I’m promoting this topic from a comment thread that will get too deep otherwise. Laska and I were going back and forth on what we think “left” and “liberal” mean. Defining terms is always impossible, but it may be actually interesting that in this election year, those two are up for definition after so many years of being run away from. We also have an opportunity this year to ponder what “populist” and “fascist” mean. Even “democracy” and “republic.”

Regarding “left,” I like to stick with old, hardassed definitions  like “struggle against capitalism,” partly because that rules out seeing liberalism as a philosophy of incremental progress toward left goals. Like Naomi Klein is a leftist, not a liberal: the climate crisis is to her the crisis that will bring about the revolutionary change she’s always wanted to bring about anyway. But I’d call any movement left that wants to use the power of the state to advance labor over capital.

So maybe Orwell would be left? And maybe all democratic socialists?  And maybe Laska too?

In that context, the 19th Century Populists were left, though by no mean Marxist. And yet when I see today’s new-new left, with its revived Marx-Leninism, claiming Lincoln and free-labor free-soilers for its own, I cry foul, though unfortunately, in space nobody can hear you scream.

Hilarious to me that Marx himself started that tradition by trying  to rope Lincoln into the communist international (scroll down for the natural brushoff).

As much as, in this election year, I know something’s happening but I don’t know what it is, I’m kind of glad these questions are being raised. I think we’ve never had any idea what we mean when we say “American democracy” or “democratic republic” or “of the people, by the people, for the people.” A more optimistic person than Mister Jones would see this election year as the beginning of a painful national quest to find out.

Seriously.  I’m trying to think of something that isn’t about some of the deeper threads in the Democratic Party, but I can’t think of anything to say about Trump or Cruz that isn’t old territory.

On a personal note, I like to try and unpack Trump support to prove it’s not all racists and xenophobes, but I’m kind of lost.  Happy to be pointed in a direction.

I should put much more time into this – after all, there’s already a book and a symbiotic TED talk about filter bubbles, so it’s hard to make sure I’m adding value.  The (slight) difference is that this is about how people respond to filter bubbles with auto-filter-bubbling.

So first, definition work: filter bubble is a phrase coined (or popularized) by Eli Pariser, co-founder of both UpWorthy and MoveOn.org.  In its original form, it describes the way in which findability algorithms –  Google’s search, “Related content”, and “Similar to this” features all over the web – create feedback loops that serve people more of the content they’ve already been consuming.  This sounds great, even the purpose of the algorithm and the web, but it has the effect of keeping people from seeing more recent, topical, arguably more important content.  It’s a bubble created by algorithmic filters.

As I’ve mentioned, I’ve experienced filter bubbling on my social media in both parties’ primaries.  On the Democratic side, I see almost no Bernie Bro or Bernie or Bust obnoxiousness, and only see HRC supporters denouncing Sanders supporters for various forms of stupidity or misogyny.  On the Republican side, the internet gives me things that will tank Cruz’s, or Trump’s campaign today, right now, game over.

The Guardian ran a piece yesterday about a happy green acre of land on Reddit where people can laugh and give a collective sigh of relief at recognizing the insanity of Sanders spam.  Because Reddit, in the main, is young, unknowingly all-knowing, smug white males (ie, Bernie Bros), Reddit itself is the worst kind of political zealotry, zealotry with enough intelligence to convince yourself that it’s not zeal when you’re smart and rational.  When you’re almost Vulcan-like in your logic, it’s righteous, not zealous.  Neal Stephenson has a great line in Snow Crash about digerati men:

It was, of course, nothing more than sexism, the especially virulent type espoused by male techies who sincerely believe that they are too smart to be sexists.

Within Reddit, /r/Politics is just about the worst of the worst kind of Sanders zealotry.  Spend a couple hours there and you’ll see the “maddening invulnerability of the” smug.  On /r/Politics, when a Bernie Bro calls HRC a “bitch”, he’s not being sexist (because he’s not sexist!), he’s setting a trap about double standards in language use, being allowed to correctly use a word when needed, the ways in which HRC gets protection from criticism and on and on and on.

