Obama, the left, and the two-party system

Freddie deBoer had a good post recently bemoaning Obama's illiberal tendencies. You should read the whole thing, but this passage touches on something I've been thinking about lately:

Not a day goes by where I argue politics online without some Obama supporter hurling invective at me and insisting that I have no choice, that if I refuse to vote for Obama I am in essence voting for Michelle Bachmann [sic], that it's a two party system and I should just take it and like it, or, most absurdly, that he secretly is pursuing my agenda and I'm just too stupid to read the tea leaves and SEE. (Andrew Sullivan's "meep meep" thing has become the rallying cry of daydream believin' Kool-Aid drinkers everywhere.)

This takes me back to Nader-Gore-Bush circa 2000, when Nader was excoriated by partisan Democrats for "stealing" the election from Gore and derisively labeled a "spoiler." The longtime consumer advocate—and erstwhile liberal hero—was subsequently blamed for a litany of Bush excesses and, in the process, Democratic politicos were let off the hook for backing the Iraq War and the Patriot Act. It wasn't these "pragmatists"—who had served as docile enablers—who should be upbraided, but the leftists and liberals who supported Nader.

I'll admit it: I'm still sore about how Eric Alterman and other partisan ciphers treated Nader, one of the most principled, indefatigable champions of liberal and small-d democratic causes in the last half-century. It was repugnant tribalism and a low point for the Democratic establishment. Lingering vexation aside, though, the pillorying of Nader is a useful case study for how centrists and partisans—in this case, Obama devotees—shouldn't act toward those who flank them from the left.

Just as the left should recognize how closely its success is tied to the vibrancy of the center-left, the future viability of the center-left project is contingent on the left's ability to shift the center, to transmute and transform the present paradigm; dispense with the acrimony and embrace the symbiosis. (Read Ta-Nehisi Coates for his perceptive take.)

So how will this play out in 2012? It's not looking good. I'd be astonished if the election isn't marked by Obama acolytes telling the disgruntled left to genuflect or go to hell (but still vote for Obama, mind you). Here's Glenn Greenwald on what us on the left should expect:

"In other words: it makes no difference to us how much we stomp on liberals' beliefs or how much they squawk, because we'll just wave around enough pictures of Michele Bachmann and scare them into unconditional submission. That's the Democratic Party's core calculation: from "hope" in 2008 to a rank fear-mongering campaign in 2012. Will it work? The ones who will determine if it will are the intended victims of that tactic: angry, impotent liberals whom the White House expects will snap dutifully into line no matter what else happens (even, as seems likely, massive Social Security and Medicare cuts) between now and next November."

Look, I'm an idealist. I have to be, or I'd already find myself despondent and jaundiced, a political eunuch. (Saul Alinsky's quote about fanning "the embers of hopelessness into a flame to fight" is apropos.)

For a leftist like myself, one must be realistic without resigning oneself to realpolitik. In this context that amounts to acknowledgment of a few things: The United States has a two-party system largely for incorrigible, institutional reasons. Even non-institutional factors—media attention, money, automatic ballot-access—give major parties an enormous leg up. Third-party presidential candidacies are often forlorn affairs.

None of this should make us all run to the nearest milquetoast major-party candidate, though, desperate for political relevancy. First-past-the-post system or not, we live in a democracy (or, to be more specific, a representative democracy—and a rather emaciated one at that). At its core our system of government should be an affirmation of the primacy of citizens over politicians; unwavering devotion to a given candidate is anathema the democratic ethos that should pervade the polity.

The point I'm making should, I think, be noncontroversial. But the noxiousness and ubiquity of vacuous partisanship is such that it's worth amplifying: Obama—or Gore, or Bush, or any other politician—has to earn the votes of different constituencies and ideological cohorts. If Obama's record is an affront to liberal values, if he has deviated and triangulated his way to the center-right, if he has failed to advancing a reasonably left-wing agenda, then the left has every right to reconsider its support. This is the stuff of electoral politics.

The left doesn't owe the Democratic Party anything. The left doesn't owe Obama anything. The left doesn't owe any politician anything.

Rhetoric that suggests otherwise is both condescending and vaguely authoritarian.

A bunch of columns

I thwarted my own plan to post all my weekly columns here. So here's some desperate catch-up; my column last week was my final DI column.

