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I'm on a Midwest swing of my book tour and unlike my other trips so far, I am running into some Republicans at my book events (as well as spending some time with relatives who are Republicans). Part of that, of course, is that I am close to home, and in places like Lincoln, NE, people come out to see the hometown boy who has gone to the big city, even if they are of a different political persuasion. And part of it is simply location: there are simply a lot more Republicans per capita in Nebraska than there are in most of the cities I've been to on the book tour (SF, NYC, Boston, etc.).
It has led to some interesting questions and conversations which I love. There are few things I like better than a fun debate.
I have a nephew who is a very conservative Republican, and is also a strong debater. He has read The Progressive Revolution, which must have been tough for him to take, and is planning on writing me a long response, which I look forward to getting. But in the meantime, he pushed me very hard on the whole hope vs. fear theme of my book, said it was a cheap shot, that progressives have been using fear in their arguments as much as conservatives.
It's a worthy argument. More in the extended entry.
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| On one level progressives have certainly expressed fear of certain things over the years. Fear of environmental catastrophe in Rachel Carson's Silent Spring or of the consequences of global warming, for example.
Progressives certainly were fearful that an uninformed extremist like Sarah Palin could become President, and that McCain continuing Bush's economic policies would drive us deeper into a depression. In 2004, progressives expressed fear that another four years of George W. Bush would be a nightmare, and in 2002/3, before the decision to go into Iraq, we raised the alarm that we would get stuck in Iraq for much longer and with far more deaths and cost than Bush and his team were predicting.
It's not just in recent times that progressives have raised fearful predictions on issues. Jefferson, even though he was a slave owner himself, proposed a plan to phase out slavery because otherwise, he said, the issue would tear the country apart. Seven decades later, Lincoln said (on the same topic) that a house divided against itself could not stand. In the late 1800s, populists and progressives raised fears about corporate trusts gaining too much power, and about the dangers to our most beautiful lands and our food supply itself if corporate America was not checked. And progressives in the late 1920 warned of the dangers of unchecked speculation on Wall Street leading us into serious economic times.
So yes, it is true, progressives have used arguments based in fear many times over the years, so my nephew has a reasonable point (the fact that we have been right all those times does not diminish the point).
Here's why I still stand by what I wrote in The Progressive Revolution, thought. As I put it in the book:
When Barack Obama based much of his 2008 presidential campaign on the theme of hope, he certainly wasn't the first candidate to make that pitch. And when John McCain, George W. Bush, and Dick Cheney, during the years since 9/11, preached fear and more fear and nothing but fear, they weren't the first do to that, either. The entire history of American political debate can, in some sense, be described as the argument between the hope of progressives for a better future vs. the fear of conservatives who want to protect the way things are now.
Progressives do sometimes paint scary pictures, because there are scary things in the world. But the essential argument of conservatives has always been to fundamentally fear change: that there are unintended consequence top change, that tradition is to be honored, that people are rich and powerful for a reason and authority should be deferred to. The intellectual father of modern conservatism, Russell Kirk, decried "a world that damns tradition, exalts equality and welcomes change", and he wrote that "hasty innovation may be a devouring conflagration."
The essential argument of progressivism is that change on behalf of justice, equality, and fairness is a risk worth taking. We have always said that it is worth hoping, because it is possible to make the world a better place. Barack Obama, in his greatest speech ever in my view, laid out the progressive case for hope better than anyone:
We have been told we cannot do this by a chorus of cynics who will
only grow louder and more dissonant in the weeks to come. We've been
asked to pause for a reality check. We've been warned against
offering the people of this nation false hope.
But in the unlikely story that is America, there has never been
anything false about hope. For when we have faced down impossible
odds; when we've been told that we're not ready, or that we shouldn't
try, or that we can't, generations of Americans have responded with a
simple creed that sums up the spirit of a people.
Yes we can.
It was a creed written into the founding documents that declared the
destiny of a nation.
Yes we can.
It was whispered by slaves and abolitionists as they blazed a trail
toward freedom through the darkest of nights.
Yes we can.
It was sung by immigrants as they struck out from distant shores and
pioneers who pushed westward against an unforgiving wilderness.
Yes we can.
It was the call of workers who organized; women who reached for the
ballot; a President who chose the moon as our new frontier; and a King who took us to the mountaintop and pointed the way to the Promised Land.
Yes we can to justice and equality. Yes we can to opportunity and
prosperity. Yes we can heal this nation. Yes we can repair this
world. Yes we can.
And so tomorrow, as we take this campaign South and West; as we learn
that the struggles of the textile worker in Spartanburg are not so
different than the plight of the dishwasher in Las Vegas; that the
hopes of the little girl who goes to a crumbling school in Dillon are
the same as the dreams of the boy who learns on the streets of LA; we
will remember that there is something happening in America; that we
are not as divided as our politics suggests; that we are one people;
we are one nation; and together, we will begin the next great chapter
in America's story with three words that will ring from coast to
coast; from sea to shining sea - Yes. We. Can.
Yes, progressives are fearful of things that are truly scary. But our essential argument has always been hope over fear. |
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