Intro
In forming his administration, President Obama abandoned the movement that had begun during his campaign for deal-making and a pragmatism that hasn’t worked. That movement is still possible and needed now. Here is a look at what is required, and how a version of it is forming in California.
We begin with this week’s triple whammy.
Freedom vs. The Public Option
Which would you prefer, consumer choice or freedom? Extended coverage or freedom? Bending the cost curve or freedom?
John Boehner, House Minority Leader, speaking of health care, said recently, “This bill is the greatest threat to freedom that I have seen in the 19 years I have been here in Washington….It’s going to lead to a government takeover of our health care system, with tens of thousands of new bureaucrats right down the street, making these decisions [choose your doctor, buy your own health insurance] for you.”
This is exactly what Frank Luntz advised conservatives to say. They have repeated it and repeated it. Why has it worked to rally conservative populists against their interests? The most effective framing is more than mere language, more than spin or salesmanship. It has worked because conservatives really believe that the issue is freedom. It fits the conservative moral system. It fits how conservatives see the world.
The Democrats have helped the conservatives. Their pathetic attempt to make any deal to get 60 votes convinced even Massachusetts voters that government under the Democrats was corrupt and oppressive, not just inept, but immoral.
All politics is moral
All political leaders argue that they are doing the right thing, not the wrong thing, that their policies are moral, not evil.
Conservatives understand this, liberals tend not to. Conservatives know a morality tale when they see it: Greedy Wall Street bankers, who have cost people their homes, their jobs, and their savings get billion-dollar bailouts from the government, while those honest hard-working people get nothing. Corruption. Oppression. A threat to freedom.
The conservatives are winning the framing wars again — by sticking to moral principles as conservatives see them, and communicating their view of morality effectively. In the 2008 election, Barack Obama ran a campaign based on his moral principles and communicated those principles as effectively as any candidate ever has.
But the Obama administration made a 180-degree turn, trading Obama’s 2008 moral principles for the deal-making of Rahm Emanuel and Tim Geithner, assuming it would be “pragmatic” to court corporations and move to the right, in the false hope of bipartisan support. A clear unified moral vision was replaced by long laundry lists of policy options that the public could not understand, and that made ordinary folks feel they were being bamboozled. And in many cases, they were.
Even the language was a disaster. Liberals thought that conservatives would like consumer choice. That’s why they used “public option.” As Harry Reid said, “It’s public and it’s an option — a public option.” But what did a conservative hear in the words “public option?” Say “public” and he hears “government.” “Option” is a policy-wonk term, from the language of bureaucracy. Say “public option” and the conservative hears “government bureaucracy.”
The results of deal-making in the name of pragmatism have been considerably immoral, as documented thoroughly by progressives like Drew Westen, Matt Taibbi, Robert Kuttner, and many others. Advice on what to do instead has not been lacking from other progressives. Advice is all over the blogs. Guy Saperstein is an excellent example.
We progressives are long on factual analysis, critique, suggestion — and ridicule. Rachel Maddow is one of the best, and her popularity is well-deserved. What’s more fun than ridiculing Tea Party-ers, Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, and the like, by showing the factual errors, the flaws in their logic, and the cruelty of their positions.
But we have been dealt a triple blow. A year of failed deal-making by our side, the Tea Party win in Massachusetts, and worst of all, the 5-4 Supreme Court decision to turn our democracy into a corporate plutocracy. This is serious.
Democrats still have the presidency and a majority in the House and Senate, but the momentum is on the conservative side. Their victories in the framing wars have inevitably led to a crucial electoral victory and to a Supreme Court death threat to democracy itself, framed as free speech.
Democrats have electoral power, but progressives have not created an effective movement to take advantage of that power.
“Where’s the movement?”
In the emerging Obama mythology, this is the question attributed to President Obama whenever he is asked to take the lead on a progressive issue. It is not an idle question. Leaders can only lead if there is a pre-existing movement for them to get in front of.
Moreover, there are other conditions. The idea behind a movement, and the language expressing its goals, must also pre-exist in public discourse. In other words, the movement must already have:
• a popular base;
• organizing tools;
• a generally accepted morally-based conceptual framing;
• an overall narrative, with heroes, victims, and villains;
• a readily recognizable, well-understood language;
• funding sources;
• and a national communication system set up for both leaders and ordinary citizens to use.
The base is there, waiting for something worth getting behind. The organizing tools are there. The rest is not there.
