The left

Since Pelosi and Hoyer's House Commentary on Un-American Activities informs us that "drowning out opposing views is simply un-American", let me resurrect the views of some of our friends on the Left. A few years ago, when the "Angry Left" was upset that their anger was being ridiculed, they argued that anger was good and criticism of anger was just a lazy, dishonesst diversion.

Daily Kos (Kos) explains that it's understandable that the powerless party is angry, and the party in power shouldn't be upset about that.

We're everywhere! So angry! Snarl! Grrr!

Though what I really want to know is why conservatives are so angry. Always snarling and snapping about evil liberals. Heck, they control everything. If something's wrong, it's their fault. Not the powerless Democrats snipping at their heels.

If Democrats had the trifecta I'd be in heaven. It'd be bliss. Everyday would be a party. Confetti, good beer, and party hats, all around.

But not them. They're still angry.

Daily Kos (Georgia10) explains that it is a diversionary "copout" to focus on the angry people, rather than the more important issues at hand...

The whole "angry left" myth is a copout, an escape-hatch for those who are confronted by fact and choose to respond by attacking the messenger rather than the message. It's a cowardly tactic that originated on the radical right (see Malkin and the "moonbats"); lately, we have seen its use on the rise in the traditional media.  It is, indeed, a pathetic diversionary tactic.  Instead of addressing the substance of the critique, those who use the easy-out "angry left" defense avoid addressing the true issue at hand. 

Glenn Greenwald explains that it is "intellectually lazy" and "deceitful" to point to some angry people and "ascribe those attributes generally to some larger group"...

There is no cheaper or emptier form of argumentation than to isolate a specific individual, describe her, and then, without any basis, ascribe those attributes generally to some larger group -- in this case, a much, much larger and more diverse group -- of which she is ostensibly a part. ... [The] pre-ordained goal here is to depict the blogosphere as a content-free venting ground where death wishes are heaped upon George Bush, so he simply searches those comments out and then holds them up as illustrative of the blogosphere. [...]

The Washington Post alone has published several articles in the last couple months which suggest, imply or outright state that the blogosphere generally, and the liberal blogosphere in particular, is irresponsible and filled with raged-driven radicals who are as extreme as they are irrelevant. ... Needless to say, the most simplistic and intellectually corrupt Bush followers have seized on this most simplistic and corrupt journalistic stunt, pointing to it as some sort of vindication for every cheap stereotype in which they routinely traffic.

Glenn Greenwald says "it is noble to be angry about dangerous situations and corrupt leaders" and Democrats need to be more angry...

The "Angry Left" cartoon has forever been a favorite tactic of those models of Civility and Rhetorical Restraint on the Right -- and as demonstrated by the head-patting praise which the "good boy" Cohen received from Bush supporters, it still is. And many Democrats have internalized it, too. Anger is a bad, bad thing and must be avoided at all costs. McGovern's 1972 defeat proves that.

This argument is false -- dangerously so -- for so many reasons. Most successful political movements need passion. Anger, when constructively directed, is a potent and inspiring passion. It is noble to be angry about dangerous situations and corrupt leaders, and there are few passions which can compete with anger for inspiring oneself and others to meaningful action. [...]

Democrats need to get away -- as far away and as quickly as possible -- from that bland, mushy, sonorous, overly calculating and painfully restrained, passion-free dead zone. And in that regard, a much bigger problem for Democrats has been a lack of anger -- and most other human passions -- not an excess of it. [...]

...I'd go so far as to say that no political movement could really succeed without the passion of anger. People need a reason to devote their time, money and energy to a political cause. That incentive will usually come in the form of believing that there is something terribly unjust, corrupt and/or dangerous about the current political situation, and in people who are alive and impassioned, that will usually result in some anger. Those who have no passion or beliefs and are more interested in showing how rational and balanced they are will turn up their effete noses at displays of anger, but it is a potent and necessary force to enroll people in political change. [...] As Republicans have demonstrated for quite some time, the party which runs away from anger is the party which stands for nothing, inspires nobody, and loses.

