The Democratic and Republican party are Disinterested and indifferent to what we the people want. Independent bogeyman by the name of Bernie Sanders, who scared you so much, does listen to the people. A study done by Martin Gilens and Benjamin I. Page, shows that the parties don't listen to what the average citizen wants. Https://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/mgilens/files/gilens_a...
The two parties care about the economic elite and special instant groups, just look at the gun issue. The parties don't care what the average citizen wants, Bernie Sanders does, that's why he's the most popular politician right now. You the economic elite and the special interest groups will do all you can to bury Bernie Sanders.
Yes, Stephens makes skewed comparisons between Democrats and Republicans. But , there is a long pattern of purist, ultra-liberal Democrats handing (or nearly handing) elections to Republicans.
1948: You've seen the photo of Truman holding up the headline (inaccurately) stating "Dewey Defeats Truman?" Why was the election so close? It was because Henry Wallace, Truman's predecessor as FDR's V.P., ran for President in the "Progressive Party." He garnered 8.25% of votes in New York (mainly ultra-liberal Democrats), where Truman lost to Dewey by 0.9% and all of NY's 47 electoral votes.
1968: Millions of liberal Democrats intoned "Dump the Hump" and didn't vote or voted for Nixon. Humphrey. a champion of civil rights who (internally) opposed the Vietnam War from the onset, lost to Nixon by less than 0.5%. We got 5 more years of war, several right-wing justices and Watergate.
2000: Many purist ultra-liberals saw no difference between VP Al Gore, author of Earth in the Balance, an experienced domestic and foreign policy wonk and an innovator, and George W. Bush, who couldn't name the heads of most foreign States. 97,000 of them voted for Ralph Nader in Florida, where Bush won by 538 votes. We got the Iraq War, more right-wing justices and a recession.
2016: Jill Stein got more votes in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania than Trump's margin in each State. Millions of angry Sanders voters stayed home and 12% of them voted Trump. So ... we got Trump.
42
My Lord, Bret. For once someone in this godforsaken wilderness is channeling the thunder of an Alexander Hamilton. Best essay I've read in a long time and your colleague Tom Friedman delivered sermon recently. These days I consider myself a pragmatic bipartisan progressive. And I could not agree with you more.
15
Thank you Mr Stephens for stating what should be obvious; especially in California. For our State 1 rapid populist Senator (Harris) is more than enough. Hopefully, Californians will read this column, take a breath, a small glass of Napa or Sonoma wine and regain their senses and re-elect Senator Feinstein. Our Country needs experienced adults in power; not petulant populists.
3
Brett, I have a different take on what you call social justice warriors. They are more progressive and enlightened than people like, well, apparently you, can possibly imagine. They think outside of the box of what has been and into the realm of what can be and should be. This is not illiberal, smug, or intolerant. They are the same types of people who had the vision, sense, and goodness to fight against slavery, to fight for the right for women to vote, for black people to sit in the front of the bus, for LGBT people to be protected against discrimination. It's people who cling to old shameful ways who are illiberal.
8
This is a well-written and thought-provoking piece. I agree that the Democratic Party is in as much trouble as the GOP, but not because California democrats threw Dianne Feinstein under the bus. Dianne Feinstein at 84 was mocked last fall in a SNL skit entitled "the Democrats are back". It is precisely the age of all the left's leaders that is fueling the haplessness of the national party, and the rise of the sanders (mirror of trump on the far left) take no prisoners tribal warfare that the GOP has fallen into for far too long. Feinstein, Pelosi, Schumer, Hoyer, and so many others need to go NOW. I suspect the average citizen is turned off by both parties and time may be right for a third party in 2020,
7
Methinks Bret Stephens should be more concerned about what has happened to the Republican/conservative axis, and the destruction it's doing to our country, than about the polarization among Democrats and liberals. False equivalency remains the weapon of choice for such NeverTrumpers.
4
The GOP lost its way as a cohesive credible political force focused on financial conservatism. Republicans have grabbed power at the local and state level through the flow of massive amounts of dark corporate money supporting the expansion of the extreme right. They have been aided and abetted by the Big Lie Fox/Breitbart/hate radio propaganda machines. The Republican Party is now owned and controlled by billionaire far-right wing donors like the Kochs, Mercers, Adelsons and Wynns...etc.
At the end of the day, it is not a matter of red or blue, conservative or liberal ..it is a matter of respect for our our country's Constitution and the rule of law. To support Trump, a dangerous narcissist, a self-perceived god-king as president is truly an act of anti-Americanism. But Trump's blind, adoring fans don't care - they prefer a clown show to a real government.
Only getting out the vote of people who truly care about the future of our nation on a massive scale can eliminate the Trumpian/GOP scourge that plagues America.
8
I am pleased that Ms charen made her remarks. The enemy of my enemy is my friend. And I admire the fact that she did it in real time in front of an actual, not virtual audience. Gutsy.
But the right wings never trumpsters must face the reality that Donnie sprang from the fertile right wing rhetoric of those that she most admires. The wink wink racism and economic no nothing economics has brought us to the overt stupidity of the extreme right that dominates the Republican party. We on the left have no equivalent except in the minds of pundits with column inches to fill.
7
The electorate must demand real and significant gun law reform and insist that any person running for political office on any level must stand first and foremost upon that platform. The media has a role to play in keeping the public focused on that goal and in moving public opinion toward that direction. The electorate must not be distracted by the machinations of the powerful influences who feel otherwise.
3
What more do you need to know that Charen’s is telling you?
The GOP passed voter suppression laws in 22 states. This administration: has signaled to White Supremacists that their violence is welcomed; it is packing the judiciary with unqualified life-time conservative loyalists; vilifying our Intelligence Community so that qualified career staff will leave and be replaced with unqualified loyalists; vilifying main stream media in order to create national divisions while elevating conspiracy riddled right-wing FOXes, Breitbarts and Infowars, etc. to control what we hear.
This administration is: stripping the budgets of all departments’ that support and protect citizens while pushing out career staffers to hire unqualified loyalists who willingly deconstruct longstanding institutions; silently deporting law-biding and employed immigrants by the thousands while endlessly delaying DACA to give them cover as they deport people.
Now, using the Parkland event as cover, the president is saying what folks want to hear but the GOP will soon offer and pass sweeping gun legislation that will do the opposite of what is expected. Instead of strengthening background checks and licensing registrations, under the guise of we can’t announce which teachers are carrying guns, the law will end registrations. Instead, we will end-up with nationalized Stand Your Ground, Conceal Carry law that creates a national conservative, white supremacist, armed militia that can keep you left-winger in line.
5
"As for the other side, it thinks it knows what's True." Nonsense. Try this instead: "As for the other side, it is slavishly devoted to facts, science, expertise, knowledge. In short: the Enlilghtenment."
19
Did we just hear Bret Stephens call Elizabeth Warren an uncompromising, unenlightened, out-of-touch, ideologue? Who compares unfavorably with Mona Charen?
9
It all about the hypocrisy, same as it ever was. How anyone can claim to be " religious " and vote for and continue to defend Trump is mind boggling. Traditional values??? Whose tradition??? Not anyone or any group that I respect or admire. The Trump Party : Racism, Greed and Spite. BIGLY.
13
By the way, the folks who voted for Jill Stein, or wrote in Bernie's name anyway, because they couldn't be bothered to find out what she stood for, and figured that that Hillary Clinton was a neo-lib corrupt crook who'd betrayed the Revolution (now where have I head suchlike yelling in a public figure lately?), really might just manage to punt this upcoming election too.
And then come next year, even more posturing, a la Daffy Duck with his feathers blown off and his bill on backwards.
3
Thank you. And thank you, Mona Charen.
5
This article is false equivalency by a Republican who projects his own party’s insanity to the Democrats. A truthless incompetent con man like Trump wouldn’t be elected dog catcher if he were a Democrat. Let’s be real.
13
Keep on your path, Bret, and don’t let the myopic lefties wear you down. They gave us Bush (via Nader) and Trump (via Stein) and all they know is how self-righteously correct they are. But they don’t know how to win elections.
7
I'm afraid I fall into Mr. Stephens' "other side" grouping. I lifelong Democrat, I USED to believe that bipartisan compromise was the ideal. After 25 years of cold Republican calculus I have changed my mind. The Republicans have successfully marshalled neo-Nazis, hate groups, racists, anti-abortionists, Christianity-is-the-state-religionists, corporations, NRA-guns-everywherers, etc that have all combined to turn the Executive, the Legislature and, soon, the Judicary into a rubber stamp for their agenda.
Democrats spent 8 years being told "never", "no", "Obama is not a legtimate President"... So we on the left know full well where the Republicans stand. The mass exodus of "moderate" Republicans from the ranks of the governing is proof of the party's absolute abandonment of bipartisanmship.
So, my takeaway from watching the Republicans trash Obama for 8 years, from one year of their absolute control of the government, the appointments of industry insiders or people with zero experience to run every agency charged with regulation (that is, those regulations that are left...), the refusal to investigate & take action against enemies of the United States who undertook to subvert our democracy is that "moderate" Democrats waste their time attempting to compropmise because there is zero Republican interest in doing so. Democrats who do are being played the fool and are simply patsies. We need solid Progressives who won't knuckle under if democracy is to be saved.
18
Both sides. Both sides. Both sides.
Yawn.
5
There is much to admire in the first half of this column, but the second half contains two enormous errors of judgment.
1. The California Democratic Party's refusal to endorse Dianne Feinstein for another term as senator is among the healthiest signs I have seen in American politics recently. More state political parties should make courageous decisions like this (I live in New Jersey, where the Democratic Party has already fallen in line behind Sen. Robert Menendez, despite his ethical lapses.) Dianne Feinsten is 84 years old, and has served in the Senate for a quarter century. Her determination to cling to power until she is 90 appalls me. Surely there are some talented Democrats in their 40s, 50s, or 60s who can represent California better than Feinstein.
2. Not all progressives are intolerant and uncompromising. Admittedly, some leftists are intolerant of opposing viewpoints, but I do not find this to be true of most of them. I am happy to entertain all points of view, and I appreciate and learn from Bret Stephens's columns (except for his wrong-headed pieces on environmentalism), even though I seldom agree with his ideas. As a progressive, I don't necessarily expect to see my views become policy anytime soon here in the U.S., but I insist that the progressive viewpoint must be part of our national political dialogue. Bret Stephens seems to suggest that it is so dangerous that it should not. So, you tell me who is guilty of intolerance.
15
I would buy the William Buckley thing more if I had not seem rip open his sheep's clothing, and - teeth bared - go after Gore Vial with a venom that was visceral, calling him "fa&&ot" and "outing" him on live TV, a performance he said he would always regret.
But the fact its, the venom and hate and condescension and moral superiority are always there in the conservative - just below the surface, and it comes out in health care and tax policy, in budget priorities, in immigration policy and in social policy that would limit government unless it's telling us who we can marry, and what bathroom we can use.
Conservatives had to label themselves as "compassionate", because they thought compassion was a good thing, but the word was clearly not synonymous with their policies. On the other hand, saying "compassionate liberal" is redundant.
Party over country, employer over employee, greed over goodness, profit over morality.
The GOP.
16
Bret Stephens ought to be happy about the disintegration of the Democratic Party, as the radical left makes its final steps in a complete takeover of the party that once had people of stature like Daniel Patrick Moynihan, and now features radicals like Keith Ellison,
3
Many in the party have policy differences with Senator Feinstein but those differences pale when set against those with today’s Republican Party. Once again we seem pledged to destroy our own.
1
Holy false equivalency, Batman, this is one disingenuous article!
During this time of unprecedented political crisis, the most powerful Democratic state in the country wants to replace an 84 year-old moderate Senator who has served 26 years with a younger liberal who has spent his political career moving through the ranks of the Party. (The idea that De Leon is some far-left outsider is absurd. He's Senate President!) This is entirely sensible, yet, Stephens offers this as proof that "social justice warriors" are on the verge of splitting the party in two.
He asserts that there is a huge swath of Democrats who are just as authoritarian-minded as Republicans, but provides no evidence for this. He says the liberal wing of the party refuses to compromise, but does not name one reasonable issue on which they have refused to do so. (Are liberals supposed to compromise on issues like deporting Dreamers or arming teachers or banning abortion or stripping environmental regulations specifically to benefit private interests? What, then?) He implies that Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren are the mirror images of people like Louis Gohmert and Ted Cruz, but doesn’t quite explain himself here, either.
Are you really so sure that you chose conscience, Bret?
20
"The United States is going to have a right-of-center party in one form or another, and it matters a great deal whether that party is liberal or illiberal, capable or incapable of shame."
Two thoughts:
- If only the GOP could repopulate itself with people who are actually right-of-center, instead of off-the-far-right scale, as so many of them are today. There used to be a proud tradition of people called "liberal Republicans" -- who believed in free-but-not-unfettered markets, a clean environment, a sufficient social safety net, and working with Democrats to craft and implement policy -- but they've been made extinct by the uncompromising bulk of today's party, to the detriment of us all.
- Today's GOP seems too accepting of candidates like Roy Moore, Don Blankenship, Joe Arpaio, and office holders like the Disingenuous King of Obstruction, Mitch McConnell, and the Fauxtus himself. The country is starved for a return to decency and integrity.
12
I was happy to hear that the dissidents were able to stop the Stalinists in their tracks. Oh, wait...
I have no doubt that, if our democracy survives (and it cannot survive with the current pernicious influence of money), there will emerge a solid center-right party. Right now, it looks like the establishment wing of the Democratic party.
The Republican party is no longer a responsible political party. It is a cult. It cannot tolerate divergent opinion; it's followers must adhere to an orthodoxy. It cannot allow its leaders to be challenged: they are sacrosanct. It will engage, and has engaged, in antidemocratic tactics to attain and preserve power.
Patriotic Americans must abandon the Republican party and do everything in their power to defeat it. We can worry about the niceties of a conservative versus a liberal agenda later.
11
Good lord, Bret Stephens must have cleared a hundred acres of wheat for all the straw men he uses. No one owes Dianne Feinstein an endorsement that she plainly has not earned and--at 84--just *might* not reflect her constituents and their values. The left of today does not assert a monopoly on the truth, but we do demand the necessity that we protect the humanity of all of us, especially those with the least or the hardest row to hoe. Compromise is great, but not on human rights, and not at the cost of further disenfranchisement or harm.
The reason so many of us readers are so angry at the Times' hires of columnists like Stephens and his cronies is that they are not making good arguments. Like this column, they are lazy. They don't deal with reality, but instead spin or contort facts to suit their own notions. We just want honest arguments and clear thinking. Thus far, the Times has failed at that.
11
While I think Stephens has a point, and we ought not to ostracize those whom we simply disagree with, the comparison of Trumpism to the progressive left is an unfair and tired one. On the right, we have people who are trying to further silence the marginalized; on the left we have people who are trying to raise silenced voices. Sometimes, this may seem like we are silencing the "center-left" and admittedly, that occasionally happens. But the rebuke of Feinstein or other moderate liberals isn't a rebuke of liberal debate or enlightenment ideals, it's the embracement of new progressive ideals in the face of an increasingly dysfunctional and dangerous government. In a lot of ways the working class (including the white working class) have been failed by liberal democratic policies, to say nothing of the effects these policies have had on people of color throughout the nation. Why shouldn't we react? Why shouldn't we seek new, fresh, progressive policies?
If moderates continue to compare the far left to the far right they are going to make themselves insignificant. The radical left won't need to lift a finger.
People are angry, rightfully so. Instead of trying to preserve moderate debate for debate's sake perhaps it is time that we start to address this righteous, and thoughtful, anger. Most of all, let us not compare radical compassion to radical cruelty.
6
You've got it wrong. The debate among California Democrats certainly reflects centrist versus farther left (as well as concern over age, fair or not), but unlike the Republicans, no part of the Democratic spectrum with any substantial following (certainly including Kevin de Leon, who outpolled Feinstein and almost got the California endorsement) flatly rejects argument and facts. Republican dogma on climate change, supply-side economics, guns, gender/sexuality, and myriad other issues has been fact-averse for years and decades. No part of the Democratic party leadership, anywhere along its political spectrum, shows any parallel. The Democratic general public doesn't support it either. There are no widely followed left-wing TV and radio enterprises that are remotely parallel to the conspiratorially minded right-wing buffet on Fox and all over the radio. Even teenagers in eastern Europe who manufactured fake news for profit and who certainly didn't care which side prevailed found that out. They tried both left and right-leaning nonsense at first, but the stuff designed to appeal to the American left just didn't get enough clicks while garbage appealing to the right took off. The right was already happily awash in fake news from its own media, and this was just more of the same. All that doesn't immunize Democrats from populist illiberalism, but it indicates a far higher threshold of reasoned resistance to it.
4
Cry me a river, Mona Charen. Where was & is the concern for single mothers trying to live on slave wages in inflated economies. Her advice would probably be to take a second & third job or "get an education."
We've heard quite enough hand wringing from conservatives like herself, wailing about the pay discrepancy vis-a-vis the sexes among corporate execs, along with the attacks on the liberal do-gooders wanting people to be fed, clothed & housed, especially for their labors.
She couldn't carry water for Elizabeth Warren.
12
It's ironic and not irrelevant that Mr. Stephens mentions one of the Buckleys in his op-ed, because it was the lesser known Buckley who first tickled the funny bone of right wing racist populism with his infamous "Isn't it about time We had a Senator?" advertisements for his New York senatorial campaign. Unfortunately, the Buckleys weren't quite as unwilling to do a little toe dipping in dirty waters as conservatives remember.
It's about time we had politicians, Republican politicians, willing to win elections without succumbing to wedge politics, and its about time we ix-nay the them-tooism from which the GOP has benefited greatly.
1
I would argue that today's Democrat "traditional liberals" are the remnants of WJC's triangulators.
In 1995 the Democratic Party of Bill Clinton embraced triangulation, a political exercise that encouraged and supported deregulation and balanced budgets. Too add to Ronald Reagan’s (in)famous “Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.” Bill Clinton declared in his 1996 State of the Union Address that the “era of big government is over.”
Clinton and Obama governed as a Rockefeller Republican, as would have HRC, if elected. The Democratic National Committee was committed to triangulation.
HRC used to be the personification of hope for the left. On the welfare debate, she was supposed to be Bill’s conscience, the Eleanor to his Franklin. HRC became the Democrats’ establishment candidate.
The Rockefeller Republican branch of Democratic Party left those like Senators Warren, Harris, Booker and many others. Including this writer...
3
I'm glad to have Charen speak up. We need her to do so, and to do more. Those in her sad but conservative camp all need to break with the current GOP and urge everyone to vote against all GOP candidates in the fall. I must say though, as someone who saw Trump for what he was long before the election, these GOP never Trumpers decided to hold their noses throughout the election cycle, as long as they thought they could elect a Republican. So many of them were so ideologically driven that they couldn't see where this fool would take us. So many of us did see. Where was Charen then? Where are they all now that Trump is shredding our decency, not to mention our policies.
1
Another patently absurd salvo in the continuing all-encompassing effort to block actual liberal ideas from the discourse.
Why is there a Never-Trump movement? It's not because of Trump's conservative ideas. Those are the same as the rest of his party. It's because of his clear lack of respect for the nature of democracy; because of his massive moral failings; because of his willingness to lie and coerce in the pursuit of power and money; because of his emotional immaturity and inability to wield political power with dignity...
Throwing around the term "populism" has become an easy way to ignore political ideas that don't fit into what is essentially an economic do-nothing paradigm. This paradigm has frustrated many people on the left and the right because the current system is flawed for many people. So, very simply, voters are choosing to follow candidates that put forth ideas about changing the system. Some of those ideas and some of those candidates have populist tendencies. But state-funded college education, more progressive taxation, and reduced military spending in favor of domestic government programs... these are perfectly legitimate, liberal tenets.
2
I fervently hope that "what happened to the GOP in 2016 can happen to the Democrats in 2020." The GOP won the White House and Congress in 2016 and is reaping the rewards, to the detriment of our society, our government, our country, and our future! The Dems cannot afford to choose conscience over power, for we will get more oppression. Power is essential for electoral victory, and electoral victory is essential for re-establishing conscience as a societal and governmental norm. Fortunately, Dems can have both! conscience, they can choose both, but choosing conscience
1
Yes the right thing to say and do. But why is the "principled" leadership, eg, the Ryan's of the world so complicit. They basically have been dog whistling on all these issues for a long time. Still Mona is to be admired and applauded for this performance.
1
I would love it if Trump continued to work to end the CopKiller assault-gun sales and gain a political victory that many Democrats and some Republicans have wanted for decades. It would make people on both sides think twice before they swallow the "Party Platform/Dogma" and if he can do that he may end up being a great president. He clearly likes his "Shock" value and here is the perfect chance. I will not miss the end of the NRA.
I long for a reincarnation of Sgt. Joe Friday. "Just the facts, Ma'am." There can be no meaningful dialogue between parties and among parties when facts remain disputable. It is taking far too long for even the most interested citizen, regardless of party, to determine what is true and what isn't. I sincerely believe everyone else has just given up in that quest and choose to believe whoever says something that reinforces how they feel,
If we won't agree on basic facts, then labels and ideologies are irrelevant.
1
I have always believed that extremism on one side breads extremism on the other. Centrist ideologies react to their counterparts radicalization with their own gradual radicalization.
This happens in politics and in religion.
The most hilarious contribution from our Right-wing Never-Trumpers may just be how they blame the current American President for generations of Hollywood and big-business abuse of women going back to the Louis B. Mayer days.
At least the progressive hair-on-fires date all their complaints within the current decade, Bret. Now please excuse the workers for going back to jobs that simply weren't there two years ago.
Watching all the middle class incomes grow like they haven't in a generation feels pretty good.
Kudos to her. But, what did she do to help prevent Trump's election in the first place?
1
Great article--until you brought up William F. Buckley--the great guy who stole from lobster traps and left bottles of Johnny Walker in payment (so the lobsterman could feed booze to his children??)----certainly not the worst thing he did, as described in his son's book about him or as carried out in the terms of his will (a matter of public record)l--really a deplorable human being.
Daniel Patrick Moynihan may have been drunk at many or all point in time, but he definitely does not deserve to be compared to Buckley.
1
Liberals love Mona Charen because she is an outspoken critic of President Trump. Do you think she would be so popular if she was not a neverTrumper. Of course not. She has not been in the public eye since she was a regular guest on CNN's cancelled Capital Gang which has been off the air for years. Her appearing at the CPAC was a wonderful way for her to become relevant again but it backfired on her. She criticized others for being invited to speak here but she was the one who should not have had the opportunity to speak. Those in attendance generally approved of President Trump so it should not have been a surprise that she was booed off the stage. She was appealing to the wrong audience. She should have been at a Democrat event that would have applauded her views.
We're still talking about the Enlightenment, today? So much for its worth and the value of it in any practical terms.
What is a liberal? What is a conservative? The actual beliefs and policies change with the times, but core principles should be these.
Liberals want to change the world to make it better. They will disagree on how to get there, but the core principle is the same for all. The fault of liberalism is we tend to charge ahead into the future, without enough consideration for what works today. There is a tendency to press on ahead with every good idea, while leaving the masses behind.
The role of conservatives, if they could recognize that change is the one constant of human existence (a very big if), should be to slow down the proposals of the liberals, giving us time for careful reflection and to make sure we preserve time-tested principles.
But conservatives of today don’t believe that change is inevitable. They don’t want change at all. They want to go back to perceived better times. They want to preserve the power of their class and their religious and social beliefs at all costs. But change will come. Conservatives will be dragged into the future, kicking and screaming, so they will always be angry and resentful.
If conservatives could understand change is our friend, not our enemy, they could have a role in shaping it. Liberals could step on the gas while conservatives touch lightly on the brakes. That won’t happen, though, until that most fundamental understanding of human existence takes hold with them.
1
The populist illiberalism of the right is far worse than that of the left. Still, I agree with the gist of the end of the article: the repudiation of Diane Feinstein was done for poorly considered ideological reasons; the Democratic Party is now thoroughly identified, knowingly or not, as being in favor of illegal immigration, not just fair and efficient processing of immigrant applications. The latter does not sit well with the strategically chosen majorities who either voted for Trump or who stayed out of the last election -- and who will cause headaches for the Democrats as Bret suggests.
This column gets it completely wrong. We do not need a comparison of true conservatives, trying to cope with success beyond their wildest dreams, with true liberals, trying to deal with failure beyond their worst nightmare. The conservative success has created the problem of how to cope with misgovernment by a coalition of clueless ideologues and avaricious billionaires.
The liberal failure has exposed the impotence of their tired identity politics, and the need to build a coalition with the heavily armed but otherwise powerless minority they ignored. The ideas of Warren and Sanders may be wrong, but nobody else is offering any solutions to the problem of exploding inequality and the exploding rage it is producing.
Dan Kravitz
The first 3/4s of this column was good. What Stephens dismisses as "social justice warriors" are not a mirror image of the Trumpists. They are not anti-reason they way Trumpists are. I fear the Democrats may blow their chance to turn our country around, away from the current neo-fascist trend, but I don't think Mr. Stephen's portrait of the challenge that liberals face is accurate.
