I’m back home in Washington for most of the rest of the month. This means I’ve somehow stumbled into a pretty reasonable snowstorm that’s expected to only get worse over the weekend. It also means my internet connection is virtually non-existent. I’ve still got a ton of stuff I wanted to cover before the year-end lists came out in a few days, but I may not get to much of it. In which case, early 2009 is going to be filled with reviews of the B/B- records of 2008.
In the meantime, I have been meaning to post something about this Rick Warren thing that is currently dominating the left-learning blogosphere. This is a place where I’m torn. On one hand I’m absolutely sick of homophobic bigotry being treated as relatively acceptable. To the extent that inviting Warren to speak is a symbolic example of that, I’m against it.
That said, the way the whole (admittedly narrow) blog-world has seemingly exploded with people freaking out about this seems a little off to me. Inviting the guy to speak doesn’t mean supporting any of his policies per se. And while it absolutely does lend him some authority and perhaps legitimates a discriminatory attitude on some issues, there’s more to it than just that.
People have reacted so negatively, I think, because they see this as purely a crass political move. I don’t think that’s quite right. I mean, obviously it’s a political move in the sense than any decision on symbolic issues for Obama in the next few years has to be political. But I don’t think it’s an attempt to “triangulate,” exactly. The idea here isn’t to invite a right-wing guy to piss off the left and make himself look “centrist.”
To say it’s only about that ignores some very real things going on. First, Warren is a right-wing bigot. But he’s also a lot more “moderate” than most of the other evangelical leaders. In particular, he has made it clear that he actually cares about issues, not merely party politics. publius has a fantastic post up about this that really captures my thoughts. To invite Warren is to make an offer which says: to be evangelical does not necessarily have to mean going after Democrats. It can instead mean going after your issues. And while that will of course continue to include crappy stuff like regulating sexuality, banning abortion, etc. it will also include charity, helping the poor, working on treatments for AIDS, and so on.
That stuff matters. It matters a lot, actually. And if reaching out to Warren makes it easier to work together on some of those things, I’m for it, even if that “credibility” to Warren. Because I think it’s silly to talk about Warren as someone who needs to be granted credibility by Obama. The whole point is that there are tens of millions of people in this country firmly committed to the ideas he stands for. You can’t simply write them off as bigoted. That’s a recipe for endless fighting and conflict, not to mention for a pretty unpleasant field of politics.
This brings me to my second point, which goes back to a post I wrote last month. I think what people continue to miss about Obama is that all of this talk about pragmatism is not a sign that he’s a moderate, middle of the road, traditional Democratic candidate. In fact, you can make a case that it’s precisely the opposite.
Matt Stoller thinks he scores a devastating point when he writes “Chris and I were pretty consistent in pointing out that you should believe what Obama says, and not try to pretend that he’s lying to the public so that he can get progressive policies passed. Obama’s pretty upfront about what he believes. He tends to do politician-y things like use liberal rhetoric to justify limiting rights for gay people and disembodying the left so he can punch us in the face every once in awhile.”
But what this misses is that it doesn’t actually operate on the premise of believing what Obama says. Because what Obama consistently has said is that he simply doesn’t believe in cutting people out of politics. His pragmatism is to say that everyone has a place, if they choose to take it. And where people agree, they can find a way to work together and get things done.
If you want to, you can read that as caving in to bigotry. But if you do that, then you aren’t taking Obama seriously, because his entire candicacy (the “change you can believe in”) was about the form of politics as much as the content. The idea is that if you strip away the ideological attack-based structure of political organization, it turns out that the majority of people tend to want a lot of progressive things – and you end up a lot closer to actually getting them done.
Now, it’s still an open question about whether that dream can be fulfilled. But too much of the left-wing commentary on this question has treated it like this isn’t even part of the question. All that they can see is the symbolism of inviting a homophobe, while not understanding the symbolism of a presidency that says “if you agree with me about anything, we have something to talk about.”
That’s why the left feels comfortable mocking Obama for stating a belief in ‘inclusive’ politics. “But!” they exclaim, “you’ve invited a bigot. Where’s the inclusion in what Warren believes?” The short answer is that it’s in his desire to help the poor and the sick. The longer answer is that it’s in his belief in higher ideals. That those beliefs do not include gay people is a place where disagreement and outrage is essential. But we shold always remember that there’s a difference between outrage and exclusion.
All that said, I am not fully convinced that inviting Warren to speak falls on the proper side of this equation. I recognize that my interpretation is pretty idealized, and like I said, I’m not at all happy with the premise that someone can be this intolerant of gays and still be given a national stage on inaguration day, where someone who expressed similar opinions on other forms of discrimination would be shunned. It strikes me as just a little bit too much like saying gay people should have to wait for social mores to catch up before they can expect politicans to treat them as full human beings.
So I certainly don’t mean to say people shouldn’t be upset about this thing. It’s perfectly reasonable to express unhappiness. I myself feel a lot of it. I’m just worried about that anger turning into wholesale backlash. I think it’s incredibly valuable for there to be a clear voice speaking up for the liberal perspective, even if (especially if) we take seriously the idea that Obama can promote a kind of politics where it’s possible to work with people like Warren. In the same sense that it promises a seat at the table to all perspectives, the liberal one should stay strong and demand his ear, as well.
Just because we all support Obama in general does not mean we have to believe that everything he does is good. Even more, just because the reality of politics means that some things simply won’t be possible doesn’t mean we should stop demanding them. One of the interesting results of this whole Warren thing is that it’s resulted in a perspective where the question is whether the anti-gay position is so far out of the mainstream that it should be entirely excluded. By registering anger about Warren, the progressive left has demonstrated that a position which was thoroughly mainstream only a few years ago is now a political minefield. That’s valuable and important.
The crucial thing, though, is to retain at least a little perspective. Be angry when Obama does things that aren’t what you like, but try to simultaneously recognize that process really does matter. And if the bad thing is symbolic rather than material, try to see how there may be a deeper symbolism in affirming a notion of politics that is fundamentally progressive, even if it doesn’t appear that way in this moment.
In short: democracy isn’t easy. People disagree about stuff. A truly progressive way of dealing with democracy must resist the impulse to simply shut out those who disagree. You must reach out to agents of intolerance because that’s what separates a true commitment to an ideal from crass political maneuvering. If you are inclusive only when its easy, that’s not really inclusiveness. That’s a benign form of fascism. And that’s not what the progressive community should be about.