Controlling the Narrative

One of the basic presuppositions that lies behind everything I write in this blog is that people operate largely unconsciously with presuppositions.  We all have biases, and those biases are rooted in narratives that organize reality for us, and we don't give up on them until the evidence becomes so overwhelming that the narrative can no longer be sustained. There is no objective reality that we can know directly; there is only mediated reality, and narratives are the medium. They are social constructions, and they are provisional.

We cannot do without these narratives and the biases that come with them, but we can do some work to make sure that the biases we have are well grounded. The difference between the wise and the foolish is that the wise work with narratives that are well grounded, and the foolish within narratives that are specious. Philosophy since at least the time of Socrates has been at root the exercise of bringing those narratives into awareness in order to evaluate how specious or well grounded they are.

In politics, the party that controls the narrative controls the levers of power.  In a democracy, the people are supposed to control the evolving narrative, and political power, in theory, ultimately lies with them.  In a tyrannical regime a power elite controls the narrative, and it uses its power to suppress competing narratives, mainly through propaganda and threat of reprisal.

The Republicans understand the importance of controlling the narrative in a way that the Democrats don't. Or if there are some Democrats who do understand its importance, they are powerless to do anything about it. There are layers of reasons for this, but among them is that many of the people who are attracted to the Republican Party are authoritarian personality types who are more easily organized into a lockstep mentality to support the leader no matter what. The Democrats have a more difficult time submitting to authority or doing anything in a disciplined, focused way.

I'm not saying that all Republicans are good little soldiers unquestioningly following orders or that all Democrats are independent free thinkers, but it's fairly obvious that at the core of the Republican party--the so-called base that comprises about one third of Americans, loyalty and group cohesion are more important than being independent minded. That's an enormous political asset for factions who want to play the power game. To me it's pretty frightening that at this late date such a large proportion of American citizens still thinks positively of this president and his administration. They either approve of the authoritarian tilt of the administration or they are working within a loyalty narrative that is impervious to evidence that would otherwise demand their disapproval.

And surely this authoritarian mentality is on display in the current controversy regarding the unprecedented firings of the eight U.S. Attorneys   The USAs who were fired were republicans who exhibited a little too much independence. These attorneys were not "loyal" enough, and they resisted marching orders from central command: Prosecute Democrats, and leave Republicans alone.  They learned that being independent minded and following the law is no longer a Republican virtue.

But the narrative that organizes reality for the authoritarian segment of the American citizenry, while clearly ungrounded and specious and an everpresent threat to the wellbeing of the commonweal, is not my primary concern.  I'm more concerned about propping up the narrative for the middle. As I've argued here repeatedly, our political discourse has skewed so far to the right in the last twenty-five years that what used to be the middle is now considered left.

So let me reiterate what I said about defining Right, Left, and Center in response to some questions about my post earlier this month about The Phantom Extremist Left.  The question is whether it's possible to objectively define right, left, or center.  Isn't it a matter of subjective perception depending on where one stands? Well, I would argue that it isn't; it only seems that way in the U.S. because the Right and the mainstream media have essentially delegitimated the "real" left in this country. We don't have a politically legitimate left as they have it in Europe, Latin America, and even in Israel. So let me define left, right, and center by an objective standard that I think most people who know some political philosophy would agree with:

The political right is defined by (1) its celebration, if not idolization, of the market and its correlative agenda to destroy the New Deal compromise and (2) by its hypermilitarism in the face of the terrorist threat and of its correlative authoritarian-leaning moves to strengthen the executive branch, to stack the courts, stonewall the legislative branch, and to diminish civil liberties in general. In the United States the right is corporate power aligned with and subordinating political power to its agenda while relying on a specious jingoism and traditional-values narrative to seduce the cultural and religious right to provide the votes needed to support its agenda.

