Remembering Our History

Yesterday I was cleaning out a closet and stumbled on the May 2006 issue of The American Prospect. And there’s an article in it called “Party in Search of a Notion” by Michael Tomasky that I don’t remember reading, but now I wish I could afford to have copies made and hand them out to all progressive and liberal activists in the U.S., including OWSers, with certain parts highlighted for special attention.

First, here is the basic argument Tomasky makes —

For many years — during their years of dominance and success, the period of the New Deal up through the first part of the Great Society — the Democrats practiced a brand of liberalism quite different from today’s. Yes, it certainly sought to expand both rights and prosperity. But it did something more: That liberalism was built around the idea — the philosophical principle — that citizens should be called upon to look beyond their own self-interest and work for a greater common interest.

Tomasky has quite a lot of text supporting this argument, the important point being that for a long time most citizens, meaning more specifically most white middle-class citizens, accepted this basic premise — that good government requires citizens to contribute to something — their nation; the commonweal; whatever — larger than themselves.

That was the glue that tied the Democrats together as a party and won the support of the public for progressive legislation, through the New Deal to the Great Society. But when that ideal was lost, the Dems were reduced to “their grab bag of small-bore proposals that so often seek not to offend and that accept conservative terms of debate.”

And here is the little bit of history that I think most of you know, but I want all of today’s progressives to understand (emphases added):

The old liberalism got America out of depression, won the war against fascism, built the middle class, created global alliances, and made education and health care far closer to universal than they had ever been. But there were things it did not do; its conception of the common good was narrow — completely unacceptable, in fact, to us today. Japanese Americans during World War II and African Americans pretty much ever were not part of that common good; women were only partially included. Because of lack of leadership and political expediency (Roosevelt needing the South, for example), this liberalism had betrayed liberal principle and failed millions of Americans. Something had to give.

At first, some Democrats — Johnson and Humphrey, for example, and even some Republicans back then — tried to expand the American community to include those who had been left behind. But the political process takes time, and compromise; young people and black people and poor people were impatient, and who could blame them? By 1965, ’66, ’67, the old liberalism’s failures, both domestically and in Vietnam, were so apparent as to be crushing. A new generation exposed this “common good” as nothing more than a lie to keep power functioning, so as not to disturb the “comfortable, smooth, reasonable, democratic unfreedom” that Herbert Marcuse described in 1964 in one of the more memorable phrases of the day. Activists at the time were convinced — and they were not particularly wrong — that the old liberalism, far from nurturing a civic sphere in which all could deliberate and whose bounty all could enjoy, had created this unfreedom. The only response was to shatter it.

That was the work, of course, of New Left groups like Students for a Democratic Society, the (post-1965) Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, and a host of others. Other activists opposed the shattering — to the contrary, their goal was to make the Democratic Party more inclusive. But even this more salutary impulse could be excessive, as with the famous example of the Cook County delegation to the 1972 Democratic Convention, in which, of the 59 delegates, only three were Poles. Many in the Democratic Party of that era opposed these attempts at inclusion and new social-justice efforts vehemently. But in time, the party rid itself of those elements, and some of the ’60s activists became Democratic operatives and even politicians. The stance of radical oppositionism dissipated as the ’60s flamed out; but the belief system, which devalued the idea of the commons, held fast and became institutionalized within the Democratic Party. The impact on the party was that the liberal impulse that privileged social justice and expansion of rights was now, for the first time, separated entirely from the civic-republican impulse of the common good. By the 1970s, some social programs — busing being the most obvious example — were pursued not because they would be good for every American, but because they would expand the rights of some Americans. The old Johnsonian formulation was gone. Liberalism, and the Democratic Party, lost the language of advancing the notion that a citizen’s own interest, even if that citizen did not directly benefit from such-and-such a program, was bound up in the common interest. Democrats were now asking many people to sacrifice for a greater good of which they were not always a part.