The happy place Reddit counter to /r/Politics is /r/enoughsandersspam.  I’ve only spent an hour there, which is like sampling an eyedropper of water on the Amazon, but that won’t stop me from saying this is an auto-filtering bubble by people too smart to generalize.  Most of the posts are better-natured than more zealous HRC folks. Words like “goofy”, “wha?”, and verbal eye rolls replace denunciations of traitorous, aggressive behavior.  It’s also highly therapeutic – a place to let off steam and say “ikr?” with like minded people, without getting too angry.

But it’s all still a denunciation of one annoying filter bubble with another filter bubble behavior.  And it’s there for good reason, to be sure.  The work of having debates, trying to defuse arguments, the desperate attempt to say “I’m not trying to change you, but do want to take on your characterization”, or simply avoid all that stuff for an hour can be quite stressful.

There’s a scene in Annie Hall, where Alvie goes to Annie’s apartment one night after they’ve broken up (to kill a spider, I think).  While he’s there he sees a copy of The National Review and freaks out.  She defends herself by mentioning that she wants to hear “other points of view”, which is a chance for a classic Woody Allen litany of all the insane anxiety-inducing things she could do next in search of other opinions.

I’ve recently fled to The Guardian, finding the NYT hard to stomach.  Have I found a place that keeps me alert to worthwhile “other points of view” and a balanced understanding of the world?  Or am I building another filter bubble?

________

I’ve always enjoyed playing the game of remembering quotes and comparing them to the real thing.  Nicholson Baker does it in U and I, with Updike quotes, so here’s the scene from Annie Hall.  I was right about the spider, wrong about the litany.

		ALVY
				 (Looking down at the magazine) 
			What is this?  What are you, since 
			when do you read the "National Review"?  
			What are you turning in to?

					ANNIE
				 (Turning to a nearby chair for 
				some gum in her pocketbook) 
			Well, I like to try to get all points 
			of view.

					ALVY 
			It's wonderful.  Then why don'tcha get 
			William F. Buckley to kill the spider?

					ANNIE
			 (Spinning around to face him) 
			Alvy, you're a little hostile, you 
			know that?  Not only that, you look 
			thin and tired.

She puts a piece of gum in her mouth.

					ALVY
			  Well, I was in be- It's three o'clock 
			in the morning.  You, uh, you got me 
			outta bed, I ran over here, I couldn't 
			get a taxi cab.  You said it was an 
			emergency, and I didn't ge- I ran up 
			the stairs.  Hell - I was a lot more 
			attractive when the evening began.  
			Look, uh, tell- Whatta you- Are you 
			going with a right-wing rock-and roll 
			star?  Is that possible?

I am trying to work up a “defense of incrementalism” post, but it’s not inspiring work, and it is Sunday afternoon, and raining, and I’m watching Fast Times at Ridgemont High. So, this will be some initial remarks with more to come.  A teaser of the week ahead. Cannily, building my audience.

Regarding Laska’s initial question, can someone be a successful incremental president? I’d say “yes”, but then, like Bill Clinton, you will leave a light footprint on history.  Is WJC the least-influential president to serve eight years?  Here’s the list:

1. George Washington
2. Thomas Jefferson
3. James Madison
4. James Monroe
5. Andrew Jackson
6. Ulysses S. Grant
7. Grover Cleveland (non-consecutive terms)
8. Woodrow Wilson
9. Franklin D. Roosevelt (served 3 full terms, died early in 4th term).
10. Dwight Eisenhower
11. Ronald Reagan
12. Bill Clinton
13. George W. Bush

I would rank WJC ahead of Ulysses Grant and Grover Cleveland. To be fair to Cleveland (although, why?), Gilded Age presidents were not expected to do anything. But, as a Democrat, he makes Clinton look like a member of the Red Brigades.

He vetoed Civil War pensions for Union veterans. He used the army to put down labor unrest. Vetoed drought relief for Texas farmers and generally just helped New York and Philadelphia financial houses put the screws to farmers in every state.  He stood around and mumbled about tariffs while a grinding depression gripped the country in his second term.

I would rank everyone else on this list higher than WJC in terms of the sustained influence of the actions taken during their presidencies or because of how they came to embody their times.

One thing not on Laska’s list of WJC’s accomplishments is his defeat of the Contract with America after the 1994 debacle.  It’s a defensive achievement, but significant nonetheless.

