I read two articles yesterday about how little the Left and Right listen to each other. One is thoughtful, by Yuval Levin in The Weekly Standard, “The Real Debate“,
Each party is pulled into this debate by what it sees as the deeply misguided views of the other. Democrats listen to Republicans and hear a simpleminded and selfish radical individualism—or, as President Obama has put it, “nothing but thinly veiled Social Darwinism.” They hear people who think that being successful and rich means you’re smarter than everyone else or work harder than everyone else, and who therefore have no regard for those in our society who are in no position to start a business or get a loan. They hear people who have benefited from the privileges of being lucky in America and imagine they did it all by themselves. And they seek to teach these people that there is no such thing as a self-made success…. Republicans listen to Democrats, meanwhile, and hear a simpleminded and dangerous radical collectivism—or, as Mitt Romney has put it, a vision of America as “a government-centered society.” They hear people who think that no success is earned and no accomplishment can be attributed to those who took the risks to make it happen. They hear people who think there is no value in personal drive and initiative, and who would like to extend the web of federal benefits as far and wide as possible to shield Americans from the private economy and make them dependent on government beneficence and on the liberal politicians who bestow it. And they seek to teach these people that private initiative is how prosperity happens, how dignity develops, and how America was built, and that dependence is pernicious and enervating.
Read the whole thing because it is good.
The other article I read is “The Great Debate” by Mark Lilla, a review of Charles Kesler’s book, I am the Change, Barack Obama and the Crisis of Liberalism. Lilla’s complaint is the Republicans are not listening to Democrats. The Kesler book is just an excuse to gnash at conservatives in general. Get this, his exordium is a praise of Richard Nixon in liberal terms,
Once upon a time there was a radical president who tried to remake American society through government action. In his first term he created a vast network of federal grants to state and local governments for social programs that cost billions. He set up an imposing agency to regulate air and water emissions, and another to regulate workers’ health and safety. Had Congress not stood in his way he would have gone much further. He tried to establish a guaranteed minimum income for all working families and, to top it off, proposed a national health plan that would have provided government insurance for low-income families, required employers to cover all their workers and set standards for private insurance. Thankfully for the country, his second term was cut short and his collectivist dreams were never realized.
Does this mean that liberals will now embrace the radical Nixon for his foresight and honesty? Lilla likes Nixon was news for my day. But that’s not his point. His point is that Obama and Nixon are moderates, as he himself is moderate.
Whenever conservatives talk to me about Barack Obama, I always feel quite certain that they mean something else. But what exactly? The anger, the suspicion, the freestyle fantasizing have no perceptible object in the space-time continuum that centrist Democrats like me inhabit. What are we missing? Seen from our perspective, the country elected a moderate and cautious straight shooter committed to getting things right and giving the United States its self-respect back after the Bush-Cheney years…. We liked him for his political liberalism and instinctual conservatism. And we still like him.
He finds Republican dislike and distrust of Obama improbable and even deranged. Obama is so evidently moderate that he even likes Ronald Reagan. “By delegitimizing Great Society liberalism and emphasizing growth, he forced the Democratic Party back toward the center, making the more moderate presidencies of Bill Clinton and Barack Obama possible. Reagan won the war of ideas, as everyone knows.”
That’s how moderates, like himself, see history. Kesler and other conservatives don’t see our national politics that way, Lilla says. They aren’t looking to the future and worry too much about history; they need to get a grip. When they do they will see the inevitability of what is a great moderate continuum from Nixon to Reagan to Obama. They must understand, “the more prosaic reasons that entitlements, deficits and regulations continue to grow in Republican and Democratic administrations alike.” which is that they are necessary if government will not treat ordinary Americans as road-kill. Seriously. When government gets big enough it creates its own road-kill. How do you miss that? The piece is absurd from a conservative point of view. I’ll let Levin give an answer,
Simply put, to see our fundamental political divisions as a tug of war between the government and the individual is to accept the progressive premise that individuals and the state are all there is to society. The premise of conservatism has always been, on the contrary, that what matters most about society happens in the space between those two, and that creating, sustaining, and protecting that space is a prime purpose of government. The real debate forced upon us by the Obama years—the underlying disagreement to which the two parties are drawn despite themselves—is in fact about the nature of that intermediate space, and of the mediating institutions that occupy it: the family, civil society, and the private economy.
