This Just In: Liberals Can’t Lead Because Americans Believe In Republican Values
At the core of the tiresome argument over whether Americans are center-right or center-left that is currently raging following the passage of President Obama’s $787 billion economic stimulus package is the belief of conservative pundits that the liberal-left is incapable of leading because Americans are deeply traditional and therefore only believe in Republican values.
Beyond Democrat, Republican and Independent, I despise political labels with a passion because they inevitably dumb down the discourse.
As it is, too many people are comfy with being labeled liberals (aka progressives, as some liberals prefer these days) or conservatives and so on because that way others can think for them. This despite the fact that these are anything but one-size-fits-all labels. But don’t try to point out to commentator Robert Stacy McCain that some people on the right-of-center favor liberalizing marijuana laws and some on the left-of-center are against abortion. And how many far right-wingers (on certain occasions known as the religious right) have been outed as being gay or having diaper fetishes or something?
McCain, who draws his oxygen from a parallel universe that makes what he and many other pundits say seem so disconnected from our own lives, self-righteously opines that:
As a political impulse, the sort of libertarianism that scoffs at creationism and traditional marriage wields limited influence, because it appeals chiefly to a dissenting sect of the intelligentsia. It’s a sort of free-market heresy of progressivism, with no significant popular following nor any real prospect of gaining one, because most Ordinary Americans who strongly believe in economic freedom are deeply traditionalist. And most anti-traditionalists — the feminists, the gay militants, the “world peace” utopians — are deeply committed to the statist economic vision of the Democratic Party.
Having thus laid out this orthodoxy, McCain goes in for the kill:
There is no natural political constituency for the sort of libertarianism that considers marijuana legalization and the flat tax as equally estimable objectives. When it comes to the basic electoral calculus of 50-percent-plus-one, this theoretical equation has never been shown to add up in terms of real-world coalition politics. (Maybe the stoners just forget to vote?)
Alas, poor Robert Stacy has a hole in his memory card.
While he asserts that Democratic presidential candidates like Michael Dukakis and John Kerry went down in flames because they advocated gay marriage, abortion and transhuman biotechnology, among other cardinal liberal sins and therefore were out of that traditional mainstream, there is nary a peep from him on Obama’s historic landslide. You know, the landslide in which voters from across a broad spectrum — the very essence of that traditional mainstream — embraced the views of a man of the center-left. In fact, a man whom The Other McCain and Sarah Palin and their surrogates implied or accused outright of being a socialist, communist and terrorist.
This was so not just because people were a lot more fearful about their economic future than an African-American with a funny name, although that was a driving factor for Republicans leaving the fold, Democrats coming back to the fold and Independents who were on the fence.
It remains to be seen whether the stimulus package will work as intended. The degree to which that happens, how quickly that happens or whether that happens at all is anybody’s guess. But as the most important economic bill in 70 years and considering that the Obama administration has been in office for less than a month and had virtually no help from Republicans, it is quite impressive.
It should be noted that once in office Obama resolutely tacked toward the center as he unsuccessfully reached out across the aisle only to have his hand bitten by Robert Stacy’s buddies. But he ended up getting pretty much what he had wanted going in, as well as the support of a majority of Republican governors who feel the pain of the economic meltdown in a way that the feckless Limbaugh Republicans in Congress obviously do not.
Limbaugh Republicans. Now there’s a label I can live with.
Shaun Mullen is a former The Moderate Voice columnist. Over a long career with newspapers, this award-winning editor and reporter covered the Vietnam War, O.J. Simpson trials, Clinton impeachment circus and coming of Osama bin Laden, among many other big stories. He blogs at Kiko’s House.
7 Responses to “This Just In: Liberals Can’t Lead Because Americans Believe In Republican Values”
Why use Moderate Voice for what appears to be some sort of personal battle between Mr. Mullen and Mr. McCain?
Beyond Democrat, Republican and Independent, I despise political labels with a passion because they inevitably dumb down the discourse.
There is some truth to this.
However you started your article with this title………”This Just In: Liberals Can’t Lead Because Americans Believe In Republican Values”
Why not democrats cant lead or Americans believe in Conservative values to balance the equation on both sides. This was a poor example of making both sides equal in an attempt to solve the equation and from the very beginning to prove your work you have failed because your initial hypothesis is wrong from the get go. You are comparing Liberals to Republicans when I happen to know liberal republicans and conservative democrats.
