End of the Culture Wars

The bottom line on this vast and complicated subject is that the "culture wars" will never die in the fever swamps of the Right where they were nourished if not conceived, particularly on the abortion issues; that protecting the cultural status quo is a vastly more powerful position that progressives should aspire to occupy; and that the critical plurality of Americans are happy to declare a truce in the culture wars so long as progressives don't behave like conquering secularist radicals. Ed Kilgore.  See also here.

Kilgore's posts sanely sum up the state of things from a pro-abortion [rights] point of view.  And he understands, correctly, that abortion is the fly in the ointment that prevents any stable truce from being established any time soon. The broader culture will  adjust more quickly to civil liberties for gays and lesbians, and church/state separation principles, in my view, are not in jeopardy.  But abortion is different.  Something more fundamental is at stake here, and it's not the kind of thing people get over.

Roe was a mistake; abortion policy should be something local communities or states decide. It should be a bottom up decision, not a top-down one. An issue as ambiguous as this one should never have become enshrined as a constitutional right. The Feds should have stayed out of it, and now that they're in it, they should get out of it. Let the people vote on a state-by-state basis, and when they do, abortion policy will be more liberal in blue states and strict in red.  It's a little Missouri Compromise-ish, but it would be better than what we have now.

But Kilgore retorts to arguments to deconstitutionalize abortion policy this way:

Even if you think that's an appropriately "democratic" way to deal with abortion policy, it's certainly no prescription for turning down the temperature of, much less ending, the culture wars.

Ultimately, Damon himself offers perhaps the best reason for rejecting his argument for a "deconstitutionalization" of abortion policy:

Some Americans believe that an abortion is an act of lethal violence against an innocent human being whose rights (like everyone else's) should be protected by the state. Other Americans believe that the only legally relevant moral considerations in an abortion are the wishes of the pregnant woman -- which of course presumes that the fetus is not a human being in need of protection against lethal violence. These are contrary and incompatible metaphysical assumptions about matters of life and death and human dignity.

I couldn't agree more, God help us all. But I would contend that such matters of fundamental rights are best decided, for better or worse, in the context of constitutions and courts rather than legislatures. Maybe you think that's easy for me to say because "my side" has won in the courts, but the broader issue is that someone really does have to win on issues of fundamental rights where compromise is impossible. And I think any honest RTLer would agree with me on that point.

I understand his point, and it's valid. But let's bracket the question about whether a truce is possible in the culture war--it's probably not--and focus instead on whether the Democratic party should take sides in it. It would not have to if abortion policy was handled on the state rather than the federal level.

This is complex and messy, but my argument on this blog has been that the long-term solution for the recovery of political health is to separate out as much as possible issues that are proper to the cultural sphere from issues that are proper to the political and economic. Divisive issues rooted in cultural values conflicts should be handled where possible only on the local level so long as fundamental rights are protected. The right to an abortion is not fundamental; the right to life of the fetus is ambiguous.

A huge problem for Democrats since the seventies is its having been pulled out of what should have remained a neutral position on the matter. It has since, because of abortion and some other issues, been branded as the party of anything-goes cultural liberalism, which is not a worldview most people on Main Street feel comfortable with.  So far many more of them than should vote Republican, even if on particular issues they approveDemocratic policy positions. People vote on tribal-identity lines except in emergencies, and as Tom Frank has pointed out, the people who should be natural Democrats--the so-called Reagan Democrats--are no longer solidly Democrats because Reagan symbolized something Americans identified with on a tribal-values level, even if his policies were destructive of their political and economic interests.

I would argue that the Democrats' long-term health depends on its becoming more  neutral on divisive cultural values issues. It should retrieve the Capraesque mythos it enjoyed in the New Deal years. The Dems then were the party of the George Baileys, John Does, and Longfellow Deeds--it was the party of the ordinary decent fellow, the party that understood and embraced values like dignity, neighborly generosity, and tolerance held by ordinary decent Americans.

The Dems let Reagan steal the Capra mythos from them in the 80s, even though he was the ally of the Mr. Potters and D.B. Nortons. I think a guy like Obama can take it back, and I hope he does, but here's the thing: abortion is a rather large fly in the ointment, and both Obama and the Democratic Party are too identified with it. NARAL's aggressive pro-abortion rights positions don't align well with that Capraesque Main-Street sense of what is normal and decent, and because the national Democratic Party and Obama are perceived as aligning more with NARAL than with Main Street, lots of Main Streeters will continue to have a hard time feeling comfortable in the Democratic Party, even though that's where they belong.

