What the Heck is New Liberalism?

The New Liberalism I talked about yesterday might be mischaracterized as simply New Populism. This is not what I intend. Populism is one element of a broader redefinition of what liberalism means. To emphasize traditional populism alone is just as foolish as to rely on pluralism or progressivism alone. Much of the intraparty debate over the last several decades has been precisely this argument: which kind of liberalism should be dominant. What this dispute fails to realize is that liberalism is, like conservatism, an overarching ideology. Conservatives have forged a rough ideological consensus which synthesizes the themes and papers over the differences in their coalition. They have developed this ideology into a rhetorical narrative which they club us. We need do so the same.

Stressing populism, even a reformulated populism, will not recapture our majority. The reason I have emphasized populism is that this is the part of our coalition that is most disaffected. We are getting killed among the white working class, and unless we remember how to talk to them, we will continue to get killed. So they are a constituency that we must pay particular, but not exclusive, attention to.

When I speak of a New Liberalism, I have in mind something like the fusionism of Buckley at the National Review, which brokered an alliance among religious fundamentalists, anti-communists, corporate America, and southern segregationists. Liberals have pluralists, populists, and progressives, and we need to develop a unified, coherent language that speaks to all three groups. To do this, we need a set of common themes.

The basic liberal impulse is egalitarianism: we believe that we are not in this alone, that any man's loss lessens me. It is this community message that gives liberalism its moral power. It instructs citizens to reach above their own narrow concerns and look to the benefit of their whole society. It is precisely this kind of language that Kennedy and Roosevelt used so effectively, and that Democrats have basically lost. This community message is not specifically about government, but is more broadly about public action (which can exist as part of or outside formal government institutions).

To enable this broader egalitarian message, we need specific themes. I would suggest responsibility, nationalism, and opportunity. By responsibility, I mean something like Dean's speech. It is exactly what I have in mind. Secondly, there is nationalism. Nationalism can be used in a simple patriotic sense (we love America too, you know), but it also emphasizes our common citizenship. We are American first, and our ethnic, class, gender, and religious sensibilities come second. By reminding Americans that we are one people, we can try to counteract the division of the country along lines that splinter the egalitarian coalition. Clinton hinted at this theme during his superb (if disparate) convention speech this summer. Finally, opportunity is a good theme to leverage in questions of egalitarian distribution. I would prefer to use the word autonomy, but I think that the word "autonomy" is a political non-starter. Every one in this country deserves to have the power to determine own life. Giving power to big companies, or surrendering to the forces of globalization, OR imposing our religious beliefs on others, are all denials of the principle of opportunity.

This is somewhat like Bill Clinton's New Covenant (community, responsibility, opportunity), which is no accident. One of the great failures of the Clinton era is that he really stuck with the New Covenant message. It was an excellent starting point, and a way to integrate all his various policy proposals. But then synthetic reasoning and rhetorical narrative was always Clinton's basic failure. Oh well. No one is perfect. I think the other excellent example of what I have in mind is Barack Obama's keynote address, which effectively united the themes of opportunity, nationalism, and responsibility. It's one of the many reasons I like him so much.

What do you think?

P.S. I have posted a diary on Daily Kos responding to the DLC attack on Sirota here.