Cross posted at One Utah.
The Obama administration made a surprisingly simple miscalculation early on - they adopted a cautious centrism that was intended to alleviate the right's fears, to hopefully limit the amount of opposition from those on the right. Instead, the American right promptly leapt into teabagger mode - shrieking hysterics and demanding ideological purity. In the face of a furious and unhinged right wing, the Obama team continued to pin their hopes on cautious centrism as a way forward.
Nicholas Kristof wrote:
President Obama came into office with expectations that Superman couldn’t have met. Many on the left believed what the right feared: that Obama was an old-fashioned liberal. But the president’s cautious centrism soured the left without reassuring the right.
Kristof is absolutely right but he seems to ignore that insight in an attempt to rally the left - he begins listing the President's accomplishments and offering a chilling argument that is supposed to rally Democrats and liberals:
I’m hoping the European elections will help shock Democrats out of their orneriness so that they accept the reality that we’ll be facing not a referendum, but a choice. For a couple of years, the left has joined the right in making Obama a piñata. That’s fair: it lets off steam, and it’s how we keep politicians in line.
But think back to 2000. Many Democrats and journalists alike, feeling grouchy, were dismissive of Al Gore and magnified his shortcomings. We forgot the context, prided ourselves on our disdainful superiority — and won eight years of George W. Bush.
Kristof and other commentators are correct that liberals need to rally behind Democratic candidates because the alternative is Republican malgovernance, but they ignore an even more important insight - Democratic leaders haven't given progressives a reason to rally behind them. It's been a failing of Democratic leaders for a long time - they consistently fail to fight for progressive policies in an attempt to mollify conservatives, then they complain that progressives don't support them.
Had Democratic leaders fought for Medicare for All and used that proposal as a beginning in the health care reform debate they could have rallied the left and brought along a majority of Americans. They might well have passed a truly universal health care reform, but even if they failed, they could have compromised from there without losing the left. Progressives understand and support compromise but we need to see our leaders fight for progressive programs and policies. Pre-emptively compromising away progressive proposals and pursuing instead a very cautious centrism has failed repeatedly - it hasn't mollified conservatives and seems to have enraged them even more, it has soured the left, and failed to persuade undecideds and moderates. In a system in which conservative policies are the default position, centrism will almost always fail because no policy is ultimately conservative enough for the right and conservative policies have gotten us into the mess we're in.
It's long past time to abandon cautious centrism. I think the President gets that and his stumping for a jobs plan on the argument that we can't wait is a sign, but frankly it's one of those efforts that would have mattered more two years ago than it does today since there's naught he can do about it. But it's a start. And the rest of the party needs to follow, not by using Jim Matheson's strategy of supporting stupid right wing ideas (Balanced Budget Amendment anyone?) but by engaging in serious and fruitful opposition.
Margaret Wheatley describes fruitful opposition:
. . . it’s essential to return to the source of the conflict, which is people’s different perspectives and positions. In order to understand a problem in its complexity, we have to learn much more about it. We achieve this understanding by giving each person or position ample opportunity to explain their reasoning in depth. What’s required here is to amplify the differences as the means to create a fuller, detailed appreciation of the situation or problem. We are seeking to enrich our understanding from the realization that no one person or position has a sufficient picture of what’s going on.
To create this differentiation and depth, it helps to sit around a square table, to literally "take sides." People need to choose which side they’re on (more than four sides is fine, as long as it doesn’t go beyond an octagon. And people can switch sides as the process evolves.) You can also do this seated as an audience, with each side presenting from the front. The fact that most public forums use such a form explains why they only increase conflict and entrenched positions. They begin by amplifying differences, rather then quieting and calming the situation. If you begin with taking sides, it’s guaranteed that you will only exacerbate the conflict.
Each side is responsible for developing their position in depth. This is not the time for sloganeering or campaigning. The task is to go deeply into the rationale and logic of each position. It is important to keep the exploration of each side separate–we are not seeking compromise, blending of views, consensus or negotiations. Each position has its own logic, and the goal is to develop the unique integrity of each side.
