The Tea Party and the Middle

Tristero at Hullabaloo has a post this weekend responding to a February article in the Progressive by Chip Berlet entitled "Taking Tea Partiers Seriously". He is bothered by a theme in Berlet's article that suggests that there is anything about the Tea Party or the cultural right's agenda that should be respected.  Take them seriously as a threat? Yes. Take them seriously as having ideas and policies worthy of our respect? No.

Read Tristero's post for his fully developed argument, but it boils down to this: Tea Partiers believe things that make it impossible for Progressives like him to find any common ground with them, even if they are against the war in Afghanistan and giveaways to Wall Street. A left-right coalition focused on de-militarization and economic issues is impossible because of the separation on cultural issues--gay marriage, abortion, race.

I agree that extreme tea partiers are unreachable, but that's not the issue. He should be worried about why the extreme right is doing a better job of capturing the growing rage of those in the uncommitted middle. And that's essentially Berlet's point--the Tea Partiers we need to be taking seriously are not the extremists, but the sane citizens who see what's wrong about the American imperial agenda and the domination of Wall Street and other uber-corporations in Washington--who find themselves more attracted to people on the right who are organizing around these issues than they are to those who are organizing on the left. The Tea Party has to be taken seriously because they are doing a much more effective recruiting job than those on the left, and Berlet's article should be read as a wake-up call to Progressives and a challenge to them:  Why are they losing this recruitment battle?

I'd argue that it's an ethos thing.  For all the reasons that Tristero lists for being uncomfortable with the Tea Partiers because of their attitudes on race and sexual politics, the Main Street Middle feels uncomfortable with people on the secular left.  People in the uncommitted middle might be more ambivalent about these issues than the hard liners on the far right, but they lean right because, well, the language of the right resonates with the language they were brought up on. And because these people are for the most part not intellectuals who have thought everything through, the cultural left agenda just just doesn't resonate and often gives them the creeps. And the far right tells them that there's good reason for them to feel that the left is creepy--they're godless secularists. You're not on their team. You're on our team. And since organizers on the cultural left are doing little to reach out to them, they have nowhere else to go.

A lot of these people in the uncommitted  Middle have not played on any team before, but losing their jobs or houses is forcing them to choose, and they are choosing the right rather than the left, and if people like Tristero are willing to concede this Main Street Middle, they better come up with a pretty creative strategy to be effective politically without it.  So far I haven't seen anything that seems plausible.

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But Tristero is probably right that there is no point in people like him reaching out to Main Streeters who would just find his views and allegiances too strange, too coastal cosmopolitan. It's not up to the cultural left to find common ground with the cultural right--that's probably never going to work. It should be the job of Christian Progressives--particularly doctrinally conservative Christians who are political and economic progressives, namely a coalition of Dorothy Day Catholics, and Sojourner Evangelicals, and the Black Churches. They respect and understand the sincere, heartfelt religiosity and decency of Main Street, and they share the power-and-wealth distribution critique of the political left. These Christians would have very little influence on the hard-core Tea Partiers, but they could be effective in influencing those in the not-yet-committed Main Street Middle. They can reach both ways because they define the balance point between left and right in this country. It's up to them to define a sane, politically viable middle ground that can channel populist energies productively.

That's what I've seen as the task of this blog since the beginning. But either it's an idea whose time has not yet come or it's an idea whose time has passed. I don't know. Because it just doesn't seem to resonate beyond a very narrowly defined group. But I'm open to any suggestions about how to promote this idea if anybody think there's anything to it.  I am at a point where I am ready either to retool this blog or disband it depending on whether this basic purpose for the blog has any legs.

Comments

[Matt Zemek]

Jack,

The Rand Paul brouhaha offers a perfect illustration, on a number of levels, why Tea Partiers are so upset.

Economic libertarians sincerely do think that there are worrisome aspects of the 1964 Civil Rights Act on the grounds that private businesses should not be told what to do by government.

Do I agree with this fundamental posture? No.

