If John McCain runs strongly for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008 and the Democrats also find a genuine reformer, then we could be poised for one of those periodical reform moments that I described in The New Progressive Era. In years like 1912 (and to a lesser extent, 1974-6), Americans have supported reforms in the public interest or for the common good.

By the way, there is nothing wrong with sticking up for your own interests or those of your group. In fact, we need disadvantaged people to advocate on their own behalf. However, democracy tends to neglect goods that really are in everyone’s interests, because such goods are not especially important to any particular group. Public goods don’t have PACs. Examples include a balanced budget, competitive elections and high turnout, freedom of information, and the rule of law. Fortunately, when American governments do serious damage to these goods over many years, reform movements sometimes arise that emphasize changes in the political process to promote good government and democracy.

Although John McCain has some beliefs and commitments with which I personally disagree, he stands for a robust version of procedural reform, including tighter regulation of campaign finance, more fiscal responsibility, tax simplification, federalism, and less “corporate welfare.” If he is smart, McCain can tie his version of reform to genuine conservative values while appealing to diverse Americans with arguments about the public interest.

Ideally, a major Democratic candidate would vie with McCain for the reform mantle, but with a slightly more “progressive” twist. While fiscal responsibility and federalism do serve the common good, a Democratic reformer could put more emphasis on deliberate efforts to empower ordinary people politically. In fact, the full list of needed procedural reforms is quite long, and it would be great if both campaigns scrambled to claim them:

campaign finance reform

non-partisan redistricting

tax simplification

deep cuts in wasteful government programs. (Democrats, out of power and able to operate freely, should go after waste in Agriculture, Small Business, HUD, Energy, Commerce, AID, and of course Defense–agencies that are full of corporate welfare. In fact, they might propose terminating at least one domestic federal agency.)

radical efforts to simplify (but not weaken) the regulatory apparatus and to increase public engagement in rulemaking

civic education, broadly conceived

a decentralized, diverse, net-based alternative to PBS

restoration of the rule of law and civil rights after the USA Patriot Act

McCain is obviously the Republican reform candidate, the Teddy Roosevelt of our time. It’s less clear who represents the Democrats’ strongest reformer, the Woodrow Wilson of 2008. Senator Feingold has reform credentials and enough personal integrity, but I’m not sure at this point that he has a chance for the presidential nomination. Several other potential candidates (especially governors) could develop a robust reform agenda if they started now.

(Macon, Georgia) A lot of the environmentalist rhetoric that filters down to a person like me (who’s not terribly attentive to the environment) emphasizes the need to preserve gifts of God or nature: unspoiled places, endangered species, and non-renewable resources. These are important goals, and they imply a set of aesthetic, moral, and/or religious principles that I respect. For example, if something is scarce, complex, and impossible to recreate, then we should try to preserve it, whether it is a forest ecosystem or a human language.

There is also a kind of environmentalism in which concerned people work together to make things: for instance, new parks and forests or restored and restocked rivers and lakes. These are not pure and unsullied gifts of God or nature; they are assets that people have helped to build and shape.

It would be useful, I think, to develop a rhetoric that celebrates these accomplishments, appreciating the constructive role of human beings in creating habitats and ecosystems. I would support that rhetoric as a matter of principle, since I admire human agency. Besides, there is something pessimistic or even tragic about environmentalism conceived as a rearguard effort to save pieces of unsullied nature. After all, non-renewable resources will sooner or later run out, and unspoiled wilderness (if there is any such thing) will inevitably be altered by human behavior. The best we can do to preserve such things is not to touch them, which is a passive stance. If we could learn, on the other hand, to admire human agency in creating environments that have natural elements, then there would be no limit to what good we could do together. This optimism might be the basis of a powerful political movement.

I haven’t read George Lakoff’s Don’t Think of an Elephant, although it’s been urged on me more than once. His book and Thomas Frank’s What’s the Matter with Kansas? seem to be the two most influential works on the left right now. Amazon says that people often buy them together. I shouldn’t criticize something I haven’t read, but Harry Boyte’s critique rings exactly true. (This is from the latest Civic Engagement News. I don’t think it’s on the web yet, but it will go here, with the past issues.)