The principle that defines the "real" left is its agenda to control the market through the nationalization of key industries and by its program to redistribute wealth through various governmental mechanisms. There is no such left in this country at this time with any political clout.  There was a Left at the turn of the 19th century through the 1930s  and '40s  And the New Left played a role in shaping political discourse in the late '60s and early '70s but for reasons it might be interesting to go into another time, it dissipated rather quickly after the U.S. withdrew from Vietnam. In the early eighties there was some anti-military and anti-nuclear activism, but as the decade progressed, the left agenda pretty much shrank to concerns about rights for women, and racial and sexual minorities, which is pretty much how it stands today. There is no widely accepted legitimate critique of power distribution in our mainstream political discourse.  Most Americans either accept or are unaware of the the trend toward aggregations of power and wealth in the hands of fewer people since the 1980s.

The center is defined as the people who seek a compromise between the left and right as defined above. The New Deal was its model in this country insofar as it works with both markets and with government controls to solve problems and seek to achieve goals that promote the nation's general welfare.

Was there some overstretch by some of the left-leaning people in government who sought to solve problems with clumsy top-down programs like busing during the '60s and '70s  Yes, and some adjustments were warranted. Top-downism whether it originates from the right or the left is for me always a problem except in extraordinary circumstances.  In my post here about Latent Authoritarians, I discuss how the real spirit of the New Deal is subsidiarist, and how subsidiarity is a guiding principle that affirms both self-reliance and interdependence. The balance between these two social principles is for me what guides a centrist agenda.

So I grant that some of the top-downism of the '60s progressive political agenda required some adjustment, but with the ascendancy of Reaganism the New Deal compromise was confronted with a program of dismantlement.  The point is that most Americans were pretty happy with the New Deal system in defining a socially democratic center. Even Nixon accepted its basic premises, and what later became Reaganism was in previous decades considered right-wing lunacy.

The New Deal consensus was so thoroughly "normal reality" that most people were complacent in their acceptance of it as such. This resulted in this center's not taking seriously at first the extremism of Reaganism. And this in turn led to its being unprepared for the withering assault the right mounted in the '80s that continues to this day. So the amazing story of the last thirty years is how what was considered right-wing lunacy in the '70s became the dominant narrative in the '80s and beyond.  And the only way to understand it is by analyzing how the right organized to achieve its remarkable political objectives. And they did it by doing what the "right" does everywhere--by a concerted program of power and wealth consolidation behind a screen of jingoistic nationalism and traditionalist values.

I have made repeated arguments that true American conservatism in our current political context is defined by those who seek to vigorously resist the program of the hard right as defined above. That attitude of resistance to the hard right is characterized now in media-think as as a Liberal or Left position, and I think such a characterization absurd. The center is now defined by some middle point between the hard right and the New Deal Center, which means that the center is very much skewed to the right. So people who think of themselves as centrists according to this scheme are really rightists.

This is an important point because I think there are many people who are uncomfortable with the program of the hard right currently in power, but are reluctant to join in actively resisting it because they fear that to do so requires their collusion with the program of the hard left, which they loathe, even though it's currently non-existent as a power faction in American politics. The hard right, however, is very much existent. And so the point is that "Liberalism", insofar as it simply preserves the New Deal compromise, is really the center. To resist the agenda of the hard right is a centrist project focussed on preserving the social democracy that brought so many Americans prosperity and civil rights in the period following  World War II. 

This unprecedented prosperity is pretty much the only thing most working Americans in the boomer generation and after have known, but it wasn't always that way, and there are very powerful structural forces at play right now that could very well return us to the quasi-barbarism of the late nineteenth century. That's why the real fight right now is to control the narrative that defines the center. And it starts with "conserving" the center as the consensus defined it in the New Deal compromise between the hard right and the hard left.

