pH Matters
| By MattSinger - Oct 22nd, 2005 at 7:07 pm EDT |
| Also listed in: Campus Progress Blog |
Yesterday, Matt Yglesias wrote at TPMCafe that Democracy for America has made a bad decision by calling for a public litmus test on Iraq.
Essentially, he argues that this sort of talk actively undermines any sort of big tent that progressives might build, since regardless of an individual's stance on Iraq, there are still likely to be key differences between a hawkish liberal and hawkish conservative in other areas, like labor policy and tax cuts.
Now that's all well and good, except it ignores the importance of grassroots keeping politicians accountable.
One of the sorriest episodes in the history of blogs, in my opinion, was the outburst of criticism aimed at NARAL for first forcing a pro-life candidate out of the race in Rhode Island and subsequently endorsing a pro-choice moderate incumbent Republican with a record on choice over two pro-choice challengers with less detailed records.
I've written pretty widely on this before elsewhere, but the outrage was mostly centered on the idea that what really mattered was strengthening the party that more closely aligns with the liberal movement.
In the view of NARAL's critics, they had executed a serious misstep by endorsing an opponent of the party, even if that opponent had a good track record on the issue of central importance to NARAL and NARAL's membership.
Essentially, what we saw was a giant demonstration of distaste for anything approaching a litmust test by components of the progressive movement.
Yet, what the critics (a number of bloggers earlier and Yglesias now) seem to ignore is that the progressive movement is being critical and demanding of elected politicians to move their positions in large part because the "progressive" leadership in Washington, D.C., largely ignores their demands.
Consider this, the "progressive" leader in the U.S. Senate currently is anti-choice, yet the pro-choice movement is supposed to be happy with him rising to leadership of the chamber, simply because it is a net gain.
Next, consider that the leader of the efforts to regain a "progressive" majority in the U.S. House opposes efforts to put a timeline to withdraw from Iraq in place.
In both of these cases, a "progressive" majority in the U.S. Congress does not mesh with the goals of one or more parts of the progressive movement in the United States.
Yet, because some things will be slightly better, the base, the voters, the check writers, the people who wear out shoe leather going door-to-door -- "we the people" -- are told that it is our job to keep our mouths shut and support the candidates that we are given.
Such an understanding of the political process in a republic is not just misguided, it is truly backward.
That said, I do have litmus tests for support of candidates. I hope you do as well.
What are yours? And if you don't have any, how do you decide whom to support?
Essentially, he argues that this sort of talk actively undermines any sort of big tent that progressives might build, since regardless of an individual's stance on Iraq, there are still likely to be key differences between a hawkish liberal and hawkish conservative in other areas, like labor policy and tax cuts.
Now that's all well and good, except it ignores the importance of grassroots keeping politicians accountable.
One of the sorriest episodes in the history of blogs, in my opinion, was the outburst of criticism aimed at NARAL for first forcing a pro-life candidate out of the race in Rhode Island and subsequently endorsing a pro-choice moderate incumbent Republican with a record on choice over two pro-choice challengers with less detailed records.
I've written pretty widely on this before elsewhere, but the outrage was mostly centered on the idea that what really mattered was strengthening the party that more closely aligns with the liberal movement.
In the view of NARAL's critics, they had executed a serious misstep by endorsing an opponent of the party, even if that opponent had a good track record on the issue of central importance to NARAL and NARAL's membership.
Essentially, what we saw was a giant demonstration of distaste for anything approaching a litmust test by components of the progressive movement.
Yet, what the critics (a number of bloggers earlier and Yglesias now) seem to ignore is that the progressive movement is being critical and demanding of elected politicians to move their positions in large part because the "progressive" leadership in Washington, D.C., largely ignores their demands.
Consider this, the "progressive" leader in the U.S. Senate currently is anti-choice, yet the pro-choice movement is supposed to be happy with him rising to leadership of the chamber, simply because it is a net gain.
Next, consider that the leader of the efforts to regain a "progressive" majority in the U.S. House opposes efforts to put a timeline to withdraw from Iraq in place.
In both of these cases, a "progressive" majority in the U.S. Congress does not mesh with the goals of one or more parts of the progressive movement in the United States.
Yet, because some things will be slightly better, the base, the voters, the check writers, the people who wear out shoe leather going door-to-door -- "we the people" -- are told that it is our job to keep our mouths shut and support the candidates that we are given.
Such an understanding of the political process in a republic is not just misguided, it is truly backward.
That said, I do have litmus tests for support of candidates. I hope you do as well.
What are yours? And if you don't have any, how do you decide whom to support?
!
Comments are closed for this post.
There is pretty much no given issue to me that overwhelms the issue of competency. It's a rare quality that's in short supply in the United States.