1
Centrist Democrats are the answer? What makes Stephens think centrist Democrats are reasonable is the bipartisan, two party, bottom line - they'd make sure it would largely still be business as usual on Wall Street and the chambers of commerce. Sadly, what's important to all reasonable pols and pundits is keeping the fight within the two party, business friendly, family. What scares them is America not buying and shopping for a third party.
1
What hogwash! Just because moderate Republicans--both rank and file as well as those in the highest echelons of power--have chosen party over country doesn't mean there's any parallel within the Democratic party. What's the worst thing that would have happened if Bernie Sanders had become president? Medicare for everyone?
I don’t know that being rigid and unforgiving is a virtue, but it highlights the problem: you speak of the importance of compromise in one instance while refusing any accommodation in another instance. From which I conclude that there are people you like and people you don’t like: that’s what your conscience amounts to.
1
Hogwash. This all sounds true in the abstract, but the author doesn't provide one single example of how Elizabeth Warren might be considered "illiberal." Even Bernie promotes a "healthy conversation" about real healthcare reform, which conversation in a rational world would include all the possibilities for government involvement. Thank goodness they are keeping rational ideas on the table-- we haven't exactly solved many problems during the unbalanced rightward swing of the past 35 years.
2
The Republicans have many of the same divisions the Democrats do, but the difference is they don't allow it to prevent them from voting (and winning). If more liberals hadn't taken their ball and gone home on election day, we wouldn't have this slow motion disaster we have unfolding in Washington.
1
“One side believes in the power of reason, the possibility of persuasion, and the values of the Enlightenment. It champions social solidarity for the sake of empowering the individual, rather than creating a society of conformists. It doesn’t see compromise as a dirty word. Its belief in the benefits of civility and diversity does not override its commitment to free speech and independent thought.
As for the other side, it thinks it knows what’s True. It considers compromise knavish. It views debate — beyond its own tightly set parameters — as either pointless or dangerous. And while it sees itself as the antithesis of Trumpism, it is, in its raging intolerance and smug self-satisfaction, Trumpism’s mirror image.”
You see these as two competing narratives. I see them as the same narrative viewed from two different perspectives. The first represents liberal view of what should be. The latter represents the liberal view of what current conservative view is, and what liberal should not be. These two views are compatible and don’t represent a rift between liberal thinkers.
Mr. Stephens, so glad you are writing for the NYT, which unlike your previous employer, has the courage to provide diverse views. Keep it up! And I agree, Ms. Charen's performance at CPAC was courageous and an inspiration to all true conservatives, and the left side of the Democratic Party is indeed the mirror image of Trump.
Trump is never my President, ever. Also, I've noticed that both white men and black men are trying to shame white women and stating they need to be redeemed. That is pure garbage, as white women have and continue to stand up for all women, races, and sexes. That's the way it is now, always has been, and will be forever more. So shame on those who are actively and successfully seeking to divide women, races, and sexes. It will not work.
1
If Mr. Stephens is apprehensive about how America's current cultural and political climate is amiable to ideologues and rogue populism, he should further acknowledge how Republicans especially have contributed to this environment. As I've stated before, the Reagan era has been characterized by an endorsement of a libertine definition of freedom. In the economic sphere, this view has been expressed through trickle down economics, and desire for deregulation. In terms of culture, one could argue that the NRA's view of the Second Amendment implies that individual freedom always trumps that of larger society.
In a negative sense, however, one also sees problems with this view. It fosters a climate friendly to the embracing of extreme views because it atomizes people from a larger context that is society; it encourages the abandonment of any sense of social responsibility, and one can certainly argue that America is presently devoid of it altogether. In essence, it's as if a Me decade, the 70's, morphed into a me generation, the baby boomers, which then morphed into a me era, the Reagan. The year 2018 may well be that of extreme solipsism in the USA.
I dunno Bret, do you wish to perpetuate this?; can't America do better and transcend such a politically and philosophically adolescent view?
Few of the California candidates were endorsed by the party at the convention this week. Why are people focusing on Dianne Feinstein like she’s the exception and the party is turning it’s back on her? We’re a long way from the election and primary candidates are just getting their feet wet.
Sorry but neo-liberals should not be defended. Bernie Sanders style democrats are not outside the norm, they are not racists, or extremists. It is the neo-liberals who are extremists, thinking the world can stay this way and everything will be fine, when economic inequality has risen so much, when jobs are not what they once were (if you can get one). Ironic really, Democrats standing up for a platform that is almost copy pasted from one of FDR's platforms are now considered anti establishment" and outside the norm. While people to the right of Nixon, just because they have a big D (stands for donor class, which they take legal bribes from. also Democrat) next to their name makes them mainstream "liberal", establishment, and therefore good. Let's get rid of all the neo-liberals please. They have failed us.
1
It was predictable that many commenters here do not see how this warning could possibly apply to any major elements within the Democratic Party or the left in general. MANY Republicans and conservatives are still in denial about the illiberal, anti-democratic forces that have taken power on our side.
The problem is not ideological extremes. People on the far-right or far-left seem more willing to drink the authoritarian kool-aide, and their resistance to compromise makes governing more difficult, but many conservatives like McCain and Flake stayed sane while many comparative moderates like Christie did not.
Decent Republicans who disliked illegal immigration should never have tolerated those who treated the immigrants like an inhuman plague. Decent Democrats who care about income distribution should not tolerate some of the things said about the "1-percent" and corporations.
Both sides have blamed America's problems on elite groups. Both liberal media and corporate executives have influence but are not the powerful conspiracies of the paranoids' dreams.
I know I am saying seemingly contradictory things---"Do not demonize your opponents." but also "Watch out, real demons are about!". But maintaining a free society often means being able to reconcile more than one idea at a time.
*That’s why you want good guys on the other side of the partisan divide..."
Which points out a major failing of the Clintons. They desperately wanted Trump to be the Republican candidate, considering him, even to the end, easily beatable. For the good of the nation, we need quality candidates on both sides.
As for Feinstein, her party's failure is in not realizing that younger talent must be cultivated. Similarly, when will McCain retire? Six months after he's dead? And no disrespect is intended. Age and attendant weakness happens across party lines. So-called elder statesmen, of which we require a few for stability, have lost touch with how the world currently operates.
2
Stephens' characterization of Democrats to the left of Feinstein, et al., is fatuous. The GOP has moved the notional center of political discourse so far to the right that there is plenty of room for more progressives within the Democratic establishment.
And the NY Times should correct Stephens' factual error: Dianne Feinstein did *not* "[fail] this week to claim her party’s nomination for the Senate seat." She merely failed to claim an endorsement. That's a big difference!
3
Eisenhower , Nixon, Goldwater and Dole would all lose today in a primary for the Republican nomination. Ike warned about the military industrial complex; Nixon began the EPA after Earth Day; Goldwater in later years favored gays in the military; Dole sells Viagra. Each of these conservative Republicans falls short of today's litmus test for high office whereas now a life long crazy Democrat turned demagogue has the full backing of the Republican Party whose values have been synthetic since the advent of Lee Atwater's negative campaigning for Bush 41.
All of this comes from economic despair in the rural areas. If we want to get rid of ethno-nationalism, rural voters need respect and economic opporunity.
2
Oh, brother. I'm sure Bret Stephens desperately wishes there was an influence in the Democratic party as pernicious as the MAGA Trumpers. But there are no Leftists among Democrats who think they know what is True, and who reject compromise (although we do have plenty of seriously liberal people who will not go away). Rather, we have nearly all Democrats secure in the belief that Trump is false, and that there is not much to be gained by compromising with the MAGA monsters, who will not be moved. That's to say, we are never Trumpers too. Our best bet is to work hard to bring out the voters who let Trump in by the back door, because they figured HRC was a shoo in. No more than 30% of the electorate will vote for Trump again; any kind of turnout bump will send him back to the carnival from whence he came (hence the ever more urgent GOP campaign to keep people from voting). Bret Stephens will have to try some other magic spell to rid the US of real liberalism.
1
In 2016 there were two candidates, Clinton and Trump. Both highly flawed with many negatives. A voter had to choose one. A or B. Or you could go home, not participate and sit it out which is what Mona Charen did.
Everything Mona Charen says about Trump is valid. As a Trump supporter, I did not give myself the luxury of sitting back, stroking my chin and whining how vulgar Trump is. I had to make a choice between the highly flawed, vulgar Trump or the polished Hillary with her all her baggage. I suspect that these Never Trumpers were opportunistic people who were sure Trump would lose and were sucking up to the incoming Clinton administration and Beltway think-tanks . For me the choice was easy and I don’t regret it for a minute. Also, Mona Charen failed to note that President Trump and the Republican establishment initially backed primary candidate Luther Strange in Alabama and not Roy Moore.
1
The limits within which reasonable discussions can occur stop us from diagnosing or solving our problems. This is increasingly obvious to many people. So we get Trump and Sanders, who are outside these limits, but in different ways. Sanders is well within these limits as they existed for economic matters in 1948. Trump is within these limits as they existed for social matters in 1948. But the limits have narrowed since then; segregation and the fulfillment of the New Deal are no longer on the table.
But reasonable discussions are now not just fruitless because they lead to tinkering with systems that are not delivering and need major overhauls. They are now impossible because the same logic and facts and the same ways of estimating outcomes are no longer accepted by all. We do not agree on global warming or the effects of guns on society or how our economy works, but we are not redoubling our efforts to find out who is right, but instead to spread our viewpoint. Some of us have lost interest in seeking what is true or what works, and instead spend our resources promoting views that serve our interests.
There should be no disagreement on which side is out of touch with reality and claims the other side is. But there is.
Populist liberalism in the economic sphere wants to see universal health care, (as in all other prosperous countries, college paid for mainly by government (as is high school, college in other countries, and as it used to be here when college was much cheaper), and halfway decent jobs for all (an area in which most other countries are also having problems). These are also the professed goals of traditional liberals, but the path to them is seen as much slower and to be achieved by compromise with conservatives rather than confrontation. The argument between the sides is mainly about tactics.
Our current conservative party is not right of center. It does not want a smaller, less radical New Deal, but rather to get rid of it bite by bite. It is as dangerously radical as the Communists of yore, and much more powerful. It has no commitment to traditions, and dialogue is impossible because scientific, historical, and statistical evidence is ignored.
The Never-Trumpers still accept budgets that do not add up, runaway deficits when they are in power and condemnation of deficits when they arent, a total silence about what can be learned from the disaster that was dubya, the racial dog whistles of Philadelphia, Mississippi, and the right of businesses to spread disinformation to preserve and enhance their profitability. The Never-Trumpers have eaten the camel and are straining at dessert.
Liberals are in contact with reality and conservatives arent any more.
5
Brett is thoroughly off base here. Populism isn't the problem for liberals or for the country. It's faux populism, the Trumpian variety where the wolves come in to protect the sheep.
The proof of Brett's false equivalence of liberal populism--let's be clear--of the Sanders/Warren type and the GOP's is that the latter ride Trump's back (like the Lady from Niger) in order to destroy medicare and social security. When they succeed everybody loses--can be seen in the beginnings of an anti-NRA movement heralded by activist young millenials. Both parties, centrist Clintonian Democrats and Tea Party Republicans have failed previously to do the right thing. Now the corporations are acting because these kids--their customers--are making it necessary to act.
The centrist Clinton/Obama Democrats need to get out of the way or they'll lose again. # Never Gillibrand.
15
I think there are a number of suburban Republican women who always vote who feel the same way as Charon.
3
To call the left wing of the Democratic Party a mirror image of Trumpism is absurd. One is an evolved ideology, the other an incoherent cult. Whatever you may find irritating about the stereotyped liberal strawman you create just to skewer, the left cannot compete with the Trumpists for sheer mendacity, hypocrisy, corruption, and contempt for objective truth. The left is at least trying to do what they think is right. The Trumpists are lying thugs pulling off a massive smash-and-grab. They couldn't care less what is right or wrong.
31
As someone who regards himself as a proud Liberal I have to disagree. I'm honestly not even sure what, in your message, is the "evolved ideology" and who the "incoherent cult". I suspect you're not aware of what's happening on our college campuses and in what way it's now manifesting itself in other major public systems (work places, etc.).
The Social Justice Warrior flavor of fascism is much more dangerous than the predictable tried and true fascism of the alt-right. The latter is transparent and recognizable the former is a wolf in sheep's clothing. If you're already positioned against the right and with Trump in the white house it's extremely easy to lose sight of just how much danger we're in from our own "side" - but it's precisely this wing of our party that was the catalyst for DJT's election and they deserve precisely the level of scorn and criticism that Stephens directs at them here... possibly much more.
2
Did the author miss the 2016 presidential election?
7
First, a general “hear, hear, is in order for Bret Stephens’ reminder that it’s very important for us all to be able to debate with one another within our own party. Argument can sharpen reasoning. It also clarifies values.
Looking back at our history, however, from arguments left on the battlefield, and those accompanied by actual bodies, I am little comforted.
The gun rights debate among Republicans has barely begun. This one has an actual body count, some 33,000 annually. and The uncompromising stance of the young people at CPAC cheering on the arguably insane, pseudo-religious rant of Christian Dominionist views of Wayne LaPierre is worrisome simply because it’s Nazis and their KKK counterparts who seem to be gaining political ascendancy. The militants are armed and every Homeland Security individual I have spoken with privately, has told me it is domestic terrorists they are most concerned about.
I wish we could bring our discussions back to the question of perspective, accompanied by reasoning based on actual outcomes. There’s something terribly wrong when the proponents of an ideology are unmoved by the repellent results of their immoderation.
13
Charen supported every lousy GOP idea since Reagan. She was against Roy Moore? Are we supposed to applaud her for enlightenment?
11
But she doesn't think those ideas were lousy! She's not apologizing for her ideas. She's taking her side to task for cheering a letter ("R") rather than taking people to task for their actions.
So - yes - you're supposed to cheer her because she doesn't *have to stick her neck out. But no - it's not for "enlightenment" - it's just for the courage of her convictions.
2
C'mon Bret! How CAN we "traditional liberals" EVER take "the threat of populist illiberalism seriously" when our HRC had received more votes for POTUS than any white guy in U.S.History? I mean if that can't trump the Russian-induced "populism" of a breached democracy, we'll just have to garner more votes than our greatest-ever, Barack Obama, when HE won. Twice!
6
I, for one, am too darned old to cater to 3rd way, or new, or blue dog Democrats (or whatever re-branding the conservative Dems are using; they're aka Republican-lite Democrats).
Do you want all Democrats to go along with those Dems who have "cooperated" with Republicans from NAFTA to China/WTO to the current 12 Dems (including Doug Jones of AL) who are co-sponsoring the bank legislation that eliminates some of the racial bias data-taking. For goodness sake, how can any Dem go along with GOPs on eliminating ANY racial-bias data in banking during the era of Trump?
By the way, how's that "China will democratize with open trade" going for ya'?
You might want to reread the 2007 article "America's China Fantasy", written by James Mann for The American Prospect. With Trump and the the current Republican Party, it looks like the influence has gone from strongman China to the USA... not the way Conserva-Dems and GOPs "promised.
5
"One side believes in the power of reason, the possibility of persuasion, and the values of the Enlightenment. It champions social solidarity for the sake of empowering the individual, rather than creating a society of conformists. It doesn’t see compromise as a dirty word. Its belief in the benefits of civility and diversity does not override its commitment to free speech and independent thought."
I'm not sure, but think you are talking about Bernie Sanders liberals. Where does your sense of this segment come from? Some of what you say regarding today's Republicans makes sense, but not this. This is extremist, even though there is very little evidence of a far left, as you describe it. Bernie liberals are not pro conformity, but they do not believe that corporations should have more power than citizens, that they should get better deals on money than students, that they should profit from health care, that they should be treated with leniency when they break the law and/or ruin our air and water, that they be allowed to pay for legislation that widens inequality even more than the current dangerous divide. Many Democrats today are more conservative and protective of corporations than Republicans of the 70s. It was one of Hillary's big weaknesses, one of the factors leading to the current administration.
If you want to stop extremism, Mr. Stephens, you should stop indulging in its language, helping to make complexity and truths fade away.
11
As a traditional liberal, I think Never-Trump conservatives have the opportunity to be the catalyst for starting to heal the political divisions that I often fear are beyond repair. Liberals who reject them out of hand - or can’t get past “where we’re you in November, 2016!” - risk missing an opportunity to promote positive dialogue and even political change in an era when the extremes of each wing put power (owning the issue through the fanning of rage) over constructive/productive achievement for the people. At a time when so few are persuadable, Mr. Stephens seeks to persuade us (liberals) to take the risk of trusting - to move out of our bubbles and seek the common good. By name calling, by demonizing, by failing to acknowledge our own failings - at what point do we become the thing we hate? Nicolle Wallace articulated the sadness and isolation of the Never-Trump conservatives on her program earlier this week (I think Mr. Stephens was on her panel that day). I know there was much about her boss’s policies (GWB) that we liberals abhor - but we should be able to disagree without hatred, find common cause without grudge - it’s the only path back from the abyss. I embrace those conservatives who, even if they once embraced Trumpism, are trying to come back to conscience - even if I disagree with them on policy. I want to debate as trusted friends not enemies. Ok - I brace myself for the backlash.
6
Gimme a break. Yeah, it's sorta true that some Bernie Sanders supporters are absolutist and unwilling to compromise; in my experience those tend to be the kids who have little real interest in or understanding of politics. And they're basically idealists -- they want to get rid of corruption and corporate influence and they have the naive dream that can be achieved. No, the real difference between the parties is that the marginalized people who are Democrats want in to the system - thus they want to preserve and strengthen the American system and make it more fair, a la Obama. The marginalized people who support the Republicans have the feeling that they owned the system previously, but it's been taken from them - their response is to angrily try to tear the system down and strike back. Their motto is: if we can't have it, nobody can. That's why there's no Trump among the Democrats, Mr. Stephens. I like your columns though. I'm glad there's one conservative worth reading regularly.
5
"That’s why NeverTrumpers matter...and why progressives who dismiss NeverTrumpers as politically irrelevant are wrong."
As much as I might loosely be defined as a progressive (not a member of any party however), I don't dismiss NeverTrumpers as politically irrelevant per se.
What I do do is blame them for having helped get us here in the first place.
Charen, Frum, Brooks, and all of their fellow present-day party-line apostates can write all the excoriations of Trumpers they like, here, in the Atlantic, wherever, and I will never be able to give them the time of day, for it is they that helped buttress the party foundations that lead to Trump.
8
This is a hilarious piece. I get that social justice warrior twitter can be a hassle, but what Democratic politicians could you possibly think of as being a threat to liberal values? The gap between left and center in the party is more about economics, and the left 'radical' wing is the more reliable defenders of civil liberties of the two.
10
The left "radical" wing are the more reliable defenders of civil liberties? Is that why they shut down speakers the don't agree with? Is that why they riot in the streets? I'd rather vote for a brain-dead hamster than Trump but the radical wing of the Democratic party is misguided and continue to purse the same agenda that got 60 million people to vote for Trump
One has only to read the commentary accompanying this column to see that compromise with Republican policy is considered to be either pointless or dangerous. Yes, Donald Trump is unfit by character & demeanor to be the President of the United States. He was placed in that position not because he was the "best" person for the job; he was placed there to rebuke the policies & processes that so many Republicans, and yes, even independents and Democrats believed needed to be changed. That vote was a cry from many average Americans that they were being forgotten by the economic & political policymakers that have controlled this country for years.
The parties are mutating into very different policies & ideologies. While the evolution of ideas & beliefs are a natural part of political thinking, the polarization of both parties toward their more extreme elements should concern everyone who favors a stable political environment. We do not need even more political volatility than we have right now.
6
There are plenty of legitimate reasons to wish Dianne Feinstein would retire and allow a new generation to take the lead. She's on the conservative side of her party representing a state that is among the country's most liberal. She supports spying on citizens and has blocked attempts to limit the civil liberty abuses of the Patriot Act and state surveillance. She may have been a trailblazer in her time, but she'd be in her 90s by the time her next term is over and like much of the Democratic Party, is out of fresh ideas.
To equate the left with Trumpians or claim one must be a deranged social justice warrior to oppose Feinstein is totally disingenuous on Stephens part, who somehow thinks he's Vaclav Havel now. Stephens mostly just like Democrats who act and think like the Republicans he's nostalgic for.
39
RE: The Future of the Democratic Party ......
I'm confused. Which side do you suggest "believes in the values of the Enlightenment." etc ..... ?
I'd suggest, it's the Bernie Wing. The absolutism of the HRC, Feinstein, Pelosi, etc. Wing is what led to their failure in 2016. And sadly, they haven't learned. They're still looking for scapegoats rather than looking within.
Move left, embrace the Progressive Agenda or it's 4 MORE YEARS!
5
False equivalency ! Our senator did not hold a Supreme Court vaccancy for an entire year.
5
"The fabric of an open society is more frayed than most people realize, and it is coming unraveled from more than one end. What happened to the G.O.P. in 2016 could happen to the Democrats in 2020."
Thank-you Bret Stephens. You are a breath of fresh air at the New York Times.
4
Mr. Stephens' projection of certain beliefs onto liberals like me is entirely untrue. And hisuse of the label "far left" is ridiculous. On the Reagan scale, today's liberals are center-right; on the Nixon scale, we are far-right. The issue within the Democratic party is that an aristocracy of consultants in Washington want to dictate who gets to run in which districts, and they trash any free-thinking Democrat who doesn't shut up and fall in line. So we liberals are a LOT like Reagan conservatives: we hate Washington telling us what to do.
1
Maybe those experienced insider Washingtonians want to WIN elections and know that before one can yield power and change, one has to WIN elections.
The electorate must demand real and significant gun law reform and insist that any person running for political office on any level must first and foremost stand upon that platform. The media has a role to play in keeping the public focused on that goal and in moving public opinion toward that direction. The electorate must not be distracted by the machinations of the powerful influences who feel otherwise.
1
The ability of "intellectual" "conservatives" to mine false equivalences where nature provides none is both amazing and perverse. Stephens and Brooks, especially, are masters of the genre and may well have nothing to write if they suddenly awoke to that disembling meme and moved it to their "Logical Fallacies to be Purged" folder in DropBox. I think Richard may have forgotten his password (lack of use), but surely Brett and David have remembered to post it on a sticky note on their monitors.
But had they done so (awakened to the fallacy and its insidious rot) they could serve as witnesses to the last throes of their witless "conservative" cohort. No more Fox appearances, though. Bad form over there.
I thought transparent, self-serving projection of one's faults onto others had been co-opted via hostile takeover and was now wholey-owned by Trump and his wholey-owned Russo-Republican toadys. Apparently
that is a deeper, more persistent program than could be dissolved by the mere surfactant of "never-Trumpism".
Brett, we love ya for the latter, but you should reread some of your recent stuff and attend to the former.
2
"As for the other side, it thinks it knows what’s True. It considers compromise knavish. It views debate — beyond its own tightly set parameters — as either pointless or dangerous. And while it sees itself as the antithesis of Trumpism, it is, in its raging intolerance and smug self-satisfaction, Trumpism’s mirror image."
From NPR: 'Here's How Many Bernie Sanders Supporters Ultimately Voted For Trump': https://www.npr.org/2017/08/24/545812242/1-in-10-sanders-primary-voters-...
"Fully 12 percent of people who voted for Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., in the 2016 Democratic presidential primaries voted for President Trump in the general election. That is according to the data from the Cooperative Congressional Election Study — a massive election survey of around 50,000 people. (For perspective, a run-of-the-mill survey measuring Trump's job approval right now has a sample of 800 to 1,500.)"
..."And then there is race. Nearly half of Sanders-Trump voters disagree with the idea that "white people have advantages." ...and another postelection study — co-authored by Schaffner — found a "relatively strong indication that racism and sexism were more important in 2016 than they had been in previous elections."
"...one other figure that stuck out to Schaffner: Compared with those numbers above, Clinton 2016 voters were remarkably loyal — 'I found basically no Clinton primary voters who voted for Trump,' he told NPR in an email."
6
I have to disagree with Stephens. While there are illiberal voices on the left, they are far out of the mainstream. Democrats don't have people who deny objective reality running the show. There is no liberal equivalent to climate change denial or birtherism. Liberals do not self propagandize with anything equivalent to Fox News or talk radio.
There will be no liberal Trump. Lyndon Laroche or Dennis Kucinitch will not win the nomination. The modern day Republican party was uniquely vulnerable to a hateful crank like Trump, because for decades they have fomented hatred and idiocy in their base. They have to -- their base isn't going to vote for them because they cut taxes for the wealthy and destroy the environment.
It's true, we need to respect Never Trumpers and encourage a responsible center right to take over the GOP some time in the future. But first, we have to get the bums out. We need to vote out every Trump enabler. The GOP can either cleanse itself through failure and reject Trumpism, or it can morph into a Trumpist party. And Trumpism is not conservatism. It is fascism.