Toss in inflation, galloping under a new Democratic president; a public, especially a white urban public, tiring of liberal failures on the matters of crime and decline; the emergence of these new things, social issues, which hadn’t been very central to politics before but became a permanent fixture of the landscape now; the Iranian hostage crisis; and the funding on a huge scale, unprecedented in our history, of a conservative intellectual class and polemical apparatus. Toss in also the rise of interest-group pluralism: the proliferation of single-issue advocacy organizations. All supported good causes, but their dominance intensified the stratification. They presented Democrats with questionnaires to fill out, endorsements to battle for, sentences to be inserted into speeches, and favors to be promised — and not just at election time; but even more importantly, when it came time to govern.

In short, the ideal of the common good was sacrificed for a worthwhile reason — the New Deal status quo excluded racial minorities and women. But it was replaced by the perception that various interest groups had to fight each other for a slice of a finite pie. And as Tomasky goes on to explain, this perception became the horse Reagan rode in on.

But, to a large extent, it was liberal activists of the 1960s and 1970s who bred and raised that horse.

Why do I think this is important? First, as much as OWS seems to want to emulate the old New Left (and they are doing that, even though some may deny it) it would be really good if they could understand what the New Left got wrong, so that they don’t repeat the same mistakes.

Second, in our continuing argument about why the Democratic Party is so lame, I cannot emphasize enough the role that 1960s and 1970s liberal activists played in shattering the old New Deal coalition, after which most of them walked away from party politics and left the Dems a party with little in the way of a base. The Dems were thus left to go to this interest group and that, hat in hand, for money and support. And often they were lining up for the second biggest check, after the one Republicans got. So if you want to know why the two parties seem to always pull in the same direction, this is why.

Third, it became gospel among Democrats that they had to continue to disown the old liberalism, especially in presidential politics, because the presidential candidates who had the nerve to be unabashedly liberal — Fritz Mondale comes to mind — or who could be painted as such — Michael Dukakis — were defeated by landslides. The only Democratic candidates who won between Johnson and Obama were Carter and Clinton, and these guys both did plenty of compromising and appeasing to conservatism and in many ways were more like pre-Goldwater Republicans than New Deal Democrats.

Today’s young progressive activists often evoke the memory of FDR and seem to want to go back to New Deal-type governance, and I’m fine with that. But there are certain realities that have to be addressed.

One, it took us many years to get into this mess. It will take us at least a few years to get out of it. Those who throw up their hands ad quit after just one election didn’t change much are fools.

Second, like it or not, if you want to change government, you either do it through established political processes or you stage a revolution. The problem with revolutions — beside being messy and violent — is that when you break up the old system you introduce chaos, and there are no guarantees you will maintain control of what emerges from that chaos. And I’m saying, we don’t need to re-invent the wheel here.

However, working through established political processes means getting involved in elections. It also means getting involved in party politics. If you want the Democratic Party to be more like the party of FDR (albeit with more diversity and equal rights for everyone), then get involved in the Democratic Party and work to make it the party you want it to be.

Because, I’m telling you, perpetually keeping aloof from the party while bitching and moaning and voting for Ralph Nader or some other political outsider to “send a message” — which I’ve seen progressives do for the past forty bleeping yearsain’t workin’.

Regarding President Obama — in many ways Obama actually does lean in a more progressive direction than either of his two Democratic predecessors, if you look at the three presidents honestly and knowledgeably. Even so, until there is a solid progressive majority in Congress, even FDR himself couldn’t have accomplished much more than Obama has accomplished. And that’s not an excuse; that’s reality.

I keep referring to this chart I found on Nate Silver’s old site; might as well publish it here —

When you appreciate that a chunk of Obama’s Democrats are Blue Dogs who vote with Republicans, and that the picture is even worse after the 2010 midterms, you ought to be able to see that comparisons to FDR are not entirely fair. This isn’t to say that Obama hasn’t deserved criticism, but frankly, I don’t see any other nationally recognizable Dem who might have won in 2008 who would have done any better with this Congress — including Hillary Clinton.

Finally, I agree with Tomasky that re-valuing the common good is the most essential thing those of us who call ourselves liberals or progressives can be doing now. Elizabeth Warren is particularly good at expressing herself in the context of a common good and is a great role model for doing this.