And so the entire thrust of what I've been writing for some months now is to show why such a media characterization of "left" is distorting and enabling of the program of the hard right. There might be a cultural left in the universities and in the arts world, but there is no political left--no left that offers an alternative program for power and wealth distribution in this country.  I am not promoting such a program; I  simply want to point out that insofar as most Americans are unaware of such a hard left program, they see a philosophically centrist, i.e., New Deal, position as leftist, and it just isn't.  As a result, we're in a situation right now where anyone slightly to the left of Ann Coulter is considered a moderate. Coulter serves the right effectively because she pushes the limits of what defines the right, so that rightists can position themselves somewhat to her left and be considered "reasonable."  It's not reasonable; it's a flim-flam.

Comments

[Mike McG...]

Hey Jack:

This post helped me better understand your political geography and clarify my own. I endorse your thoughts, first of all, about the social construction of reality, then about the durability of organizing narratives, and finally about the power that accrues politically to the owners of the dominant narrative. Positioned to enforce this narrative, those in control are also positioned to threaten “reprisal toward those presenting alternative narratives.” The raw exercise of power is often less effective than deconstruction, caricature and ridicule.

I also think I now get your definition of political right, left, and center. I’m not sure whether the political right delegimitated the ‘real’ political left or whether it withered away on its own; it seems to me the players of American political left are pretty squarely bourgeois. (I shudder to think what would happen to the Democratic coffers if the party were to seriously propose a more steeply graduated income tax!) Clearly, as you say, “(t)here is no widely accepted legitimate critique of power in our mainstream political discourse.” I also agree that the New Deal is a reasonable anchor for the political center and that the political right’s narrative has successfully redefined this center as leftist.

Here’s where our narratives diverge:
“…I think there are many people who are uncomfortable with the program of the hard right currently in power, but are reluctant to join in actively resisting it because they fear that to do so requires their collusion with the program of the hard left, which they loathe, even though it's currently non-existent as a power faction in American politics….There might be a cultural left in the universities and in the arts world, but there is no political left--no left that offers an alternative program for power and wealth distribution in this country.”

For starters, it’s not like we have a broad array of political choices. Essentially there are three: vote Democratic, vote Republican or vote Quixotic. For you the North Star is positioning relative to concentration of political power and repudiation of the right’s bald power grab and authoritarian tendencies. You are convinced that such considerations should override all other considerations. And maybe they should, especially in the Bush II era. But that’s not where most people live. Alignment isn’t just about political power; it is also a cultural call…tribal, even. It seems to me that you minimize the salience of this cultural sphere, viewing it the dependent variable to a political independent variable.

Centrists take both spheres seriously and don’t see one as overriding the other. I believe that the centrist impulse comes in part from an inability or unwillingness to identify either with the political project of the right or the cultural project of the left. Perhaps centrists are more attentive to tone than facts; clearly we haven’t drilled through the issue as carefully as you have. Maybe it’s a right brain/left brain thing. On the other hand we may be on to something in an inchoate sort of way, something more linear folks don’t get.

It is difficult to explain, really. In your recent Phantom Extremist Left post you allude to Kevin Drum’s read on the recent Joe Klein controversy. Drum takes exception to Klein’s evenhanded critique of conservatives and liberals, seizing on and debunking Klein’s ‘80s busing example. Drum scored; Klein’s example was stale. But the sensibilities Klein tapped into aren’t stale. I think Drum missed Klein’s point altogether, although he did allow as how “it would be worth having an inter-generational conversation that tries to unpack the assumptions behind the name calling. You never know. We might all learn something.” (Interesting anecdote: read the comboxes on this one. Drum’s readers overwhelmingly rained contempt on Klein. They had nothing to learn! In this respect they are remarkably similar in style to the ‘right wingers’ they despise.)

Let’s stipulate that you are right, Jack: the political stakes are consequential, the cultural ones now less so. How then should progressives proceed to convince moderates to firmly align with them? I’m not sure, really, since we live in very different worlds. But I have a pretty good idea how *not* to do it and I think you’d agree. Reflecting a day or two after the last election, Kevin Drum opined as follows on his blog: “I do agree that we probably lose a lot of support we don’t need to lose because of a very real – and often dripping – condescension toward anyone we consider less enlightened than us…So maybe we should knock it off. I know it’s fun, but most of the time it’s pointless and misguided – and it costs is elections and prevents even modest progress on issues we care about. That’s a high price to pay for a bit of fun.”

