Getting Our Own Back

What should the government do? And which governments? The problem of determining the appropriate degree of government involvement in solving problems is a very nuanced issue. What we liberals can all agree on is that the conservative effort to corporatize (NOT privatize) American life is ridiculous and destructive. They don't think we should do ANYTHING to solve our problems. By doing so, they present liberals with an opportunity, provided we figure out how to properly talk about the issue. We have a chance to portray ourselves as champions of small town values, personal responsibility, and the little guy.

A good example of how to do this is the courts. Adam Cohen in the New York Times has a discussion of radcon efforts to repeal the New Deal. The packing of the courts with right-wing ideologues has encouraged the Republicans to seek to overturn the Wickard decision of 1937, which permitted governments to regulate the market. Our enemies want to revive the old Lochner Court era principle of "the sacred right to contract." Democrats need to take this issue directly to any court nominees in the future. Does America really want to repeal the minimum wage and re-institue child labor? Do the Republicans want to prevent even state governments from governing economic relationships? Do we want NO checks on corporate power? We can also use tie this issue to international trade. Maybe the U.S. should consider not trading with any nation that engages in child labor. That's a trade policy with moral implications that will make cultural conservatives think twice (and cause Wal-Mart fits).

Corporate welfare presents another opportunity to break the mold of public opinion. Ed Kilgore writes that some Democrats want to declare corporate subsidies unconstitutional. I think this is a silly idea, but it does bring to light an interesting problem. A sound development policy is absolutely essential to building the U.S. economy. The reason that a weaker dollar is not shrinking the trade deficit is because we don't make any of the things we want, so we have to buy them from abroad. Sorry NYT, but reducing the budget deficit isn't going to do the trick. We need a comprehensive strategy for import substitution, and that will require subsidies to business. But I think we can frame this issue as subsidies for who. Democrats should be for helping new and small businesses (the famous “entrepreneurs) and against help to big corporations whose idea of competitiveness is shipping their jobs overseas.

Focusing on states is another sound strategy (see Jared Bernstein in the Prospect). We can fight the Republican attempts to preempt state policies under the banner of allowing communities to determine how they want to live. Hell, we can even attack the Republicans for being in favor of "big government, one-size fits all solutions." As I've written before, mobilizing at the state level serves a number of purposes: it immunizes us from the "big government" smears, gives us something to do while we are out of power, and will help build coalitions and grass roots infrastructure. It also serves the purpose of democratizing the party, which would be nice even if it had no other benefits.

There are two broader points that I think are important to highlight. First, liberals need to work aggressively to distinguish themselves from big government ideas. We need to focus rhetorically and substantively on enhancing the public sphere, whether that is voluntary action, community laws, state policies, or our traditional emphasis on the national government. This is why I think Paul Waldman's piece in the Gadflyer, while correct on its face, is so dangerous. We cannot continue to conflate "public" with "government." It is this confusion, and the elimination of the public by conservatives, that has caused us so much trouble.

Secondly, Democrats need to present arguments for and against policies not as scattershot, stand-alone issues (a bad habit picked up from Clinton), but as part of a comprehensive (and comprehensible) whole. Marshall Wittman speaks to this issue in his discussion of Newt Gingrich's strategy in 1993-94. The reform message and political tactics were all in the service of a broader political vision. What we need are not substantive policy reasons to oppose the Republicans. Their ideas are so outrageous that these should be self-evident. What we need to is to make sure that in every discussion of Republican proposals, we remind people of how they are corrupt, power-hungry, ruthless, slaves to Corporate America, and unconcerned with the lives or fortunes of real Americans, whether they live in small towns or big cities.

It is by connecting our ideas within an overarching rhetorical narrative that we can re-define what it means to have values and remind others (and ourselves) what Democrats stand for. We need to tell everyone what we believe, and expose those other people for what they believe. If we do that, the winning will take care of itself.