Reality is Liberal And Rewards Liberal Policy

We need to draw a distinction between reality and perceived reality. After the Goldwater ignominious defeat in 1964, conservatives correctly realized that they had to change the universe of discourse in national politics (and economics) to create a perceived reality favorable to their ideology. They worked at this for years and at this point have thoroughly captured the universe of discourse as they set out to do. Instead conservatives participating in a liberal narrative, as was the case after FDR, it became liberals participating in a conservative narrative, in which they were so marginalized that they were force to stop calling themselves liberals and began calling themselves progressives instead.

This is still where is are. While reality does have a liberal bias because progress rather than tradition rules, the perceived reality of the US is far different, not in the least because things are changing so fast. There are many factors influencing this that aid the conservative point of view and make it appealing to conservatives, who are largely white. The conservative message is at bottom racist, therefore, it appeals to many whites that see themselves as losing ground. Much of the conservative economic view that is against deficits is about not giving handouts to “shiftless colored people.” Glen Beck’s months long rant against ACORN was blatantly racist, designed to put an end to recruitment of non-white poor voters.

The conservative mantra “small government, low taxes, fiscal responsibility, strong military, and traditional family values” has taken hold, and liberal Democrats neither attacked its internal inconsistencies nor countered it with a similar mantra expressing their own vision for America. “Hope” and “change” don’t cut it.

Instead, even liberal Democrats criticize the conservative worldview from within, simply attempting to modify it instead of change it. So Obama gets rid of the F-22 but escalates in Afghanistan and increases the military budget overall. Similarly, instead of attempting to show up the simplistic neoliberal “free market” and “free trade” BS for what it is, a tilting of the playing field by gutting regulation and oversight, for example, liberal Democrats try to argue that spending is really investment in the future and is worth the taxes it will involve. The economic talk is in terms of fiscal responsibility, where deficits are inherently bad, because they need to be financed by taxation, or borrowing now and taxing later. However, this is not how the US monetary system actually works, where the government is not revenue constrained in its spending. However, almost no one realize this, the left. right, or center.

The problem isn’t so much that the majority of Americans are inherently conservative or moderate. It’s thats Democrats have been beaten by conservative in getting them to think in terms of the conservative narrative and accept its assumptions. Cognitive scientist George Lakoff has been saying this for a long time. He’s been telling liberals that most people are not uni-conceptual (liberal or conservative) but bi-conceptual (identifying with different values, some liberal and some conservative). Conservative get people to favor their conservative values and ignore their liberal values through clever rhetoric and sentiment. Liberals on the other hand, are wonks, and attempt to reason with people, often confusing them. Unless liberals reverse this perception of reality, reality and perception will be out of synch in the US, since reality has a liberal bias. So far, liberals are failing badly. Too bad, because they are letting a good crisis go to waste instead of using it to advantage to shift the Overton window toward the left.

A great benefit that conservatives have received is enormous funding by self-interest right-wing billionaires. They have funded not only think tanks like Cato Institute and Heritage Foundation, which the media now consult regularly for “expert” opinion, but also media that shape the news, like Fox. Liberals have a long way to go to catch up.

I don’t think it’s going to happen until there’s another depression that allowed FDR to come to power and set a liberal agenda unchallenged, which lasted until Nixon. It then took Reagan to finally end the liberal grip on perceived reality in the US and conservatives have determined the universe of discourse, hence, perceived reality, since then.

While I agree with most of this, it really is quite difficult to switch countries. The idea of Americans sneaking across the border into Mexico to try to get jobs as dishwashers and agricultural laborers is funny, but probably won’t happen (for one thing, the Mexican government is much more ruthless than the US government in keeping out illegal immigrants).

We will just have to make the best of things here. If people escape, it will be the same way Russian men escaped when the Soviet Union collapsed, by drinking themselves to death.

And DeLong has flipped into pessimism.

There are presently two opposing views among those in favour of reform: …

This opposition in the Democratic Party has been going on for some time. It could be characterized as a jockeying for dominance between the Howard Dean (liberal) wing and the Rahm Emmanuel (pragmatic) wing. Obama’s appointment of Rahm as WH Chief and his exiling of Howard Dean make clear his choice between the base and the establishment.