However, can I see the argument and the intellectual architecture of economic libertarians, and - moreover - take them at their word when they say their stance is rooted in a belief system pertaining to the scope of government, not racial prejudice?

Yes. Yes, I can see the viewpoint and say that libertarians are coming at this issue from a structural position, not a racial or cultural one.

There is so much in our politics that is so poisoned and contaminated that it needs to be re-explained and re-claimed. Issues of what really is "Left" and what really is "Right" get conflated with what *should be* Left and what *should be* Right.

The Left and Right use different metrics, filters and flashpoints to level their various criticisms of the government, the media, and the culture. So much of this separation comes from native animuses, but much of it is also fueled by a rampant affliction in our politics which boils down to this:

"When you do something, it's an abuse of power; when I do it, it's inspired leadership."

So many "liberals" and "progressives" - including people very close to me who I thought were sober, open-eyed and realistic about politics - have told me that they can't imagine a better person at the wheel of leadership right now than Obama. They say, "It's a complicated world, Matt. Bush laid all these problems at Obama's feet. He can't change overnight."

Yet, when Bush was doing so much of the same crap, these liberals and progressives were (rightly) up in arms. Now? The silence and/or defensiveness are deafening, and after 5-7 months of paying attention to conservative and hard-right libertarian bloggers via Twitter (where I've camped out), I'm really beginning to understand why the Right is so pissed at the Left. I even agree with a distinct niche realm of the Right's critique; the extent to which Obama is being defended for doing so much of the same stuff Bush did is horrible, and the Left - writ large - should be ashamed.

Of course, the Right has its own sins to account for, but since I reside on the Left, I feel it's my foremost duty to call Obama on the carpet and hold my fellow Lefties accountable. I can't (and shouldn't) demand grown-up adult behavior from the "other side" when "my side" can't begin to get its act together.

This is a point of solidarity I've carved out with hard-right conservatives and libertarians, and it has earned me at least something of a (very small) place at the discussion table.

In the meantime, so much other political brush needs to be cleared away so that good concepts, ideals and values can be re-claimed and made whole again. Until this rebuilding and repairing take place, we won't get anywhere, because the culture wars Frank Rich so often talks about will remain for a long time to come.

(Jack - I'd recommend you at least make Twitter an occasional read if you don't want to start tweeting. I know it's not something that fits your writing style, and it is inhospitable to long-form thought expression which can fully breathe, but it is a great way to get exposed to a variety of viewpoints in one setting. Moreover, it offers the chance to immediately and directly engage a wide cross-section of people - including many journalists and thinkers in the arena - on the issues and concerns of the time. NY Times columnists Nick Kristof and Charles Blow will often ask for reader feedback in tweets. You could help shape the trajectory of their and others' writings. - MZ)

[Jack]

Matt-

I agree that many Libertarians are sincere and in their own way principled. But they are caught in an intellectual trap of their own making, and that's their idolatry of unbalanced Liberty and the radical individualism that follows from it. This trap is what keeps their thinking adolescent and their understanding of what it means to live in society stunted.

I'll think about your Twitter suggestion; for me it's a question of time. I'm just barely keeping up as it is, and I spend too much time online for my own good.

[Matt Zemek]

Jack -

I know that you've unpacked and unrolled your differences with the ranks of inflexible libertarians; there were some memorable and vivid back-and-forths in 2006 and 2007 on this blogsite, as I recall. Therefore, this is worn territory and, moreover, territory you've sincerely tried to conscientiously debate, explore and further understand.

I would only say that such explaining - going back to the roots of things, tiresome and repetitive though it may be - needs to be done, because all sides just keep fighting the battle to score political points all while forgetting who they are, where they come from, and WHY they originally came to believe (and cherish) what they did.

I find the exercise tiresome on many occasions, but then when I think of how to articulate an advanced argument which will dramatically improve the quality and tenor of political discourse in this country, I get stopped. I can only see a return to the heart of various positions (and dispositions) as the fundamental answer to our problems.

PS--I'm online far more than I should for my health's sake. Yet, the writing life demands a constant online presence. That will always be a tough challenge for me.