Unlike a country such as China, we can't autocratically enforce meritocracy. This means that we can only really attract great men and women to public service if the citizenry is willing to set aside policy differences and single-issue-crusades to support heroic leaders.
This is why I'm backing Phil Bredesen for 2008, should he choose to run.
I think litmus tests are inherently unprogressive. It's at the heart of the liberal ideal that the process by which one arrives at a position is as important, if not more important, than which position they ultimately side with.
For instance, Roe v. Wade. It's not about whether Roe stands or falls. It's about getting extraordinary judicial and legal thinkers onto the court, and then they decide as they may.
Smart conservatives recognize this, too -- As Jonah Goldberg put it in one of his attacks on the Miers nomination, "If all that matters in a Bush supreme court pick is which way they'll vote, then there are plenty of interns at National Review that would do just fine."
Even on the issues I feel more strongly about than any other (Gay marriage, for instance), I would not go so far as to make it an outright 'litmus test'.
What's the end result of a litmus test? You wed yourself to your opinions. They become not just 'opinions you happen to hold', but your opinions, your precious babies that you must shield from attack.
The citizens of our country need to be just as good at giving up their opinions when they prove faulty or inadequate as they are at forming, defending, and finding support for their views. Litmus tests are the antithesis of that.
When we talk of the great senators and statesmen of ages present and past, nobody says "And look at how closely they toed the party's orthodoxy! What a marvel!". History demonstrates pretty clearly that great men and women attach themselves to the beautiful, otherworldly process of human thought -- not any given conclusion that springs from it. Conclusions are fleeting and too often swept into the dustbin of history, but a keen mind is timeless.
I'm willing to go out on a limb and guess that you, also, would be unwilling to support it.
That's not "unprogressive," it's standing up for what you believe.
As for whether we should apply individual litmus tests, that's a fair discussion.
I'm just wondering what crosses the pale for you.
Surely, there has to be something.
Fair point, though I'd say my definition of competence would be something along the lines of 'working toward the happiness and good of the civilization'. Fascism works in the opposite direction; a government that's actively involved in its citizen's personal business is harmful to the interests of society.
I view competence as being towards defined ends, not simply being 'good at whatever it is you do'. I think Conservatives and Liberals largely share those defined ends, whereas Communists or Fascists largely wouldn't.
If I remember correctly, you criticized Lauren Patrizi for only defining freedom as only being the liberties she supports (awkwardly worded, but I think you follow what I mean). I think you're doing the same with competence.
I don't think I share many ends with Grover Norquist, nor do I think his aim meets my definition of a sound civilization. That said, I'd be foolish to insult his competence.
Essentially; It's fair to have a litmus test on a principle (such as competence, or freedom, or egalitarianism), not so much on a policy.
I think part of the confusion here stems from the fact that in modern political parlance, litmus tests are almost never based on principle, and almost always applied to a given policy (tax cuts, the Iraq war).
So when people say 'I don't have litmus tests', they're really saying 'I don't have policy litmus tests'. Everyone has litmus tests on various principles.
My issue with Lauren is that I don't think she shares the view that freedom is good in principle, but rather as merely one means to an end of having people live the kind of life she'd want them to have, to be curtailed as she sees fit.
In this respect, I see her as roughly mirroring the thought process of the Extreme Religious Right, sharing their principle (or relative disdain for a principle) but merely appropriating it to different ends.
My view on individual freedom is that it's a principle worth upholding, so long as it doesn't conflict with the principle of not harming nonconsenting individuals.
To put a different spin on it, you might say that if we "ranked" our principles, I think I'd put individual freedom higher on my list than Lauren would.
Of course, since principles serve an explicit end (human happiness), principles are open to logical debate and reasoning -- debates which are often more productive than debates on policy, since debates on policy are most effective among people who share the same principles, except in cases of a policy (Such as the living wage) that can be argued as counterproductive or productive from a wide variety of angles (So you can make the conservative case and the libertarian case and the progressive case and the liberal case for/against it).
But DFA is clearly not doing that. DFA is asking for three broad principles on National Security, that candidates agree:
that we were misled into the war.
that an exit strategy must be put into place.
that American troops deserve support no matter where they are at.
These are hardly policy details, but I'm not sure that they are principles in the way you mean.
As for my discussion of your critique of Lauren, I brought it up merely to point out that you were committing an error that you have accused others of.
Supporting the American troops strikes me as a matter of principle rather than of policy.
Exit strategy is a specific policy, and I think setting up a litmus test on that is a major blunder.
As to whether we were misled into war? That's a really odd one, in that it doesn't fall into either category -- it falls into the separate category of "how one interperets the past". I don't see any terribly good reason to have a litmus test in this area, though I think virtually all Democratic candidates, pro-war and against, would assert that the Bush administration was misleading in how it manipulated and distorted WMD intelligence.