That is the present reality. Expecting Obama to be FDR was politically unrealistic. And complaining that he isn’t doesn’t move anything forward.
Howard Dean was right when he said, “YOU have the power.” What is needed is an organized activist public with a positive understanding of what our values are and how to links them to every issue. Barney Frank was only half-right when he said that the public gets active only when it is angry. That may be true for isolated issues — he was talking about regulating Wall Street. But anger is directed at isolated negatives. An effective movement must be positive, organized, and long-term, where an overall positive understanding defines the isolated negatives. And it must have all of the above.
The California Democracy Movement
We have the beginning of such a movement in California.
The central issue in California is basic democracy. California is the only state in America where the legislature is controlled by a relatively small conservative minority. Because it takes a 2/3 vote in both the Senate and Assembly to pass a budget or any tax, 1/3 plus one – 34% — in either house can control the vote by saying no to measures that would finance public needs.
Conservatives exercise that control for the simple reason that they don’t believe that government should serve public needs, that instead government should be privatized and shrunk to fit in a bathtub, as if governing would disappear with government.
But governing doesn’t disappear when government shrinks; instead corporations come to govern your life — like HMO’s, oil companies, drug companies, agribusiness, and so on, with accountability only to maximizing profit, not to public needs.
An overwhelming majority of Californians — over 60% — disagree. They believe that government should serve public needs, and they have elected sensible legislators. But they don’t quite make up 2/3. And so an extreme right-wing minority – about 37% — controls the state, its present and its future.
Luckily, there is a way out for the majority in California. The initiative process that created this situation can get us out. I have proposed The California Democracy Act as an initiative in the November 2010 election. It changes two words in the California Constitution – “two-thirds” becomes “a majority” in two places. It can be described in one simple sentence: All legislative actions on revenue and budget must be determined by a majority vote. That ballot initiative needs only a majority to pass. It would return majority rule to the legislature on everyday economic issues, bringing democracy back to California. Those interested can join the campaign by clicking on www.CaliforniansForDemocracy.com
Democracy is the central issue, and that is what our movement is about. We are setting up an infrastructure in California, with a statewide organization and a speakers’ bureau, for those who want to continue democratizing the state after the election.
Democracy is The Issue
The majority vote campaign gives us a chance to talk not only about this particular issue, but about democracy as it affects all issues. The clearest articulator of what democracy is about has been Barack Obama — the campaigner we cheered for, campaigned hard for, and voted for.
Democracy, he has observed, is based on empathy — on citizens caring about one another. That’s why we have principles like freedom and fairness, for everybody, not just for the rich and powerful. True empathy requires responsibility, not just for oneself, but also for others. And since we, as individuals and as a nation, are far from perfect, empathy demands an ethic of excellence, of making oneself better, one’s family and community better, and one’s nation better.
That view of citizenship in a democracy comes with a view of government. Government has two sacred moral missions: protection and empowerment.
Protection goes well beyond police and the military and the fire department to consumer protection, environmental protection, worker protection, health care, investor protection, social security, and other safety nets.
Empowerment is what the stimulus package was about: building and maintaining roads, bridges, public transportation, and public buildings; systems for communication, electricity, water; education, from pre-school through graduate and professional schools; scientific research and technological development; a banking system that works; a stock market that works; and a judicial system that works.
No one earns a living or lives well without protection and empowerment by the government. That is what taxes pay for. And the more you make from what the government gives you, the more you should contribute to keeping it going.
Tax Shifts
When you cut taxes that pay for public needs, you are actually shifting taxes. You are taxing others. In California tax cuts for corporations last year led to cuts in the support for public universities, which led to 32% higher tuition and a drastic cut in the number of students educated. That 32% constituted a tax on those students and their parents, and when they had to borrow the money for college, interest payments on the loan effectively double the cost of the loan. That’s a very high tax shift. But an even higher tax is shifted onto students who cannot afford the higher tuition: the tax of a lost education lasts all one’s life and its cost is not only monetary, but a cost in human potential. It is also a cost to employers, who get less educated workers, and to society, which gets less educated citizens.
The Movement
We will be talking about all of this and more. Take economic democracy. California is the world’s seventh richest economy. It is ludicrous to say that there is no money in California. If the money for public needs is there, where is it? In California, the richest one percent owns more assets than the bottom 95 per cent. The money is concentrated at the top.