Respect and clear thinking are the core behaviors of this stage. We listen attentively, even to those that we profoundly disagree with. Such respect is easier now that people have sat in circle together and developed more rapport and patience. Respect also means that we’re open to the possibility that we’ll hear something useful from our opponents. We are willing to be curious that others have insight and wisdom that are useful to the group.
And clear thinking is essential. We move away from emotions (no matter how much we care about the issue) and instead use reason to develop greater clarity about what’s going on. We want to clear away the fog created by our emotional investment in the issue. As each side presents its analysis of the problem, others simply listen. After a while, the inherent complexity of the situation becomes quite evident. Often, people are overwhelmed as they realize just how complex things really are. But this overwhelm is of great benefit, because it moves people off of their certainty platforms. Confused and overwhelmed, we become open to new interpretations and possibilities. Confusion often has a helpful companion, humility. Thus, confusion is the necessary precursor for letting go of entrenched positions and moving into creative exploration together.
I am under no illusions the Republicans will have anything to do with engaging in the kind of respectful and clearly thought out dialogue Wheatley describes. We're talking about a party that described proposals to pay doctors who helped their patients do end of life planning as "death panels." We're talking about a party that describes the President as a Kenyan born, Muslim socialist fascist atheist bent on destroying America. Republicans are not going to be part of this process. That's fine.
As liberals/progressives and Democrats, we can do our part. But, we also have to avoid falling into the "laundry list" trap.
Fruitful opposition in this case means doing our homework, being ready to make a passionate case for our position, to locate it within language. Change theorist Otto Scharmer describes this languaging as a meta-process. We need to do that meta work before we start getting into the public debate. If that means literally gathering in a room and following Wheatley's proposal of laying out the logic of our position and then finding the language that captures and communicates that logic, it's worth it. You can see the difference, for example, in polling on same sex marriage versus polling on marriage equality. Languaging is part of the process of fruitful opposition and we need to do it.
In his book Framing the Debate, Jeffrey Feldman talks about ways in which presidents have engaged in this meta process, but also how that has helped them shape national debate. It's easy to mistake languaging as nothing more than rhetoric, but it is far deeper. It represents a process of understanding one's own ideas and the values and logic which informs those ideas. Rather than being a dishonest rhetorical trick, languaging is a profound outcome of understanding and knowing. Scharmer's model - Theory U - is all about going deeper in the process of solving problems.
If Dems and progressives do the work - and it's not months' long work, it can be done with relative ease in a few days - then we return to the public arena with proposals and language that we can use to shape the debate, to advocate our positions effectively and passionately. We're ready to oppose conservatives in fruitful ways.
Some of the process will be tough - Republicans aren't going to engage in honest rhetoric and Dems are going to have to become accustomed to stating their positions for them in incredibly unappealing terms. The basic outlines will look like, "Well Republican X says he opposes proposal X what he means is we're all on our own. Democrats, like me, believe we're all in this together and we're stronger when we hang together. To quote Benjamin Franklin, we must hang together or surely we will all hang separately. We as Democrats value each citizen as equals and believe we can work together so that each American is able to pursue his or her own path in life and to be his her best and we recognize success isn't about a profit earned but a life well lived." Such statement simultaneously put Republicans on the defensive while stating Democratic positions in positive terms.
The particulars of that statement may not work but I offer it as a sample; I see that kind of languaging and framing as a starting point. Successful languaging is something we develop together. Successful fruitful opposition to Republicans means recognizing that they've engaged in destructive opposition. We can't change their tactics and we can't control the media. But we can develop more effective ways of responding than the failed tactic of cautious centrism. Fruitful opposition is grounded in respect for own ideas. It's not about living some pie in the sky dream of better politics, it's about doing it today and fighting back as necessary against the dysfunctional politics Republicans have mastered.