I recommend Nick Littlefield’s recent Lion of the Senate: When Ted Kennedy Rallied the Democrats in a GOP Congress. It’s about how Ted Kennedy (working closely with the Clinton White House) rallied the Democrats in congress in the months after the 1994 elections, When Newt Gingrich and team were trying to write the Contract with America into law.  It’s a terrifying reminder of how bad things were for the Democrats back then.  It also shows what a heavy lift it was to pass that minimum wage increase that is also on Laska’s list.

I’ve been thinking about “incrementalism” too. It’s another big word out there this year, and those who use it don’t mean it in a nice way — does anyone actually call themselves incrementalist any more? (I actually don’t know.) Isn’t it basically a slam? But I think I’m on a track somewhat parallel to Laska’s post on the idea, so this isn’t really a response to that.

I’m wondering about this: liberal incrementalism toward — slow, steady, art-of-the-possible steps toward — what? The end of capitalism?

Because I think I’ve been seeing on the left (by which I mean on my Twitter TL), and especially on the crunchy-liberaloid wannabe left (I wish Nate Silver should poll on that filter), a muddling of the goals of what I think of as two totally distinct, actually historically opposed categories: leftism and modern social-contract liberalism.

The incrementalism of a Bill Clinton, for example, as addressed in Laska’s post, seems to me to to have represented, philosophically anyway, a backing off, in the particular historical and partisan context of the day, of modern “big-government,” Great Society liberalism, widely at the time deemed to have failed — and to have threatened, hardly coincidentally to certain pols’ urgency around solving the problem, the entire Democratic Party — in favor of a more cautious approach, mingling elements of conservatism, with an intention to incrementally regain, and pragmatically defend and maintain, more modest versions of the original goals of modern social-contract liberalism, as founded in the New Deal. That process was intended to revive — again, far from coincidentally — the party, re-attracting white working-class voters who had grown skeptical, putting it mildly, of both liberalism and the party, and appealing to the young and upscale, and yet the process was also intended to refrain from abandoning — supposedly — original liberal goals.

The ways in which that approach succeeded and failed, and was ill- or well-conceived to begin with, are important for the issues raging in this election, and Laska has started that conversation for this blog here.  But when it comes to defining terms, I want to hold up a minute and begin sorting something out. And now it’s occurring to me that this does have something to do with both of Laska’s most recent posts.

It’s true that Clinton Democrats / DLC / neoliberals took an approach that they justified, anyway, as a more incremental way of achieving, in a new political and economic context, the social goals of modern liberalism. And they may have been more or less or 100% full of shit. But I sniff a feeling out there, among both some leftists and some liberals, that liberalism itself, even at its most FDR-LBJ aggressive, may be defined as an inherently incrementalist philosophy, one intended to move slowly — i.e., weakly and phonily, to leftists in this mood, and pragmatically and sincerely, to liberals in this mood — toward goals that are ultimately those of the left. I.e., evolving the country to a condition of economic equality, with public ownership of the means of production. Democratic socialism.

I think that reading of modern social liberalism is way off in so many obvious ways, but to make it crazy plain: the origins of the program put forth by FDR, and carried through (by no means always in concert) by the likes of Hubert Humphrey, Eugene McCarthy, Lyndon Johnson, and Nelson Rockefeller, and maintained, if in a less vigorously progressive manner, by the likes of Eisenhower, JFK, and Nixon, had origins in an effort to defeat and destroy the socialist American left that, in the 1930’s, had made such strong inroads  with American workers, for many cogent reasons.

The idea was to defeat socialism, save capitalism. Not endorsing that, or saying that it can ever work — but put that way, socialism and social liberalism are in direct conflict with one another. No real leftist would ever see the New Deal as a revolution.

It’s true that there’s a parody left pov, in which the inherent opposition of liberalism and socialism is all just part of some dialectic process leading inevitably toward the end of capitalism anyway. (With great lawyers Mister Jones has discussed lepers and crooks.) I don’t know: maybe in his rabid anticommunism the hyperliberal Hubert Humphrey just didn’t know he was part of a process unfolding toward democratic socialism.

