James Poulos and Rod Dreher think I'm misreading Matt Taibbi's cri de coeur about the lameness of liberalism, and maybe I am. I think they're misreading the contemporary American left, though, if they think there's any kind of significant fusionism waiting to happen between disillusioned lefties and the anti-Bush Right. Sure, on the margins you can find some left-wingers "experiencing the [same] sort of nauseous reappraisal of Democratic orthodoxy as certain young conservatives are concerning post-Bush Republican orthodoxy," as Poulos puts it. But most of the smart young lefties I know aren't interested in some grand convergence with disillusioned populist-conservatives; they're interested in harnessing the kind of "office-park populism" that gave us Jim Webb and Sherrod Brown and Jon Tester in order to dramatically expand social democracy in the United States. For some, this means a return the old-time religion (a higher minimum wage, strong unions, government jobs programs, etc.); for others, it means a smarter, more growth-friendly form of social democracy (think Denmark, rather than France); for most, it means some combination thereof. But the overall model is still bigger government plus cultural permissiveness, not some kind of "small is beautiful" left-conservatism out to defend the permanent things against the ravages of modernity.
The left's vision of an expanded welfare state as both the answer to populist anxieties and the guardian of social liberalism is a perfectly coherent worldview, and it's one that I think has a good chance of accomplishing many of its objectives over the next few decades. (When I say that things are going well for liberals right now, that's what I mean - not just the Dems might trounce the GOP in '08, but that the overall political climate is as favorable to social democracy as it's been in thirty years.) But it's not the kind of worldview that's likely to want, or need, an alliance with the partisans of crunchy conservatism and putting Kansas First. Rod Dreher would find things to like about a more Europeanized United States - there'd be more concern about the environment; more vacation days for working parents; lots of anti-consumerist rhetoric floating around; and so forth. But it would be a defeat, not a victory, for his side of things, and all the failings of the contemporary Republican Party shouldn't convince anyone otherwise.
The left's vision of an expanded welfare state as both the answer to populist anxieties and the guardian of social liberalism is a perfectly coherent worldview...
Do you really think so, Ross? In my dark moments, I agree with you. But the one thing that keeps me hopeful is that populism, of any form, is unavoidably tied to localities, to groups, to places, all of which have--whether they consciously recognize it or not--identities and structures and forms of life which go along with their interests. So each and every time any kind of genuine populism appears, is cannot avoid pushing forward a sense of "we"-ness, a sense of "this-is-the-way-we-do-things-here"-ness. Now, of course, the-way-we-do-things-here could be socially liberal. But it can't be completely given over to "cultural permissiveness," because such individualistic do-your-own-thing attitudes are fundamentally incompatible with the necessarily identitarian/communitarian aspect of populism.
So, as I see things, those progressives on the left who really genuinely believe that an expanded welfare state alone will simultaneously answer populist anxieties and guard social liberalism (as opposed to those who are simply good old-fashioned liberals) are eventually going to be forced to compromise on one or the other; either their populist language will become fake, or social liberalism will be moderated somewhat. Unfortunately, the likely compromise will be the former, rather than the latter. But at least that gives us (I think eight or so!) left conservatives an edge to work with.
Posted by Russell Arben Fox | June 19, 2007 3:56 PM