The pragmatic thinking, I believe, is that the base should be ignored at this time because throwing it red meat to get it excited would result in the administration being perceived as more left-leaning than the center would countenance. Obama and his strategists seem to think that the implosion of the GOP present the Democrats with a historic opportunity to tack to the center-right and capture moderate and conservative Dems, as well as many moderate Republicans disillusioned with their party. The presumption is that the base, which is much further to the left, has no choice but to come along. As a result, Howard Dean’s advice to confront the conservative ideology and its propaganda head on has been rejected in favor of remaining within the prevailing universe of discourse and even commandeering it.

Many think that is a big mistake, because elections are difficult to win without an activist base and certainly without a disgruntled base that sees itself as having been punked. This is especially true when the opposition’s base is extremely highly motivated.

From the liberal perspective is, of course, disappointing to win the WH and Congress and not carry out a traditional Democratic agenda. Liberals also question the strategy since Dean’s strategy was arguably a lot more successful in the past than Rahm’s. In addition, they point to the dismal Democratic turnout in New Jersey and Virginia, where GOP candidates won. Just as there is a lot of soul-searching going on in the GOP now that there is an open insurrection going on, so too, will there be one in Democratic circles after the Tuesday’s results. But until Obama replaced Rahm with Howard Dean, I won’t be looking for much change.

I think that we are still in the dénouement of Reaganism, which will end in a bigger crisis as the grand finale. There’s just too much momentum in that direction. Maybe then America will learn its lesson. Or not.

This opposition in the Democratic Party has been going on for some time. It could be characterized as a jockeying for dominance between the Howard Dean (liberal) wing and the Rahm Emmanuel (pragmatic) wing. Obama’s appointment of Rahm as WH Chief and his exiling of Howard Dean make clear his choice between the base and the establishment.

I’m not willing to tie the health care debate directly to this opposition. I happen to believe that a left-wing populist stance would definitely be the strategically correct one. I simply don’t believe that the Village would allow it at this point. Consequently, …

Tjfxh – you seem to consistently miss the point that I think Ian is trying to make. You keep talking about strategy as if it is divorced from the consequences of policy just as you insist on talking about economics rather than the practical consequences of actual policy changes that will create particular results. You and the media are stuck in the endless babble of disciplines created to describe what happened but which are powerless, ultimately to shape the future.

Ian says that the best strategy is good policy and you talk about the value of words, missing his point entirely. I find it incredibly frustrating that you keep highjacking Ian’s discussions about real things and real policy with your insistence on talking about talking. I think that what you have to say is interesting but way beside the point that I think Ian is trying to make. Actually I think that you actually make Ian’s point in counterpoint.

I’m not willing to tie the health care debate directly to this opposition.

Mandos, progressive sites like FDL and Dem sites like Kos have long been making the point that Rahm’s strategy of recruiting Blue Dogs is at the bottom of the problems that an overwhelmingly Democratic Congress is having getting things done on the president’s agenda, like health care and energy. They are livid about this and have been calling for Rahm’s ouster ever since he was appointed. No really progressive agenda can pass without being seriously watered down in this environment of Rahm’s creation. This is especially galling when Dean’s 50 state strategy turned out to be the right one, after the Establishment opposed it.

Aside from my belief that most of this will be moot, in light of climate change and resource depletion (a crash is inevitable regardless of the puppets pulling the economic strings), the upcoming Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission will probably provide the coup de grace against our electoral democracy (after the appointment of GWB to the presidency) in favor of the elite.

I sense a struggle for dominance between the Wall St. elite and the RW elite. which has purposefully been creating a populist army to support it. The question in my mind is whether a decision which increases elite cash in the electoral process will also tilt toward the RW elite’s push for fascism, as demonstrated by their efforts at creating an infrastructure for their dominance: recruitment of an army of teabagging brownshirts, coupled with their media’s priming these followers for unleashing violence against everything they perceive as ‘liberal’ or ‘socialist’? The Wall St. elite are loathed by all but the very few politicians who benefit from their largesse., and don’t seem to have planned ahead for influencing the electorate which will, soon enough, sour on the vapid message of ‘hope’ and ‘change’. Eliot Spitzer tells us how this will play out in 2010: http://www.newdeal20.org/?p=6046 “the White House defense of the status quo will give Republicans powerful ammunition in the 2010 elections.”