"Educating for democracy," July 27
"Iowans witnessing executive power-grabbing," July 20
"Long into Obama's term, foreign policy still unacceptable," July 14
"GOP suddenly goes antiwar," June 29
"Cereal politics," June 22
"Business skills don't automatically mirror political success," June 15

I also have another guest post at The League of Ordinary Gentlemen on charter schools and the left.

"Getting at first principles in the education debate"

E.D. Kain has been nice enough to let me guest-blog at The League of Ordinary Gentlemen, one of my favorite blogs. Here's my first post:

The shift in E.D. Kain’s thinking on education reform of late has been an interesting and, I think, beneficent one for reform discourse. Kain basically blanched when he began to perceive he was too strongly in the “anti-reform” camp (few are actually anti-reform, but that’s the unfortunate appellation ascribed to opponents of Duncan, et al). He recently wrote this mea culpa at Forbes:

“I took a decidedly partisan approach to school reform over the past few months. Instead of approaching the education reform debate as a skeptic, I have approached it as an advocate against the modern reform movement itself and all that entails. I largely ignored the institutional problems with the status quo, and I gave the teachers’ unions a free pass. As I wrote from a position much further to the left of my usual writing, I felt more and more like a conservative standing athwart history shouting ‘Stop!’”

He’s also had incisive things to say about powerful forces in the reform debate, including unions:

“My position is that where unions are wrong (or where I think they are wrong) I will criticize them. As a broader point, I will maintain a general skepticism toward the unions because they are so powerful. This is the same skepticism I will maintain toward the reformers because they are also so powerful. As Kevin rightly argues, every big human institution has its pathologies.”

I’m not unsympathetic, but I think Kain is slightly misguided in his characterization of unions and his optimism about some reforms. Teachers unions will absolutely fight reforms that would hurt their members or vitiate the workplace rights of educators: Unions will fight the expansion of charter schools if they are anti-union. They will fight pervasive standardized testing that debases the teaching profession and education more generally. And they will ensure teachers are given due process before being terminated (a basic democratic right that is overlooked with the trite “they protect bad teachers” argument). It’s certainly possible that unions can stand in the way of needed reforms.

Ideally, in fact,I’d support banning union and corporate political contributions. But I have seen much more good from unions–even in the public policy arena, to say nothing of the workplace gains that they’ve precipitated–than bad. And teachers unions, for all their faults, are infinitely more democratic than the Gates Foundation.

On the second point, I’m glad that Kain has retained a modicum of skepticism about reforms; he’s optimistic without moving into pollyanna territory:

Sure, we should remain skeptical of the next reform fad, but we still need to try out new ideas, give choice a chance, and and remain just as skeptical of the status quo. We aren’t going to reach enlightenment overnight. Our knowledge will always be limited. Such is the nature of something as complex as education in a diverse nation of over three hundred million people.

And so we must push forward in spite of our uncertainty.

I don’t completely disagree and, to his credit, Kain has unswervingly supported bottom-up reform schemes. I worry, I guess, that Kain is taking too much of a “kitchen sink” approach. Reforms need to be informed by empirical research (or at least a strong sense that they will achieve one’s normative goals).

Right now this is where I come down on education reform, as elucidated in a column I wrote this week:

We should significantly increase teacher entrance and hiring standards, step up attempts to attract the smartest, most capable college graduates to the profession, and raise teacher salaries. Once they’re in the profession, we should give teachers autonomy and free them of the strictures imposed by pervasive standardized testing. De-emphasizing multiple-choice testing in favor of engaging and holistic curricula, the end goal of education wouldn’t be merely training the next generation of workers for corporate employment; critical citizenship would be prioritized over docile acceptance of the status quo.Public charter schools could also be part of the mix — they contribute to educational pluralism — but they would have to allow unionization or some type of workplace representation for teachers. (This could be an interesting area for innovation, in fact: Maybe retain the current union model for traditional schools, but have individual unions at each charter school. Such a change could cut through union bureaucracy and allow for more decentralization and rank-and-file teacher participation.)

In addition, charter schools would have to be regulated to ensure quality, couldn’t be run by for-profit companies, and, ideally, would be midwifed by educators and community members.

Child poverty and resegregation also need to be addressed.

