Those of us brought up in a European political culture are often haughtily amused to hear US commentators - from shock jocks to serious syndicated conservative columnists - refer to the Democrats as ‘the left’.
It rather seems to us that if you take the political equivalent of a tasteless low-calorie banana milkshake and water it down further with a top-up dose of triangulation, the resultant ideological mush is still something best categorised as centrism.
Yet American liberalism has seen better days. While the Democrats never were the sort of mass working-class party along the lines we are familiar with on this side of the Atlantic, we are still within living memory of the era when it essentially constituted the automatic alignment of choice for trade unionists, ethnic minorities and progressive intellectuals, and even for some groups that described themselves as socialist.
No figure incarnates those years more powerfully than Ted Kennedy (pictured), the last man standing of the New Deal coalition. I cannot think of a British politician of comparable age who evokes quite the same widespread nostalgia for the more optimistic times that predated our wretched decades of neoliberalism triumphant.
So the meaning of the senior senator from Massachusetts’ speech at the Democratic National Convention in Denver this week can only be unequivocally clear; Barack Obama has inherited the apostolic succession of Camelot.
‘And this November the torch will be passed again to a new generation of Americans,’ Kennedy averred, before moving on to call for an ‘America of high principle and bold endeavour’.
But I fear that anybody who believes such rhetoric - and I have left-leaning American friends that have talked themselves into believing that rhetoric, and will brand me a cynic for not believing it too - is facing disappointment.
Consider the current progressive wish-list, for instant. American liberals want to see unconditional withdrawal from Iraq, more money for welfare and less money for the military, reversal of the Bush administration’s rich-folk-only tax cuts, a widescale switch to alternative energy sources, and guaranteed healthcare for all. And these are all good, reasonable, moderate and not even remotely earth-shaking things to want.
But they will not be delivered by a man who repeatedly lays stress on his courtship of Republican dissidents, appoints free trade-crazy Wall Streeters as his key economic advisers, and freely advertises his backtracking on abortion rights and gun control.
These are not the stances of a 'leftist', no matter what you read in the Weekly Standard or the op-ed pages of the WSJ, and irregardless of what you hear preached from the pulpit of the local megachurch.
By his own lights, Obama is perfectly correct to act like this. Liberal America hasn’t got the voter numbers to provide the keys to the Oval Office. So - like New Labour in the 1990s - he figures that the core vote can be appeased by repeated incantation of the words ‘hope’ and ‘change’ and ‘yes we can’ at more or less random intervals while he tailors his policies to suit the Obamacans.
Tragically, the American left lacks the self-confidence to reassert itself and will do nothing other than acquiesce. It will not advance its agenda until it comes up with a fit-for-purpose vehicle.
Posted at 13:42, 26 August 2008
Comments (10)
But they will not be delivered by a man who repeatedly lays stress on his courtship of Republican dissidents, appoints free trade-crazy Wall Streeters as his key economic advisers, and freely advertises his backtracking on abortion rights and gun control.
C'mon Dave, I normally agree with your analysis but this is uncharacteristically poor.
For a start Obama's been attacked mostly on being hostile to free trade by lefties and the Wall Street Journal types. You can argue, from a leftwing perspective, that the free trade helps poor Mexicans and Chinese more than it does relatively better off Americans.
On abortion rights, his position is wholly pro-choice and he has go among the best records on this. You can check NARAL if you like.
As for Gun Control- well, Clinton was more pro-guns than Obama is. Obama isn't making it an issue, when frankly it doesn't need to be an issue. It should be a state-wide issue than a Federal issue.
Tragically, the American left lacks the self-confidence to reassert itself and will do nothing other than acquiesce.
Well, I think American lefties do increasingly have the self-confidence, and I think most of that comes from the blogosphere. If you read Daily Kos, Talking Points Memo, Media Matters etc, they don't give an inch to the Republicans and fight back hard.
But as with any political machine - you also have to win elections. And to a pragamtic revolutionary such as Obama, who grew up on a diet of Saul Alinsky, winning elections has to come first. He hasn't flip-flopped, you can read his book written ten years ago and you'll see the positions are very consistent.
