Despite the vehement disagreement about Obama's not being a transformative liberal leader, everyone here agrees that the Republican alternatives are much, much worse. While polls show that fewer people call themselves “liberals” than call themselves “conservatives,” it is often the case that majorities or pluralities support liberal policies over conservative ones. And yet governance has drifted continually rightward since the 1970s. We now live in a country where the intrusive national security state has been normalized, the minimal social safety net is “on the table,” Reagonimcs and trickle down theory reign supreme.
It is tempting to focus on the greatness or failures of individual politicians and try to read into their minds, their true hearts, their sincere intentions. But while we imagine that heroic leaders could upend the political structure through which they have risen and in which they live, they are much more likely to succeed in actions which the existing structure facilitates and fail in those which the existing structure inhibits. More than we need need heroic leaders, we need structural carrots and sticks.
One driving aspect of our current political structure is the perceived location of the center. We tend to define our political center not as the middle of opinion of all Americans, but as the left/right divide on policy between establishment Democrats and establishment Republicans. This center has shifted to the right because: (1) establishment Democrats see pushing the divide rightward as expanding their constituency; (2) establishment Republicans see pulling the divide rightward as energizing their ideological base; and (3) there is no countervailing force.
Increasingly, the main electoral theme of establishment Democrats since the late 1970s has been that they are not liberals. In fact, they're kind of conservative, but the Republicans go too far. Establishment Democrats see their constituency expanding because as the perceived center moves rightward, Republicans leave behind another chunk of voters who have no choice but to vote Democratic. Voters further to the left have even less choice. Democrats gain by pushing the perceived center rightward.
The electoral theme of establishment Republicans has been to turn out an energized ideological base while suppressing a demoralized Democratic constituency. Republicans have energized their base by articulating and enforcing a clear ideology while accusing the Democrats of saying anything to pander to the (always moving) center. They point to the repeated adoption of Republican stances by Democratic politicians as evidence that Republican positions are right (as in Obama's adoption of Republican fiscal policies) and that Democrats embody the worse stereotypes of politicians (as in Kerry's “flip flopping”).
Democrats hope that their tepid constituency will eventually overwhelm the Republican base. Republicans dream of a day when only their base will bother voting.
In the meantime rightwing policies are enacted that have devastating effects on real working families. As the seemingly surreal public economic pronouncements from both sides demonstrate, politicians in the gilded echo chamber of officialdom are largely unaffected by the suffering of working class Americans. And the dance continues, Republicans pulling rightward and Democrats pushing in the same direction. This trend would stop, or even reverse, if there were a countervailing force. That would happen if someone paid an electoral price for moving too far to the right and, just as important, was perceived to have paid that price because they had moved too far to the right. So long as no one is seen to have lost anything by moving right, they will not stop.