1144 Will the liberals change?

Rob Paulsson is just an ordinary guy blogging at Shiningright.com. He's finished an analysis of Paul Starr’s gloomy American Prospect article, “The Liberal Project Now.” He concludes that there is a cottage industry of liberals who disagree with Starr‘s assessment:

“The presidential election in 2008 will put this thesis [that the last two presidential elections were flukes] to the test. For the first time since 1968 the race will not include an incumbent president or vice president which should make it evenly matched. If the Democrats win the White House with a left of center candidate, Starr's obituary of American liberalism will be proved premature. If, on the other hand, Republicans win again it will be increasingly difficult for the left to sustain its belief that there really is a progressive majority in America just waiting for the chance to express itself electorally.”

Starr wrote: “The liberal project of the post–World War II era was to awaken the public to long-ignored problems, to make liberal government bolder, and to get its leaders to take political risks. In the public mind, liberalism was the innovative and outward-looking force in American politics; conservatism, the stodgy and parochial source of resistance. Under those circumstances, liberals had power to the extent that they could bring about change, while conservatives had power to the extent that they could stop it.

Now the relationships have been reversed, and liberalism risks getting defined, as conservatism once was, entirely in negative terms. Liberals certainly need to defend liberal accomplishments and oppose conservative measures, but they cannot allow themselves to become merely defensive and oppositional. That, of course, is how the right would like to cast them. The liberal challenge today is to avoid this trap, to make the case for liberalism’s first principles, and to renew the project of liberal innovation.”

Starr is a good writer, as Paulsson points out. Yes, that’s sort of how I remember the 60s and 70s and being a Democrat. Positive change. And the right isn’t just “casting them as defensive“--they are defensive and oppositional. Name one positive thing a Democrat has proposed about Social Security reform, or education, or health care, or illegal immigration? What’s their solution for Iraq--withdraw so we can have as many Iraqis murdered as Vietnamese back in the 70s when we withdrew and left our allies to be slaughtered? "Death and taxes"--could be the party‘s motto.

Other than abortion, which in a weird way reduces the problem, what comes up consistently in every election? Fewer babies = fewer old people. Even in the “old” days I was never pro-abortion--I always stepped away from the party on that one. It’s just too hard to bury two of your children and then watch other women throwing theirs into slop pails, even if it did take me 30 years to call it quits with the party. Call me Mommy One Note, but it just became the party of death, disaster and dread by making abortion a key plank in every platform.