Newsweek has published two articles on the question of the general zeitgeist of the American public.
The first, from Jon Meacham, is a meandering tour through his own consciousness which (he feels confident) is a perfectly acceptable stand-in for the general state of the values and ideology expressed by a country of 300 million people. He acknowledges the electoral tides sweeping in Democrats all across the country, and yet still insists that “America remains a center-right nation.”
Curiously, this bold premise is not backed up by any actual data. Instead, we are treated to a number of anecdotes and constant references to the fact that Clinton over-reached in 1992.
His entire point seems to build off the idea that the huge Blue wave is some sort of accident of history where voters are only turning to Democrats because they’re not happy about the economy and Iraq. It’s not that the country actually agrees with the Democrats, Meacham proposes, it’s that unique circumstances have allowed them to gain the upper hand.
Completely missing from this analysis is the fact that the overwhelming majority of the nation blames Republicans (and their philosophies of government) for those problems, and desires a progressive change. As I pointed out just a couple of days ago, what articles like this truly reveal is how far out of touch the authors are – that Meacham is unable to connect the dots tells us nothing about what the public at large thinks.
Meacham’s a premise built on false equivalencies and misdirections.
For example, he says: “Since 1968, Democrats have won only three of 10 general elections (1976, 1992 and 1996), and in those years they were led by Southern Baptist nominees who ran away from the liberal label.” Fine. But I could just as easily say that since 1960, Democrats have won 6 of 12 elections (regardless of who took office, Gore obviously received more actual votes, and there’s a strong chance that if the Court had not stepped in he may have taken the Electoral count as well), and they look poised to win this year, as well.
Want evidence that Obama is a closet conservation? Meacham can oblige: “Obama opposes gay marriage; talks about tax cuts, God and veterans’ benefits; and is spending money to try to remain competitive in traditionally Republican states such as Virginia, North Carolina and even West Virginia, where Hillary Clinton trounced him earlier this year.” He’s campaigning in the South! Oh noes! And of course no mention of the fact that those tax cuts are targeted at the lower and middle classes – a repudiation of the conservative tax cutting philosophy. No mention of health care. No mention of energy. No mention of reproductive choice. No mention of Obama’s staunch opposition to a neo-conservative war, which helped him get this far in the first place.
Further, note Meacham’s preposterously loaded definition of conservative:
I mean ‘conservative’ in the way most of us have come to use it in recent decades: to describe those who value custom over change, who worry about the erosion of the familiar and the expansion of the state, and who dislike those who appear condescending about matters of faith, patriotism and culture. (In other words, think of figures ranging from Edmund Burke to Thomas Jefferson to David Brooks to Sarah Palin. It is an eclectic crew.)
Well if you put it that way…
He continues along this path by suggesting that since “nearly twice as many people call themselves conservatives as liberals” this is proof of a basic rightward lean. This is curious because he explicitly deals with this premise later, pointing out that “liberal” has become a code word for everything we hate, and that the left has abandoned the effort to recuperate the term. He even quotes Rick Perlstein saying: “Frankly, I don’t care if people call themselves a liberal, a conservative or a ham sandwich if they support progressive positions, which they do.” However, he completely fails to engage this point. Instead, he merrily moves along to more silliness as if he hasn’t just devastated his entire premise.
This is all put into perfect clarity by the question he asks: “So are we a centrist country, or a right-of-center one?” As if those are the only options.
Not that I believe that we are on the verge of a return to the liberal consensus or anything. But the momentum (if such a concept has any meaning) is clearly swing to the left. Certainly, by the standards of some European nations (which Meacham gleefully points out are far further along the spectrum), it is not. But that is not, and should not be, the only standard. A lot may depend on how well the Democratic agenda is constructed, and how successful are its projects, over the next decade.
It’s also interesting to note that the very same issue of Newsweek that this bit of fantasy resides in also contains a piece by Jonathan Alter which completely demolishes Meacham’s premise.
Just think about it this way: if trends continue, there is a chance that Obama will win comfortably, and will be joined in Washington by 57-58 Democratic Senators and a 60-70 vote margin in the House. Those are margins that hearken back to the Great Society and New Deal day. But remember that in those days the Democratic coalition was truly a coalition of Northern liberals and Southern conservatives. It ultimately fell apart because the conditions of the Depression and New Deal which had held it together dissipated.
This time, however, there is no such historical condition. The Democratic Party is not unified by any means, but the divergences are FAR smaller than during LBJ’s tenure.