We need not worry about preventing a liberal Trump from taking over. We need fear institutionalizing Trumpism. Trumpism must fall hard and never recover. If Edsall doesn't see this and is too busy covering for future Republicans with his 'both sides' argument, he is part of the problem.
12
"As for the other side, it thinks it knows what’s True. It considers compromise knavish. It views debate — beyond its own tightly set parameters — as either pointless or dangerous."
Truth is Truth, humans must agree on Truth in order to form societies. The problem these days is YOUR side simply ignores Truth because it is mostly ignorant.
7
He never said that truth is not truth. He said that the non-compromising side of liberal Democrats believes that they, and they alone, know what's true.
1
How completely absurd (and trite) to categorize democrats as binary, rather than a spectrum of voters. There's one group Stephens qualifies as irrational, and the mirror image of Trump. Another, the more conservative, elite, entrenched realm, as having sole possession of the merits of good government, and, by inference and assertion, to be holding back the hordes of leftists catastrophe at the gates?
Rubbish! Dianne Feinstein was rejected for an up-and-coming politician of a different generation who has in no way been demonstrated a part of Mr. Stephens' fantasy of a belligerent far-left (he doesn't even dabble in addressing this in the article). With the exception of Obama being twice elected, the last 18 years have been a disaster for the Democratic party. For a new era to feel that one of that wasted generation's 85-year-old icons might be sensibly replaced, isn't a hard political wind to either prophecy or understand. All parties have their internal divisions. This articles doesn't bother to explore that topic with any intellect, only agenda.
4
Some delegates to CPAC, to some extent, know that their support of Trump is flawed and immoral. They are backed into a corner and they have gone too far down the road with the wild-eyed right wingers they thought could be controlled.
What we really don't need is an equal and opposite meltdown on the left.
That requires the moderate wing to acknowledge the value of ideas of the farther left. Things like the cost of higher education, healthcare, housing, saving and retirement have caught many younger adults in an economic straight jacket. Admit that and work with it. Honestly, African Americans, women, blue collar workers fall into the same economic spectrum.Yes, protecting the civil rights of every group is important. But civic and economic rights go hand in hand.
I know quoting Bill Clinton is frowned upon, but we are back at the point that "it's the economy, stupid."
2
Two propositions: 1) There is a breach in the Democratic Party that could present a problem in 2020, and 2) This situation resembles the populist "illiberalism" of the Trumpists. The first seems likely to some degree. The second seems less persuasive. Certainly, matters won't play out like Clinton versus Sanders. In 2020, "center right" (Biden? Who else?) would lose to "arbitrary Democrat". The entire voting public seems to be drifting left in matters like gun control and school choice. Finally, can anyone besides Sanders espousing a liberal populist view garner much support?
GOP-lite (aka we hate guns but love Wall $t.) is not an option for many of us anymore.
I'll take my left wing to the left, please. No more of this center-right triangulation capitulation.
11
Trading conscience for power. Well said
4
"As for the other side, it thinks it knows what's True."
Is this the same "other side" that follows all those Postmodernist claims that there is no Truth?
Which is it already?
Our political rift is not to be decried, but embraced. The socioeconomic rift been increasingly widening under a bipartisan consensus that promulgates the lie that laissez-faire capitalism, now branded as "free" markets, is the means toward a democratic and just society. Most of America in the 80's and 90's bought into this illusion, blind while the American Dream was being pulled out from under its feet. Thank God America is waking up and the political rift is widening along with the economic one. Again, most Americans turn on at their screens and see the one percent glory in riches while they wear themselves out treading water. Most Americans see the 10 percent smiling and prospering while they with furrowed brow fear the final hardship that will plunge them into poverty and misery. No, the middle path, Republican nor Democrat, is not the answer, nor is Ms. Charen, no matter how nobly she speaks to the worst elements of her party. We need a third party now, a party that advances political and social democracy and offers more than the tired, old status quo. This is what Mr. Stephens fears. Frankly, whether the survivor of our corrupt two party system is Republican or Democrat is irrelevant. What matters is whether the challenge to the corrupt status quo will be from the dark forces of corporate and racist neo-fascism, embodied in Mr. Trump, or from the social justice warriors that Stephens fears and decries. If if is the former then all hope will be lost.
9
I do not agree with the parallel of right- and left- populism. To be sure, there are nuts on the far left. But the far-left leaders like Sanders do not peddle in lies and vitriol. At worst, Sanders can be accused of over-promising and having no realistic chance of delivering on things like universal health care. But they are least ideas worth campaigning for.
Bottom line: the crazies on populism's left live at the bottom. The crazies on populism's right, live at the top, and then it's turtles all the way down.
21
It is dangerous to believe that promising without delivering is OK.
People who have lived under communist regimes know the disaster of Utopia.
Who can envision a pragmatic, non-corrupt and truly democratic third party?
I fear there is much truth in this column. The far left, social justice warriors, Bernie Bros, or whatever you want to call them, are not deliberate liars like Alex Jones and Rush Limbaugh, but they can be equally dogmatic and unwilling to consider or even listen to other points of view. They are not liberals; liberals ground themselves in reason, not dogma. Their ascent will not win over center-right voters, without whom they cannot hope to prevail over the Trumpians.
5
Steve from VA,
We've had 75 years of failure in healthcare insurance dominated by private insurances and, in fact, perpetuated by Obamacare. We've had 50+ years of resounding success for seniors with single payer Medicare. So, how should we continue for all Americans: with proven failure by private insurance dominated systems like Obamacare advocated by centrist Democrats, or with proven success like Medicare expanded to everybody, as the far left wants.
We've had warnings about human caused climate change since the 1980s and climate change is getting worse. Should we continue extensive use of fossil fuels as the centrist Democrats want, with their "use all possible fuels" mantra, or should we ban fracking and should we tax carbon as the far left wants?
In terms of solving problems, the far left's solutions are far more pragmatic than anything centrist Democrats have proposed. The center has given us decades of failure in healthcare, climate change, affordable higher education, wealth equality. What exactly is the virtue in continuing the failures of the center?
1
Hey Brett, Thanks for the advice but first you might start with the fact that this was not about the Democratic party's "nomination" but about the CA party endorsement. Any editor's over there? But hey, climate science is irrelevant so facts...? Meh.
Second, you seem to equate--as too many do--the long-time racist, nativist underbelly of the GOP, which your party has conventionally cultivated through "dog whistles" that under Trump have turned into howling winds, with the efforts by progressives to do what is best for the people they represent. Elections are about choices between positions (at least in they were until they became, in the GOP, choices between fundamentalists like Cruz, spineless men like Rubio, etc and Donald Trump, the racist), and in the California race, there are real debates about real issues that need to be vetted. We believe in facts. We can take it. Thanks for the warning.
14
True--I'm sure that some delegates voted against a Feinstein endorsement on policy grounds; there always have been. That's called democracy. But some delegates, I suspect, felt the need to deal with the reality that if she wins again, she will be 91 when she leaves office.
It is sad that a long career of public service has to end at some point, but we can't change that reality by ignoring it. And California Democrats would be remiss to not develop a new generation of leaders.
2
That was a good piece until the false equivalency hook at the end, crazed MAGA Trumpers = the far left. The tendency to fall into the trap of assuming the divine ordination of party politics dualism always goes down the road of needing to frame black as white and blacker as whiter. A paradigm shift seems to be taking place though, so you pundits better start waking up to it, and create some new rubrics and language in which to critique it.
8
Listening to Patriot Radio this morning and they referred to the "Democrat's Civil War".
Hmmmm... new to me.
I see a bit of that in this piece.
My reflex?
Purely manufactured.
These guys WANT to foment and escalate nonexistent problems about Dems.
Hate helps them to feel strong, "WE don't do that. WE agree. WE know better.".
Perhaps because they are lockstep in ideology, it drives them nuts to see honest, civil debate and discord... you know, the way things are supposed to work.
Oh sure the Dems have a long list of problems to work through. Always have. Always will. Welcome to governing.
But then consider the other side. They have all the answers?
Right...
9
The false equivalency here stems from our "Limbaughs" having been mainstreamed, and that has created a politics of hate. While we see the hateful Republican rhetoric, they're not nearly as public or blatant as the progressive calls for genocide against rural cultures in the US.
3
We progressives ( and yes smug self-satisfied blind Bernie followers, we are progressives and have been since before probably a lot of you were born) have seen what the author is referring to
first hand. When a bunch of newbies exposed to phony propaganda from Russia and not denounced by Bernie because Russia was supporting him, withheld votes in Wisconsin Michigan and Pennsylvania. This was all it took to turn the country over to the most monstrous inhabitant of the Oval Office ever. I can see this happening again if we don't gain some common sense.
48
I'm tired of conservatives like Mr. Stephens cautioning us against adopting left-wing policies as a reaction to his appalling representative, Trump. Finger wagging, Mr. Stephens has reminded us several times that the solution to Republican insanity is not to imagine for even a moment that we should move any further to the left and adopt policies that might serve toward the common good.
Disingenuously, Mr. Stephens refers to positions that used to be considered "far left." He knows as well as we do that all of those positions he is now labeling as "far left" used to be center mainstream, and that this country has gone so far to the right that even to be at the center nowadays would have been "far right" a few decades ago. Stop it, Mr. Stephens.
And as for social programs that promote "conformity," well, all I can say is, grow up Mr. Stephens, and stop thinking in such black and white terms. A society is not full of conformist robots just because it recognizes a) that there is such a thing as society, b) that there is such a thing as the common good, and we all should be working toward it, c) that people are far more individualistic when some basic needs (health, education, pension, help when disabled) are attended to.
We've all heard of fake news. This column is fake opinion. Mr. Stephens and his ilk are terrified that their dreadful representative Trump might result in - gasp! - a government that helps people. Hence the fake, disingenuous twaddle written here.
16
How does one compromise with those who deny objective truth? Climate is changing due to human intervention. More guns in the hands of more people results in more killings. Mexico will not pay for a border wall. The list goes on and on, and wishing will not change facts, regardless of what Fox News blabbers. I hope the Republican party recovers its senses but until it does, the only hope is for its resounding defeat.
10
Yes, this is true: the most ferocious attacks come from those who have that guilty little voice in the back of their minds.
2
Ivanka, I will never by your bangle, and it is not because it’s your product. In order to sell her bangle, her high heels, her cheaply made sheath dresses priced to own, Ivanka and many others like her glorify “the look,” constant attention to trendy goods, and style over substance.
Ivanka, name one really fine book above the 6th grade reading level that you’ve read in the past three months. If you can’t find time to read with all the household help, drivers, protection, and ease in your life, I don’t understand why. My mother, a woman with three children, who cleaned her own home top to bottom, gardened, sewed, and cooked from scratch, worked 6 hours most weekdays making sandwiches at the local ice cream parlor, and sang in the church choir, found time to sit down for at least an hour a day with a fine book. I was taught to favor a well-sewn seam on quality fabric more than the throw-away goods at Three Guys From Harrison, the local cut-rate department store.
The problem with Trumpism is its lack of the fine moral sieve through which great policy-makers of both parties used to pass their proposals. The problem with Trumpism is its jump-to-conclusions, willy-nilly economics, its radical disdain for truth and inability to speak it, its disdain for learning and tar-and-feathering of “elites” -- who are after all only people with real accomplishments, academic and otherwise, who have had some success.
Please, someone, bring back the pre-Reagan GOP.
5
Social Justice Warriors can be self-righteous, humorless, and often self-defeating. But there is no left-wing Trump, nor anything like him.
12
I agree that Charen’s article was tremendous, and needed. And yes, Democrats must be very careful about returning to the days of admirable but hopeless candidates like McGovern. What you ignore, and what inflames an increasing number of progressive Americans, is the sheer monstrousness of Trump and his cult, the decades long history of a Republican Party pandering to the basest instincts of militantly aggrieved and spoiled white people, and the fact that pedants like you and Hugh Hewitt shift your moral bearings based on whether or not you agree with Trump’s latest tweet.
8
I agree, Bret. Yet, currently and for the last two decades the fact is that if you aren't to the right of Attila the Hun you are a liberal. And to steal another unknown quote, Bill Clinton was the best Republican President we ever had. I am not going to go as far as you in condemning the values of the left of center but your point is well taken.
If seeing a warmongering neocon like Dianne Feinstein in electoral distress is troubling to Stephens, he's once again lost in the wilderness
3
"Asked by the moderator to discuss feminist hypocrisy..."
Lovely. CPAC's beginning premise is that feminism is phony. What else did we expect? And is "virtue signaling" the same as displaying virtuous behavior? Or is that phony too?
4
1) there is no guarantee that Trumpism will eventually lose, or lose before it does huge damage.
2) how are you giving advice to liberals?
1
Sobering article Mr. Stephens.
Madam Charen got booed. While facing a room full of pitchforks, automatic weapons, religious nuts, bigots of all stripes, completely surrendered of reason and in complete embrace of big-business' rights to plunder, and of republican nihilism (i.e., destroy the environment, education, judiciary, law and order, infrastructure) - she spoke of rainbows, puppies, and bunnies.
But what is alarming is your sentiment: "My advice to traditional liberals is not to repeat the establishment Republican mistake of not taking the threat of populist illiberalism seriously, and of not fighting it fiercely."
I say: thou asketh too much; this is not compatible with the democrats' DNA. You may as well tell us that most of the earth is water, so we should regrow our gills. Logical, but impossible.
We (liberals) cannot do this. Because putting up an organized defense not something we want, and not something we can. This would interfere with our self-satisfied, smug narrative of being "good and loving" people, who are on the right side of everything. We have largely told people fighting for truth and justice" "this is not the way, now is not the time, this is not possible." We want to be punched and lynched, so we can go for candle light vigils (that only makes republicans chortle in mirth).
Madam Charen was a star of the 1980s. She is quaint and irrelevant now. Hence the booing.
Kalidan
1
Everyone in America should be required by law to sit down and read Isaiah Berlin. If we all did that we would be a decent country.
1
The US has a huge problem. Trump is bad. The NeverTrumpers are worse. McConnell and Ryan are even more damaging and more dishonest than Trump, they've been at it longer, have done more damage, and will still be doing it when Trump is gone however he goes.
Meanwhile, a cure is prevented because the space that could be filled by an FDR is instead filled by Republican Lite triangulating with the NeverTrump extreme.
FDR did not triangulate with Hoover. He "welcomed their hatred."
10
"The role of fantasy becomes greater when those who had previously been considered responsible for puncturing illusions and discrediting false beliefs have lost their status as truth-tellers"
Sheldon Wolin - Democracy Inc.
The DNC was in shambles long before this election....unfortunately.
3
Who - exactly - is part of this so-called extremist, smug, elitist illiberal left that is currently holding office? Name names. I’m drawing a blank. Someone enlighten me because Bret neglected to point out who he’s talking about.
2
Yeah Mr. Stephens. Blame us lefties for not wanting to compromise. The same way the tea party refused to compromise with President Obama. Sorry Mr. Stephens, we will not compromise our values because we see your side of the aisle completely and utterly morally repugnant. We will primary out our side of the aisles sell outs and finally be as nasty and vindictive as your side of the aisle has treated our side of the aisle since Reagan!
2
So we are allowing the tea party crowd to dictate standards? No thanks.
"What happened to the G.O.P. in 2016 could happen to the Democrats in 2020."
But who could the Democrats elect that could compare to Trump? A liar, misogynistic, egotistical narcissist. No one i can think of.
The top runners. Men, Sanders and Biden. Women, Warren, Duckworth, and Harris to name a few. All patriots and fighting for the betterment of our citizenry.
There is just no comparison. Trump stands alone, as do the Republicans that voted for him. His rating among past President's, last place.
9
Hear, hear. As a traditional liberal myself, I'm becoming more and more alarmed at the insanity gathering strength at what used to be my party's fringe. They aren't the least bit interested in a good-faith debate to figure out what the truth is, and their preferred mode of "argument" is to tell me to shut up and match my views to theirs because I am somehow socially unacceptable if I don't. I have the strength of character to not crumple in the face of that kind of emotional blackmail, but I know there are a lot of other people who don't, and who fall in line despite misgivings because they've been conned into thinking that they're obligated to do so. I've seen people who should have known better fall for this nonsense, and I've been trying to warn my fellows in the center-left that we need to take a stand before it's too late.
Racism and sexism will not be defeated via the abolition of free speech. Feelings do not take precedence over facts. Just because you feel bad doesn't mean you've been wronged. Normally you'd expect these fallacies in teens, but I'm seeing them in people who are well past 30 and should be more than mature enough to see this madness for what it is. And lest you be tempted to say it's just a few morons on social media, I can tell you it's not. These are people I encounter in real life. The problem is real. When it comes time to cast my primary ballot, I'll be looking for a candidate who is willing to call them out.
9
Reagan was unique. Reagan represented the GOP that genuinely supported the principals of "liberal democracy".....not "liberalism".....but "liberal democracy".....the model of what was then called...the Free World....the Golden Age of Keynsian Economics, whereby we all worked together to support a Federal System that distributed funds generated from an income tax earned from workers at industrial outputs in the private sector. Those Federal Funds were used to both "prime the pumps" of the so-called private economy AND to enforce, via "carrot and stick", a uniform set of national standards.....on everything from integrated schools to the amount of sodium in ketchup bottles.
First Nixon, an earlier version of the California Republican/Liberal Democrat, railroaded from office because he had the audacity to actually END the Vietnam War.....and then Ronald Reagan, shot three months into his presidency by the son of one of Bush's business associates and now Funder of Mitt Romney's attempt to gain the sceptre.(the Hinckley Family).
Neither Nixon nor Reagan had ties to an Ivy League education...which is the primary reason the Establishment Bureaucrats mock them both so roundly.
Trump is an enigma........he's a Penn Grad, technically part of the Ivy League...thus somewhat of an acceptable pedigree to Bureaucrats....but he behaves like a street thug from Brooklyn!
There may be differences on the Left, as ever, but they exist within a basic framework of comity. What's happening in Republistan is a cat of an entirely different stripe. When someone like Charen requires an escort off the premises to protect her from Trumpist radicals, alarm bells should be ringing. That is more than just a difference of opinion, that is fascism rearing its ugly head. It's also more than a GOP problem; it's a national emergency.
10
“When Trumpism fails, as it inevitably will, who will be the Republican Adenauer?” Wait a second, that gave me a good laugh. Konrad Adenauer was the first chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany and as such the chancellor who followed Adolf Hitler. I am watching out when Bret Stephens starts comparing “Mein Kampf” with “The Art of the Deal”.
2
Yet another “high minded” piece that takes partisan cheap shots at “social justice warriors” and Elizabeth Warren. If you libel civil rights activists and Harvard law professors with false allegations like the ones thrown around here, you are a NeverTrumper In Name Only (NINO).
8
Thank you, Mr. Stephens, for this paeon to sanity.
I wonder tho, who/where are those "progressives who dismiss NeverTrumpers as politically irrelevant". I sing hosannas unto, and (metaphorically) kiss the feet of NeverTrumpers.
2
Stephens is correct. The danger of liberal extremism is palpable. The delightful time-sucking, distracting, disgusting denigration of Trump is counter productive. Trump does enough to condemn and discredit himself. Liberals need not pile on and discredit themselves in the process. Present the positive reform that moderates can rally around, on both sides. The slight movement on "guns" is an example. So is #metoo. I am a Bernie Sanders supporter along with his agenda which, to me, does not seem exteme. But I am the first to admit that none of that agenda is possible without appeal to moderation and moderates on both sides. Let's drop the gloves and the blame games and go for that middle ground - once more - in a movement one could call the "decency" movement.
7
"Lost causes are the only ones worth fighting for." -- Clarence Darrow. Quoted by Jimmy Stewart in "It's a Wonderful Life" when he got to Washington. I like a slight re-formation of the line: Lost causes are often the ones most worth fighting for. Thank you, Bret, for helping us see this.
2
I consider myself a liberal democrat, a new deal democrat. I have no idea who Mr. Stephens is talking about when he describes either wing of the democratic party. While there are outliers in every group who may exhibit the characteristics Mr. Stephens describes, he is wrong about the core values of both groups.
13
William F. Buckley was an intellectual and from upper class WASP New York. The current GOP disdains costal elitism and Buckley was most definitely a coastal elite. Right wing conservatives think public higher education is a waste and is brain washing our young college students. Buckley voiced his opposition to liberal policies in a rational and interesting manner but did not distain education. He didn't brandish a gun for political gain. He knew how to debate with words instead of insults. Perhaps as a writer he thought that the pen was mightier than the sword. He would have been appalled by the alt-right. Back in the day it was the left wing that was against the elites. Now it is the reverse. There is one difference: in the 70s the Democratic Party never embraced the leftist politics of Abbie Hoffman or Angela Davis. But the GOP has gone crazy letting people like Alec Jones, Dinesh D'Souza, and Steve Bannon speak for them. Maybe they want to use them to control the low information voters (a.k.a. useful idiots) with conspiracies and lies. They need someone like Buckley now if they are to regain any semblance of rationality.
12
Charren the self-proclaimed never-trumper wants to be a trumper without trump. He is the logical conclusion of where her party has been going since Saint Ronald. The only difference is he says out loud what the GOP has been thinking.
7
The NeverTrumpers are even worse.
Just now, Trump is drawn to the populist appeal of some gun control, while NeverTrumpers sit appalled that he would say that.
Trump lies? Go back as many years as you like and find me truth from Ryan or McConnell.
10
Like Brooks you practice the art of the logical fallacy when your political party is being loathsome. Currently the GOP endorses hostile nations interfering with our vote, philandering, domestic abuse, defying the emoluments clause, taking healthcare from Americans, sending Dreamers to Mexico, building a wall, daily lying, lying to the Senate, Congress and FBI (Session, Kushner), nepotism, first class and private plane travel at tax dollar expense by cabinet members and not-stop personal golf resort visits at tax payer expense. Democrats don't support any of this. We do not have the same problems.
35
But we should think hard about what he is saying and at least evaluate the risks.
You had me up until the gratuitous dig at Elizabeth Warren.
15
I'm not sure it was a dig, so much as a comment that Warren (whom I am thrilled to have as one of my senators) is not listened to by Trumpers.
3
Identifying today's pro-Trump conservatives as people of "bad conscience" implies that on some level they know they are guilty of hypocritical, false to what, on some level, they understand to be true but reject because it doesn't accord with some external goal (like wealth or power). Theologians, psychologist, and philosophers have called this self-deception "bad faith" - the condition in which one is both a liar and the victim of his or her lies.
4
This is a false equivalence. Who is the Rush Limbaugh of the left? Who lies on the left the way Trump lies on the right? Is the Democratic party's decision to go for the "nuclear option" in the senate when the G.O.P. senators were holding up nominations forever the equivalent of McConnell's cynical denial of Garland getting a vote in the Senate, or is McConnell's move the same as the G.O.P. holding up votes, causing the Dems to go nuke? Where is the left's Fox network? Does CNN lie the way Fox does?
What kind of Left Leninist demagogue do you imagine appealing to suburban white female voters on the fence between the R and D lines? False equivalence.
43
To answer your question: the left's equivalent of Fox News is MSNBC. They are the polar opposite of Fox but unlike Fox News their ratings are low.
Totally agree. The greatest political danger to the Democratic Party are the anti-free speech and anti-due process mongers who can mostly be found within the BLM, MeToo and BDS crowd. When elements of the Democratic Party start sounding like the mirror image of Breitbart we’re definitely in for some trouble.
9
this letter to the editor offers a reply to Charen's "courage."
To the Editor:
Re “I’m Glad I Got Booed at CPAC,” by Mona Charen (Op-Ed, nytimes.com, Feb. 25):
While I’m happy to hear that Ms. Charen came out against sexual assault and racism at the Conservative Political Action Conference, a major conservative gathering, I’m utterly astonished that she feels entitled to take a victory lap for doing so. Is basic decency really that impressive?
Ever since Donald Trump’s inauguration we’ve been regaled with such tales of “heroism.” Where were these people right before the 2016 elections, when everyone with eyes and ears knew exactly what Mr. Trump’s election would mean for our country?
I suspect that these “heroes” — Senators Jeff Flake, Susan Collins, John McCain and Bob Corker, and now Mona Charen, a syndicated columnist — want to convince us that their trivial gestures somehow mean that they bravely stood up to Mr. Trump and Trumpism.
I’m still waiting for these people to admit that they were fooled, to admit that Trumpism and American conservatism are now one and the same, and to call on all Americans to vote Democrats into the House and the Senate to prevent further degradation of the Republic.
WILLIAM COLE, SITGES, SPAIN
23
Hegel called it "the cunning of history:" when your own side expertly masters the behavior they found most repugnant in their adversary. Already too many Democrats arrogate to their working class constituents, and it looks like it will get worse soon. The palpable entitlement HRC wore like a pantsuit is what did her in; everything else was just a detail. The evocation of Daniel Moynihan is perfect -- do the Dems have anyone with the intellectual tickets AND the legislative savvy to fill his role? Doesn't seem like it. One important point of self discipline that a winning Dem candidate must master -- never blithely state that your programs will be paid with taxes on the rich. Just do not be so lazy....