And I take some of this muddling as deliberate. The Jacobin left seems to be in a kind of Popular Front mood regarding the Sanders campaign; I suspect it wants to maneuver fellow-traveling common-cause libs into seeing their own liberalism as naturally tending toward leftism, but just in a lame and crappy way, as Clintonian liberal incrementalism will demonstrate. That mood might pull right-thinking young converts away from liberalism as a whole — once the failure of the Sanders campaign demonstrates the failures of liberal democracy as a whole — and toward the revived Marx-Leninism that the young, optimistic new-new left braintrust is into. (I like everything about them — except the optimism.)

So if it’s tactical, I get it. Attack liberal incrementalism, you also undermine liberalism as a whole, even at its least incremental. And I can’t disagree with the critique, even if it is often made too covertly and manipulatively for my taste: maybe New Deal liberalism was always just the old bourgeois political economy with a human face. But if some leftists and liberals actually think the New Deal liberalism we all claim we want to revive came along to provide a form of slow change leading, if at times too slowly for the left, toward the end of capitalism — what I see as the ultimate goal of anything I’d call left — as a kind of American Fabian socialism — then I think they (we) have had our political heads up our asses for decades, and being in that position might help explain why the country is having such a hard time talking about anything.

A question  — less for lefties like Laska than for liberals (like me?) — might be: whether incrementalist or anti-incrementalist, why are you a damn liberal at all, anyway? The kind of question a self-satisfied liberal like Jonathan Chait (a longer-winded Hodgman with no sense of humor) never genuinely asks. Maybe because, if we really look back at the New Deal, and who got left out, and how fragile that doomed coalition really was anyway, largely because of American racism, the answers are bound to be pretty bleak. It’s hard to get excited about any brand of liberalism right now, and that’s why I prefer the grim “hold the total lunatics at bay one more time” approach to anything pretending aspiring to inspiration.

I’m pretty sure this is unique to this election, and I’m pretty sure this starts with Sanders…

This election has created a lot of social media-storms, Medium-storms, and just general small-time small talk about Very Big Words in politics and history.  In the last four months, ever since Sanders moved from protest candidate to a real pain in the party’s neck, the following words have been hotly debated chattered:

• socialist – of course, because Sanders is a Democratic one, but few (myself included) bother to dig deep into what he means by it, or to understand the European flavor of the word.  I suspect there are three reactions:  1) distrust – from an association of socialism with bloody systems of state communism; 2) enthusiasm – from people who are leftists and know/believe socialism to be something more akin to Orwell’s definition of socialism as “common decency” and a critique of unfettered capitalism; and 3) code – simply a critique of capitalism, market forces harnessed for social outcomes.  (I skipped #4 hard-core socialists because I’m not sure that they – people who have read and thought deeply to find their tendency – take Sanders seriously as a socialist.  Chomsky doesn’t.)
• revolution – I’m most surprised by how seriously this word is taken, and that it’s taken more seriously than socialist.  John Hodgman had a dickish smug liberal moment  in his endorsement of HRC when he wrote:  “Major change is ALWAYS incremental. Unless you want to have a REAL revolution, with shooting and stuff. You might. I do not.”(*)  To my mind, there are again different ways in which the word lands in people’s political minds:  1) revolution == big change, big enough to change the game;  2) revolution == upending the entire political order; and 3) revolution == something involving the execution of the ruling class (or the losing class).  I find it silly to address Sanders’s use of the word on any but the first.  Revolution for Sanders has meant taking money out of politics, re-distributing wealth, and putting societal requirements on an equal footing with capitalism.  All three of those things have been, until Occupy, heresies.  (Remember the grief Obama got when he told Joe the Plumber “we gotta spread [the wealth] around?)  So while they may not meet everyone’s definition of a “REAL revolution” I’m hard pressed to find a better word to express the impact of those changes.
• liberal – I discovered some surprising dimensions around “liberal” on social media.  During a long FB exchange (which I’m having trouble finding, so I’ll have to paraphrase), people were doing the usual critique of HRC:  “I want to vote for a liberal, and HRC isn’t that.”  A woman who is a committed Democrat, jumped into the thread, and said “It’s hurtful when people claim I’m not a liberal because I support Hillary.”  What surprised me, here, is that I genuinely thought most Clintonites and Clinton strategists didn’t want to be seen as liberal, that they were working very hard to shed that moniker.  It never occurred to me that someone would be hurt when their liberal credentials were denied.  More to the point, though, that exchange highlights how unclear the defining set of beliefs underlying the word liberal have become.
• left – there’s a funny moment at the end of Inequality for All, the documentary about Robert Reich and his class on income inequality.  He says, in his always amused voice, that he was surprised to find out he was a leftist.  “I haven’t changed my views in over 30 years”, it’s just that the world has moved to the right of me.  I frequently tell people I’m a leftie to warn them off of topics or give them an excuse to go and refresh their drink, but I have no idea what I’m talking about anymore.
• progressive – probably the most misused (especially by me).  Progressivism has a very specific history, grounded in actual organizations calling themselves progressive.  It’s also used as something to the left of liberal.  Plus also it gets used as describing left of Hillary if you don’t want to characterize her.  And, finally, it has a nice ring to it – like evolved – that lets you connect to intersectional identity politics without being academic or embarrassed to be an affluent white person talking about  intersectional.
• movement vs moment – this is the most recent one:  is it a powerful movement we should take seriously,  or is it just a moment?  This is another facile way of dismissing something that we’re in the middle of and we want to deal with in one of a couple ways without having to Google something or get into details.  With movement versus moment, I can 1) dismiss Sanders as a fad, media sensation, or what the kids are doing before they move onto the next bright shiny object; 2) question the intellectual or organizational seriousness of the people; or 3) genuinely challenge the importance of the phenomenon, but with a very strange, excessively fluid set of criteria.