The abortion issue is the gift that keeps giving to the right-wing elements in our political culture. They will continue to exploit it as a wedge so long as it remains so closely identified with the Democratic Party. Guys like Kilgore are right in arguing that the John Brown extremists in the pro-life camp will never be assuaged, the people who think

that every abortion is a homicide, and that legalized abortion has represented (to use a term you hear a lot in RTL circles) a Holocaust. Along with this conviction has come the predictable attitude that pro-choice Americans are at best "good Germans" complicit in a monstrous evil, and are at worst conscious and callous killers of human beings. The RTL movement, meanwhile, quite naturally views itself as analogous to the anti-Nazi resistance in Europe, or to the Allies, or to the German "Confessing Church." To most sincere anti-abortionist activists, their cause is a matter of overriding moral and/or religious obligation, not an exercise in constitutional law or civic politics.

Moral absolutists are almost always wrong, but we need them to bring into high relief the moral seriousness of the issues we are dealing with. We need them as we needed people like Daniel Berrigan to awaken us to the moral seriousness of the nation's drift into militarism. But these absolutists do not define policy.  I believe most Americans who live within the Capra centrist mythos are more flexible. What they don't like is the idea that abortion-on-demand is normative. I think that if policy was decided on a state-by state basis, most of the sympathy felt on Main Street for the view of abortion described in the quote above would be dissipated. Laws tailored to local sensibilities would allow for more flexibility and common sense. Right now with abortion enshrined as a constitutional right, there is no room for flexibility, experiment, or fine tuning. Let this be worked out democratically in the state houses.

But here's the bottom-line political point. The Dems on the national level should not take sides on abortion. The culture war might rage on, but let it be fought out in the state legislatures rather than in Washington. This should be perceived as neither a Dem nor a Republican issue. If abortion policy was determined on a state-by-state basis, it would make it easier for Democrats on the Federal level to elect legislators whose positions on the economic and civil liberties issues are more in line with Main Steet aspirations without abortion or other divisive cultural issues being a wedge issue or distraction.

It's not clear how this culture war would play out on the state level. My guess is that on the pro-choice side Libertarians who usually vote Republican will align with cultural-left types who usally vote Democratic, while on the pro-life side Bush Republicans, Reagan Democrats, and otherwise left-leaning Catholics will argue the pro-life side.  And maybe in some states the sane Capraesque center will mediate a policy solution that appeals to the  the common sense and moral seriousness that characterize Main Street Americans at their best.

Comments

[Bonnie Prince Charlie]

I offer a correction in your first line -- wouldn't you say that Kilgore's view is the state of things for the pro-abortion-*rights* point of view? This is kind of a pet peeve of mine: Although you probably did not mean it this way, calling someone "pro-abortion" ramps up the blood pressure on both sides of the issue and isn't really accurate except when describing a (thankfully, IMHO) tiny minority of people.

Concerning your post's main point, while I fervently wish that the national Democratic Party would adopt your reasoning, I just can't imagine how such an enormous change in policy could ever come about. I like to imagine (although it's very possibly not true at all) that Obama's personal ideas are close to yours but that there's little he can do about it as leader of a party that's been aligned with abortion-rights activity for so long. That really would be change that we could believe in(!), but I'd like for you to describe how to get from here to there without completely destroying the party and leaving no real opposition to what the Republicans have been about for the past few decades.

[Jack Whelan]

BPC--

Correction noted.

Regarding your question about how to get from here to there:

The mistake I think Dem strategists make is to think too rationally. They are, at least compared to GOP strategists, tone deaf to the "mythos" dimension in politics and how it affects voter self-identification. They think that the ace up their sleeves is that the polling data show that most Americans align with Dem policy positions. And yet for the last thirty years, Americans have leaned GOP.

Too many Dems seem not to understand that whatever polling data shows about most Americans' positions on the issues, most Americans are as disgusted with Dems as a party as they are with the GOP. They won this round because the economy scared Main Street enough to push them in the Dem direction and because Obama is an extraordinary candidate. But the Dem hold on Main Street will continue to be tenuous so long as the GOP can play the mythos card to its advantage--and abortion is the ace up its sleeve in that regard. Current abortion law is not just a problem for the hard cultural right; it's a problem for lots of people, and it should be.

