or, It's the End of Liberalism & I Feel Fine
Of course, the subtitle could just as easily be It's the End of Conservatism & I Feel Fine. Or even Libertarianism. Progressivism. Populism. Whatever. Ideologies in general are dead & I for one don't give a flying fuck.
But you say: No, that can't be. I'm still a liberal. Or a progressive. Or a conservative. And you might be. Or at least consider yourself to be. And who knows: you might even be right about yourself. But get over yourself because this isn't about you. This is about the bigger divisions in our country & in the world. And the conflicts currently raging do not fall along the left-right liberal-conservative axis.
More to the point, still thinking in these terms at this point is not only ridiculous but also impractical. You might as well run around with a confederate flag on the back of your prius. What the fuck is he babbling about you say? Follow me behind the fold & I'll explain (though, fair warning, it'll take a bit & you might want to grab a cup o' joe before starting).
The Death of Liberalism
Bill Clinton himself declared that the era of big government is over and vowed to end welfare as we know it. But these declarations were kin to a doctor signing a death certificate: the patient, in this case traditional liberalism revolving around the New Deal - Great Society axis, was already dead. It was Clinton's gift that he could see that though even his blinders were lifted only after a defeat -- by a Congress controlled by his own party even -- of his universal healthcare plan & then the drubbing at the polls in the 1994 midterm elections.
Clinton's move to the middle has been exemplified by the inside the beltway strategists as a winning strategy for Dems but has led to consistant losses in the post-Clinton era. Because of these losses, this move to the center mantra has been villified (& rightly so, imo, though for the wrong reasons) by the anti-DLC faction on the progressive blogosphere here. Clinton, though, was correct & remained popular in spite of impeachment. He was in fact so successful & made the Republicans so frustrated that they were forced to try to de-fang him personally when they couldn't do so politically.
The Death of Conservatism
The Republican meme from the mid ninties talks up the contract with America but as Chris Caldwell in his 1998 Atlantic piece The Southern Captivity of the GOP (behind a subscription wall but a short summary can be found here), considerably less than half the electorate even knew that the so-called Contract with America existed. Republican talking points also include the so-called culture war & the success of the Reagan tax-cuts -- trickle down economics. Clinton's meteoric poll ratings at 70+% in January of 1998 while he was being impeached put the culture war lie to rest while Clinton's economic program based on somewhat higher marginal tax rates but most importantly a balanced budget destroy the basis of what the first Bush rightly called voodoo economics. In short, Clinton's success in fending off both the Republicans on both a political as well as a personal basis marked the end of conservative political theory though, as with liberalism, Clinton was again merely signing the death warrant: Traditional conservatism had died under Reagan &, like the late Ms. Schiavo, the Right for whatever reason refused to believe that it was dead.
Undercurrents
If you add in Ross Perot's run for the White House in both 1992 & 1996 as well as Bradley's challenge to Gore in 2000, McCain's challenge to Bush in 2000, & Nader's challenge to both Bush & Gore that same year, you completely destroy the underpinnings of this Republican meme, though obviously Republicans continue to prat about it like so many parrots in a pet shop.
No personal offense intended here but Perot was a crackpot. In spite of this, he managed to get 10-20% of the popular vote over two separate election cycles. More importantly, he drew his support from both parties, though obviously more so from the Republican side since Clinton won in both 1992 & 1996. This should've been the first indication that something was grossly amiss.
Bradley's unsuccessful challenge to Gore from the left -- & mind, Gore was a sitting vp at that point -- as well as McCain's challenge to Bush were further clues. Both of these challenges were surprisingly strong & at some point in either case, it actually seemed like the challenger had a reasonable chance to win against the establishment candidate. Bradley's fuck you to Gore was especially harsh since Gore had been Vice President under Clinton & heir apparent to his party's nomination.