Lots of reasons to vent on this sloppy, slippery language.  But one of the most important reasons is again to highlight how facile our language is.  Movement vs moment, in particular, shows how short-sighted our conversations are.  This one comes from Facebook  as Sanders is laying off people from the campaign:

This is to tee up CVFD’s long-awaited (much too long in my adoring opinion) piece about Bill Clinton’s incrementalism.

Much of the debate and acrimony about HRC this election year hinges on people’s interpretations of 1) her husband’s Presidency, 2) her role in it, and 3) her role in the DLC’s re-shaping of the party.   Essentially, they are three lenses on the Democratic politics of the 1990s and of the time when HRC first came on the national scene.  Conversational threads often get muddles, when people change lenses.

(Example:  Mark Ruffalo was called out as sexist on Bill Maher’s show when he referenced HRC’s support of the crime bill.  Maher used #1 – “it was the President’s bill, not HRC’s, don’t be sexist and assume she’s a wife who mimics her  husband’s thoughts” to deny #2, that she had an office in the West Wing and was a Senior Domestic Policy Advisor who was quite active on the crime bill.)

So, just to focus on #1 – Bill Clinton’s record.  Even when conversations are focused on his achievements, things get slippery.  For example, it’s a pretty regular ritual for me, when arguing/talking with an HRC/WJC supporter, to reel off the ways in which I, personally, thought WJC was terrible on crime and played the race card:  1) flying home to execute the man who didn’t even know he was being executed; 2) campaigning near the birthplace of the KKK in front an all-black chain gang with all-white wardens; 3) expanding the death penalty; 4) extending sentences; 5) targeting crack more aggressively than coke; 6) gutting education funding; 7) the super-predator myth . . . n) whatever I end on when I finally take a breath.

Invariably, the conversation ends with something like:  “remember the times and how powerful the Republicans were.”  Both Clintons wound end up taking that line recently, suggesting that the bill was what it was because… Republicans.

Fair enough.

The question, then, is whether it’s an accomplishment for the administration?  If the legislation was inevitable, and it’s final shape determined by the opposing party, what are we supposed to pat ourselves or WJC on the back for having done?  How did the incrementalist approach – or compromises – advance your causes?  What exactly should liberals be pleased with?

I think this is a more important question than just being snarky.  When you formulate a candidacy as muddled about race, the welfare state, class, business, and employment as the Clintons do, what exactly can we expect them to achieve in office?  This isn’t just a question about what they really believe, it gets to the heart of whether they’ve built a mandate for anything.  If incrementalism is the pragmatic way to achieve our ends, it’s hard to see how Clinton proved the efficacy of that approach.

============================================

Below are the things that I hear/read/think are WJC’s signature accomplishments.  We like to put them on the back of name cards at dinner gatherings with a + or – sign as a party game.

