Firing Back

Tea Party: Everything You Know Is Wrong

Sara Robinson — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 13:10:47 -0500

The Tea Party is shaping up to be 2010's first major media darling. First came the storm of coverage that surrounded the Tea Party convention in Nashville two weeks ago. Then, they stole the show at last weekend's CPAC conference in DC. Now, they're gearing up for a new month-long road show that starts at the end of March -- a repeat of last fall's national tour, this time with more busses and, no doubt, more media coverage.

It's obvious that the movement's organizers have a professional touch for getting the corporate media's attention. What's less obvious is how much of this attention is deserved. The reporters following in their wake are devouring the narrative of scrappy Americans rising up in populist rage; but beyond that, they're not asking many real questions about what this movement means, or whether it actually has the kind of clout that gets things done.

It's high time to ask the questions that challenge some of the surface myths that the Tea Party has been feeding to the media. So this week, I'm firing back on eleven pieces of conventional wisdom about the tea party movement.

1. The Tea Party is a coherent movement that's moving toward an equally coherent agenda.
False...

...as anybody who followed the debacles around the Nashville convention now knows. The factionalization that's been part of the movement from the beginning was on full display there. Internally, this movement is so rickety that if it were a building, it could be brought down by a single errant woodpecker.

On one hand are the Tea Party Patriots and similar groups -- the re-organized and re-energized local veterans of Ron Paul's presidential campaign who are the true grassroots of the movement. Their movement is a conservative people's rebellion that exists outside the boundaries of any political party. For the sake of their own political leverage, which increases with distance, they want to keep it that way.

On the other hand is the GOP establishment, including former congressman Dick Armey's lobbying shop, Americans for Prosperity, and a half dozen similarly connected groups who are funneling money into the movement, trying to co-opt it into the GOP. Of course, whenever you get corporatist conservatives involved in anything, they're going to look for a way to turn it into a profit center or funnel money to cronies -- and sure enough, that imperative was on full display at the Nashville convention, where the organizers famously charged $550 per head to get in.

Your average grassroots member can't afford that. Nor do they appreciate the fact that Sarah Palin got paid over $100,000 to give the keynote -- in which she told the crowd that she thought it would be a great idea for the Tea Party to become a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Republican Party, thus casting her lot with the corporatist side and betraying her populist base.

One of the most entertaining features of right-wing groups is their propensity to launch purity crusades that exile the "impure" from the movement and lead to schisms. There are fights over power, who gets to talk to the media, who has the keys to the office and custody of the records -- and, invariably, over money, because these groups attract high-social-dominance leaders who will far more often than not mismanage and even abscond with it. The lawsuits that follow can drag on for decades; and they've resulted in the very tiresome, mundane demise of uncounted scores of otherwise scary right-wing movements.

These money and glory wars are already well underway in the Tea Party movement. They've even already turned on their founder, Ron Paul -- and there's no doubt more to come as the serious GOP money begins to float around and the main divide between the corporate wing and the grassroots moves toward open warfare.

2. The Tea Party is populist.
True and False.

Depends on which "tea party" you're talking about.

As noted above, the original Tea Party groups were a genuine populist uprising, loosely coordinated via the Internet. But when FOX News got on board, and the lobbyists launched the Tea Party Express and its very expensive and professionally-organized national bus trips, the Republican big money got into the mix in a big way.

By definition, any movement that's being whipped up the nation's most-watched "news" network -- and then spread across the land by a fleet of half-million-dollar busses, staffed with platoons of professionals who charge thousands per day and are being put up in the better hotels in town -- has pretty much lost any claim to being "populist."

3. The Tea Party reflects the essentially conservative nature of American voters.
False.

The Tea Party's agenda is summarized in its 10-point "Mandate to Save America," which all of its candidates (allegedly; more on this later) must sign off on to get the party's support. The manifesto, in full:

1. Acknowledge The Centrality Of Faith - We call for the right to publicly acknowledge God;

2. Protect human life - We call for the protection of human life from conception to natural death;

3. Save Traditional Marriage - We call for marriage to remain the union of a man and a woman and we further call for families and parental rights to be strengthened;

4. Stop Judicial Tyranny - We call for judges to be constrained by the Constitution and laws of the land;

5. Protect The Rights Of Parents to control the education of their children - We call for educational expenditures to follow parental choice;

6. Limit the size of government - We call for honesty in our government, limited to constitutional functions;

7. Protect our economic freedom - We call for a free-market economy, because it rewards hard work, creates jobs and maximizes human potential;

8. Practice fiscal responsibility, lower taxes and reduce spending - We call for lower taxes, less spending, an affordable government and the end of runaway deficits;

9. Focus on national security - We call for a foreign and military policy that protects Americans, maintains our national sovereignty and secures our borders;

10. Secure energy independence - We call for more exploration, development, production and use of all energy resources.

As I showed in this post, Americans actually have very progressive attitudes toward abortion and contraception, gay rights, and the now-manifest shortcomings of free-market economics. They also retain a strong (though somewhat waning) commitment to getting the country off carbon-based fuels, and are extremely tolerant when it comes to accepting other people's religions.

Obviously, many of the provisions in this manifesto fly in the face of an overwhelming pile of polling data that affirms the essentially liberal attitude Americans bring to their politics. Which brings us to:

4. Scott Brown was a teabagger victory.
Not hardly.

If Scott Brown is the ideal Tea Party candidate, it's a clear sign that the above Manifesto isn't worth the electrons it took you to display it on your screen -- not even to the Tea Party members themselves.

Scott Brown is pro-choice, thinks gay marriage is a state-level issue, supports public education and Medicare, has flip-flopped all over the place on climate change, and supports his state's ground-breaking government health care plan. In other words: he's the classic species of Massachusetts moderate Republican. If his election is some kind of populist "victory," then the Tea Party's vaunted candidate litmus test can only be a very silly joke.

Yeah, he owns a truck. I own a truck. That doesn't make him a right-wing populist firebrand, any more than it makes me one.

