Simplifying Or Dumbing Down?

Over in the American Conservative, there are a bunch of articles trying to define the difference between liberalism and conservatism. One of the writers I like to read Michael Lind. I disagree with him as often as I agree, but I always find him interesting. In this piece he argues that ideology no longer exists, that it has been replaced by partisanship. The cleavages between the 2 parties are along the lines of identity politics, with the white christian majority ranged against an aggregation of ethnic and religious minorities. Because the various minorities cluster in cities, the result is a geographic division in American life between the urban Democrats and the rural Republicans.

This is a very strange view of American politics. The empirical evidence simply doesn't support Lind's description. Even in the most rural areas, Democrats get between a quarter and a third of the vote. Is there some big secular/minority group out there I'm not aware of? If not, where are all these Democratic votes coming from?

Certainly identity politics is central to the contemporary political divide. But there is a lot more to the liberal coalition than just identity politics. The Democratic Party is divided into Pluralists (identity politics), Populists (working class), and Progressives (issue-oriented middle class reformers). While the Pluralists are probably the dominant element of the Democratic party in terms of voters, but the Progressives have had control of the party leadership and agenda ever since FDR.

Similiarly, I would take issue with Lind's suggestion that ideology is now no more than a front for party loyalties. Liberalism is dedicated to equality of opportunity and personal autonomy, values which all of the elements of the liberal coalition support, albeit from different perspectives. There is real intellectual content here, not just shallow justifications for ethnic or religious groups seeking political power.

Lind goes so far as to say those who have real ideologies - which he lists as libertarians, populists, greens, and social democrats, among others - should avoid attempting to take over either of the 2 parties and instead should attempt to influence both. For someone has grounded in history as Lind, this is a bizarre suggestion. Every ideological group in American history has used one of the 2 major parties as the vehicle for its agenda. The one group that didn't, the Progressives, were isolated and crushed in both parties during the 1920's. It took their rallying to the Democrats before they were finally able to accomplish anything lasting.

Having said that, I do think that it is a waste of time for the ideological groups mentioned to align themselves with the Republican party, given its evident disinterest in anything other than making demagogic appeals to mask the rape of the country by the American elite. But there is another alternative, isn't there?