And what we need to stop doing is re-playing the old New Left tapes.

16 thoughts on “Remembering Our History

  1. maha,
    You and Tomasky make some great points.

    Just some random thoughts along those lines:
    Civil Rights and Vietnam were first. But then busing and the ERA became additional ‘New-deal’ breakers from the old left.
    But so was the 1978 SCOTUS Bakke decision on affirmative action – indecisive as it was.
    Like ERA and busing were clearly for women and black students, affirmative action was seen as being totally against the white male, and for all sorts of minorities.
    And thus, first Nixon, then Reagan, used this to get votes from white males, telling them that obviously everything the Democratic Party was doing was against THEIR ‘common good.’
    Now, blend in some ‘Old Time Religion,’ to attract the white women to the white men, and you have the Reagan Democrats combined with the Moral Majority to give Republicans their base up until the present day.
    And then the Three Mile Island accident happened, after we were told for 30 years that nuclear energy was for the ‘common good,’ and that also divided the nation.
    Nuclear power demonstrators were treated like the DFH anti-Vietnam ones in the late 60’s – early 70’s. I know. I was one of them.
    And what took over 40 years to unravel, will take years, decades, to knit back together. And in that time period, the Conservatives will push and push and push, trying to maintain control, and then consolidate,it by voter suppression and other dirty tricks.

  2. There’s a lot here to chew on. The whole dynamic of coming together for the common good versus separating and following individual pursuits is something I have thought about for years.

    It always baffled me, as a baby boomer growing up in the 1960s, when viewing those of later generations, Gen X and beyond, how it is so engrained seemingly in their DNA to abhor coming together, and to only know how to pursue their own individual interests. It’s no accident that this attitude and this generation (Gen X) came of age and fueled (and continues to fuel) conservativism, finally trumphing in 1980 with Ronald Reagan. This Gen X approach, with its emphasis on individualism at the expense of the commons, is almost completely at odds with my experience of the culture in the 1960s and earlier.

    I’ve mentioned The Fourth Turning before, and it talks a great deal about this. There is a regular, generational cycle to this, of expansion to include more people into the general commons, followed by contraction, where things break apart into individual pursuits. Spring turns into summer (maxiumum expansion and growth), followed by autumn and winter (contraction and falling apart). And on and on.

    Typically a great crisis (winter) is what it takes to draw people together, to make them forget their differences. It takes years if not a few decades to work through this crisis, which happens to seed the next generation which no longer even thinks in terms of individual pursuits. Survival, at the lowest common denominator is what matters.

    By contrast, maximum expansion (the peak of summer) is what sows individuation, and splitting apart from the group to pursue one’s own interests, and the dissolution of the group. This seeds the next generation which only thinks of their own interests, is incapable of thinking of a commons.

    I find The Fourth Turning to be a powerful set of ideas that explains much about where we’re at. We have not yet hit the depths of this crisis, the very depth of winter – it’s only late autumn. The philosophy of contraction and individualism (otherwise known as conservativism) still dominates strongly – no other narrative has displaced it yet, nice speeches notwithstanding. It’s still an enormous headwind for anyone, be it Obama or Elizabeth Warren, or the OWSers to fight.

    But winter does come, and you will know its darkest depth when there is widespread, undeniable realization that the old ways no longer work. When this can not be denied by anyone – the space is then cleared for a new narrative to surface.

    Now, there is a much larger cycle to civilizations as well. The Pax Romana lasted 200 years – imagine, 200 years where the incentives were structured so that everyone pulled together for the common good, before the cracks appeared and it finally fell apart.

    The generational cycle talked about in The Fourth Turning is much shorter, but it does occur within the context of larger cycles. The issue for me, is not whether winter or spring will come again – I’m pretty certain they will. The issue is where we are in the larger cycle of civilizations. When spring finally does appear, what will be left to build anew.

  3. Working for the common good, the good of the country, the good of our people seems to me to be the nut hardest to crack these days. I chalk it up to fear, a fear that was exacerbated certainly by the event of 9/11.