Aside: I believe that Obama’s huge appeal is his understanding of centrist sensibilities. He gets us and we get him in a manner largely unrelated to his specific positions.

[Matt Zemek]

Jack,

FYI - The blog entry ended abruptly in mid-sentence........

Mike McG:

Having done a blog for 15 months (2003-04), I can say that you're spot-on with your remarks about tone. Liberal condescension and the "militancy of anti-war protesters" only feeds the same sense of hypocrisy on the right that I feel when Republicans screw our veterans and undermine the family by overserving the market.

It's so true that the same emotions and conflicts run both ways. I had to confront this during my blogging days, quietly acknowledge it, and reshape the tone and tenor (and content) of my writing and speaking accordingly. Even then, though, it was and is a tough slog.

No longer blogging politically, I still cover national college football, and God help me when I dare to connect football to a political, social or economic issue. All hell breaks loose in my inbox.

Reader correspondence with journalists is so venomous and overheated these days. The instantaneous access readers now have to journalists offers the blessing of more open communication, but it offers the curse of removing the boundaries of decorum and civility.

This puts me in a tight spot. I know hate mail is a part of being an opinion/analysis provider in the media marketplace, and my editors always tell me to let it slide off the shoulder.

But the problem is that while "I, Matt Zemek," can take the heat, the hate mail is reflective of a loss and/or absence of so many of the qualities of a balanced and healthy public commons. I hate "hate mail" for those kinds of reasons, and it's why I have made it a point in the past two years to try and respond to even the most hateful of e-mails, so that readers will be brought (newly, perhaps) in touch with opinion providers and editorialists who aren't on agenda trips, but really want to connect with readers and provide an example of noble editorial journalism in action.

Linking this back to the topic at hand, the simplest way for progressive/authentically moderate politicians to connect with voters is to--surprise, surprise!--model the virtues that politicians always ought to aspire to.

No political consultants should be needed, EVER. Politicians, if they were authentic (and therefore didn't need to be coached/taught/advised on how to BE/SOUND/LOOK/COME ACROSS AS authentic), would have our trust and support. The fact that they don't is something that speaks to their weakness, but also to the brokenness of the system.

There was a Seattle P-I column the other day on the beauty of caucuses. The author noted how it put democracy and community into action (as opposed to a primary, which just has people voting in a booth). I responded on the P-I chat forum by saying that the whole primary election system for presidential candidates is un-democratic to begin with, which undercuts the value of the local caucus meeting. Without systemic reforms, politicians will have no incentive to act in the kinds of ways the Founding Fathers would and could appreciate. The political parties (Dems as well as Republicans) have combined to make elections as minimalist in robust debate as humanly possible. Until the system is reformed, politicians won't become the liberated souls they need to be if they really want to capture people's hearts.

This is where Jack's fundamental point about power alignment comes into play.

If Republicans are throwing the Republic into the gutter, then dammit, one must regrettably yet undeniably vote for odious Democrats in elections and--in the realm of governance--some shaky policies along the way if it means wresting fundamental control of the levers of government away from the Republicans. There's nothing good about the Democratic Party right now--it's much more the problem than any potential solution, but it's simply much less worse than the Republicans, ergo, they must be supported in the short term.

A word about the political and cultural spheres is in order here, and I might be mistaken, so you and Jack can both correct me from your respective vantage points:

In terms of reality, the cultural sphere does wield a ton of influence. Jack--and he can swiftly correct me if I'm wrong--would say that there's precious little political sophistication in the electorate, because it locates political tussles in the emotional realm of culture-war clashes instead of putting politics where it's supposed to be, in the "political" realm of hard but necessary choices.