8
Yes, Brian, the next Democratic candidate must learn to dissemble. Sadly, Democrats never seem able to learn how, even though Republicans, who do it so effortlessly, are giving them lessons every single day.
2
spoken like a true Trumpster and Conservative. Moynahan would have shrivled in the day of Facebook and other social media. While that old style debate is still possible. We need new bottles for new wine, and we haven't figured out what that would be yet. Might those so-called programs that might be paid for by the rich, include corporate taxes and other loopholes that they take full advantage of while, the current GOP looks to take away whatever health care was achieved under Obama. Repeal with no replacement was their objective. Mean spirited folks only interested in their next election. So go talk to the GOP about self discipline. Please preach to the misbegotten.
1
"Dianne Feinstein’s failure this week to claim her party’s nomination for the Senate seat she’s held since 1992"
Did. Not. Happen.
8
Mr. Stephens confuses "nomination" for "endorsement." And with that level of attention to detail, I'm going to take everything else he says with a grain of salt.
1
I think that Ms. Feinstein was partly ruled over because frankly it is time for some younger voices. An eighty-something needs to retire, no matter how relevant they think they are. Mentor the next group.
The response to the Parkland kids has been refreshing. They have been the voices of reason minus the stupidity of ideology. The old guys in the GOP like Mitch McConnell are stale and beyond reason.
There really isnt much of a comparison right now to the total sell-out of principle by the GOP. I do think Mona Charen and Jennifer Rubin have taken heat for calling out what used to be called "conservatives".
10
You hit the issue correctly on the head with Senator Feinstein. We need the "olders" to make some room for the "youngers". Fresh blood is usually a good thing.
3
That's also the reason I think people should stop pushing Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders for 2020. The next generations need to start taking the reigns. Can we Gen X-ers please get some representation for once? All we've got is Rubio and Cruz - ugh!
1
That Stephens can hail Mona Charen's banal observations about Trump and the GOP as "brave" and "courageous" is a sad indication of just how far gone the Right is in this country. To read Stephens, you'd think Charen had made some devastating critique of Burkean eloquence against her fellow conservatives at CPAC. What utter nonsense. She merely expressed "disappointment" in their hypocrisy. I can't think of a milder, more milquetoast criticism that could be leveled against Trump and the GOP: a political party of truly breathtaking venality and viciousness. The fact that Charen had to be escorted from the CPAC premises for uttering obvious truths, delicately phrased at that, only proves how awful the Trumpistas are.
And the idea that the American left has any equivalent of the Trump movement is a fantasy that Stephens and other conservatives cling to with increasing desperation. Does the left have intolerant and ideologically blinkered members among it? Sure. Does it have *anything* like the full-blown, anti-democratic, openly racist, misogynist, quasi-fascist radicalism that has become de rigueur among the mainstream Trump-supporting GOP? Not even close.
Sorry Stephens and other 'moderate' conservatives of his ilk: Trumpism is a political disease that you especially need to account for and find a way to solve. Liberals have nothing even remotely equivalent to be ashamed of.
12
To suggest that Progressives, who champion the kind of governing that many of us have seen in action in most parts of the developed world, do not believe "in the power of reason, the possibility of persuasion, and the values of the Enlightenment" is libelous, scandalous. I believe what my own eyes have seen -- that governments can provide health care, fine education, high quality attention to their infrastructure, and free speech. If that is not believing in the power of reason, then you must redefine "reason" for me.
20
Teddy Roosevelt was a Progressive, one of the first, and Stephens didn't say that. He said that some on the Left were in danger of going just as far out on their edge as Trumpists had gone on theirs, and believes that this would be a Bad Thing.
You cannot govern a country anybody sane wants to live in from the fringes, whatever the fringes are: I pass on choosing between Turkey and Venezuela.
This kind of unreasoning, ideology-driven willful bad reading is a fair oart of what Stephens is criticizing. And he's correct.
Stephens seems to be chiding Democrats to accept a more centrist position than Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren want. The problem with the centrist Democratic position we got under Bill Clinton and Obama, and more of same promised by Hillary, is that it failed completely for the poor, the working and middle classes.
That centrist position has given us worsening climate change, never ending wars, bailing out banks while abandoning debt ridden (former) home owners, unaffordable higher education and unaffordable and chaotic healthcare.
As a campaigner, Trump won by promising to help the working and middle classes. He promised to wreck establishment politics to help those classes. (Whether he leaves those promises unfulfilled is beside the point. He knew where people were hurting.) Hillary Clinton lost because she was establishment politics promising more of same.
The necessity of Democrats moving to a populist Sanders-Warren left isn't a matter of choice. It's the only viable position left after the complete failure of "centrist," big corporation, big money Democrats -- the Clintons, Obama, Biden, Pelosi, Schumer -- to help the poor, the working and middle classes. You can't compromise with complete failure, and that's what centrist Democrats have given us.
20
This isn't Hogwarts Mr. Potter !
You need a crash course in representative government politics. The Clinton and Obama presidencies had to contend for the most part with divided government and power sharing.
Why ? Well, in part because the populist folks who voted for Clinton & Obama couldn't make it to the polls in the midterm elections. A Republic requires a continually engaged electorate. One that understands that the stability of our country is in part engineered by a legislative process that brings major change to the country incrementally and ideally with some consensus within Congress. Both Obama & Clinton inherited economic recessions that constrained spending. Without legislative majorities, they had to govern with compromise, which sounds like too high a price to pay for progress.
You don't like Clinton/Obama governance ? Well the other flavor is Trump.
So Steve, would you like another scoop of the flavor of the day ?
1
D,
Obama had 2 years, 2009-10, of legislative Democratic majorities, and the best those Democrats could give us is the mess that is the ACA, as Obama's "signature achievement". Yes, we have representative government, but the President has to lead in order for the government to achieve anything. Obama, in 2009, taking single payer off the table prior to the debate on healthcare reform was not leading.
Hillary as president would have been a catastrophe for this county's problems. For climate change, she would have placated us with half measures such as using natural gas as a "bridge fuel," which, when methane leakage is considered, is as bad a pollutant as coal, some experts note. Hillary would have nibbled at the edges of healthcare reform by 'improving" the ACA, after declaring single payer impossible. She thus would have left us locked into a private insurance dominated healthcare system which, for 75 years now, has failed to provide a universal, easy to understand, and affordable system.
The bungling and incompetence of the Trump administration are there for all to see, and we are consequently worried about climate change and we are considering single payer, concerns that Hillary would have buried without solving them.
If Hillary and Obama are the best that the Democrats can offer, progressive need a new party.
1
"Stephens seems to be chiding Democrats to accept a more centrist position than Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren want." Agreed. I think Stephens is also misreading the situation if he thinks the Democrats are split between centrists (the pragmatists, the grown ups as it were) and progressives who he identifies as campus "social justice warrior" types. I'd say the left is fractured three ways because we have another set of "progressives" who focus on economic issues and campaign finance. I recall this group being attacked during the presidential campaign by the centrists (not pragmatic!) and by the social progressives (special place in hell, Bernie bros, etc.). I wonder how much of a divide really separates the camps Stephens identifies, after all, supporting say, transgender rights, is both the right thing to do and costs the donor class nothing. But campaign finance reform? That's radical territory like single-payer and a bump in minimum wage.
2
I always cringe when I see the phrase "social justice warrior" used as insult or in derision. Since when is fighting for social justice a flaw? "Justice, justice shall you pursue," the Bible says, just one of many scriptural instructions about our obligation to others. I'm not a believer myself, but wisdom is wisdom whatever the source. Sure, some political behavior is excessive -- I could offer examples, but I'll leave that to others -- but fighting for social justice, for the poor and the powerless and the overlooked, should be praised, not derided. We could use a lot more of it right now.
12
It's ironic to listen to Brett Stephens complain about people who have sacrificed principle for power. The Republican Party made that deal in the mid-sixties when they decided to follow a "southern strategy." After Goldwater's historic defeat in 1964, the Republican powers that be realized that they could play on the racial and moral conservatism of the south as a road back to power. The business and Buckley wings of the party traded winks and nods for votes.
After decades of failing to deliver on the racial and moralistic promises that the business and Buckleyite types made, the "populists" of the south and rural areas of the country got sick of being played for fools and decided to take the party away from them. Those "neverTrump" conservatives like Charen won't ever be taken seriously by anyone until they recognize that they are completely responsible for the Trump fiasco. They need to recognize that John Kennedy was right when he observed that he who rides the tiger ends up inside.
5
I think you misread the California Dem vote. It's about changing the guard.
I'm 66, and even I recognise that the party needs younger leadership. Put the Congressional Dem leadership together and you're mostly looking at folks who are putting personal feeling ahead of party.
With younger leaders getting elected in 2018 the Dems have the potential to emplace a dynasty of progressives. And I'm sorry to be hard, but a big chunk of leaders of both parties could drop dead at any moment.
It's what happens when you're old.
10
Bret Stephens, this is an amazing article first that it discusses a very real issue the potential split of the Democratic party. But, secondly that it compares the non-compromising democratic that are unflinching in their fight for social justice and places them both in the same bucket.
I am absolutely a believer in fighting hard for social justice, but I believe in compromise when needed. But to equate those that refuse to back down from the higher good to the Republican party trumpets of no morals or conscious is simply ludicrous.
4
Specific to the mention about Dianne Feinstein: She is in her mid-80’s. Let’s agree that no matter your voting record, politics is a contact sport and requires the energy of a younger person. It’s time for Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer and our old leadership to go. Not because I dislike them, but because you only have the combination of youthful energy and life experience in your 50s and 60s, and despite minority-leader Pelosi’s admirably energetic “dreamer” speech, that reality has not changed.
Bill Clinton was a younger person when he ran for office, and won. Barack Obama was a younger person when he ran for office, and won. Politics is about personal persuasion, and arguing that someone born in the 1930s or 1940s is still ready to lead this country...is nonsense. The camera tells a different story before the candidate has even opened their mouth.
13
I don't know the particulars of the Feinstein endorsement vote. But had I been involved, I'd have been reluctant to endorse her for the simple reason that at age 85, it is time for one to step aside from a six year commitment and make room for the next generation of leaders. (Or in this case, perhaps the generation after the next generation).
10
Maybe Diane Feinstein didn't get the party endorsement because she is 84 yrs old. Seriously - it's time younger (and by this I just mean middle aged as well as young) lead the party.
9
Reagan made liberal a bad name even while we had a liberal democracy and studied liberal arts. The Democrats have had their extremists in the 60s and 70s, which is what enabled Nixon, Reagan, and Gingrich to drive out the liberal Republicans.
Feinstein is still a liberal but she will be 88 if re-elected. Even Bernie and Biden will be too old to be effective. Even Trump is too old to be as sharp as he was- check his small vocabulary and his slow walk.
Even the evangelical Republican have sold their souls to Trump.
As a Democrat, I could could vote for a NeverTrumper. He is driving more people like Charen to become liberals again. True liberals and conservatives still believe in democracy.
3
While I agree with little of Bret Stephens sallies on issues he makes a fool of himself with (climate particularly), he is absolutely correct that American politics is terribly frayed, and angry unthinking me-first partisanship threatens our nation.
And yet while it's always fair to ask the opposition to contemplate the mote in their own eye ... the specifics (such as they are) of Bret Stephens' worry for liberals seem unlikely to me.
There is no parallel to Trumpismo on the left. You may dislike Bernie, you make think that many of his more ardent followers are single-minded and clueless, but you cannot reasonably argue that "its raging intolerance and smug self-satisfaction, Trumpism’s mirror image."
That's just balderdash. Intolerance for what? Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, Debbie Wasserman and the DNC?
Liberalism will go on just fine without them, and indeed every one of them other than Pelosi is already gone.
The Democrats aren't going to elect a Trump. There's none in sight. Bret can't get away with seeing Bernie as a Trump.
Bernie's people may be even more upset if Bernie runs again and can't win the nomination -- but that will not threaten the nation the way Trump and his followers have.
Bret is spieling a false equivalence hypothetical ... there's nothing on the left that remotely resembles Trump.
10
I disagree. Bret Stephens is a prophet. No, Bernie Sanders is not Donald Trump. But when liberal arts colleges smother speech in the name of "tolerance," we on the left have a problem. We need to see it & deal with it, or we will suffer hypocrisy as the GOP is now.
1
Republicans rode their hypocrisy to total, unified control of the federal government? I think we have different definitions for the word “suffering”.
Just exactly WHAT speech is being "smothered?" Yolo Minneapolis coming in and doing his shtick?
That's not anything that constitutes "speech" of ideas.
"And while it sees itself as the antithesis of Trumpism, it is, in its raging intolerance and smug self-satisfaction, Trumpism’s mirror image."
Who on the far left of the Democratic party is advocating for "raging intolerance" exactly? I missed that. Oh, does Mr. Stephens mean the raging intolerance for homophobia? For xenophobia? For sexual harassment, sexual assault, sexual misconduct, and powerful people being creeps? For racism? For "Christians" who use a religion of peace to justify dehumanizing individuals whose lifestyle choices they don't understand? I am not sure what tolerance the constitution or any free society should have for any of the above.
It took a few months but Mr. Stephens has exposed himself as just another Republican apologist armed with little more than false equivalencies. Perhaps the saddest part about it is, I think he knows they are false.
10
There are reasons for wanting a representative to the left of Dianne Feinstein that do not involve an unwillingness to compromise and/or a search for Truth. It may be that people would like somebody who is a voice articulating their values and views and see absolutely nobody in the government currently doing that.
8
For whatever reason, this column reminded me of why I remain so bothered by the overuse of labels in politcs. Conservative, liberal, NeverTrumpers, progressive, right-wing, far left, Trumpism, social justice warriors, etc.
All this pigeon holing only serves to highlight our differences rather than celebrate our common aspirations. If our society is coming apart at the seams, such labeling plays a significant part in what tears at the threads.
I would ask everyone to open their minds, educate yourself on issues, listen to all points of view, and then support candidates with the proposed solutions that makes the most sense to you... regardless of party. Adopting the dogma that goes with a particular label, along with an 'us vs. them' mindset, is getting us nowhere.
94
In fact, though, nothing is accomplished without a party; those who vote according to this advice simply cede power to the better-organized, more disciplined party. A vote for Jill Stein was a vote for Trump. A vote for a 'good' Republican State Representative is a vote for Republican gerrymandering.
To avoid the worst outcomes of taken-to-it's-logical-conclusions Republicanism, as we are experiencing under Trump, opponents need to unify: vote only for Democrats, up the ticket from Dog Catcher to President.
I'm a Democrat. No other labels. Oh, I could add feminist, pro-choice, warrior, civil rights pioneer, supporter of BLM, etc., but I don't. I'm open to diversity which we Dems are supposed to believe in.
FOX is the greatest force ripping our society apart at the seams. There ought to be a reverse Alien and Sedition Act.
Excellent column. As a lifelong liberal I find myself reading Bret Stephen’s column more often than any other at the Times. Despite differences with him on the details of policy, he is so often the voice of reason, fairness, and intellectual coherence and clarity.
3
I agree. After Trump's victory, quite a few progressives declared that Kasich was a President they could live with if he had won.
So-- speaking as a "social justice warrior" (a title I wear with pride) ...
... I agree. Partially.
Illiberalism is having its day, left and right. I'm occasionally at pains to point out to my ideological kin that, at the end of the day, we have to share a country with those on the other side (even in the most fevered of secessionist dreams, that'll still be the case-- blue states have plenty of red geography).
That said, I'm not overly worried: leftists are a coalition of ideals and concerns so diverse as to make the coalition on the right look downright monochromatic. Getting Democrats to move in lockstep is an exercise in herding cats; it's hard to create a monolithic movement when the first impulse of most of its participants is to immediately question any marching orders handed down.
Then again, if any moment was going to be capable of tribalizing us to that degree, this would be it.
My hope is that we'll walk out of this with universal health coverage and a healthy social democracy. My fear is that we'll walk out of it with some form of authoritarian tyranny-- or, maybe worse, chaos, a political singularity beyond which no forecaster or pundit can see.
2
The blame for these developments belongs on the traditional politicians who have made careers out of saying one thing to get elected and doing another thing once they are. Trump dominates the Republican party now and moderate Democrat Dianne Feinstein just got tossed in California. CPAC speeches are great yet I still think the political class is in denial. They should spend less time and energy trying to fight the populist tide and more time and energy correcting the conditions which led to it. And that starts with showing voters their listening with actions not words.
2
I've described myself as center-left, and I'd say that's still the case. I'm an admirer overall of free enterprise, regarding it as the most effective engine for sustaining a strong middle class. I regard economic globalization and cultural connections as not only desirable, but well nigh inevitable in the longer run. And I resist the most extreme and insistent identity claims of the Left. On the other hand, I think the time has come for universal availability of affordable, high-quality healthcare. I'm appalled that America even now has failed to come to terms with its racism, its misogyny, and its manifold other intolerances. And so on. What I find false about Mr. Stephens' piece is its casual equal-weighting of the shortcomings of the Left and those of the Right. At this point in our history, the far greater threat is on the Right, as anyone who's been paying attention the past year or two ought to concede. And the so-called Never Trumpers have demonstrated consistently and with great civic virtue that they get this. They aren't imposing on themselves any obligation to treat the shortcomings of the Left as being as weighty or dangerous as those of the Right. Job one is to rid the Republic of the repugnant and dangerous ethno-nationalism embodied in Trumpism and protected and enabled by the GOP. Let's get that done, then address the ideological and political excesses of the Left.
6
It's called false equivalence. They do it all the time. At least you didn't fall for it.
As many commenters have stated, being labeled a "social justice warrior" is not altogether, or even in any way, a bad thing.
Democrats are mostly "center left" Bob, just like you. I want universal, affordable, high quality health care, top notch public education, and an end to racism and sexism. Know what Bob? On the right, people like you and me are considered 'lefties.' Sorry, Bob, I get the feeling you don't think of yourself as a 'leftie,' but in the eyes of Stephens, you are.
You are silly to think that because you like free enterprise, you are center left. All Democrats are in favor of people making money. Democrats also believe in globalization. Those of the 'further left,' like Sanders, have figured out that the increased wealth due to globalization has not been getting into the hands of the middle class. If you ever looked at his numbers, I doubt that you would disagree.
Stephens desperately wants Democrats to admit that we have the same problem, but we don't. Mostly, we're divided on a Sanders left vs. a Clinton center. We're divided on policy. Yes, we have a few activists who shout down racists at speaking engagements, but you know what? That's a good problem to have.
2
The problem is that left and right are labels that only matter when the power and influence of movements is restricted. Once extremists from either side are in charge without firm checks and balances, they are no longer right-wing or left-wing, but simply authoritarian. It becomes very hard to tell socialists and the fascists apart, because they are essentially doing the same things once in power. At the extremes, neither side really believes their ideology, nor do they believe in liberal values of tolerance and respect - they they merely strive to power.
I agree that left-wing extremism isn't common enough in this country to be a pressing and dangerous problem, and that right-wing extremism and nationalism is prevalent enough to be very concerning. However this article warns of the growth of left-wing extremism and intolerance, which I have also seen among people I know, so that it can be stopped before it gets too far.
Never Trumpers are now a small-ish share of the GOP and mostly without power. If they're the reasonable side of the GOP, the reasonable side of the Democratic party is a large majority of it. It was the large majority of the GOP that now holds power that blocked Neil Gorsuch, told Pres Obama that publicizing Russia's efforts during the 2016 election would be countered with charges of partisanship, punched up the deficit by $1.5 trillion for a hi-earner tax cut, etc. The Trump radicals are the GOP - and the GOP is still on the same radical course as it's been on since Newt Gingrich's heyday. What has the 'social justice warrior' side of the Democratic party done? Hounded Al Franken into resigning instead of letting him face an ethics panel. Tel me how these are equivalent.
4
The article compares Trumpism to Stalinism and then bemoans the idea that those opposing Trumpism are becoming radicalized? Seems like a pretty natural response when everyone who's not a member of the dwindling Republican Party is worried about a cancer on the Presidency. Moreover, I'm not sure not endorsing Feinstein is all that "radical" when the "radicals'" most fundamental commitments are to: make sure that everyone who is eligible to vote CAN vote; that every subsequent vote that's recorded actually does count; that science and the scientific method are encouraged and respected when looking at things like climate change; and and that poor people, women, and minorities ultimately get the same kind of legitimate voice and say in this shaky democracy as entitled rich people and corporations. Feinstein will be OK; nobody on "our" side has sent her to the gulag for being pro-Wall Street and not forceful enough against Trump; they just didn't endorse her.
2
I don't think the California Dems refused to endorse Feinstein over her politics but more because of her age. The party needs new and more progressive blood. The means new ideas and methods, which all Democrats should welcome.
We should thank her for her service and bid her goodbye.
12
You are right that compromise is not a dirty word. So where is the compromise whenever Republicans control the levers of government? Worse, even when they didn't control the levers, after Obama's election ini 2008, they refused to participate in the Obamacare debate, even when Obamacare aka Romneycare was their idea to start with. The Dems have tried in vain to work with the GOP for years and in return get nothing. No wonder their base is calling for "no compromise". You can only have the football pulled away from you, Charlie Brown-wise, so many times before you finally give up and say no more. It takes two to tango, Mr. Stephens, and as a dance partner, the GOP steps over too many toes.
13
The failure of a sitting senator to get the official backing of her party in her primary fight is a bit unusual. But Senator Feinstein is getting up there in years and she was seen as a rather moderate Democrat even twenty years ago.
A rift? Or just a willingness to consider an alternative? I don't yet know much about her challenger. He's got a good chance to get my vote but not if he's a total ideologue. We have some Democrats out here who insist that anyone not on board the single-payer train is a sell-out. It's like they are afraid to have an actual debate about the merits of it and want to make it the Democratic position without debate. But that's not democratic!
3
Stephens rightly illuminates the rift in the Republican Party but then falls prey to the tired and false ‘symmetry’ argument that the more liberal wing of the Democratic Party is just as ideologically entrenched. I’m not sure why ‘traditional’ conservatives always trot this out when discussing the disintegration of the right...maybe it just makes them feel better.
5
My hope is that the GOP pays the price dearly for backing at all cost a flawed person to the point of blind loyalty and power. The country will need time to reverse and then improve many of bad policies that about going into place. This will take time.
1
Democrats had better decide quickly what they believe in an announce it to the world. They've had almost a year and a half since the elections to come up with an economic agenda and are still maintaining radio silence. Why? Because their big donors, the ones who foisted Hillary upon us because she would slow-walk progress as "incrementalism", are still in control. Any truly progressive vision would entail their paying higher taxes and wages, so aside from their embrace of socially liberal issues, their concerns are really no different than the Koch's. Bernie showed a presidential campaign can be more than adequately crowdfunded, so why are we still holding the party hostage to a handful of plutocrats?
4
The reason that the ideas of Republicans, even those of good-manner Republicans like Charen or Stephens do not make sense, is because all common-sense conservatives are Democrats (in the United States).
Merkel, for example, is a common-sense conservative.
No common-sense conservative would state that climate change is a hoax, or oppose health care as a right, or bankrupt the country giving tax breaks to corporations, or say that possesion of assault rifles is a constitutional right.
4
Another sign that Stephens has a point: the leftists who think that Obama didn't "fight," enough for their taste, that Feinstein is, "one of the most conservative Democrats," because she didn't yell at Trump yesterday, and so on.
It ought to worry people, Derrida's old, "coherence in contradiction expresses the force of a desire." Because when I see or hear people on the Leftish shouting and demanding in very much the same ways Trumpists demand and shout, what I get is people who want power.
6
It is true that there are those on the left that "know what is True", and "smug self satisfaction" is not in short supply. This has always been and will always be. The big difference is the Democrats are far less interested in accommodating their zealots than the Republicans. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders are not interested in nationalizing industries, prohibiting right wing idealogues from speaking or being sympathetic to anti Americanism. Contrast that with right wing conservative officials who think we aren't incarcerating enough people, banning Muslims from entry to the country is a sensible idea and athletes kneeling during the anthem is a greater outrage than police officers shooting unarmed black men and going unpunished. Indeed these positions are common among a large segment of conservative legislators. Populist illiberalism on the left while real has no support from government officials while populist illiberalism on the right is now standard policy. Perhaps I shouldn't be so sanguine but I am far less concerned than Mr. Stephens.
5
"I write this as a parallel contest is taking shape within the Democratic Party, most visibly in the rift between traditional liberals and the social-justice warriors of what used to be the far left."
This statement displays a lack of understanding as to what's going on in the Democratic Party. What Stephens calls "traditional liberals" IS the wing of party, namely establishment Democrats, that focuses almost entirely on social justice issues and cultural leftism. The progressive wing of the party that is currently rising--as exemplified by Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren--and which Stephens dismisses as the so-called "far left," is focused NOT so much on social justice and cultural left issues, but rather is focused on ECONOMIC left issues, including regulating the banks, getting money out of politics, single payer health care, and strengthening unions.
5
"What happened to the G.O.P. in 2016 could happen to the Democrats in 2020."
