His record on labor issues and the environment are excellent. He is Pro-Choice, pro-health care and has a decent record on gay rights. He voted against the flag burning amendment, and opposed most of the Bush tax cut orgy. He voted for condoms and sex education in schools and supports stem cell research. He is hated by the National Rifle Association and the American Conservative Union while Americans for Democratic Action rates him highly. He traveled as a Freedom Rider to Mississippi in the ’60s. He’s been endorsed by Democrats ranging from Bill Clinton to Barbara Boxer to Harry Reid. Given all the forgoing one might be inclined to thank whatever negligent angel protects the Democratic Party’s long-suffering interests that this Democratic maverick is up for re-election in a blue state where liberal isn’t an expletive. But the strange course of recent events may make one question if perhaps he wouldn’t be better off migrating to redder climes after all.
Part of the answer to that question will be forthcoming this week when Connecticut voters go to the polls to decide the fate of this man, Sen. Joe Lieberman, a Democrat who’s facing quite an uphill battle. Not from the GOP, mind you. No Republican has represented these parts in America’s upper house since Lowell Weicker, when George W.’s dad was in power. Before Weicker, none has done so since George W. Bush’s grandfather’s day when Connecticut was represented by… well, by George W. Bush’s grandfather, in fact.
No. Instead, Lieberman is dodging fire from that most deadly of enemies to Democratic interests - other Democrats. Specifically, from one Ned Lamont, a once-long shot candidate whose dark horse has brightened enough to put Lieberman on the uncomfortable end of a 51-47 poll deficit for the upcoming primary. So given his decent record on Democratic issues, why is the senator from the Constitution State fighting for his political life?
For the same reason many Republicans are fighting for theirs. Lieberman has the unenviable distinction of being among the most prominent of the Democrats to support the great Neocon Iraq Safari Adventure and has since compounded the sin by not even pulling a John “Honest, I didn’t mean it” Kerry jujitsu move and reversing himself. In fact, Lieberman is not remotely apologetic about singing backup for Bush’s Mideast Hits album and his refusal to break down and flip-flop like a Democratic presidential candidate has made him unpalatable to many in the party who prefer Lamont’s fiery opposition to Lieberman’s disturbing case of bipartisanship. The senator’s numbers for the upcoming primary are not good and the situation has gotten so worrisome that Lieberman has promised to wage an independent campaign for his seat should he be beaten in the August race.
These odd developments have indeed brought the Democrats to Lieberman’s side. No, not Connecticut Democrats. They still hate him. But Boxer, Ken Salazar and even the aforementioned Bill Clinton have come to the state to stump for the embattled incumbent. Meanwhile, Moveon.org and many on the left have defected to Lamont’s side.
Ah, now this is the Democratic Party we’re used to. Let the arguing begin! Form the circular firing squad! All this dull unity was starting to make me think that the Democratic Party had lost its most cherished tradition - the tradition of endlessly bickering over what our traditions are. Billy Clinton may have put it most succinctly in his visit on behalf of the hapless senator.
“If we allow our differences over what to do now in Iraq to divide us instead of focusing on replacing Republicans in Congress; that’s the nuttiest strategy I ever heard in my life,” he said.
The former president is exaggerating, of course. After all, Clinton’s has spent his life in the Democratic Party, an exotic locale where nutty electoral strategies are almost scheduled as a daily routine. It also bears pointing out that Lieberman will likely remain on Capitol Hill one way or the other. Ironically, polls have actually put Lieberman well out in front of a three- way race in the general contest. That puts the national Democratic leadership in quite a quandary. Should he become the nominee, backing Lamont looks like an almost sure-fire loser. But throwing him to the wolves after he’s got the nomination would roil the liberal base, which has romanticized the “Dump Lieberman” movement so much you half expect to see a disheveled Ned Lamont channeling Jimmy Stewart in a tear-jerking filibuster on the Senate floor. (Who would play Stewart’s overemoted everyman in a modern “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington?” anyway? My money’s on Brad Pitt.)
