center-right nation

Mandate Watch: Were Democrats Elected to Attack "The Left?" Part II

David Sirota — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 20:52:07 -0800

A few weeks ago a Senate Democratic aide and Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD) kicked off a campaign to publicly berate "the left" in the wake of the 2008 election. Now, here's a rant-ish "Message to Obama's Progressive Critics" from top Obama aide Steve Hildebrand today demanding "the left" keep quiet:

This is not a time for the left wing of our Party to draw conclusions about the Cabinet and White House appointments that President-Elect Obama is making. Some believe the appointments generally aren't progressive enough...The problems I mentioned above and the many I didn't, suggest that our President surround himself with the most qualified people to address these challenges. After all, he was elected to be the President of all the people - not just those on the left. (emphasis added)

First thing's first: I absolutely agree with Hildebrand that you can't draw concrete conclusions about Obama based only on his personnel decisions - and I've written that repeatedly. I've also said that most of Obama's policy declarations have been pretty progressive, and I concur with CAF's Bob Borosage who told the New York Times that Obama "ran on such a progressive agenda, if he’s not breaking away from that, if he’s getting centrists to implement it, we’ll take that."

However, Hildebrand implying that those personnel decisions really don't matter at all is straight up silly. It supposes that all the enormous egos that populate a White House are just mindless functionaries, and that even though those egos are heading major federal departments or are key advisers, they have no hand in making policy and/or their advice to a president makes absolutely no impact. Please - let's get real.

But far more important than that is Hildebrand firing up the whaaaaaaaambulance to whine and cry and moan about "the left." Really, what is with top Democrats explicitly attacking "the left wing of the Democratic Party" in Fox News-style talking points? Why is every substantive, non-partisan, non-ideological question of pragmatism from progressives almost automatically portrayed as some sort of super-Trotsky-ite, ideological and wholly inappropriate demand for Obama to be a president "just for those on the left?" Can anyone even ask a non-ideological question of Obama without being attacked as some sort of raving left-wing lunatic?

Most progressives questioning Obama have done so rather gently, and have done so on the pragmatic substance. For instance, people wondering about the appointment of Larry Summers to a top economic position in the White House have wondered whether it's such a good idea to empower an ideological free market fundamentalist (pro-free trade, pro-deregulation) whose policies as Bill Clinton's Treasury Secretary played a major role in creating the economic crisis. That is, most have wondered why Obama thinks that kind of ideologue is "the most qualified person" to deal with our economic situation, rather than, say, a pragmatist like James Galbraith or Joseph Stiglitz who has been right all along.

Same thing for progressives concerned about the Iraq War. They have wondered whether the ideologues who got us into the war - who got us into the war on wholly ideological and non-pragmatic grounds - are really "the most qualified people" to get us out of that war. They believe that perhaps the pragmatists who opposed the war on the basis of a factual analysis of intelligence might be better suited to the task.

Are such questions really the inappropriate queries of a bunch of radical revolutionaries from "the left?" Or are the real fringe radicals - the real ideologues - those who say that we should all STFU and bow down to the Dear Leader? I think the latter, not the former - and I think Democrats (and especially the Obama team) who rightly protested Republican efforts to tar and feather Obama as a "socialist" should know better than to echo such silly, fact-free talking points.

The worst part of Hildebrand's piece is this:

As a liberal member of our Party, I hope and expect our new President to address those issues that will benefit the vast majority of Americans first and foremost. That's his job. Over time, there will be many, many issues that come before him. But first let's get our economy moving, bring our troops home safely, fix health care, end Climate Change and restore our place in the world. (emphasis added)

The obvious implication in this passage is the same one we've been hearing from the "center-right" political Establishment since the election ended: While the Very Serious and Very Important Pragmatists of Permanent Washington nobly seek to "get our economy moving, bring our troops home safely, fix health care, end Climate Change and restore our place in the world," the raving and crazy "left wing of the Democratic Party" wants to do other things first, like prioritize ideology even if it means letting those crises intensify. It's an absurd and insulting frame.

Last I checked, "the left wing of the Democratic Party" forced Democrats to take a stronger position against the war in 2006 and that was the key reason Democrats won Congress that year. Last I checked, "the left wing of the Democratic Party" has been the only voice in America that has been right all along in demanding more fair economic policies, an end to the war, better environmental laws, better diplomacy, etc. That is, as opposed to the Very Serious and Very Important D.C. elite who have been doggedly pursuing ideological ends, it has been "the left wing of the Democratic Party" whose policy demands have long been the most pragmatic, the most correct, and now not just positions held by those on "the left" but positions held by the vast majority of America.

