The American consensus

Writing for the New Republic, political historian Alan Brinkley (whose 1982 masterpiece, Voices of Protest: Huey Long, Father Coughlin, and the Great Depression, is instead your loss if you haven't read it) asks: "The L Word Lives: Is it safe to say 'liberal' again?"

It seems it is, although liberal politicians remain skittish and progressives probably a bit jealous of the left's old lover. It's too early to know if the electorate has swung officially "liberal," and politicians, being followers, will surely wait for voters, via Gallup, to rule on the "liberal" question. As for progressives, they finally convinced the rank-and-file left to use their hipper, less terminologically toxic moniker; and yet now here it is, liberalism, under the streetlight again.

Whatever. I still intuit a distinction between liberalism and progressivism, the former being more incrementalist and FDR-like (hence more Obamian) than the rowdier, impatient latter. My previous attempts to demarcate the two schools drew but little notice, however, so I cashiered the effort. Alas, my withdrawal from the labeling battlefield has drawn as little notice as did my active engagement, which is a real ego-crusher. 

Yet I am so pleased to read that my more recent and aggressive campaign--noting not the differences between liberalism and progressivism, but the similarities of liberalism and conservatism--has found its way into Brinkley's brief essay:

[T]he liberal creed remains one that even many conservatives, if they thought about it, might agree with. Modern liberalism means liberty for speech and the press. It means freedom of religion and a separation of church and state. It provides equal rights under the law. Other elements of liberalism have begun to emerge in our own time:  protecting the environment, securing social security and health care, stopping unnecessary wars, supporting the poor, feeding the hungry, helping the homeless.

By "conservatives" Brinkley means, of course, genuine conservatives--not the nihilistic fanatics and anarchistic bombthrowers of the contemporary GOP, who essentially cling to their guns and religion and "conservative" label because they market well. And Brinkley is correct: Go ahead, dear genuine conservatives, reread his itemization and locate, if you can, even one to which Burke or Lincoln or T.R. would object.  

"Most of all," continues Brinkley, "liberalism in our time means the support of equality," which converts negatively into the struggle against "economic and social inequality," which positively and rather naturally reconverts into championing equality of opportunity. And who, as they say, would argue with that?

This, it would seem, is the new American consensus, and it looks remarkably like the old American consensus. It is traditionalist and experimental and characterological and pragmatic and hesitant and forward-looking; it is both profoundly liberal and imperishably conservative. And since it is both, it is really neither.

Comments

[Robert Lipscomb]

Please continue fighting the good fight for precision and clarity in speech and writing to facilitate reason in political discussion.

The inherent problem is that various political philosophies are conflated with American political party doctrine. "If it is a position of the Democratic Party it must be liberal and vice versa." That creates a false redundancy resulting in every position being Democrats versus Republicans, which in turn reduces everything to political sport rather than rational discussion.

Using, explaining and insisting on precise language during discussion is not likely to have immediate results. It is like running the ball during the first quarter of a football game. The 1-2 yard runs in the first quarter become 3-4 yard runs later and 7-10 yard runs at the end of the game.

It would be very beneficial for Republicans to internalize that their plans for the safety nets are aprogressive enterprize, and for Democrats to know they are being conservative while attempting to keep things as they are.

These concepts are not that hard.

[Peter G]

Distinguishing the American varieties of progressivism and liberalism is a truly fascinating subject and I hope a few outside observations will not be taken amiss. Liberals are almost always what they say they are. Even as they might be fiscally conservative they still believe in a liberal social agenda and, as you correctly observed an incrementalism in achieving liberal goals. Tolerance does seem to be one of those defining characteristics of liberals. Progressives, on the other hand, are often not at all progressive. In fact progresivism in the US, judging by those who self identify as such on blogs can be a pretty nasty bunch. They have strong streaks of nativism and no-nothingism, aren't particularly receptive rational argument, believe in science but only when it suits them, believe that government is fundamentally corrupt and controlled by secret conspiracies. The proof of that last item is that everyone they don't like isn't in jail now. They have a great deal more in common with tea partiers then they dare to admit and are motivated by exactly the same thing. That thing would be profound aversion to injustice. This is a human characteristic but quite pronounced in Americans. If you can convince an American that a great injustice has been done to them or to some other group with which they identify there is very little they will not do to rectify that perceived injustice and the other guy's point of view or even human rights be damned. I find some of the progressives (self -identified) as scary as any tea partier and just as ignorant.

[japa21]

Peter, I agree with you about some of the progressives (self-proclaimed) who demand satisfaction now, even though they have no ability to explain how they would go about getting what they demand others get for them. I still maintain, however, that this is a small minority.

As PM pointed out, there isw a great degree of crossover, eprceptually, between progressive and liberal. I think most people who self identify as progressive do so to avoided being labeled as liberal, but more accurately fall into the liberal category.

I think is is about time we came up with all new terminology, but I would hesitate to make any suggestions of my own.

[Robert Lipscomb]

@PeterG and @japa21: The key phrase you use id "self-identify". Just because they "self-identify" as progressives, liberals or Wonder Woman does not mean they are. There is a lifetime of good work to be done by saying, "Bull shit, no you are NOT." Then, explain why not.

I am so weird. :-)

[Turgidson]

It was one of the confounding acts of history that the right wing of this country was able to turn the word that loosely described the politicians who ended slavery, busted trusts, alleivated the Great Depression, won World War II, and created a thriving middle class, and turn it into a nasty epithet, in the span of what, 10 years? 20 at most?

Historians should look back at that in bewilderment.

[japa21]

Turgidson, I think what was able to turn the trick was the reaction to Vietnam. Before the entire country turned against it, the typical typical description of the anti-war protestor was dirty, fu..ing liberal hippy. Liberal then became pinko then commie.

By repeating it enough it started to take hold and true liberals didn't fight back. There became a shame element involved for a lot of people.

[Peter G]

And that, Robert, is why I carefully distinguish most times between progressives (there are many I admire) and self-identified progressives who aren't always what they seem.The easiest way to distinguish real progressives from your faux type is to find out how rigid is their list of litmus tests to get you into their club. Many progressives are, in fact, as Japa asserts, indistinguishable from liberals. They have tolerance. The scarier types have none.

[Robert Lipscomb]

@PeterG: It is not fashionable to say so, but Wikipedia is good for these sorts of things, i.e. definitions and histories of political philosophies. I wish all pundits were forced to spend an afternoon skipping through and passing the test at the end of the day.