You, Mike, seem to be saying (and this is where you can correct me) that the cultural realm SHOULD be as central as it is, because politicians need to connect with voters on deep emotional levels (references to Obama and tonal qualities led me to this analysis of your remarks here). You seem to suggest that voters SHOULD penalize the politicians who drip with condescension, even if a raw and sober policy comparison suggests more favorable/agreeable stances compared to an opponent. Judging where you seem to stand on the political spectrum, Mike, I'll bet that you think Hillary Clinton is to be avoided like the plague, but not because of the raw quality of her policy wonk abilities or submitted proposals on the full range of issues. I'll bet that her triangulation and smarmy tone are so off-putting to you that you can't stomach her for reasons that are cultural (and moral) as well as political.

Jack would avoid Hillary because she is a power-hungry corporate whore (my term, not Jack's) and that masculinized female talked about last week.

I would conclude this particular set of remarks (much more to follow, I'm sure, as we continue this particular debate--so much to unpack here...) by saying that confusion between the political and cultural spheres is fed and created by the media, which is more in collusion with the pols and the Beltway than it is a watchdog that monitors them from an objective, detatched, political distance. The media turns elections into culture wars and fashion competitions and theater auditions, blurring the line between politics and culture. The media goes along with "debate" (HA!) structures that allow candidates to mouth sound-bytes in what are glorified press conferences and not extended Lincoln-Douglas give-and-takes between two supple minds.

No wonder there's confusion between the political and the cultural, and no wonder the Democrats--by going along with these broken systems--undercut ALL of their purely political advantages and thereby cede the cultural sphere to the Republicans, which usually tilts elections to the Republicans in the end.

[Mike McG...]

Matt: As you say, so much to unpack... You make great points. I particularly resonate with the political virtues you enumerate.

With me it is a constant battle between head and heart, between letting go and nursing old wounds. You've called me on a nueralgic piece of my personal narrative.

I would say that analyses that clearly distinguish between the political and the cultural are at risk of missing the important things that happen at the juncture of the two. I would say that all the oxygen is soaked up by those whose views comfortably fit into a binary that privileges voices both politically *and* culturally of one of the two approved flavors, thus making the rest of us homeless.

I would refrase your comments to say that the political and the cultural realm SHOULD NOT but DO have an override on each other and that voters SHOULD NOT but DO penalize the politicians who drip with condescension, even if a raw and sober policy comparison suggests more favorable/agreeable stances compared to an opponent.

Ironically, Matt, I'm cool with Hillary Clinton notwithstanding her triangulation and smarmy tone. I think it is a protecting the underdog thing with me since I see her as unfairly villianized from all quarters...including, yes, the media.

"If Republicans are throwing the Republic into the gutter, then dammit, one must regrettably yet undeniably vote for odious Democrats in elections and--in the realm of governance--some shaky policies along the way if it means wresting fundamental control of the levers of government away from the Republicans." I agree entirely and always vote Democratic. But that doesn't mean I can't curse the darkness!

[Matt Zemek]

Mike,

Thanks for the clarifications and corrections.

My big question (before I launch into another set of remarks) becomes this:

In what sense does your path diverge from Jack's? I'm not quite clear...

Does it diverge in the sense that Jack's "power alignment" construct, however correct it might structurally be, is nevertheless not in position to resonate or click with voters, whose minds are caught up in the cultural sphere?

Follow-up questions:

Are you saying/suggesting that as well-intentioned as it might be to push for more political sophistication and more attention on power alignments, it's nevertheless futile to do so? Are you saying that we need to deal with cultural stuff before we can more effectively and productively deal with political stuff?

Bonus/extra question:

What is a particularly relevant intersection of the political and cultural realms in our polity today?

[Mike McG...]

More great questions, Matt. Not sure how well I can make myself understood in this medium but I'll give it a go.

"In what sense does your path diverge from Jack's? I'm not quite clear...in the sense that Jack's 'power alignment' construct, however correct it might structurally be, is nevertheless not in position to resonate or click with voters, whose minds are caught up in the cultural sphere?"