Furthermore: as noted above, when you talk about the "Tea Party," it's important to distinguish which Party you're invoking. Brown's "support" from the "Tea Party" amounted to a $360,000 donation from the corporatist/GOP faction. Given that he didn't get nearly that kind of enthusiasm from the grassroots side, it's hard to credit him with being any kind of symbol of voter outrage.

5. But what about Chris Christie and Bob McDonnell?
But what about Doug Hoffman, Don Lowery, and those tax hikes in Oregon?

The Tea Party has been given credit for at least a couple of other recent GOP upsets, which the media is reading as further proof that the group is serious and important. New NJ governor Chris Christie unseated Democrat John Corzine amid general fury over corruption and taxes. Christie, a former prosecutor who rooted out corruption, was simply seen as a cleaner candidate when paired against Goldman Sachs veteran Corzine. Likewise, Bob McDonnell won Virginia's governorship running as a moderate. Neither had much support from the Tea Party, but they're being touted as TP successes -- despite their wide variance from the principles outlined in the Manifesto.

On top of that: this whole narrative is an absurdly selective reading of the past year's record. Reporters who swallow this line are conveniently forgetting Doug Hoffmann, the most overtly Tea Party-backed candidate in the country, who lost his bid for New York's 23rd Congressional district -- and, in the process, handed the Democrats a seat they hadn't held in over a century. They're also overlooking Tea Party stalwart Don Lowery of Chicago, who garnered just over 9% of the vote in the GOP primary for President Obama's old US Senate seat. Lowery came in third; the primary slot went to moderate Mark Kirk.

They're also discounting the unmistakable pro-tax message sent by Measures 66 and 67 in Oregon, which were passed last month by a very wide margin. The first raised state income taxes on families making more than $250,000; the second raised the state corporate tax. Together, the two taxes will raise enough revenue to cover the state's $727 million budget shortfall. Similar initiatives are already being circulated in Washington State, and we can expect them to be on the ballots of several more states by this November. The Tea Party may think they're overtaxed, but Oregon's voters made it decisively clear that they don't agree.

The more closely you look, the more you notice just how dodgy the Tea Party's "victories" really are. They may have the media's adoration, but where the rubber hits the road, they're not moving actual candidates or issues.

6. The Tea Party is successfully affecting legislation moving through Congress.
False.

Their record on the policy front is even more dismal than their election failures. As CAF's own Bill Scher has pointed out, a long hot summer spent disrupting town hall meetings didn't do squat to derail health care reform. Climategate has not changed Americans' solid support for cap-and-trade. Even getting Van Jones tossed out of the West Wing didn't put a stop to the green jobs and infrastructure programs that were Jones' signature issue. Those are still going forward. (And though they planned for Jones to be the first of many purges, the headcount is still stalled at one.)

What Congress really seems to have learned from last summer is that these aren't people they have to be afraid of. They're plenty noisy; but they're too low-information to generate any serious ideas of their own. If Congress isn't obsessing about the Tea Party, perhaps the rest of us shouldn't be, either.

7. Forty-one percent of Americans have a positive impression of the Tea Party.
Say what?

This number came from an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll done back in January. The poll found that 41 percent of Americans have a positive view of the tea party movement; but only 35 percent of Americans have a positive view of the Democrats; and only 28 percent have a positive view of the Republican Party. This poll is being bruited about as proof positive that the Tea Party is powerful and important and here to stay.

Not so fast, there. What the media doesn't tell you is that same poll also found that 48 percent of those interviewed knew "very little" or "nothing at all" about the Tea Party movement. Furthermore, the way the poll described the movement to respondents gave a very mild description compared to what we've actually seen at Tea Party events.

And even if it's true that 41 percent of Americans may not see anything particularly wrong with the TP, the fact remains that when they actually vote, 70 percent of them are still standing on the liberal side on the issues that matter.

8. Glenn Beck is an important American political voice, and we need to listen to him.
Not really.

Bill Scher dealt with this one, too. Back in early January, he wrote:

...the Washington Post's Dana Milbank based an entire column on the notion that Glenn Beck is more popular than the Pope -- both actually received a scant 2% in an open-ended Gallup poll asking what man you admire most, while the President led with 30%.

(I can play this game too: Barack Obama is 15 times more admired than the Pope!)

Bill goes on to dismantle Milbank's reasons for thinking Beck matters:

* Beck has "3 million a night" watching his show. Well, that's 1% of the country. Bravo.

* Beck's show helps drive book sales., hence he has "cultural impact." Actually, it takes a lot less than 3 million to make a best-seller list, so again, not exactly evidence that Beck "is America," as Milbank suggests....

* ...Finally, he credits Beck with being a "major promoter of the Tea Party movement." If attending large rallies amounts to "huge impact," I guess the folks from A.N.S.W.E.R are who really ruled the roost the last decade.

I'd be the last person to minimize the danger Beck and his followers pose to the peace and good order of the country. But the bottom line is that there really aren't very many of them. They may be fanatics, but they're hardly a mass movement.

9. But...doesn't the Tea Party have a point when it says we have to reduce the debt?
No, it doesn't.

The Tea Party's fallacy is that they assume that the national budget is just like their own household budgets. According to a recent poll, paying down debt is the number one concern of American families right now; and since most of us see the nation as simply an extension of the family, it's natural to think that if we have to tighten our belts, Uncle Sam should have to do it, too.

But, as President Obama has pointed out on several occasions, there's not much disagreement among economists -- left or right -- about the right way to respond to this kind of financial crisis. When the economy is flagging, the government is the spender of last resort -- the only entity left that can spend enough money to keep the economy moving. And while taking on debt is worrisome, a well-executed recovery will create enough investment and expansion that we should be able to pay that debt off quickly within the decade.

We've had 80 years of experience using the Keynesian cure in countries all over the globe, and we know it works. Given that long certainty, reducing the debt right now would be the most irresponsible thing we could possibly do. And there's no serious economist in the world who will tell you otherwise.

