Welcome to The Argument
Hello everyone, and thank you for reading and thinking about “The Argument: Billionaires, Bloggers, and the Battle to Remake Democratic Politics”, which just came out. It’s my first book, and it took me about three years of reporting and writing to complete, so I’m very gratified that the reviews have been great and that people are talking about it. I’m grateful to the guys at TPM Café for hosting this discussion and to all of you who are giving up your valuable hours doing whatever else you might be doing so you can weigh in on it. (A special shout-out to McJoan, my co-moderator at the YearlyKos debate. We meet again, albeit virtually.)
I guess I should just start with the title of the book, which has a double meaning. (Aren’t I clever that way? The original working title, by the way, was actually “AfterParty,” but nobody knew what I was talking about.) The first meaning of “The Argument” is pretty literal; it refers to the ongoing argument between what I call the new progressive movement and the Democratic establishment in Washington. This story and the characters who populate it are the main reason I undertook to write the book in the first place. When I started my reporting back in late 2003, few of these progressive leaders actually knew each other well, but as time went on their stories began to collide and intermingle in interesting ways, and I hope that’s the same feeling you get reading the book. I tried to capture this brief moment in time when Democratic Politics was just beginning to undergo a transformation. Rob Stein, Andy Stern, Howard Dean, Markos and Jerome, Gina Cooper, Eli Pariser and Tom Matzzie—these are just some of the people with whom a lot of readers may not be familiar who pop up throughout “The Argument.” Their story is my story.
The second meaning of “The Argument,” which serves as a kind of ever-present background to the main story, has to do with this more ephemeral notion of the argument that movements and parties make about the future of the country. I define an argument, in this sense, as the political equivalent of what a trial lawyer presents to the jury—that is, a theory of the case that explains the nature of the long-term challenges the country faces and what the course of action ought to be. American political history, after all, is the story of innovative leaders forcing us, every so often, to adapt our notion of government to fundamental changes in technology, economics and foreign affairs. (I get into some of those moments in the book but will spare you all here.) The competition of arguments is what has driven America forward, and, at this particular moment of confounding change, we seem to be lacking for them on either end of the ideological spectrum. As Andy Stern says eloquently in a scene from chapter nine, speaking to a roomful of wealthy donors: “You can’t stop globalization. You can’t stop trade. That debate is over. I like to say to people who want to return to the New Deal that we are now as far from the New Deal as the New Deal was from the Civil War. I don’t think Franklin Roosevelt looked back to Lincoln to decide what to do. And I don’t think we can look back to FDR.” I love that scene.
I found, as I spent time with all of these progressive leaders, that a lot of them were just beginning to ask themselves what kind of argument they wanted to make, and how you arrive at it, and so this theme of an argument emerges gradually throughout the narrative, just as it emerged gradually throughout my reporting. As I say in the introduction, there’s no easy answer, and I certainly don’t have it, but I do think it’s vital that we invest some intellectual resources in debating new approaches to the tectonic shifts going on under our feet, rather than spending them all on trying to win elections. That’s not to say that there is no substantive debate going on (TPM Café is a pretty good example), but it’s insufficient to the massive challenges presented by, say, deindustrialization, global warming and stateless terrorism. My underlying point here, I guess, is that elections by themselves don’t change the country; arguments do. Elections are just the means through which you enact your larger ideas.
So I welcome this wider conversation about the book and its characters. If I have one hope for the book, that’s really it—that it can contribute to a more dynamic conversation about what constitutes a movement and how we can apply the principles that animated 20th century government to a 21st century agenda. Thanks for making that happen.
Matt Bai:
On what basis would you claim, 15 years after the publication of "Earth in the Balance" and 2 years after the worldwide box-office triumph of "An Inconvenient Truth", that the Democrats do not have an "argument" -- in the sense of an intellectually coherent, inspiring call to action -- regarding global warming?
There are a number of different strategies to combat global warming and other severe environmental threats being advanced on the Democratic side of the aisle, all of them serious, with various merits and disadvantages. But it seems silly not to acknowledge that all of the serious thinking taking place on this issue is happening on the Democratic side, and that much of it has been driven by the kind of new-media citizens' coalitions and alternative political strategies you cite -- witness "An Inconvenient Truth".
