Is Left-Wing Governance Possible In America?

by: Chris Bowers

Wed Aug 05, 2009 at 18:19


Over the past month, I have been wondering if, given the current structure of our federal government, it is even possible to have the federal government operate to the left of national public opinion in the way that it often operates to the right of national public opinion. More specifically:

  1. Considering that where 60-votes are required to close debate on most pieces of legislation in the Senate;
  2. Considering the amount of money behind the right-wing corporate PAC and (especially) lobbying complex;
  3. Considering that and given the way that this complex is able to exert disproportionate influence over the Senate due to the small-state bias of the chamber;
  4. Consider the incredible effort necessary for large Democratic majorities to even pass overwhelmingly popular ideas like the public option (supported by 60%+ of Americans);
Considering these four things, the amount of organization that progressives need to do in order to pass any left-wing legislation that is opposed by 51% or more of the country is almost unimaginable. Can Congress ever pass legislation that is even slightly to the left of the country?

During the 75 year history of public opinion polling, there are virtually no examples of Congress passing left-wing legislation into law against the wishes of the majority of the country. The only example of unpopular, left-wing public policy orchestrated in during 2009 was the federal takeover of the auto industry. That move was both unpopular (39% favored it, 53% opposed) and very left-wing (government and worker ownership of a major industry). However, even that wasn't actually passed through Congress, at least not directly.

There aren't many examples further in the past, either. I was talking with a friend about this last night who the Civil Rights Act as a possibility, but only a few months after signing it into law LBJ was re-elected with a still-record 61.05% of the popular vote. The tax hike on the wealthy in President Clinton's first budget is a possibility, but I have never seen a poll showing income tax increases on the wealthy as unpopular.

Are there any examples of Congress passing left-wing legislation against the wishes of 50% or more of the country? That I can't point to even one makes me wonder if, given the structural difficulties I described above, if it is even possible. If anyone can think of examples, please post them in the comments.

Chris Bowers :: Is Left-Wing Governance Possible In America?

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Is Left-Wing Governance Possible In America? | 27 comments
WTF? Define it as 'moderate' and 'centrist' for christssake (0.00 / 1)
I mean ...

depending on how you word the question, aren't 75% or MORE left of center?

we can't sell our ideas worht a shit,
so no one gives a shit about our ideas.

OH, and, BTW,
we're actually NOT very good at making stuff work well.

need a freaking master's degree to figure that out?

rmm.  

It is too full o' the milk of human kindness To catch the nearest way

Um, OK (4.00 / 3)
I'm asking if there are any left-wing ideas that were opposed by 51% or more of the country at the time they were passed through Congress.

How that connects to your rant is unclear to me.

[ Parent ]
um, since they were SOLD correctly, they did NOT pass (0.00 / 0)
but, since I didn't write a 400 page graduate school tome, I wrote a rant.

apparantly youse all is too smartereer dan me ...

that is why I'm stuck on the idea that the ability to SELL ideas is important ...

how the hell did ANY of the legislation of the last 30 years from RayGun or BushI+II help anyone but their crooked fucking friends? It didn't, but, it passed!

excuse me ... I should have written a 400 page graduate school tome, AND, once the population gets en-lite-ened and can understand 400 page tomes, while ... hell

then lefty legislation will pass!

rmm.


It is too full o' the milk of human kindness To catch the nearest way

[ Parent ]
opps. can't sell = can't persuade = can't pass. (0.00 / 0)
my subject line about should have said

"since they were SOLD incorrectly, they did NOT pass"

BUT, really --- isn't the REAL problem with our communication kind of the lakoff problem?

look at what lakoff writes - he tells us why 'death tax' works ... in paragraphs and pages and pages and pages ...

lakoff can't write a goddam soundbite!

NOT being able to write a soundbite is one of the liberal diseases, and it equals

NO keep it simple stupid.
NO easy to say.
NO easy to remember.
NO easy to repeat.

no ability to understand less than 400 page tomes?

in fact, culturally, it is CRITICAL that non 400 page tomes be dismissed as ... rants?

as ...POPULIST!