Beyond that, the tea partiers are confused beyond belief about what's actually in the federal budget. If you handed them a copy of the budget and asked them which items should go first, they'd entirely bypass the biggest-ticket item on the list, which is military spending. (Gotta support our troops.) And they've already told us, loudly, that they want the government to keep its grubby hands off their Social Security and Medicare, so they won't be making cuts there, either. And that, right there, leaves better than half the budget totally untouchable.

If you pin them down on where they think the waste is, it becomes obvious they're still operating under the delusion that most of their tax money is going to entitlements to undeserving slackers who didn't follow the rules (starting with Rule One, which is: Be Born White). You cannot get them to believe that these programs are actually a very small part of the federal budget -- less than 15%, and shrinking.

10. But aren't they on the side of the Founders when they insist that we limit the size of government?
No.

Another irony: the Tea Party has a deep libertarian streak that distrusts all large concentrations of power. So they agree in principle with progressives that corporations should be reined in.

But they don't think it's the role of the government to do that. I have no idea who else they think is capable of doing the job. And I doubt they do, either.

Today's Too Much newsletter addressed this very issue. (Scroll to the bottom of the page for the article.). They argue that the Founders did indeed believe in limited government; but they believed that the best way to do that was to ensure a level of economic equality that prevented anyone from accumulating too much wealth. They knew that oppressively large governments would always be created by, and at the service of, the rich and powerful -- and that therefore, government had an essential role to play in preventing those accumulations and keeping the field level.

The founders were also explicit that this takes regulation and taxation, both of which the Tea Party is emphatically against. This is where you end up when everything you know about Jefferson and Paine you learned from Glenn Beck.

11. Still, we have to take the Tea Party seriously, because they're authentic American voices.
Why?

I'm the mother of teenagers. And listening to the Tea Party's political voice, it's hard to tell the difference between this movement and any standard-issue angry adolescent. I've heard every bit of it before, most of it at high, petulant volume while standing in my own kitchen. You aren't the boss of me. You can't tell me how to spend my money. I don't owe anything to the people who raised me. I'm completely independent and self-sufficient, I have no obligations to the past or future or the greater good, and society has nothing to offer me beyond leaving me alone. Also: even though you've had all this education and life experience, I'm just as smart as you are, so there!

Of course, experienced parents of teens know how to bring the full extent of their actual interdependence home in all kinds of rather pointed ways. "OK, you think you're old enough to do what you want? Great. From now on, you're cooking your own food and doing your own grocery shopping and arranging your own transportation. Also note: you'll be doing this without access to my money or my car keys. Have fun." Even my 16-year-old has gotten himself over the idea that he's entitled to help himself to the family's resources without making contributions in kind. He's a part of Us -- and the obligations, as well as the benefits, go both ways.

The tea partiers, like my teenagers, just haven't thought it all through. They know what they know, and don't stop to consider that the world may be far more complex and nuanced than the limited bit of it they see. They're noisy and whiny and can make big scenes in public; but beyond that, there's no real power, no deeply-considered policy, no political clout, no victories worth noting, no vision of the common good, and not even a stable internal party structure to build on.

There is, in the end, no there there. And it's time for the media to turn its attention to that fact, ask the hard questions about who these people are and where they want to take us, and tell the country the whole story -- not just the parts that look good on TV, or that the professional PR handlers want them to see.

Talking Turkey: Ten Myths Conservatives Believe About Progressives

Sara Robinson — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 02:06:31 -0500

Oh, Lordy. It is that time again. Thursday is Thanksgiving— the official kickoff event of the 2008 holiday season. For a lot of progressives, these festivities also mean that we're about to spend more quality time with our conservative relatives over the next six weeks than is strictly good for our blood pressure, stress levels, or continued sanity.

Personally, I'm not a wholehearted fan of turkey—probably because the mere smell of it instantly slams me back into memories of several decades of Thanksgiving dinner arguments with conservative kin that took a turn for the ugly. We all know we're supposed to stick to "safe" topics like the kids, college football, and the weather; and avoid controversial issues like religion, politics and whether oysters belong in a proper bird stuffing. But the afternoon is long, and after the approved topics have been exhausted and that third bottle of Cabernet vanishes and the tryptophan torpor hits, decorum and discipline are at high risk of going all to hell. After that, things can and do get contentious, usually in ways that make everyone wish we could all just go back to fighting over oysters in the stuffing.

These family gatherings were hard enough to stomach through the appalling years of the Bush Adoration—but this year, it's likely to be even worse. Our beloved family wingnuts were insufferable, in a grotesque Mayberry-on-acid surreal kind of way, while crowing into their succotash about the manly Godliness (or was it Godly manliness?) of Our Divinely Ordained Commander-in-Chief. But this year's different. This year, they're on the way out of power—and they're scared witless about it. Which means big steaming heapin' helpings of liberal-bashing are likely to be featured prominently on the menu next to the mashed potatoes, as they put fresh vigor into every paranoid anti-liberal fantasy ever spouted by Rush, Reverend Pat, or their new darling, Sarah Palin.

The black guy won. Armageddon—or, at the very least, socialism, atheism, gun control, and a national epidemic of erectile dysfunction—must certainly be at hand.

As you prepare to head once again into the family fray, it might be useful to note that most of the right wing's favorite anti-liberal slanders are rooted in some deeply-held—and deeply wrong—assumptions about who liberals are, and what we believe. If your relatives, God bless 'em all, insist on going down that road, your best defense this year might be to listen closely for these underlying myths and fables at work—and be prepared to challenge them head-on when they surface in the discussion.

Here's a basic set to get you started. Tuck it away in your bag with your Xanax and Maalox, and apply (liberally, of course) as needed.

1. Liberals hate America.

For the record: Liberals love America. In fact, what makes us liberals is that we actually read and believed all those pretty words in the Declaration of Independence about "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," and in the Bill of Rights about freedom of speech, religion, assembly, privacy, and all the rest of it.