You mean we might gain control of the House, Senate, and White House, and get to steal a Supreme Court seat that rightfully belongs to the previous administration to boot?
Where do we sign up for that sweet deal?
69
In a separate opinion today in this paper, Mr. Edsall reflects on what motivates voters to vote. It confirms what many of us suspected long ago. Loathing trumps loyalty when it comes to getting people to the polls and how they vote.
I, for one, squarely blame the Republicans for having started and, over time perfected, the strategy of instilling "loathing of the other" as the principal motivation for winning elections. Starting with Nixon's southern strategy and continuing today, many time amplified, with the non-stop ranting of Fox News's perverting message of "Democrats and Liberals as the enemy", not to mention our president's constant message of his critics as dangerous subversives. Mr. Stephens longs for the days of "Crossfire" and the polite back and forth of political elites respectfully arguing matters of policy. I, too, long for these days, but banking on Republicans to bring us back to those days is a fool's errand. Mona Charen's experience at CPAC proves how futile it is to bank on them. I don't blame the Democrats for learning this lesson. If loathing of the Republicans and Trump is what will bring Democrats to the polls and vote, so be it. One has to win individual battles before winning a war. Once in power again, maybe the adults of the Democratic party can work to improve the national dialogue.
13
Yeats:" Turning and turning in the widening gyre. The falcon cannot hear the falconer. Things fall apart.; the centre cannot hold. Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world." This country has always been saved by the common sense of the broad middle of the people. We are in the process of testing that principle. In China, the refer to it as The Mandate of Heaven that churns below the surface until it emerges as a sudden change. We are lurching toward. Obama was the anti-Bush. Trump is the anti-Trump. Who is the champion of the Common Sense Future?
1
I totally agree w this assertion and fear that California Democrats could end up as out casters in 2020. However, I do think one of the reasons Feinstein didn't get as much support this week as she has in the past is bc of her age. She is 84 and even though Californians have liked her all these past years, we have also been requesting she not run again bc she is so old.
94
The day Democrats begin to display the depth and breadth of lies, self-serving greed and lack of morality and compassion that represent today's Republican Party, I'll become an Independent or join whatever new party rises out of the ashes of the GOP's demise. Unless of course, that party is little different than what is going on in this country's political system.
5
No, Brett, what happened to Republicans in 2016 is not likely to occur to Dems in 2020. What you call 'the far left' consists primarily of New Deal Democrats, like Bernie Sanders. It has no analogue to the virulent ideological strain that has overtaken the Conservative movement in the US. And finally, apart from the hijacking of your party by reactionaries, libertarians, and fascists, you have Donald Trump. Even if Oprah runs, she will look like the model of rectitude and prudence by comparison. And she would win.
16
Day late and a dollar short Mr. Stephens:
1. Ms. Establishment Centrist Corporate Democrat Clinton was defeated by something as awful as Trump 08 NOV 2016. I assume she has gone into graceful retirement.
2. Ms. Establishment Centrist Corporate Democrat Feinstein, age 85, was denied CA Dems endorsement last week. She should gracefully move into retirement before being washed out to sea by incoming "blue wave".
3. Ms. Establishment Centrist Corporate Democrat Pelosi, age 78, is the universal smear for any Dem running for office today. She should gracefully move into retirement before being washed out to sea by incoming "blue wave"
4. Mr. Establishment Centrist Corporate Democrat Biden, age 76, is about as politically exciting as a bowl of cold oat meal. He should gracefully move into retirement before being washed out to sea by incoming "blue wave"
As Trump's sucessful election demonstrates: "energy matters"
8
I am so glad that you are writing for the Times now. You are a voice of reasonable conservatism that we liberals need to hear and I love your conversations with Gail.
6
Bret, excellent column. As a liberal California Democrat, I find it interesting that the tone and content of so many of the posts in reply to your column well illustrate and support the very points you make. Moderation, civility and compromise are critical qualities in a democracy, and it would be wise for members of both parties to remember that.
21
Democrats tried that. Lost everything: House, Senate, presidency and SCOTUS. Lying and cheating -- not to mention theft and treason -- *work* in politics now. Carnival barking, sheer malice and WWF circuses won in 2016. Trump Rules!
This year's election is the end of us (US) or the beginning of something new and good.
And, one hopes, Mr. Mueller and his team of patriots will make the difference.
Wonderful column.
But we might need to start a third party. If nothing else, the perceived possibility of a third party may be necessary to curb the illiberal extremists on each side.
Could a third party comprised of liberals from the left and the right sufficiently agree on matters such as infrastructure, regulatory policy, and society’s safety net so as to field candidates and govern?
I think so. Pay heed to the lessons of the late 19th and late 20th Century with infrastructure - it’s not about the public underwriting the risk for private enterprise or using taxpayer money to grease political compromise. It’s applying principle and practicality to know when public ownership, or private ownership under common carrier principles, is appropriate.
We need to forge a clear majority consensus involving left and right on the safety net in any event.
I used to do the law of government for a living. I want to convince you that it’s a mistake to always view regulation more as a quantity than a quality. The burden of compliance can and should be continually reengineered to make the burden lighter and more sensible from the viewpoint of the person regulated. The question whether any regulation is appropriate, and the viewpoints of everyone affected on how best to regulate, should always be well-considered.
7
Our Constitution and the political system, while it does not legally mandate two major parities, never the less it will only allow two, no more no less, major political parties of any significance to exist and able to span multiple elections. Yes we can have a temporary split like the Bull Moose party or a morphing like the Whig to the Republican, but we will always settle into a two party system. In a parliamentary system, the parties form coalitions after the elections, in our system we need to create those coalitions before the elections. In a parliamentary system the Tea party, would be an independent party that after election would form a coalition with the Republican party to govern. Since our system will not allow this to happen, attempting to create a third party will likely result in a temporary splitting and create a spoiler party. For that reason, it is better to work within the party system and use primaries to effect the change. The Tea party was able to do that and the "Freedom Caucus" has become very similar to a minority party in a ruling coalition of a parliamentary system.
5
I agree with third parties in principle. At present, however, any third party that siphons away the Democratic vote serves as an enabler of Trump's undeniable extremism. Perhaps we NEED Democratic extremism to return to a reasonable middle ground.
Charen's principled stand is duly noted, although a small point in the overall embrace of dogmatic conservatism (not subject to discussion), where the truth is usually subject to a changing interpretation, usually convenient for the narrow interests of the moment. And a key in politics, compromise, is still viewed as 'treason', however stupid it sounds, and is. Still, the NeverTrumpers must be recognized and supported if sincere in wanting to change the current climate of corruption in Trump's pluto-kleptocracy.
6
Hilarious to see Stephens vainly try to pretend there is some "center right", oh-so-readonable and moderate ideal that seeks "compromise" and would work with "The Left" he so eagerly denigrates as "too radical" for daring to believe they know anything true or acting like "Do-Gooders" (Heaven forbid anyone actually know their consvience, mean well or seek the Common Good!).
He trashes Warren as too radical without any, you know, evidence or explanation (I guess "conservative" reafers understand his dog whistles), pretends Sanders is practically Bolshevist for advocating such wild and crazy far-left insanities like decent healthcare for all (Stephens must not travel or read enough to see that other, less "conservative" modern countries are rather successful at that crazy idea).
It's always about the waste of public money with these guys (until they get power, then it's all about the theft of that money for themselves).
If this is the new "Conservative", destined to inherit the ashes of the Trumpo-Putin-Republican Party, he will wait a very long time for his day. Human evolution is moving on, spurred by a general awakening to the damages wrought by the ultimate Trumpian travesty resulting from a decades-long descent by "Conservatives Without Conscience" to fascism, who won total power with lies and corruption and, in so doing, sold their souls to their "conservative" devils.
We see them now, we know what they do, and we will not tolerate their mendacity much longer.
29
He doesn't "trash" Warren, you just failed to understand the context of his entire article, which is not surprising given that you clearly "think that you know what's True".
Warren is a far-left liberal. Charen is a centrist conservative. For decades, centrists from both parties worked together to make compromises between the more extreme positions of their respective parties. The far left and the far right do not compromise, with anyone. That is the entire point of this article and you very clearly illustrate the problem, which is the crisis of our democracy right now. There are too many people who believe they are right, and they refuse to compromise.
@Paul, what bothers me are people who call Warren a "far left liberal." Really? A woman who single-handedly fought the big banks ripping off consumers? This is far left? Do you like getting ripped off by our financial institutions? Do you think the banks were not responsible for the 2008 financial crisis? Even Alan Greenspan blames them, and he's the very best pal in the whole wide world of the banks.
Fine, whatever, Warren is a hippie radical leftie. Don't complain when you get taken to the cleaners in another scam.
1
I take exception to your assertion that progressives dismiss Nevertrumpers as irrelevant, to the contrary. But what is disturbing is how few Nevertrumpers have found a voice especially those that have credibility and influence and sit quietly on the side lines. By your definition I am part of the rift in the Democratic Party, I was and remain a Bernie Sanders progressive. However that did not stop me from voting for Hillary Clinton or working the phone banks for her campaign. Maybe Bret if other conservatives like yourself would try to engage progressives in a dialogue as opposed to slamming us and telling us that we do not listen we might just surprise you. Republicans folded their arms when Obama got elected, now they have ear muffs on.
33
While I agree with you, Steve, I do not think Stephens was talking about a progressive like you in this column. There are some progressives, some of which I consider friends, who will not budge and will not vote for any democratic candidate and will not comprise. It's one thing to want to shift the party more left. It's another when you're willing to have Trump because there is no party that's left enough for you. I don't think you're part of the latter. But I believe Stephens is speaking about those who are.
1
Very well said. This article attempts to be moderate but in fact is very divisive itself.
1
Steve, for what its worth, I'm exactly like you. Sanders in the primaries, Clinton in the general. If RamsinaLazar is correct, and there are gazillions who will not budge, then we are in trouble. But, I believe that is not correct. Most people who refused to vote for Clinton have learned their lesson now.
The biggest problem we have is that the two factions of Democrats, Sanders supporters and Clinton supporters, are having trouble finding middle ground. So weird, considering they watch Republicans grind their molars to a pulp while standing in lockstep with Trump. Democrats need to become a little cagey, a little more clever. Sadly, their dissembling skills are lacking.
Stephens will never talk to us. He truly sees us as being just as bad as the Republicans.
Great piece. Like of most of yours. Never voted Republican after Vietnam (Marine Corps infantry officer with a hatred of the right wing and its fanaticisms). But you are so sensible. I wish you the best in staying so.
119
Mr "walker2191", I suggest that you read Max Boot's book "A Road Not Taken" to see how two Democrat Presidents, Kennedy and Johnson, got us involved in Vietnam. Both ignored Ed Landsdale"s advice on how to more successfully mitigate a counterinsurgency without resorting to a full scale war. The Republicans in 1969 inherited a mess created by two Democratic presidents. True Nixon could have ended it sooner than it did but please do not suggest that Vietnam was about right wing fanaticisms. Goldwater, the Republican nominee, was soundly defeated by LBJ when Goldwater suggested we bomb Vietnam back to the stone age, which of course is what LBJ did. I saw it first hand while flying over 102 missions over the Ho Chi Minh trail, Khe Sanh during the siege and other forgotten locations.
1
The flip side danger is that the Charens and the Kasichs of the world will soon be lauded and pushed by the Media as Reasonable People Who Should be Supported. Liberals and other sensible voters should not be fooled.
Just because they are not so morally corrupt that they fail to see the nakedness of the Emperor does not make the policies and social perceptions these people do support any better. We are talking about someone *invited* to speak at CPAC, after all.
26
I submit that if the columnist went back to the Clinton 90s and read some of Chsren's work from that period he would not be lauding her allegedly high principles.
Not the smallest sign that Stephens has a point is the, "I'm not that far Left!" Folks, still yellng at the Clintons and what they are pleased to call, "neo-liberalism."
Sometimes the numbers are the numbers, folks.
2
Interesting. At some point in the reading, I was reminded of the PBS documentary "American Creed." This was a balanced, explicitly bipartisan film seeking to re-create a fiction regarding American cultural unity. In other words, the film is propaganda highlighting ideals of the American mythos that may or may not have ever existed. Both Bret Stephens and Mona Charen remind me of this film.
There's a pleading appeal from the conservative right to convince people that their view world is still sound and justified. The tragically funny part about "American Creed" is the role argued by Bret Stephens is actually played by Condoleezza Rice. You can't help but taste a bitter irony when Condoleezza Rice is begging the conservative case for cultural unity and social cohesion.
Look, I respect people of conscience regardless of their politics but we can't ennoble an ideology without conscience. Liberalism, particularly Clintonian liberalism, is imperfect but Trump is a sideshow to the conservative purpose. Wars and tax cuts do not become us.
In my lifetime, the only thing conservativism has delivered is strife and hardship. Trump didn't write the tax bill. He probably didn't even read it. The Obamacare obstructionism predates Trump. Merrick Garland predates Trump. Failure to act on Sandy Hook predates Trump. Hurricane Katrina predates Trump. I could go on endlessly.
Conservatives ceded their conscience long ago. Getting booed at conference makes no difference.
42
Bret Stephens says of the "social-justice warrior" faction within the Democratic Party that "it thinks it knows what's True. It considers compromise knavish. It views debate -- beyond its own tightly set parameters -- as either pointless or dangerous."
This would be alarming if it were true.
But I don't know of any such faction within the Democratic Party. I believe that Mr. Stephens doesn't know any such warriors either: If he did know them, he would name them, and he would quote their statements rather than presenting a distorted caricature of their statements.
Mr. Stephens knows that the most effective way to oppose this supposed faction would be to name and quote the members. The fact that he doesn't do so is good evidence that he can't find members any more than I can.
14
Mr. Stephens mentioned specifically the Democratic Party refusal to endorse Diane Feinstein, a longtime hard working Senator.
1
Maybe he means students from elite colleges who are so threatened by other points of view they ban them from their campuses. They’ve come a long way from Berkeley’s FreeSpeech Movement. And as a former 22 year old idealist, I threw my votes away on McGovern, then John Andersen....and so it goes. Now a senior, I crave politicians who will compromise and not get stuck in their corners.
As the Man of La Mancha so eloquently put forth, there are fights worth having even if they are unwinnable. Some of history's most famous and noble people have fought those fights and sometimes died for having done so.
As for the "Never-Trump" faction of the conservative side of the aisle, we'll see if it is for real come the midterms. I have my doubts.
9
Here is a paragraph to contemplate from a book review in a recent -Economist- about how democracies come to fail:
For much of the twentieth century, politics worked because most practitioners subscribed to two vital norms. First, mutual tolerance, or the understanding that competing parties accept one another as legitimate. Second, forbearance, or the idea that election-winners exercise some restraint when wielding power, rather than treating politics like war.
Eclectic Pragmatism — http://eclectic-pragmatist.tumblr.com/
Eclectic Pragmatist — https://medium.com/eclectic-pragmatism
3
Nice article,however your assertion of an equivalent dynamic in the Republican and Democratic parties is patently false. Trump is Not an extreme Republican; he does not adhere to conservative economic or cultural principles; he barely recognizes them. He is an aberrancy the GOP foisted on us by virtue of the exhaustion and mendacity of their ideas, and he filled the void because of the desperation of the dwindling middle class, and the failure of the media to do it's job and reveal him for the charlatan he is.
Contrariwise, the Democrats need to simply return to their roots. Your example of Elizabeth Warren as an extremist can only be viewed as such through the prism of the Wall Street-tainted Democratic Leadership Council. Many Democrats now are so afraid of rejection by the moneyed center that they don't even offer their strongest position at the outset of a debate. Professor Drew Westen wrote convincingly of these matters in the NYT during the Obama terms.
Ideally, the Republicans now should jettison the political Abyss they have embraced, and return to many of the Reagan conservative themes, but without the demagoguery of supply side economics being sustainable. The Democrats, as Howard Dean once said, need to return to being the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party.
15
He didn't actually call Warren an extremist. He was pretty down on social justice warriors so maybe you think that applies to Warren but I'm not so sure.
I would agree. The Democrats took over the governing wing of the GOP during the Clinton administration, allowing the Republicans room to simply obstruct. When you serve two masters, you serve neither. I would love to see the Democrats simply advance the interests of the 90% of the country that is not particularly tied to how the Dow Jones performs on any given weekday.
Thanks for your comment.
"When Trumpism fails, as it inevitably will, who will be the Republican Adenauer?"
A better question would be: Who would foot the bill for the next "Marshall Plan"?
2
All "liberals" or moderates, or progressives, were turfed out of the Republican Party by the 1980s. As Reagan said about the Democrats "I didn't leave the party, the party left me." If Stephens wants to believe that he can claim to be a "conservative," he is not really in touch with where the movement is today. Similarly, the Democratic Party is now one that favours identity politics over economic reform, consigning Sanders, et al, to the outer reaches - Bernie isn't considered a Democrat by many "Democrats." Virtue signalling, e.g., "wasn't 'Black Panther' wonderful," is less "taxing" than universal health care. The new New Deal is not played with a deck of picture cards, i.e., indicating social and economic ranking, but with colour cards.
Throughout history, the "real enemy" has always been those who claim the same mantle but are somewhat different. Catholics and Protestants claim the same Gospel, but to be a Protestant in the reign of the Sun King - or to be a Catholic in Elizabethan England - OMG - and don't forget the Thirty Years War! What was the fate of a Menshevik in Bolshevik Russia, or consider the fate of a Shia in Sunni Islam - and visa-versa?
Purity demands sacrifice - of others.
1
You state that "Bernie isn't considered a Democrat by many 'Democrats.'"
But isn't that a reasonable presumption given that he has never been a member of the Democratic party?
3
Yup, he only caucuses with them. Count the number of "Democrats" in the Senate without Sanders and King. Yes, Purity demands sacrifice, and sanctimony.
Stephens conveniently overlooks the fact that one of the reasons that Feinstein was denied endorsement (not nomination) was because she is 85 y/o. If reelected, she would be 91 when her term expired. It is time for new blood and new energy. Absurd.
Put another way, had Boxer not retired, Kamala Harris would not be on the national scene today.
Times are changing. This is not the time for fence sitting. It is time to decide which side you are on.
12
Thank you!!!
We need candidates who are younger and more in tune with changing social conditions, who are living the problems that party insiders have long lost touch with. Please, Democrats, open your eyes! Experience has value in politics -- knowing how to navigate the legislative process is important -- but I don't recall Congress being a lifetime appointment!
1
There's a difference between behavior and policy.
Republicans seem able to tolerate really awful behavior if they get the policies they like: tax bills, rolling back of regulations, court appointments to curb social welfare, restrictions on voting, etc.
Democrats are less likely to tolerate awful behavior, even if it means sacrificing those who might advance the policies they'd like (Al Franken comes to mind).
I'd much rather be a Democrat than a Republican.
36
Agreed - the philosophy of the respective parties have evolved over the last 150 years. The GOP today bears no resemblance to that of Lincoln or Teddy Roosevelt. I believe that the GOP is substantially focused on sustaining the power of the elite (to the detriment of the labor movement, the poor, uneducated, and people of color) represented by the wealthy and large corporations manipulating the divisiveness of the nativists in their favor. Western Europeans, in contrast, have long recognized the social responsibility of governance for the general welfare of its citizens - as demonstrated by low cost universal health care, low cost higher education, and social safety nets (child care, min wage, etc). These features are unthinkable in the dog-eat-dog GOP world. We have our Constitution and values, but they are not working today.
Progressives have issues with their politicking, true. Hopefully, they won't trip over themselves. But it's simply ridiculous to compare their problems with that of the conservatives. There is no Trump-like figure elsewhere. No progressive in the news has sold their souls & their country to an adversarial foreign power for office. No one doing so will be tolerated either. Today, the conservatives are a band of treason enablers.
41
There is so much nonsense in this column it's hard to know what to unpack first, but let's start with the supposed moral heroism of Mona Charen, who said what she said at CPAC because she's a hocking a new book, the premise of which is that the Republican Party and movement conservatism have nothing to do with the rise of Trump. This is, of course, errant nonsense, given that the Republican Party and movement conservatism since Reagan, and this includes Charen, are distinguishable from Trumpism in no way whatsoever, except perhaps table manners. In any case, Charen's supposed apostasy at CPAC was less a declaration of principle and more like the first stop of a promo book tour.
26
Only sheer illiteracy about what the Enlightenment was could allow someone to write that it "champion[ed] social solidarity for the sake of empowering the individual." In fact the Enlightenment was radically individualistic—'sapere aude—championed its notion of Truth, yes with a capital T, and resented having to ever compromise with what it saw as the forces of irrational conservatism, which were made relevant only by their residual inherited power. Which, ironically, is what Bret Stephens and NeverTrumpers (who, just be the numbers are poltically irrelevant, and no, facing angry comments in reply to your column in the national paper of record is not the same as Stalinism) are: relevant only because some residual locus of power hasn't been swept away by the changing tides of history.
4
If there were only Republicans in the U.S. and Republican ideas throughout the entire world would Republicans still be fighting and fidgeting among themselves?
4
Feinstein is one of the country’s most conservative Democratic Senators, in one of its most liberal states. The last poll I saw had her beating her main challenger by thirty points. This is not exactly a harbinger of violent revolution. Yes, her more liberal constituents are frustrated with her. As a moderate Democrat who hates Trump, I myself am frustrated with her, and happy that her challenger is nudging her to the left. But she’ll never be anywhere near Bernie Sanders.
If anything, given how many more Democrats are running this cycle, it’s notable how few are challenging Democratic incumbents. The few here and there have gotten inordinate attention, but the vast majority of the left is showing remarkable unity. We are fighting together where it matters, the ballot box.
20
I also hate to say it, less I -another senior - be called out for agism - but she is 84. She's be over 90 when the next term ends I have great respect for her abilities, but Democrats need new and younger faces, and I wish some of the old heads had recognized their responsibility to pass on the power- to search out and encourage a new generation of politicians. IF you don't find a graceful end to public office, eventually you will be shown the door.
12
"The fabric of an open society is more frayed than most people realize, and it is coming unraveled from more than one end." I agree with much of your article, but think there's more to it than that.
We were taught there were three branches of government: executive (this one not won by popular vote); legislative (after working eight years to oppose President Obama on everything, now working to destroy his legacy and please their 'donors'); and judicial (Garland's pirated seat going to the pretender Gorsuch). But I've come to realize there are two other distinct branches of government: corporate and the NRS (and their goals are not ours). And possibly yet a sixth: Russian (yet to be determined).
Yes, the fabric of our society has too many rips and tears to offer much, if any, cover for We the People...
7
Mr. Stephens is again making a false equation between Trumpies and liberal Democrats who merely assert that the the corporate wing of the Democratic Party has outlived its usefulness. He is writing from that fantasyland in which there is simply no knowledge of conservatives in other nations who would, for instance, never suggest that socialized medicine be ended in their countries.
23
The phrase I want to tease out of this fine pice concenrns liberals discounting Never Trumpers. To tyhe contrary, I, a liberal, admire them and indeed, have my hopes pinned on them. They hold the power to, at nexrt election, curb the power of this horrifying man.
3
That 85% of Republicans supporting President Trump comes close to the purity of authoritarian countries where people don't have the right to vote.
The Republicans have more and more in common with their Russian friends. In past elections in Russia, 100% of the people in Chechnya voted in favor of United Russia, but in the last election in 2012 President Putin's party took a comparatively paltry 99.51%.
In that last election in 2012 fraud included ballot boxes appearing at voting places before the election already full of votes, busses filled with "voters" being shuttled from polling place to polling place so "voters" could vote, again and again:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/dec/04/vladimir-putin-majority-co...
Do you think this Republican "solidarity" with the Russians and Putin is why the Republicans in Congress and Trump don't want to really get to the bottom of the Russian interference in our presidential election in 2016?
I'm beginning to think that all the Republicans are on the take with the Russians. I'm beginning to think that the Republicans realize they need the help of the Russians to retain power in the U.S. and that's why the Republicans don't want to do anything about the obvious threat the Russians pose to us in the November elections this year.
The very idea that President Trump has not held one cabinet meeting about Russian interference and the Republican Congress doesn't care is outrageous, no, Mr. Stephens?
14
The problem or challenges expansively growing within the Republican Party are fueled by misogyny, racism and classism. Republicans and Democrats have to come to terms with how Trump and his ilk used this fact to manipulate and cajole a large majority of Republicans to vote against their own interests. Trump doesn't care about abortion rights, fighting racism, sexism and creating economic and educational opportunities for the American Public. He cares about his wealth and ego and ONLY his wealth. Putin recognized this and played to Trump's weakness, his adolescent narcissism. I urge Americans of both parties to give up your fascination with his irresponsible Twitter outbursts. Hold Trump accountable for his dishonesty, greed and his manipulative behavior. He used you. We need to hold him and every politician who looked the other way accountable. We owe it to the coming generations. We don't have to allow horrid historic acts to repeat themselves. We can learn from our mistakes and move forward wiser and respectful of the gift and responsibility that aligns with freedom,
6
One thing I didn't like about Obama was his refusal to 'fight' for his Supreme Court judge. He knew how important it was. So, why didn't we see him focus bright light on that, talk non-stop about the Constitutionality of his and his appointee's rights, and go to the Congress and lead and stage a dramatic 'fight' for him? No, he's not the fighting kind. And look what we got.
