Here, I'll just repost most of the article:
SOMETHING HAPPENS to a political party when it is not just out of power but has had to play on the home field of its opponents for a generation: It loses faith in itself and becomes scared. Like the 98-pound weakling who lives in fear of the school bully, it will say anything to avoid being stuffed into a gym locker: I don't really believe in anything! I don't stand for anything! Please just leave me alone!
That this has become true in the Democratic Party is clear in listening to the worried words of pundits and political professionals who counsel Democrats to avoid offering any vision or direction for the country — to instead simply wait for voters to so tire of Republican mismanagement that they will turn to more "competent" Democrats to administer a conservative state. Maureen Dowd, for instance, argued recently that "big ideas" don't matter — "what matters," she wrote, "is the bearer of an idea." James Carville — the architect of Bill Clinton's 1992 victory — told Newsweek that "the American people are going to be ready for an era of realism. They've seen the consequences of having too many 'big ideas.' "
And in these pages, Jonathan Chait cynically dismissed any talk of "vision" or "ideas" and instead argued that Democrats should not formulate a coherent worldview because, for progressives, "everything works on a case-by-case basis." This ad hoc approach to politics misunderstands the basics of American history and underestimates the power of ideas in shaping it. It may win an odd election here or there in spite of itself, but ultimately, it is a losing strategy for any political party.
Ideas have driven American politics since the founding of the republic. The U.S. was established on grand notions of democracy and freedom that were radical breaks with the entire history of the world to that point. In the 19th century, Jacksonian ideas about opportunity for all, not just the few, were brought to life through the Homestead Act, the transcontinental railroad and the land grant colleges. When industrialization came to remake the face of American life at the turn of the last century, the progressives rethought how government and society should work to adapt to the new Machine Age and its urban centers. Eventually, these ideas were realized in Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal and came to define and delimit the debate over government for the rest of the 20th century.
The leaders who brought about these changes did not approach their work on a case-by-case basis, nor did they simply see their jobs as conscientiously administering the machinery of government so that it ran smoothly. Instead, they had ambition and a vision of how the world should work. Although their innovations may seem commonplace now, these visions often represented a radical break from the prevalent dogma of the moment, emerging from outside the accepted bounds of debate...
Now, it is progressives that have a choice. Most of the voices inside Washington believe that conservative errors and overreaching — along with more effective voter targeting and door-knocking by Democrats, more compelling TV ads and new "frames" for old policies — will yield enough votes so that in a closely divided nation, Democrats might eke out a victory and regain power.
We disagree. Having seen the failure of a generation of conservative ideas
on fiscal and foreign policy, Americans are ready to listen to an alternative. Now is the moment for Democrats to offer a set of breakthrough ideas that will create a governing majority for a generation. But this will happen only if they are willing to be more than the railroad conductor making sure the trains run on time, and instead put America on a new and different track.
Beautiful. Reading that makes me feel like I always used to whenever Bill Clinton gave a State of the Union speech. I always felt secure, serene, and yet excited and optimistic about the future and proud of my country. It wasn't just Clinton's personal charisma or his success at beating Republicans that made me feel that way. It was his "vision thing," the strength of his ideas.
Clinton imagined an America that was different from the one I grew up in during the '80s, but one that preserved most or all of the core American features and values that I liked. He postulated an America where technology, knowledge, and entrepreneurship were the driving forces of the economy, an America strengthened by free markets, free trade, and widespread economic opportunity. He saw policemen not as the hard fist of authority but as friends and members of local communities. He envisioned America taking a leadership role in the world, leading by example instead of by opposing a common enemy, and doing what we could to preserve global stability and development. The strength of this vision flowed through his oratory...it was as if I could see this new America appearing right before my eyes. And the amazing thing is not that people signed on to this vision, but that it largely came to pass during the years he was in office.
We need vision like that now. A vision of how our country can be better than it is, and how we can better relate to the world. That's what the "big ideas" are all about. Baer and Cherny are right; making the trains run on time is not enough.
PS - For more on this debate, check out Andrei Cherny's supplemental rant over at Huffington Post. Then check out a rebuttal of sorts by Ezra Klein at Tapped, and then read my counter-rebuttal (way down in the "comments" section). Matt Yglesias at TPMCafe endorses the concept of New Big Ideas, but wonders when people are going to stop talking about them and start coming out with some actual ideas. Well, Matt, how about this one?
2. Robert Samuelson and Sebastian Mallaby, two of the Washington Post's best columnists, had kind of an indirect debate this past week on solutions to the global warming crisis. Samuelson opened with a declaration that, protocols and government rules aside, only technological advances can save us from disastrous climate change. He writes:
No government will adopt the draconian restrictions on economic growth and personal freedom (limits on electricity usage, driving and travel) that might curb global warming. Still, politicians want to show they're "doing something." The result is grandstanding. Consider the Kyoto Protocol. It allowed countries that joined to castigate those that didn't. But it hasn't reduced carbon dioxide emissions (up about 25 percent since 1990), and many signatories didn't adopt tough enough policies to hit their 2008-2012 targets. By some estimates, Europe may overshoot by 15 percent and Japan by 25 percent...
