Where Have All the Liberals Gone?
What happens when people who completely dominate the conversation have nothing to say?
What happens when the people who talk the most and are listened to the most about our nation’s most serious problems do not have a plausible solution to any of them? What I think happens is the current state of affairs.
Let me explain. Sometime in the mid-1970s, near the end of the Vietnam War, liberalism in America died an intellectual death. Since that time, virtually every new idea — whether good or bad — about how to solve our most important economic problems has come from the right. Virtually nothing has come from the left.
Do you doubt that? Okay, it’s test time. Tell me what the liberal answer is to the problem of our failing public schools. …..tick, tick, tick ….. I’m waiting …. tick, tick, tick …. Give up? What about the liberal solution to the failed War on Poverty? … pause….. pause ….. pause …. No luck there either?
Okay, let’s take what President Obama says is the biggest domestic problem we face. What is the liberal solution to the huge unfunded liabilities in Social Security and Medicare? ….. Can’t think of one? What about solving the problem of unfunded pensions and post-retirement health care benefits for state and local workers? …. Not even a vague suggestion or two? Wow. We seem to be really striking out.
Well, can you tell me what a liberal income tax code would look like? Zip. How about a liberal international economic system? Nada.
Note: I’m not asking if you have a liberal acquaintance who has an opinion or two on these matters. I’m asking if you can produce a solution that would be generally recognized as the liberal solution.
Gone to Graveyards Everyone
If I asked what are the conservative solutions, you probably wouldn’t hesitate for very long. For education, there is school choice. For a failed welfare system, tough love. For unfunded entitlements, personal accounts so that individuals can save and invest and pay for their own retirement benefits. Instead of the current income tax code, a flat tax. In international affairs, free trade.
Is there anything that is comparable to these solutions on the left of the political spectrum? I believe not. The reason it’s so easy to rattle off the conservative answers is because for the last 30 years or so those are the proposals the nation has been debating. The nation has not been debating liberal ideas because there haven’t been any liberal ideas.
I believe this is also true in health care, by the way, despite ObamaCare. More on that below.
Don’t get me wrong. Just because liberals don’t have anything to say doesn’t mean they are going to clam up. They are just as talkative, just as politically active, just as emotionally committed as ever. They write editorials. They write essays and books. They appear on talk shows. They completely dominate our elite colleges and universities. They dominate the East Coast media. They dominate Hollywood. They are neither humble nor shy.
The chattering class, after all, chatters. And for the past 30 years it has been mainly chattering about … well about conservatives.
Let me clarify where I’m coming from. These “conservative ideas” are not self-evidently “conservative.” Sweden has a full-blown school voucher system, but most Americans probably think of Sweden as “socialist.” Thirty countries in the world have either partially or completely privatized their social security systems with private retirement accounts. Yet you would probably call most of these countries “welfare states.”
What’s happening isn’t that conservatives have all the good ideas or that they are smarter than liberals. What’s happening is that conservatives are trying to solve problems and liberals aren’t. Ironically, if liberals were equally intent on finding solutions, the two sides might agree 90% of the time!
But as it is, liberal commentators have been largely on the sidelines in almost all the important public policy struggles. The school choice battle has been raging all over the country for the last two decades. But that has been mainly a battle pitting conservative reformers against special interests (the teachers unions). For the most part, liberals haven’t really been involved. Similarly, the struggle for welfare reform, the flat tax, Social Security privatization, etc., has cast conservative reformers against special interests and entrenched bureaucracies. Liberals have been mainly irrelevant.
Health care might seem to be an exception to all this, but it really isn’t. The only people on the left who have a firm idea about what to do about health care are the socialists. They want everybody to be in a Canadian-type system. And almost all the serious health care debates of the past two decades have pitted conservatives against socialists, not conservatives against liberals.
Precisely because there really is no liberal solution to health care problems, the legislation we finally got was a Rube Goldberg contraption put together by competing special interests. Not only is it completely devoid of any ideological underpinnings, it’s not even clear that most liberals even regard ObamaCare as liberal legislation. (See Paul Krugman, for example.)
Don’t believe me? The next time you’re in conversation with a liberal friend, ask him to explain how ObamaCare will actually work. Odds are he will have no idea.