Indeed, post-election polls suggest that because "the left wing of the Democratic Party" has been proven correct, Democrats are now in power. Additionally, history suggests that when "the left wing of the Democratic Party" has more power and a bigger voice - not less power and a smaller voice as Hildebrand and his ilk seem to want - we tend to avoid messes and/or get out of messes a lot faster.

To paraphrase Jack Nicholson in A Few Good Men, rather than now criticize "the left," it would be better if these insiders just said thank you and went on their way.

The reason the Republican Party and conservative movement were so successful* was because they developed a symbiotic relationship. Specifically, the party apparatus knew that sustained conservative movement pressure on the party was good for the party in keeping it disciplined and on message. By contrast, the culture of the Democratic Party since the McGovern debacle in 1972 has been to bash the progressive movement - to triangulate against it as proof of "independence" and "centrism." We saw where that got the Democratic Party for the last 30 years - but by the looks at the public post-election attacks on "the left" from Democrats, it seems like the party higher-ups still haven't learned the simple lesson that pressure from a strong movement strengthens the party as a whole.

* The Republicans are out of power now, but clearly, their party and their movement was wildly successful over the last 30 years in terms of passing policy and structurally changing the legal and political foundations of the country in a lasting way. Thus all the talk about how much work it's going to take to undo the damage they did. The damage we see is (unfortunately) their movement and party's success.

The Real Rivalry In the Team: The Cabinet vs. The Campaign Promises

David Sirota — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 07:40:58 -0800

Just as an add-on to my column this week, I wanted to add two more macro thoughts about Obama's appointments, and progressive unrest about those appointments.

First, I think there's a psychological aspect to what bothers progressives about Obama's refusal to appoint movement progressives to key positions. The public opinion data overwhelmingly confirms that Obama won with a clear progressive mandate - to argue otherwise against cut-and-dry numbers is to mimic an ostrich shoving its head in the sand, or to mimic the Braindead Megaphone's insistence that this is a "center-right nation." Additionally, nobody argues that his victory wasn't the product of huge progressive grassroots support. So in light of that, there's a perception that he's delivering the spoils of that victory to those who embody what the election rejected.

In that sense, there's a Rodney Dangerfield harrumph - we progressives get no respect. That's understandable, but we're going to have to keep our eye on the policy, understanding that personnel impacts policy, but isn't policy itself. And the policy is ultimately what defines true respect (and disrespect).

Second, the meaningless "pragmatic Team of Rivals" nonsense - and it truly is media-created nonsense - is clearly being used as a rationale to pack the incoming administration with Establishment figures. Indeed, the "rivalry" isn't between the "team" of appointees (most of them come from the same team - ie. the center-right team of permanent Washington). The "rivalry" is between the positions/ideology of the appointees and the positions/ideology Obama explicitly campaigned on.

For instance, the "rivalry" isn't between Bob Rubin proteges Larry Summers and Tim Geithner on economic policy - it is between Summers and Geithner the ideological deregulators and Obama's promises to better regulate Wall Street. Likewise, the "rivalry" isn't between Hillary Clinton and the other "hawks" on the foreign policy team, it is between Clinton who bashed Obama's proposals for more diplomacy with enemies and Obama's promises to diplomatically reach out to enemy nations.

The problem could be something of a cloistering effect. George W. Bush was criticized for putting yes men around him - people who didn't challenge his thinking. By contrast, Obama is being praised for assembling a "Team of Rivals" that will challenge his thinking and, by extension, his campaign promises (it's logical, after all, to believe his campaign promises are an extension of his thinking). But if that team is comprised mostly of the same kinds of voices from the same Establishment perspective, it will likely mean constant if subtle pressure on the President to water down his policies. In short, he won't be surrounded by yes men - he'll be surrounded by no men.

It's certainly possible that Obama will not be affected at all by the voices he puts around him, and that - as I wrote earlier - he is banking on getting center-right Establishment figures to carry center-left Establishment-challenging policy. We should withhold final judgment until we see the policies come January 2009 and beyond. We don't know that this conservatives-carrying-progressive-legislation strategy is his goal, but we can certainly hope, and we can additionally hope that he didn't appoint center-right Establishment figures to carry a center-right Establishment agenda.