Change your title to be equal and Ill read your article. Otherwise pretend you hate labels while throwing them around indiscriminately.
Nary a peep about Obama's “historic landslide” because McCain rarely writes about fiction. Obama won 365-173, or, if we must look at the popular vote as some kind of barometer, 52.87% to 45.62%. Neither is historic – indeed, neither is unprecedented in the last twenty five years. In 1992, Bill Clinton won 370 to 168, and in 1988, Bush 41 won by 426 to 111 with a 53% to 45% popular vote majority. Johnson and Reagan – acknowledged landslide victories – won by far more significant margins. Johnson won 486 votes to Goldwater's 52 (61% vs. 38.47% in the popular vote), and Reagan did even better: won 525 votes to Mondale's 13 (58.77% vs. 40.56 in the popular vote).
Obama won, with a close popular vote. He has a mandate, but it stems from the regionally diverse nature of his support, reflected in an electoral college vote greater than a novice to American electoral mechanics armed only with the popular vote tally might expect, not some kind of supposed (and fictitious) “landslide victory” – that just didn't happen.
A bit overstated w/ the “historic landslide” business, but with the continued growth of Dem seats in Congress, particularly from its composition pre-Nov, 2006, it's an undeniable move in a single, unambiguous direction.
Check this out:
From the final tally of the 109th congress to the seating of the 111th, the Republicans have provided the leadership to achieve:
Turning a 27 seat House majority into a 77 seat minority,
Turning a 10 seat Senate majority in to a 17 seat minority,
Losing the White House.
Uh, leadership? Not really. Landslide? Possibly.
“…too many people are comfy with being labeled liberals (aka progressives, as some liberals prefer these days) or conservatives…”
Considering that the MSM has done a masterful job of casting “liberals” and/or “progressives” in a favorable light, I would say that there are way too many people who are more than eager to self-identify as liberal or progressive. And also considering the branding job done by the media, there are a surprising number of people who self-identify as conservatives.
When the “liberal” label was in danger of becoming an epithet (recall that it was “the L-word” ever so briefly), the folks left of center embraced “progressive.” From one positive word to another! Nice! (And with a nice assist from journos everywhere.)
“Conservative” on the other hand is less than positive.
I don't think there are many people who are “comfy” self-identifying or being labeled as conservative. And, just as some liberals have sought to be known as “progressive,” many conservatives call themselves as “moderates,” to avoid the stigma that comes with the “C-word.”
So, in the branding war, the left of center has won.
I know plenty of people who are, on balance, conservative. They don't know it. How could this be? It's because they view themselves as “nice people.” And, though the majority of their views are right of center, even, at times, right of right of center, they have been told so many times that conservatives are bad people, they couldn't possibly be conservative.
And similarly, I know lots of “liberals” whose views and principles are shifting in such a manner that they are no longer recognizable as liberals at all… except to themselves.
Does this labeling “dumb down” the discourse? No. It does, however, allow for the manipulation of the voting public. (So far, not very successfully.) And, perhaps more importantly, we're left with a bunch of folks who are unnecessarily embarrassed to hold certain views and other folks who are inordinately proud of their views and a whole bunch of folks who lie to themselves and others about just what it is they hold near and dear.
Upside down? You bet.
But is The Other McCain merely engaging in a “tiresome argument?” Certainly not. It is anything but. (Really: What is so wrong with arguments? Have we gotten to the point where we fear a bit of jawing back and forth?) Once that tiresome argument ceases, it means that too many of us have opted to self-identify as “moderates.” And that would mean not just the end of the argument but the end of America as we know it.
I think in 2012 the new banner of “change we can believe in” will be an independant who wins the Whitehouse.
We middle-grounders are not only tired of being labelled, we're tired of extremes and polarization and partisan bickering that leaves our governance crippled and our citizens suffering for it.
Get ready. An independant is coming to an Oval Office near you..
Shaun lost me here:
“…or conservatives and so on because that way others can think for them.”
I'm a conservative, and have thought my way to that position, as have many others. Our engagement in the public square, unfortunately, has been caricatured by oafs like Limbaugh who seem to think conservatism = GOP. That's nonsense. I suspect there are more and more conservatives like myself who are registered independents, and who will vote for either Dems or Republicans who most closely represent conservative values. And yes, “conservative” is a label I'm happy to wear, since I'm both fiscally and socially conservative, without apology.