The Glorious, Futile Progressive Policy Agenda

[xchrom]

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/10/the-glorious-futile-progressive-policy-agenda/280889/

The left is unified and full of exciting ideas. What's the point?


A few months ago, Terry O’Neill, the president of the National Organization for Women, summed up the state of the left. “We’re winning the politics,” she told me. “But on policy, we’re just getting killed.”

On the one hand, a handily reelected liberal president; demographic trends turning more and more states blue, with no end in sight; growing public support for liberal causes like gay marriage; and a fractured, warring, dismally unpopular opposition. On the other hand, a failure on the national level to consider even modest changes to environmental, immigration, or gun policy; a federal government that, rather than growing to serve more people, has been subject to draconian cuts. On the state level, a drumbeat of assaults on collective bargaining, restrictions on access to abortion, cuts to education, taxes, and social services, and curbs to voting rights. After 20 elementary-school children died in last year’s gun massacre in Newtown, Connecticut, more states sought to expand access to guns than to constrain it.

Progressives are trapped in a frustrating dichotomy: a feeling that even though they’re winning the public argument, their policy ideas are largely an irrelevant pipe dream.

Nowhere was this more evident than at a policy summit convened Thursday by the Center for American Progress, a liberal think-tank hatched by Clinton Administration alums during the dark days of the first George W. Bush Administration. A star-studded lineup of Democratic power players took the stage: former Vice President Al Gore, Secretary of State John Kerry, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. And yet their speeches and discussions were suffused with a sense of futility.

***left establishmentarians are the problem.

[sendero]

1. This pretty much spells out..

.. how I've been feeling for 5 years. We win and then we still lose.

[Laelth]

2. Winning hearts and minds comes first.

Policy changes come later. It will take time, but I think we'll get there. Sometimes it takes an enormous crisis, but the United States has shown throughout its history that it can and will reform, sooner or later.



-Laelth

[DCBob]

3. Blame Republicans.

They can effectively block almost anything they don't like. Until the numbers change in congress there will be more of the same.

[sabrina 1]

17. Why won't Democrats block whatever they want? Neither

party has more power to do that. Republicans have shown how even in the minority they can block legislation they don't like until they force Dems to 'compromise'. Yet Dems refuse to do the same thing. Repubs in the Minority manage to get their way more than Dems in the Majority.

Something is wrong with this as many have been saying ever since we threw out Republicans from from Congress, the Senate and the WH.

All we heard were excuses 'well, yes we won everything, but it wasn't a big enough win'.

And the Republican side. 'yes we lost but we will exercise the power we have to get what we want done'.

This observation has been made now by so many people it simply cannot be ignored and has led to the suspicion that maybe some in our party are aiding and abetting by caving rather than fighting.

We need to elect Progressive Dems who have a history of fighting, like Grayson eg, for Progressive issues. Until we do that, Republicans in the majority or the minority will have enough 'bi-partisan' support to act like they are still in the majority.

[DirkGently]

19. With Rahm and Pete Peterson hanging around ...

yes, I'd say part of the problem is anti-progressive foxes in the proverbial henhouse. I think a lot of the most plugged-in beltway players have been convinced, for example, of the argument that Social Security is unsustainable, something which is not true, but which somehow is accepted as though it were.

We need more people not mired in these networks of plugged-in people who are still convinced we can cater endlessly to Wall Street and too-big-to-fail business, and yet still work for the common good.

[DCBob]

23. Republicans are willing to create economic chaos to get what they want..

Democrats are not.

[sabrina 1]

24. True, or they are willing to fight, dirty definitely, to take control of

the country.

I don't think that Dems would be creating economic chaos if they fought just as hard. I think the chaos occurs BECAUSE Dems do not fight hard enough.

It's the old bully syndrome. If Dems refused to compromise on what benefits the people, the TP/Bulllies would be weakened.

It has been the constant compromising on important issues that has emboldened the bullies. No one has stood up to them.

Now they are demanding cuts to SS and already 9 Dems are caving to them once again. Why is ANY Dem willing to do that?

[stevenleser]

4. The progress illustrated with the demographics changes, etc. are on what we should be focused.

Government wheels never turn swiftly except during massive upheavals and revolutions. Incrementalism is usually the way things work and the trend is in our direction.

I think we are in an age where we expect to get everything right away. If we send an email, the recipient usually gets it within seconds. We have information on demand. We can travel to the other side the world in around a day.

