The Germans have a lovely saying: "There are two ways to build a ship. The first is to design detailed plans, gather materials, and organize work crews. The second is to create in the human heart a dream of the sea." That touches me on several levels. Like many, I love the ocean and the phrase "a dream of the sea" resonates deeply with me. I also love the beauty of the idea: give us a dream and we will look for ways to make the dream real, with or without top-down guidance and detailed plans. Indeed, waiting for the top-down guidance and detailed plans can sometimes get in the way.
So it is with politics. For the majority party, governing requires attention to the nitty-gritty details on which policies work or fail to help real people with real needs. But the dreamers who offer seemingly impossible ideas also play a vital role. So today I'll offer some Impossibly Progressive ideas.
More below the fold....
Impossibly Progressive Ideas (Non-Cynical Saturday)
This week Morning Feature has explored whether there is a method in the seeming madness of the Republican Party purging its non-extremists. Thursday we discussed the Overton Window, and whether the GOP purge may be a minority party's effort to shape the national debate by anchoring the right side of that window in conservative extremism. Yesterday we introduced three counter-strategies Democrats can employ to move the debate toward more progressive ideas: (1) first and foremost by governing well to retain our majority; (2) playing narrative defense by labeling conservative extremism as the extreme fringe it is; and, (3) playing narrative offense by offering Impossibly Progressive ideas into the political dialogue.
To wrap up the series I'll offer - and ask you to offer - some Impossibly Progressive ideas. But first a review-and-caveat. In the Overton Window concept, response to policy ideas ranges from Impossible through Radical, Acceptable, Sensible, and Popular, to Policy. As a public relations tool, it suggests an Impossible idea can make what was a Radical idea seem Acceptable or even Sensible by comparison. The point being, we can't offer Impossible ideas expecting them to be accepted immediately or in toto. We must expect and be ready to meet criticism, even from within our own party. Not every Impossible idea will eventually be Policy, and those that do may require years or decades to develop.
Most importantly, even if the Impossible idea never becomes Policy, it was still worthwhile to advocate it if that advocacy moved the debate to include other useful ideas. As Orinoco explained Thursday, the car dealer who knows you're looking for an $8,000 used car doesn't expect you to buy the $25,000 car he shows you first. He shows you that $25,000 car and highlights its features to nudge you toward buying the $10,000 car he shows you next, rather than the $8,000 car you looked at initially.
When we idealists offer Impossibly Progressive ideas with that in mind, we do important work regardless of whether our ideas become Policy. But progressivism is premised on the idea that government can work to help real people with real needs. When we're the majority party and we portray short-term rejection of an Impossible idea as a "sellout," we reinforce the conservative meme that "government is the problem," and we undermine the progressive premise that government can work to help real people with real needs.
When we offer Impossibly Progressive ideas, we must accept their Impossibility, at least in the near term. The ideas below are exactly that ... Impossible, at least in the near term:
National Jobs and Education Corps
Higher education should not be limited to the wealthy or those who willing to incur a mountain of student loan debt. Anyone whose high school grades or GED score qualify should be able to enlist in a National Jobs and Education Corps. For each year of public work service, he/she would earn one year of undergraduate or graduate education at a public university. Some of the public work service may be performed before the applicant attends college, if there are more applicants than there are college seats available. Some may be performed after graduation, with applicants placed according to their degrees completed and public needs.
For example, Jane wants to be a doctor, but she can't afford college and doesn't want to run up over $200,000 in student loans. So she enlists in the National Jobs and Education Corps. Applicants are placed in colleges by lottery, with the likelihood of being placed increasing with each year of public work service. There are more applicants than college slots that year, so Jane spends her first year doing public works service, in an assignment that fits her having a high school diploma. She is placed in college the next year, so her first year of college is already earned.
Jane graduates four years later with grades that qualify for medical school, but again there are more applicants than seats. She spends the next year in public works service, this time in an assignment that fits her having earned a premed degree. Her number comes up and she is placed in medical school the following year. She completes medical school in four years, so she has completed eight years of higher education and two years of public works service. She owes another six years of public works service, now working as a doctor. While Jane will be 35 by the time she finishes her public works service ... she has no student loans to pay off and the nation has benefited by sending her to college and medical school.
National Marriage Equality Amendment
As recent results in California, Florida, and this year in Maine have shown, fighting for marriage equality state-by-state will leave LGBTs with a patchwork of non-protection for the foreseeable future. What's more, many of us LGBTs are tired of playing defense. I'd like to see Congress introduce and hold hearings on a National Marriage Equality Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, mandating marriage equality in all U.S. states and territories. It would fail, just as the GOP's opposite amendment failed. That's not the point. Simply introducing the amendment moves the debate from "should we prohibit marriage equality nationwide" to "should we create marriage equality nationwide," and that would change the calculus for other LGBT issues like repealing DADT and DOMA.
Federal Maximum Wage
How much income can any individual really "earn" in a given year? Or, as President Franklin Roosevelt said in 1942, "no American citizen ought to have an income, after he has paid his taxes, of more than $25,000 a year." That would be about $315,000 per year in 2009 dollars. While we can quibble about the exact figure or whether there should be exceptions for people like athletes or artists who often earn most of their lifetime income in just a few years, the U.S. effectively had a maximum wage from 1942-1980. Despite the baleful warnings of conservative extremists, communists didn't take over the country, a mysterious legion of John Galts did not vanish into the aether, and our economy did not collapse. Sorry, obscenely-paid CEOs, bankers, and the rest of you in the top 1%, but your work is not worth that much more than that of the average man or woman. If you disagree, feel free to move elsewhere ... right after we seize any of your assets that are enabled and preserved by public law and public services. That's almost all of your assets, but you can take the rest with you to Monaco, Dubai, or wherever you want.
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There are three Impossibly Progressive ideas I'd like to see in the political dialogue. None is original to me. Not one is worked out in the kind of detail policy requires. None is even possible, at least not in the form presented, in the near term. But advocating for them would move the debate to include more progressive policy solutions.
What Impossibly Progressive ideas would you advocate?
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Happy Saturday!