The Conscience of a Liberal

We have a complicated relationship, Paul Krugman and I.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/17/opinion/17krugman.html

Lately, I've been finding it difficult to stay together. Any rational human being has to accept that no two people would see eye to eye on every iota of thought conceivable. My mother and I fight over which member of Radiohead we like best (yes, my mom listens to Radiohead), despite being damn close on most things. I fight with my roomate on the necessity to buy decent chicken, despite acknowledging that he and I see eye to eye on nearly everything. But once in a while, you can learn something about someone else that shakes the foundation of your relationship to the core: a belief in a construct so fundamental that it defines the rest of that relationship. In the best of scenarios, this has been with my ex-girlfriend. Believe me when I tell you all that realizing this was certainly for the best.

However, I'm a bit more disturbed by what I now see in Paul Krugman. Ever the brilliant ideologue of my darling liberal wing, Paul Krugman has explained to me practical economics in terms that I can understand both as a mind and a liberal, without requiring me to sacrifice a fraction of my political beliefs. He made the scourge of the horrendously un-democratic eighties into a phenomenon explained by titanic corporate interests, in no way related to the economic failings of a wayward Democratic Party. He, in short, was the liberal for me.

That's why this op-ed was disconcerting. Perhaps I'm alone in doing this, but I don't associate liberalism with a specific set of values and policy goals confined to populism on economic issues and libertarianism (I hate the concept too--see Hope's post below) on social issues. I agree whole-heartedly, 100,000% with these policy notions, believe me. And I despise corporate interests. It's cancerous to American democracy and fundamentally contradictory to our own democratic processes.

However, I arrived at these policy conclusions by a much more powerful notion--the idea of a greater personal philosophy that doesn't govern just what I think of politics, but also what I think of life. I think I owe no less to my decisions than the full-force of m intellect. I sound like a gas-bag, but bare with me here: my idea of liberalism is more of an approach to life than a quarantined set of political expressions. And Paul Krugman just proved to me that he doesn't feel at all the same way.

Paul Krugman would have us believe that to rant on the litany of political philosophies that define liberalism is pragmatic. He'd say (in fact, he DOES say) that the grandeur of the "big table" will yield Democrats nothing in politics but for us to buckle to special interests and lose our goals once again to the pernicious interests of powerful lobbies entirely removed from the Democratic process. He says that Barack Obama comes off as "naive." He's likening John Edwards to FDR, he's saying that John Edwards, showing so much more of an "I'm angry, heed my warnings, be mad as hell" kind of bravado, will curb the insidious influence of lobbies by shutting them out.

This is not liberal. Liberalism is about the pursuit of consent in society, and American liberalism in particular emphasizes that the government has been playing an active role in achieving this consensus. Liberalism, however, is an awkward political ideology in the face of competition: it tends to settle with dissent rather than to fight it. It tends to take dissenters seriously, asking what they mean, and implementing gradual changes sure to gain the full support of our own democracy. Barack Obama is the ultimate liberal candidate, and not because he advocates the best health care plan (he doesn't), or the best urban poverty action plan (not great, but I argue, still better than Edwards), or the most cohesive foreign action plan (I might have to give this one to Biden). Barack Obama is an ideal liberal because his policy ends are driven deeply by the concepts of giving health care to every American. He believes this must be done gradually to convince the American people that this is something that they need. Barack Obama would rather show America that he is right than hammer a message on late night news, shrieking to people about why we need "x" or "y." I agree with what these people are saying, but I don't always agree with why.

This is especially true now, when Americans had what Krugman was suggesting three years ago. They got a message--perhaps more mean-spirited and reckless--that was hammered into their minds. Terrorism, Iraq, threat. Now people feel like they were had by a bunch of people concerned strictly with their own ends. It was a remarkable electoral strategy, but not one to be adopted at the cost of making the country pissed at its government for God knows how long.

And what I find most entertaining about all this is that Krugman had hoped to explain why Edwards was better from a strategic standpoint--that there really isn't nearly as much merit to this "big tent" construct, and that we're bound to get a lot more done by raising hell. He cites polling data, accounting specifically for why the notion of campaigning on populism is "convenient" and "palatable" at this time of national discontent.

No liberal in her or his right mind would think this. This again is catering to the lurid idea of believing that polls are a more appropriate substitute than the national dais where we get to discuss all this. Liberals don't believe that Americans are stupid, and they know that they have time on their side. They believe that with years and years of history to support their works, people will come around even if they don't know the power of liberal ideology. They will eventually come to embrace that history has been very good to liberals, that people are more enfranchised now--more empowered now--than they have ever been. To stress a bottom line, Paul Krugman is in no way any better than the partisans on the Right that he derides. What he doesn't realize is that to replace partisans on the Right with partisans on the left will only exacerbate how Americans feel about their won government right now. A liberal, a real liberal, would work to restore confidence in the American system. She or he wouldn't bow to the anemic notion that liberalism of policy has to work within the conservative status quo.

I realize that much of that was a bit ridic, but to give you some perspective on what I'm thinking, read this article by David Brooks. I thought for sure that I would never see a day when I loved something written by someone who repulses me, and I would be repulsed by someone who, I thought, loved me. Life is funny that way.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/18/opinion/18brooks.html?hp