Yglesias: fight for liberal policies on their own merits

There's a reason Matt Yglesias is my favorite blogger. It's because, once in a while, he pops out with something so true, and so fundamental and deep and important, that I wish I had been able to say it first myself. His latest such gem comes in two posts:

Post 1:

And Kevin Drum has the charts to prove it. One thing I will say, though, is that I think social democratic sorts have gotten a little too emotionally invested in trying to convince people that economic conditions are terrible. In terms of building support for policy solutions, I think this kind of thing is sort of neither here nor there. Even given massive inequality, low levels of social mobility, and stagnant wages, the United States is still a very rich place in historical or global terms.

The task is convincing people that liberals have ideas that will make things better. Insofar as people believe your ideas will improve things, it doesn't matter whether they think the status quo is great, terrible, okay, or whatever else. Conversely, if people think things are bad but your ideas are reckless and awful, then that doesn't do any good.

Post 2:

A lot of folks in comments were insisting apropos of yesterday's post that the voters are already convinced that economic conditions suck, and only an out-of-touch rich kid like me could say otherwise. Well, that's not what the polling I've read says. Check out the American Research Group's economy page and you'll see that people seem to have slightly positive views about the state of the economy, though they strongly disapprove of George W. Bush in general and his handling of the economy in particular.

At any rate, the only point I was trying to make was that liberals shouldn't let themselves think that convincing people that the economy is doing poorly is the key factor in bolstering progressive politics. The Great Society came down during a period of strong economic growth. Lou Dobbs and Steve Sailer think the economy sucks and that the only thing to do about it is blame Mexicans. If you want to sell progressive policies, you need to sell progressive policies.

Ditto 100%. I'd even take it further. For too long now (over two decades, by my count), Democrats and liberals have chosen to wait for Republicans to mess up so badly that people eventually get disgusted and turn to the Democratic party, or to liberal policies, for salvation. "Just wait for the economy to tank," they say, "then people will see the wisdom of progressive economic policies." Or "Just wait until people see how corrupt the Republicans are," they say, "then people will vote for the Democrats."

There's at least two big problems with this approach. One is that, obviously, the country has to tank in order for the strategy to work. The other problem is that, even if it does work, the electorate's memory is short. How long after Watergate before people started voting for Republicans again? 6 years. How long after the 1990-91 recession before Newt swept the Republicans back to power? 2 years.

And then there's the image problem. If it looks like liberals are cheering for the economy to tank, that kills their credibility as national leaders. And if it looks like liberals don't want to stand up and defend their own policies, it makes it seem as if they don't really believe in those policies.

It's time for liberals to stand up and declare what we believe in, and why this philosophy of ours would make the nation a better place. And if that's not sufficient to convince America to support us, then we've got to improve our arguments, and also tailor our policies to be a more appealing product. But I think it will be sufficient.


PS - For another great idea from Yglesias, read about why he thinks foreign students in the U.S. should get automatic green cards (follow-up post here). I've said this many times, so of course I couldn't agree more.