The special irony in all this is that the conservative presidential candidate John McCain had a health reform proposal that was more progressive and more radical than Barack Obama’s. (By more progressive, I mean more egalitarian — a lot more egalitarian.) Think about that. Had the Democrats in Congress endorsed McCain’s plan they would have had a reform far more consistent with their professed values than the plan Obama campaigned on. Instead, they completely sacrificed principle and let the special interests write the law we are all supposed to live under.
These observations are the best explanation I can offer for the extreme bitterness that permeates Washington, the editorial pages of The New York Times and our overall national public policy discourse.
Liberals used to be the reformers. Liberalism provided the new ideas needed to reform institutions and solve problems. Conservatives, by contrast were viewed as reactionaries. They clung to the past and resisted change.
Today those roles have been completely reversed. In a very real sense liberals aren’t liberal any more.
I think they are angry about that.
Very angry.
Terrific piece, John. You nailed it.
Very clever song pairing.
You convinced me, although I was skeptical at first. Good piece.
Kudos.
Very true. Maybe it goes back to the idea that conservatives do better on economics tests and therefore have a different perspective on how the economy works?
It’s not like Liberals aren’t trying to solve the Nation’s problems. The problem is Liberals think they already have the solution. Their one-size-fitts-all solution is: 1) Put Liberals and their bureaucrats in charge of government. 2) Let the government socially engineer every solution from the top down. 3) Mandate equality of outcome rather than equality of opportunity and participation.
Honestly never thought about it from this perspective. Thanks.
But John – wait a minute – liberalism is about solving all the perceived inequities we face in America. Once all inequities are made equitable, life in American will reurn to wonderful ! Those darn corporate jet owners who write off their jet in five years vs seven MUST be fixed ! And if they write off corporate helicopters in less than seven – fix that too !
John,
I recommend you read your own post carefully, and consider if you REALLY believe that the complex world of political thought can be adequately explained by the narrow, ad hominen, labels you’ve attached. Some liberals have terrible ideas for solving our public policy problems and so do some conservatives. And there are good ideas on the right and left. No camp has “cornered the market” on good ideas. I think your post is a prime example of why it is so difficult to find reasonable solutions to the nation’s problems. Too many pundits and too many would-be “intellectuals” spend too much time labeling the opposing ideas in negative terms.
Perhaps this is a reason why both conservatives and liberals, as reflected generally in the two major parties, are becoming less relevant.
John,
We are on the same wave .. sort of.
I was thinking .. about your questions .. and could not think of one good idea that the conservatives have come up in last 40 years.
Conservatives have managed to mess up most liberal programs adn turn them into money making games for upper classes elites. They have been able to protect the interests of the upper class interests.
As a Conservative Liberal , I start to think the labels do not serve us well. But let us continue to play the game.
Medicare, EPA , Social Security. Nixon did EPA . Is EPA a liberal or a conservative program
Health Insurance is that a liberal or a conservative idea.
National Health care systems in EU or in Canada. .. are they liberal or conservative programs . I guess liberal in your mind. They do seem to operate better than our system overall. They do have some control over costs and delivery more quality to more people than our mixed complex system.
As we recently told teachers that they were paid too much, one wonders if we will now move to medical care industry and tell them to take a paid cut. Paid too much ?
Do conservatives believe in science any more is one question I have on occasion ? Global warming, pollution, etc.? I know how hard it is for science to come with findings and conclusion.
One distinction between the two groups may involve a basic different view of history and how we have moved from feudalism to the capitalist state or social capitalist state. Conservative seem to want to reture to a feudal state, with a small elite in control.
As right move on all idea. and claim class warfare . As we create a larger gap between rich and poor in last ten years, I have the feeling that conservatives do not think this is an issue. The Mideast is a good example of how bad it can get and what far it can go before it blows up.
So I agree that we are always into some sort of class warfare. Progress = eliminating poverty and the economic gap.
Nordic countries have done a better job of this than anyother nations perhaps.
The Democrats haven’t even been able to come up with a budget (not just pass, but even propose). They blame this on partisan gridlock, but they controlled the House, the Senate, and the Presidency during these two FY’s and still nothing.