Paxton’s Five Stages of Fascism may be altered in our tripartite/two-party form of government. In our case, it may be the Supreme Court, as handmaiden to the (RW) elite, that provides the final nudge toward fascism, by tilting the playing field further toward the minority fascist party, (it is my belief that the GOP is paring itself down to its fascist core). But the factors favoring fascism here are the same: grid-locked government (the intentional policy of the GOP); Obama’s expedient dropping of his campaign promises, in order to continue the Bush/Cheney policy status quo; the weakening of the liberal state ongoing for 30 years; refusal to accept a growing Left as legitimate.

@ Howard

Ian says that the best strategy is good policy and you talk about the value of words, missing his point entirely

Obama said right off the bat that the best policy in health care is single-payer because it would provide universal coverage (a progressive goal) and reduce costs (a conservative goal). But he rejected in the next sentence as impractical in the US at this juncture because of the momentum of the existing system. Here, Obama admits to knowing what the best policy is and is saying that it is undoable strategically, so there is no sense in even considering it for discussion and debate. As are result we are going to get a bill that is unsatisfactory, if one ever does get to the president’s desk.

What are we supposed to do with that? There just isn’t the enthusiasm in the country to march on Washington, and all the progressive agitation so far isn’t working. Some progressives think that the left should try to force the progressive congress critters to kill any bill that is not single-payer. Others fear that this would kill the Dem majority. What do you suggest?

To assess the guilt and corruption of Obama the individual, the issue of elections is irrelevant.

Torture is a crime under applicable law, courtesy of Reagan. Torture cover-up is also a crime.

Either this is the rule of law, or it is not. If you consider mid-term elections to be relevant in any way to this discussion, you have found your answer. It is not my answer.

U Torture?

No let’s consider policy. Policy flows from values applied to facts (present conditions and desired outcomes). Without getting into a philosophical debate about values, they can be considered in terms of interest (Ralph Barton Perry), which determine preferences and priorities among available options. Values are influenced by feeling, upbringing, and social status more than by reason.

In the US there are basically two major values systems affecting politics and have been since the beginning of the Republic, having been inherited from England. These can be summarized under the modern rubric of liberal and conservative. This dichotomy began initially with differences between Jefferson and Hamilton, for example. Now it is epitomized by FDR and Ronald Reagan, the two dominant values paradigms still affecting the US. The US is now predominately Reaganite in mindset, but not necessarily with respect to underlying values.

George Lakoff has elaborated the relation of value and mindset to brain function. Brain studies show that neurological pathways are opened and expanded through use. The constant barrage of conservative propaganda and disinformation has opened and expanded pathways that characterize conservative ideas and value. It is not possible to hold relevant ideas without values and sentiment associated with them. That’s the way the brain works. So, successful propaganda engages both reason and emotion. Reason can be shaped through rhetoric and sophistry, and connected to powerful emotions that impel action. According to Lakoff, this has been the conservative SOP since Nixon (Roger Ailes, Lee Atwater and Karl Rove), but not the liberal one, which is based chiefly on reason. The current vision of America, the policy flowing from this, has been based on values shaped by conservatives. Liberals have largely been ineffective in either countering or replacing it.

Lakoff observes that most people are not uni-conceptual (either liberal or conservative) but bi-conceptual, having some values that are conservative and others that are liberal. These are the so-called moderates, centrists, or independents. There are no “independent” values per se. They are a mixture. This being the case, the liberal agenda should be to activate liberal values in the center and connect them with visceral emotions. The standard GOP procedure is to incite greed and instill fear. Liberals should focus instead on emotions that relate to positive values, like love and empathy, relying on the mirror neurons that all have but may not be using sufficiently to motivate them to altruism.

Liberal vision and policy depends on activating these positive values and suppressing negative values in the brain through use. This is real value of memes and memeplexes, frames and framing, and making one’s narrative the established narrative, thereby controlling the universe of discourse. When this narrative is established, it gets used over and over and becomes deeply imprinted neurologically through continue repetition. This is the value of a simple message and staying on message. For example, “death panels” may have been outrageous from the vantage of reason, but it has been very effective emotionally in instilling fear. Liberals need to find trigger like this of a positive nature.

Until liberal values predominate in people’s minds, the US is not going to have a liberal vision or successful liberal policies. Until then, the strategy is going to be focusing on countering the dominant conservatives values, mostly by compromising liberal principles.

