I heard this story once -- most likely pure anecdote or conspiracy -- of a strange alliance in the 1960s between black separatists and their racist counterparts. Both determined that they held the similar goal of a segregated society. So, despite their radically different motives and means, they decided to cooperate to achieve the desired end.

Perhaps we've reached an odd political moment where we would see a similar dynamic. Anti-establishment, populist troops on both ideological wings might just benefit by joining forces.

Ezra Klein points to the bizarre political alignments and implications of the financial regulation bill:

On this, you could see the liberal and conservative bases largely agreeing, while industry actors join in opposition. The battle lines might cut the establishment (the Federal Reserve, the banks, etc.) from the grass roots more than they separate the two parties.

Imminent signs were there when the premier libertarian (Paul) and uber-liberal (Grayson) led the charge against the Fed in the House. The votes and stakes on the bailouts last year also conjoined opposition, albeit for divergent reasons, from the Right and Left.

If this establishment/populism rift continues as a grassroots motivator, Democrats have cause for concern. Greg Sargent highlights the intriguing poll that shows the GOP has a big advantage in partisan "enthusiasm." While the populist Right seems to have cornered the market on energy, the Left might counter strongly:  e.g. Kos' DCCC boycott and the pending primaries against the Stupak-Pitts crew.

There are tons of key and nuanced differences between how each wing forms and enacts its attacks. No Doug Hoffman liberal incarnations have emerged. But, undoubtedly, many on the Left would love to Scozzafava some DINOs of their own -- especially since moderate Democrats are now the single obstacle to the Party's major domestic agendas.

Neither populist wave is going anywhere. Why not come together to seriously throw a wrench in the two-party system?

Update:  Yglesias bursts my bubble.

Climate change legislation has officially arrived as the next battleground in national politics. A major domestic policy agenda for the Democrats, this legislation already echoes the healthcare scenario, replete with hyperbolic punditry and vapid, inflammatory political discourse. 

In a clear indicator of the direction of the debate, Senate Republicans displayed their position by simply not showing up for a committee vote on the bill.  And, like the healthcare fracas, centrist Democrats are joining the fray in their attempt to make the bill more palatable for U.S. industry in the name of fiscal concern.

But with this obstructionist stance, the GOP risks alienating a once reliable partner in its increasingly fragile alliance with Evangelical Christians.

The political strategy in opposing climate change legislation mirrors most of the tactics in response to healthcare. Conservatives are warning of excessive taxation and blatantly denying the severity of the crisis. They are, arguably, picking up momentum with the ubiquitous "cap and tax" meme and an increasing skepticism about the reality of global warming.

Conservative Christians proudly took credit for the gubernatorial victory in Virginia, demonstrating that the Religious Right still has its hand in national politics. Yet, with a few notable exceptions (i.e. The Family Research Council), prominent Evangelicals were relatively absent from the healthcare debate.

Several Christian leaders, however, have taken a signficant stake on climate change issues, building formidable, diverse coalitions around the theological principles of stewardship and "creation care."

In 2006, 86 Evangelical leaders signed onto an initiative to fight global warming, citing its disproportionate impact on the world's poor. While some leaders in the Religious Right stay on message with their political counterparts, a splinter has emerged mostly along a generational divide. Aging giants of the movement, James Dobson and Charles Colson, signed onto a counter letter that proclaimed, "Global warming is not a consensus issue."

Younger Evangelicals, like Rick Warren and Ralph Reed, have stood on the opposite side. Leaders like Warren, who is steadily becoming the new face of Evangelical America, are arguable more influential than their predecessors. Reed's infamous Coalition recently became a strange bedfellow with environmental groups when it urged the Senate to enact legislation that curbs greenhouse gases and invests in renewable energy.

Yesterday's arrival of the Greek Orthodox "Green Patriarch" at the White House is an indicator of a growing international, interfaith consensus that views action on climate change as an imperative. Al Gore recently identified the "moral duty" of his environmental pursuit, a savvy acknowledgment of the strength of religious tides behind his movement.  

Stuart Scott, an author of the Interfaith Declaration on Climate Change, told the French press that, "Global warming and its impacts cannot be looked at just as a material problem. The root causes are spiritual." This remark is an interesting twist on the conservative talking point that climate change is not man-made and, thus, negligible. As the number of Evangelicals framing climate change as a moral issue increase, the vitriol from Sen. Inhofe, George Will, and Sarah Palin will settle further out on the fringe.

It is important to watch if and how Evangelical leaders support variants in the potential legislation that Congressional moderates are pushing, such as nuclear energy and clean coal. But most signs indicate that the right-wing can no longer assume the support of its religious arm. Hopefully, this demonstrates that Christian movements in the U.S. can tear themselves apart from an instep alliance with a political agenda. 