Excellent article, as usual; I will link to this from my Old Jarhead blog. There is one all-purpose liberal solution: expand government and pay for it through ever-higher taxes, ever-more borrowing and/or inflation from printing fiat money to buy votes from government workers and the (other) non-productive sectors like entitlement rent-seekers and trial lawyers. Every day we drift closer to the abyss. It grows increasingly difficult to see how we avoid a fiscal collapse, followed by a political and social collapse. Personally, as long as I don’t think about my granddaughter, postponing the implosion is good; I’m 65 and have pulmonary fibrosis, which is eventually terminal, so I may escape the coming desperate years. Unfortunately, the changes needed are so politically painful, they will only happen when the pain of not changing is greater. I hope I’m wrong, but I greatly fear that will involve riots and bloodshed in the streets.
Robert A. Hall
Author: The Coming Collapse of the American Republic
(All royalties go to a charity to help wounded veterans)
Outstanding piece! I have been teaching health policy to what are virtually pre-programmed liberal medical students at the UC San Diego School of Medicine for over 20 years – they are invariably shocked when they see that what they reflexively support often wilts under honest analysis.
Bob Hertzka, MD
Stan Ingman writes “Do conservatives believe in science any more is one question I have on occasion ? Global warming”
Does that mean if one doesn’t believe in global warming per Al Gore etc. that they don’t believe in science? If that is true can you explain global cooling which was the problem in the 1970’s. Some prefer looking at the facts not altering the data and preventing alternative data from being presented. I think in science scientific principles prevail over hysteria.
You could not think of “one good idea that the conservatives have come up in the last 40 years.”?
I’ll give you one of the many. HSA’s
Stan wrote —
“As we recently told teachers that they were paid too much, one wonders if we will now move to medical care industry and tell them to take a paid cut. Paid too much ?”
No, we didn’t. This is a strawman. I wish when liberals attack conservatives ideas they would attack the actual idea instead of attacking some bizarre invention of their own.
What we told teachers (and health care workers, too) is that SOME are paid too much, SOME shouldn’t be paid at all, and SOME probably aren’t paid enough. Each should be paid according to their abilities and their results.
Only in the liberal mind are all teachers the same and all should be paid the same regardless of merit. Cookie-cutter people, cookie-cutter ideas.
tick, tick… pause, pause…
The premise that progressives (liberals) have no answers is false. George Lakoff has provided us with a framework to understand why these problems cannot and should not be addressed with simple sound bite answers.
Quoting Lakoff, “Linguists have discovered that every language studied has direct causation in its grammar, but no language has systemic causation in its grammar. Systemic causation is a harder concept and has to be learned either through socialization or education.”
Further, “Progressives tend to think more readily in terms of systems than conservatives.”
tick, tick… pause, pause..
No. Progressives don’t play beat-the-clock games. We infuse a much greater intellectual effort into addressing the pressing social justice issues of our day. No sound bites here.
That said, being an avid single payer supporter, I can identify with the comments about our firm ideas on a Canadian-type system. I believe that this failure of the progressives to seriously consider a bona fide social insurance program exemplifies not the liberal community at large, but rather the elected liberal politicians who seem to have become overwhelmed with inertia in their efforts to adhere to what they believe to be politically pragmatic approaches to our problems.
The inertia of pragmatism has made the left very vulnerable to attack from the right. The leftist politicians’ concept of pragmatism is not pragmatic, but they seem to have been insulated from reality by their internal political advisors. Too bad. We could have have a much more dynamic debate on what we should be doing instead of debating on the straw-man issues that have produced no real progress, belying the label of progressive.
Tell me what the liberal answer is to the problem of our failing public schools. …tick, tick, tick ..
Smaller classes, more teachers, higher pay and benefits
? What about the liberal solution to the failed War on Poverty? .
Guaranteed annual income
What is the liberal solution to the huge unfunded liabilities in Social Security and Medicare?
Raising Medicare contribution limits and progressively taxing social security benefits
What about solving the problem of unfunded pensions and post-retirement health care benefits for state and local workers? …
Higher taxpayer contributions
Well, can you tell me what a liberal income tax code would look like?
92% top bracket, phase out deductions with income
How about a liberal international economic system?
Protect American jobs for workers who vote for liberals!!
That was easy. Any more questions? (for background see Sen Bernie Sanders 9 hour speech)
John McClaughry
Cheers,
I can’t resist this postscript. In response to the downgrading of the US crdit rating, what is the White House doing? Are they seriously thinking about what we can do about escalating debt? No.