Obama has far more a grassroots background in community organising than most Democrats before him in recent years.
Liberal America hasn’t got the voter numbers to provide the keys to the Oval Office.
I agree with much of your analysis apart from the above.
Depends on what you mean by "liberal America". If you are saying that there is no potential coalition out there that could support good social democratic policies, like some you outline, you are wrong, in my view.
Coalitions are based around interest; there is a potential majority coalition of interest that would get behind these policies, especially if you can mobilise whole sections of the population who don't vote or get involved.
This is not the scenario that is extant; the carapace of democracy, which is winner takes all, unreformed and corrupted, is controlled by minority and highly monied interests. It is not a popular democracy. Only in popular democracy could you honestly test your contention above.
The fact that the US Democratic Party does not extol social democratic policies is a function of its structure and its role in an essentially degraded and corrupt system of democracy. The potential coalition exists - but it is ignored.
I think of both the left and right as drunks, and my comrades as sobriety.
Advancing their agenda would mean showing all their cards, which no party should do in the run-up to a major election. Show as little as possible but make sure you show enough to get elected. David Cameron will be doing exactly the same over the next 18 months.
Advancing their agenda would mean showing all their cards, which no party should do in the run-up to a major election. Show as little as possible but make sure you show enough to get elected. David Cameron will be doing exactly the same over the next 18 months.
I went to a 'Chatham House rules' chat given by Michael Heseltine to a group of predominantly public school Oxford students a few years ago.
He said that the Tory party was a coalition of privileged interests that existed to defend privilege. Its tactic, he said, was to give just enough to just enough other people in order to win an election.
Presumably this is Cameron's strategy as it has been for every other Tory in the history of the party.
"You can argue, from a leftwing perspective, that the free trade helps poor Mexicans and Chinese more than it does relatively better off Americans."
You can. But only from a leftwing perspective so in thrall to neoclassical economic assumptions that it would be a leftwing perspective that embodies the ideological, hegemonic triumph of neoliberalism.
I'd love Obama to trounce McCain, but he's not 'leftwing'. He's about the best we could hope for in the US at the moment, but Dave's right that the Democrats shouldn't be built up as lefties. The Democratic Party is one of two political big business machines run by and on behalf of rich elites (see Mike Davis on the Democrats in LA) but which is just rather more pleasant than the other one.
"You can argue, from a leftwing perspective, that the free trade helps poor Mexicans and Chinese more than it does relatively better off Americans."
Well go on then, I could do with a laugh.
I think the 'left' in America accepts that it needs to make a case for itself again. In fact, I think the democratic Left worldwide, needs to make a case for itself again. This is the challenge for today. We have seen Labour Governments worldwide walk away from the progressive tradition in favour of the middle ground and in large part the adoption of the right wing agenda.
I always giggled at the centre for American Progress and their add on progressives v conservatives (in similar to the Mac v PC style).
I think these types of things are a great start.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nWIGarTCj4
"But they will not be delivered by a man who repeatedly lays stress on his courtship of Republican dissidents, appoints free trade-crazy Wall Streeters as his key economic advisers, and freely advertises his backtracking on abortion rights and gun control."
Well, I think the key problem for the Democrats is engaging the interest and votes of people who benefit most in economic terms from their policies and then actually giving them something for those votes that they'll think was worth voting for.
It's not clear whether Obama's the most suitable candidate to do that but Hillary Clinton, on the basis of her track record, definitely wouldn't have wanted to so the Obama candidacy is potentially a step in the right direction.
The Democrats need to take two big steps. The first is to shift the debate away from social issues and on to economics. The second is to win it.
Obviously no one's talking about socialism or even social democracy here, it's a question of can the Democrats push forward the sort of economic agenda you'd expect from the centre-right of a mainstream European conservative party.
"...and irregardless of what you hear preached from the pulpit of the local megachurch."
"Irregardless"? Is that a legitimate word now?