Something that has frustrated me with fellow travelers on the Left is a seeming inability to use the word "liberal" when describing political views. Many have opted for the word "progressive" instead. At last night's CNN/YouTube debate, Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY), referred to herself as a "modern progressive." I have heard others say "I don't like labels" or "labels don't matter" or other vapid things like that. I will use this post to address the proud liberal tradition in America and urge my fellow liberals to stop being afraid of the word "liberal" and to reclaim it from the right.
Liberals have a long and proud tradition in American politics, dating all the way back to Thomas Jefferson, the founder of the Democratic-Republican Party, which would become the Democratic Party (and
not the Democrat Party, a term which was first coined by Senator Joseph McCarthy (R-WI) and popularized by Lee Atwater, who noticed that you can put the accent on "rat" if done just right) under Andrew Jackson in 1824, when the Democratic-Republican Party split into the Democratic Party and the National-Republican Party. We have been the constant champion of working class people in this country. Admittedly, for the longest time there was a small government aspect to liberalism, but that was in part a reaction to royalism and authoritarianism, which had its first semi-support in the United States under Alexander Hamilton, the first Treasury Secretary and the first person to get shot by a sitting Vice President. This was because they had long seen the government used to give special privilege to the wealthy. Jefferson's ideal was "the yeoman farmer," an educated, rural person, which is fitting because of the Democratic-Republican Party's strength in the rural South.
However, liberalism is nothing if not pragmatic, and Andrew Jackson fought to bring democracy to the masses, by fighting to expand the franchise (In the 1820's, the franchise increaseed from landowners to most white men, which, while not perfect, was an improvement.) and making his appeals to the common people. In 1824, when the Electoral College sent the election into the House, which elected John Quincy Adams, one of the National Republicans, who finished second to Jackson in both the popular and electoral vote, after a "corrupt bargain" with fourth place finisher (and thus excluded from the vote in the House), Congressman Henry Clay of Kentucky, Jackson toured the country calling for the abolition of the Electoral College. You can argue whether or not he was right to go after Biddle's Bank, but he did so because he felt that it was acting in the interests of the priveleged over the few.
At the turn of the 20th Century, after about 40 years of dominance by conservatives, a young orator and populist, Congressman William Jennings Bryan (D-NE), went to the Democratic convention and famously gave the "Cross of Gold" speech that propelled him, at the age of 36, into the Democratic nomination over President Grover Cleveland (making Bryan the youngest major party Presidential nominee, a record that holds to this day and will probably never be broken) and reclaiming the Democratic Party mantle for liberals. Even though he would fail in all three Presidential bids he made (1896, 1900 and 1908), his calls for an income tax, direct election of Senators and women's sufferage would all be heeded in the Sixteenth, Seventeenth and Nineteenth Amendments, respectively.
In 1932, a patrician governor of New York, Franklin D. Roosevelt, electrified a country mired in the Great Depression, and promised a vigorous effort by the government to get people back to work and restore faith in America. This was at a time when many people began to see as attractive the Save Our Wealth proposals by Senator Huey Long (D-LA), which promised a tax of 100% on all incomes over $1 million and all assets over $5 million. Rather than go the route of socialism, Roosevelt studied the work of British economist John Maynard Keynes, a committed capitalist who felt that the best way to have prosperity was to regulate capitalism, thus making the free market system more transparent, more honest, and more effective. This also led to the slate of programs known as the New Deal which got people working, prepared a retirement, gave the people a minimum wage, the right to organize, and paved the way for the middle class as we know it today. Then, he acted decisively and led this country through most of World War II, dying just weeks before V-E Day.
In 1946, Harry S Truman, a man who had greatness thrust upon him after succeeding to the Presidency with the highly unenviable task of filling FDR's shoes, realized that it was time to expand the policies of FDR to benefit all Americans, and he desegregated the military. The next year, he enacted the Marshall Plan, which rebuilt Europe and gave the United States and early edge in the Cold War. In 1948, despite the grumblings of Governor Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, President Truman insisted on the full support of civil rights in the Democratic platform, which led to the Dixiecrat revolt. He also battled former Vice President and Commerce Secretary Henry Wallace, who wanted appeasement with the Soviet Union, who bolted and ran a third-party movement to Truman's left. Despite all this, Truman won the 1948 election and paved the way in foreign policy and civil rights, and began the long struggle for universal health insurance.