Liberals cannot argue to liberal policies based on reasoning alone, e.g., that they are “reality-based,” and so should be accepted. Reality is perception for most people, and perception is colored by sentiment and interest. Therefore, progressives need to engage the values that motivate people to accept such policies as superior to policy based on conservative values, and connect these values with powerful emotions and interests. It’s really not all that hard.; FDR was very successful in doing it when a lot of people were in dire straits — like they are now.

Instead, it is the populists that are engaging them at the emotional level, and a lot of them are following Glen Beck, Sarah Palin, etc., in spite of the crazy and against all reason, as well as their own real interests. But no one but the president has the bully pulpit to counter the billionaires that are funding the crazy for their own interests. Instead, Obama has rejected the populist approach and liberals don’t have the billionaire champions to get them the needed exposure. So here we are on blogs that only a miniscule fraction of the population reads in comparison with Faux Noise, conservative talk radio, and the right wing think tanks and astroturf.

Howard, I happen to be a radical politically, rather than a modern liberal (center-left) or a progressive (moderate left). I think that Noam Chomsky, for example, has it right, so I am not advocating either liberal or progressive policy myself, although I support such policy as the next best thing.

I feel that many liberals and progressive think that minds can be changed through reasons chiefly or solely. I don’t think so, and I have given reasons based on contemporary understanding of how the brain functions. Leadership requires articulating a comprehensive vision, policies that set objectives, and a grand strategy for achieving these objectives. This requires carefully words as will as actions that bak them up. The opposition understand this. The opposition is essentially managed by the rich and influential. They use “public relations” consultants and firms to shape emotions and views. These public relations experts are actually experts in creating and deploying propaganda.

The president always wins by capturing the center as well as his base. This means he faces attacks from the right and the left. President Obama is in the position in the fashion that is determined by present conditions. He is attempting to govern (lead) by blunting those attacks while keeping his base in line and also expanding the center, especially in light of the GOP choice to move further to the right.

I don’t know what the president’s values are. It is possible he is a dyed in the wool liberal and it is possible he is a biconceptual centrist. But from the beginning, he has chosen to engage the center through bipartisanship, espousing both liberal and conservative values. He announced this in his maiden national speech at the national convention, when he said there is not a red America of a blue America, there is a United States of America. I am pretty sure that if he were on this thread he would say that this is overriding principle fashioning his vision, policy and governing style. I don’t think he is being cynical and just trying to capture the center. I think he is genuinely trying to unite the America that he sees too hopeless divided to be governable. And in doing this he is confronted with powerful interests that like things just as they are.

Liberals and progressives are left writing on blogs and calling their congress critters until we have another election. Not much of a bully pulpit. Oh, and yes, I have put in my time on the front lines and been tear gassed and watched my friends being beaten up and carted off to holding pens, waiting to be arraigned. That’s probably what’s it’s going to come to again, if they don’t invoke the Patriot Act, that is.

tjfxh, your belief in human articulateness and consistency is higher than mine: Until liberal values predominate in people’s minds, the US is not going to have a liberal vision or successful liberal policies. When people feel that they are respected, that those speaking to/with them understand, and that what is said is more promising than threatening, they will align themselves with you. You seem to be saying that people start from a consistent framework that they understand. I don’t think they do. I think they start from observations and feelings about things that strike them as right or wrong. Instead of thinking through and identifying causes and solutions, they adopt interpretations that are offered.

Take the wacky tea bagger parties. There are no conservative values there. But there was fear and anger. The economy has created a lot of hardship. But well-connected bankers got $millions in bonuses. There’s something going on with health care in a Congress and administration that has said there needs to be entitlement reform consisting of cutting benefits. And there’s a right wing that’s happy to tell the tea baggers that they’re right, and a so-called liberal establishment that just sneered at them. Now, they were involved in a tribal identification ritual that I don’t think could be overcome. But they’re just an extreme example of how most people who don’t follow news and policy carefully think. And most of those people will be reached if liberals could say, “Here’s where you’re right to be worried and angry, and here’s what we all can do together to make our lives better.” That’s the liberal vision and the liberal policies. I don’t think we’ll get there by expecting people to listen to our words for twenty years until they agree with us and then we’ll make their lives better.

I may have to join the fascists in hoping for Obama to fail. I just hope his failure becomes obvious by next year, in time for a real liberal to start raising money for the 2012 primaries. He may be better than Bush, but Bush brought us to the brink of oblivion. Obama has done nothing but buy us a little more time. He can run, but he can’t hide.