That said, I think those who say that the latter isn't possible and that the only rationale thing to do is simply trust Obama's "buck stops here" promise yesterday are being willfully stupid and dishonest - both to themselves and to those they are arguing with. They claim progressives are being "purists" for the progressive agenda - as if they aren't being pro-Obama purists (ie. purists who refuse to question the Dear Leader). And really, what's better - supposed "purists" whose purity is about a set of policies, or purists whose purity is about who can most loyally worship an individual?

The truth is, we all want Obama to do well - but there's nothing disloyal, silly or uniformed about looking at his appointments and asking why many of them seem to individually represent positions and ideologies at odds with the positions and ideologies he campaigned on. And despite the insistence by some that we should "just wait until Obama's in office" and shut up and "give Obama a chance," there's nothing disloyal, silly or uninformed about speaking out about those questions and concerns now - because he is already exercising power when making these appointments, and as Frederick Douglass said, "power concedes nothing without demand."

As a great philosopher asked, "If not now, when?" And to that I'll add, if not us now, then someone else now. By that I mean, if there isn't progressive pressure now, then there will be pressure from somewhere else.

In fact, there already is - it's no accident that the conservative noise machine from Karl Rove on down is praising Obama's appointments, and effectively creating that rightward pull. If there isn't similar progressive pressure now, don't be surprised if the debate - and thus the policy - starts slowly creeping right. As Chris Bowers notes, even Bill Clinton understood the value of progressive pressure - and noted that without such pressure he was forced to the right. That means progressive pressure benefits Obama by helping him play off it and define the progressive center his campaign promises embody.

Ghettoization & The Difference Between Politics & Policy

David Sirota — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 07:30:54 -0800

“This is the violin model: Hold power with the left hand, and play the music with your right,” David J. Rothkopf, a former Clinton official who wrote a history of the National Security Council, said on Friday, as news of Mrs. Clinton’s and Mr. Geithner’s appointments leaked.

This quote, from the New York Times story asserting that Barack Obama will govern from the center-right, highlights a very important dynamic in politics: the tendency of politicians to use the argot of progressivism in their public presentations (to "hold power with the left hand") - all while wielding conservative policy ("playing the music with your right").

There's nothing surprising about this - the reason endangered politicians of both parties start airing populist progressive themes around election time is because they know those themes are popular among rank-and-file voters (thus the definition of "populism") - they know, in other words, that this is a decidedly center-left country, and when they have to answer to that country come election day, they go left. But once these politicians get into office and are far away from all of us, the unwashed masses, the pressures of money and media - ie. the Establishment - unleashes incredible pressure for them to actually write the details of policy in a way that preserves a conservative status quo.

Enter the Obama administration.

While there's not enough evidence to declare a full-on "trend" in the incoming Obama White House, it is notable that Obama's policy appointments (ie. Cabinet secretaries and White House policy advisers who actually craft policy) are almost all right-of-center, Establishment choices - and almost none are, as The Nation's Chris Hayes has said, movement progressives. At the same time, many Obama appointments to exclusively political positions – that is, positions that are focused on selling policy, whatever that policy may be - are terrific movement progressives, people like Mike Lux (transition outreach to progressive orgs), Ellen Moran (communications director), Phil Schiliro (congressional liason) and Patrick Gaspard (political director). In other words, the initial structure seems to resemble the principle in American politics of politicians publicly selling their policies in progressive terms, while having those policies be crafted with much more conservative ideology.

Intra-administration ideological ghettoization isn't new. The last Democratic administration engaged in its share of conservative-progressive ghettoization - but rather than making the policy/politics barrier the wall of the two ghettos, it divided the two ideologies between the cabinet offices with different jurisdictions. The cabinet offices that oversaw economic regulation and defense largely went to conservatives, and the cabinet offices with powerful grassroots progressive constituencies like Labor, EPA, I and HUD went to progressives.

The potential ghettoization in the Obama administration - and I stress again, it's only the potential - is one where the policy sculptors are center-right Establishmentarians, and where the policy marketers (ie. the political team) is comprised of people who know how to package and sell policies in the language of progressivism, and sell those policies to progressive activists, a progressive-dominated Democratic congressional caucus and a center-left public at large. Certainly, Obama may mimic the Clinton administration and give Labor, EPA, Interior and HUD to progressives as well, but the politics-policy divide nonetheless seems to be the defining progressive-conservative boundary right now.