    I’m reminded of Germany following WWI after which the Germans allowed a Hitler to take control of their country for no reason other than he convinced them that with him at the helm Germany would be restored to her former glory. It was the fear of a continuing bleak future that drove them to that irrational decision.

    I wish we could ‘bottle’ Roosevelt’s speech to the country following Pearl (I remember hearing it) “We have nothing to fear but fear itself.” Wiser words are very seldom spoken and they should be spoken today, constantly, by politicians, the media, anyone with a megaphone or a microphone.

  4. moonbat – very interesting. It makes a lot of sense. I’ve always believed that we operate from our ‘gut’ much the same way, driven by the same needs, desires, thinking and feeling that we did when we were in the caves. It’s a matter of survival.

    I think it was last year that I quoted something from my 1950’s college history text and posted it here. “Great nations inexorably follow the trajectory of primitive, republican, imperial, decadence.” maha, if I remember, disagreed with it, probably because it’s rather a blanket statement, subject to a lot of interpretation and particular circumstances of any nation. BUT, what it doesn’t say is that we don’t all end up at the very bottom of the barrel. For some, it’s merely a decline in world dominance. The question, to me, is where will this nation end up.

    • maha, if I remember, disagreed with it

      I don’t remember this, but everything decays eventually. The question is whether the U.S. is in an irretrievable decay, or whether it can be retooled into a working republic again. That’s something we cannot know.

  5. What we laughably refer to as ‘politics’ is primarily an exercise in self-expression, a form of social signaling, in which how you feel about yourself and your world is shared by displaying your choice of consumer goods — in this case, candidates.

    And “No Labels” is every bit as much a brand as the others.

  6. Moonbat, I experienced exactly what you wrote about right here in Kissimmee, following the hurricane trifecta in 2004.
    My neighbors include doctors, dentists, high end contractors,. high roller real estate sales people, engineers, and little old me; a dock builder / commercial diver low life who happens to be very good with a chainsaw and sledge hammer, and hooking up generators, and who ain’t skeered of snakes; all very good skills to have in a hurricane aftermath.
    My status took a big turn up after the storms, and neighbors actually appreciated each other afterwards, which was a very good thing.
    Sadly, many of my neighbors have suffered great financial loss with the construction depression, and a lot who were used to champaign wishes and caviar dreams are barely hanging on to their homes. All sad,, but lessons are being learned… dying broke or rich don’t matter; you’re still dead, just less for the heirs to feud over.
    What does bother me is the constant drumbeat on the right to hoard weapons and ammo and freeze dried food;the bunker mentality, which is just plain stupid.
    I remember an old Twilight Zone episode in which a family had a well stocked fallout shelter big enough for only family members, and the neighbors decided to invite themselves in.

  7. I guess I’ll have to read “The Fourth Turning”, Moonbat, thanks. I am always pushing Adam Curtis’ documentaries. “The Trap” touches on the breakup of the idea of the “common good” which Margaret Thatcher clearly rejected and despised. Reagan hired one of her campaign honchos. Their idea was that people were more motivated by fear and desire than by ideas.

    I think of when James Galbraith was talking about the financial regulations from the New Deal, which had been successful to the extent that people remembered the boom and bust economy and some of the other maladies that they addressed. Of course, people came to see them as unnecessary restrictions rather than effective common sense. Some like Glass-Steagal were victims of their own success.

    “The question is whether the U.S. is in an irretrievable decay, or whether it can be retooled into a working republic again.” — That’s exactly the question, isn’t it? And so many of us are asking ourselves this every day. A few are disturbingly interested in the “Rapture Index” too, and some distract themselves with some celebrities tattoo. Maybe they’re the lucky ones.

  8. You are so absolutely right. I would like to see more talk, continued ongoing talk about how to do this.

  9. Actually, speaking of cycles, I’m getting ready to order a copy of Aristotle’s Politics. It too speaks of cycles, but different ones. Aristotle says that democracy turns into oligarchy which turns into dictatorship which turns back into democracy. That frightens me, considering the state of things in the country right now, but I’m going to read the book and see. Germany turned to Hitler because their economy was in free fall. I think the point about revolutions is right, we have no assurance that they will swing populist instead of fascist and I really, really don’t want to take that chance in this country right now.