We're idealists that way. We want to live in the country the Founders described. We believe that the nation's founding documents expressed a uniquely powerful moral contract between the people and their government, and an audaciously positive vision of people's ability and competence to shape their own future. When we get annoying and whiny, it's usually because we believe so much in America's astonishing promise—and our own responsibility for realizing it—that we're sorely disappointed when the country falls short of that standard. We really want to believe we can do better.

Conservatism, by contrast, tends to take a dim view of human nature, prefers hierarchy to liberty, and isn't completely convinced people can or should be trying to contravene the will of God or their betters by trying to arrange their own futures. This tends to lead to a selective reading of the Constitution (as well as the Bible), and—as we've seen in the Bush years—a far more flexible attitude toward its interpretation.

The proof, however, is in the history—and it's pretty irrefutable. America's greatest moments of progress, generosity, and moral strength occurred when the country stuck most closely to its progressive ideals. We loved America so much that we freed the slaves, passed child labor laws, built schools and colleges, gave the vote to women, enacted civil rights laws, rebuilt Europe after a war we helped win, and put a man on the moon. All of these were progressive projects—and all were fought tooth and nail by conservatives in their time, simply because they feared change and saw power as a zero-sum game. Yeah, we sometimes overshoot and miss—but you can't argue with the daring scope of our dreams.

Conversely, most of our worst moments—the Native American genocide, the continued justification of slavery and Jim Crow, the Japanese internment, Abu Ghraib —were conservative projects that were driven by narrow-minded xenophobia and short-term greed, and are regretted by everyone (including most conservatives) when we look back now.

Rick Perlstein has called this out as a predictable pattern: conservatives will loudly obstruct social progress for decades before finally accepting it—and then, they'll insist they were 100 percent for it all along.

Love us or hate us; but we're every bit as American as our conservative friends and relatives, and have been since the day the Declaration was written (by a liberal, in fact).

2. Liberals want to leave us defenseless in the face of evildoers around the world.

The big disconnect on security issues begins with the fact that we have a far more expansive definition of "security" than conservatives do. And, perhaps, a broader sense of what the actual threats are, and what can be done about them.

When conservatives discuss "security," they're usually thinking in terms of solving all our problems by sending in more guys and gals with guns. The flip side of this that they tend not to give much credence to real threats that can't be fixed by guys and gals with guns.

But as progressives, we know that the country's financial crisis is a security issue. And in a world of superbugs and epidemics, universal health care is a security issue. And global warming is, plain as day, a looming security issue (and the Pentagon agrees). We also know that sending in the Marines, hiring more cops, and taking off our shoes at the airport won't begin to address some of our most terrifying problems. Real-world security is far more complex, and requires a much wider range of solutions, than most conservatives are willing to consider.

3. Liberals hate the free market.

If that's so, why does everyone down at the Apple Store know my name?

The operative word here is "free." Liberals believe wholeheartedly in the amazing power of markets to deliver all kinds of important goods. But we've also noticed that some of the deepest human goods of all—a strong family, a caring community, a healthy environment, safe food, clean water and air, and time to enjoy them all—are assigned no economic value at all in unfettered markets. If we want to protect the value of things that money can't buy (and even conservatives will usually agree that such common goods exist, and deserve to be protected), then we need to put some restrictions on markets so they can't encroach into those areas.

Besides, any 10-year-old who's played Monopoly (or any adult who's been within reach of a TV or newspaper in the past two months) can tell you how free markets invariably end up. One person ends up owning the whole game board, and everybody else ends up broke. Game over. That's not an accident; it's just how capitalist systems work. Good regulation can go a long way toward preventing that, too.

It can also be argued that conservatives don't really believe in free markets, either. Truly free markets can only work if there's also a free market in labor—which means open borders (it's fun to drop this suggestion with a broad wink on border-fence grognards) and unfettered collective bargaining—neither of which are exactly pet conservative causes.

Because free-market theory also asserts that markets only work right when people can make rational, fully-informed choices, they break down if there's not a parallel free market in information, too. If conservatives really believed in free markets, they'd support efforts to preserve and maintain that market. Keeping good information flowing means putting tight regulations on media consolidation, and firm limits around how far advertising and PR firms can go to stretch the truth or bury negative information. It also means abolishing laws that deprive consumers of important purchasing information, like food-libel laws and federal bans on rGHB labeling. It's a rare conservative who's willing to go that far to protect the sanctity of the free market.

4. Liberals hate our troops.

We love our troops. We love them so much that we want them brought home safe and sound to their families, as soon as possible.

This one's almost depressingly easy. Who blocked the new GI Bill because it might encourage troops not to re-up? Who refused to increase VA funding? Who oversaw last year's debacle at Walter Reed? Who is making soldiers buy their own body armor?

News flash: it ain't the libruls. Putting a yellow ribbon decal on your car is not enough. Making sure our troops have everything they need to do their jobs—and keeping our promises to them when they get home—is putting our money where our mouth is. Liberals have been there doing the heavy lifting from the start, while the conservatives in government have been nowhere on the scene unless there was a photo op involved.

5. Liberals are a bunch of elitists who hate decent working- and middle-class Americans.

...as opposed to those sainted corporate men-of-the-people who fly around in private jets and pull down eight-figure salaries while closing plants and cutting 10,000 jobs at a time. That's what real populism looks like, you betcha.

Liberals are funny people. We think that sending well-paid American jobs overseas is a bad idea. We think the minimum wage should be big enough to cover life's necessities, with some left over. We think it's insane that over half the bankruptcies in the country are due to lack of adequate medical insurance. We think everybody who has the grades should have a shot at college. And we believe that middle-class prosperity is absolutely essential for maintaining a healthy democracy—because history (via Kevin Phillips) has taught us that no democracy that's tolerated our current levels inequality has ever survived for long.