So why would you claim that Democrats lack an "argument" on this issue? Or, for that matter, on universal health care? And don't you think it bears considering that some of the failure of Democratic arguments on such issues to coalesce may be due to exceptionally inventive new techniques of media-enforced reality denial employed by Republicans over the past 10 years, which forestall any understanding of the basic factual ground we're all standing on (be it the fact of human-driven global warming, the fact of an insurgency in Iraq, the fact of the absence of WMDs in Iraq, the fact of widening income disparity, the fact that tax cuts cause budget deficits, etc.)? Such that it becomes increasingly difficult to advance an "argument" before the court, because the discovery phase has been corrupted by the opposing lawyers' constant introduction of fake evidence?
"All governments lie, but disaster lies in wait for countries whose officials smoke the same hashish they give out." - I.F. Stone
September 24, 2007 12:06 AM | Reply | Permalink
I don't know how to say this without appearing rude, but I've no intention to read your book. Your work at the Times has indicated a person with a slanted view of the world and your pretense to objectivity is annoying. Why would anyone want to read your advice to the Dems when you clearly don't agree with their fundamental take on the issues?
--- Policies not Politics
Daily Landscape
September 24, 2007 6:42 AM | Reply | Permalink
I wonder if there is really a new progressive movement. The advent of moveable type gave voiceless people, largely artisans and women, a forum. This forced and allowed the intellectuals to look to craftsmen to create new machines, apparatus, eg lens, and new ideas. However, in the end the Reformation, the Scientific Revolution, the founding of America and the Enlightment all shifted politics more than the mechanism of print.
Currently, the internet, the web, the blog give voice to those who might have writtien a letter to the editor and allow those who agree with each other a place to unite. It does not necessarily make their ideas more persuasive, it does not make them more consistent with the culture of the rest of America. It might help that the far left has an idea how many people they are. It does not make them a majority in the Democratic Party let alone a majority in the United States.
Daniel A. Greenbaum
September 24, 2007 6:42 AM | Reply | Permalink
Matt, you did a great job at the debate at YK and I've enjoyed a lot of your work at the NYT magazine.
That said, I think a lot of your analysis of blogs is wrong. Naturally, as someone who lives in New York, you're going to see this all from a top down, national-centric point of view, but the real story -- flying under the radar of national reporters like yourself -- is the growth of small, local blogs. These blogs will never get more than a thousand or two hits a day. And they will never drive the national discourse on issues. But a few thousand readers out of a local population of say, 500,000, is a greater proportion of that local population than Kos readers are of the national population. And with many fewer posts, the attention concentrated on what is posted is much greater than at Kos, etc. These blogs are helping to frame local discussions as well as doing a great deal to motivate progressives at a grass roots level.
I'm not sure that this is a story national reporters could cover even if they wanted to, but you and others should be aware that there's more to blogs than George Soros and Markos whatever his last name s.
September 24, 2007 7:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
It does not make them a majority in the Democratic Party let alone a majority in the United States.
The left is most certainly a majority in both. You ought to stop repeating garbage you heard from Chris Matthews and accept the fact that most Americans want universal health care, want the troops out of Iraq, and want living wages for the working class. And those three issues are the ones that separate left from right.
Americans are liberal. They've been fooled by clever right-wing talking points and by a corporate media that spews nothing but corporatist propaganda. But on the issues, Americans are mostly liberals.
Get used to it.
September 24, 2007 8:01 AM | Reply | Permalink
Speaking of arguments, it would be really swell of you to advance an actual argument that Democrats are in need of truly "new" ideas. It's just childishly naive to believe without evidence that new ideas are always necessary or desirable. You sound like the worst kind of venture capitalist at the height of the dot com bubble.
Look around the world. There are any number of highly successful industrialized democracies, including, obviously, those in Europe. Why believe that there is a set of important and genuinely "new" ideas that Democrats should entertain or pursue that haven't already seen the light of day in one of those democracies?
The single most important idea pressing on the Democratic Party today, in my view, is that of national health care. It is exceedingly hard to talk about any potential solutions to that problem as being "new", given the long history of national health care in other countries.
If there is a particular problem for which a new idea might be important, it would likely be the increasing gap between the rich and everyone else. It's just not obvious how to solve that problem. Economists themselves seem to be stumped. My guess, though, is that the ultimate solution will be something rather old in vintage: higher taxes on the rich, or the promotion of unions. But first the ultimate basis of the problem itself must be better understood.