But the larger question posed by Clinton begs an answer here. When a Democratic candidate can do better in a Democratic state by running as something other than a Democrat, one must be set to wondering. How precisely do we intend to defeat the Republicans if every heated issue rips the party asunder? Lieberman’s opinions about Iraq are foolish, to be sure. But no more foolish then those who think that his idiocy on one issue is enough to relegate him to the Zell Miller Home for Loony Ex- Partisans. The junior senator from Connecticut is not some Benedict Arnold keynoting the RNC convention circuit. He’s just a guy who disagrees with the majority of his party on one point. Such dissention should not be the altar on which one sacrifices an entire political party’s future. Especially when the blood hasn’t yet been cleaned up from the last offering to the God of Division and Debate. One is all-too-subtly reminded of the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago when the party disintegrated over another ill-conceived war and Mayor Daley had to call out the goon squad for a nationally-televised head- crack-a-thon. That scene marked the beginning of a Republican White House dynasty that steamrolled almost everything in its path until the backwoods of Arkansas finally produced something charming and useful.
Alas, Daley may be dead now, but the Democrats’ destructive love of internecine strife is not. Even today, in a government dominated trunk and branch by Republicans, the fratricidal Democratic party of the ‘68 riots still operates like a purge- happy, Third World dictator suffering from a tragic shortage of external enemies. For compare and contrast purposes one need only look at what Ronald Reagan called the Eleventh Commandment “Thou shalt not attack a fellow Republican”. The GOP knows that politics is coalitional by nature and tolerating the moronic views of others in pursuit of a larger goal has been a core value of the Republican winning strategy for years. Love them or hate them, the Republicans know you don't have to agree on everything to have something in common. The Democrats have missed this point time and again and unless the party can heal the well-worn fracture between its left and moderate wings, the bells of campaign 2006 may toll less triumphantly than originally advertised.
In any event, the first sounds will ring from the sunny shores of Connecticut where thousands of Democratic primary voters will determine if their party is big enough to allow dissent and divergent views or if instead their two-term Democratic senator will have to run as an independent to help his Democratic brethren take back Congress. Either way, the upcoming midterms will be exactly the brutal war they promise to be. Geared for battle, both parties have already fixed bayonets. But as usual, the most important difference is a subtle one.
I'll have a phased redeployment with fries and a side of democracy, please
You’ll be glad to know that Howard Dean has come up with a solution to fix that whole Iraq thing. I was going to get around to it myself but I spent most of the week doing yard work and housecleaning and I forgot. Fortunately our fearless Democratic National Committee chairman is not so absent-minded. His solution? Drum roll, please…
“Phased redeployment!”
Da-dah! Brilliant! What a master stroke. It’s catchy. It’s hip. It’s deeply technical. And it sounds so… so military. What could be better? Except of course for one tiny nagging little detail. One niggling question that may need a bit of explanation. A small thing really. Hardly worth mentioning. But…
Just what the hell is “phased redeployment?”
The centerpiece of a Dean radio address late last month, the phrase was bandied about as though it had some kind of quantifiable definition. So what does it mean? Quoth Chairman Dean:
“Democrats have also offered a plan that asks the president to responsibly redeploy our troops.”
Well, no argument here. Certainly a vast improvement over our present strategy of scattering them drunkenly like pieces in a dorm-room “Risk” game. Still specifics are a bit lacking on Dean’s battle plan.
“We believe that we ought to focus on training, logistics, and counter-terrorism, and we can do that with a redeployment of our troops.”
Umm… great … but to where exactly? Other parts of Iraq? Turkey? Europe? Mars? Perhaps Mr. Dean’s five-point explanation will provide clarity. Perhaps not.
· “First, work with the Government of Iraq to begin a phased redeployment of United States troops from Iraq by the end of this year;”
So, we don’t know what it is but we will sure begin implementing it soon.
· “Second, submit a plan to Congress by the end of 2006 with estimated dates for the continued phased redeployment of United States forces from Iraq;”
And we will continue to implement whatever it is until whenever it is we’re done implementing it.
· “Third, we have also told the President that we demand accountability for the resources being spent in Iraq. The cost of the Iraq war will be at least one trillion dollars, enough to finance a health care program for every single American - including our veterans coming home from the war.”