I think that getting from here to there starts with the Dems grasping how their "mythos" works against them. I don't think that Dems can repudiate their history of support for abortion rights, but they can distance themselves from it by talking about the irrelevancy of the the 70s politics to what we are confronting today--by reframing politics for a new generation that isn't caught up with all the Boomer nonsense.

I'd be satisfied if prominent Dems like Obama could find a way to play a more neutral role regarding abortion, the way, for instance, I hope Obama will play it regarding the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.

Unless Roe is overturned, the shift of the culture war to the state houses is an impossibility, so at this point a move toward neutrality is the only real option for Dems who take my concerns seriously. I wonder what the impact would be, though, if Obama's first SCOTUS appointment would be a Bob Casey type, a solid Democrat and civil libertarian who is personally opposed to abortion.

Roe is bad law on so many levels. If we could bracket what it has become as symbol, it would not be hard to make a solid intellectual argument about overturning it, especially if the bottom line is for the court to say it's for the states to decide. The cultural left would freak out, but would Main Street? Which is the more desired future base of the Dem party? I think that's a no-brainer.

The problem I think you point to about tearing the party apart has mostly to do with most Dem strategists like Kilgore being Beltway cultural liberals who may understand the Main Street mentality intellectually, but don't viscerally. If they are women, how many feel ambivalently about abortion the way most Americans do? If they are men, how of them do or if they do, how many of their wives and girlfriends do. There is a very powerful groupthink that goes on in these precincts, and the best people recognize it, but they are powerless to change it. It's better, as Kilgore suggests, simply to keep your head down and be satisfied to protect the cultural status quo.

[this view from there]

Well-written piece. Relevantly, as many nationally influential voices have repeatedly noted, Obama is part of Generation Jones, born 1954-1965, between the Boomers and Generation X. Google Generation Jones, and you'll see it’s gotten a lot of media attention, and many top commentators from many top publications and networks (Washington Post, Time magazine, NBC, Newsweek, ABC, etc.) are specifically referring to Obama, born in 1961, as part of Generation Jones.

Great op-ed on exactly this topic a few days ago in USA TODAY, that speaks specifically to the culture wars you reference:
http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20090127/column27_st.art.htm

[Rudy]

I don't have much to add to your thoughtful post. But I think that Roe. vs. Wade *does* allow for relevant local decision, inasmuch as abortion in the third trimester is a matter that the Roe decision allows to be decided locally. The problem is that the RTL movement wants it *all*.

[Jack Whelan]

Rudy--

I oppose Roe because of its top-down-ness about a matter that should be decided bottom up. It's a matter that should be open to adaptation in law as attitudes about it evolve, as I think they will in coming decades. Right now it is a festering wound that cannot heal so long as Roe blocks it from fresh air and sunlight.

Whatever wiggle room Roe might allow now, it's still not enough. My position is that if in Mississippi and Nebraska they want an absolute ban on abortion they should have it. If in Connecticut and Nevada they want unrestricted abortions, they should have it. If most people in a state believe the woman's right to choose takes precedent over the fetus's right to life, let them design a law that represents that. If most people in a state believe the fetus' rights take precedent, let them design their laws.

I think the debate would be uncomfortable and rancorous, but at least there would be a debate that would force people to think about what they really believe rather than the courts simply pre-empting any such discussion and democratic decision making about it. I can live with whatever people decide if they have the chance to decide it. This festering wound hurts the Democrats and helps the Republicans, and will continue to do so. It needs to be lanced and to get some fresh air.

I would hope, though, that a sane middle ground could be found in some states that might in time become models that would be adopted over time everywhere. Right now nothing can happen; we're stuck.

[Jack Whelan]

BTW, Ed Kilgore has another post on the subject here: http://www.thedemocraticstrategist.org/strategist/2009/02/some_final_words_on_ending_the.php
He quotes my comment about the Dems taking a neutral stand.

I've tried to comment on his site, but it won't let me sign if for some reason. But quite apart from the question about whether cultural issues ought to be embraced by Dems on the national level, my more fundamental argument is that Dem alignment on this particular issue hurts them more than it hurts them.

Also regarding the Linda Harshman point about arguing the morality of abortions rights position, have at it, but it does come down to one's metaphysics, and as Kilgore rightly points out, if there's little room for compromise on those basic principles. That's why I think that it needs to be decided on a state-by-state basis.