1. One increase in minimum wage
2. NAFTA
3. Crime bill
4. Welfare reform
5. Raising tax rates for the wealthiest
6. Sustained GDP growth
7. “Winning the abortion war” as some called it

The Stop Trump effort has finally become farce, and follies, and Vaudeville.  And not even “big time” Vaudeville, but one of those circuits that takes long train rides to small cities and plays in venues that aren’t full-time theaters.

Here’s a link to Ted Cruz’s event in which he announced Carly as his running mate.  I don’t expect anyone to watch the entire thing. In fact, if you do find yourself watching the entire thing, you should call me immediately.  I can talk you down.  Get you in a program.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwSeuX3nXYY

But, if you just jump around and watch parts of it, the entire tableau becomes increasingly delusional.  This is a guy who is now mathematically eliminated from capturing the Republican nomination for president on the first ballot.  He’s so loathed by his congressional colleagues that it’s more likely that an open Republican convention would choose not to contest the election before they make him the nominee.

And now that I think about it, would that be the worst thing?  If they just said, we are going to focus on retaining our congressional majorities, and we’ll be back in 2020?  We haven’t had a non-contested presidential election since James Monroe, but it’s not unprecedented.  And, who wouldn’t want to restore the Era of Good Feelings?

Back to Cruz, you can see him in the clip talking about how solemn a choice it is to select a qualified vice presidential candidate. He tells stories about he and Carly forming a bond on the campaign bus.  And, Carly forming a bond with Ted’s daughters.  And then Carly, when she finally gets on stage—Cruz talks for like thirty minutes—sings a song that she apparently sings with Cruz’s daughters on the campaign bus. Because kids really enjoy it when CEO’s try to have fun with them.

All of this would be fine if this were the Republican convention in Cleveland.  But, this was a hotel ball room in Indianapolis in April.  It felt like high school kids running a mock election.  Or crazy people who think they are still running for president.

John Kasich, Losing Interest

Kasich is a smart guy and a good campaigner, but his recent campaign appearances indicate that he’s just killing time till the convention where he hopes that lightning will strike.  His remarks on the stump are increasingly odd and disinterested.  Check out Samantha Bee having fun with Kasich’s recent attempts to talk about “The Passover” in New York at a matzah factory.  Where he clearly just started talking and then realized that he had no idea what he was going to say or why he would say it or why he was standing there holding a pizza box full of matzah.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nE23uSUbraM

For the second day in a row, I’m writing about “Trump” and “foreign” “policy”.  This whole run to November is going to be much harder to watch than I thought it would be. Watching Trump step into the moment, start acting presidential. Republican office holders slowly coming around to supporting him.

It’s entirely possible that at any moment we’ll switch this blog over to sports or food or comparative religion. Any Democrats licking their chops at the prospect of Hillary running against Trump and dreaming of a 40-state romp in November had better wake up and realize what time it is. He’s going to be very hard for Hillary to beat.  The foreign policy speech demonstrates a few reasons why:

How low can you go?

It would be literally impossible to set the bar any lower for Trump on foreign affairs.  He is getting enormous credit for just showing up, reading a teleprompter, and not sounding like a crazy person. When George W. Bush debated Gore on foreign policy, he made it through the debate without falling down or crying, and that was all it took to put him on equal footing with Gore. Anyone who thinks that she will run circles around him in a debate is kidding themselves. 

Close your eyes and listen

During the 2000 election, I was listening to a lot of NPR.  Which lead me to develop my radio litmus test.  Watching a candidate on television, you can’t help but viscerally respond to them.  But, on the radio, it’s just their voice. And if you suspend your policy preferences for a few moments, you start to hear how swing voters might assess a candidate.  In this test, Bush came across as the better candidate than Gore.  Listening to Trump’s foreign policy speech without looking at him . . . and he suddenly sounded very plausible.  That is all the average voter needs.

War! what is it good for?

On foreign policy, he’s going to run to Hillary’s left. And right. At the same time. She’s spent her entire career insulating herself from Republican neo-con attacks from the right.  And, now she’s facing a candidate who’s thoroughly denounced George W’s invasion of Iraq.  Disavowed all the neo-con adventurism.  But, he can also stomp around about strength and make her look weak and feckless.  She has a record to defend; he has nothing.  She’ll be on the defensive the entire time.

He can win. He really can