Progressives in America have always viewed those institutions with suspicion, seeing them as instruments of division, prejudice, and selfishness and seeking to empower the government to rationalize the life of our society by clearing away those vestiges of backwardness and putting in their place public programs and policies motivated by a single, cohesive understanding of the public interest.
Would Lilla argue? Not really, but that is what we need, he thinks, not just right, but inevitable and dealing with our problems pragmatically. Who has time for all of that idealism? Government expansion might go too far sometimes and need a Reagan to curb it, but Obama is moderate, moderate, moderate and no LBJ. No. He’s Nixon.
The Left seems on a great crusade to persuade the vast independent vote that they are moderate, moderate, moderate. Any deviation from that requires a fierce adjustment in tone and message. Their convention was a great example of the success of that corrective turning and hence a great success. What is most worrying is that they might be right, that the majority of people no longer care to have distance between individual and government. Not just, “You didn’t build that,” but “No one wants or expects you to build anything on your own” because government is community and community is what counts, so government is what counts.
The Great Debate and the Real Debate is no debate at all. Liberals and conservatives in America talk past each other, but they hope the uncommitted in America are listening. Sometimes they do, as this is great entertainment. When president meets contender in national debate, we see the clash of philosophies, or some of us hope we will.
October 1st, 2012 | 12:31 am
As a bright line rule, one should never listen to people with last names starting with an L.
In any case if you are listening to Levin and Lilla you just aren’t listening to Obama and Romney. It makes it harder to get promissory estopel, if the person making the promises is a sort of disembodied and an easily dismissed “surrogate” with no contractual relationship to the candidate.
The agency and faux-trademark issues with recognizing “conservatism” or “progressivism” are manifold.
Nevertheless, the moderate answer is actually that both Lilla and Levin have fixed a modicum of originality in a tangible medium of expression, and have thus secured a property interest in Copyright.
Neither Obama nor Romney would dispute this….
“Does this mean that liberals will now embrace the radical Nixon for his foresight and honesty?”
Hells flippin’ no! It simply means that when you write enough, you exaust your muse and need to branch out into new combinations of originality to affix in a tangible medium of expression. Lilla can no more bind liberals than he can bind “Obama”…he just doesn’t have the agency authority to do so.
A true moderate would know this because he would ask the threshold question: “What sort of property interest is it?”
On the other hand, a good chunk of moderates see everything as a form of negotiation. Given the lack of real property interest in the otherwise conceptual Nixon servicemark, we are willing to trade our abstract/principled moral outrage, for recognition that Nixon effectuated some sound policies.
Another chunk of moderates would consider this way too abstract, and I think the moderate Romney would rightfully question if there was a property interest being exchanged as consideration on either side in the first place. At the end of a long discussion with a historian, one is never sure what portion of ones soul one has alienated for prudential consideration. But in principle Romney is willing to like Nixon, if he can get enough for it, and Lilla is likewise willing to like Nixon…but this is simply negotiation. But here you are getting the mechanics of the moderate position all wrong! So I would say there is no meeting of the minds. Lilla is willing to overlook the sin, or even gloss over it, but he is only willing to call it “foresight” and “honesty” in exchange for your betrayal of limited government principles. If this were more concretely a contract, some portion of moderates might consider it most foul, and contrary to public policy. In any case it is not actually a contract, and it is not actually anything but Copyright. On this point I think both Obama and Romney would agree.