Hard to argue with his budget priorities. We could have thrown a trillion into the fireplace and achieved better results than Mr. Bush’s Iraq, but I still don’t know where the troops are going or precisely what they’re going to do when they get there. Perhaps point four will explain…
· “Fourth, expedite the transition of United States forces in Iraq to a limited presence and mission of training, providing logistical support, protecting United States infrastructure and personnel, and participating in targeted counterterrorism activities.”
Good to know they won’t be playing pinochle and doing macrame. Still, in many respects this sounds much like the plan the present administration is currently in the process of pretending to succeed at. Perhaps the Dems can do a better job. Lord knows they couldn’t do a worse one, but catching terrorists, training Iraqis and protecting our butts from IEDs isn’t exactly some original brainstorm the Democratic National Committee suddenly had in the shower or anything. It’s our present failed strategy.
· “Finally, our plan recognizes that during and after the phased redeployment of United States forces from Iraq, the United States will need to sustain a non-military effort to actively support reconstruction, governance, and a durable political solution in Iraq.”
If you can read this final sentence without bursting into uncontrollable peals of laughter, please contact the DNC immediately. They need you as a spokesman. Precisely how one manages ”a non-military effort to actively support reconstruction, governance, and a durable political solution” in a nation wracked by waves of widespread, brutal, sectarian violence is certainly a feat worth seeing. “Actively supporting” anything in a country consumed by civil war means bringing a flak vest and a gun to the party. Hell, come to think of it, actively supporting anything in the Middle East means that. Even an orderly retreat involves cover fire.
Not that I’m trying to be hard on Dean. The man has an almost impossible job, that of magically weaving together a tapestry of staunch anti-war liberals with more moderate Democrats who aren’t convinced that a quick and klutzy exit from the growing horror that is Iraq is really the best option. To judge from the latest polls “phased redeployment” isn’t quite plastering over that difference. Despite continuing bad numbers for Bush and his merry Congress of cultural malcontents - AP/Ipsos puts the Dems up by 11 points - with foreign policy and national security continuing to favor Republicans by ten points. Even Iraq, the giant flashing neon billboard of neo-conservative disaster, still benefits the GOP more than the Dems by four points. The Democrats’ message just isn’t getting through.
Dean has a decidedly difficult task. Bad as the GOP’s situation is, they’ve at least got a unified message on Iraq. Not so in the writhing mass of conflicting interests known as the Democratic Party. Dean walks a narrow road between the left which won’t allow any continuation of Bush’s Mideast Folly and a general electorate that won’t accept “Okay, we’ve lost. Let’s leave.” as a victory cry for 2006. Already the strain is showing in places like Connecticut where Sen. Joseph Lieberman is expected to win an easy victory in the general election - assuming he survives a very strong primary challenge from firebrand anti-war candidate and iconoclast Ned Lamont.
Clearly, Dean, who has some iconoclastic tendencies himself, is looking for the answer. But it’ll take better policy than “phased redeployment” to paper over the gnawing gap in the Democratic Party.
Ann Coulter: Remember when people used to be embarrassed?
In the end, Ann Coulter can really get you thinking about social phenomenon.
Phenomenon like Ann Coulter, for instance.
If you’ve had better things to do - and we all pray that you have - you may not have noticed recently when Coulter, a noted conservative pundit, was skewered for attacking a group of 9/11 widows who committed the unpardonable sin of questioning the Bush administration.
“These broads are millionaires, lionized on TV and in articles about them, reveling in their status as celebrities and stalked by grief-arazzis,” wrote the ever-pleasant Coulter in her most recent book, Godless: The Church of Liberalism. ”I’ve never seen people enjoying their husbands’ deaths so much.”
For those of you living in a cave not equipped with Fox News, Coulter is among the most successful of the new breed of overemoted conservative wingnuts whose excessive supply of loud opinions and total absence of human decency has allowed for a rapid climb to the top of the malodorous, hateful, fetid dung heap of glassy-eyed personality cults that slowly began replacing American political discourse sometime during the 1990s.