Paul Krugman makes a very good point about the dominant conservative media being full of "conspiracy theories and apocalyptic rhetoric".   That's true (e.g.), and it's a genuine problem for the Right.  I'm not sure the Right has come to terms with just how destructive an echo chamber is - and has been - to perceptions of reality and propriety (and yes, the Left has dived into their own rhetorical sewer, but tu quoque is no excuse). 

However...

The ongoing efforts to conflate the Tiller and Holocaust Museum murderers with the Right, conservatives or Republicans - or to imply that criticism of government is responsible for these murders - is absurd and offensive.  Would the critics change their political views if it turned out that one of the killers was a left wing militant?   No.

What's more, it's not something any of the critics actually believe.  Recall their outrage when Andrew Sullivan suggested that a fringe on the Left would fight against the US.  Of the idea that this fringe on the Left would "ramp up its hatred in the days and months ahead", Duncan Black said, "Sullivan was one of the earliest adopters of the idea that the most appropriate response to September 11 was to figure how to to use it to pit American against American."

We've come full circle.  The Left is growing comfortable with the role of dominant bully.

And contra some on the Left, objections to the DHS Report (both the Left and Right wing reports) were legitimate.  The objection is not that they DHS studied the potential sources of violence, but that they made political generalizations ("the DHS description of these groups seems excessively broad with the potential for mischief").  It was political profiling.

Let's conclude with two central ironies:

• The Left strenuously objects to connecting President Obama to socialists and William Ayers; meanwhile, they want to lump all conservatives in with militant radicals.

 

• Meanwhile, as Doug Mataconis points out, "Conservatives who object to being tied to Von Brunn were eagerly associating Obama with Ayers and Wright."

 UPDATE: Jesse Walker makes excellent points, as well. (via Instapundit)

Robert Reich...

Republicans have made no secret of their wish to blame Obama for the bad economy, and to stir up as much populist rage against his so-called socialist tendencies as politically possible. History shows how effective demagogic ravings can be when a public is stressed economically. Make no mistake: Angry right-wing populism lurks just below the surface of the terrible American economy, ready to be launched not only at Obama but also at liberals, intellectuals, gays, blacks, Jews, the mainstream media, coastal elites, crypto socialists, and any other potential target of paranoid opportunity.

Really?  First Republicans criticize big government, then...the Holocaust?  Are these the Democratic talking points? I understand Robert Reich's desire to carry movement water, but I would think he would have the integrity to carry better water than this.

The 1994 Republican Revolution was the result of public rejection of Democratic overreach.  In response, Democrats accused Republicans of being "angry" and unreasonable.  (See the Time "Mad as Hell" cover accusing Newt Gingrich of perfecting "the politics of anger". It ran immediately after the 1994 election)   The narrative was very effective for the Democrats.

Between this and recent attacks on, e.g., Rush Limbaugh, it's clear that Democrats are trying to resurrect this "angry" narrative before the 2010 mid-term election in order to delegitimize opposition to Democratic schemes. 

Patrick's post on the main site basically urging the right not to attack Obama on the Blagojovich scandal has kicked up a lot of comments from, quite frankly, good-old-fashioned hypocrits.

Now, to use a favorite phrase of the President Elect's,  let me be clear. I've got no problem--personally--with honest progressives who recognize the fact that what's good for me and what's good for thee are the same. I don't think every Progressive is a shallow-thinking political hack and I have no problem being civil over an honest disagreement. What I cannot stand is faux moderates, faux bipartisans and others who were happy to pile onto Bush and the Republicans in congress but quite frankly feel it is their place to wine when a blog concerned with strategy and tactics suggests...strategy and tactics. According to such people, Bush deserves every sneering snide criticism, every deeply personal insult, every single disgusting Nazi comparison, but to even intimate that someone connected to Obama might have known something about Blago's corruption, or argue that Obama has been too passive in his dealings with the dirty governor, is tantamount to treason.