It would definitely not happen that way. An Obama failure would mean a Republican in 2012. Otherwise, third party fantasies would have come true by now.

I am going to pitch one small idea amongst these larger ones.

Symbolism.

Obama’s election was more symbolic of change than of substantial change and this is very much like Reagan’s election. Reagan came to power with the personality that appealed to lots of people in part because he was a cipher at that level. Yes, he broadcast his Neo-Goldwater views as Governor and before; his policy inclinations were predictable, but nobody seems to know to this day much about the guy except that he was affable. He was your symbolic ‘drinking buddy’ while being (in my view) an authoritarian.

Obama is being a cipher right now, but he seems to focus on issues and actions that are more symbolic in nature to maintain the notion of “hope” or “change”. Like Reagan, he relies on his underlings and staff to maneuver and strategize, but he himself is far more visible doing the symbolic things. These gestures set a tone of office and direction–symbolic perhaps of where he wants to be or where he is homing in. The main thing is, lke Reagan, he is generally more convincing that say Bush who attempted to make the gestures, but usually screwed them up by smirking too much or mangling the English language beyond all recognition.

I suppose what I am saying isn’t strictly symbolism so much as Reagan and Obama rely upon people deducing their intentions (like tjxfh admits) without providing much substance. We follow leaders who project personal leadership qualities, and these two guys have highly subjective–even Rohrshach-like qualities. Theyevoke a homing instinct to an America we recognize and desire, but they surely go about it in different ways—and they both use this very deliberately as emotional theatre. They use this facility to set the temperature of the political stew.

I think this symbolic approach is more powerful than we like or want to admit. I think it is probably as strong if not stronger than Lakeoff’s words argument. But even as it is powerful, it also more nuanced.

My 2 cents.

“So while I applaud President Obama’s shifting the symbolism away from Reaganism, he hasn’t really changed the Reaganite approach to governing. That is to say, he is still caught up in the “fiscal responsibility” meme and “victory” memes, which are pushing him center-right. However, center right is moving further rightward as the GOP becomes more extreme.”

I wish I were more of an historian, but it seems to me Obama might have capitalized on being a lot more like FDR and a lot less like Reagan in order to shift away from Reagan. I think this is the essence of the progressive critique of Obama as when you hear it from Krugman or Stiglitz on the economy, or many of the average joes on the street who can still recall the FDR era. FDR is on a kind of subconscious borderline between history and a dream for most Americans that his symbolic potential isn’t the same as Reagan. Still, Obama had (or has) one of those “teachable moments” to reconnect us to a symbol like FDR—and he doesn’t take advantage of it. The fear is becoming entangled in the “small government” and “socialism” language of the present. I think that is an gross miscalculation on Obama’s part, and I think we could all benefit from a solid history lesson, warts and all, about FDR.

gstash, thanks for the Chomsky link. It’s a great summary for the traditional media (in the UK, not US, of course). As Brad DeLong ofen lament’s, “Why can’t we have a decent press corps?”

On FDR. I think the OBama has run away from FDR because he is a socialist pariah to conservatives and he is tacking, right not left. He sees FDR as a divisive symbol, but apparently not Reagan, whom he has mentioned several time in a positive light. Maybe that says it all.

Not long ago I listened to John Keane talk about his new book “The Life and Death of Democracy” which is the first book in some years to examine what are the factors that allow a democracy to flourish or die. He is of the opinion that democracy in many first world countries is facing the greatest crisis of
legitimacy since the 1930’s. The big difference is that right now there is no Hitler or Stalin to rally the disaffected.

That could change with the rise of China. Keane thinks that the Chinese leadership are trying to adapt something what is done in Singapore. That is to have near absolute rule, but allow a process where the people can still “let go of steam” provided it is not focused on questioning the authority of the leadership. As China becomes more powerful, this model may become more attractive world wide. He was of the opinion that the future of the democracy will be settled by what happens in China and the US.

@ Ian Welsh;

I believe the forms of democracy in the US are still strong enough to overcome the oligarchy, at least in theory.
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Re: Dan Froomkin is calling for it in his Huff Po blog post, Want Obama To Be Bolder? Take To The Streets!.

IMO this is exactly what’s needed; but, it appears the citizenry are no longer ready or willing to do that. And this is the tipping point at which democracy fails; democracy isn’t free, it comes with a high price and only it’s citizens can pay and the currency is activism. IMO.