Levin is also engaged in copyright. He sets up strawmen, and almost nothing he says would be accepted by Romney. For example, the idea that there is a “progressive” premise is highly disputable. “the progressive premise that individuals and the state are all there is to society.” The closest thing to such a progressive premise might be the threshold requirement in Constitutional Law that State Action be shown. The division between individual and state is thus important mechanically, for determining if constitutional rights have been violated.
While this is all vague copyright fluff, from a Libertarian or limited government view the “constitutionalism” of say the “tea party” might arguably be seen to stress this division between individual and state most aggressively.
It is certainly unclear what Yuval Levin means here. “The premise of conservatism has always been, on the contrary, that what matters most about society happens in the space between those two, and that creating, sustaining, and protecting that space is a prime purpose of government.”
Arguably as a mechanical hat trick this is a complete inversion of everything that my notion of the branding, would suggest.
This would then mean that the tea party is essentially progressive! In current jurisprudence state action has taken on a higher threshold, so the area in between the state and the individual is not “state action”, ergo to suggest that it is precisely this non-state action area that is “what matters most about society happens in the space between those two, and that creating, sustaining, and protecting that space is a prime purpose of government.” Would be to suggest the largest increase in the role of government ever, as it works to create, sustain and protect such a space. On the other hand this is arguably not far from what our government already tries to do. So your reading of Lila seems to make some sense from a moderate standpoint. That is government has grown in scope in order to police and protect the familly, civil society and the private economy (which now includes in greater proportion property interests tailored to a service economy, i.e. Copyright.)
October 1st, 2012 | 10:40 am
[...] am posting this also as a response to my friend John Lewis’s comment on my previous post and because of my friends mentioned above, as well as because of a student paper that insisted that [...]
October 1st, 2012 | 10:47 am
Potemkin Moderation. And worse, Lilla must know it.
And this use of the Nixon is so weak. Were Nixon alive and someone we could still look up to, i.e., had he resisted the temptation of dirty tricks, does anyone really think his stance vis-a-vis welfare-state policies would be the same as in 1969? I.e., he’d wouldn’t have rethought that stance in the last four decades?
And all his “moderate” Obama-supporting “everyone” just “knows that Reagan won the war of ideas?” Wow. Better stick to the Hobbes and Kojeve, Lilla, and avoid the intellectual history of the Democratic Party.
October 1st, 2012 | 2:04 pm
Carl, isn’t Lilla funny? I am not sure he is being disingenuous, though. Reading the positive comments on his review, lots of liberals wish to see themselves like that. Maybe it is the new liberal political fashion. The comments also made me realize that my fellow faculty members would embrace his historical revision. They all think they are moderate and are all basically like European Social Democrats. The exception may be the part about Nixon. I haven’t heard anyone say this about Nixon in years. My memory of conservatives in the early 70s is of plenty of outrage and resentment over Nixon “pandering” to the Left. Being of the Left, when I would observe to those who hated Nixon (a very fashionable position) that he was doing what Humphrey would have done, there was general mockery. But expansion of government under Nixon was considerable. If he were alive — you may be right about him. Hoover certainly became much more conservative over time, seeing the consequences of programs he had proposed being expanded or extrapolated upon by FDR.
I haven’t looked at Kesler’s book, but expect that I know how it goes. Lilla’s alternate history allows Democratic moderation to to shift Left by ignoring what it was previously. The moderate Left of the Nixon era or of the Reagan era would be shocked at what happened to their party, even if it has been a natural progression.
October 1st, 2012 | 2:10 pm
The Tea Party is a mixed bag, John. I’ve met people in favor of a Christian takeover of the nation, enforcing something like the Ten Commandments on everyone. Alternatively, I’ve met folks whose individualism would put Ayn Rand to shame. Laissez-faire or feudal in their economics. I don’t trust that brand name.
October 2nd, 2012 | 5:38 am
“He finds Republican dislike and distrust of Obama improbable and even deranged.”
It certainly is bizarre. We really have, essentially, Bush Sr. as president again, and Republicans are going bananas as if it is Vladimir Lenin instead.