Liberal “527” groups on the Democratic side took their cue from George

Lakoff, the Berkeley linguist who has become a Democratic guru for what

is called “frame theory,” or the idea that politics needs to convey

simple metaphors. To counter what he calls the Republican view of

“government as punitive father,” Lakoff argues that the core progressive

message is “government as nurturant parent” that expresses its care for

the citizenry through social service safety nets and regulation. In

Lakoff’s view “protection is a form of caring. The world is filled with

evils that can harm a child* and protection of innocent and helpless

children is a major part of a nurturant parent’s job.”

Government-as-nurturant-parent protects against “crime and drugs,

cigarettes, cars without seat belts, dangerous toys, inflammable

clothing, pollution, asbestos, lead paint, pesticides in food, diseases,

unscrupulous businessmen, and so on.” …

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It’s possible that

we’re a fifty/fifty nation, evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans,

and the last two elections have been so close that they only prove we’re tied.

But I don’t believe it. A powerful current is moving us rightward. It has helped

Republicans to gain control of both houses of Congress, to appoint most federal

judges, and to control seven more governors’ mansions than the Democrats do.

(State legislatures are still about evenly split, with 19 completely under the

control of each party, and the rest divided.) In the national

exit poll, 34% of voters called themselves conservatives compared to 21%

who identified as liberals. The ideology score is nothing new, but the balance

of power is startlingly different from 20 years ago. It is possible that the

rightward trend will stop of its own accord at the current point, but I wouldn’t count on it.

Progressive parties demand more of voters than conservative ones. To start

with, they demand more taxes. Under favorable circumstances, progressives can reserve

their tax increases for a wealthy minority, but people won’t vote to tax

anyone unless they believe that the revenue is likely to be well spent.

Progressive parties also need low-income people

to turn out, something that is relatively hard for them to do because the “costs”

of voting (becoming informed and taking time off to go to the polls) are relatively

onerous for poor citizens. Besides, poor people have little reason to trust politicians enough

to vote for them. Finally, the modern Democratic party is (rightly) committed

to a set of unpopular moral values, so it must convince people to overlook those

commitments in return for other benefits.

Historically, American progressive parties (usually Democratic, but occasionally

Republican) have won elections when they have identified the really important

issues that concern majorities of voters, and have directly addressed those

issues. People will vote to raise taxes–their own or other citizens’–if they

think the money is needed for critical purposes. For example, the nation faced

a deep depression in 1932. One of its causes appared to be malfeasance in the financial

markets. And even before the depression began, people risked becoming indigent

if they lost their jobs. Roosevelt responded with employment programs to stimulate

the economy, market reforms, and Social Security. We can argue about whether

he solved the problems that the country faced in 1932, but there was

no question that he pursued policies that directly addressed the country’s needs.

In the 1960s, there was less consensus about the need to wage a “war on poverty,”

given that most families had become relatively affluent. But there was wide

agreement that the country had to move past racial segregation. Liberal Democrats

and liberal Republicans who tackled discrimination won elections.

Today, the

traditional problems have not disappeared. De facto racial segregation is worse

than it was 25 years ago; losing your job can still be very bad news. But for

most Americans, there doesn’t seem to be a compelling reason to invent new solutions

to these old concerns, which are manageable. People support the traditional progressive

programs, but they need not vote Democratic to preserve them; Republicans

also swear oaths in defense of Social Security and Medicare. In any case, Americans

are now more concerned about a new set of problems, including the lack of decent

jobs for those with high school diplomas; persistent violent crime that we barely

control by jailing millions of our fellow citizens; reliance on foreign oil;

and the coarseness of popular culture, especially as it affects kids. While

the long-term fiscal condition of the federal government probably doesn’t worry

people as much as these other issues, the deficit does matter because it makes

it hard to propose expensive policies.

No doubt, some people are also worried about issues that Democrats cannot and should not define

as “problems,” such as immigration and increased diversity, gay weddings in

San Francisco, or the legal right to abortion. But Democrats would have a fighting

chance if they addressed a different set of important concerns. Otherwise, people will vote conservative.

I basically

gave up on this year’s Democrats when they failed to address any serious

problems at their convention. They seemed to think that Americans would vote for a Democrat

because Bush had made mistakes and Kerry was personally macho. I think a Kerry

administration would have been at best a holding-action; at worst, a last stand.

A considerable part of me is relieved that Democrats (and McCain-ite Republicans)

now have four years to come up with a plausible program.