In the end, what Democrats need, and America needs, are good ideas, ideas that work. It's immaterial whether those ideas are old or new.
And the worst aspect of your breathless assertion that Democrats are in serious want of new ideas is that it implies that Democrats suffer from a real deficiency. But if there is no compelling need for new ideas at this time, and the most urgent problems can best be addressed with ideas that have been around for years or decades, how fair is it to impute a deficiency that isn't there?
You see, these things always become part of a political argument -- if the right wing can claim, with your strong approval, that the Democratic Party has no intellectual core and is lost in the woods, then it damages the Democratic Party, and with complete injustice.
September 24, 2007 8:27 AM | Reply | Permalink
"It might help that the far left has an idea how many people they are. It does not make them a majority in the Democratic Party let alone a majority in the United States."
According to very recent polls, it seems we're all "far left." I'm surprised you bought into that framing Daniel, I expect better of you.
September 24, 2007 8:48 AM | Reply | Permalink
Matt,
I finished your book a few days ago and think you did a fantastic job of capturing the challenges facing the progressive movement -- particularly the struggle to fit the square pegged New Deal social contract/1960's social liberalism into the round hole of the 21st century politics -- and the focus of the left on tactics rather than on substance.
While the right spent the last few decades focused on the development of ideas and crafting the contours of a new conservative movement (market fundamentalism, lower taxes and reduced regulations, so-called moral issues, and the neo-con's foreign policy), the left has been focused on framing issues, using the Internet to raise money, and single-issue groups that put their own agendas first.
The first campaign I worked on, as a volunteer, was in 1992. I watched the War Room and was captivated by the campaign itself -- not the candidate, but the tatics and personalities in that campaign. Carville and Stephopolus were celebrities as big, if not bigger, than most US Senators in my eyes. And the Clinton Presidency itslef became an exercise in tactics -- triangulation, his sbility to communicate, to connect with voters, to build political capital, and to raise money.
The 2000 election was a debate about Karl Rove's electioneering genius versus Al Gore's boringness and wonkishness. Consultants talked about wearing earth tones. And we lost an election after leading the longest period of peace and prosperity in our nation's history.
9/11 profoundly changed our country, yet the story in 2004 was how Howard Dean was using the Internet to raise record amounts of money and connect people across the country electronically. He lost Iowa when John Kerry convinced voters that he was more electable than Dean. Kerry didn't even bother to claim that he had better ideas than Dean or Edwards, but merely that he was the most "electable" of the candidates. And the activists in Iowa put him on the path to the nomination. Which he lost because he didn't really offer an alternative to George Bush (other than not being George Bush).
And now, there is virtually no difference in agenda's among the candidates on the left. All tout "big, bold" ideas like universal health care (proposed by President Truman and supported by most Democrats since then), taking action on global warming (they all support dramatic limits on emissions, most support an approach like the one to deal with acid rain a few decades ago), and Iraq (they all think the troops should come home now). And their positions on social issues parallels that of the single issue groups on the left. They talk about abortion, for example, just like they did in 1976.
This is not to say that there is anything inherently wrong with these positions on these issues. But they approach is one of solving individual problems rather than fullfilling a future oriented vision about where we want to lead the country.
There is no talk about a new social contract -- about what kind of relationship government, community and inidividual should have in the 21st century. There's mere lip service to the growing divide between the rich and the poor, and there is no discussion about what should be in a coherent foreign policy (outside of out-of-Iraq now). How should a post 9-11 America deal with the Middle East? What is a prorgressive national security policy? What role does growing the economy play within the debate about global warming? What role should the government play in protecting jobs when it comes to trade? Do we have a responsibility to people in other countries when it comes to thinking about trade policies? Should the government be taking a larger role in pensions? How do we change the way we educate our kids to compete in the emerging global economy?
There is far less time spent on any of these questions on the left than there is talking about how to properly frame issues, discussing George Lakoff, discussing the failings of particular political consultants like Bob Shrum, and or how to use the Internet to raise money and organize activists.
Those things are, arguably, worthy of discussion. But they pale in comparison to the importance of defining who Democrats are, and what we offer to the American people in the 21st Century. We had that conversation in the advent of the New Deal. We had that conversation in the 1960's as we built the civil rights and environmental movements. But today, we've got new challenges facing our country, and we're in need of a new view of how government can meet those challenges. Yet we're still debating what words we should use to sell our old ideas.