Conflating the three of these might seem nonsensical since the actual respective agendas of the candidates were wildly different. My point here though isn't based on the contrasting agendas; it is based on the intensity of the challenges: If the traditional left-right big government liberal vs states rights conservative paradigm held true & the country was, as the Republicans & DINO's would have us believe, trending conservative, then none of these challenges should've been as strong as it was. Perot, in arguing for a balanced budget & an America first foreign policy should not have hurt the Democrats at all yet Clinton won with a plurality instead of a majority in both elections. Obviously, Perot drew more from the Republican side since Clinton won both of these elections, obviously indicating that the country was not trending conservative as the Republicans keep stating. Further, if the country was trending rightwards, left leaning Bradley should not have had as much support as he did against Gore, who was more centrist in 2000. Similarly, McCain should not have had the support that he did since he was to the left of Bush in 2000.
Nader, as is his wont, was both right and wrong in 2000. He said that there was no difference between the Democrats & the Republicans. That is obviously false if the country is operating on a left-right axis & subsequent events have justified that. The power of Nader's run in 2000 further supports my contention that the operational axis of this country has shifted: After the failure of Clinton's left leaning health care plan, the takeover of Congress by the right leaning Republicans & their subsequent failure at impeaching Clinton, Nader should not have had the primarily left leaning support he did, at least, not enough to play the spoiler role he did in 2000 unless -- & this is key -- something else was going on below the surface.
Obviously something else has been going on. And that something else is a sea change or paradigm shift. The axis of American politics (actually global politics but we'll focus on the American side in this diary) has shifted: it is no longer left-right but pro-establishment vs. anti-establishment. The inconsistancies that all the preceding examples illustrate disappear when one views them on this axis. To wit: Perot's challenge to Clinton & the first President Bush; The defeat of the traditionally Democratic big government liberal health care plan proposed by Clinton in 1993; The loss of the Democratic Congress in 1994 & the rise of the Republican Congressional Majorities in the past decade; Bradley's challenge to Gore in the 2000 primaries; McCain's challenge to Bush in the 2000 primaries; and, finally, Nader's challenge & spoiler role in the 2000 elections. As I noted above, Nader was mistaken in conflating the two parties because on the traditional left-right axis, there are in fact differences. But, if the country is operating on a pro-establishment vs. anti-establishment basis, then Nader was correct in stating that the two parties are essentially the same since they both represent establishment forces.
The Bush Presidency
The thing that frustrated & then angered Republicans most about Clinton was that he wasn't a traditional liberal. The thing that frustrates and angers Democrats most about Bush is that he isn't a traditional conservative. Traditional conservatives don't challenge states' rights yet there is John Ashcroft asking the Supreme Court to strike down Oregon's Right to Die law. Traditional conservatives don't support big government but the U.S. government has grown under Bush II just as it did under Reagan. The difference here is that Reagan could blame a liberal Democratic Congress for that growth; Bush II cannot. And you have the perverse dichotomy of Republicans pressing for a Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit & Democrats for the most part opposing it: if the left-right axis held true, this would not have happened. Neither would we have the spectacle of a small government party legislating bills for one person in the Schiavo case to the same small government party legislating a highway bill which has more pork than anything the liberal Democratic Congresses of the eighties ever passed.
If the Republican Party no longer stands for small government & the Democratic Party no longer stands for big government, then what do they stand for? The answer is very simple: they stand for nothing beyond maintaining the current power structure. Caldwell in the 1998 Atlantic article previously cited predicted in much more depth that the Republican Party having forsaken the central tenets of its small government philosophy would attempt to hold on to power through political tricks. Delay's redistricting efforts as well as the pork laden highway bill & the Medicare Prescription benefit among other big government legislation i.e. bribes to the electorate, have borne that out. More recently, Glen Greenwald notes that conservative now means anyone who agrees fanatically with Bush II & liberal now means anyone who disagrees with Bush II even in part. & so we now have the spectacle of Andrew Sullivan, among other people who would have been labelled die-hard conservatives only a couple of years ago, being berated by Bush supporters for being liberals even though his/their philosophic positions haven't changed all that much.
The Democratic case is a little bit more difficult to make but bear with me for just a little while longer.
2004. Dean. And After
The dirty little secret that almost no one wanted to acknowledge in the 2004 Democratic primary was that Dean was not a liberal. Yes, he supported civil unions for gay couples, but even that was a moderate position: the true liberal position was same sex marriage & Dean, to the best of my recollection, shied away from that. He also supported balanced budgets & tried to keep cuts to Medicare on the table until Kerry forced his hand in one of the Presidential Debates leading to the primaries.