But dung being a soft and unsteady affair one must always watch one’s back. Peddling bumper-sticker venom covered with a thin scum of regurgitated Goldwaterism may be a profitable enterprise but there’s always another bug striving over the nearest turd. In fact, Coulter wannabes dot the landscape like pimples on a nerdy teenager. There’s moonbat-in-arms Michelle Malkin who wrote an entire book defending the WWII internment of Japanese-Americans and later gained fame by suggesting on national TV that John Kerry’s Vietnam wounds were self-inflicted. Or there’s professional homophobic nutcake Michael Savage who’s comments on immigrants and gays make Coulter and Malkin sound like Martin Luther King, Jr. Savage, a best-selling author whose radio show is loyally listened to by an audience estimated at ten million by his website, regularly goes into spittle-emitting on-air tirades against the ”gay mafia” who - of course - control the media. Despite his antics he got a job at MSNBC where he was eventually fired for terming a caller a “sodomite” and telling him to “get AIDS and die.” Even tamer performers like Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh are almost indistinguishable from paranoid lunatics when talking about the ” liberal media conspiracy” or “the War on Christmas” or any of a host of other mostly imaginary outrages. Indeed, there are many graduates of the “Now, You Too Can Write A New York Times Bestseller” school of political literature. Coulter, Savage and Malkin have managed to do to American social dialogue what Howard Stern did for talk radio and Larry Flynt did for magazine publishing.
The exception being that Stern and Flynt, like most great champions of the First Amendment, are virtuous enough to be in it for the money and fame. The reason for Coulter’s latest adventure into the colorful arena of knifefight politics is up for speculation. But this being something less than her first foray into controversy, we can likely assume its for sheer enjoyment.
Some of Coulter’s other gems that have slipped quietly under the public radar:
“Even Islamic terrorists don’t hate America like liberals do. They don’t have the energy. If they had that much energy, they'd have indoor plumbing by now.”
“We need to execute people like John Walker in order to physically intimidate liberals, by making them realize that they can be killed, too. Otherwise, they will turn out to be outright traitors.”
“I have difficulty ginning up much interest in this story inasmuch as I think the government should be spying on all Arabs, engaging in torture as a televised spectator sport, dropping daisy cutters wantonly throughout the Middle East, and sending liberals to Guantanamo.”
“My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times building.”
On Muslims: “We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity.”
On communicating with liberals: “I think a baseball bat is the most effective way these days.”
She also managed to refer to the 2004 Democratic ticket as “an America-bashing trophy husband and his blow-dried, ambulance-chasing sidekick,” has speculated that women should be denied the right to vote, has verbally attacked triple amputee and war hero Max Cleland (“He didn’t ‘give his limbs for his country,’ or leave them ‘on the battlefield.’ There was no bravery involved in dropping the grenade on himself with no enemy troops in sight.”) and once suggested that the only debate over Bill Clinton should be “whether to impeach or assassinate.”
Coulter’s latest bout of verbal diarrhea did manage to elicit a few condemnations from more responsible quarters of the conservative movement. Bill O’Reilly took her to task. (The fact that O’Reilly could be called “responsible” in such a comparison says more about Coulter than I can.)
But beyond all the furor, given her track record, the question is not how she could say something so loony and awful but rather why did anyone actually notice this time? After all, one need not peruse Coulter’s latest collection of rambling, hateful meanderings to understand she is a first-class, Grade-A whackmobile. And yet despite all the fire a controversial figure like Coulter elicits, what seems to escape understanding is her utter normalcy. Corrosively hateful people spouting insane opinions are hardly an unusual feature of planet Earth. Thus in the end, Coulter, Malkin, Savage and the other members of the right’s tin foil hat brigade must be seen in context as the vaguely harmless and remarkably common specimens they are, no more self-obsessively annoying than someone’s spoiled, airheaded teenage daughter and no more dangerous the guy on the corner who’s always yelling incoherently at the lamppost about how the fire hydrant and the mailbox are constantly plotting against him.
But then again, that guy doesn’t have a book atop the New York Times bestseller list either. And here lies the one unusual aspect of Coulter, Savage, and their friends, not that our nation produces a given quantity of paranoid nutjobs - for it always has - but rather that a significant segment of the general populace is presently unable to distinguish their particular brand of mental imbalance from some variety of useful thought process. There is nothing wrong with a culture that occasionally produces crazy people. There is something very wrong with one that admires them.