They are talking about the Tea Party:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/aug/7/democrats-seek-to-pin-credit-downgrade-on-tea-part/
Wow! great post. So true, most of the policy battles have been conservatives trying to implement ideas, rather than stick with the status quo
@ Don McCane- ” I believe that this failure of the progressives to seriously consider a bona fide social insurance program exemplifies not the liberal community at large, but rather the elected liberal politicians who seem to have become overwhelmed with inertia in their efforts to adhere to what they believe to be politically pragmatic approaches to our problems.”
I agree wholeheartedly. Darned pragmatic considerations! Let’s just scrap representative democracy in the republican model and go back to having a king. No pesky little pragmatic political issues for a despot to worry about. Not a mean despot, mind you, but a benevolent despot, you know, the good sort, like a kind grandfather. No need to bother with messy self-determinism or individualism. We can impose order on the chaos, bestow our own vision on the unenlightened, and then we can all have perfect health at no cost. That would be so wonderful. Why haven’t we tried that before? All we need is a few bold elected progressives in key positions…
John McClaughtry gave us a list of liberal answers and I wasn’t sure if he was stating what he thought was true or if he was being sarcastic.
Taking one point: “Guaranteed annual income”: I wasn’t sure exactly what the program was that John M was referring to, but if it was the negative income tax I thought the idea originated with Milton Friedman. If it was a true guaranteed annual income then I think the one that promoted that with an exact program and statistics to clearly show how it would work was Charles Murray. Both are far from being of liberal persuasion. I think the above is true and I hope one of the experts corrects me if I am wrong.
Identifying an oxymoron: “the next time you’re in a conversation with a liberal….”.
Now, I point that out for a touch of silliness, but the reality is, this can be quite difficult to pull off, even with good manners.
John G
I loved your article “Where have all the liberals gone?”
Keep writing. I like your messages and your style.
John R
John just perpetuates the partisanship in this post. No ideas? There’s a few issues with that.
1. Liberals, psychologically, think for themselves. They don’t line up in a neat line and all believe the same thing like Conservatives do. This kills liberals in policy making because there are different factions with different ideas. you see this same kind of “thinking for yourself” in Liberals when you see we really don’t all have one talking point the way Frank Luntz grabs conservatives by the balls and tells them exactly what to say. Or when Grover Norquist had Cons all by the balls on not raising taxes. You couldn’t get Liberals to all agree on something like that because we are independent thinkers and do have different ideas. If you’re a US senator and representative in the Republican party and you have a different viewpoint, you’re out, especially in this increasingly polarized political climate/state of the Republican party.
2. Our ideas to fix our public schools? Increase funding for public schools. Our ideas to fix healthcare? Get rid of insurance companies denying you for pre-existing conditions, open up a healthcare exchange, regulate corporations from screwing us over in the healthcare sector. Don’t like the Affordable Care Act? Well, liberals with balls want Single Payer. Vermont passed it, we’ll see how it can do at the state level in our completely screwed up healthcare system.
3. what’s our plan for the debt? Eliminate Bush tax cuts. That’s an idea and it cuts 5.4 trillion from our debt (S&P wants 4 trillion cut) – at a time when the most wealthy in our country are doing better than they ever have.
4. Want another debt plan? Reduce defense spending. Luckily, the one good thing about this debt deal that Liberals got in was cutting the hell out of defense. Very happy about that.
Is it really a question of Liberal vs. Conservative or is it rather a battle of ideas from which those that claim the banner of “progressive” have “left” the field; voted “Present”, if you will?
I find it quite ironic that the term “Progressive” is claimed by those who are anything but. As you have suggested, where are the ideas, where is the different way of thinking about those things that everybody sees? More importantly, where is the intellectually honest debate?
There is none. There is only defense; there is no offense, and it is the defense of fear mongering and class warfare. It is the defense of appealing to the least common denominator that, sadly, is rapidly becoming the common denominator.
If we, the truly Progressives, are to succeed, we must find a way to communicate to those that have traditionally been the audience of the Opposition. More importantly, we must find the proper communicator as the arithmetic of the voting population is not only against us, it will become even more so. There is no point in having a message, even a well shaped and targeted one, if there is no messenger.
Sadly, at this juncture, we have neither the messenger nor the manner to communicate the superior ideas we possess that promote the freedom of the individual to the very people whose freedom is most in jeopardy.
Should we not find a way, we shall surely fail to achieve our goals, and with our failure will follow the failure of our society as sure as the sun follows the moon.
MDB
http://www.hotnationtalk.com