Thanks again to Matt for sparking this lively conversation. I agree with him, I think, that there is more similarity than difference among some of the positive and healthy dynamics created by the early New Left and the netroots phenomenon. And I also agree that the netroots phenomenon--bringing people to the process--is a positive one, similar to social movements like labor, feminism, etc. in that way (and differentiated from the DLC which brought money to the Dems, but not bodies, as Matt points out, even if their ideas did spark some useful debate and repositioning here and there). But I'd like to pose two questions to him in response to his initial post and to his newest post. First, Matt, could you define what you mean by 'social liberals' who are part of the netroots movement?

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Thanks to Matt Stoller for his post. But a few questions- I’m not sure about what he means by “identity liberals.” Without doubt, what I would call “ swing voters” are disillusioned by politics—and politicians—as usual. But swing voters are not necessarily liberals at all. If anything, the divide between social liberals and economic liberals—or progressives, even populists—is still something that must be negotiated among the Democrats. Whether they have mediating institutions or not, the politics need to be sorted out if the Dems are to win in 2008.

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David Brooks has a provocative column in today's New York Times about American exceptionalism. It's an homage to Seymour Martin Lipset, the monumental political sociologist who died on New Year's Eve, and who was the intellectual most responsible for the phrase "American exceptionalism" entering modern political discourse.

Lipset, who died in his eighties,was a democrat and Democrat was born of the era when defense of the social welfare state meant defending a commitment to a social democratic ethos of equality. He spent decades examining why the trade union movement was among the weakest in the industrial world, and why Americans believed in a non-class based system. Brooks posits the notion of equality against opportunity, and challenges the Democratic Party to listen to those centrists who promote "opportunity" against the leftward populists who "advocate an activist state." The question is, however, how can we become a nation of true opportunity without the state making certain interventions. This is not only where the Democrats and Republicans part ways, but where the Democrats and the Democrats part ways.

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