John Meacham's declaration that America remains a center-right nation—a fact that a President Obama would forget at his peril. is infuriating to liberals like myself. Despite my anger (or bitterness?), I don't think this statement is even true.
Each election, the Republicans try to divide us with culture issues:
But Barack Obama was right. Many people vote outside of their economic interests. A healthy share of the blame goes to the Democrats for not articulating this better and/or triangulating - blurring the lines between themselves and the Republicans.
And, of course, Barack Obama is not an elitist:
Luckily there has been significant push back by many prominent liberal voices:
Paul Krugman
Four years ago George W. Bush narrowly won the presidential election, and Republicans achieved a 30-seat majority in the House and a 10-seat majority in the Senate. Immediately there was a vast chorus from the commentariat, proclaiming the death of liberalism; America, everyone said, was a conservative nation. I have a whole shelf of books with titles like Building Red America and One-Party Nation.
Maybe the current polls are all wrong. But at the moment they point to an Obama victory by a margin much larger than Bush’s in 2004, plus a Democratic majority of 50 or more in the House and something like 14 in the Senate.
So you know what the morning-after commentary will say — in fact, it’s already started. Yes: it will say that America is, um, a conservative nation.
Jonathan Cohn
Barack Obama could still lose. But it seems increasingly likely he'll win. If the margin is large enough, and he brings along enough Democrats in Congress, he'd have the opportunity to pass an ambitious agenda.
At that point, critics will likely make two arguments against such ambition. One will be based on resources: There isn't enough money to fund all of Obama's programs, they'll say. I think that's mostly wrong, for reasons I stated previously.
The other argument, I suspect, will be about Obama's mandate--or lack thereof. Critics will say the voters backed Obama because of personality and style, not the issues. In other words, the critics will argue, the public didn't really back a liberal agenda.
Personality and leadership style always figure prominently in the voters' minds, so the claim will surely have some merit. But it's worth keeping in mind that in each of the three debates, moderators asked Obama to list his top domestic policy priorities as president. He responded the same way each time: (1) Attend to the economy, starting with some kind of stimulus program if (as seems likely) conditions still warrant it (2) Promote energy independence (3) Make health care affordable for everybody.
That's some pretty clear signalling, particluarly since he's said more or less the same thing in his speeches. And while I doubt most voters can recite chapter and verse of his specific policy proposals, polls suggest that--overall--they support his approaches.
Cenk Uygar
The press still doesn't get it. Even without the presidential election, we are about to have one of the most transformative elections in our lifetimes. If experts like Charlie Cook, or the Republican Party itself, are right, the Republicans are about to lose another 20 to 34 seats in the House and at least seven seats in the Senate.
That is gigantic. It will take decades -- maybe even generations -- for the Republicans to recover from that...The problem is the Washington bubble. Inside the Washington bubble, the Republicans are always right, the Democrats are always cowed. Every issue is framed from the conservative perspective and liberals are some fringe group outside of the "mainstream of America." Wake up press, mainstream Americans are about tell you for the second election in a row that they are definitely not conservative.
You see, every member of the traditional press that just read that last sentence will rebel. "Come on, how can you say the country is not conservative? That's outrageous." Watch, I'll outrage you even more -- the United States of America is a liberal country.
Compared to some Western European countries, we could be a little more liberal. But compared to the rest of the world, it's not even close. We are one of the bastions of liberalism. In fact, the United States has almost always led the world in being progressive. We created the United Nations, we rebuilt our enemies through the Marshall Plan, we pushed for human rights throughout the world, we established the idea of freedom of speech and of the press, and the list goes on and on. We are a liberal country and proud.
Now, these last two elections will show that a short-term flirtation with the conservative movement was a gigantic failure. We gave the country over to our conservatives for the last eight years -- and we hated what they did with it.
That's because Americans are not fundamentally conservative. They believe that when there is a disaster like Katrina, we should help one another and it is the government's job to be there for its citizens. They believe it is the government's job to regulate the markets (which simply means to establish some fair rules by which everyone has to play) so that the free markets are not left unfettered. They believe that first strike wars in foreign lands turn out to be a bad idea. They don't like torture. They believe in a minimum wage. And they fundamentally believe in a social safety net, as established in programs like Social Security.
Since the national press has been brainwashed by the conservatives for several decades now, it will take them some time to adjust to this. But adjust they must, because the Democrats will have control over Congress for along time to come if any of these projections are accurate. I know it's really hard to get it through their heads, but James Dobson does not represent us, Nancy Pelosi does. How long and how forcefully can the American people say that before the press acknowledges it?
David Sirota
This Newsweek cover piece is the starting gun of the elite pushback against what could be a new progressive era. Penned by one of the most reliable peddlers of Establishment talking points, Jon Meacham, it ignores a wealth of easy-to-find empirical public opinion data showing the country's progressive majority on most major issues, and instead essentially argues that a President Obama will have to govern America as a slightly more moderate Ronald Reagan. To Meacham, insulated in his chattering class world of dinner parties and television green rooms, America of 2008 is the same as America circa 1980 -- even as the latest presidential and congressional polls suggest the possibility of a massive progressive landslide.
From a pure journalism perspective, it is stunning that the editor-in-chief of a supposed "news" magazine is writing cover pieces that read like cheap Republican Party direct mail, and ignore empirical data. Then again, "objectivity" in the media today is defined as worshiping the status quo, denigrating popular uprisings, and serving as stenographers to power, celebrity and money. So in that sense, this Newsweek piece is -- nauseatingly -- "objective" (and yet, Meacham then wonders why readers prefer the far more empirical Economist to the increasingly unreadable - and strident - conservative agitprop of Newsweek).
The question will be how much this kind of smug propaganda emanating from media megaphones in New York City and Washington, D.C. will impact a President Obama (who will - at least officially - be in an office that is supposed to represent more than the public opinion of Manhattan cocktail parties and Bethesda fundraisers). I'm not sure - in the one chance I had to discuss these issues with Obama, he showed both strong progressive inclinations, but also hesitation to try to challenge the parameters created by the elite. And so you better believe that if we want "real change," it is going to require sustained pressure from the progressive movement - pressure that shows just how totally out of touch the Jon Meachams of the world really are.
That the elite onslaught is starting even before election day shows just how frightened the Establishment is of the electorate it purports to understand and speak for. And while people like Meacham are, indeed, out of touch -- let's give them credit: they seem to get that the potential for significant tectonic policy shifts are very real. That's why they are digging in even earlier than usual -- and why the day after election day is when the fight for the future of the country is going to go into overdrive.