June 17th, 2008
By MICHAEL SILVERSTEIN
People who didn’t reach the stage of political awareness before 1980 probably think the “L” word, liberal, is a pejorative term. For more than a quarter century, since Ronald Reagan’s first term, virtually every progressive idea that came into the political arena was pilloried, and often outright trashed, when the dreaded L label was pinned on it.
This was no accidental happening, no natural political turn of the wheel, no inevitable evolution. It was largely the product of a systematic, well financed campaign by right-leaning think tanks and kindred media manipulators to discredit an approach to governing they didn’t like.
Which brings us to the present. After long years during which money and effort expended on progressive causes went into individual political campaigns or simply renting the ear of politicians, left-leaning think tanks are now almost equal in number and staffing as their right-leaning counterparts, and churning out endless reams of policy papers, some rather good, a few even innovative.
A happy development, certainly. But it lacks one critical focus. While it helps restore a balance on the idea front, it still leaves progressives behind when it comes to nomenclature. Specifically, there’s no systematic, well financed effort here to demonize the “C” word, conservative, and give it the same negative emotional overtones that the L word has had for more than a quarter century.
There is, of course, nothing inherently bad about traditional American-style conservatism. It emphasized equal opportunity with rewards apportioned commensurate with ability, was open minded when it came to social matters, and prudently cautious in the foreign policy realm. But then, there was never anything inherently bad about traditional American-style liberalism either. This philosophy promoted a strong national defense, leavened a belief in open market opportunities with a government commitment to helping the down trodden, and employed regulation when it was needed to check flagrant economic, social or environmental abuse.
Right-leaning think tankers and other spokesmen ignored these noble liberal aims. Instead, they portrayed liberalism as little more than a wasteful quasi-socialism that stifled initiative and was always inferior in producing good ends compared to a supposedly super-efficient, inevitably just, free market.
In this life you often learn more from your opponents and enemies than from your friends and supporters. So perhaps it’s time for the left to learn from the right on how to win elections and perpetuate political power by turning words into meanings that work magic in bringing about this goal. In more specific terms, time to indelibly tag the C word with the conservatism of Bush the Younger. To make it synonymous with government by and for the rich, government oblivious to any foreign policy voices other than its own in-head fantasies, and government with a near total disdain for the health of nature.
A fair way to play politics? Please. Contemporary American politics is a contact sport where the old sharing rule has been replaced by winner rules all. Democrats will hold power in this country for the next quarter century, even if a Republican happens to be in the White House for some of these years, when the C word has become an election winning tool as effective as its L word predecessor.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 17th, 2008 at 12:03 pm
and is filed under Progressives, Democratic Party, Liberalism, Conservatism, Political Philosophy, Demonization, Newsweek Blogitics, Michael Silverstein Poetry, Democracy, 2008 Elections, Politics, Conservatives, Liberals, Ideology, Democrats, Miscellaneous.
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