The Left Now Defends the Status Quo
...and that's a bad thing.
Amidst a web of would’ve and should’ve around the loss to MAGA on Tuesday, there is one factor that has received little attention and will continue to dominate future elections. Against the onslaught of Trump’s relentless attacks on the Constitution, legal system and basic morality, it was only natural that his opponents take the high road and extoll the virtues of democracy and its institutions. But in an age when most Americans across the political spectrum distrust many of our political and social institutions, this defense of “democracy” reeks of compliancy. Not a good image for a political movement in a time of distrust and approach plays a big role in the disenchantment towards the establishment left.
The good news is this is more of a narrative/attitude problem that does not require hard policy or tactical debates. It just requires a shift in tone and style that can wrap around any stump speech outlining policies and positions.
As a life-long contrarian--who once scratched out “Authority” on a “Question Authority” button because I wanted to question everything--I remember the day I realized I respected the norms and traditions of our political system. It was about 10 days after Trump was elected President in November 2016. I was interviewing a Political Scientist for a documentary on that election. I had just learned that Trump announced he would not investigate Hilliary Clinton and shared it with her.
“Good”, she quipped, “I was ready to march and get arrested if that happened”. I realized then how deeply important fundamental norms and political traditions were and here were two liberals committed to maintaining these values.
Suddenly I realized that now I was the conservative defending our traditions and values against radical (rightwing) ideas.
For much of my political memory (1975) the left has been the center of anti-establishment thinking. (Anti-government rhetoric always existed and Reagan turned that heat up, but the full-on undermining of all institutions came later.)
As the digital age began to up end society, we began to experience the accelerate disruptive powers of technology. Already traditional entertainment, retail and media industries—to name a few--have been reimagined. Or in the case of the news media, disrupted with no clear path of sustainability.
Then overlay the political tensions created by changing demographics, hyper-partisanship and calcified bureaucracies (in both government and private sector), technology-driven economic uncertainty and a grind-locked Congress bought and paid for by special interests; you have a toxic potion that has poisoned Americans (with the help of the outrage industry typified by rightwing talk radio) against a wide array of our institutions.
People like Steve Bannon gets this, that is why his gleeful call for destroying our institutions has received traction among millions of distrustful and alienated Americans. And this message, in various watered-down ways, is central to the MAGA appeal.
We’ve grudgingly have to admit that Bannon is correct: our institutions are not meeting the needs of this country. The left cannot be defending the undefendable.
Where we differ is what do we want to do about this. MAGA wants to blow the system up and “start over”. Given the cast of MAGA characters, this is an unacceptable notion for those of us who embrace liberalism and self-governance.
The sane messaging approach is to acknowledge the reality that “things are not working today” and for the need for major reforms that create new ways to mediate between the government and the people they serve. (Not with this academic language, but in a strong emotional stump speech.)
We will not throwing the baby out with the bath water. But the left must advocate for tearing down what isn’t working and rebuild with XYZ policies. We must acknowledge the system isn’t working for ANYONE and we are the RESPONSBILE change agents who won’t burn it all done.