No, being quiet and intellectual and well-reasoned only goes so far in this world. We're seduced by money; just about all of us. How much are Bill and Hillary worth now, compared to before his presidency? And the Obama's? Yes, easily had we all are.
So, we must fight against our baser instincts: selfish greed. We have not; we have embraced it. Our current President is probably the best (worst) example of who the Americans are. Lost, self-centered, angry, vain, self-pitying tools of great destruction. Too harsh? Nah, that is US, today.
What to fight for? Compassion, healing, equality, ecology, community, honor, respect, housing, health care, common good, tax policy, etc. So much to fight for; we're probably intimidated by that, intimidated by the responsibilities of being a citizen in a democracy (we don't have the time or energy).
Trump is so bad, such a liar, cheat, greedy fraud, fake that many are starting to rebel. Slowly, reluctantly, starting to rebel. We've forgotten how. It's over 100 years since workers died in the streets for a 40 hour week. We don't know how to fight.
Now or never.
14
Agree about the failure to fight tooth and nail for his nominee. Early on, I thought he took a carefully reasoned, moderate in the extreme approach - because as the first black President, he would be attacked as some sort of extremist. Well ,they attacked anyway, and there was not a thing to lose by fighting for the Justice position. We lost badly.
There are very few people still working who have any memory of Union organizing, any sense of how much people risked to
secure living wages, and benefits that stabilized family life.
2
I believe Dianne was denied CA party endorsement, not the nomination, which she will likely win. As a lifelong Dem, I am sick of the purity police. They are reminding me of the 2009 Tea Partiers.
7
Be sure and vote in the primary!
It would be nice if there were a “Left” and a “Right” to wax philosophically about anymore but there is not. The corporate-ocracy has obscured any real philosophical or humanistic difference. Both sides endorse endless war and “free trade”, neither side endorses universal healthcare, or free college tuition, or repealing the Second Amendment to substantially improve the lives of millions. What we get are shades of grey. There are those that demean and assault women on both sides. There are those who are comfortable in their right to white privilege on both sides. And, given the sordid drama of the 2016 elections, there are those who would pervert the electoral process on both sides. What we are looking at is the changing of the guard, generationally. The Millennials will inherit the Earth while the Baby Boomers fight to keep them at bay. The nation should always have a center left government with a substantial center right opposition party. Any listing to an extreme is destabilizing. Ethical moral, and patriotic motives should be the backbone of either side. Corporatism destroys this balance leading to the presently obscene and destructive income inequality. Moderate Republicans with consciences should abhor this condition as much as so called Liberal Democrats. The Democrats whiffed and now the Republicans are championed by a lying, opportunistic buffoon. Parsing partisanship is foolish at this point. The question to be asked of any and all is: “Have you no decency?”
4
Conservatives have always assumed that whatever serious moral danger American society faced emanated from the left. Turned out they were wrong, but only by 180 degrees. Bret still has not asked himself the question, what in the conservative mind makes it open to Trumpism? He devotes his column to again warning that the left is moving toward extremism, as in the shocking example that California Dems did not endorse an octogenarian for re-election. Stalinism must be the next step! Lately this has been a common theme of anti-Trump conservative columnists who are struggling with cognitive dissonance. Bret, when your own house is on fire, your attention should not be on whether your neighbor’s lawn needs cutting.
29
I agree that the op-ed published by Mona Charen was a very good one. But there is also a failure by Mona Charen and her Conservative-Never-Trump to recognized their responsibility in the raise of Donald Trump. She worked for Ronald Reagan. Remember the welfare queen? Which was a lie. Which Ronald Reagan was always making sure to tell that she was black. All the policy which hurts the American working class. Causing anger, despair which was exploited by a demagogue like Trump to get elected years later. And do not gorget all the bigots, the segregationists, the racists who were welcome with open arms by the establishment of the Republican Party when they left the Democratic Party.
12
I saw her performance. That was a pretty liberal thing to do!
47
That was a human thing to do. Or have we been reduced to mere political cariacatures?
1
Bravo, Bret Stephens!
1
I think you might be over-thinking the reason Sen. Feinstein didn't receive the backing of her party, Brett. A lot of us think that six-term, 80-year-old Senators have done everything they can for their country, and it's time for them to step aside. Apparently, Senators Grassley and Feinstein didn't get the memo.
11
As someone who is himself working well past "retirement age" I see no inherent problem in octogenarians continuing to work in the congress. Nor is age a bar to sensible representation of the people. After all Bernie Sanders is also no spring chicken.
However, there does come a time when a fresh face and a new approach can be valuable and in this congress dominated by old white men that time is now. It is time for congress to reflect the reality of the American population, and quite honestly old white men and women are no longer the majority in this country. Why do they continue to have all the power and all of the rewards? Not that they should be ignored or neglected but they should not and cannot be dominant to the exclusion of everyone else.
2
Too bad Mr Stephens, like so many never-Trump conservatives, has to mar an otherwise sensible article by straining to find an equivalent in the Democratic Party to the insanity and loss of reason and principal that now afflicts the GOP and the conservative movement. In citing the failure of the Democratic Party in California to officially support Dianne Feinstein he stretches the point a good bit.
It's certainly true that some of Feinstein's positions on policy have been jarring for many Democrats, such as her misguided support for George W Bush's tax cuts back in the day. But the fact is California Democrats may simply want a fresh face, someone of a new generation to carry on the fight. There are far too many octogenarians in the Senate in both parties and its way past time for them to finally surrender the perks and prestige that come with membership of that exclusive club in favour of a younger and, perhaps, more energetic generation.
23
The Dems need a strong, clear message. Here is what I believe it should be:
The overriding Democratic message should be the same one that Bernie Sanders put forward on campaign financing and the need to rid our political system of big money's influence.
IF we are able to get big money out of politics, then many of things Americans favor overwhelmingly can be accomplished legislatively. Until then, the 1 percent who now use money as speech will have the biggest megaphones and continue to call all the shots.
12
I admire you, Mr. Stephens, and I greatly admire Ms. Charen for how she stood up against intolerance and fascism in her party. And I’m a lifelong Democrat and former Californian. Not all of us on the Left choose to only think about ourselves. Some of us, who think long and hard about patriotism, realize that, in a democracy, we have to strive for a middle that somehow takes all of us into consideration. If only the other side did so.
As for Dianne Feinstein, I’m one of her former constituents, beginning when she withstood the horrors of the assassinations of Moscone and Milk in San Francisco. She acted with dignity. However, I believe many in California feel that she no longer represents most Californians. It’s not about age; it’s about money. She is very, very rich, and white. I believe Californians, and other Democrats outside the state, want leaders who better reflect the populace and want to see money out of politics, on the left and the right. Believe it or not, many of us don’t honk along party lines. We think about all of us. All the GOP seems to do is to hate just about everybody. A party like that is just scary. I’ll opt for inclusion, even if somewhat extreme, of hate and exclusion any day.
6
Feinstein is rich and white? What about her qualifications? What about what she has stood for and done? I don't live in California, but I believe those are the factors that matter. Not her race or income.
1
Sadly enough, I think fighting the populist threat fiercely is what Democrats thought they were doing when they nominated Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders. And we saw how that turned out.
2
I applauded Mona Charen and will applaud any no-Trumper Republican for challenging what has become a majority of quiescent Trump toadies in the GOP. But I would also like to see Brett question why Republican members of Congress refuse to exercise oversight or even try to rein in the rampant corruption of this administrationm, the flagrant influence peddling of Jared Kushner, the profligate travel expenses and office "redecoration" of Cabinet secretaries, the amount of money spent on Trump's golfing weekends in Florida and New Jersey. And I would like to see Brett's rhetorical skills focus on the real fight worth having, namely Congress' failure to address Trump's dereliction of duty, if not treason, in giving aid and comfort to our Russian enemies. As the Economist points out, while his intelligence chiefs have long viewed Russia's cyberwarfare as a security threat "at no point did Mr. Trump express any concern for the safety of American democracy."
5
I recently read a column by Max Boot, a conservative columnist for the WaPo (and who used to write for the WSJ and Commentary): "If This Is What Conservatism Has Become, Count Me Out." He expresses thoughts similar to both Charen and Stephens.
Go read the comments posted underneath his column. They're vile, hate-filled ad hominem attacks, similar to the way that conservatives have attacked liberals on Fox News and other conservative media for many years.
A big part of me is enjoying watching the conservative movement implode and cannibalize its own.
And I'm finding it hard to have sympathy for Stephens, Boot, Charen, Brooks, and all the rest of the "reasonable" conservatives who are horrified to see what has happened to their movement. Why? Because the conservative movement has been speaking/acting this way for 20+ years! But they could dismiss and/or ignore it, because the overt hatred and wacky lies were "only" coming from "fringe elements" like Breitbart and the Federalist.
However, they failed to notice that the garbage was actually more widespread than that; Fox News has been this divisive, conspiratorial, and hate-filled all along. The only difference now is that the rise of Trump has normalized abhorant behavior, brought it to the surface where they could no longer ignore it.
This NOT a new conservative movement; it's the same hate-filled conservative movement that you've been blindly supporting all along.
Welcome to the woke world.
16
It’s an old game to argue that the far left and the far right are basically equivalent, and more similar than they acknowledge, because their adherents are equally uncompromising and prepared to exert authority, silence dissenters, and impose their ideology on The People. Trotsky made way for Stalin. The Chinese Communists, once they gained power, eliminated or forcefully “reeducated” any person who could be defined as bourgeois.
And yes, Ms. Charen showed great courage when she spoke out at CPAC, criticizing Trumpites, and wrote her column for the Times.
But far-right Trumpites and far-left Bernie Bros are not equivalent. One group, when gathered into rallies, applauds speakers who preach nativist hatred and racism, and who call on Jesus Christ to lead the battle against Muslims. The other group gets all excited about government-supported healthcare. They like Medicaid.
Any political party that could rally behind Donald Trump, Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell, the NRA, devout Mike Pence, devout Scott Pruitt, and their allies is, well, just plain stinking. Corrupt. Profoundly unAmerican. Dangerous not only to US citizens but to the whole world.
Sorry.
As a moderate Dem, a disappointed Hillary supporter, I’d take Elizabeth Warren and Bernie over Donald Trump any day.
13
So, of course, the so-called progressives are not going to like this article. They are not going to like it because it hits a little too close to home. Okay...that's inaccurate...it hits very, very close to home.
How many "progressives" voted for Trump when they couldn't have Bernie? How many progressives agreed with Stein that it was better to elect Trump than Clinton. How many progressives take exactly the same line as the Trump base...our way or the highway. How many progressives ate up every word of the alt-right and Russian bot propaganda machine...and are still doing so.
The difference between Trump and his followers...and Bernie and his followers is: Bernie. Could the reason that the alt-right and Russia did not go after Bernie be that they realized many of Bernie's followers were as unreasonable as the typical republican...and could easily be influenced by hateful lies? Sheeple are the same, whether right or left. They want to be led. If their first choice is no longer in the game, then maybe with some good old-fashioned political lies, they can be co-opted by the other side.
That said, I can't let old school Democrats off the hook. They have capitulated over and over again to the republicans...and that has to stop. Democrats need both principles and backbone...along with reason and the ability to compromise.
4
Trying to have your cake and eat it too? You criticize and complain about true democrats who refuse to accept republican-lite Clinton. Then you turn around and say that corporately owned, mainline democrats, must stop capitulating to republicans.
So sorry, you can't have it both ways. Sanders, Warren, and a very small handful of others, are about the only democrats with anything resembling a spine. You cannot compromise with the likes of Ryan, McConnell, and Cruz. Obama finally learned that lesson---years too late You should too.
3
Stephens nails it with his description of the fissure within the democratic party. Nowhere is it more obvious than on the gun issue. Just read many of the comments here in the NYT. People recoil at the adamant insistence and self righteous indignation of Huckabee-Sanders or Stephen Miller, yet indulge in identical absolutism when it comes to their various solutions to the "gun problem", including deleting the 2A and "lock them up". As Bret says "it is, in its raging intolerance and smug self-satisfaction, Trumpism’s mirror image." It's also the means by which the DNC manages to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory so reliably. This is not to excuse or support the GOP, who've collectively lost their minds in supporting the unregistered foreign agent currently in the oval, and giving him a pass on high crimes and misdemeanors (to say nothing of treason). But the GOP is not nearly as divided and doesn't dither 1/10th of what the democrats do.
The other think NeverTrump's do is give a future landing spot to the Trumpers. A kind of future plausibility deniability. That 85% approvable rating Corrupt Donnie has will magically shrink once he is out of office.
This is a confusing column.
Charen appears to be a no-compromise Conservative who stands for what's "True" on principle, regardless of the aggressive Trump-over-principle compromisers in her party. But, when it comes to Progressives, Stephens holds that they need to abandon principle in order to support their party's power broker/compromisers?
Does Stephens think John Kelly is right about the Civil War's "cause"-- a failure to "compromise"? And, is that Charen's "failure", as well?
3
Standing ovation for Mr. Stephens from this traditional liberal! He is right about his own tribe, and equally about Democrats, who would do well to listen, before (again) snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
The Liberals of Perpetual Outrage are alienating all Republicans, and many Democrats as well. The identity politics movement has gone beyond the correction of past evils, and has become an outright racist, sexist attack on anyone with the misfortune to be born with White Privilege or the Original Sin of having a Y chromosome.
Anyone who believes in applying the rule of existing law to immigration is labeled a Nativist/Racist. The Democratic leaders, especially Nancy Pelosi, have made it clear their most important priority is to admit more (illegal) immigrants. I sympathize with Dreamers and believe in a path to citiizenship, but our first priority should be helping Americans.
It's time to return to the traditional Democratic values, going back to FDR, of helping the little guy, who is disadvantaged by a rigged economic system. We must see that all citizens have access to health care, education, and a fairly compensated job (backed by unions) regardless of color, religion, ethnicity, or beliefs.
Return to those values, and we will see an overwhelming Democratic victory fueled by the return of many Trump voters. Stick with identity poitics and illegal immigration, and lose (again) to Trump. Its' that simple.
5
Even Bannon, acknowledges the truth in what you post. "As long as the democrats engage in identity politics---I've got them."
Democrats can do as you urge them to do and return to their working class roots---and start winning elections again. Or they can follow the advice of the dopey Joy Ann Reid and ignore white males in particular and the entire working class in general---and watch Trump get reelected.
Oh, and anyone on either side of the aisle who thinks they have heard the last of Bannon, will soon find out how sorely mistaken they are.
Trumpism is anti-conscience.
Tradition, particularly economic- and christian-based traditions, (skewed white) have provided structure to the GOP for the last century.
How can the GOP hope to salvage that?
Putin agrees with Bret Stephens. His disinformation campaign discovered that both right wing and far left were amenable to propaganda. If you know "what's True", it's much easier to influence you to believe that the other side is evil. Advantage - Russia.
Diane is 84. I am 72. I favor a younger brain to deal with current problems. There is dignity and intelligence in knowing when to exit the stage and join the audience. Trump is another of us over 70 who needs the hook.
4
What bothers us liberals about Ms. Charen and indeed about Mr. Stephens himself is they act as if they had not part in creating the Party of Trump. To the contrary, both have cheered at every step along the way.
Is the Party of Trump racist at its core? Well, Ms. Charen and Mr. Stephens had to be blinkered not to see the racism endemic in the Republican Party since Ronald Reagan began his first presidential campaign in Philadelphia, Mississippi and won by talking about “welfare queens.” Is the Party of Trump anti-intellectual? Well, where have Ms. Charen and Mr. Stephens been all these years while Republicans fought against climate science and even the theory of evolution? Is the Party of Trump bigoted? Both Ms. Charen and Mr. Stephens are old enough to remember 2004, when George Bush won a second term, in part, by placing measures outlawing gay marriage on state ballots.
So great, you’re both late converts. But can you acknowledge your prominent roles in creating what you now claim to hate?
11
That all depends on how you define fights that are worth fighting.
When Vladimir Putin fights his foes end up in prisons, hospitals, mental institutions, urns and coffins.
When Donald Trump fights his foes end up smiling and smirking at his tweets and speeches.
When Barry Goldwater fought and lost in 1964 he begat Ronald Reagan's occupation of the White House from 1980-1988.
When Hubert Humphrey fought and lost in 1968 he begat George McGovern in 1972.
Mona Charen is none of the above. Nor is she a Buckley, a Moynihan or a Stephens. Mr. Stephens pretends to mean well toward the pink Bolshevik American liberal left-wing. But the road to Hades is paved with golden good intentions.
1
I guess one could say that this old timer (me), a rather liberal Democrat in spite of my age, considers among my closest friends Republicans of the "old school." Although the term was not around several decades ago, these kind people were "Never Trumpers" as they remain today. How is that possible? Well, they like thousands of others have moral compasses with senses of justice and fairness, are compassionate and empathetic.
Mr. Stephens points out that just because one has an "R" after her or his name that does not mean that they are bigots, racists, philanderers, or hypocritical Christians who save the unborn at the expense of the living. In other words, we should not impugn these folks because of the inept being sitting in the Oval Office. If we do, we are no better than those who judge us ruthlessly just because we read the Times and watch MSNBC rather than read Breitbart News and watch FOX and company. Thank you, Mr. Stephens, for words well written.
2
Indeed, being booed at CPAC is an honor. It's making a negative work in reverse. If one cannot be sure of where someone stands by the company they keep, perhaps observing their foes can help. Those who have been booed, persecuted, and ostracized by CPAC, Trump, Ryan, McConnell et al. for me have been awarded a recommendation of sort, a backward compliment. Mona Charen is one of those conservatives of integrity, who principles have not been for sale. She entered the lion's den and spoke truth to power. A true profile in courage. We need more Mona's and less sycophantic Republicans who continue to kowtow to Trump. The man is a disgrace to this nation.
DD
Manhattan
110
"As for the other side, it thinks it knows what’s True. It considers compromise knavish. It views debate — beyond its own tightly set parameters — as either pointless or dangerous. And while it sees itself as the antithesis of Trumpism, it is, in its raging intolerance and smug self-satisfaction, Trumpism’s mirror image."
I despair of my fellow Democrats. They have no idea they've been fed by Republican opposition work and foreign trolls, and that their hatred is being carefully cultivated by people who do not share their purity monster.
Democrats, if you want to defeat people like Bret Stephens who believes the tax cuts are righteous and the environment isn't all that serious, don't boycott the NYT and hating on him, stop cannibalizing your allies. Listening to him is useful. Gail Collins does a good job in their Conversations.
Monbiot put it well:
"I should confess that sometimes the left drives me round the bend. The meetings, the posturing, the infighting: it can be infuriating. The old adage that the right looks for converts while ***the left looks for traitors is all too often true.***"
http://www.monbiot.com/2018/02/22/wheel-of-fortune/
6
Both parties (but especially Republicans) tend to think that their electoral victories are due to support for their policies instead of dissatisfaction with the policies of the opposition party.
2
One reason Dianne Feinstein did not receive an "endorsement" is voters are tired of career politicians. This is often more newsworthy on the Republican side, and therefore not mentioned in the media. Of course it is far better for conservatives to promote a rift in the Democratic party beyond reality.
9
It should also be noted that Ms. Feinstein is well along in years, and the country might benefit from younger folks leading us into the future.
This is coming from another senior citizen, and not meant to be ageist at all. But it will benefit the Democrats to have younger people in place to go forward.
1
I believe that Barack Obama was an ideal centrist President would could never gain any traction with Party of No Republicans. America had a centrist for eight years and look how well that worked. He is still very popular and respected by most Democrats and probably could beat Trump hands-down if an election were held today.
In many respects, the lock-step Republican attitude toward Obama produced Bernie Sanders. Maybe a realization dawned on many Democrats early on that another centrist (Hillary) wasn't generating much enthusiasm in the Rust Belt and in the heartland. So, why not fight fire with fire. I'm not sure that Bernie could have defeated Trump but at least it would have been a barn burner of a campaign.
However, Trump's victory and his first year in office has convinced lots of independent voters that draining the swamp is the last thing we got with Trump. Maybe a less exciting and non-bombastic centrist has more of a chance to bring Americans together than whirling dervish in the Oval Office. Anyway, what's so great about breaking all of our institutional norms? This bread and circus stuff is really getting old.
7
I agree with you, except in I'd like to add one small nuance in your Sanders theory. You see, Obama knew income inequality was becoming a problem in America. It was not big news when Sanders made it a focal point in his campaign.
Obama chose not to pursue the issue in 2012 because, in his opinion, it had bad optics. Romney was busy telling everybody the moochers were getting too many handouts from the government. If Obama started talking about income inequality, it would have been thrown back in his face as another effort to give a handout to moochers. He'd already gotten zero support with Obamacare. Actually, as you know, he got zero support on everything. It wasn't the climate for an income inequality message.
But, that didn't stop Sanders. I'm sorry we have to endure Trump for the short while, but after 'birtherism,' I came to realize the right has become entirely unhinged. We need a shakeup, and people like Stephens, instead of fixing the problem in his house, just likes to tell Democrats that they are just as bad.
Well, we are not. If we could just get the Sanders and Clinton brands of Democrat to stop sniping at each other, we'd be a force to be reckoned with. Sadly, we can't seem to get a little lock-step of our own going.
1
Diane Feinstein is in her eighties. I don't consider the California party's desire for political renewasl a 'depressing indication that the rift is widening', just common sense.
11
An excellent column from Mr. Stephens, demonstrating, again, the NYT's wisdom and foresight in getting him to "jump ship" from the WSJ and providing a solid beat-down of those Puritanical Progressives who cringed openly when he became a columnist at their precious paper. If the GOP is to remain relevant as the center-right standard bearer in American politics once the dust settles after the Trumpist's conflagration burns out, it needs to understand that both Moynihan and Buckley would have been early and loud NeverTrumpists.
3
Stephens uses Mona Charen's respectable stand against the right-wing extremism to engage in false equivalency to bash the progressive wing of the Democratic Party. Just because the right wing of the Republican Party has gone off the deep end does not mean the left wing of the Democratic Party has done so. While the right wing is arming teachers, building a border wall, shredding international agreements, cutting social security and medicare while expanding the deficit to reduce the tax burden on corporations and the wealthy, the progressives are working for universal health care and access to college, addressing climate change and trying to raise the minimum wage. While this agenda has probably been strengthened by the radicalism of the right, and there may be a few on the far left who refuse to work with centrists on principle, any divisions on the left are minimal compared with the unifying force of opposing Trump's disastrous presidency. Just because the right wing has gone to Crazy Town does not mean the left wing will join them there.
4
If we're talking Jill Stein or the quaint notion that Bernie Will Yet Sweep To Vic'try, yeah, it actually has.
Pretty tired of the screaming at Diane Feinstein from people who've no idea what she's accomplished, and seem to think throwing out the knowledgeable and competent is a Always A Good Idea.
By the way, any of you folks ever wonder about the recent Leftiah tendency to demonize women with whom you disagree?
I consider myself ideologically liberal but more of a moderate when it comes to the actual practice of politics. So a small piece of me wants to agree with Mr. Stephens' criticism of Democratic activists in this piece. But anytime I hear someone making this argument (no one has the sole claim to "Truth"), I would encourage them to carry their same argument back to the '60s (either 19th or 20th century) and see if it holds up.
3
I agree regarding NeverTrumpers; but disagree that there is a parallel situation on the left.
The left is not in a fight between far left illiberals and traditional liberals; it is in a fight between left wing "progressives" (not far left - they are in no way as extreme as the far right-wing movement that Trump commandeered), and Clinton Democrats, who marginalized liberalism to pursue neoliberalism and moderate conservatism, distancing themselves from their former base, the working class.
Post WW2 liberalism - a combination of social liberalism and traditional liberalism, minus the laissez-faire approach to economics - is virtually unrepresented by either side.
Clinton Democrats have taken the Democratic Party to the brink of irrelevance by marginalizing liberalism and buying into conservative economic and even social principles, and the progressive left, while socially liberal, lack the balance that post WW2 liberalism would provide because it lacks commitment to civil liberties and some checks and balances on government power.
Post WW2 Liberalism can only make a comeback on the left if it is embraced by up and coming political and philosophical leaders, and many of them don't even remember a time when Democrats were liberal.
Still, there are a few geezers left who have not given up on fighting for liberalism on the left. And it sure would help if NeverTrumpers became allies in repudiating the demonization of liberalism and liberal government on the right.
I hope Winston Churchill was right when he said "You can always count on Americans to do the right thing - after they've tried everything else."
3
This column suggests a parallel question for the Democrats: should they purge the more radical leftists? Should they encourage them to leave or create conditions under which they will "self deport"?
The answer is no. The Republicans will still find new ways for vicious attacks and would, if necessary, pretend the radical elements were still present. Indeed, they would invent them.