The disturbing fact is that folks like Coulter and Savage used to the sort of characters you were vaguely embarrassed to have on your side. Today, however, embarrassment seems a sadly neglected art form. As long as someone advances your cause, who cares if they’re nuts? Not that the left is immune to this problem - Michael Moore being Exhibit A - but such excesses seem far more common - and far more often excused - by the right. Conservatism has fallen a long way from William Buckley.
Every ideology attracts its share of nuts and hatemongers. But some have a chunk bigger than they should. Conservatism has long since passed just such an uncomfortable threshold.
Of amendments and chickens: another 'win' for social conservatives
There is a wonderful old joke about a guy who complains to a psychiatrist friend about his delusional brother who thinks himself a chicken.
“Bring him in and I’ll cure him,” says the psychiatrist.
“Oh, no,” replies the horrified man. “I need the eggs.”
Republican social conservatives must be able to sympathize. Compared to how their champions on Capitol Hill spent this week shepherding the doomed anti-gay marriage amendment through the inevitable congressional gauntlet, coaxing a crazy man to lay eggs would seem a stunningly fruitful activity.
Not to mention one harboring a greater chance of success. Some on the far right fringes may have been a bit disconnected lately from the firmament of political realism but no one was so far in orbit as to believe that this week’s proposed amendment to ban gay unions actually had the remotest chance of garnering the two-thirds Senate vote necessary to … well … necessary to probably fail in the House, which, I understand, is planning a similar exercise in futility next month. The best supporters of the measure could hope for was a simple majority - and in the end they didn’t even get that. So passage wasn’t the point.
Not that the point was all that clear anyway. From the level of heated rhetoric many conservatives employ on this issue you’d swear wild gangs of nuptial-crazed homosexuals were roaming the streets busting down church doors, looting bridal stores and forcing reception caterers to make gallons of Chicken Florentine at gunpoint. But such isn’t reality. The most powerful argument for allowing gays to wed continues to be the most obvious. It’s entirely innocuous and affects no one but the two people involved. Unlike subjects such as economics or taxes - pocketbook issues which elicit easily-understandable emotions like greed and avarice - the unaccountably high feelings raised by gay marriage have never been fully comprehended by liberals who simply don’t know what the big deal is about two adults who just want to get themselves hitched. So personal interest wasn’ t the point.
Pragmatism was another question. Emerging from hiding to give his weekly radio address, President Bush himself admitted that 45 of 50 states have already banned same sex marriage anyway. In any event, clergy that marry gay couples aren’t going to stop simply because the state doesn’t recognize the institution, nor is anyone likely to reorient their bedroom tastes because Congress tells them they ought to. So practicality wasn’t the point.
So what was this little chunk of political theater about? What was so important that the world’s most august legislative assemblage felt the need to spend days debating an amendment everyone knew would fail and whose purpose was to prohibit an activity that’s already illegal in order to protect marriage from people who want to get married. Hmmm… when things stop making sense, start smelling around for the rank odor of politics. You’ll usually find it.
Ah, there it is…
“The federal marriage amendment debate simply is an opportunity for us to affirm our support for marriage,” said Sen. John Thune (R-SD). “It is an important debate to have in this country.”
Indeed. And it seems to be a very, very important debate to have in even-numbered years. To put it mildly, Thune’s colleagues are facing a tough election cycle with the conservative foot soldiers of the Republican base in a mood to start fragging the officers. Hence, if any of this Republican bloviating seems familiar, that’s because, like most of history, it’s happened before.
Unlike most of history however, it hasn’t the decency to be ancient and forgotten. The GOP dipped heavily into this well only two short years ago. Yet rigor mortis hadn’t even set in on the 2004 election’s corpse when the issue suddenly fell deader than a Kerry stump speech. After spending half the campaign proclaiming his unyielding support for the amendment, Bush shoved it to the back burner. Sure, the religious right is handy to have at the ballot box. But such folk are expected to sit quietly when actual policy is being made. Meanwhile, Thune, Bush and the GOP continued to be staunch supporters of the effort to ban gay unions - with much the same type of staunch support Americans show towards going on a diet and losing 20 pounds - and much the same results. Everyone may talk a good game, but somebody’s still keeping McDonald’s in business.
