The discombobulated American left

I don't write much about the American left, mostly because there isn't much of an American left to write about. It is a mouse that on occasion heroically tries but simply cannot roar.

In descending statistical order--ending in obscurity--roughly 40 percent of the American electorate self-identifies as conservative, about 35 percent as moderate, 20 percent as liberal, and among the latter cluster about 1 out of 4 identifies as "very liberal." This few, this unhappy few, this 5-percent band of brothers and sisters constitutes, I think we would all agree, the modern American left. Some compensate and console themselves with the historical analogy that, well hell, during the antebellum period abolitionists represented only about 5 percent of the electorate, too. And look at what they accomplished. History might answer, however, that the Civil War wasn't launched by abolitionists, wasn't fought by abolitionists, and ultimately derailed into the prolonged Southernization of American politics.

But let's not go there, if for no other reason than that one of the chief distinctions between fiery abolitionists and wet-blanket progressives is that the former never bellowed they were 'The 99 Percent.' They were a besieged, molested, peculiar and extreme minority, and they knew it. They also seemed to instinctively understand that bellowing self-delusional, self-inflating slogans should be left to the 21st century.

To which we'll return, now, and direct our attention to this pathetic contemporaneity: the Campaign for America's Future's annual 'Take Back the American Dream Conference' opened in Washington D.C. yesterday, where, notes Dana Milbank this morning, "half of the 500 seats were filled."

TBADC's Web site purports a populist, progressive, grassroots aggressiveness: "We are the 99%. If we organize, if we force the debate, we can win not only the election but the argument"--even though "we" cannot fill a mere 500 seats.

I beg your indulgence. I'm not trying to be snide. But in return please indulge me for a moment by at least acknowledging that the above's gratuitous bluster is counterproductive, in that it's needlessly strained, which destroys credibility.

By that I mean activist progressives' claims are rhetorically strained in view of their lacking a material, socioeconomic transformation, which should by definition inhere in authentic progressive movements. Yet here, from TBADC's Web site, is a bit of elaboration: The organization promises primarily to preserve the status quo in protecting Social Security and Medicare, as well as protecting federal obligations ranging from "food stamps to food safety" and reducing unemployment.

That's all fine, it's quite admirable--and profoundly conservative. One might think "the American left" would instead advocate socialized healthcare, urge a nationalization of the banking system, or propose, unabashedly, a comprehensive works-projects program. And the American left indeed believes in some or all of these things. But it broadly asserts one thing in the name of progressivism, and then timidly retreats and particularly says others.

Which, perhaps, it should--I'm not arguing otherwise--since we are a moderately conservative nation, and defying that reality also defies political common sense.

Nonetheless where does that leave--how shall we call it--the formal American left? As a political asterisk.

If it really wanted to dissemble and thereby advance itself politically, it would start by telling the truth: We are, pragmatically speaking, today's true conservatives.

Comments

[Michael]

This is a discussion that I get into a lot with my friends, actually, that it seems like 'Democrats' are actually ideologically conservative and 'Republicans' are ideologically radical. Democrats want, generally, to preserve the New Deal and Great Society idealism and policies, which by now at their youngest are 50 years old and Democrats my age have never lived without them, and the Republicans want to tear them down in part or in whole, and likewise, even the oldest Republicans had barely been adults when the GS was begun, and have no awareness of the world before the New Deal. In fact, some Republicans take Progressivism to task fairly often, and Progressivism is so old that its impossible that someone is alive right now that could remember what life was like without Progressivism.

[Gus]

"They were a besieged, molested, peculiar and extreme minority, and they knew it." Many of us in the 5% you speak of know it, too. I know that the US will never (or at least certainly not in my lifetime) be a Scandinavian style social democracy as I would like, but knowing and believing that we're in the minority we need to be "conservative" as you aptly say. We aren't likely to get universal health care, so we have to take what we can get, and in the face of the Republicans radical assault on something so corporatist and imperfect as the ACA, trying to push socialized medicine isn't realistic.

[cleek]

One might think "the American left" would instead advocate socialized healthcare

it does. but, the actual left-left has no representation, gets no media attention, and is so small and leaderless (by design, i suppose: ex. OWS) that nobody knows what it advocates.

the Democrats we see on TV are left-leaning centrists, through and through. they want to preserve the status quo, make it marginally better when necessary, and generally keep their heads down.

[Ella]

549 quite "snide" words in 11 paragraphs to state that for the past two decades, we have had the term "Liberal" so denigrated, so disparaged by the AM/Faux/Demagogue Right that no average moderate American today realizes that we actually advocate the very values that most people care about?

Go figure.

[Steve]

Gus, you have lost before you've begun to negotiate. If you want ACA, you start by pushing for universal healthcare and settle for ACA. The left, and the Democratic party, continually fail in this way. That is the reason the "center" has moved steadily to the right over the last several decades.

[Robert Lipscomb]

I suppose I agree with most or all of PM's basic assertion which I will paraphrase: If you are truly part of the 5% on the far left, then act like it.

I object to the assertion that the 5% claim to represent the 99%. I have never heard that claim made or implied. I believe the 1%/99% slganeering refers to an arbitrary delineation of economic/political power based on wealth. Claiming to be part of the 99% is much different than claiming to represent the whole 99%. Further, i infer that it is implicit in their campaign that the far left's OWS campaign is explicit effort to get all the rest of the 99% to join them.

Polling suggests that the majority of all americans agree with their basic premise of economic unfairness. Even that does not suggest that majority identifes with the 5%.

The other polling about self-dentification presumes a common, explicit definition of the various categories that does not seem to exist. PM seems to be making the assertion that liberalism is the new conservative - or at least that can be reasonably inferred.

So, I agree that the center of American politics is self-identified as center-right, but I am not the least bit sure of what that means in terms of political policies. That is almost as muddled as the definition of the left - as PM points out.

I suggest that the left define itself in terms of specific principles, and from those define specific proposed political objectives. As part of the far, well anything, those definitions should be altruistic and pure to the point of no political viability. That what an extreme anything exists for. Take a page from the Ron Paul libertarian movement. He and they know they will never win. They simply want to establish a benchmark - and they do.

If you are truly part of the 5% on the far left, then act like it.

[athEIst]

the Civil War wasn't launched by abolitionists, wasn't fought by abolitionists, and ultimately derailed into the prolonged Southernization of American politics.
And along the way, impoverished the South(tarrifs) and created the Gilded Age(tarrifs again).

[athEIst]

tariffs of course