Exactly. There are at least a couple of things going on here. First of all, these matters are enormously complicated and many people...myself included...are intimidated and therefore vulnerable. Secondly, many consequential and engaging dimensions of life have no immediate economic and political implications. Yes, yes, I know that everything is lost if we become a police state but that isn't going to divert folks from attending to cultural concerns that we understand better and are closer at hand.

"Are you saying/suggesting that as well-intentioned as it might be to push for more political sophistication and more attention on power alignments, it's nevertheless futile to do so?"

Not just futile, but potentially counterproducive. To the extent that progressive political messages become very closely identified with transgressive cultural messages, allergies are formed.

"Are you saying that we need to deal with cultural stuff before we can more effectively and productively deal with political stuff?"

We need to let people know that we can empathetically understand the decisions, including the political decisions, they make in their lives as a reflection of their values and perspective on the big issues. We need to avoid at all cost treating them like lepers or morons or dupes if the weight that they attribute to culture issues makes it difficult for them to vote as progressives.

"What is a particularly relevant intersection of the political and cultural realms in our polity today?"

I'm going to sound like a broken record here, but my answer is Barak Obama. You would be amazed at the open reception his candidacy is receiving among people often derided as 'Religious Right'. Why? Because he exudes understanding rather than contempt for them. He gets them. Case in point: the contentious issue of abortion. Obama's policy position is no different than that of other Democrats: prochoice absolutism. But one gets the sense that he can imagine, without revulsion, why someone would find abortion so repellent as to advocate its restriction. Most prominent progressives, on the other hand, are categorical in their contempt for such views and treat prolife sensibilities like they might treat fascist sensibilities.

The insights of profound thinkers are invaluable; I'm not on an intellectual witch hunt here. I do believe, however, that such thinkers often forget the law of unintented consequences. Clubbing people over the head with more enlightened positions may have the unintended consequence of forging bond even more strongly with unenlightened ones. I think people are more likely to change when they believe that they are deeply heard than when they are mocked.

I'm a fan of social psychologist Jon Haidt. He argues that moral discourse is often an ex post facto product: "One of the most frustrating aspects of moral argument is that the other side is not swayed by one’s arguments, no matter how good they are. The failure to respond to reason makes the other side seem unreasonable, and invites charges that their ‘real’ motivations are hidden and sinister. But this inference is based on the naïve idea that moral reasoning drives moral judgment, so that one can change people’s minds by refuting their reasons. The present findings are more compatible with an intuitionist model of moral judgment in which moral judgments are based on gut feelings and emotional intuitions. People then create moral arguments by drawing on a priori moral theories, which they put forth as social products, required by the discourse of an argument (i.e., one must provide reasons for one’s judgments.) The refutation of such arguments does not cause people to change their minds; it only forces them to work harder to find replacement arguments."

Last comment: We all come with baggage. I have appreciated your sharing your story in past exchanges. Mine is driven by living in multiple worlds: personally with well-educated progressives and professionally with two very different populations: investors as a financial planner as well as poor, often mentally ill and/or chemically dependent people as a social worker. The worlds collide, often dramatically, and I don't easily fit into any of them. But I am convinced of two things: that inhabitants of any one of these world are not inherently better people than those in the others, and that the decisions inhabitants in each make in their lives, while easy to second guess, are generally consistent with the world as they construct it.

I suppose blog essays can be like Rorschach tests. I'm writing about what Jack's words evoke in me, not about Jack personally. I am certainly not attributing any of the harshness I decry to him personally. In fact I believe we share a common set of cultural sensibilities and reading this blog is a mandatory daily activity for my wife and me. My lament with progressive discourse is more general, that it tends to come off as morally superior and dismissive of many honorable and admirable people. That is, people we can't afford to alienate.

[Jack Whelan]

Mike and Matt--

Sorry about the slow response. My routine is to post first thing in the morning and get to comments later in the day when there's time--and there hasn't been till now.