Beyond this, the fringe elements help to inform in the middle and identify problems that would otherwise go unnoticed and unaddressed. If we ever get to some form of universal health care insurance, the farther elements on the left should get at least grudging credit. Even if the methods proposed as solutions don't always work, the more distant left at least pursues ideals of equality, justice and a decent life for all (the far right does, too, but operates under the belief that it can never be reached except through individual action, property rights and big paychecks for themselves, selfishness as a virtue).
Of the 85% of professed Republicans who say they still support Trump, at least half of that number represent a "ha! ha!" vote: they love Trump because 99% of Democrats loathe his very existence, cultural warfare. The rest of Republicans like the tax cuts for the rich and the anti-immigrant stance.
Are Republicans even patriots any more if they are willing to risk everything, the survival of the nation, to be against abortion and for tax cuts? That's a question they need to ask themselves.
3
I would have thought that I was a progressive Democrat until I moved to Berkeley in 1990. There I was seen as a conservative due to my pragmatic views, as the progressives shot themselves in the foot voting for Nader, then trying to blame us liberals for the Democratic downfall. I rarely agree with Stephens, but after experiencing the irrationality of progressive DINOs, I believe he is correct.
3
Only in the current GOP can a person speak honestly and act with the personal integrity expected of all adults and be considered and lauded as "courageous".
5
Excellent column save for this: "a parallel contest is taking shape within the Democratic Party, most visibly in the rift between traditional liberals and the social-justice warriors of what used to be the far left. Dianne Feinstein’s failure this week to claim her party’s nomination for the Senate seat she’s held since 1992 is another depressing indication that the rift is widening."
The Sanders wing is not the left wing analogue to Trumpism.
Nor is Diane Feinstein the Mona Charen (or Brett Stephens) of the left. Diane Feinstein is 84; said she would retire; and should do so, The refusal to endorse her is a desire for fresh blood. Note, her opponent was not endorsed either.
2
If the core Trumpists are 15-20% of the population, they may comprise a very influential large minority if not a small majority of what is today’s Republican Party. If one calls the Trump core right-of-center, it seems impossible for this core to be liberal as discussed by Stephens. It may be the only way to solve this dilemma is to create a new center-Right party, isolating the Trump core.
What is perhaps most distressing about Stephen‘s comments is equating people like Sanders, Warren, and other more progressive Democrats as similar to the Trump core: not believing in reason, the possibility of persuasion and so on. To the extent that the Trump core remains in the Republican Party and is supported by the likes of Ryan, McConnell, etc., one wonders how the Democrats can work with the Republican Party and can accomplish anything that resonates with the majority of American voters, whether it is gun safety, tax policy, health care, or dealing with inequality and precarious state of most wage earners.
1
Feinstein is also 85 and will be 91 at the end of the next Senate term. That's a pretty good reason not to endorse her, apart from Mr. Stephens' argument
2
It is no accident that a person as morally bankrupt as Donald Trump would seek "loyalty" above all else in his subordinates - even above competence, and certainly above humanity. This trope is now prevalent on both sides of the aisle, but is perhaps more pervasive among those who still call themselves Republicans - the dehumanization of those who are not unthinking supporters of "our tribe". Barack Obama used to remind us that one must be prepared to compromise with one's opponents, even - perhaps especially - when you know that you are right. And there are moral "bright lines", actions or positions which are unconscionable in advancing one's interests (e.g., "stealing" a seat on the Supreme Court, destroying access to healthcare). Republicans, and especially Donald Trump, love to deride such scruples as weak - but the energy of their derision belies their conviction.
1
Charen, Will, Kristol -- and, obviously, Stephens -- they are among those intellectual conservatives who refused to imbibe the Trump Koolaid. And, yes, progressives need to learn the same lesson and resist their own side's willingness to engage in sound-bite politics and policy.
1
Brett is right to champion Mona Charen’s opposition to moral decay. However, he is wrong to draw a parallel between AntiTrumpists vs ProTrumpists and the problems in the Democratic Party.
The Dems big problem is not in confronting the #MeToo movement, but in confronting the clash between raising funds from big donors and raising votes.
The GOP has resolved this problem by choosing big donors that have succeeded in creating a well-oiled propaganda juggernaut that drowns opposition in a flood of misinformation and scurrilous sleaze. They’ve made voters irrelevant because their supporters can be stampeded like lemmings by the Hannity’s, Limbaugh’s, Fox News, Twitter, Facebook, and fact-free TV harangues.
The Dems are tempted to follow this well funded lead, but there is opposition. There is confusion over whether this conflict is about sanity and reason or about who pays the bills. Sanders and Warren are not about cramming crazy ideas down voters’ throats, but about escaping thralldom to special interests so sanity and reason can play a part.
5
The current political fights in the U.S.?
Both political parties never tire of declaring themselves to be for the truth, and both never tire of denouncing the fake, false, fraudulent, the perpetual hoaxes and corruptions of current existence. Yet both political parties have a peculiar theory of truth: The truth depends for its existence on massive censorship of dissenting viewpoints, control of the message, constant narrative that the truth is obvious therefore there is no point in even giving a hearing to anything else.
Essentially both political parties have an ironic conception of truth: Something which is so self-evident yet apparently so fragile that repeatedly it is in danger of being swamped by the false and censorship and control is necessary. Essentially for all human emergence from religious points of view, the whole battle of good against evil, when it comes to theory of truth we are still entirely religious, that the truth is a good which is in danger of perpetually being swamped by the evil of the false and the good must war against the false by all means necessary, that no amount of control, censorship, containment is enough to win the day for the truth.
In this vicious, low and cowardly atmosphere I declare any person degenerate whose viewpoint depends on the censoring of other viewpoints. If your truth is so fragile it depends on censorship then perhaps you are not for truth at all but rather for your own petty advantage. Does truth really need a war?
1
I am agreeing with you more often than I would have ever expected, which means at least one of us is changing. And I think we'd agree that's probably a step in the right direction.
3
It's so aggravating when conservatives, even reasonable ones, laud moderate democrats and praise their ability to compromise. As a conservative, I suppose i would have the same attraction to a strain of the opposition party that now, through compromise, resembles the republican party of the 1970s, when fealty to big business and tax cuts didn't encompass the right's entire ideological spectrum. The progressive wing of the democratic party isn't perfect and at its fringes it does resemble the fanatics of the right. But at least it's not ready to compromise what's left of decency and selflessness into oblivion.
6
Brett Stephens is well-spoken and a voice of moderation on the topic of American political parties, But he overlooks a central fact. In the United States today there are issues that have no political solution; that cannot be compromised. The main ones are abortion and the right to own and fire weapons. These are matters of life and death.
If they were conflicts between countries, they could only be resolved by war.
In the United States they could be resolved only by secession, as was done in the run-up to the Civil War, or by one side overwhelming the other electorally.
2
The 2nd Amendment is clear about a "well-regulated militia" that does not seemingly exist except in the Red Dawn fantasies of too many people. It's time to apply those words that are now apparently only selectively worshipped.
Conservatives and their family members get abortions, of course. HIPA laws prevent us from finding out who and how many. But such conservatives (some of whom are politicians) are too craven to go public because anti-abortion absolutism serves their petty personal ambitions.
Your civil-war solution denies reality. Honesty is the solution.
1
Bret Stephens was one his way to producing one of the most persuasive, well-argued op-eds this paper has published in quite some time. But he lost me when he compared the divide between NeverTrumpers and Trumpers to the rift taking place within the Democratic party.
As Charen made clear in her address at CPAC, her disappointment had nothing to do with policy. She was rightly slamming the GOP for hypocrisy--for failing to heeds its collective conscience.
The split on the left is all about policy. Democrats are fighting over how progressive the party's agenda should be, and how aggressively it should be pushed. There are no Roy Moores or Donald Trumps on the blue side of the line.
It's true that "sometimes the fights most worth having are those with our own side." But as Mona Charen seemed to understand, not all fights are created equal.
147
Well argued to note the difference between policy debate and the sacrifice of character for electoral success. Conservatives, however, no doubt justify their Faustian bargain as in the interest of policy (think Supreme Court appointments.) I ask, and not rhetorically, are liberals exempt from that temptation?
2
"There are no Roy Moores or Donald Trumps on the blue side of the line."
Funniest post of the day, thanks NA!
1
You're welcome, Jeff NYC! If yours is an ironic response, name one.
I'd like to see an honest Republican ask their own why they're fundamentally opposed to democracy.
Why do they work full-time to suppress the vote via voter ID laws, restricted voting hours, polling places and voter access in poor neighborhood and expanded access in white neighborhoods, the unConsititutional gerrymander, Crosscheck state voter file purges using false positives, and a refusal to address Russian hacking and general manipulation of 'black box' voting machines that lack an audit trail ?
What kind of political party refuses to even look in the mirror for a second or two to admit that tyranny of the minority is their official political modus operandi and that have fundamentally rejected the will of the American people, freedom of voting and representative democracy ?
It's fine if you want to be a Republican and fight hard for unfettered greed, deregulation, the 'free-market', small government and other traditional or conservative ideas, but to actively suppress democracy shows that the Republican Party has been reduced to the Russian-Republican Party, hellbent on tyrannical power with little to no interest in America, except as a decrepit 3rd-world petro-state where Republican oligarchs and a czar run a corrupt oligarchic, oligopolistic economy that feeds the 1% while happily abandoning the Grand Old Peasant class to Grand Old Poverty and political professional wrestling.
The real question is why has the Republican Party officially adopted Russian 'democracy' ?
389
Socrates asks, "The real question is why has the Republican Party officially adopted Russian 'democracy' ?"
A good question. A very good question. But not the topic of this article. And Bret was not defending today's version of the republican party, so why should he have answered that question?
So...what does it say about someone who changes the topic to something they find more comfortable?
1
Answer, because they could while they have a stooge who they know is owned by the Russians in financial debts to the tunes of billions.
They just want to blow up the debt and take tax cuts for their highest donors.
4
As to voting rights, I think deep-down, many Republicans view minorities and recent immigrants as second-class citizens who are fundamentally undermining “our culture.” In their view, it is okay to deprive certain people of their voting rights because it restores America to 1900 or some other WASP-privileged golden age.
13
This is an excellent column.
I would make an important distinction between ideologues and ideals. It's important to be aspirational, to have ideals and be willing to fight for social justice. It is when one refuses to compromise or shouts down the opposition in the name of righteousness that we lose our way. Preventing an opponent from speaking is just another type of assault.
52
Laurence--Preventing hate speech is not an assault. The hate speech, itself, is an assault, and not covered by the 1st amendment.
4
The Democrats need a good purging to drive the detritus of the Democratic Leadership Council (read the Clintons and their camp followers/hangers on) out of the party. This way they can stop being Republican Lite, which just enables the unending craziness in the one time party of Lincoln.
FYI- Bernie Sanders is not a wide eyed radical. He is where the Democratic Party stood that brought the New Deal, The Fair Deal, The New Frontier and the Great Society to this land. The party that helped create the broad Middle Class in this country, that sent GIs to College and made it broadly available to the masses. Same for home ownership. Same for Social Security which is NOT broke and is not a Ponzi scheme.
The Republicans need to return to their roots as the party of Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Eisenhower and Gerald Ford, and turn their backs on the crazies that have dominated since just after Eisenhower.
187
The Republican lite that brought us obamacare and a deal with Iran, protected abortion rights and unions and understood that climate change was real? Of course I'd prefer Bernie's policies. But I'd rather win with a sane and reasonably progressive candidate than lose with an idealist.
David Gregory writes, "he Democrats need a good purging to drive the detritus of the Democratic Leadership Council (read the Clintons and their camp followers/hangers on) out of the party."
When you find yourself in hole...first, you must stop digging. Rather than work within the Democratic party to produce change, Bernie supporters would rather destroy the party. The reason the Democratic party has moved to the right is the success of the propaganda campaign on the right that pulled in so much of the country. If Bill Clinton had a Democratic house for all 8 years of his presidency instead of just the first 2, he would have supported more progressive programs. Same with Barack Obama.
Here's a clue...it doesn't matter how much honesty and integrity you have as a store owner if your advertising doesn't work well...and everyone is buying from the charlatan next door. And it's not that the charlatan has what people want...it's that he's convinced everyone that your goods are tainted. And people who should know better...so-called progressives...are buying that false advertising. So, they stay home and don't vote...or worse, they vote for Trump to send a message. Yeah...some message.
4
Bill & Hillary Clinton presided over the destruction of the Democratic Party while serving and enriching themselves.
While there is a propaganda campaign for the right, much of what both did was as destructive if not more so than anything Rupert Murdoch could have dreamed of. Bill Clinton signed off on gutting controls on Wall Street, Banking, and limits on Media ownership- not any Republican. Hillary voted for the Joe Biden authored Bankruptcy Bill that made student debt the mess it is today, voted for the Iraq War, was a 24/7/365 toady for Wall Street and has yet to find a war she didn't like.
Bill Clinton lost his Congressional majority after Democrats in Congress passed tax increases that brought about a balanced budget. Advised by DLC geniuses, they ran away from their actions rather than owning up to them and telling voters they were necessary to bring the deficit under control. This allowed Newt & his cronies to take control.
3
One more conservative offers advice to liberals on how to kill the Frankenstein the right helped to create. When I hear Messrs. Stephens, Brooks and Douthat encourage all people to vote Democratic in November to remove Frankenstein's enablers then we'll know they're sincere.
320
vote for independent progressive moderates of either party if you really want to save america for future generations
"independent progressive moderates" from the Republican Party, Independent ?
They're all in cemeteries.
The only thing left today is Russian-Republicans.
13
Democrats should take Mr. Stephens' advice with the same level of import the Red Sox would give to advice from the Yankees.
This is a great column. Extremism in any form is not helpful or needed in a Republican Democracy. Compromise is necessary to run a Republican Democracy.
17
Stephens makes a valid point that the only hope for this country advancing from the stagnation we are mired in is if the right and the left compromise. Neither side can win any culture war. The people will determine the culture regardless of the laws. The "losing" side will always instantly become the resistance. But where Stephens goes wrong is in his dredging up of the false "equivalency" argument in which both sides of our political spectrum are equally wrong. Facts are facts in spite of Trump's attempt to introduce "alternate" facts. Hypotheses can be tested and proved or disproved by independent analysis. And there is no defense of Republicans supporting Trump's constant daily lying. It just exacerbates the tearing apart of the social fabric of our society.
Republicans always propose alternate solutions to many of society's problems. The only true way to compromise is to try these alternate solutions and measure if they work. For example, let's evaluate the effectiveness of supply side economics. It has been tried several times, both on a federal as well as a state level. Has it ever worked? The evidence is that it has not, yet Republicans continue to push it as gospel. If Republicans cannot be convinced by evidence to change their positions they cannot be reasoned with. And that is where we are. The Republican party is in dire need of a reformation in which logic and science are brought back into conservative thinking replacing blind partisan faith.
1
Anthony writes, "Compromise is necessary to run a Republican Democracy."
Um, there is no such thing as a republican democracy...certainly not in today's political climate. For the current republican party, hatred of democracy is a core principle.
Maybe what Anthony meant to write was "Democratic Republic". That is the United States...or, at least, used to be before republicans took over the government.
1
It's absolutely true that we need good people on both sides of the political spectrum, and most especially need people who value reason. The problem comes when we try to define reason and reasonable. Are people on what is called today's far left unreasonable when they advocate single-payer health care? Should they be lumped in with the Second Amendment absolutists of the far right?
The 85 percent of Republicans supporting Trump don't think choosing rabid populism was a mistake, and neither does the Republican Congress. They will argue that conscience demands support for assault weapons, deporting children, and cutting social programs. And they will gloat every time a judge who supports their views gets appointed to the court. At that point, what many of us would call "populist illiberalism" becomes the law of land, and pious notions of poetic justice and conscience winning in the end get thrown under the bus.
22
republicans embrace representative government by a select few - not democracy
democrats also endorse representative government by a select few - but with more input from all voices
we do not have a true democracy where all persons have equal voice - one person one vote to decide the outcomes of elections NPV would be better than the electoral college outcome
2
It's not necessarily intolerance that causes people to vote against Feinstein. A thoughtful person can reasonably think she is just too old for another 6 year term. Many businesses require leaders to step aside after age 65. The Senate seems to think we need 80 and 90 year olds.
Are we to think that an Orrin Hatch (gushing praise for Trump), or John Conyers (wandering around in his pajamas) are intellectually the men they once were?
27
She really needs to step down and give a younger able mind the position.
"That’s why NeverTrumpers matter; why the Trumpers know they matter (which they prove every time they feverishly assert the opposite); and why progressives who dismiss NeverTrumpers as politically irrelevant are wrong."
This summary isn't quite right, and, in addition, seemingly ignores the most important question derived from that misunderstanding. First, even granting that we are here engaged in generalization, I think it is incorrect to say that progressives "dismiss NeverTrumpers". My counter generalization is that progressives view the Nevers as vitally important, and that they have mostly sat quietly for far too long. And, second, that relative inaction brings me to the question: What are the Nevers doing; what do they plan to do -- actually do, for example in the upcoming election? Vote straight Republican, again, as by habit; go third party; sit home, all of which are essentially constitute a vote for Trump?
If it's any help, my own view is this: Were I a Republican (a la Bush, Reagan, etc.) I'd cross party lines. Were I a Democrat and Trump was leading the Democratic ticket, I'd cross party lines. Bluntly put, no responsible political party should contenance a Trump. Time to put country over party!
So, what exactly are these Nevers going to do -- talk, write Op/Eds? Mr. Stephens?
51
"That’s why NeverTrumpers matter; why the Trumpers know they matter (which they prove every time they feverishly assert the opposite); and why progressives who dismiss NeverTrumpers as politically irrelevant are wrong. The United States is going to have a right-of-center party in one form or another, and it matters a great deal whether that party is liberal or illiberal, capable or incapable of shame."
Bret: This is the crux of the matter.
5
maybe usa could be a center party if the extreme left gets on board
1
I've always believed that we need a strong center. There will always be extremes, but most of us are not. Thinking, caring conservatives can keep Democrats from socializing everything (roads, prisons, public schools, and health care, in my opinion, should not be for profit) and imposing burdens that are counterproductive. Democrats must keep reminding conservatives that no, no, you with your inherited wealth, your daddy's important contacts, and all that adoration or expectation shining in your parents' eyes, you didn't exactly get where you are by yourself and your employees do not live by bread alone. I still think that it's Bill Clinton's fault. He was so to the center to be practically a Republican himself and this seems to have driven Republicans far to the right in search an an identity. If Trump is where they've landed, I am sure those with a heart and a brain have much to resist and ponder.
10
"I've always believed that we need a strong center....most of us are not [extreme]."
"I still think that it's Bill Clinton's fault. He was so to the center to be practically a Republican himself."
Wanda, you're faulting Clinton for doing exactly what you've always believed we need? If Republicans rushed to the wingnut zone in response to a centrist Democrat, whose decision was that?
It appears you yearn for "a strong center" maintained by a tug-of-war between extremes (Democrats who would socialize everything versus conservatives [I take it you mean Republicans] who would operate as entitled plutocrats).
In this scenario, a president leading from the center, if Democrat, would once again botch that utopia because, in your analysis, Republicans lack the spine or vision to capitalize on an opportunity to cooperate, and must instead seek an oppositional identity at all costs.
Presumably, however, an imaginary centrist Republican in the White House would display the balance, probity and collegiality needed for success. In today's House and Senate majorities of Trump mini-me's fearing their next primary challenge or town hall meeting, where exactly do you see such paragons?
2
"What happened to the G.O.P. in 2016 could happen to the Democrats in 2020."
It kinda sorta happened to the Democrats in 2016, didn't it? The Never Clintonites helped make President Trump possible by writing in Sanders, voting for Jill Stein, staying home, or actually voting for Trump, on the theory that this would "send a message" and teach us Clinton supporters a lesson.
I wish my party HAD learned a lesson, to wit: Do not look to ideologues for consistent support in a hard-fought election. They will bail the moment your candidate fails to fully meet just one of their 1,001 criteria.
There are people on all sides who believe "in the power of reason, the possibility of persuasion, and the values of the Enlightenment." We need to find each other--ASAP. 2020 is less than two years away.
50
Not really, no. CLinton lost by losing WI, MI and PA. As a resident of the last, I can tell you that she did not make nearly the effort in PA that Obama did. Not even close.
2
Her brilliant political consultants advised her to campaign in Texas, where she had zero chance and to not bother appearing in person in either Wisconsin or Michigan. No wonder she lost in both states very small margins.
Sanders was not a candidate in the general election, so he clearly did not pull a single vote from Clinton. It is possible her support of war and wall street over the poor and middle class led to her defeat.
us army 1969-1971/california jd
Kudos to Ms Charen for speaking the truth. You quote that 85% of Republicans still support Trump. But 85% of Americans do not. We cannot forget that that many millions of Trump voters were not Republicans. They were disallusioned Independents and Democrats. They are now more disallusioned than ever.
These are the voters the Republicans need to fear. Hopefully the Democrats have learned their lessons and woo back these voters
And do not forget, Trump is only in office because of the Electoral College.
The Electoral College serves no purpose any more.
It has given us two Presidents that the majority of voters did not vote for.
15
I guess I have never taken a presidential-approval poll, but the up/down vote doesn't provide oportunity for nuance. "Do you approve of the job the president is doing on issue X?" "Yes or No" Does anyone love everything any elected official is doing?
When we are our most partisan selves, the answer is likely yes. But in our quiet moments the answer is no.
There are many who were originally NeverTrumpers who have chosen to support aspects of the Trump presidency while continuing to call out his worse impulses and those of the party. I don't see that as selling out. After all, isn't this what happens every primary season? You pick your favorite candidate among several and generally end up coalescing around the party nominee. I would put many at the National Review in that column.
I, for one, applaud Ms. Charen for her courage. It's a travesty that many of those at CPAC booed her - or at least they were most vocal. I'm hoping her courage will get others on the right AND LEFT to do the same, as it seems Mr. Stephens is encouraging.
4
It’s not that conservative #NeverTrumpers shouldn’t express distaste for Trump’s persona, so unthinkable for a U.S. president. It’s that regardless of what they believe, he’s going to be around until 20 Jan. of either 2021 or 2025. Most people on the right realize this, so don’t see value in spending an INORDINATE part of their energies in wringing hands. It could make some sense if there were other Trumps awaiting power, but there is absolutely nobody on either side who credibly aspires to the presidency who is within galaxies of Trump in retrograde persona. Trump is unique – in our entire history as a nation. So what are those who make such a point about their rejection of him guarding against?
Trump represents an historical discontinuity that offers the opportunity to do things we may not get to do again as a people and nation for generations. Most of us #PoohPoohNeverTrumpers want to get on with doing those things while the discontinuity remains open, instead of merely squandering the opportunity to address the profound national needs and failures that summoned the discontinuity and Trump, by consuming SO much energy merely in outrage and complaint.
Reasonable people might look out to 2021 or 2025 and conclude, based on the evidence, that America will be a far more prosperous, more libertarian, less taxed, less intrusively governed nation that has re-grown the resolve and skills to confront and resolve global issues instead of forever kicking cans down roads.
3
If it’s done right, we’ll be far better off in so many ways than we were at the end of the Dubya and Obama eras, more reliant on ourselves and less on an increasingly collectivist, intrusive governance by elites who KNOW how we should conduct our lives, and ALSO will have learned the price we must pay for allowing our political discourse to become SO dysfunctional that a Trump was necessary to mend it – and less likely to make the same mistakes until we again forget and need ANOTHER discontinuity to fix what we break.
It’s understandable that the most excessive on the left would be a gibbering mass of “resistance” that offers little-to-nothing of value in moving us forward, because that vision of 2021 or 2025 denies their own ideological desires. But the Charens and Brets of the world give all the appearance of people who recognize what a good omelet looks like but just can’t bring themselves to break the eggs necessary to make it.
Some need to get around to deciding whether they want to fully participate in bringing about that vision, or simply want to be thought of as politically correct.
5
Dream on about being better off in 2020 than 2016: the chaos in the White House, the empty chair in the Oval Office and the GOP self obstruction of Congress will eventually cause a national political and economic crisis and the current regime will be swamped out of office.
19
"Some need to get around to deciding whether they want to fully participate in bringing about that vision, or simply want to be thought of as politically correct."
Just remember, folks, it's all about the "frame". In Richard Luettgen's framing of the discussion, "principles" are now just an expression of political correctness. Think about that for a moment. Every time a reader/writer in this forum, or anywhere for that matter, asserts a positive value, based on reason, and a moral and ethical code that rejects Trumpism, he or she is merely being politically correct. Mind-boggling.