The time is coming when the Democrats have a lock on the White House and the kind of senate and house that FDR enjoyed will be a regular occurrence (70-75% control of both) and then even more centrist Dems will not be able to hold one of the Houses hostage to prevent progressive legislation from being passed. We are 8-20 years away from that.

Considering complete Republican control of government as recently as 2005, in politics, that is a very fast change. It doesnt seem so to people in the information age, but it is.

[marmar]

5. A "progressive" policy conference featuring Hillary Clinton, Rahm Emanuel and Larry Summers?

Strikes one, two and three right there.

[stevenleser]

6. Emanuel is mayor of Chicago and Summers is a professor. They're not in the federal government. nt

[marmar]

7. You don't say? ..... Nevertheless, they're contributing to this particular conference.

And their imprint has been all over the last two Democratic administrations.

[Chan790]

8. Inescapably, neither is remotely progressive.

Shouldn't progressives be representing progressives at a progressive policy summit?

[socialist_n_TN]

12. I think the point was........

They are NOT progressive, no matter their qualifications.

[stevenleser]

13. We can argue that, but who is saying they are? Because they attended a thinktank meeting?

A thinktank started by people who you dont agree with anyway? The author focuses on them because the word progress is in the name of the thinktank?

Do we even want to go into how many teabagger thinktanks there are with the name liberty and freedom in them?

This is all based on the word "progress" in the name of the thinktank. That is how thin this article and the outrage attempting to be ginned up at it is.

[socialist_n_TN]

16. Personally I think that since this think tank was begun by the Clintons.......

it's probably more neo-liberal than progressive and that the name was chosen to hide those neo-liberal tendencies and/or give the neo-liberal agenda cover with people who consider themselves "progressive". But it seems to me that this article is trying to give that cover too. By suggesting that prominent neo-liberals are "progressive", including Obama, it distracts from ACTUAL progressive policies, especially in economics.

[antigop]

9. exactly! Cue the "haters/bashers" posts.... nt

[FarCenter]

10. Progressives are great at identifying problems; their solutions tend to be stuck in the past.

[Laelth]

14. We're still waiting for solutions from the right.

Do you have any suggestions you'd like to share?

-Laelth

[FarCenter]

15. Put high tariffs on imports of goods produced by labor-intensive, low-tech industries.

Selective tariffs, intelligently applied, could be used to protect American jobs.

The argument for free trade is that it is a win-win for both nations because each nation produces goods and services more efficiently using its comparative advantages. Another argument is that competition between nations spurs the industries of each to become more innovative, productive and efficient.

In some classes of industry, the only comparative advantage is very low wage workers. The industries are not changing rapidly and there are no technological or business process changes to justify international competition.

The manufacturing of textiles and clothing would be one example.

Free trade versus non-free trade is a false dichotomy.

[DireStrike]

20. What makes you think this isn't a progressive solution?

Granted, we would rather see worker solidarity prevent such tariffs from being necessary, but it certainly would be good for us on a national level.

The people that oppose this solution are big businesspeople, not progressives. Indeed many times the idea of "punishing businesses that outsource" comes up on the left.

[FarCenter]

21. But many progressives, including those mentioned in the OP, are for free trade

Strategic trade is generally opposed, partly on the grounds that it would increase prices of basic goods and harm the poorer consumers, that it would harm workers in underdeveloped countries, and on the basis of progressive economic theory (e.g. Krugman). The progressive consensus appears to be that protecting consumers, rather than workers, and weltschmerz for underdeveloped populations outweighs worker protection at home.

Strategic trade to protect businesses or as a means of rent-seeking is favored by some on the right. For example, drug companies favor high prices in the US and low prices in other countries, a scheme which they have protected by laws preventing international retailing of drugs.

[DireStrike]

22. I don't think these ideas have seen much daylight.

Somebody like Krugman might write an article or three about them, but it generally isn't picked up by the broader public.

It could be that I've missed these currents in the discussion. It seems almost nobody ever brings up protectionism, but I doubt that it's because they are supportive of free trade.

I'll have to pay more attention to it in the future.

[antigop]

11. " a handily reelected LIBERAL president"???? Gosh, who knew? nt

[bvar22]

18. Oh, THERE is the problem.

The Clintons and Rahm Emanuel are mistakenly labeled as "Liberals".

[Egalitarian Thug]

25. Not one of those people is on the left unless you accept the definition of left

that the batshit crazy right uses. These people are moderate republicans conservatives at best.