Progressives too often see ourselves as radicals or outsiders when much of what we try to do and need to do better is teaching basic civics to ignorant centrists. Encouraging basic democratic competence is not a radical leftist agenda, as the right would have us believe, or even a partisan agenda, as many centrists believe. Yet, progressives are often also confused about our political roles, which is why I got complaints from Kos readers about my diary on Fukuyama’s latest book.
Guess who’s a centrist lacking in civic competence. That’s right, Western Civilization’s old buddy Francis Fukuyama. But, notice, the centrists are slowly catching on. They are slowly figuring out that liberal democracy is weak and in crisis globally. And, in the United States, after four years of Trump and an invasion of the US Capitol, the center has finally started to notice the US Constitution is failing for the second time in its history. Surprise! There’s a full-blown authoritarian movement happening. Who could have seen it coming?
So, it has become undeniably obvious that the US Constitution is failing and only left-leaning democracy can save it. Progressives need to convince the political center that centrists are ignorant about democracy and civics, partly by using academic language centrists can’t ignore. In other words, we need to supplement Fukuyama’s End of History thesis with a better narrative without rejecting his work altogether. That’s why I read Fukuyama. Progressives need to beat centrists at their own game, both intellectually and through political organizing. After all, progressives are capitalists, and we do support liberal democracy along with Fukuyama. These are good things. We don’t want to overthrow democracy, or to replace capitalism with state-run communism, and we recognize that anarchism, whether of leftist or libertarian varieties, doesn’t work.
This is a crucial point that must be emphasized to progressives: not only are we capitalists, but we’re the most ambitious capitalists. We not only embrace capitalism as a good, but we strive harder than anyone else to make it good. We want to push capitalism to achieve its maximum potential for both people and the environment. That makes us the most ambitious capitalists.
Don’t be ashamed of the shortcomings of capitalism. Own capitalism as a positive force for good in the world. Let that be part of progressivism’s core message and brand.
Liberal democracy is in crisis. It is a systemic crisis, a crisis of liberal democratic constitutions and of constitutionalism itself. The political center still doesn’t get it. They are not ready to face this crisis as their own, preferring instead to blame the weakness of political liberalism on “populists” of the right and left. They are wrong. We face a crisis of liberal constitutionalism itself. The solution must accordingly be at the constitutional level, as well as the civic level. It is up to progressives to show the way forward.
Francis Fukuyama popularized the phrase “getting to Denmark” as a developmental goal for nations, and rightly so. It is a great and worthy goal. Fukuyama himself is becoming more of a social democrat all the time. I also admire European social democracy. But we are Americans and we need to get to America, not Denmark. It is time, therefore, for a Second American Revolution—a revolution in democracy. Real democracy is an open-ended journey to take, a process of discovery. That means much of America has yet to be discovered, since the idea of America has yet to be fully implemented. The America MLK Jr. spoke of in front of the Lincoln Memorial, and the words Lincoln spoke at Gettysburg—the “Dream” we must “highly resolve” to pursue, is still an undiscovered country.
So, I don’t want to get to Denmark. Americans need to pioneer a new and better way. We did it once here and we need to do it again. It’s time for Americans to take up the full promise of American life and lead the world in the next great democratic revolution. It is time for progressives to invent a better system for democracy. It is time to finally achieve our country.
Beyond winning elections, or bitterly critiquing and criticizing the status quo, we need to build a civic infrastructure. Progressives need to show the civically ignorant center what real democracy looks like by designing a democratic operating system more powerful than anything yet seen in the world.
There is a distinction to be drawn, then, between “basic civics” and “progressive civics,” the latter of which has partly to be invented. Democracy needs both to function, and liberal democracy—as opposed to the “illiberal democracy” of right-wing dictators like Putin or Hungary’s Orbán—is inherently progressive. That’s another point the center doesn’t comprehend: they think they want liberal democracy, but they don’t understand that that type of democracy is inherently progressive, at least moderately so (which is not to say progs won’t regularly get things wrong in politics).
Progressives need to get far better at teaching centrists these distinctions. It will help enormously for progressives to have a model democratic operating system to make the distinction between basic civics and progressive civics that much clearer. For such a model, look to the Wisconsin Idea and Power Structure Analysis for examples to build upon. The University of Wisconsin long ago aspired to be a model democratic operating system for the nation; that’s the “Wisconsin Idea.” I want to see it reborn and remade.
And, remember, we are the truest patriots and the most ambitious capitalists. Be proud of it.