You'd be surprised (or maybe not) at how many conservatives making this accusation have never stopped and taken stock of the role government has played in making their own middle-class life possible. Their dad or granddad got through college on the GI Bill. They financed their own education with Pell Grants and federally-guaranteed loans. They grew up in FHA or VA-funded houses, and collected fat mortgage interest deductions—which, right there, ensured their family's place in the middle class. They went to decent public schools—and, perhaps, state universities. They're several thousand dollars richer every month because they're off the hook for Grandma's living expenses, thanks to Social Security and Medicare. They or their parents may have started businesses with help from the Small Business Administration, or relied on government advice and subsidies to keep the farm going. They work for businesses that depend on government contracts.

And then they'll sit there over the second helping of candied yams and loudly insist that they made everything they had, all by themselves, with no help from anybody and especially not from the government.

All you can do is laugh. And then, because they're family, go back to 1945 and start re-telling the family story—this time with Uncle Sam's forgotten role in the drama front and center.

6. Liberals are against "family values."

This is one of the biggest disconnects between us. As George Lakoff has pointed out, conservatives and liberals have very different ideas about what families look like, how they function, and what rules they should run under. The problem is that liberals are quite willing to recognize the conservative model as a legitimate and valid way to do family, even if we don't always agree with it. But when conservatives look at liberal families and their patchwork of made-up arrangements, they see a chaotic free-for-all that doesn't follow any of their strictly mandated rules of family organization—and thus doesn't qualify in their minds as any kind of "family" at all. We think it's creative and flexible. They think it's unstable and scary.

So it comes as a considerable shock to conservatives when you point out that progressive areas of the country have significantly stronger families, by almost any metric you can imagine. They have lower rates of divorce, teen pregnancy, infidelity, drug abuse, domestic violence, and juvenile delinquency than the more conservative areas do. Massachusetts—the first state to offer gay marriage—also has the lowest divorce rate in the country. They like marriage so much there they think everybody should have a shot at it.

Looking at the statistics, it's possible to conclude that the conservative obsession with "family values" may reflect the fact that families in Red America really are beset by devastating problems that aren't nearly as common in Blue America. Rather than admit that maybe we know something about creating healthy families that they don't, they'll usually try to fix the blame for their family chaos on us and our crazy anything-goes family arrangements. (If there are Bible readers at your table, you might suggest they re-read Luke 6:42 before holding forth.)

Liberals believe in family. We take our marriage vows just as seriously as conservatives do. We love our children just as much. Our families are at least as successful and happy as theirs. This shouldn't be a matter of debate; but it will continue to be one as long they refuse to believe that our families are just as healthy, valid, and sacred to us as theirs are to them.

7. Liberals want to raise our taxes.

It all depends on who is the "our" in this scenario.

If your dinner companions are well-off enough to be bringing in over $250K a year, there's no point in finessing this. Their taxes probably are going up. The only comeback is that between Clinton-era tax cuts, the housing bubble, and the hot stock market of the past 15 years, they've probably made so much money that it's time to start giving some back to the nation that made their boon possible. (Refer back to #5: they almost certainly didn't make that pile without at least some government help.)

If 's nobody at the table fits that happy description, then according to Obama's plan, they're going to get a tax cut. Sure, they're not going to believe it until they see it (and, quite possibly, not even then); but it's not an argument they even want to have until after an Obama tax plan is passed and the actual results are in.

Remind them also that there's just no way to pay for a $600 billion war and a $700 billion bailout (and that's just the current cost on both fronts—they're likely to soar in the future) without somebody somewhere paying some more taxes. The bill for the war alone currently stands $5,000 per American household; the bailout may cost that much again, depending on how much of the money the government can recoup. The GOP went shopping on our credit card—and now it's time to pay our share of the bill.

8. Liberals are Godless—and therefore, amoral.

This often sounds odd coming from people who raised you, who generally like you, and who usually think you're a fairly sound citizen...well, apart from that weird liberal thing. One good comeback is to personalize that accusation: Do you really think I'm less moral than you are? Seriously? In what way? Hmm. (It's good if you can resist the temptation to say: Gee, it must have been the way I was raised.)

Another twist on this: I'm liberal because you made me that way. You dragged me to church, where they taught me to love my neighbor and care for the poor and sick—and I became a progressive because I took the things you taught me to heart.

If personalizing the argument won't work with your crowd, go general. A lot of progressives are deeply religious—and our politics are guided by our religious faith. Evangelical churches are getting involved with environmentalism, poverty, and human trafficking—all issues where liberals have been active for decades. It's good to have the extra hands on board.

It's also true that a lot of progressives aren't religious. Unfortunately, many conservatives equate "secular" with "having no moral code whatsoever," since they honestly believe that nobody can possibly behave themselves unless there's some outside authority keeping a hairy eyeball on them. (It's tempting to speculate about what people who believe this might try to get away with when they think nobody's watching; personally, I think it's an incriminating admission that they can't be trusted behind closed doors.) Rejecting God means you refuse to follow His rules—which, according to their logic, can only mean that you hold nothing sacred and don't recognize any rules at all.

Call this out for the wrongness that it is. All non-religious progressives have things they hold deeply sacred: family commitments, community obligations, professional responsibilities, the Constitution, social and economic justice, the earth and its systems, the idea of democracy, the dream of a peaceful future. Those things form the basis of a demanding internally-driven moral code; and it's not uncommon to find secular progressives who live more uncompromisingly moral lives than many overtly religious people.

9. Liberals don't believe in personal responsibility.

Again, there's a definitional disconnect at work here. Conservatives tend to use the rule of law to enforce traditional morality and social hierarchies, which usually means light treatment for those at the top, and harsh penalties for those at the bottom. Liberals tend to use the rule of law to maintain some semblance of fairness and equality, which means that those who have more should be given sentences proportional to their greater wealth and power; and those with less should be given a more gentle hand. Naturally, each side finds the other side's reasoning and criteria appalling.