I think Mike's interest in the convergence of the political and cultural is one that I need to think through a little more. I put up a post today that does that a little bit, but I did it before reading these comments. But let me briefly respond to Mike when he says:

"Let’s stipulate that you are right, Jack: the political stakes are consequential, the cultural ones now less so. How then should progressives proceed to convince moderates to firmly align with them? I’m not sure, really, since we live in very different worlds. But I have a pretty good idea how *not* to do it and I think you’d agree."

For me the way to do it is to clearly identify what the stakes are in the political sphere and to separate out what goes on there from what's proper in the cultural sphere. The hard right in the GOP has a more effective rhetorical approach in addressing middle Americans than the New Deal Center has, and support for the right's program would be today largely undiminished had it not been so incompetently administered. And the key to the right's success in its rhetorical approach is precisely its conflating the political with the cultural, using the cultural as a smokescreen to hide its powergrab in the political sphere. This is what the right did in Spain, Germany, Italy--even France during the Vichy period. It's time-tested formula, and it's very effective.

So the first step is to recognize what's happening. The second step is to frame a rhetoric that would have just as powerful a resonance with the majority of Americans as the traditional values one has, and that affirms the centrism that I've been struggling to define. I think the challenge is to point out in the strongest possible terms how vulnerable we are while at the same time appealing to moderates--to ordinary decent voting Americans--who are by definition alarmed only by the alarmism of alarmists. I in turn am alarmed because too many people in the middle are not alarmed enough. They see what's happening as politics as usual, and my fear is that they'll figure things out after it's too late to do anything about it. I'm fearful that already we may have reached that point.

I admit that I'm not very good at finding the right rhetoric for convincing these middle Americans. My hope is that moderates who read my blog will find some help in the analysis I do and find their own rhetoric appropriate to their social situation to sound the alarm in a way that resonates more broadly than this blog, an acquired taste, resonates.

Also, Mike, I'd be interested in your response to Matt's questions in the previous comment. In the meanwhile I'll be thinking more about the convergence of political and cultural.

[Mike McG...]

Jack: Answers to Matt's most recent questions are posted immediately above your comments. Mike McG...

[Jack Whelan]

Mike--

Yes, and thanks for them. For some reason it didn't post before my response this afternoon.

I completely agree that in a dialog between people with opposing opinions, the opponent has to feel as though he or she is being heard and understood. And that when one is trying to explain himself, the likelihood of his being heard is increased significantly if the tone is one of calm open-minded sincerity. And I agree with you that Obama appears so far to be a master of that kind of interpersonal exchange. But I think that you would agree that this requires two parties to sit down and to engage in such a dialog in good faith.

I think that Bill Clinton was also a master that that kind of exchange, but it didn't help him with the hard right, because the hard right wasn't interested in dialog, it was only interested in furhter its agenda, and that meant doing what it took to disempower Clinton, even if it meant dragging the country through a ridiculous travesty of impeachment.

Most Americans thought the impeachment was over the top, but it didn't matter what most people thought because power lay in the hands of a hard right faction that had the power to push the impeachment despite negative popular opinion. And you can be sure if Obama finds his way to the White House, all his interpersonal skills will not be able to defuse the withering distorting attack that will be aimed at him by the hard right.

Because for them it's not personal; it's politics, and they understand that politics is about power, and that all power games are blood sport. You do not sit down and talk reasonably with people who are committed to a power agenda; you negotiate and you have to negotiate from a position of power or you will be run over. It doesn't have to be that way, but that's the way it is, and when ordinary, decent people are confronted by the bullying of the right or the left or whoever might be playing this power game, they have to find the will to stand up to it.

And let's face it, most of us would rather not do that if we don't have to, and if the situation is ambiguous and confusing, it's easy to shrug one's shoulders and say, "Who knows, who cares?" And the hard right understands this, and for this reason it tries very hard to find a way to appear reasonable and justify their program in the most moderate-sounding and patriotic language. They want to appear reasonable and to make those who object to appear unreasonable because the appearance of reasonableness neutralizes vigorous opposition. They want to keep people preoccupied with discussing things on and on, especially hot button cultural values issues, while they consolidate power behind the scenes.