Are you serious? Can you possibly even equate these teppid criticisms with the "general Betray us" add from MoveOn, the constant invocation of Hitler in relation to Bush, the visit of Democrat congressman James McDermott of Washington to Saddam's Iraq just before the war where he publically gave aid and comfort to a man which the previous Democratic president slated for regime change? Can Ruffini's argument that attacking congress is a better tactical idea than attacking Obama possibly be in the same league as Don Fouler's chortling comment that Hurricane Gustav was going to hurt the Republicans over their convention? Is this the honest opinion of even a tiny fragment of the internet-reading public?

Obviously there are lines which should not be crossed, and people on both sides cross them. Like some conservatives, I think Anne Coulter's comments very frequently cross the line into abhorrent (racial slurs on Arabs, homosexual slurs on John Edwards and claims that the Democratic party since the fifties has been "functionally treasonable" are examples), and Jerry Fallwell comparing Hillary Clinton to Lucifer was equally beyond the pale. I think the Obama birth certificate issue is a non-issue and an embarrassing distraction from things which actually matter, and claims that he's a Muslim are justproposterus. It's not that I'm reticent to criticize people on the right who go too far. It's not even that I disagree with a general comment made on the thread that "we win when we're on offense" and not when we're negative. But politics is a rough game in this country, it's always been a rough game, and trying to weaken the other guy's hold on the government is what an opposition does. There are exceptions certainly, there are attacks which are beyond the pale, but Patrick's isn't one of them, and arguing that it is shows a basic lack of mateurity on the part of hypocrits who can dish it out but can't take it. Or put another way; wouldn't a claim that investigating Jack Abramof and any potential ties he had to the Bush administration was unpatriotic have been laughable? So why isn't this equally ludicrous claim that even discussing how the Blagojovich scandal might be used by the GOP doesn't put the country first being laughed off? Did the Democrats use the Abramof scandal? Yep. Was it unpatriotic? Nope. Would it be unpatriotic for the Republicans to use the Blagojovich scandal? Nope. The answer, of course, whether one is Republican or Democrat, is to not pull these corrupt stunts in the first place; it is corrupt officials, not those of the opposition from either party who use their mistakes against them, who are "revolting" "unpatriotic" "more of the same" and, my personal favorite, "don't give a damn about the country".

In 2003, Megan McArdle coined Jane's Law: "The devotees of the party in power are smug and arrogant. The devotees of the party out of power are insane."  Some friends on the Left appear to be exploring both.

Speculating on the Right's distaste for the various fiscal stimulus proposals and bailout billions, Steve Benen, Ed Kilgore, Josh Marshall, and Matt Yglesias all argue that the only explanations for involve the Right being stupid or evil.  Yglesias summarized...

• The Moral Explanation: Ed Kilgore explains that some on the right thing America is too fate and happy. This is a bit like David Frum’s nineties vintage Donner Party conservatism.

• The Benefactor Explanation: Matt Stoller says the right is more interested in entrenching inequality than worrying about the economy.

• The Illiterate Explanation: Maybe they’re just dumb.

• The Strategic Explanation: TPM Reader JF observes that a long depression serves the GOP’s political interests.

Washington Monthly's Benen also speculates on a Machurian Explanation, which assumes "it's possible that GOP officials secretly hate the United States and are actively trying to destroy us from within. That last one seems unlikely, but I'm just presenting the possibilities."   Classy.  Let's try not to think about how outraged the Left has been for the last 7 years over Andrew Sullivan suggesting that some people could "mount what amounts to a fifth column." 

Inexplicably, none of them appear to even consider the arguments that skeptics actually make: that (a) fiscal stimulus is a poor tool for addressing recessions, (b) fiscal stimulus and bailouts are distortionary, and (c) we can't keep doubling down every time the previous policy bets go bad.

The case against massive government intervention isn't tough.  The Left should be particularly aware of that after having spent the past few years attacking Republicans for doubling down on various well-intentioned but unhelpful interventions.  And the case against fiscal stimulus isn't exactly unknown...

• "Can we pump up the economy with additional tax cuts or temporary public spending? Not safely..."
  
• "What about fiscal policy? Some liberals have recently [argued] that the economic slump is a reason to put aside promises to protect the Social Security surplus. But those liberals are making a big mistake."
  