But there is common ground. The bare fact—which everybody at the table may agree on—is that in present-day America, nobody is happy with the way justice is being doled out, and people all over are getting away with things no civilized nation should allow to slide by. Absurd leniency abounds on both sides. You can either argue over whose side is getting the worst of it; or you can simply agree that the system is broken all over, and move on to the pumpkin pie.

10. Liberals are wimps.

Conservatives like to caricaturize liberals as being soft in all the places our society values toughness. Our refusal to adhere to any dogma must mean that we're soft in our convictions. Our reflexive open-mindedness is often derided as evidence that we're soft in the head. Our persistent and gentle insistence on humane government is evidence of hearts too soft to set hard boundaries or do what must be done. And all of this together makes it easy for them to portray us as a mushy bunch of feckless, effeminate intellectuals lacking in cohesion, backbone, focus, or purpose.

But you can only believe this if you don't know anything about the history or reality of American liberalism. The Constitution is, itself, a liberal document—the ultimate expression of Enlightenment principles. In every decade since the republic was founded, progressives have stepped up and put themselves on the line to further the purposes of government laid out in the Preamble. We're heirs to the people who fought and died to free slaves, organize unions, give the vote to women, end child labor, protect family farms, enact civil rights laws, and preserve our environment. Some of the boldest, bravest Americans in history— Harriet Tubman, Susan B. Anthony, Frederick Douglass, Teddy Roosevelt, Cesar Chavez, and of course Dr. King—have proudly called themselves "liberal" or "progressive."

Progressivism couldn't have survived and thrived if we were half as weak and indecisive as conservatives like to think we are. Our progressive forebears were not fearful people. Nor did any of them seem to be bedeviled by a lack of conviction. "Mushy" or "feckless" are about the last words I'd use to describe any of them. ("Stupid" isn't anywhere on the list, either.) When you sign up to become a progressive, this is the legacy you take on, and from then on attempt to live up to. It's not God's job to make the world a better place. It's yours. This has never been work for the faint of heart, mind, or spirit—and in this era of conservatism gone rotten, it still isn't.

It's going to be a stranger season than most, in no small part because the changing political winds are going to put some fresh twists and turns into the same old holiday discussions. But holiday arguments over religion and politics are a tradition that's as old as the republic. For most of us, wouldn't be an American family holiday without a little hot conversation served up over a freshly roasted bird.

Debunked: Ten Conservative Myths About National Security

Sara Robinson — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 02:59:23 -0400

True confession: I was terrified on 9/11—for all the right reasons.

I wasn't afraid of the terrorists. There are plenty of countries where people have lived for decades under the constant threat of unholy acts of terror—and yet people still get on buses and subways and airplanes, and life goes on. I'd like to think that Americans are at least as courageous as Israelis or Indonesians. Our "land of the free and home of the brave" mythos insists we should be. So I was damned if I was going to respond to the crisis by giving into irrational fears and thereby, as we used to say, "let the terrorists win."

The Ten Myths

"Islamofascism" is our biggest national security threat.
We're fighting them there so we don't have to fight them here.
Military solutions are the only effective national security solutions.
What we're doing is working; we haven't had another 9/11.
"Law enforcement" approaches to terrorism don't work.
We don't need allies; we can do this on our own.
You don't negotiate with dictators.
National security spending is different from pork-barrel spending on other programs.
Airport security is critical to our anti-terrorism effort.
It's always necessary to give up our civil liberties in a time of war.

No, what I was really afraid of was that too many of my fellow Americans would forget the lessons of their own history—that they'd lose track of who we are and where we've been and what we're made of. I knew there was a real possibility that this time, we'd fail to live up to our reputation for cool, calm clarity in the face of crisis, and instead be goaded into taking counsel of our fears. I feared the bad choices that would inevitably follow if we stampeded down that road. And I dreaded that it would be the soul death of the country I loved.

I hate having been right about this, though I can hardly blame average citizens for succumbing to the sirens of chaos. Americans trying to make correct sense of the new reality found their efforts stymied everywhere they turned. With the White House distorting intelligence to sell a war, corporate opportunists fanning the coals of panic to heat up vast new business opportunities, media editors milking the drama to keep their ratings high, and terrified hordes quick to shout "treason" whenever anyone dared to question the path we were taking, it was hard for even thoughtful Americans to locate the truth of the matter. And as long as confusion reigned, the terrorists really did keep winning.

Seven years later, as the miasma dissipates, more and more of us are able to calm down, take a step back, draw a big, cleansing breath and start to sort things out more rationally. Unfortunately, though, a few of the myths promulgated in those first few years have hardened firmly into a new conventional wisdom—some so stubbornly that you often won't even find progressives questioning them any more. The time has come to call out a few of these persistent myths that are still being taken as fact and start firing back on them.

1. "Islamofascism" is America's biggest national security threat.

Not hardly. This is the hot new idea among far-right demagogues who literally can't define who they are without a devil to contrast themselves against, and military hawks looking for an excuse to keep the military-industrial complex's big all-night party rolling in the bleary morning-after of a post-Cold War world. But, as the Center for American Progress notes in this article, it's a dangerous meme that disables our ability to think clearly, and it will almost certainly lead us into even more catastrophic misadventures.

To begin with, "Islamofascism" itself is an impossible idea, and those who promote it betray a fundamental political ignorance. True fascism can only occur within an industrialized nation-state, few of which exist in the Islamic world. And many of our most intransigent problems with terrorism come from the opposite problem: modern terrorists have no state affiliations, and are thus free to drift across international borders with fluid ease. Defeating them means coming to grips with this fact. Calling them "fascists" makes it that much harder to grasp.

Worse, "Islamofascism" suggests that the Muslim world is some kind of vast monolithic conspiracy, equal in might and will to the Soviet Union or Nazi Germany back in the day—and that's another dangerous delusion. Just like Christianity, Islam covers a widely diverse range of cultures and political attitudes. In fact, the overwhelming majority of the world's 1.6 billion Muslims are not jihadis, and consider terrorism abhorrent. Turning one-quarter of the world's people into The Enemy will blind us to the subtle but critical distinctions within Islam. It will doom us to serious blunders, alienate potential allies, and cost us important opportunities to make real inroads against terrorism.

