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November 5, 2004
Down and Out in Jesusland
Since Bush’s re-election a steady stream of argument has emerged questioning the intelligence of the conservative voter. They are out of touch with reality. How else to explain their voting for a president who has clearly failed on the economy and the war. Michael Berube jokingly argues that we should respond by giving up on reality as a political tool:
It should be clear by now that progressives cannot win the presidency by being reality-based. The reality-based appeal works only in isolated areas of the country with high population density. Reality-based campaigning draws in highly educated voters, voters who are likely to consult a wide variety of news sources inside and outside the US, and voters who tend to be swayed by demonstrable empirical evidence about the age and the current disposition of the planet and its resources. These voters are, however, a fringe element of the electorate that we must now cast aside.
Instead, we must devise a “wedge issue� that is as powerful and compelling as the campaign against gay marriage. And just as the campaign against gay marriage draws its deepest support from conservative rural areas hundreds of miles away from the nearest actual cohabiting gay couple, so too must progressives-- especially urban-identified, “metro� progressives-- seek to mobilize an energetic Democratic base by inventing a chimera that none of us have actually ever seen and cannot imagine anyone actually caring about.
While Berubue is clearly being satirical, this is clearly a widespread opinion about the conservative vote. I think, though, it misses the mark on how to begin to rebuild a democratic majority across the South and Southwest.
It seems to me that conservative voters clearly understood that the war in Iraq was not going well (even if they believed the connection to Al Qaeda). Many of the voters also had direct experience of unemployment, lack of health benefits, and increased tuition costs. Despite all these “real� concerns, they voted against their immediate interests because of faith – faith that condemns homosexuality, abortion, etc. etc. They felt these issues as a real and immediate factor in our lives as we do when people attack gay rights.
Progressives also act on faith. Our faith has lost widespread credibility, however. In response, the liberal left (what’s left of it) argues from facts to mask the belief system which assembles those facts in a certain order. Instead, in addition to presenting facts, it seems to me that we also need to move beyond reality and re-establish a faith in a civic discourse which is secular and progressive. To do this, I think, we will have to follow the advice of Mark Kleiman’s moderate Republican friend and recognize:
Democrats are cowards. "Moral issues" is just crazy-ass right-wing Republican talk for bigotry. Democrats need to call them on it and capture the moral high ground again. Preventing women from exercising control over their bodies and gay couples from enjoying the same basic rights as everyone else is not moral, it's wrong. Hideously wrong. Rosa Parks-level wrong. And helping poor kids get an education and basic medical care is not "big government." It's the right thing to do, especially when you live in the world’s richest country.
What I think this means is we need to stop nominating politicians who refuse to take on the label of “liberal� or “progressive.� Or at the very least, we need to nominate candidates who can speak morally about the need for equality, civil rights, and social justice. And like the Right, perhaps we need wedge issue – a mobilizing force to unite folks morally across facts which may or may not always support elements of our total agenda.
What might are moral ‘wedge’ issue be? Probably not surprising, as a teacher, I would argue at least one could be education. There’s pretty widespread acceptance that everyone deserves a strong education. Yet the funding system is clearly corrupt and biased to the wealthy. In response to Republican attempts to argue “It is not the governments money, it’s your money,� I think we should argue “It’s the children’s money and they need it. You don’t deserve a swimming pool because you underpay your workers and stop them from providing basic rights to their children.� We need to make clear there is such a thing as collective responsibility again.
We should just come out and state our support of gay marriage as a civil rights issue.
We should argue that social justice means some folks pay more than others.
We should demand that affirmative action be extended not just mended.
This is not just delusional leftist day dreaming. Over 55 million individuals voted for this moral system in the last election. I have to believe for many undecided voters a secular faith based reason to vote against Bush would have tipped them into our camp.
If we don’t want to remain down and out in Jesusland, we need to find our own faith-based initiative.
Posted by sparks at November 5, 2004 1:23 PM
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Posted by: Amardeep at November 6, 2004 10:11 AM