The Battle of the Battle of Ideas, Part II
If you haven't had enough about the battle over the battle of ideas from the recent TPMCafe debate between Jon Chait and me, you're in luck -- it has flared up again.
In response to Jon's Los Angeles Times column that grew out of our conversation here, Andrei Cherny (my co-editor at Democracy: A Journal of Ideas) and I wrote a fuller defense of the power of ideas in Monday's LA Times (and note that I did not return the favor and call Jon a "weenie" or, more insulting to him, an Ohio State fan.)
Andrei amplified his thoughts over at HuffPost. Ezra Klein knocked his head against the wall at Tapped, and the young cons over at American Scene weighed in as well. And the battle continues...
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Yeah , pretty well exhausted over at Ygelsias.
The heretical thought occurs to me that you don't search for new ideas , you have them. i.e. when the situation suggests that some new thing should be done , thinkers think of that new thing.
And bear in mind that Gore won a plurality . And in 2004 democrats increased their representation in state legislatures country- wide , swinging into a (very)small majority.
Maybe the only new idea is to select a Presidential candidate with charisma.
Does anyone think Bush won the battle of ideas with Kerry ? Think what the result would have been if the two of them had swapped roles in 2004 , Kerry as the Rep candidate with all of Bush's positions , and vice versa. My belief is that Bush running with the Democratic platform would have swept the country.
The fault ,Horatio , is not in the stars but in ourselves , that we select unappealing candidates
July 11, 2006 3:31 AM | Reply | Permalink
It seems to me that case by case analysis and practical consensus building do represent a coherent and effective way to approach politics. Politics provides a way for large groups to get things done. Nothing more, nothing less.
The ideologically driven world views always tries to slam a round fact into a square ideology. Not very satisfactory.
I for one am sick to death of believers in one or the other of several 19th century social darwinist ideologies trying to force the 21st century to fit the world view they learned in college from some professor.
Ron Byers
July 11, 2006 5:46 AM | Reply | Permalink
The problem I see, based on a quick scan of your "Journal of Ideas," is that it is not a journal of policy ideas at all. It's a journal of marketing ideas. Michael Signer can weave a lovely metaphor, but there's no substance to it.
Granted, the Democrats need better marketing ideas like Custer needed reinforcements, but all this talk of exemplarism and liberal internationalism is being conducted on the plane of analogy and abstraction. I don't see any "big ideas" at all. JFK didn't just give lovely ghost-written speeches about improving democracy at home and spreading it abroad; his speeches were tied to specific policies: Civil Rights, the Peace Corps, and (unfortunately) sending military "advisors" to Vietnam.
What I see emerging from today's "big idea" liberals is an urgent desire to stand for something big and important, and a desperate quest to figure out what that something is, tied to a policy platform of doing exactly what George W. Bush is currently doing (minus the whole part where he screws everything up and makes the rest of the world hate us.)
I'm all in favor of big ideas. Come up with a universal health care plan and fight for it. Come up with a plan to get us out of Iraq withthe least possible harm done and re-engage with the world in a more productive way. Come up with a plan to fix our shambles of a homeland security department and make America safer. Come up with a plan to reduce the growing class inequality in America. And THEN write the marketing copy.
Until then, I'm going to side with Jon Chait, and vote for whoever seems most competent and least likely to try anything stupid.
July 11, 2006 12:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
From the sidelines, it seems like Democrats are looking for one big theme that will unify all the policy positions, an umbrella of ideas. That suggests that the search for "big ideas" is really a quest for an ideology.
That's not particularly useful, in my eyes. Ideologies don't fight other ideologies well. Because different ideologies necessarily have different premises or assumptions embedded within them, it's difficult to articulate those differences without oversimplifying. Also, I think there's enough ideology in the world.
I think ideas are important, but I'd rather see the pursuit of some big goals rather than big ideas. Of course, ideas will play a role in the formulation of those goals. But for politics, I want to see practicality and reality. I want to see people in office who can accurately analyze the world around them -- not people who seek to impose an ideology on the information given them. I want to see people who can identify problems well, rather than filtering reality through the lens of some big idea.
This whole debate reminds me of the classic quips between historians and political scientists. The political scientists complain that history is just political science without any method. The historians complain that political science is history without any facts. Here, we've got policy v. ideas instead of facts v. method.
In many ways, this isn't an interesting discussion. I don't know anybody who says ideas are bad or that the Democratic party shouldn't have ideas. And even the idea people say that policy is important, too. So, what's the problem, again?
PSA: There is a Users' Help Forum.
July 11, 2006 12:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
Are you kidding? Kerry's GOP consultants would have torn Bush's Dem consultants apart. Who would be the incumbent in this scenario?
July 11, 2006 3:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
Heh, this crap isn't even a "search for an ideology" - these clowns just want to repackage the Republican neocon ideology with "Democratic liberal" trimmings and sell it to the Democrats.
These pundits are so impressed with the way the neocons took over the government in a neocon "coup" that they want to do the same for the "liberals" - without the nasty requirement of actually BEING "liberal", of course.
Pundits.
Spare me.
July 11, 2006 4:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
Having read the latest LAT exchange, I have to say I agree more with Jon Chait.
After all, Republicans don't really have an ideology either. They have a voluminous, post hoc justification for the greed and selfishness of their rich supporters.
It's an elaborate network of lies, supported by people who simply don't feel like paying taxes and who resent any limitation of their privilege and power.
I don't think Democrats really want or need anything similar.
--
-- All successful revolutions are the kicking in of a rotten door. (John Kenneth Galbraith) --
July 11, 2006 6:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
I agree that the Dem campaign managers
were far inferior. But even so Bush would
have leaned on the podium in an open necked
shirt and looked convincing however stupid the script he'd been handed. And Joe Lunchpail would have thought Bush looked like a guy you'd like to talk to in a bar- unlike that other stiff who'd probably just turn away and ask the bartender to switch the TV to Masterpiece Theatre.
And in the scenario in which Kerry was the
Republican incumbent JL would still have
voted for the guy he'd like to talk to in a bar.
July 11, 2006 7:02 PM | Reply | Permalink