What’s most interesting, of course, is not that the social conservatives are being bought by this obvious bit of pandering. After all, ideological groups are always for sale. They don’t call it the marketplace of ideas for nothing. No, what’s most interesting is that the asking price is so bargain-basement low. The move to ban gay marriage carries virtually no political risk for the GOP. Short of ruffling the feathers of a few Log Cabin Republicans, this effort costs almost as little as it achieves.
In fact, save for a few conservative judicial appointments - and the righties had to battle even for those (”Ms. Miers, line one, its the president…”) - the social conservatives agenda has gained surprisingly little ground over the past few years. At best, they might manage the overturning of Roe v. Wade - the sort of Holy Grail of social conservatism - but even that lofty achievement would simply send the issue back to the states while politicizing an abortion debate that the Republican leadership would probably prefer stay quietly in the judicial arena where the Pro-Choice wing of the party feels safe. In reality, the most notable triumphs of social conservatism seem to be nothing more than a string of vague, legislative wheel- spinning sessions: flag-burning amendments that fail, gay marriage amendments that go nowhere, pointless renamings of the national Christmas tree, futile efforts to prolong Terri Schiavo’s life. Everyone may enjoy sticking pins in the liberal voodoo doll but little real world legislative work is ever done - and virtually none is even tried until election time forces the RNC to break out the breads and circuses. So the question remains: How long will the culture warriors of the right continue to be satisfied with these sorts of symbolic “victories” that never seem to win anything?
It may be awhile. Decades ago George Orwell’s “1984″ predicted that war would eventually become both utterly continuous and tactically pointless, with the ultimate object being “not to make or prevent conquests of territory, but to keep the structure of society intact.” Applied to a political context one can hardly see a more appropriate paradigm for the Republican Party. Like Oceania, the GOP’s war on liberalism seems far more geared towards controlling the troops than towards controlling the liberals. As for the soldiers of social conservatism itself, the Republican Party may not be what they thought or hoped it was. It may fail constantly to implement their agenda. It may often not even make the attempt. But in the end, what else can they do? Where else can social conservatives go?
The Republican Party may not be a chicken, but they need the eggs.
Some of the most meaningful experiments are the most ignored.
Such was the case in 1971, when Professor Saul Alinsky wrote about being unable to give away a ten-dollar bill on the streets of Los Angeles.
I’m serious. As chronicled in his book Rules for Radicals, (an excellent read, by the way) his little social science experiment began in front of the posh Biltmore Hotel, where Alinsky led a handful of his students through a brief impromptu course in the vagaries of human psychology. Alinsky held up the bill and, walking the four blocks around the Biltmore, offered it to total strangers with an innocuous, “Here, take this.”
The reaction of Alinsky’s would-be beneficiaries?
Most seemed stupefied. Some told him they didn’t have any money on them, as though he were begging for cash instead of trying to give it away. Others thought it was a con game. A couple of females were offended, thinking they were being propositioned. “Most of the people,” Alinsky wrote. ”responded with shock, confusion, and silence, and they quickened their pace and sort of walked around me.”
Somehow, it was impossible not to think of the implications of the quirky liberal professor’s little experiment from so long ago when considering another quirky liberal professor’s more recent foray into the dark sphere of social science. Then again, goodness knows, if anyone couldn’t sell free money on a city street, he’d be a Democrat.
But at least this professor, who happened to be DNC head Howard Dean, spiced his recent adventure into the fun world of cultural politics with the drama of crossing enemy lines with a jaunt over to the Christian Broadcasting Network’s CBN News to grant a royal audience with a media outlet whose viewers doubtless were stunned to see that the Democratic national chairman lacked horns and a pointy tail.
“I’m a Democrat because of my values,” Dean told CBN. “My values include inclusiveness — they include not leaving more debt to our kids than we have ourselves. My values include wanting our values to drive our public policies. My values include not having kids going to bed hungry at night. Now those are values that I bet I share with the vast majority of evangelicals.”