September 24, 2007 8:50 AM | Reply | Permalink
Matt,
First let's clear the air.
Please explain how the Dems are being "inconsistent" on the MoveOn ads.
If you can do that to my satisfaction, then perhaps I'll consider reading your book.
Otherwise, your current track record does not indicate that I should waste my time.
September 24, 2007 8:50 AM | Reply | Permalink
It's just childishly naive to believe without evidence that new ideas are always necessary or desirable.
In fact, it's exactly what conservatives have always accused liberals of doing, looking for solutions to problems that don't exist.
Democrats today are mostly interested in using old ideas to solve real problems: healthcare and Iraq, for example. Shouldn't they be commended for focusing on real problems -- even that means using old ideas -- rather than inventing new ideas that deal with imaginary or nonexistent problems.
Frankly, this is a little bit my problem with the political reporter set in general. You guys aren't interested in policy, only in narrative and rhetoric.
September 24, 2007 8:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
But they pale in comparison to the importance of defining who Democrats are, and what we offer to the American people in the 21st Century.
I'm sorry, but I get the feeling you think Democrats should spend a lot of time sitting around in circles rubbing each others' backs and talking about who we are, deep down inside.
The kind of shift in identity you're talking about isn't something that happens because you have a long national discussion about how to shift your identity. It happens organically because of a series of mutually reinforcing shifts of issues, demographics, and personalities.
"All governments lie, but disaster lies in wait for countries whose officials smoke the same hashish they give out." - I.F. Stone
September 24, 2007 9:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
"I get the feeling you think Democrats should spend a lot of time sitting around in circles rubbing each others' backs and talking about who we are, deep down inside."
Not at all. I'm not advocating "a long national discussion" etiher. I think both of those are complete wastes of time.
I don't think we need more conversation and discussion, I'm merely looking at the topics of the existing conversations. I think the focus needs to change.
What I said was that we need to "defin[e] who Democrats are, and what we offer to the American people in the 21st Century" -- that will most likely be done by a Presidental candidate, but it doesn't have to be. You criticized the statement, but I don't think we're going to be very successful either politically or substantively if we can't define who we are and what we offer.
September 24, 2007 9:23 AM | Reply | Permalink
I am bit curious what poll shows the left, as opposed to liberals, represent the majority of the Democratic Party? The only two Democratic Presidents have been moderate to conservative Southern Democrats and the current candidates for President are not particularly leftwing.
Looking at who voted to condemn the MoveOn add such as Tester and Webb it looks like the Democrats who give the Democrats a majority in the Congress may have a populist streak but are not to be confused with leftwingers.
I don't much believe in framing. It allows people to dismiss facts they don't like and ignore reality. The reality is that since the Depression this country is a moderate rather unideological one. It is also a country that would like the U.S. to have lots of government services, a powerful military, low prices and low taxes. The wings of the two parties have taken the most extreme of these sets of desires with talk radio and the web amplying the extremes.
The argument seems to me to be the tail end of the internet boom of the late 1990s when the web was going to make for a new economics. It didn't, it just further empowered the consumer against producers and globalists against the parochial.
Daniel A. Greenbaum
September 24, 2007 10:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
I agree completely. The thing that hampers progressives is we do not have the think tank networks the Rs have so there are no ready set ideas to pull off the shelf. My sense is the progressive movement is starting to build a political infrastructure to match the conservative but they are not doing the same on the policy side and that concerns. The movement will not be sustainable after Bush is gone w/o a new set of ideas to adapt the positive role of government to the realities of the 21st Century.
September 24, 2007 10:54 AM | Reply | Permalink
I don't think he is saying that the left has no ideas. There are some very good ones specific to different issues, like what you discuss above. I think what he is saying is that a new conversation is necessary and is just beginning to happen. That conversation is about the big idea, what he calls an argument, that ties the coalition of ideas together. For example, why should pro-choice activists team up with environmental activists and vote Dem? What does the Democratic argument say about why these two groups should be a part of the same coalition? What underlying philosophy of government ties these two groups together? How do you tie together what could be seen as conflicting points of view - that government should be not be intrusive but yet should regulate? What is the balance and why, and how does that specifically distinguish Democrats from Republicans?
I don't think he is talking about specific ideas. I think he is asking how we take it to the next level.