In 1962, John F. Kennedy worked smartly and effectively in ending the Cuban Missile Crisis, the closest this country ever came to nuclear war, and one year later was instrumental in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which has helped curb the spread of nuclear weapons.
Faced with poverty in American, President Lyndon B. Johnson embarked on the War on Poverty, which did not eliminate pvoerty, but sharply reduced it. In 1964, he got the Civil Rights Act passed and signed, even though he knew that he had just "lost the South for a generation." Under his hardworking and hardball style, we saw Medicare, Food Stamps, Head Start and other programs that we take for granted today.
What did each of these people have in common? They were all liberals. They were all proud of being liberals. They all fought for justice and expanded those notions in their own time. So, why are so many people afraid of the word "liberal"? Even George Lakoff, the author of
Don't Think of an Elephant! the book that lays out the connections that lie behind the things we say, uses the word "progressive." I am well aware of the fact that Republicans have turned the word into a slur, but retreating from it means that they are the only ones who get to define it, and we will never get the chance to make the shange that we want to make until we do like Homer Simpson would advise, when he told Milhouse, "Stand up for yourself, Poindexter!" So, I hope that fear isn't the reason why so many people avoid it.
As Lakoff points out, labels are important, because they are the way that people connect to other ideas. He calls this concept "framing." So, to avoid labels means that you are, in essence, rejecting your own world view. There are different philosophies and points of view, and some of them just come closer to different labels. To say that labels don't matter is to ignore political philosophies and world views and do the public dialogue a great disservice.
I have heard some on the left say that the don't like the word "liberal" because of its connections to the muscular foreign policy of the Cold War and imperialism. Have these people read their history?
One of the other problems with people who call themselves "progressive" is that they can't seem to define what progressive is. I've even seen the laughable definition of a "non-ideological ideology." History is not a much better guide, because there are three distinct eras of the progressive movement in America, and they were all vastly different.
The first was that of Teddy Roosevelt. For the people who complain about using liberal because of people like Kennedy who were so hawkish and imperial, they seem to ignore the fact that Teddy Roosevelt is the father of American imperialism. (I am not including Manifest Destiny because, while it was about the expansion of territory, it was about expansion on the North American continent and, until the 1840's, was based on going after territories held by European powers.) He was the one who led the charge up San Juan Hill in the Spanish-American War, which was the first manifestation of global ambitions for the United States. While there are some things that liberals can be proud of from this era, such as Trust Busting and child labor laws, this certainly flies in the face of the arguments by those who are trying to say that progressive is a mellow word.
Then, there was the progressivism of "Fighting Bob" LaFollette, who left the Republican Party in 1924 to run for President under the label of Progressive. This was not the Bull Moose Progressives of Teddy Roosevelt, but an argument for good government and ballot initiatives, as well as popular elections of judges. Considering that it is unethical for judges to campaign based on their previous rulings, or to decide on things where they have already stated a preference, is this a good thing? Also, look at the TABOR in Colorado and Proposition 13 in California. The former led to a situation where it had to be altered by 2005 or else the state would become the first in the nation to privatize the state university system due to lack of funds. In the case of California, so much spending is dictated by more and more propositions, despite the fact that Prop 13 really harms the right of the government to collect revenue, and another initiative requires a 2/3 majority for any budget, making the state virtually ungovernable. Is this what the progressives of today want?
Then, there was the revolt of Henry Wallace, who founded another party called the Progressive Party in 1948. This was in opposition to things like the Marshall Plan which rebuilt Europe and the efforts by the Truman Administration to come to the aid of those who opposed communism. Instead, Wallace encouraged strong relations with Stalin and an attempt to remain allies after World War II. Wallace was elected Vice President in 1940, but kicked off the ticket in 1944 for his sympathies toward Stalin and other proposals. Harry S Truman also fired him as Commerce Secretary after his public opposition to the Truman Doctrine and efforts to coddle the Soviet Union. He would break from the Progressives in 1950 because of his support for the United States in the Korean War, seemingly repenting from his progressive ways.
Is this what people really want to support when they call themselves "progressive"? On a message board a couple of years ago, someone told me that I should support his proposal for an asset tax as opposed to a more progressive income tax with fewer deductions ("progressive income tax" is a technical term for the type of system of taxation) if I "want to be a progressive." Well, I'm not a progressive, I'm a liberal. It is a tradition that I proudly support and am willing to work in to help advance it. Don't call me progressive, call me liberal.
Labels: Politics
