The death of liberal America

[angrydemocrat]

Americans seem to have lost any sense whatsoever of what liberalism means and what it strives to insure. Liberals have insisted that tyranny can only be combated by the multiplication and fragmentation of power. A free society is one in which there are various centers of power, various positions from which people have the ability to influence decisions. That’s the whole point behind creating three branches of government, the vaunted “separation of powers.” Liberalism aims to insure peace and prevent tyranny in pluralistic societies. Liberalism strives to place lots of individual actions outside the pale of politics and beyond interference from the state or other powers. And, culturally, it strives to promote tolerance, where tolerance is, at a minimum, indifference to the choices and actions of others and, at best, a recognition that diversity yields some social benefits. Liberalism guarantees through freedoms of speech, the press, and association, and through the institutional mechanisms of election, jury trials, and legislative deliberations, the active engagement of citizens with one another. Liberals should promote in every way possible the existence of a vibrant, accessible, and uncensored civil society. In short, liberalism proliferates the occasions where citizens of different opinions, backgrounds, creeds etc. mingle with one another, express their views, and argue about specific issues. And in some, but not all cases, these settings have to move to a decision that is then accepted, even when not very satisfying, by all the parties involved.

Democratic procedures of decision making which guarantee to all interested parties their chance to say their piece (their chance to sway others by argument), and use the vote and majority rule to adjudicate differences, are a vital liberal expedient for keeping the peace. That’s because democracy, amazingly enough, has proven an astoundingly effective way to get people to accept - peacefully - the fact that they have ended up on the losing side of a political debate that was resolved by a vote. Liberalism, we might say, relies to some extent on the desire of all the participants to maintain the social peace. But even more fundamentally, it expects that the process of deliberation will move participants to an appreciation of the others involved, and the desire to come to an eventual decision that satisfies as many of the participants as possible (with the understanding that no one will get everything they want). Democracy has it benefits, with the most obvious being peace. The most important corollary benefit is that the opposition party plays a key role in keeping the party in power honest. It is obviously in the opposition party’s interest to keep the public informed about the missteps and misdeeds of the administration party. The opposition party is as crucial to ongoing publicity as a free press. And publicity is a crucial safeguard (not the only one, but a crucial one) against governmental abuse of power. Democracy, in short, prevents one party rule.

So what’s the problem in 2005? Up until now American democracy has been remarkably stable with the notable exceptions of the Civil War and the Civil Rights conflicts. But now, the Republicans have launched a full-scale assault upon democracy at home. This assault is about grabbing and using power, and it also reflects an impoverished view of democracy - basically one that limits democracy to free elections. The understanding of democracy tends toward the plebiscite and toward the establishment of a strong leader, usually one who promises to sweep aside the complexities, compromises, frustrations, and inefficiencies introduced by parliamentary janglings and an independent judiciary. The plebiscite has almost always favored right wing leaders impatient with legal and institutional impediments to forceful action. In other words the plebiscite is perfect for establishing the tyranny of the majority. By emphasizing a direct, even cult-like, relationship between “the leader” and the people, democracy by popular ballot bypasses intermediary associations, either voluntary or constitutional. This in turn brings us to the reason that Republicans can't stand liberalism. Liberalism, first and foremost, is a set of expedients (mostly institutional and legal) for minimizing tyranny by setting limits to government power. It also tries to prevent the consolidation of power by fostering the multiplication of power. Democracy is not worth a ---- if it is not partnered with liberalism. Democracy and liberalism are a squabbling pair; they each locate power in a different place and neither one trumps the other; both are essential ingredients of a legitimate polity. Even at the best of times, the liberal check upon power is a tenuous bulwark that fights against the odds. There is nothing that underwrites the rule of law except the continued practice of upholding it. The law must be reaffirmed anew each and every time it is enunciated and enforced. And the temptation to circumvent the law, to rewrite it to accommodate one’s current beliefs and practices, is also ever present. To pay heed to the law is to accept that one’s own virtue is doubtful or that one’s own beliefs are, in every sense of that word, “partial.” It is their assurance in their own virtue that renders the Republicans most dangerous, most prone to set the law aside when it gets in the way of doing what they want. Impatience with the law is endemic and is the harbinger of extreme politics regardless of whether it's from the right or the left.