October 2nd, 2012 | 9:33 am
Not Nixon, but Bush Sr.? You cannot be serious, Mr. Callahan. If not, please make the comparison clear. How is Obama like Bush Sr.?
October 2nd, 2012 | 10:14 am
It certainly is bizarre. We really have, essentially, Bush Sr. as president again, and Republicans are going bananas as if it is Vladimir Lenin instead.
The nicest observation one could about that statement is that IT is bizarre. There is no way Bush Sr. would ever have sought to make people opposed to abortion pay for it, for starters. I suppose you think Taft and Wilson were identical.
October 2nd, 2012 | 5:34 pm
We really have, essentially, Bush Sr. as president again, and Republicans are going bananas as if it is Vladimir Lenin instead.
Bush, Sr. did not present budget plans requiring public sector borrowing to the tune of 9% of gross domestic product year after year; Bush, Sr. managed to negotiate compromises with the Congressional leadership of the day; Bush, Sr. had no interest in compelling private institutions to pay for contraception and abortion; Bush Sr. did not propose a Rube Goldberg scheme to restructure the financing of medical care in this country without addressing any of the extant system’s important flaws; Bush, Sr. did not sign into law a Rube Goldberg scheme to amend the regulation of the financial sector without addressing any of the extant system’s important flaws; Bush Sr actually presided over the resolution of the Savings & Loan mess inherited from the previous administration; Bush Sr. did not stick us with Sonia Sotomayer… and so forth.
Gene Callahan, is it better to remain silent and be thought a fool or … oh, you know the rest.
October 2nd, 2012 | 7:26 pm
Kate and Art: Lilla and I say GOP partisans’ view of Obama is deranged. You both are stunned, stunned by this fact!
Well, when someone tells the deranged person that the “elephant” in the corner is just a mouse, the fact he thinks they are nuts is not counter-evidence!
And I will note that I am a conservative, whose favorite philosophers are Oakeshott and Voegelin, both of whom I have published a fair amount of material on. So I am not some lefty Obama fanboy with stars in his eyes over the President.
October 2nd, 2012 | 7:50 pm
Mr. Callahan, you misread my comment. I was amused, not stunned, and asked you to spell out your reasoning. You can tell me the elephant is a mouse, but if it looks like a mouse to me, I don’t have to believe you. You have three of us saying something like, “Elephant?” which means that you need more than simple assertion.
October 2nd, 2012 | 8:02 pm
AD made the point (clearly I thought) that your view of President Obama was deranged. He could have added how unlikely it is that Obama will nominate someone of Clarence Thomas’s principles to the Supreme Court.
You are free to assert that those who disagree with you should focus on the fantasy Obama you have constructed. But Bush Sr. is so boring for such purposes. It would be better if you said he is “essentially” like Reagan. Talk about how Elena Kagan is “essentially” like Robert Bork and Antonin Scalia, but conservatives are too crazy to notice. Talk about how Obama sharply reduced marginal tax rates across-the-board. If you’re going to be disingenuous, make it fun for the reader. I suppose you would have a point about the deficits – though the largest of Reagan’s deficits was substantially smaller as a percentage of GDP than the smallest of Obama’s deficits.
October 3rd, 2012 | 12:25 pm
And I will note that I am a conservative, whose favorite philosophers are Oakeshott and Voegelin, both of whom I have published a fair amount of material on. So I am not some lefty Obama fanboy with stars in his eyes over the President.
You still ought to be able to tell one politician from another. Both Bush Sr. and Obama speak English as their native tongue, both spent nearly all of their adult life living in the United States, both have been married once and fathered children, and neither was brought up in the wage earning stratum or lived in it as an adult. Beyond those points (which apply to all but an odd minority of those who have sought the presidency), these two men are quite dissimilar.
There is a great deal of continuity in public policy from one administration to the next (due to inertia more than anything else). That aside, it is difficult to think of particular objects these men have had in common or achievements they have had in common. You certainly do not specify any.
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