Obviously, the division of responsibility is never totally cut and dry. As Karl Rove showed, a White House political team can have a lot of influence over policy. So we can’t draw any hard and fast conclusions about what this will mean in the Obama administration. It’s very possible that the progressive political team will have a lot of policy say.

That said, I do think it is important for progressives to understand the difference between the policy and political machinery of an administration. Ghettoizing conservatives into the policy machine (to "play the music") and progressives into the political machine (to help Obama "hold power") would not bode well for all the progressive policy promises Obama made during the campaign. After all, if the details of policy are being forged by center-right Establishment insiders, those policies are more likely (though certainly not guaranteed) to represent a fairly center-right Establishment viewpoint, no matter how well those policies are draped in the salesmanship of a progressive political machinery.

This gets to the fundamental question about Obama that nobody really knows. Does Obama believe that in order to be a successful president and right the economy, he has to fulfill the decidedly progressive policy promises he made during the campaign? Or does he believe that if he combines his own personal salesmanship talents with a strong political team that is skilled at the language of progressivism, he can sell a right-of-center Establishment agenda as huge "change?"

Nobody knows the answer to this - and those who say they do are arguing with the same ridiculed faith that George W. Bush cited when he said he knew Vladimir Putin was a good guy because he looked into the Russian autocrat's eyes. The truth is, we just don't know what Obama thinks his path should be.

That's why it is important to keep a close eye on how the new administration is being constructed. The strategies we create to enact a progressive agenda (and I assume that, and not just Democratic Party dominance, is what progressives want) will have to be calibrated for the kind of administration that is ultimately built. An administration that has right-of-center policy sculptors and left-of-center policy sellers will have to be worked with differently than, say, an administration with progressive policy sculptors and conservative policy sellers.

Again, I'm not saying the administration is built yet, or that the initial staffing decisions delineate a full-fledged trend. But we should watch closely to see if a trend does, indeed, develop.

ADDENDUM: Digby makes a very good point - if a kind of ghettoization happens inside the Obama administration putting progressives in sales jobs and center-right Establishmentarians in policy forging jobs, one of the benefits would be that it could help shift the political language. That is to say that if Obama thinks it is important to sell his policies - whatever they may be - in the argot of movement progressivism, that will indeed help push back on "center-right" propaganda machine that seeks to present everything in conservative terms.

So while I continue to optimistically hope that no matter who Obama puts in whatever positions we'll get some pretty good progressive policy, I think Digby has made an additionally good point in noting that the Obama administration's structure could additionally help shift the overall parameters of the political debate to the left (or, more precisely, to the actual, progressive center of American public opinion). And that's not a small thing.

Mandate Watch: Confused About Tax Promises

David Sirota — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 11:43:45 -0800

I'm confused about the state of Barack Obama's tax promises. Last week we heard this strong, admirable declaration that campaign promises would be upheld - a rejection of the "center-right" media meme that tax increases on the super-wealthy hurt the economy (anyone remember how the economy boomed after Bill Clinton raised taxes on the wealthy?):

Aide: Middle-Class Tax Cut a Priority
Emanuel Hints That Increase for Upper Incomes Also Won't Be Postponed

By Michael A. Fletcher
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, November 10, 2008

President-elect Barack Obama plans to push ahead with a middle-class tax cut soon after taking office, his choice for White House chief of staff said yesterday. Rahm Emanuel also hinted that Obama would not postpone a tax increase for families earning more than $250,000 a year despite the deepening economic gloom. (emphasis added)

Now this week we get this:

Obama may delay tax-cut rollback for wealthy

By Randall Mikkelsen

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President-elect Barack Obama may consider delaying a campaign promise - to roll back tax cuts on high-income Americans - as part of his economic recovery strategy, two aides said on Sunday. David Axelrod, the Obama campaign strategist who was chosen to be a senior White House adviser, was asked if the tax cuts could be allowed to expire on schedule after tax year 2010 rather than being rolled back by legislation earlier. "Those considerations will be made," he said on "Fox News Sunday." Bill Daley, an adviser to Obama and commerce secretary under former President Bill Clinton, said on NBC's "Meet the Press" that the 2010 scenario "looks more likely than not." (emphasis added)

I'm confused. Beyond the very clear - and admirable - mandate Obama created for himself in terms of raising taxes on the rich, history suggests such a policy is not at odds with righting an economy.