Republicans have done everything they can, from restricting access to the debate to disempowering any input from participants with whom they do not agree, to destroying the deliberative process and its tendency toward building large majorities. In Congress alone, the way the Republicans have used conference committees, have allowed lobbyists to write legislation, and have prevented various issues from ever coming to the floor for debate, make their desire for one party rule evident. The spectacle of the President using tax payer money to go out to “the people” to sell his Social Security scheme and then restricting his audiences to those who will be sympathetic to his views would be funny if it weren’t so frightening and so casually taken for granted. The most obvious feature of the current configuration is that money talks and bullshit walks. Even more troubling than the seizure of government by business is the class segregation in our society as a whole. We all know about growing income inequality, and a recent spate of stories in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, etc on May 15th and following have made it clear that the chances for upward mobility have diminished precipitously over the past fifty years. But also consider how, from gated communities to private schools to ludicrously expensive vacation retreats, the rich have separated themselves off from the non-rich in contemporary America. The Bush strategy of only facing friendly crowds and yes-saying subordinates simply reproduces the lifestyle of the rich. Americans seem to think the fabric of our society is beyond ripping. Legitimate a fraudulent election; send soldiers from the lowest economic classes off to fight a war based on lies; rewrite the tax code to abet the transfer of wealth upward; allow businesses to rewrite environmental and regulatory safeguards; undermine all the mechanisms that grant workers any leverage against their employers; and dismantle the safety net for those hurt by economic fluctuations and global economic forces. Just how long can you rip apart the very basis of commonality? Just how long can it be ripped apart before it all blows up in the faces of the American people?

The Republican Party is pursuing a policy of playing to its base and of demonizing its opponents as unfit to rule, as dangerous to America. The Republicans don't care how they do it and have proven they are striving to get and maintain power even by ways of endangering our democratic traditions and institutions. Republicans tried to de-legitimize the Clinton presidency and keep it from accomplishing anything substantive by working outside the established forms. They were so sure Clinton was a demon that they were willing to trash democracy in order to render him ineffective. And since gaining office, they have shown an equal willingness to trash democracy in order to make their own power more effective. They are utterly driven by form and either have no understanding of, or utter contempt, for content. Legal and procedural niceties are for sissies seems to sum up their basic, thuggish, approach to governing. They are hell bent on creating a majority that does not need to and has no desire to reach out to the opposition, either the opposition party or its opponents in the electorate. And that’s the formula for civil strife. There are few things worse in this world than sectarian violence. Do the Republicans really know what fire they are playing with when they encourage sectarian divisiveness? And just look at the electoral map of the past two presidential elections. The South and the West are lined up against the Pacific Coast States and the North. We haven’t had such a regional divide since 1860. How long can California and the Northeast be shut out from national power? A population hardened into set divisions, a population without a big percentage of swing voters is in bad shape; a population where those divisions correspond to geographic boundaries is really courting disaster. If the South and West maintain their current coalition, we have a reversion to the regionalism that culminated in the Civil War. Certainly, there is plenty of evidence to suggest that the South continues to be the fly in the ointment of American democracy. It has never been as fluid in its awarding of votes in national elections as the other regions, and that has been a constant problem. The fact remains “If you aren’t outraged, you aren’t paying attention.” Seems like a lot of people aren’t paying attention.

[karynnj]

1. The geographical divide is likely to continue as

it is built on aggregate cultural differences, although our best hope is that it may fracture because of its very different parts. To me the strangest thing is that the economic policies of the RW have to hurt the red states more that the blue states.

People in the top income brackets are paying substantially less taxes now than they were four years ago. Many analyses have shown that most blue states pay more to the federal government than they get back. So, theoretically, the blue states could keep all citizens whole by augmenting federal benefits to make up for the cuts. This could be done by increasing over time the tax rates for top income bands to collect more state taxes. As they are making up only their state's cuts, the high income tax payers will be paying no more than they did 4 years ago (and probably less).

What I think might happen is that the RW may fracture into the current nightmare set of values and a socialy conservative and economically liberal (as in yes there should be safety nets) group. I don't see a natural synergy between the PNAC/Abolish SS/cut taxes to the bone RW and the Chritian Fundamentalist who are not wealthy. (cynically I see what Marx meant when he said religion is the opiate of the people better now.)

Nice to see you again, AD