Spencer Ackerman suggests the term "anti-Western Salafist jihadism" as a replacement. Less catchy, perhaps, but more specific and not nearly so fraught with wrong assumptions that can cloud our thinking.

Having dispatched "Islamofascism," though, the more important point remains: Anti-Western Salafist jihadism isn't even America's biggest security threat. It's on the short list—but so are global pandemics, loose nukes, our dependence on foreign energy, the catastrophic effects of climate change, the U.S.'s vast and bloated national debt, and our growing helplessness at producing essential goods for ourselves. As long as we're mired in an endless war to "defeat Islamofascism," we're going to remain weak, distracted, and grossly unprepared for the other serious security threats we face.

2. We're fighting them there so we don't have to fight them here.

False. The image here is that Iraq is some kind of roach hotel for global terrorism. The truth is, it's become the international finishing school where a new generation of terrorists is getting a front-line, real-time education against the American war machine—and perfecting low-tech ways to close the gap against a high-tech army.

The U.S. official National Intelligence Estimate concludes that the war in Iraq has made new Islamic radicals where none existed before, greatly increasing the terror threat around the world. The number of significant terrorist incidents worldwide has risen every year of the war. In a bipartisan survey of national security experts last year, the consensus found that that the war in Iraq is making the world more dangerous for Americans. (To be fair, this same panel is a bit more upbeat this year, but still thinks the war is a grave mistake.) In the meantime, al-Qaida has regrouped in Pakistan, and is back at full strength—while we've suffered more than 35,000 casualties and spent more than $550 billion, while alienating friends around the world.

"Fighting them there" hasn't been nearly the solution we were promised it would be. But too many of us were eager to buy into that promise, because we'd already been sold on another persistent myth:

3. Military solutions are the only effective national security solutions.

Wrong. So wrong that Boston University professor Andrew Bacevich (who is nobody's liberal) has written an entire book on America's dangerously naïve faith in the military as the only viable solution to everything that ails us.

Which is ridiculous, when you consider all the things military force can't do. Smart bombs won't stop global warming. Battlefield nukes won't cure pandemics. Air strikes won't reduce our reliance on foreign energy sources. Sending in the Marines is no way to reduce the national debt. As we saw above in No. 1, terrorism is just one of a number of real national security threats we're facing—and as we'll see, it's not even clear that that the military is the right answer there, either.

On the other hand, there's a surprising level of consensus among security experts on both the left and right on what real, effective national security would look like:

We need to beef up our intelligence agencies—in a way that's consistent with the Constitution—so they can monitor terrorist groups and keep dangerous technologies out of their hands.
We need to provide consistent and effective domestic security around ports, chemical plants, and other high-risk targets—something that should have been done immediately after 9/11, but is still largely neglected.
We need to revisit our national infrastructure for disaster preparedness and response. Whether it's floods or fires, evacuation or epidemic, insurgents or industrial accidents, we will be more secure if we have a well-planned, coordinated response, and trained people prepared and in place to handle it.
We need our friends. Diplomacy, alliances, international cooperation, intelligence sharing and police work are the essential tools for pre-empting real threats to our security.
We need to become more self-sufficient. Asked by the Foreign Policy Index to rate strategies for strengthening the nation’s security, 55% of Americans listed “Becoming less dependent on other countries for our supply of energy. Only 17% said “Attacking countries that develop weapons of mass destruction” would enhance our security.

America has very few problems that can best be solved by military means—and a great many problems that require us to look for other strategies.

4. But—what we're doing is working! After all, we haven't had another 9/11...

True, we haven't—but not for the reasons you think. Which leads us to another myth....

5. Everybody knows that "law enforcement" approaches to terrorism don't work.

False. They do work. In fact, they're about the only thing that really does work. Every single terrorist plot that's been prevented since 9/11—both the serious ones, and the ones that were "more aspirational than operational"—were prevented through good old-fashioned police and intelligence work.

Taking the wide view, the fateful choice to send in soldiers rather than international cops turned out to be a major win for the terrorists. Conservative blogger Steve Chapman explained it this way: "By framing the fight as a global war, we have helped Osama bin Laden and hurt ourselves. Had we treated him and his confederates as the moral equivalent of international drug lords or sex traffickers, the organization might not have the romantic image it has acquired. By exaggerating the potential impact, we also magnified the disruptive effect of any plots, which is just what the terrorists seek."

6. We don't need allies: we can do this on our own. Besides, moral authority doesn't matter when you have superior firepower.

More fatal hubris. One of the more noxious side effects of American exceptionalism is that we cling stubbornly to the idea that we're the only country on earth that matters and owe nothing to anyone else.

That wasn't even true back in 1776, when Thomas Jefferson duly noted the new nation's obligation to have "a decent respect" for "the opinions of mankind" in the first paragraph of the Declaration of Independence. It's considerably less true now that we are so dependent on so many for so much. Insisting that we can go it alone in this deeply interconnected world—where our oil comes from the Saudis, our cars come from the Japanese, and our money and everything else comes from China—is very much like a headstrong 14-year-old who insists that they don't need Mom and Dad for anything—except maybe housing and food and an allowance and a ride to the mall.

And that's about how Americans look to the rest of the world whenever we strike this "I'll do it myself, so there" posture: immature, petulant, spoiled and ignorant of all the ways we depend on the family of nations for our continued well-being. Yes, we're big and strong and capable of doing tremendous damage if we get angry. But we can only throw that weight around for so long—by and by, the other nations will band together to find alternatives to dealing with us, and may even start actively looking for ways to knock us down to size. In some places, this is already happening, and it's not in our long-term interest for it to continue.

It's time for us to remember our grown-up manners and return to our seat at the global family table.