37
While I agree with the column's core premise that negotiation and compromise are good and religious belief in the complete Truth of one's cause is bad, I cannot agree with the idea that we need the GOP to be a center-right party. We already have one of those: the Democratic Party. Stephens calls Diane Feinstein's loss of the Democratic nomination "depresssing," but it was plainly was not. She voted to invade Iraq, she supports the Patriot Act, she supports the death penalty, she supported a constitutional amendment to allow criminal punishment for physical injury to the flag, she opposes legalization of marijuana (suggesting it is a "gateway drug"), she supported expanding FISA to limit judicial review - etc. While she has clear left-center views on other issues, the ones listed are sufficient reasons to reasonably deny her a Democratic Party nomination, and far from "depressing." It is good to negotiate and compromise, but when you start from a position on the right, you wind up settling for results far to the right.
51
Excellent post! In my view though her center-left position is confined to pro choice. She never met a war she did not support and she denied guns to others while she obtained her own concealed weapons permit. So much for her view of gun control, ok for me, but not for you.
us army 1969-1971/california jd
The U.S. doesn't have a long-term domestic strategy, similar to what we have for national defense. So we neither define nor discuss realistic solutions to the "fights worth having":
1. Expanding health insurance to all. Unfortunately, the Tax Act is expected to increase this number by 13 million over a decade, from around 28 million to 41 million.
2. Reducing costs of healthcare. Unfortunately, the various ACA sabotage efforts will add around 40% to the costs on the ACA exchanges, raising the subsidies while the after-subsidy cost remains capped (e.g., harm to taxpayers but not those receiving the subsidies).
3. Reducing premature mortality in the poorer southern states that (incidentally) refuse to expand Medicaid under the ACA.
4. Getting assault rifles off the streets and funding more police for soft targets. Only yesterday the President proposed meaningful action consistent with what Democrats have proposed all along.
5. Making the economy more inclusive, via expanding higher educational opportunity. We've been setting records in household net worth since late 2012, but over 50% of that wealth goes to the top 1%. Instead of raising taxes on the rich and using that to fund college educations, we instead force students to borrow at ever-higher tuition prices.
If we can agree on the goals, bad policy that goes the opposite direction can be stopped.
12
In regard to #5, expanding educational opportunity is not a solution for society at large to economic disparity and unfairness. It is a solution for some people, individually. The "college for everyone" movement won't work, in part because of the dynamics of competition: the more people who have four yr. degrees, the more other people needed to get higher degrees to distinguish themselves from the crowd. I agree that college debt is obscene (my word) and can amount to a form of indentured servitude.
Advanced education, specific training and finding ways to lay the groundwork for lifelong learning and development could succeed in broadening opportunity beyond those who get four yr. degrees. Better pay, returning dignity to all work, would be the quickest way to reduce gross inequality of incomes.
6
I’m not too worried about the Democrats becoming the mirror image of Republicans. The far-left is loud but fairly marginal; the bulk of the most energized resistance to Trump is from center to center-left good government types: https://democracyjournal.org/arguments/middle-america-reboots-democracy/. There are almost no examples of a far-left candidate winning a Democratic primary, much less a general election.
7
I agree with Bret Stephens. In particular when he says, "As for the other side, it thinks it knows what’s True." Beware the idealogue regardless of what side they are on, as they are all dangerous.
56
I would argue that both "sides" think they know what's true ideologically. As a liberal I think the Dems have a very weak case to offer to the public in 2018.
They have failed to mentor younger candidates that could inspire millennials and they have taken down powerful voices like Al Franken's that spoke to the common good by denying due process in the heat of the hysteria of #metoo.
Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, and Chuck Schumer all signed on to that debacle.
It is unfortunate that we are stuck with only these two parties to vote for. Neither gives voters a sense of hope re leadership that is truly dedicated to the common welfar and the ability to make democracy work.
Maybe Bret Stephens identity as an intellectual beacon of conservative ideals exaggerates his sense of the importance of the intellectual left or right in this country.
We are not a nation divided by conservative and liberal ideals. Stephen's stereotyping of the right and left equivalency is also inaccurate.
To claim that the U.S. spends 30% more on health care than the average wealthy nation, 40% more than our neighbors to the north is an honest claim, clearly enforced by the data, not perpetuated by left wing ideology.
That Canadians get significantly worse health care or have to spend endless time in lines to receive it is a lie perpetuated not by ideologues, but profit takers.
The claim that giving huge tax breaks to plutocrats will help the middle class is another lie, supported by profit takes, not ideologues.
To claim that climate change needs urgent attention and is caused by carbon based energy is irrefutable, not ideological. To claim the idea is a hoax fabricated by scientists seeking funding is a lie perpetuated by profiteers of the energy industry. No right wind intellectuals engaged in this either.
The claim that easy access to guns, especially guns designed for the mass killing of human beings do not contribute to gun violence is a right-wing lie that helps the gun industry sell guns.
Whoever the conservative and liberal intellectuals are, they play very little role in our actual politics.
325
I am Canadian and am always amused by characterizations of our Health Care by opponents south of the Border. Yes, there are sometimes wait-times and guess what they are not determined by whether you can pay to go to the front of the line but the seriousness of your condition. When my mother was diagnosed with cancer, treatment began immediately. Our government spends more on health care because it is funded through taxes not paid through insurance. The ACA was a progressive step for the US to catch up with other industrialized nations but only a first step.
3
Just one quick comment - perhaps conservatives’ time would have been better spent analyzing about how THEY keep hurting those they claim to help - yes I mean the middle class, coal miners, the uninsured etc. AND, how they sow division within the country to accomplish those ends. I’d buy that book!
66
Compromise has become an alien idea. Politicians on both sides of issues don't budge and nothing gets done. The Republicans elected a reality television star with no governing experience and some in the Democratic party are suggesting Oprah Winfrey or George Clooney as their party's candidate in 2020. Whatever happened to training and experience. We yearn for purity but ignore ability. Leader of the free world, how hard could it be?
14
I am a centrist who leans left on social justice and right on fiscal sense. That is a balancing act that I accept will always be imperfect, but should always be the goal. Practicality, pragmatism conscience and soul.
I will never agree with hardcore conservatives. But I can respect people who are conservative, and respect the ideals and philosophy of the right, even as I believe it wrongheaded. So I can respect Charen's dismay and repulsion of what her party has become, even as I continue to abhor her ideas.
Charen calls out the Machiavellian, the people who think any means is fine as long as they get where they want to go. What the GOP has taught the Democratic Party is that Machiavelli wins. We have a right wing court because of it. We have districts shaped like the constellation Draco. We have minority party control nationwide and have effective;y instituted One Acre, One Vote., since territory controlled has more sway than population. We have politicians who hold their noses and look away from both stellar incompetence at leadership combined with stellar competence at graft, corruption and personal enrichment.
You don't want the left to adopt the methods of the right? You are going to have to prove that America accepts another way to win.
212
Cathy,
I share your values about social justice on the left and fiscal sense on the right (or at least what it used to be on the right). I'd be willing to bet many people have a hard time figuring you out, because you can easily see their and understand their point of view.
Understanding, of course,does not necessarily imply agreement, but can form the basis of compromise.
Ideologues and extremists are very good at pointing out problems (real and imaginary) but are equally poor at solving them, precisely because of their insistence the other side is bereft of intellect and devoid of morality and reason.
Until Republicans are willing to vote for a pretty good Democrat instead of what they know in their hearts is a pretty bad Republican, we won't see any progress on that side of the fence.
The same goes for the other side as well.
The three horsemen of the political apocalypse (that have been riding into the United States for a decade now) are:
1) Ideological litmus tests, which destroy political parties
2) gerrymandering, which suppresses and distorts the will of the people
3) big money in politics (via Citizens United and its kin) which corrupts everything in its vastly oversized influence
Best wishes in your continual balancing act.
2
Thanks for this post, Kathy.
But I have to ask, these days, from those who claim an allegiance to fiscal conservatism -- what does that mean?
The stealing of the Supreme Court seat by Mr. McConnell (R) in favor of a rabid right wing justice in Neil Gorsuch makes reasoned, deliberative thought and above all patience for slow, but progressive change almost impossible now for Democrats. (See L. Geenhouse's article in today NYT)
I believe in the Enlightenment values Mr. Stephens writes about. For example, I support Diane Feinstein's re-nomination. But I can tell you there is very little stomach for such nominees among the Democratic electorate.
But to my fellow Democrats: we need a sober minded, level headed patriot of strong moral stature to run for the presidency in 2020. We need to heal, and bring together the 70% of the populace who have not lost their minds to authoritarianism - and live the values of liberal democracy taught to us as children. We must not forget that these are the same values so many Americans long suffered and died for.
78
The fact is that most Americans are not as inflexibly right wing as Ms. Charen. Trump won because some of his positions on day to day issues were close to traditional Democratic Party positions. What is so wrong with a political party actually listening to what ordinary citizens want? And why does Ms. Charen dislike Marion LePen? Is it her fault her almost dead grandfather was anti semitic? Or because today's LePen is not to the extreme right on economic issues?
2
I have been following this whole debacle with great interest. And I tend to agree with Bret and today's political atmosphere. Tho I'm a Democrat, I'm also a reasonable person (or hope others think so). I do get annoyed with many people on the far left. Some are also Clinton haters to the point that they have gone over the cliff. They are not interested at all in bi-partisanship. Of course I'm more than annoyed with Trumpers. For the first time in my life, I find myself swearing at the TV.
What is interesting is that there is a group that seems to be coalescing, Many Dems who share many of my beliefs, some Republicans and I say good for them, and the generation coming up.
Or, perhaps, we have a large group of Republicans who don't have a spine or moral underpinnings. They sit back and stay quiet while our Federal Government is being dismantled and all the norms and we've created over 240 years are being thrown out the window.
I am a strong believer in our system of government, and at the moment, its holding firm. We can disagree with policies, hey that's human. But its time for a change in both the Republican and Democratic Parties. I'm not sure where it will go, but hope that grounded, civic-minded people will enter this fray.
15
This is advice Hillary Clinton should have heeded when Bernie Sanders was nipping at her heels. Her pivot to everything Left of her traditional positions weakened her. Her flip flop on TPP is the best example, but the usual laundry list of "fixes" that crept into her campaign totally weakened her in election against Trump. Never Trumpers had no place to go. If she had ran as Senator Clinton, it would have been a different result.
3
This is another column--and there have been quite a few over the past 12-18 months--that warns us not to let party extremes take over. The last thing the Democrats need is their own equivalent of the noxious "Freedom" Caucus.
The impressive high-schoolers now forcefully lobbying for better gun control laws recognize the needs for compromise. We should all hope that the "adults" can follow their lead.
25
Mona Charen showed real political courage to speak her convictions at CPAC.She has made sense to me in the past and I am not a Republican.I have to call you, however, on your statements about California liberals not endorsing Diane Feinstein because she is not liberal enough.The simple truth is that she is too old.I can say this because we are the same age .Were she elected and finished another term she would be ninety!That is old-she has served with distinction- she needs to retire.
32
That is ageist thinking. And she doesn't deserve that.
Couldn't agree more. To suggest that the California Democratic Party refused to uniformly back Sen. Feinstein because she is not sufficiently liberal, and not because of her age or the plethora of excellent candidates is to impose your narrow world view of left vs right.
To Rough Acres- unless you are 84 as I am don't talk to me about ageism!Every day you realize that you are losing some of your abilities but you forge ahead and are profoundly grateful for all the tasks you accomplished when you were youthful and vigorous.
1
Point taken. But center and left of center can only rage against the current administration till the ballot box. The rage is not a solid army, rather a spectrum. Frustration at leadership on both sides of the aisle for mendacity and deceit at what passes for leadership, and lack of response and cohesion for the opposition, ratchets up emotions. Those who oppose the current regime can only hope for a focused and rational opposition to emerge rather than a counterpart to the current GOP. Analysis is so much cleaner than actual governance.
If for no other reason, Mr. Stephens' column is notable for its frank observation that there is no longer a functioning Left in America.
Not Sanders (duh), not Pelosi, not anyone out there on the horizon. Which, of course, makes the head-exploding paranoia of Dana Loesch, Mitch McConnell, and Super Right Man Ryan all the more amusing.
Whatever the partisan case, Stephens' call for common-sense, common-decency morality, inclusive and sane, supportive of all stations of humanity, is powerful and a great relief in this terrible political age.
3
The two major political parties in America demonize each other?
The situation appears a controlled civil war, or if not that bad, something of a sports rivalry, a situation in which each side hopes to rack up more triumphs than the other, but in which each side is probably more destined to lose, which is to say each side loathes the other and is increasingly full of self-loathing because the world really favors neither side.
America appears a country in which right wing Christian/white dominance is fading, but it has essentially been an absurdity to pour on the diversity of races, ethnic groups, religions the left has been calling for, not to mention to hope millions will be united in some sort of socialistic solidarity, some sort of nurture over nature remaking of the American man especially, along lines not remote from the plan the Soviets had of New Soviet Man.
In face of this wrenching of country from side to side politically, this failure of governmental conception, corporations for all their historical ugliness have been taking off, neither for any religious or national or cultural insularity (thus against right wing), but with little tolerance for left wing socialistic, nurture over nature nonsense (after all corporations at best depend on a highly educated workforce and clear conception of individual talent and an honest, scientific answer to the nature/nurture question).
Thus something of scientific, libertarian, communalism the winner in nation.
Senator Feinstein is 84 years old. I am grateful for her service to the country.
4
The reasons I’ve admired the “never trumpers” is that while I have not often agreed with their political and social views, they caused me to think and rethink my own views. But if there are no principles at the heart of ones argument— which is the case with the Trumpkins— we all lose, including me. We need alternative views but they have to reflect commonsense principles...right and wrong.
3
Trump isn't leading or orchestrating this populist revolt, he's simply reflecting it. This uprising started in 1968 when Nixon won the Presidency. It was amplified with Reagan's 1980 victory. Solidified with Trump's unexpected 2016 triumph. The foundation of this revolt has been the working class. They are fed up with Democratic Party. Liberal policymakers have been slow to address or even to recognize their plight. This error of omission is fueling a worker class backlash that will be impossible to stop. Right now Republicans who attack Trump are in reality attacking their own constituents. Hence their silence. MAGA Republicans are in it to win, by any means necessary. Trump will be gone one day. They will still be here. They will wait him out & in the end achieve all of their goals. Their plan is simple. Control the Supreme Court. Controlling SCOTUS is the grand slam that ends the ball game. Control SCOTUS & you destroy the liberal agenda once & for all. The legal arm of the conservative movement is probably the best organized, most far-reaching & far-seeing sector of the Right. They truly are in it — and have been in it — for the long game. Control the Supreme Court, stack the judiciary, and you can stop the progressive movement, no matter how popular it is, no matter how much legislative power it has, for decades. Long after Trump is gone, the right will be relying upon the judiciary — and behind that, the Constitution — to protect, enlarge, and consolidate their gains.
12
Your analysis may be correct, but that leaves us with the far right agenda of no compromise, anti immigrant, anti clean water anti clean air, anti fair wages, anti fairness, anti public safety, anti science, anti public education, anti cost effective health care and on and on and on.........
2
Progressives know this.
It's why the smartest ones are supporting the Democratic "Blue Wave" movement, even if the Democratic candidate isn't "pure" enough - and turning up for special election in greater numbers.
2
Answering all comments. For everyone who disagrees with me lets review the past 9 years. During this time the DP lost the Presidency, both House of Congress, SCOTUS, the majority of state legislatures, Governorships, & most important local offices. The GOP gained about 1,000 seats in state legislatures. In 24 states, do Democrats have almost no political influence at all. Republicans control of a record 68 percent of the 98 partisan state legislative chambers in the nation. The GOP hold more total seats than they have since 1920, well over 4,100 of the 7,383. How we have dealt with China? Over the past 40 years, & all of the shiny forecasts about China trade, every premise of every policy, all of it, has been a lie. Between 2001 & 2015, around 3.4 million U.S. jobs, 75% of which were in the manufacturing sector, were lost as a result of the trade deficit with China. Jobs have been lost in all 50 states. Rising American dependence on Chinese products coupled with unfair Chinese trading practices have hollowed out the US manufacturing sector. China violates every rule there is on normal trading relationships. We have a trading system that does not work. Period. What have Democrats done to protect the working class once the cornerstone of our party? Absolutely nothing. Why is the Democratic Party in shambles? One reason. Working class voters are not buying what we are selling. That's a fact that can't be denied. We can't turn this around if we continue to ignore their plight.
2
Once again: thank you. Very helpful piece, and a strong reminder to stay in the fight - in my case, with my left leaning friends.
8
I don't know if Bernie Sanders can be classified as belonging to what the author decries. Since when was returning to the New Deal socialism? I must say that you Americans sometimes define political ideology in an odd manner from the rest of the world.
The fissure in the Democratic party at present perhaps reflects a debate centered not on ideology, but pragmatism. Hasn't said party recently experienced the consequences of copying the GOP? The writer suggests that true liberalism is at peril, yet one cannot think that his definition is a more antiquated one from the 18th century, than that of T H Green. Let the Republican party be itself, Mr. Stephens, there's no good reason the Democrats should emulate it.
21
Alright, Mr. Stephens, if this American reader could learn to focus it might be a step in the right direction, followed by a diet of some bright mind cells. I rarely give 'advice' on the basis that it might be crummy, and the only time I heard from Daniel Patrick Moynihan was a memorable booming 'Top O' The Morning' on the phone; a feel-good moment and a happy one.
In the midst of all this Enlightenment, Joie de Vivre and Bunnies, there is 'Common Sense', which appears to be resting flat as a kipper on the National Kitchen Floor.
My neighbor and I are going to vote, and she is going to show me how to bake a peanut-butter pie to bring to Our Town. While slices of this dessert are going to be shared, we are not going to be carrying our political choice on our sleeve.
'The fabric of an open society is more frayed than most people realize'. This sounds right, and while our County grows closer and closer apart, we appear to be reaching the heights of anarchic level in contemporary history.
1
In my view our political parties have become struggles more than celebrations of belief. It is reminiscent of facing a horribly tangled fishing reel and trying to recover the useful thread it once contained. Unlike the fisherman who can hack off the mangled mess and replace it with fresh line, we cannot do the same. We are forced to disentangle it strand by strand. There is no nascent third party waiting on the shelf for us to rediscovery comity.
The task will be long and difficult and the outcome remains unsure but we have little choice. Now, where is that thread of reason we can pull out first?
14
I am worried about the trends that Mr. Stephens describes. Both the Republican and Democratic Parties seem to moving towards the populist extremes. And while populism has a superficial appeal, it has always failed as a governing philosophy. But the rejection of traditional politics on both sides is quite real.
My only hope is that the Republic has survived huge divisions an crises before. Let's hope we survive this.
7
William F. Buckley had fights with his own side? Precious few in fact. He may have fallen out with the John Birchers at one point but otherwise he was solidly on the side of every bit of Republican craziness and is one of the architects of the current Republican condition.
164
Ah, yes, Buckley was as good at Republican craziness as anyone on the Right, but at least the man had style and a certain kind of wit. He was worth watching if only to watch him twiddle the pencil around his wicked grin while in debate. No one alive today even comes close.
50
Buckley was against Reagan and others refusing to give up the Panama Canal.
No one ever questioned that old-style conservatives had "principles;" they just so often seemed to be so wrong-headed respecting what political, economic, and cultural answers made sense and were effective in the modern world.
Still, it is refreshing, at least, to see that, somewhere, such principles do continue to exist.
What is remarkable, however, is how little of it there is on the right and among Republicans, especially among people who have any power. And that is the critical element: for Republicans, maintaining their desperate grip on personal power and economic gain motivates the vast majority of them. Ethics and the public good have nothing to do with it anymore.
62
Mr. Stephens says that America will have a right of center party. That would serve America well along with a left of center party. But what it has is an extreme right party and a left of center party. Right now I only see 2 possible senators that fit the right of center not extreme right members of the senate and one congressman ( who is not running for reelection), So how does the Republican party reclaim itself as proper for our 2 party system?
7
"By contrast, MAGA Republicans — whether of the fully or merely semi-Trumpified varieties — detest NeverTrumpers with an animus they can scarcely extend to liberals or progressives."
Charen's column was excellent. So is this one.
MAGA Republicans are turning into their wing of the party into a cult of personality. Hear no evil, see no evil, but do a tremendous amount of evil because of their no-holds-barred support of the president for whatever he says and does, no matter if it's shredding the Constitution.
Bet Stephens, you also have much to offer on the internecine war between "old" and "new" Democrats. It's never good to trade debate and compromise for a purity test of ideology.
So doing risks creating a far left Tea Party of its own, another faction to gum up the works of government.
The fact that Charen got booed at CPAC was abhorrent, particularly in light of all the breaking political news of this week. When the GOP rebuilds as it will have to, once Trump's reign of nepotism and self-dealing have ended, it's going need people like Mona Charen.
Just as Democrats, now and in the future, are going to need all shades of liberalism to present a united front.
93
Christine McM I agree with you. Thank goodness there are some Republicans who actually have a spine. I have great respect for them. I've been a member of the Democratic Party since the 60's. Since the early 2000's I've been saying we need younger members, we keep recycling the same ideas over and over and depending too much on large "white papers" and not enough on door-to door one-on-one discussions with voters. I would call all 3 of my sons "Independents", but they do vote Democratic because its closer to their values than the Republicans. Independents don't even have a voice. Not really. Lots of work to be done with both parties.
12
@wolf201: Thanks. Compared to you, I'm a relative newcomer to the Democratic party which I officially joined in 2011. Prior to that I was "unenrolled" or independent, and prior to that I was actually Republican, but of the now far gone William Safire/Jack Kemp variety, fiscally conservative but socially liberal.
I don't recognize today's shrill parties, both of which have traded problem solving for conflict, demonization, and policy drift. Without a united message--and God knows there's a ton to include--Democrats won't be able to regain power because of the forces so much polarization has unleashed (see Edsall's column today also).
9
Thank you ChristineMcM. Both my sister and brother are or have been Republicans. Neither of them even recognize the party any more. My brother tho at one time was a registered Republican does think we should have Universal Health care coverage. He used to work in the insurance business and thinks its the most logical answer. I appreciate all the Republicans who I know who now no longer are registered as such. They just want common sense policies. I do appreciate your intelligent comments. Thank you.
2
A flower in buttonhole I'm wearin'
In my deep tribute to Ms Charen
A spirit I admire
Put her feet to the fire,
Of such followers Trump is barren!
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well said
Well said, Bret. I really believe most Americans don't recognize that they want change. But gradual change. And if you look closely enough HOW politics functions in this country it really is the same no matter which party is in power. But I think Trump plays by a different set of rules, no rules actually, than everyone else on both sides. Even the people working for him are getting vertigo from him day in and day out. Sooner or later they can't stand the nausea and dizziness and resign. And eventually it trickles down to the voters as well. Oh there will always be a base, immune to the symptoms from the chaos and constant change in the ride's trajectory. It's like watching TV and only watching reruns of the Simpson's. Eventually you either get tired of it or the same episode comes back around again. And you have three choices: Continue to watch,change the station, or turn off the TV. All it will take is a few voters opting for the second or third options to end this. Trump's strategy is to try and get them to keep watching. Nausea and dizziness are very uncomfortable. No matter what your political beliefs. Eventually some say No More, stop the ride,I can't take it any more. Remember all it will take is 80,000 voters.
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What Stephens highlights, at each end of the political spectrum, is that the American Experiment is predicated entirely upon 'representation' - and the Founders' Intent regarding representation was clearly expressed by G. Washington, when he held up the Constitutional Convention over the issue:
https://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/01/07/enlarging-the-house-of-rep...
Part of our rolling Trumpster fire Code Red is related to the House being artificially limited to 435 members and the concept of 2 party control, which leaves most voters feeling remote/detached from too few legislators representing too many constituents; legislators who are easily captured by special interests, with party leaders passing out plums and favors based on which legislators are best at fund-raising from those interests.
The U.S. population has more than doubled since 1950, with the U.S. now more populous than all nations but China and India - the House should be larger (with today's communications, all the legislators don't even have to be in D.C. to conduct business) reflecting the oft-revered "Founders' Intent", making Americans more likely to know/see their representatives.
A bonus will be the emergence of more political parties/coalitions, and the inability of special interests to buy off legislators - which is why the parties and special interests will try to suffocate such ideas.
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Great idea, thanks for sharing.
Take heart, Mr. Stephens. While it is true that today, 85% of Republicans support Trump, it is also true that there are far fewer people calling themselves Republicans than when Trump was inaugurated. According to Gallup’s party identity poll (which it has been taking for many years), 31% of voters identified as Republicans in February 2017. That number is down to 22% in their most recent poll in January 2018. Those 85% of Trumpists come from a party that has shrunk by 1/3 since Trump took over the Oval Office.
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Hopefully the poll is right. But past results show polling to be a very flawed 'science.' (e.g. Hilary 'win' 2016; Dewey 'win' 1948). People a) change their
minds daily b) lie to pollsters c) don't even know their own mind half the time
d) sample populations are of the wrong kind or too small
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I agree with you, Pete. Many people lied to pollsters about supporting Trump in 2016 because they were embarrassed. I hope they are still embarrassed.
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Actually the national polls were quite accurate. Hilary won the popular vote by about the 2-3% spread she had in the polls on the even of the election. Some of the more focused state polling was less accurate.
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