So I don't think it's possible to deal with the hard right in any other way except by calling them out and by vigorous resistance, but that still leaves the problem of how to promote support for resistance from "Entish" moderates who are disinclined toward resistance of any kind until things get really, really bad.

I think two parallel strategies have to be pursued. On the one hand, a more evidence-based, rational approach that seeks to unmask the real agenda of the right pursued behind all the patriotic and traditional-values rhetoric. I think that you're right that this is not an easy task because such an unmasking is associated with the sanctimonious intellectual left. But whatever the rhetorical challenges, it's still a task that must be done, and I embrace everyone who is involved in this project; the enemy of my enemy is my ally.

Second, the radical center has to find a way to out-narrate the hard right. The ultimate rhetorical challenge is not one of saying No, but of having something to which we can say an enthusiastic Yes, and we don't have that in the Center at this time. Perhaps we need Frank Capra to tell its story. Because the Capra of Mr. Smith and Wonderful Life defined the center exactly as I see it. The bad guys then, are the bad guys now, but they are not seen for what they are because since the '80s the hard right has gradually taken control of the mainstream narrative away from the New Deal center. The real challenge is to get it back. Maybe Obama can be the guy who can promote the kind of vigorous centrist narrative that will out-narrate the right. I hope he is. Jim Webb might be another guy, and I think Bill Moyers is one of the best exponents of what I'm talking about.

[Matt Zemek]

Mike,

Thanks for your detailed answers and sharing.

I fundamentally agree with you in terms of everything you said.

I used to be a firebrand partisan in my early 20s, but came to realize how un-Christian, un-productive, and unappealing it was to discover that the left has just as much venom as the right, only in different ways with different effects.

Yes, I also agree that the cultural is too entrenched in (and attached to) the political for people to immediately separate the two and see more clearly, along the lines that Jack has eloquently outlined.

A separation of the political from the cultural will only come about with the tonal qualities that you and Jack have made mention of, especially with respect to Obama.

More than that, though--and I'm now speaking to both you (& your wife; glad she reads this!) and Jack--the sifting of political from cultural is a necessarily painstaking process.

Jack mentioned that the powers that be (my term) want us to keep discussing and discussing, instead of mounting a resistance.

Let me then pose an "After the Future" action solution that we can implement and share with our friends and neighbors:

I call it (and I might have referred to this before, but in a less focused or urgent time from the past) the "Op-Ed Collective."

What does this mean?

A group of people gather in some way to formulate a unified political voice that can be articulated in multiple ways through the prisms of the various issues of the day. If these issues can be localized and connected with Seattle/Puget Sound issues, so much the better.

The members of this group--by seeking to outwardly broadcast, share and develop a healthful and needed political voice that will positively affect the tone, content and trajectory of our public dialogue--will collectively join forces to write op-ed columns on various issues.

This doesn't mean each person has to write a column; what it can mean is that the group signs off on the column once it's completed to the group's satisfaction. The byline for the column, though, gets attributed to a different group member each time.

Why must this be the case? Simply put, guest op-ed columnists can only contribute a column to the P-I or Times once every 4-6 months. By spreading around the bylines, the "Op-Ed Collective" can continuously put forth needed viewpoints into the media bloodstream and the marketplace of political ideas on a very consistent basis, giving visibility not just to views on individual issues, but--over time--to the larger philosophy/guiding principles the group seeks to promote in service of the saving of democracy and our republic.

I think it's time for this idea to take flight.

I will have a column in the April 1 (Sunday) edition of the P-I Op-Ed section. After that, the few loyalists here at After the Future could use this online forum to perhaps discuss--but then act on--some ways to change political dialogue and advocacy in meaningful ways.