Perhaps so, but are the evangelicals willing to share them with Dean?
“I’m not saying we’re going to agree with everything,” said Dean during an uncharacteristic bout of realism, ”between the more conservative evangelicals and the Democrats, but there’s a lot more common ground than most people realize, and we’re willing to work with the evangelical community.”
Unfortunately, the work evangelicals seem most enthused about doing lately is defeating Democrats. For many, the only common ground they’d like to have would be that in which the Party of Bill Clinton is buried. Worse still, Dean is leaning a bit far off his left-wing base with this sort of kum-bay-yah style of politicking. In a moment of warm geniality, Dean even said “The Democratic Party platform from 2004 says that marriage is between a man and a woman. That’s what it says.” Yikes! Obsessive bridge-building is fine to a point but such comments are bound to leave many lefties thinking that this one’s been erected a bit too close to the River Kwai. And Dean doesn’t even have Alec Guiness’s charm. So is the chairman’s white-flagged stroll across the battle lines less a truce offer and more a surrender?
Well, not really. Actually, there’s much to be said for the plucky little Vermonter. Dean may have the right idea but with the wrong execution. Letting the general public know that Democrats aren’t the soulless army of the undead one sees from media like… media like… well, media like CBN, isn’t a bad idea. Neither is striking common themes on issues like reducing the number of abortions and stressing the idea that values can play a role in why Democrats vote the way that they do. It is important for Democrats to communicate that Christian values are found on both right and left and that Democrats do not oppose everyone with a fish emblem on their trunk or for that matter a “Choose Life” sticker on their bumper. This is precisely the divisive manner in which Republicans have painted the issue of religion in America. And its been damned effective.
But this is a message perhaps best addressed to the sort of Christians who don’t TiVo the 700 Club, not necessarily to the foot soldiers of the far right. Dean must know thine audience.
Still, one can sympathize with the truth Dean speaks. Religious contradictions in the modern Republican Party are startling to say the least. Christian values and the economic ideas they imply contain enough egalitarianism to choke Ayn Rand’s Fountainhead right at the spigot. Yet, the Republican Party has long managed the miraculous feat of amalgamating social Darwinism and scientific creationism without the mixture going into philosophical meltdown. Modern conservatism seems to posit that we may not have evolved from a society of apes but that doesn’t mean we can’t adopt their economic model.
And there goeth the ancient question that troubles liberals to this day. With ideas this incompatible, how do conservatives do it? Why can’t the left sell its theories as well as the right? Why does penicillin move so much worse than snake oil? How can the party that wraps itself in Biblical social values practice Libertarian economic policies?
Alinsky knew that answer 35 years ago. He theorized that the reason no one would take his money was because he went “outside their experience.” They weren’t used to taking cash from strangers. That meant he couldn’t communicate with them. What he was doing was alien to their realm of understanding. That’s a problem liberals have in buckets. So, like Alinsky their pleas are greeted with suspicion, fear, confusion and ultimately, indifference. These all lay in the vast chasm between Alinsky’s offer and the life experience of the people with whom he spoke. And the parallels are obvious. Radical liberals say, “You’re not one of us.” Realistic liberals say, “Become one of us.” But it takes a Republican to say, “We’re one of you.” Conservatism knows the importance of stressing similarities and touching common understandings, no matter how bad the idea being sold. On the other hand, Democrats would do well to remember that even free money is rejected when you go beyond someone’s experience, when you don’t communicate. That’s the gap that Dean must bridge between the secular left and the religious right. And he must find a touchstone to do it, a common link, a shared idea.
This is not a hopeless endeavor. If the GOP could build such an unwieldy coalition on such a tiny plot of common ground, then perhaps Dean can as well. He’s certainly taken the first baby steps in that direction. To do that, liberals and Democrats must communicate their values and their commonalities towards religious folks, rather than stressing their differences. But unless Dean can find that magic method of transmission, that vital way to get “within the experience” of his target audience it will be a tough row to hoe. For, in the end, CBN viewers know the number one rule of politics:
Beware mysterious men bearing a ten dollar bill and saying “Here, take this.”