On the whole, Kain’s rhetorical shift is salutary stuff. If you follow the education reform debates, you know it has gotten super polarized — you’re either a recalcitrant mossback in the tank for teachers unions or a harebrained reactionary out to destroy public education. When blinkered dogmatism and hyperbolic rhetoric supplant reasoned rumination, impoverished debate ensues. In this type of environment, incredulity, nuance-adding, and elevating the level of discourse (as Kain has done) are all good things.

With that said, I think some reformers do want to fundamentally alter the education system in ways I find repugnant. And you have people like Jonathan Alter—who has openly said “I loathe the teacher’s unions”—calling the education reform movement “the most significant social movement of our time.” It shouldn’t come as a shock that many on the left are incensed. The lines have been drawn, and unions are seeing their biggest adversaries as an existential threat. The perception of existential threats prompts overheated rhetoric.To be fair, most reformers don’t want to deracinate the entire system. (Although some do.) But movement reformers are calling for changes like test-based accountability–not necessarily out of cupidity or malice–that I think would make our problems worse.

It’s also the way in which corporate reformers are going about changing the system. For the most part, dictates have been handed down from on high, whether in New York City, D.C., or Chicago. Similarly, with the rise of education philanthropy and The Billionaire Boys Club, as Diane Ravitch calls them, education policy is increasingly the province of the affluent, rather than community members, school boards, and educators.

Bill Gates could have all the integrity in the world, be spot-on policy wise, and I would still take umbrage at his attempts to remake public education. His outsized influence over education policy causes me consternation not solely due to my policy disagreements with him, but because his actions are an affront to political equality. Much as I respect and admire Ralph Nader, I’m not ready to give up on democracy and proclaim that “Only the Super-Rich Can Save Us.”

Frankly, it’s also offensive that so many businesspeople and economists think that the rules of business are prima facie translatable to the education arena. There are few areas in which outsiders with so little knowledge arrogantly claim so much perceptiveness. This specious straddling highlights another problem with the education reform debate: Ends are often regarded as self-evident. It’s a bit more complicated than agreeing that, yes, we all want an education system where students are well-educated. Reform discourse needs to include discussions of first principles, end-games, and educational values. (Technocratic wonk-types like Ezra Klein side-step these types of inquiries all the time.)

What are the core goals of education? How do different reform proposals inadvertently (or intentionally) advance (or undermine) these goals? To what extent should we prioritize equality over individualism (or vice versa)? These kinds of questions need to be asked. Otherwise you could come to the conclusion that the only thing separating Arne Duncan from leftist education reformers is a difference of opinion on what works.

And what a silly notion that would be.

Education reform and child poverty

Here's my column this week, entitled "Poor children, poor schools."

E.D. Kain on Gary Johnson

E.D. Kain has an interesting follow-up post on Republican presidential candidate Gary Johnson (unfortunately it's at Balloon Juice, so he's being buffeted by a fusillade of inane comments).

In his initial post over the weekend, Kain first offered a caveat — "I don’t know what I’ll do when it comes time to pull the lever " — before lauding Johnson's opposition to militarism and the war on drugs. Kain also acknowledged the myriad issues with which him and Johnson disagreed, but doubted whether the former New Mexico governor would be able to enact his preferred policies on such issues:

In other words, if you’re president it’s really hard to enact the domestic legislation you had in mind, but it’s really easy – almost effortless – to start dropping bombs half a world away. And this is exactly why I can imagine myself supporting Gary Johnson. I don’t think he’d have much luck at all with his domestic spending agenda, except at the margins.

The post was no encomium, but it's also no surprise it roiled some readers. As I've written before, left-liberals and libertarians often have a mutual disdain for each other.

In his Balloon Juice post, though, Kain appears to have backtracked. First, he contends that single-issue support could be equated with unalloyed backing of Johnson:

Probably the best argument against supporting Johnson is this: supporting a candidate based on a single-issue alliance is not as effective as supporting a cause. It’s also more dangerous because if that cause becomes too embodied by that candidate, then the rest of his ideas – like abolishing the Fed, for instance – can then become conflated with the good cause as well. And so you weaken and undermine those ideas by associating them too closely with the bad ideas of the candidate you supported.

Here's his second argument:

If you want a more anti-war, civil-liberties-based liberalism than you have to argue for it, work with activists to build up grass-roots support for those policies, and vote for local and state candidates who support those ideas.