Just about every issue comes down to the issue of democracy. That is why we are starting with the California Democracy Act, which would finally end the rule of the state by a small minority of ultra-conservative legislators. It would finally give the voters of the state a voice in their own future and the future of their children and grandchildren.
If you live in California (one out of eight Americans does), then join the California Democracy Movement. If you live elsewhere, form your own democracy movement and unite with us. The principles are simple, and they are Obama’s:
Democracy is about empathy — caring about your fellow citizens, which leads to the principles of freedom and fairness for all. Empathy requires both personal and social responsibility. The ethic of excellence means making the world better by making yourself better, your family better, your community better, and your nation better. Government has two moral missions: protection and empowerment for all. To carry them out, government must be by, for, and of the people.
It’s only a paragraph. The principles apply to all issues. That’s the basis of a democracy movement. That’s what separates a movement from a coalition. Coalitions are based on interests. Movements are based on principles. We need a movement that transcends interests and goes beyond coalitions.
Movements also transcend particular policies. The framing of moral principles comes first and the policies elaborate on the principles. The way to unite a movement is to form policies that carry out the principles in ways that everyone can understand.
The time is now
We have a triple disaster on our hands: the administration’s failure at deal-making in the name of pragmatism and bipartisanship; the Tea Party victory in Massachusetts fueling and propelling ultra-conservatism; and the anti-democratic 5-4 ruling of the Roberts Court. We can no longer sit on our hands and just criticize the President, or give him advice and hope he can do it alone. We have to provide the answer to his question: Where’s the movement?
Proud to have George here at DogCanyon. His insights are as spot on as ever. There has been a serious movement effort on health care. My heroic friends at FireDogLake among them, of course. But the Court’s ruling in Citizens United adds a new urgency.
This is a real emergency. Some years ago, Vaclav Havel wrote that America was about to face just such a crisis — that the corporatist agenda would accomplish, in less dramatic fashing, what the East European totalitarians had done with their iron-fisted rule. It’s not hyperbole.
We might call it the “Velvet Counter-Revolution.”
What does it take for the reform organizations to transcend egos and small differences to come together as leaders of a “Democracy Movement”
I find the leadership of the reform groups to be stuck in thinking about how they are different rather than how they are the same.
What would help is for leaders in favor of repairing democracy to step forward and challenge the reform groups to merge. Bill Bradley, Warren Rudman, Alan Simpson, Bob Kerry, Ronnie Earle, Kinky Friedman, Former Chief Justice Tom Phillips, Former Congressman Jim Chapan, Jim Hightower…
An awakening. There are big, structural reasons that led to the “silo” effect, with many individual groups isolated from one another. But this decision should be a wake-up call. Virtually no progressive reform is going to be possible under corporatist rule. They just need to understand that brutal fact. In this case, it’s not hard to see.
First, thanks for this, George.
A “movement” was how a good number of people, including blogging communities, described the Obama campaign. I don’t know if it was ever actually that or not, but the potential was surely there. Certainly there were many people who were very ready, willing and able to keep on moving after the election. They expected to do that, and they saw Obama as the leader who brought them to a pivotal moment.
But that isn’t what happened. I fully agree that “we” have to be “moving,” “we” are responsible for such, and certainly agree that simply criticizing, advising and hoping isn’t the answer. But one significant reason so many seemed to have come to a standstill, or even walked off, is because they didn’t / aren’t seeing movement from Obama or the Democratic Congressional majority. That big and growing disappointment is something a movement is going to have to deal with.
“The way to unite a movement is to form policies that carry out the principles in ways that everyone can understand.” — George
I think that’s right. But the Democratic Electeds — the ones who can actually “do” policy — have managed to all but bring any movement forward to a very public grinding, “bipartisan” halt. The Republican minority keeps on moving with the same old message of “government bad,” and the Democrats make so much noise with their grinding-to-a-halt lack of movement that the Republicans get away with their obstructionist tactics.
“Virtually no progressive reform is going to be possible under corporatist rule.” — Glenn
Corporate nation, corporate parties, corporate government, corporate court. At this point, I think the movement that will seriously challenge all of this will be in spite of the current Democratic Party leadership and priorities.