I think those two are just broadly drawn, broadly agreeable points thrown in to pretend like this isn't all about what it really is about: The timetable.
People with the same principles can come to different conclusions on a timetable. I don't think it's wise to put policy above principles by creating a litmus test in that area.
Having sufficiently clarified myself, I'd say that's not the case. But yeah, that's a minor tangent we can leave be.
I don't think stances on policy and 'principles' are necessarily the same thing.
For instance, I support the Democratic party even if I might agree with a lot of what (some) Republicans say, because I think there's an underlying principle -- that it's good to support the little guy -- that's present in one party but not in the other.
Logic based on that principle could lead one to a multitude of policy options -- one could either staunchly support or vehemently oppose the living wage, for instance, based on exactly the same principle, with the logic stemming from that principle leading different people in different directions.
So you might be right, in fact, to say I have a litmus test; but if so, it would be about principles, not about a given policy position.
And to a large extent, I think Republicans and Democrats (or at least the intellectual leadership of both parties) share very similar principles.
That seems quite confusing to me.
As for whether Republicans and Democrats share principles, I think there is one major indicator that they don't: the utter failure of third way thinking to create a breakthrough in Washington.
Interesting figures like the Center's Matt Miller and many of the New America Foundation's leaders have crafted policy after policy looking at new ways to solve problems in ways that conservatives and liberals can both appreciate.
Now, a number of these proposals are problematic from my perspective as I think they would fail miserably to achieve their goals and create a host of other problems. But, hey, I'm not a third wayer.
But what we do know is that a number of the members of Congress on both sides pay lip service to this way of thinking, yet virtually nothing coming out of these policy centers has been implemented.
That's clearly not because of budgetary concerns.
That leaves, in my mind, one other possibility. It's not just that America's conservative leadership disagrees with our methods. It's that they also disagree with our goals.
I wouldn't say I'm closer to the Republicans on policy than Democrats, per se, though that depends where you define the 'core' of the Democratic party to be.
I would say, without hesitation, that I'm closer to the Republicans than the Greens on policy. By a longshot. Of course, it depends which Republicans. I have a lot in common with libertarian-leaning Republicans such as Glenn Reynolds, Megan McArdle, or Andrew Sullivan; very little in common with theocons, or various and sundry Ross Douthat types.
And frankly, I think there are a lot of progressive Democrats who in terms of policy are really just Greens who like having a shot at winning elections.
I think Republicans and Democrats share a lot of similar goals for the nation as a whole, as a unit. In terms of how things work out within that unit, I think Democrats are uniquely concerned with the little guy in a way Republicans are not.
I view this as a failure of systems, rather than a failure of intellects; Washington is the world capitol of rent-seeking behavior.
Also, one can draw a big line between a movement and its elected officials; liberals tend to be, for instance, much more against the War in Iraq than their establishment in Washington. Same with Tom DeLay and various arms of the conservative movement.
I'm looking more at the National Review crowd for common ground, not at the Tom DeLays and Bill Frists.
The politicians one gets do not necessarily bear a whole lot of relation to where the 'soul' or 'core' of a party is.
And really, that's what a lot of this discussion boils down to: What are the Democratic and Republican party's 'souls', and from whence do they spring?
I don't think the answer to either question is as simple as 'look at their elected officials' or 'look at how a majority of their voting base responds in polling'.
I'm perhaps taking a more 'constructivist' (if the term can be effectively borrowed from foreign policy parlance) approach to what makes a party than some might.
For instance, I wouldn't say I share a lot of principles with George Bush or Tom DeLay. John McCain, though he's relatively 'shut out' of the halls of Republican power at the moment, I'd say is more indicative of the 'soul' of the Republican party than either of the above.
Instead of focusing our values on one issue, we need to solidify our values to be more broad-reaching over many issues. If we value civil liberties and equality, then we should argue that the government is not justified in telling us who we can and cannot marry or in controlling our reproduction.
This way, we can answer all wedge issues with a consolidated statement of our progressive stand on civil liberties, without using Conservative language to argue against Conservative ideology.
If we are going to create a national progressive alliance, we cannot simply throw facts against the Conservative messages that dominate the media, we need to reframe the issues based on PROGRESSIVE VALUES. Conservatives used these wedge issues to fool Americans into believing they had American values at heart, but it was a smoke screen for screwing the middle/working-class.
What if there's a third way? Take abortion out of the realm of 'you have a right' or 'the fetus has a right', and move it into a matter of law -- where abortion is supported not because one has a 'right' to one, but because it's pragmatic to allow.
Politically, it'd be like Christmas morning for us. In terms of moving our country in the right direction, it seems logical. It also provides some finality to the issue in that it'd be settled by a vote of the people, as opposed to by the courts (That really only works for civil rights issues, where a generation or two later, everyone realizes what the right side was).