• "[A]lmost all economists now agree with [Milton Friedman's] position that monetary policy, not fiscal policy, is the tool of choice for fighting recessions."

In fact, the case against fiscal stimulus shouldn't be unfamilar to the Left, either.  Each of those quotes is from liberal economist Paul Krugman.  In fairness, there are also good economic arguments for fiscal stimulus - even massive fiscal stimulus - as "in the face of deep and persistent slumps" and when "the economy is near a liquidity trap" (both of which are possible).   Like an alcoholic taking another drink to ease the pain, though, those arguments amount to doubling down to get relief from the symptoms.

And then you have positively weird comments, like this from Matt Stoller...

Deflation transfers wealth from debtors to creditors, which is another way of saying from people who are cash poor (the poor, the middle class, entrepreneurs, risk-takers) to people who have cash (the risk-averse rich).  Unfortunately, the risk-averse rich don't spend very much of their wealth relative to everyone else, which is why they are risk-averse. ... And here you see the political problem; people that have money would prefer that they remain on top, and will oppose attempts to restart spending from a broad base.  These people are known as 'conservatives', and they have their Beltway facing servants writing screeds about how the New Deal failed in the 1930s.  Economics is very dry and technical, but it is inherently political.  

Stoller seems to confuse wealthy people with people who keep their money in a coffee can.  In the real world, wealthy people keep their wealth in investments....and lose massive amounts of it when the economy tanks.  And while deflation might make any given dollar more valuable, that's not at all the same thing as making wealthy people wealthier.  Anyway, the implication of all this is that massive inflation is an important progressive policy.  Think of all the wealth you could transfer to the poor!  Viva la 70's!  I encourage the Left to start making this argument.

Which brings us back to this: the Left has always some very conspiratorial, paranoid notions about the Right (and the same can be said of the Right about the Left, of course).  But they will have fewer and fewer tangible Republican policies to oppose as they consolidate control of government, so expect this to grow worse.  They're going to have to continually work harder to justify vilifying their opponents. 

Ultimately, this dynamic will not be healthy for the Left.   Tylen Cowen is right...

It will be interesting to see if the Keynesian multiplier becomes the Democratic Party economist equivalent of the Laffer Curve, namely a "free lunch" claim used to justify many kinds of preferred policies.  Have I mentioned that having their party in power was very bad for Republican economists too? 

Being out of power helps to sharpen a movement and party; getting back into power dumbs them right back down.

I'm trying to remember the last time the Left was so thoroughly enamored with their candidate. Every media outlet, pundit and pol is downright smitten with the very idea of Obama. Of course the Left loved Bill Clinton (and, for awhile, even loved his wife) but this type of adulation is surely unprecedented. Along with such puppy love comes a total lack of scrutiny of any of his policies or proposals. It is clear that there is a teenage crush on Obama by many on the Left. But why Obama and why now?

If one goes back to the Carter Presidency, the left has been on the run since 1980. With the singular exception of 1993-94, the Democrats have taken the backseat of power for the last 28 years. Tiring of sitting on the bench, the Left has been willing to embrace any candidate they think can bring them back to respectability. They are so frightened of 4 more years in the wilderness, that they will accept any candidate that has a chance of winning. Enter Barack Obama. The Democrats sense that he is the right candidate at the right time. His policies are not as important as the fact that he can bring them the White House. A week before the election, they are flush with enthusiasm and confidence. They feel the power of a tsunami of "Change" that is approaching shore. However, they should remember that the tsunami, when it retreats, takes much back out to sea with it.

The Left has a pretty consistent policy towards regulation: More, please; anytime, anywhere.  If there's a problem, it must be the job of government to regulate.

• NYTImes, 2001: "The union officials said they feared that Ms. Chao would adopt toothless, voluntary recommendations for American corporations that would fail to prevent the 1.8 million injuries estimated to be caused each year by repetitive motions."
• NYTimes, 2001: "But labor unions and many public- health advocates say federal regulations are needed because not all corporations can be trusted to protect workers."
• NYTImes, 2003: "Politicians score easy points by railing against big government and excessive federal regulations. But a three-part series in The Times this week by David Barstow and Lowell Bergman showed that workplace safety rules are in fact far too weak, and dramatically underenforced."