The practical conclusion is that if global warming is a potential calamity, the only salvation is new technology...
The trouble with the global warming debate is that it has become a moral crusade when it's really an engineering problem. The inconvenient truth is that if we don't solve the engineering problem, we're helpless.
Well, he's right. Global warming can be slowed, but not halted or reversed, with current technology. Hydrogen-powered cars and carbon sequestration technology would be great places to start, along with an expansion in nuclear power.
But Sebastian Mallaby points out that we're not even using the carbon-limiting technology that we have available. Unless our government creates the right incentives for companies to develop and use carbon-limiting technologies - incentives like carbon taxes - all the engineering in the world won't change a thing. He writes:
We already have technologies to cut carbon. Hybrid cars have been around for years, but almost nobody drives them. Small cars have been on the market even more years, but they aren't consumer hits either. There are dozens of technologies to insulate buildings and design heating and cooling systems in efficient ways. The problem is we don't use them.
You can even cut carbon using no technology whatever. Mexico City has reduced its output of carbon dioxide by almost 55,000 tons a year by opening one efficient bus route; the key innovation here was the creation of two bus lanes. The new buses run on diesel -- not exactly a technological breakthrough. But because they are rapid and frequent, the buses have brought car use down and reduced emissions.
So what matters is not just the technologies we have but the incentives to deploy them. The average Western European uses half as much energy as the average American, and that's not because there's more technology in Europe. Rather, Europeans have embraced anti-carbon policies ranging from gas taxes to emissions caps...So incentives count. Technology frequently turns out to matter less than
policy.
He is also right.
(You may be thinking, "He's right and he's right? They can't both be right!" Well, you also may be right...)
3. A while ago I chronicled the "Kosola" story, in which it was alleged that Daily Kos pharoah Markos Moulitsas and his beautiful queen Jerome Armstrong had worked as consultants for some of the same political candidates they plugged on their massive websites, possibly making out with hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars. Ah, the stench of corruption. Well, I suggested that this might be an indication that Markos Moulitsas might not be such a great fit for the Dear Leader of the new grassroots liberal resurgence. Hearing this, someone suggested that I deliver this opinion on the pages of the Daily Kos itself.
Well, here's why not. Richard Silverstein, the proprietor of the blog Tikkun Olam, posted exactly that idea, only in a much meeker and milder tone than I would have used, on the Daily Kos. He was rewarded with tag-vandalism (wherein other members of the site add insulting search tags such as "shmuckery" to one's post), flame comments, and the deletion of one of his posts by an unknown site administrator. Here's a little excerpt from one of the comments he got, from "Opendna," supposedly of a group called the "Social Cossacks Network":
You’re a prostitute, eh?
Are you suggesting that I must be willing to compromise my ethics for a couple thousand dollars in consulting fees?
Are you suggesting that I’m such a cheap intellectual whore that I’ll endorse
someone because they take out advertising on my blog?Them’s fighting words, bitch. Say’em to my face and I’ll put you on your back.
That you’d even ask these questions suggests you have no respect for your own integrity - it’s for sell cheap, eh? Would you lie to America $10K? Evidently, you would.
Some of us put a higher value on their integrity. slutSome of us make our living on our integrity. Just because you’re a $1000 ho, doesn’t mean the rest of us are. So, yeah, maybe we get a little agitated when someone challenges it with nothing to back them up.
In short: You ain’t shit. Try again.
Lovely. Well now we know why they call themselves the "Social Cossacks Network". Open letter to Opendna: If you can actually figure out how to have a fisticuff-fight through the internet, I will gladly box your ears and give you what for. Cad!
Anyway, the properly chastised Richard Silverstein plaintively responds:
I want to make clear that I am a progressive Democrat (which is why I’ve posted diaries at Daily Kos for quite some time) and I have no love for David Brooks or the New Republic. But I have to say that behavior like what I’ve described above–not just behavior by members, but apparently behavior aided and abetted by the site administrator/s–allows me to understand some of the criticism of Kos and his site flung at him by his critics. My treatment made me feel more like I was participating in a cult in which I’d insulted the chief leader and was receiving the deep six treatment in response.
We Democrats critical of precisely this type of rigid, censorious, know-it-all behavior on the part of conservatives? What is wrong with questioning our standards and behavior once in a while? Must one be labelled a “concern troll” and political enemy for suggesting that political bloggers observe a code of ethics? What are the people
at Daily Kos afraid of?
Well, Rich, sorry to say this, but the Kossacks aren't looking for ideological allies. They're looking for followers (and people who press the "send money" button). Guess you and other independent-minded individuals have to go make your own blog sites...
And hey, wait a second, what's wrong with The New Republic?
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