  10. It may be that when someone with the large view writes the obituary for the Obama administration, the single biggest mistake which prevented a (somewhat) united vision from prevailing in elections and governance is the decision NOT to prosecute for criminal acts which contributed to the Great Recessioon.

    Lots of people want to see the banksters pay. No one has articulated a good reason to haul them before the bar with the circus that would ensue. But there is a political reason, and I use the word ‘political’ in its most crass sense, having everything to do with power, and nothing to do with justice. The narrative. The GOP narrative states that the Great Recession was caused by government. The simple obvious fact that NO ONE on Wall Street has been charged for ANYTHING leaves the narrative unchallenged. And therefore true. The government CAUSED the Great Recession.

    Now play it with an alternate history. A year after Obama takes office, 25 major officers of major financial institutions are charged with various crimes. If DOJ did their job, some will be convicted, some will beat the rap, but in the media firestone, the average uninformed voter would question and begin to doubt that these titans of Wall Street can be trusted.

    The GOP narrative says that, unencumbered by taxes and regulations, big business will lead the US to a recovery. Decades of Rush have prepared voters to reject government, which is the only agency that could hold business accountable. We missed the chance to ‘explain’ that fact to the voter by

    a) not presenting the autopsy of the Recession in a series of trials, and
    b) not displaying the heads of major banks on a row of spikes (figuratively)

    I understand that Obama made the decision to grant bankers a get-out-of-jail card when Obama believed he could fracture the opposition by reasonable, and even ridiculously generous offers. Obama didn’t want to antagonize moderates in either party. The systemic damage to our economy is deeper than Obama’s advisors thought, and the economy is now the main issue. Obama will find it hard to explain how the Great Recession was caused by fat cats who his administration has given a pass.

  11. Doug,
    After the S&L fiasco, if I remember right, over 1,000 people went to jail.

    And that wasn’t anywhere near as damaging as what happened 20 years later since, I guess we didn’t learn from THAT bout of deregulation.
    And who went to jail here? Nobody excepat Bernie Madoff. And the only reason that schmuck went is because he was fleecing other rich assholes, not poor and middle class people. If he has stuck to the latter, he’d still be living his life of champagne wishes and caviar dreams (and thanks erinyes, I’d forgotten that one!) 🙂

  12. @Doug and Gulag – you’re both right. But I’ve heard it said that if the DOJ were to prosecute all those involved in the financial debacle, it would mean sending an entire sector (hundreds of thousands or millions of people) to the slammer: everyone from bank CEOs down to mortgage officers were involved. And let’s not forget the politicians and lobbyists who “modernized” (in other words gutted) the regs that permitted banks and other institutions to roll the dice. The crime was that big.

    I think that’s extreme – but the other extreme – doing Nothing – is even worse.

    As bad as letting the criminals go unpunished, is letting the banks continue to operate, when they should be allowed to fail, with the shareholders taking a haircut, an ending that all good capitalist enterprises might face. Other countries (Sweden, I believe) have done something like this. Instead, the banks have grown even bigger as they gobble up weaker institutions, and have become even more a threat to our country as they become even more solidly “too big to fail”.

    The way the banks and the banksters were dealt with, I regard as a huge failing of this administration. It renders all Obama’s nice words as merely nice words, in my mind. Just sales talk in other words – he’s not really serious. Or not competent – one of the two.

    Finally, I need to correct something in the comment I wrote upstream. I said that, using The Fourth Turning‘s typology, we are in late autumn. That’s incorrect, we’re really in early winter (kind of like the weather outside right now in the northern hemisphere). We’ve pretty clearly transitioned out of autumn (contraction) given the crisis-inducing shocks of this last decade: from 9/11, the war on terra and abrogation of key parts of the Constitution, through the initial financial implosion of 2007-08. We’re solidly in winter now, but not yet at its depths, its ultimate crisis point.

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