Adapt We Must

by digby

There’s a fascinating conversation going on around the blogosphere about the “young turks” vs “the fogies” in the Democratic party that feeds into my critique of the establishment as having an irrational fear of hippies. This latest discussion stems from an observation by Matt Yglesias that a lot of young people don’t remember the age of bipartisanship and only see the polarized political world of 1998 on. Therefore, they see a politics that is far more partisan than those who came before.

I find this fascinating because I think I am twice Yglesias’s age and have been following politics very closely for more than thirty years. Yet I was first shocked, then radicalized by the actions of the modern GOP during the 90’s and I believe exactly as he does that hyper-partisanship is going to be with us for the forseeable future.

I have written before that I had signed on to the DLC experiment and certainly backed Clinton all the way as he found himself under perpetual seige from the Republicans, beginning in the 1992 campaign and not letting up until he left office eight years later. But throughout his term as I watched the mainstream press allow itself to be manipulated by GOP operatives and succumb to tabloid entertainment values, I saw Republican leaders like Tom DeLay and Newt Gingrich rise to the top of their party prescribing a scorched earth political style and using focus group tested rhetoric like “depraved” and “sick” to describe their political opposition. I observed a system that became so warped and unrecognizable that it would impeach a president over a personal indiscretion in spite of a large majority of the public being against it. The stolen election of 2000 was merely the icepick on the cake.

By the time all that was over, I no longer saw how it could be possible to forge a consensus or even fashion reasonable bipartisan compromise with these people. While Clinton had been somewhat successful in holding back the tide through his exceptional political skills, it seemed clear to me that the Republicans were determined to kill any remnant of the bipartisan governing style. As it turned out I was right. Since they took power they have consciously ruled with as little Democratic support as they can get away with, finding symbolic cover as necessary with cooperative Democrats like Joe Lieberman. They have consciously marginalized the opposition (or as Hillary said, ruled the government like a plantation) — and in the process have governed this country in the most dangerous, irresponsible way possible leaving the us with massive debt, international instability and a weaker moral center.

I do not think there is any hope of bringing these people around. And frankly, considering their track record, I think it’s delusional to believe otherwise. At some point, you have to recognize that you are dealing with something that is irredeemable in its present form. Modern conservatism has a malignant core. If they lose power over the next few years, as seems likely, I have no doubt they will rediscover the joys of bipartisanship when they find themselves in the minority. But the modern Republican party must undergo fundamental internal change before it can be trusted. I’m not sure that will happen in my lifetime considering the seeds that have been sown.

Perhaps it’s harder to see that from the inside and that’s why many of the establishment “fogies” seem to believe that this is a temporary state that can be turned back. From where I sit out here, though,I see a new era and we’d better get used to it. The Southern realignment is complete and the regional pull remains a very powerful force in American politics. There is some evidence that people are gathering together with like minded others more than ever, exacerbating the polarization. Most importantly we are riding a wave of vast cultural and social change, both as a nation and as a species, which people will either roll with or resist — and that is naturally reflected in our politics.

Yglesias concludes and I agree:

My contention would be that the polarization phenomenon is a largely irreversible feature of the current social and political landscape, and that progressives need to learn to deal with it better rather than trying to transcend it.

Moderate Kevin Drum, another fogie like me, (with a much more even temperament) says this:

Why should anyone even moderately left of center spend more than a few minutes a week worrying about a barely detectable liberal drift in the Democratic Party? Will the tut-tutters not be happy until CEOs make 1000x the average wage instead of the mere 400x they make now and the 200x they made during the Reagan years? How much farther to the right do they want Dems to go?

Beats me. As with foreign policy, I fundamentally believe that domestic politics is primarily a battle of public opinion, and scorched earth policies mostly come back to haunt you. At the same time, you still have to fight like you mean it and you have to adapt to your opponents’ tactics. Worrying about lefties in the Democratic Party when the GOP is led by a guy named George Bush is like worrying about the Michigan Militia when a guy named Osama is driving airplanes into your buildings. The fogies need to get real.

It’s exhausting and uncomfortable to think of a politics of endless partisanship. But it’s a fact to which we can adapt and adapt we must. The good news is that liberals and progressives, being forward thinkers, open minded and looking to the future are, by nature, good at adaptation and able to do so quite easily once they wrap their minds around something. I actually feel optimistic that progressives will realize that the era of bipartisanship we once understood as the natural order of things is not the only way to govern effectively. We can beat them on the field of ideas. But we have to engage.

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