As a small-d democrat, I'm sympathetic to Kain's second point. I despise Schumpeter-style democracy. Of course leftists (and libertarians, I'd add) need to build grassroots support for ending the drug war and foreign interventionism. And partisan ciphers have been known to kill grassroots movements. But we're talking about presidential politics. Does Kain believe that left-liberals must jettison Johnson in order to build grassroots support for such policies? Does the one obviate the other?

And on the first point, what happened to Kain's optimism about Johnson's domestic impotence (save for ending the drug war)? I'm incredibly skeptical, for instance, a Johnson presidency would result in a shuttered Fed.

Second, it's a matter of priorities. Johnson is also a big fan of school vouchers. I'm not. Johnson probably wouldn't get his entire education agenda enacted, but he'd likely push the nation's education system in a deleterious direction. The question for those on the Left, then, is whether the status quo is so repugnant, so repellent that they're willing to bite the bullet and support a potentially unpalatable denizen of the White House that also abhors the War on Drugs.

Like Kain, I can't commit to voting for Johnson in the general election — it's way too early. (At this point, I also can't fathom voting for Obama.) Without some pressure against the current political paradigm, though, the bipartisan baseline will only continue. That's why a broad-based Left-libertarian alliance on the aforementioned national issues — and left-liberal backing for Johnson, at least during the primaries — is so important.

One final point: Kain's contention that those on the Left should "vote for local and state candidates" that favor "anti-war, civil-liberties-based liberalism" seems kind of silly. These aren't the people enacting pro-war policies. It's great if my local council member opposes the Libyan intervention, but he or she has little say in the matter.

In a similar vein, the issues of import in state and local politics are often the issues on which libertarians and leftists diverge. Seeing Tea Party governors in action — LePage, Snyder, and Scott have been the most ignominious — has reminded me how of little I have in common with small-government types on the state and local levels.

On the national level, it's different. The drug war needs to end. Civil liberties need to be restored. Bellicose foreign policy needs to come to a halt. Johnson is no savior. No politician is. But in the presidential election, he's the best chance the Left has to alter the conversation.

UPDATE: E.D. Kain responded to my post; here's the link: http://tinyurl.com/43qz22j

Updating

So I've been bad about posting my last couple columns. Here they are (I didn't have a column in last week's paper):

"Who's the real conservative?", April 14

"Leftists: Caucus libertarian," April 7

In the second piece, I argued the Left should back Republican presidential hopeful Gary Johnson (at least in the primary season):

Issue-based alliances between libertarians and the political left are needed to confront the bipartisan consensus of militarism, corporatism, mass incarceration, an unaccountable executive, and the erosion of civil liberties. The odious amalgam has become the norm that, save for a radical change, will only become more entrenched.

That’s where Johnson comes in.

The left won’t be amenable to Johnson’s agenda on most fiscal and economic issues. (I also find his enthusiastic cheerleading for school vouchers and support for privatized prisons as New Mexico governor deplorable.)

But he supports limiting America’s military footprint abroad, legalizing marijuana, and halting civil-liberty curtailment.

Contrast that with Obama’s horrendous record on foreign policy, drug policy, and civil liberties. I don’t think you’d see Johnson trying Khalid Sheik Mohammed before a military commission or tacitly accepting the inhumane treatment of Bradley Manning.

The column attracted some attention — Johnson re-tweeted it, and E.D. Kain, one of my favorite bloggers, quoted it in a post at his Forbes blog this weekend. Plaudits are always nice.

BVP and me

My column this week is entitled "The limits of democracy," in which I discuss Bob Vander Plaats and the ineradicable conflict of liberal individualism and democratic self-governance in liberal democracies:

For Vander Plaats and other social conservatives, morality is the bedrock of a prosperous society. As he said at the Sycamore Mall on Wednesday, “This thing called a republic hinges on two inseparable rungs: religion and morality.”

Social conservatives talk about the importance of “traditional marriage” and “family values.” At issue, though, is whether the electorate can impose its conception of morality without unduly limiting personal liberties.

It’s a precarious balance, indeed...

I want a society in which citizen power — rather than technocratic elites and high-powered lobbyists — rules the day. I want a society in which due process and agency aren’t limited to the political process but extend into the workplace. In sum, I want a vibrant democratic society that doesn’t infringe upon inviolate rights.

Vander Plaats is right: We do need more democracy.

But not as a means to take away minority rights.