But Kerry won the primary: if the left-right axis was operational & especially if the country was trending conservative, this should not have happened. Kerry was the more traditionally liberal candidate & even a brief perusal of his record as a Senator compared to Dean's record as a Governor proves this in spades. Lost in the miasma of the Dean is an extremist angry liberal meme was the reality that Dean was to the right of Kerry on most issues & actually was pulled further to the left for example on taking Medicare cuts off the table to balance the budget by Kerry.
But Kerry's win makes sense when considered in terms of the pro establishment vs. anti establishment axis. Kerry didn't win because he was more centrist than Dean; Kerry won because he was not an outsider. Unlike Dean, he was not going to wholeheartedly challenge the status quo. Possibly because of this lack of [perceived] difference between Bush & Kerry, Bush was able to eke out a victory in the general election.
What was surprising about the 2004 Presidential Primary was not that Kerry won but that he almost lost: the surging strength of the netroots almost decided the contest before the first vote was cast & Kerry had to mortgage his house to support his campaign. If the left-right axis was still operational, this should not have happened: Kerry should've been the choice of the netroots because that meme calls for the netroots to be more leftist than the mainstream Democratic party.
A more recent example of this phenonmenom -- & the thing that specifically sparked this line of thought -- is the Hackett case. No, I'm not going to rehash but I do want to point out the incongruency that led me to this diary: Hackett is, for the most part, the moderate, & Brown is the progressive. If the left-right axis held any power & if the netroots were predominantly leftist or at least more leftist than the general Democratic Party, this should not have been an issue. Brown should've gotten the full support of the netroots from the get go & Hackett should have had little to no support on DKos & other lefty blogs, & especially not to the extent that his withdrawal from the race took over all debate here for two days running. & the pro-Brown supporters, bless their uncomprehending hearts, kept repeating in comment after comment but Brown is the progressive candidate to greater and greater frustration & to no avail.
Their incomprehension is illustrating because they are correct: in the traditional left-right axis, Brown is the more progressive candidate. But their shark has been jumped: the prevailing axis of American politics is no longer left-right but pro-establishment vs. anti-establishment. Hackett, like Dean, like McCain (in 2000; not now), like Bradley, like Nader, like Perot, represents anti-establishment forces. This is why the netroots support him in spite of his more or less centrist leanings when compared to Brown. And this is why it doesn't matter anymore that Brown is the progressive in the race: Brown is the insider & represents the establishment. This latest move cements that fact & while Brown, with support from the Democratic establishment has won the primary, he has, for the most part, lost the hearts of the netroots. Indeed, it can be argued that, apart from a small minority, he never had it (an informal poll last fall on dKos fell 1600-300 for Hackett).
What Next?
No theory is useful without predictions to test its utility. So here are some general conclusions as to what specifically this paradigm shift or sea change entails as well as what, if this is correct, will likely happen.
- Left vs. Right is no longer relavent. I don't think that after Dean & Hackett, that I have to make this case any further. But, generally speaking, if my theory is correct, the netroots will continue to favor candidates that challenge the establishment rather than ones that support it in spite of philosophical leanings.
- Continued challenges to the status quo. This might in fact be the reason why Schumer et al are wholeheartedly trying to get rid of the primary structure. If they are successful in doing this, then two things will follow.
First, Republicans, already more monolithic than Democrats, are certain to follow suit in getting rid of ways to challenge establishment candidates. Indeed, the current tricks that the Democratic establishment is playing with Hackett, for example, has the acrid odor of something out of the Republican playbook.
& second, anti-establishment constituents in the Democratic establishment especially, since we tend to be less monolithic, but also the Republicans increasingly disillusioned with the Bush agenda & not prone to embrace the Bush-lite agenda of the Democrats will find outlets for their political frustration in insurgent candidates & third party movements. The philosophical leanings of the insurgent candidate or third party will be secondary to the fact that they are insurgents & do not represent the status quo. Note that these insurgent candidates and/or third parties will have a better chance to succeed if they're pragmatic and/or moderate in their approach rather than idealogical or extremist.