But I hear what you are saying. Fake science/evidence has made it difficult to advance real ideas, especially wrt the environment.
September 24, 2007 10:59 AM | Reply | Permalink
I thoroughly enjoyed the book and found Andy Stern to be my hero in it. He is one of the few truly forward thinkers in the progressive movement. He understands the jobs are in the service sector and he has been hugely successful in organizing that part of the economy despite the difficulty this admin has put on union organizing.
One of my major frustrations is I don't see the policy ideas coming forth that are needed to back up the political infrastructure. No one is really proposing a comprehensive energy policy to both address global warming and wean us off foreign oil. Dick Gephardt had a great line in 2004 - If we can put a man on the moon in 10 yrs, we can be energy independent in 10 yrs. Why is no one discussing this and drawing the direct line b/w oil and Iraq? Hell, Alan Greenspan did last week but I haven't heard one Dem do it.
Also, why is no one discussing the need for a social safety net that is designed for people who work in a remote world or have seven jobs in their lifetimes. Most of the proposal I hear seem tied back to a world where people worked for corporations for years.
The Dems have been largely the beneficiaries of the implosion of the Rs under Bush but it will not be possible to build a long standing progressive movement without addressing the needs of 21st Century America. As of today, I share Andy Stern's frustrations because I don't see it yet.
September 24, 2007 11:06 AM | Reply | Permalink
Mr. Bai --
I'm the prime, target market for books like yours, but, based on what I've read about the book (not on blogs, but in the context of positive reviews, your article in this Sunday's NY Times, etc.), I'm hesitant to make the purchase. The problem is, except for some minor fiddling around the edges of the usual stereotypes, you appear to be doing little more than pushing the usual stereotypes -- about Democratic voters and liberals/progressives (Democrats or not) online or off.
You are willing to concede we are not typically "young and angry cybergeeks who shatter glass windows" but, at least from what I've read so far, it seems you still, for the most part, present us as easily dismissed, behind the times, outside the mainstream and unrepresentative (and therefore not deserving of political representation) figures of fun. As was perfectly captured in the illustration that accompanied your piece in the Times -- the pudgy, aging hippie with gray ponytail, ancient Volvo and shopping bags labeled "Whole Foods."
In this stereotype active Democrats are presumed to be economically naive, aloof from and incapable of understanding the social concerns, circumstances and pressures experienced by "real" Americans, and motivated in our foreign policy views by emotionalism and, to a large extent, "hatred" of George W. Bush. (Isn't it interesting how the "mainstream," "centrist" media consensus about us hews so closely to Republican assertions about us?)
The problem with this isn't that it's insulting. The problem is that these stereotypes, repeated over and over again in various venues and forms by the political media, send, and are meant to send, a clear message to those in power -- that we are not people whose experience counts, whose interests need to be represented (either in the halls of power or the mainstream media), or whose voices can make an important contribution to the democratic dialogue -- and, in fact, need and deserve to be given a respectful hearing in the public square.
The facts is that Democratic/progressive activist online come from all walks of life and are firmly embedded in the mainstream of American experience. We are the young, the elderly, the middle aged, the affluent, the poor, the middle class. We are successful business owners who don't buy into conservative nostrums, health care professionals who have a different perspective than that of the medical experts on CNN and NBC, union and non-union workers, ex and active military, students at community, state and elite colleges, teachers and academics, technology workers, the young sons and daughters of the working class trying to find a toehold in a low wage service economy, older people coping with dramatic changes in the foundations of middle class life, and more.
We have different experiences, different perspectives. But we all have this in common -- for far too long we have far too rarely seen those perspectives and experiences represented, much less represented fairly and respectfully, in the ever more limited "mainstream" political conversation (in which an extremely limited number, of extremely narrowly experienced, media players play gatekeeper).
September 24, 2007 11:47 AM | Reply | Permalink
Indeed; I can easily imagine a great drop in liberal blogosphere traffic alone. How many have come to labeling themselves as "progressive" in opposition to Bush's presidency more so than any other factors? What is left as glue sticking all these "progressives" together with, for example, people who had always called themselves liberals, after Bush? He has a terrible approval rating, and a big segment of conservatives don't like him anymore as well, so "against Bush" is a majority party right now. That won't get anyone far in coalitions after he's gone, whatever you call yourselves.
