We're All In This Together

"We're all in this together?" Now wait a minute! That's my line! I've been using that as the core Democratic principle for years (Yeah, yeah Zola - I know you said it first. Consider me your publicist).

More seriously, I think this is basically the correct approach. In fact, I find the direction of conversation about neopopulism and definitional politics very appealing. The idea of commonality and mutual obligation directs one's attention to those who are taking advantage of us - in this case irresponsible corporations. It gives us what Nathan Newman accurately describes as an enemy to rally against. And Ruy Teixeira's corrective note that we can't just make simpleminded class appeals - that we have to take into account Americans' fundamental optimism - is a good one. It makes our task more complicated, but there's no way we're going to be successful if we assert that corporations are evil and responsible for all that ails us.

(By the way, am I the only one who finds it disturbing that Americans believe that we live in a society of perfect social mobility, when in fact we have one of the most socially rigid societies among industrial democracies? Is this some kind of collective delusion, or simply a belief that used to be true and is taking time to die? It's really weird.)

I think that the appropriate strategy would be to identify the problems our country is facing in specific terms, with the focus on economic opportunity and security. We then describe how the current policy is wrongheaded, and who is preventing us from changing it. That allows us to describe specific villains rather than attacking a whole category of people. There is room for some of that kind of talk, of course, but our critique needs to be much more subtle.

An example: Attacking high oil prices and asking why Republicans are against energy independence leads to the obvious claim that Republicans are in the pocket of greedy oil companies. This gives the "culture of corruption" attack real teeth while defining Democrats as the party of sane solutions to real problems and the Republicans as corporate tools. We don't even have to say so explicitly - people will get the idea. It will also bury the canard that Democrats "don't have any ideas."