As usual, Joyce, your insights are right on the money (pardon the pun). One thing that’s missing is movement leadership, as opposed to elected leadership. MoveOn, for instance, is doing more than ever, mobilizing, targeting, taking action. But it’s profile is lower, and maybe people look at it more as a critical (very critical) function and less as a movement leader. It’s very presence in 2000-2008 seemed to inspire people. It’s inspiration that’s missing, but maybe it’s the case that general disappoint is making may folks uninspirable for the moment.
Can we please just admit defeat on the Health Care Bill? It, in its’ current form, is not what people want and now is not the time to be wasting political capital on a dead issue. Rather, let’s stop talking Republican and Democrat and start talking humanity. Brown’s victory in Massachusetts was not about party (only 11% of his vote was Republican), it was about common sense. We, as Democrats and like the Republicans, must realize that we have a “party machine” that is more interested in self perpetuation than in the public good. That must change or a third “humanitarian party” will start up and make the issue moot. Obama’s paragraph on democracy is non-partisan and should be used as a touchstone for any seeker of public office, laws proposed by our Congress and decisions made by our Presidents and our Supreme Court. Greed is the overriding human trait that corrupts all of our ideals – let’s figure out a way to control it in our government!
This is a wonderful piece. I hope people understand how important it is for the rest of the country for this to succeed in CA, and that they notice the call to build similar movements around the country. There is so much discussion of what Obama should or should not do – how much better to engage the question of what we should do.
I have one quibble – a small but important one.
It’s certainly true that without government, we are still governed through unaccountable corporations. It is also very true that conservatives “don’t believe that government should serve public needs.” But, I don’t agree that they really want “government…shrunk to fit in a bathtub.” There was no reduction in the size of government during the presidencies of Ronald Reagan or George W. Bush.
When Reagan laughed at the idea that anyone was comforted by the statement “I’m from the government and I’m here to help,” he was encouraging regular Americans not to rely on government for help. The elite and corporations continued to depend on government, which is no doubt why it does not really shrink.
The first part of this statement better captures this distinction – is government supposed to serve the public need, or is government supposed to serve private interests. We’re not really arguing over the size of government – we’re arguing over who it will serve.
One other thing:
This is very true, but movements also transcend particular people. So much of the last few years have been spent arguing over who should be our standard bearer, and then arguing over whether we made the right choice, that we seem to have forgotten this.
We need to create a movement like the one that brought down apartheid in South Africa. Find out which companies are donating to election campaigns above a defined threshold, put them on a list, and boycott them.
I have some suggestions on how to deal with the consequences of the ill advised Supreme Court decision regarding the freedom of corporations and unions to finance unrestricted advertisement campaigns. One is to demand that the corporation CEO or union leader be required to show his/her face and say: I am so and so, of such and such…, and I approve this message. Another is to attach liabilities to untrue statements. For example, the “death panels”, one of the biggest lies about the health reform should have been addressed in very strong terms and labeled as a lie. Also, the idea that the health reform bill will add to the deficit, some experts say this is not true. If some health care benefits would be taxed, what would be the taxing rate? I would be willing to pay taxes on my benefits if other Americans could gain access to health care. It is the “Christian” thing to do, to take care of our fellow citizens, it is also the patriotic thing to do. I wish we had a mechanism to trace every lie or distortion and an inmediate response confronting the false statements.
We can also as citizens lobby for legislation in fact abolishing the Supreme Court decision. After all, the pro-life people have spent years trying to abolish abortion laws. It is our turn as progressives to legally and lawfully fight any legislation or Supreme Court decision we consider wrong. We are the people. We rule!
Progressives have absolutely blown the framing of the debates. “Don’t Think of an Elephant” and “The Political Mind” both have a relatively simple message. It’s message understood by Madison Avenue advertising firms and understood by the Republican Party. Progressives like to consider themselves the intellectual side of politics, but for some reason they can’t come to grips with the concept of framing the debate. “Public option” is meaningless. In itself, it doesn’t say anything. “Healthcare Reform?” My medical insurance doesn’t provide me healthcare, my doctor does. You want to reform my doctor? I’m happy with my doctor. Progressives need to understand that how they say things matters just as much as what they want to say.
Professor Lakoff, I can only imagine what you are thinking, today, as the nation unpacks the "argument is war" theory you explained so succinctly a few years back. Are the metaphors of the talk show circuit so etched in granite that we can never hope for a workable consensus, or do you see a way out? What sort of toolkit is there for our youth to sort out the spinning, framing and double speak of the professional pundits who write the scripts?