Nader is never seen as a political reality that progressives must be wooed to be kept on board, but is instead seen as some inherent character flaw of progressives.) We saw it in Canada in 2006 when the Liberals lost power to the Conservatives, and we are going to see it next spring when the Labour Party gets to enjoy a humiliating replay of the 1979 election at the hands of David Cameron and the Conservative Party.
All of those had in common a center-left government that emphasized neoliberal policies that increased corporate power and in doing so demoralized the base, which will usually show up once to save the center-left from a return of the right (1996 in the US, 2004 in Canada, 2005 in Britain) but can never do so twice (2000 in the US, 2006 in Canada, 2010 in Britain).
Let me put this another way. If people who already disliked you kept telling you that you were stupid, worthless, ugly, pathetic, unlovable, and a waste of carbon, would you agree with them? Or would you say "fuck off" and embrace your own self-worth, refusing to let people who have a reason to want you to fail get you to believe those things about yourself?
When people start to believe such negative thoughts about themselves, it's called "internalization" - as in you've "internalized" those ideas and come to believe they are true and act act on that belief, usually to one's own detriment.
Few of us would ever let that happen to us personally. So why the hell should we let it happen to us politically? It's already the sensible political move to strongly advocate for our values if we ever want them to be put into action. It also happens to be the popular position, since Americans generally support progressive values and policies.
Again, I covered most of this in my diary on Sunday. I don't mind that CatM didn't read it. (note: CatM in the comments says she did indeed read it.) What I do mind is that her diary has stayed on the rec list for so long even though it runs counter to the available evidence.
Progressives have a range of views on the current health care bill, and that's fine. I don't really care if you support it, want it improved, or think it sucks - as long as you do so from a position of strength. If you think we should support this bill or do some other thing because we're a minority with our backs against the wall, you're as wrong as the day is long.
I don't see what is "pragmatic" about ignoring the evidence and internalizing what your enemies say about you. It seems to me that true pragmatism involves looking at the truth, understanding that the American people stand with us on the issues, and acting accordingly.