Right in the midst of his takedown of the Democratic agenda on healthcare reform, Lieberman is touting himself as the Senatorial ambassador on climate change legislation.

Apparently, he has to push a "strong nuclear provision" in order to get up to 60 votes. You know, to avoid that nasty filibuster.

The money quote from Joe:

If we can get all these groups together, we'll pass the bill and get to 60...And of course the chairmen. Jeff Bingaman because he's the chair of energy; Max Baucus once he liberates himself from health care. Kerry and [Barbara] Boxer. [Italics mine]

Once Baucus "liberates himself from health care"!? Delicious.

It will be entertaining to watch how Joe's credibility on this legislation go up or down with both parties after his health care stunts.

In its print edition, the front page NYT story on Scozzafava's surrender in the NY 23rd race concludes on page 36 -- right beside the obituaries. Enough said.

The article does capture a gem from Gingrich:

"I think we are going to get into a very difficult environment around the country if suddenly conservative leaders decide they are going to anoint people without regard to local primaries and local choices."

Notice that Gingrich does not point to the death of the GOP Moderate. Instead, he laments the distortion of local politics by outside forces.

But the article doesn't hit on the culprit behind this trend:  campaign financing.     

Scozzafava identified the reason for bowing out as her inability to secure enough funds to deliver her message and, thus, be competitive. (Of course, this is a more tactical response than, "I was ousted by conservative wing of my Party.") She was obviously moved out by political forces. But her lack of campaign coffers held her back significantly from defending the attacks from the Right. Hoffman has received an enormous amount of financial support from national conservative organizations outside the district.

Running for Congress requires an obscene amount of money. And the influence these funders command are clearly evident (see:  Lieberman, J.). With a fervent anti-corporate streak popular across the ideological divide, now would be a good opportunity to move towards an public financing of elections. 

Promoting anything with the words "public" and "financing" together is probably a non-starter. How about "Main St." campaign reform?    

Anyone else struck by this sick twist? Just as Wall Street has one of its best days in recent months, a report emerges that shows the public believes Wall Street and the big banks are the biggest winners from the government's policies.

Reuters reports that Wall Street gets those green shoots as the GDP rises:

"We see today that the optimism about corporate earnings reports is just being confirmed in the GDP report," said Kenneth Kamen, president of Mercadien Asset Management in Hamilton, New Jersey. "We are starting to see the economy really recover and GDP picking up."

Meanwhile, Thomas Edsall parses through a report and some excellent ProPublica research that clearly shows the public's frustrations with the weighted distribution of the bailout and stimulus benefits. Without a clear change in direction on these policies, Democratic strategists are going to have to work heartily to fight back this populist backlash from both sides.


On a perhaps related note:  isn't it a trifle odd that HuffPo would include Mayor Bloomberg on their list of "Philanthropy Game Changers" after he just shattered the ceiling on campaign spending? Not to mention the recent accusations of quid pro quo with his supporters through said philanthropy. Just saying.

Slate is running a review by religion professor Alan Wolfe of a biography of Rick Warren. Offering a rather tepid scathing of Warren, the piece briefly touches on the important niche that the mega-pastor has carved for himself in the public sphere. Warren has been out of the limelight since his Inaugural moment. Yet his role in the formation of contemporary global religion and politics is still worth examining.

Wolfe correctly sets Warren apart from his high profile predecessors in American Evangelicalism. But I think Wolfe makes a misstep when he links Warren with prosperity theology:

For Warren and those to whom he preaches, worldly accomplishments matter but so does God's grace. American and capitalist values instruct us that we rise in life due to our own efforts. Warren teaches above all that it happens because we are fulfilling God's plan. The combination is irresistible: We can take pride in what we have become without viewing ourselves as selfish egoists.

Warren's theology and ethos is not a blatant defense of wealth. Instead, it positions him as a sort of high priest in the reigning "soft capitalism." Slavoj Žižek, the uberhip psychoanalyst/philosopher, explains this new breed best. We now have the weird reality where capitalist philanthropists (i.e. Bill Gates) are the saviors of the developing world and Starbucks the champions of fair trade. In theological terms, our sin (consumption) is redeemed by the good deed (e.g., saving Guatemalan farmers) made possible by our consuming. Žižek points to the irony that our capitalist system itself is what created the vast inequalities that corporate charity is attempting to dilute.

So we have this Christian leader rising to global prominence in an age where this logic is emerging as dominant. A cogent defense of "soft capitalism" concludes that we now have a more empowered consumer. Companies would not be going green, organic, or fair without the egging on of the conscientious buyer.