Bai gives a good example to use along these lines in his post, quoting Andy Stern:
If you read someone like Nathan Newman's posts here, and the comments on this site, and elsewhere in the liberal blogosphere, that argument is not over.
Likewise, lots of people here seemed to dislike Todd Gitlin's suggested Democratic party platform as not liberal enough. (See here, here and all the associated links on the Book Club on Gitlin's book.) There seems only to be solidarity in being anti-Bush.
September 24, 2007 12:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hey, rdf, since you're posting for everyone here, and we haven't all read his work in the Times, it would be useful if you put forward a few examples of "slant" and failure to "agree with [our] fundamental take." From his post here, it looks like he's addressing the fact that we are precisely in process of (re)forming our "fundamental take."
Also, how can agreeing with a fundamental take be a prerequisite for objectivity? Generally, that's fundamentalism, objectivity's blood enemy.
September 24, 2007 12:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
What does "the far left" have to do with it? The blogs like DailyKos include people starting from a wide range of perspectives, and generally serve to widen those perspectives farther. When you get hundreds of thousands of people in a greater discussion, ideas and sensibilities can travel fast. Those discussions continue in bars, barber shops and living rooms across the nation and the world. That's why, for instance, the idea of impeachment has polled well for many months, even though the orthodox old media hardly gives it the time of day - let alone the column inches it deserves given its appropriateness and popular support. The popularity of impeachment didn't come from people in isolated meditation, but rather from the national discussion facilitated through the blogs.
This isn't about the heirs to the SDS taking over, or even the sensibilities of some politically correct English department. It's about Americans discovering that our core values remain radical in ways defined through our national heritage - not through some ideological overlay. This is a narrative both Roosevelts spoke in their time. It's a narrative emerging again today.
September 24, 2007 12:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
A laundry list of ideas is not the same as a grand, arching narrative. Heck, we don't even have a "Great Society," let alone a "New Deal." Those weren't just slogans; there were entire, coherent programs which they titled.
What you're saying is like, "We already know all the beautiful words. Let's just put them together and make a poem. Surely the poetry journal editors will elect to publish it! If not, they must just be against beauty."
We need not just sensible programs and objectives, but an entire story about a more wonderful and achievable future that we can all pull together to achieve. Instead, too many Democrats are either fighting holding actions in behalf of past gains, or holding out for a candidate who agrees position-by-position with their own largely-arbitrarily-assembled list of the "right" things to do.
We need something flexible, forward-looking, enthusiastic. Instead we've got flexibility expressed only in compromise with the GOP, backward-looking griping, and ... well hey, there's real enthusiasm showing up on the blogs. So what's with that?
September 24, 2007 12:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
Depends on what counts as an idea. We always do better with something fresh - whether that's in food or fashion or politics. Canning ideas is no substitute for producing fresh ones. Yes, you can grow a fresh crop from old seeds. It's not that you necessarily need new seed varieties. But you have to grow the crop again - you can't just keep hauling last year's corn out of the store room.
The point is, original and living perception of the world is generative of fresh descriptions of where we are and what we need. If your narrative is stale (and Lord knows that's true of almost the entire press) that's a true indicator that you aren't paying attention, in any serious way. Instead of seeing the current world, you're blinded by old narratives habitually imposed over your vision.
September 24, 2007 1:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
I read the book and found his take to be very different from what you presented here. He did an excellent job of laying out the conflicts within the party. One of the biggest conflicts he explored was b/w the group that is interested in building a political organization/positioning (blogs, billionaire funders) of the party as opposed to those who are trying to adapt the Democratic view of government to a 21st Century which is mobile and interconnected (Andy Stern). We need both but there is a lot of intra-party squabbling going on about where to put the resources and this book does a really good job of laying that out.
September 24, 2007 1:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sorry, I won't read your book wither. I've read enough about t to know that it is the same biased koolaid you peddle in the NYT. Like the bulk of the MSM, your outlook can be simply summarized as "If the sun come up in the morning, it's good for the Republicans, but if the sun fails to come up in the morning, it's bad for the Democrats."
September 24, 2007 2:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
I wrote this over at DailyKos a little over a month ago after I first read the book.