This must be those harmful consequences of deregulation.

The rate of workplace injuries and illnesses in private industry declined in 2007 for the sixth consecutive year, the U.S. Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported today. Nonfatal workplace injuries and illnesses reported by private industry employers declined from 4.4 cases per 100 workers in 2006 to 4.2 cases in 2007.

And since miners are often invoked as a symbol of workplace safety problems, the record on mine safety for the past few decades...

I'm late to the game, but let me add to Patrick Ruffini's smart thoughts on this Zack Exley article about the Obama campaign's organizing and GOTV operation. It comes down to expanding the number of stakeholders - Long Tail Empowerment.   They are not just distributing activity; they are distributing responsibility and authority.  Some might call it the Army of Davids theory of campaign management.

The "New Organizers" have succeeded in building what many netroots-oriented campaigners have been dreaming about for a decade. Other recent attempts have failed because they were either so "top-down" and/or poorly-managed that they choked volunteer leadership and enthusiasm; or because they were so dogmatically fixated on pure peer-to-peer or "bottom-up" organizing that they rejected basic management, accountability and planning. The architects and builders of the Obama field campaign, on the other hand, have undogmatically mixed timeless traditions and discipline of good organizing with new technologies of decentralization and self-organization.

This is a perfect symbol of one of the great ironies of our political environment; the Right and Left approach campaigning and organizing, both electoral and advocacy, in different ways...

• The Right has a very top-down, command and control model; Republicans centralize activity and authority within the organization.  Care about Issue (A)?  Send money, and Group (B) will take care of it for you.  Want to get involved in Campaign (X)?  Contact Group (Z) and they will tell you what they want you to do.  
• The Left is increasingly decentralizing, adopting more market-oriented organizational models.  They are not directing activity, but providing the tools for self-directed individuals to conduct their own activism.  The Left is creating an army of spokesmen, an army of organizers, an army of stakeholders - a Movement.

I believe a great deal of this is attributable to the state of each Movement.

• Consolidation: The Right is behaving like a company within a declining industry, which focuses on increasing market share, rather than expanding the actual market itself.  Declining industries are defensive, seeking tradition and efficiency rather than innovation.  The Right - and the Republican Party - is trying to manage the decline by consolidating successes and attacking their opponent to limit the Left's market share.
• Expansion: The Left is behaving like a company within an expanding industry, making speculative investment to build for market growth, for competitive advantage within the emerging market. The Left is playing offense, innovating.  The political pendulum is swinging their way, and they are working to turn that momentum into permanent infrastructural gains.

The Left is outraged that Sarah Palin was critical - even (gasp!) negative.  It's quite insincere, of course, but that's what they're trying to sell.  Naturally, the media is playing along. 

Shove this back in their face.

Obama’s speech includes more negative attacks than Palin’s. [...] If one compares Palin’s speech to Obama’s, it appears to me that they used similar amounts of sarcasm (not much), but Obama made considerably more extensive negative comments about McCain and Republican administrations than Palin did about Obama and Democrats.

David Sirota makes an interesting observation at Open Left about Moveon.org declining to get very involved in the Democratic VP selection...

In effectively OK-ing the VP nomination of a politician who has consistently voted against Moveon's organizational mission, the Moveon leadership lets us in on the secret that I reported in my book: namely that Moveon today operates first and foremost as a partisan appendage. Instead of using the VP question - and the presidential election as a whole - as an instrument to build the antiwar movement, Moveon's quote suggests the organization is willing to go along with almost anyone Obama chooses, regardless of how their career has undermined that movement, regardless of whether Bayh's backers are citing his potential nomination as proof that the Democratic Party should reject the movement Moveon purports to champion.

As Pat Buchanan said, "Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket.”   It will be fascinating to watch how the Progressives react as they shift from storming the castle and turn to the business of actually governing the castle.

Since the Democrats are not attempting to change the fundamental systemic flaws in government, their base will either become alienated or compromised.  I suspect we'll see more of the latter.