Of course, the retort to this would be that we are left with a libertarian defense of the political status quo. The same critique can be applied to Warren:  despite turning Evangelicals from ardent absolutes and toward relevant issues (HIV/AIDS), Warren's style is toothless. He wields a political power without a prophetic edge. And, like the new form of capitalism, his theology does little to address collective responsibility or systemic forces behind those pesky global problems.

Warren remains an incredibly fascinating subject to watch. Rather than simply critiquing his logic, I would prefer people look how his worldview is aligned with the dominant ideological approaches to policy solutions.

Randall Terry unleashes the beast. It is notable that Sen. Reid has joined Pelosi on the whipping post here. At least they are smart enough not to go after Obama. Still, the call is pretty blatant:

Terry, founder of Operation Rescue, said Tuesday that the contest serves as a political and spiritual statement that "gives people a chance to peacefully vent their rage."

"If Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid force us to pay for child killing and they die unrepentant, they will burn in hell for this," Terry said in a telephone interview.

Not sure that this is a frightening as the recent flare-ups in Afghanistan. But it is eerily similar. Terry is pretty squarely out there on the fringe. This echoes the Maryland man that ran into some trouble with his Congressman's hung effigy. I enjoy how this is framed as a spiritual catharsis for its practitioners, and as a "threat to the soul" of the Democratic leaders. Good to know that spiritual warfare wages on.

Has anyone written a comprehensive history of effigies?

TPM has done an excellent job in parsing out the NY-23 Congressional race as a microcosm for the current state of the GOP. After all it has the exciting political drama of the moment:  tea-partiers (replete with astroturf funding and full-on fringe); test of Presidential leadership (Obama is stumping for the Democrat in a conservative district he managed to win); ACORN; and the Weekly Standard.

Commentary on the race has neglected the role of international trade as a linchpin issue. Admittedly, trade has moved to the back-burner lately. Organized labor has backpedaled a bit on fair trade as a priority issue in lieu of EFCA and health care reform. But trade was an important, if overlooked, federal issue in the 2008 elections. Democrats Eric Massa and Dan Maffei both won last November, buttressed by their aggressive stances on fair trade. They won in districts -- and in Massa's case, a sitting Republican -- that are conservative, but heavily impacted by trade deals. These two were part of a significant trend nationwide where candidates from both major parties capitalized on a growing frustration with that "giant sucking" of Free Trade Agreements (FTAs).

Despite following the party line fairly regularly (77.3%), Rep. McHugh consistently voted against FTAs. His was one of a handful of GOP votes against the controversial CAFTA and Peru FTA. The 23rd district is a region of the state hit hard by the loss of the manufacturing jobs and the agricultural impact of lax import regulation in neighboring Canada. Part of the reason McHugh was able to curry favor with voters and gain support from organized labor was his stance on trade issues.  

Yet the trade issue has been markedly absent from the campaigning in the 23rd. Neither Owens, Scozzafava, nor Hoffman have any information on their sites about trade. Free trade has largely been an issue that has fed the schism on the left rather than the right. It marks a divide amongst Democrats between the progressive faction of labor, environmentalism, liberals in the House and Senate (namely, Sherrod Brown and Bernie Sanders), and the Clintonite, Wall Street free-traders. Although, fair-trade Democrats from places like upstate NY tend to be Blue Dogs in Congress. Owens seems to come from the moderate, pro-free trade stock. But it is difficult to tell.

It would be interesting to see how the trade issue comes down on the fault lines of the gaping divide in the GOP. The Club for Growth, which is strongly backing Hoffman in his third-party bid, includes "expanding free trade" on its advocacy agenda. But many of the social conservatives that could pull for Hoffman are most likely those that whose lives have been disheveled by outsourcing trade policies. Whether the Republican or Democrat in the race can make a convincing enough argument for this is difficult to tell.

Quite a bit of buzz has surrounded the recent Democracy Corps report on the conservative Republican (Beck-Limbaugh) base. The report lends some numeric heft to the now obvious idea that there is a substantial, but fringe population in the U.S. devoted to opposing Obama and much -- despite their party affiliation -- of the political establishment. Race, the report claims, is a negligible factor.

Most of the analysis of the report has focused on this findings as race as a motivating force. The report seems to ignore the basic lesson of the sociology 101:  the difference between personal racial prejudice (which it tested for) and underlying structural racism, the pervasive, latent force behind the "Southern strategy."

Less attention has been paid to this intriguing idea raised in the report that this conservative base sees themselves as a marginalized voice.