While I'm not a huge fan of Bill Clinton on a lot of issues, I think he was courageous on the issue of income taxes - and that his courage proved to be good policy, as evidenced by the economy's performance right after the tax increase, and as evidenced by the fact that the tax increases gave his government much-needed new revenue (revenue that Obama now needs for priorities like energy investment, health care and economic stimulus/infrastructure spending). Clinton proved that the right's rhetoric about tax increases on the super-wealthy hurting the economy is a bunch of B.S. - and he proved it only 15 years ago.

I hope the example Clinton set on the tax issue is the Obama administration's path forward.

Study: "Center-Right Nation" Narrative Spiked Immediately After Election Day

David Sirota — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 14:47:40 -0800

When I wrote my first column about the "center-right nation" and subsequently launched the "Center-Right Nation Watch" series on this blog I predicted that the news media would actually increase its usage of this term after Obama won. I did a Lexis-Nexis search of the term, and was the first to note the trend and make the prediction that "if Obama wins, expect more frantic talk from the fringe about how electing a black man billed as an Islamic Karl Marx obviously means our country is more conservative than ever."

Feeling like I was out on a limb (and remember, this was almost 2 weeks before a group of major progressive pundits belatedly started writing about the trend), I asked a friend out here in Denver who works with a company called Trendrr to officially track whether my prediction was right - and you can see from the results above, it was - more so than I ever expected.

As the graph shows, the use of the exact term "center-right nation" spiked immediately after election day (point "0" is the day my column published, point "1" is election day). You can use this link to track the growth of the "center-right nation" term in real-time.

While it's true - this trend study doesn't tell us how many of the "center-right nation" references are saying this is "not a center-right nation." But a look through Lexis-Nexis shows it's safe to assume that the vast majority of these references are asserting this is a "center-right nation." Indeed, you can watch ThinkProgress's video highlight reel of conservative pundits and reporters insisting that despite the huge Democratic landslide and overwhelming public opinion data to the contrary, America remains a "center-right nation":

So we're not talking about theory anymore - we're talking about empirical fact. The media has exponentially increased the amount of times it claims that this country is a "center-right nation" - at the very same time public opinion data shows the country is a decidedly center-left nation. In short, we have the two hard data points proving that as the country has become more progressive and validated its progressivism on election day, the media has increased its claims that the nation is conservative.

Mandate Watch: "Team of Rivals" Or Rival Team?

David Sirota — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 10:35:13 -0800

A quick lexicographic note: Seems to me the term "Team of Rivals" is the new euphemism for "bipartisanship," which unto itself has always been a synonym for "buypartisanship" (ie. bipartisan corporatism) and "Broderism" (the principle, championed by Washington Post columnist David Broder, that bipartisanship is an inherent virtue regardless of what it is in pursuit of). The terms are cousins of the "center-right nation" meme we've been hearing. The language changes with the times - but the definitions stay the same.

"Team of Rivals" is now being used to justify Obama administration appointments and congressional Democratic moves that appear - at least aesthetically - to be somewhat at odds with all "change we can believe in" rhetoric (and for those who don't think there have been many appointments already, there have been many through the transition and the transition's extremely powerful "advisory" committee - and if you think those are irrelevant, you must have forgotten the influence of George W. Bush's similar appointments in 2000). The real question is what are the boundaries of this Broderism in disguise? Is "Team of Rivals" really a veneer for creating a rival team against progressives?

Does "Team of Rivals"-ism mean appointing, say, neoconservatives warmongers because they supposedly have a valid meritorious perspective that needs to be included, despite Obama's anti-war campaign platform? What about free trade zealots from Bob Rubin's extended political family - should they be included in the "Team of Rivals" after an election that saw Obama and downticket Democrats campaign vigorously against NAFTA-style trade policies? And sure, Joe Lieberman should be empowered to subpoena the incoming Obama administration that he declared his hatred for, right? Because hey, it's a "Team of Rivals," right? Hell, why not give some congressional chairmanships to some Republicans, so that Congress can have it's own "Team of Rivals?"

Look, I'm all for "inclusion" - but let's also remember, the most comprehensive post-election poll shows that a whopping 70 percent of Americans want conservatives to bend to Obama's agenda, not the other way around. And so what about the other side of the "team?" If "Team of Rivals" = "Bipartisanship," shouldn't there be some full-on progressives in some very powerful positions? Wouldn't that complete the "team" in "Team of Rivals" and the "bi" in "bipartisan?" Or are we really not going to see a "team" nor "bipartisanship" - but merely lockstep corporatism/conservatism disguised with the latest happy sounding terms from the Broder dictionary?