7. Negotiating with "irrational" dictators is pointless, and a sign of weakness.

Catastrophically dumb. Conservatives condemn the idea of presidents talking to their counterparts from "enemy" countries, but 67 percent of Americans disagree, according to a June 2 Gallup poll. "Large majorities of Democrats and independents, and even half of Republicans, believe the president of the United States should meet with the leaders of countries that are considered enemies of the United States," the poll says. Fifty-nine percent of Americans, for example, would support the U.S. president meeting with the president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

If FDR could confer with Stalin and JFK could negotiate with Khrushchev and Nixon could go to China and sit down with Mao, there's no reason whatsoever our current president can't arrange a meeting with Ahmedinejad. Bush's refusal to do this is a sign of his essential smallness of character and the narrowness of his worldview. The problem with all ideologues is that once they decide that "you're with us or against us," then no further discussion—let alone compromise—with the other side is possible. That's a dangerous trait in a president, and one we should watch out carefully for in the future.

8. Government spending on national security is different than pork-barrel spending on other programs.

Another myth busted. Recall that when the Republicans controlled Congress, they devised a formula that diverted security money from high-risk (and mostly liberal) states like New York and California to lower-risk (and mostly conservative) places like Wyoming and Nebraska. This made no logical sense from a security standpoint—the only explanation was that the Republican Congress was using 9/11 as an excuse to dole out pork.

Homeland security has grown up to become one of the biggest pork barrels in American politics. Security professionals are quick to point out that too many of these efforts aren't designed to provide objectively effective security—in fact, as we'll see below, many of them are based on flawed assumptions about how effective security works. Instead, the contracts are written in such a way that the only way to fulfill them is to funnel our tax dollars into the pockets of well-connected conservative cronies. The upshot is that we spend more than we should, and get less real protection than we deserve.

And perhaps worst of all: Seven years of this unregulated, unfocused spending has created a booming new industry that can only survive as long as it keeps selling us on new threats to fear—which has long-term implications for our entire national culture.

9. Airport security is a critical part of our anti-terrorism effort.

True, but not as true as it should be. Security experts are still deeply concerned about at least two big holes in the system that make the high drama of the passenger screening area into nothing much more than a farce.

The first one is that we're still not adequately inspecting air cargo. Any competent engineering student can make and ship a timed bomb, which is why the 9/11 Commission Report insisted on aggressive inspection of all air cargo. At this point, most airports are doing random profiling and screening of parcels; but it's a far cry from the careful one-by-one inspection being given to people and luggage traveling on the same plane. In 2007, the Transportation Security Administration spent $5 billion inspecting passengers and luggage, and just $55 million on cargo going on the same planes. Cargo inspectors comprise less than 1 percent of the TSA workforce. Feeling safer yet?

The other security hole big enough to fly another 9/11 through comprises the various programs that allow crew members, frequent fliers, people with security clearances, and other "trusted travelers" to bypass inspection. As Bruce Schneier points out, these programs are based on the dangerous myth that terrorists match a particular profile, and that we can somehow pick terrorists out of a crowd if we only can identify everyone and get them all on watch lists.

Schneier, who has consulted with the TSA, is emphatic that dividing the world into "trusted travelers" and people on watch lists creates more security problems than it solves. "Most of the 9/11 terrorists were unknown and not on any watch list. Timothy McVeigh was an upstanding U.S. citizen before he blew up the Oklahoma City Federal Building. Palestinian suicide bombers in Israel are normal, nondescript people. Intelligence reports indicate that al-Qaida is recruiting non-Arab terrorists for U.S. operations." Furthermore, if you create a low-inspection loophole in the system, would-be terrorists will aim for that loophole—and are more likely to get through it. The only way to prevent this is to throw out the watch lists and inspect everyone—no exceptions.

Schneier and other airline security experts will tell you that most of the safety gains since 9/11 come about through just two developments: hardening cockpit doors, and passengers who now know that they may have to fight back. "Everything else—Secure Flight and Trusted Traveler included—is security theater," writes Schneier. "We would all be a lot safer if, instead, we implemented enhanced baggage security—both ensuring that a passenger's bags don't fly unless he does, and explosives screening for all baggage—as well as background checks and increased screening for airport employees."

10. It's always necessary to give up our civil liberties in a time of war.

Wrong. So horribly wrong, in fact, that my very conservative eighth-grade civics teacher wouldn't have graduated a kid who failed this part of the exam. She put the fear of the Founders in us, along with a clear sense of our obligations and rights as citizens. There hasn't been a day since 9/11 that I haven't mourned the fact that America has not produced nearly enough Mrs. Hermans.

Last night, I was watching NBC's presentation of "9/11: As It Happened," a two-hour summary of its coverage that awful morning seven years ago. At one point, late in the broadcast, Tom Brokaw made a comment: "We are a country at war now....we're going to have to reconsider some of the freedoms we now enjoy." The smoke of the towers was still rolling up the streets of Manhattan, and NBC's senior anchor was already declaring a new era in which patriotic Americans must be willing to surrender their liberty for security. I was left wondering how someone who wouldn't have made it out of eighth grade at Home Street School ended up in a national anchor spot—and remembering all over again just what it was on that day that made me so deeply, truly afraid for my country.

Lincoln suspended habeus corpus during the Civil War, and FDR claimed extraordinary powers for himself during World War II—but neither of them ever tried to argue that being at war was a natural excuse for suspending the entire Bill of Rights. In fact (as we have seen) the more dangerous the times, the more important those liberties become. In times of huge social transformation or economic upheaval, when everything else is up for grabs, our worldview and our values—the internal qualities that define who we are, the things nobody can ever take away from us—move to the front and center. Everything else can go up in smoke; but as long as we hold onto those core beliefs, we will be able to survive the worst, and find everything we need within us to rebuild the world anew.

The Declaration and the Constitution are the defining documents of our country, expressing the central ideals that determine who we are. If we abandon those ideals, we will simply cease to be American—and, perhaps, lose the chance of ever restoring America again. If we are truly concerned about national security, this is, beyond a doubt, the worst thing we could ever allow to happen.