To me these are some of the key grafs in the book and they answer your question:
While all of their proponents labored to make them as universal and as palatable to voters as possible, none of these arguments grew originally from a desire to win elections, nor were they designed to be immediately acceptable to the broadest swath of voters. FDR's vision inspired generations of free marketeers to detest everything he stood for, even as they reached unimagined prosperity. Johnson and Kennedy turned the entire American South away from the Democratic cause. Reagan's thesis cleaved the country, bringing on twenty years of intense polarization. Each of these arguments, in fact, infuriated large numbers of reasonable and influential Americans--but that was precisely what made them compelling and important. That was the cost of forcing people to choose between one governing path and another, and in such choices lay the fate of the public.
An "argument" as Bai has defined it is not a policy idea, it is not simple marketing of a message, and it is not a call to action either.
It is a governing philosophy that when articulated ties a diverse group of policy ideas and calls to action together and gives the government a framework with which to deal with them and talk about them.
What do ideas like universal single payer health insurance, combating Global Warming, and rebuilding New Orleans have in common? Well for a start there is this overarching theme that some problems require government intervention and resources to do the right way.
I'm not saying that is the argument we should be advancing, but that's how people should start thinking about this.
September 24, 2007 2:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
And yet we seem to not be passing any of those things in Congress despite opinion polls that indicate they enjoy healthy margins of support amongst the voting public.
And using Bush as an excuse won't be good forever there, the more conservative elements of the Democratic party are currently stronger than the progressive ones and that can be shown by things like I don't know recent Iraq votes or the latest thing with MoveOn.
So clearly there is some kind of disconnect here, and instead of faulting those in the party you decide to fault a journalist that is analyzing the situation and often drawing correct conclusions about it. They aren't perhaps conclusions many of us would like to hear, but that doesn't make them any less right.
And while Harry Reid is the Senate Majority Leader, in reality we don't have a majority there because Lieberman will side with the GOP on important issues more often than not and Cheney can break any ties.
September 24, 2007 2:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
That is a completely inaccurate generalization. If you'd take some time to browse through some of the recent pieces he has written here: http://www.mattbai.com/archives/all you'd see that isn't true.
In fact this article written by Mr. Bai went a long way towards pushing my support in the primary towards Edwards: http://www.mattbai.com/node/47
September 24, 2007 2:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
People who think that the United States Senate has no business sanctioning political speech are "leftwing"?
Russ Feingold is the only Senator who didn't make an ass of himself over that ad.
September 24, 2007 3:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
Personally, I think the problem is the healthy margin$ of $upport they are receiving from sources other than their constituents--it's a biparti$an problem.
September 24, 2007 4:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
Try this on the MoveOn condemnations:
(Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama voted for a lighter Democratic version of the resolution, but Mrs. Clinton voted against the final Republican measure and Mr. Obama skipped the vote as a protest. You might say they voted for it before they voted against it.)
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/23/weekinreview/23mbai.html?pagewanted=print
Here's a review:
With the possible exception of the Republicans, is there a major political party more stupefyingly brain-dead than the Democrats? That’s the ultimate takeaway from “The Argument,” Matt Bai’s sharply written, exhaustively reported and thoroughly depressing account of “billionaires, bloggers, and the battle to remake Democratic politics” along unabashedly “progressive” (read: New Deal and Great Society) lines.http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/02/books/review/Gillespie-t.html?pagewanted=print
(Of course, the review was written by the editor of the libertarian mag Reason, so it should be taken with a grain of salt.)
Michiko Kakutani's take:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/28/books/28kaku.html?pagewanted=print
September 24, 2007 4:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
Basically, my take is that Bai always asks why the Dems don't have more "big ideas" without looking very hard or talking to the right people.
He talks about George Soros and other big Dem funders. Well, funders of the right such as the Mellons or the Olins or Swiftboater and Romney supporter Bob Perry, who although having the good sense not to talk to the press for the most part, do not have in-depth intellectual conversations about the underpinnings and future goals of the GOP. Neither do many other random movement conservatives. So Markos doesn't know all there is to know about various policy issues. So what? Do any conservative bloggers or AM radio talk show hosts like Rush?
September 24, 2007 4:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
Actually, it's a problem that is far worse on the right than on the left, measured either in dollars or despicableness.
September 24, 2007 4:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
While I'm not sure I disagree with what you are saying, you are just flat wrong about the candidates' stances on global warming, Iraq, and how they talk about abortion.
September 24, 2007 4:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
I've read most of those pieces in the NYT, and I think it is actually a pretty accurate generalization, even though I also liked the Edwards piece that you linked quite a bit (although