LOMFG!!!

rmm.  

It is too full o' the milk of human kindness To catch the nearest way

[ Parent ]
You almost have me convinced (4.00 / 2)
Just use more ALL CAPS in your next comment, and I think you can swing me.
[ Parent ]
yeah seabos did you wake up angry (0.00 / 0)
I think this is a good question Chris asks in the Diary, not a way to stop progressive action, but what makes it possible, where is it possible, what is the limit of action.

Its a forest question, not a tree question.

In my mind, its asking, where are the places that, inthe legislative and electoral system that block leadership from the left. That is as opposed to: merely supportive behaviour from progressives for overwhelmingly popular issues that are being blocked by conservatives.

Your anger seems misdirected. Its like Chris wrote: "Good morning all have a nice day"  - and your response is "WTF is good about it? I WILL HAVE THE KIND OF DAY I WANT!"

--

The government has a defect: it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect: they're pure tyrannies. -Chomsky

[ Parent ]
Ah, social class again ... 'anger'? cuz I've been listening (0.00 / 0)
to the same stuff since I before I was a freshman in college in Boston in 1978, (originally being from the broken down mill town of Holyoke MA.) BTW, I was on full financial aid cuz my family was on welfare all through the 70's - I do know a bit how government works from a different perspective that "Poverty Studies 499" at college.

In '78 we had Proposition 13 from california, which morphed into Prop 2 and 1/2 in MA. in 1980, at the same time that lying fuck RayGun was coming on to tell people that if the rich pigs got more of what they stole THEN there'd be MORE for all us peee-ons!

I wish I had a dollar for EVERY highly 'educated' highly credentialed Dem who was deigned to en-liten-me that the world isn't amenable to simplistic RayGun slogans, and people like him shouldn't win, AND his corrupt lies shouldn't win.

There are quite a few of the highly 'educated' highly credentialed in Boston - and, here in Seattle, where I've lived since '89.

What is blocking lefty legislation?

We Can't Sell it = We Can't Persuade = We Can't Win.

Pretty F'ing Complicated, huh?

IF you were to ask a random subset of the population, how many of you:

1. think people who are born wealthy shouldn't have to compete for important, influential jobs?

2. think the powerful should be allowed to stack the decks so they stay powerful and the rest stay peee-ons?

3. think people who invent a google or a pencillin should only get a few crumbs from the wealth created, cuz the powerful took it all?

4. think people who work for 30 or 50 years should retire to penury so the managers of GM, AIG, Goldman, Freddie, Enron, ... can have MORE mansions and yachts?

5. want that neighbor you do NOT like - want his priest, guru, swami, rabbi, minister ... telling YOU what you can do in your doctor's office?

6. want the priest, guru, swami, rabbi, minister ... of that neighbor you despise running your school, brain washing your kid?

7. want NO roads, NO safe water, NO sewage, NO reliable electricity, NO rules about house construction, NO fire department or cops unless you are filthy rich?

8. want your kids to have NO chance to compete in the world, OR, change the world, cuz ONLY the rich get to get into those schools and those jobs?

What percentages would be yeah and nay on the issues above?

WE the left OWN the issues, BUT, Since

We Can't Sell = We Can't Persuade = We Can't Win.

that is 'anger' ????

How about fed up with fucking LOSERS?

yawn. no wonder we don't win. people who are fed up are chased outta the happy happy little upper middle class group think, cuz, they're angry!

and what does happy happy nicey nice group think accomplish, politically?

Here is a url to a comment I left in teacherken's diary about LBJ. LBJ accomplished all his great legislation cuz he was a prick.

http://www.dailykos.com/commen...

rmm.



It is too full o' the milk of human kindness To catch the nearest way

[ Parent ]
I have no ides what you're on about sir or madam (0.00 / 0)
What in my question has any reference to your class, education or proclivity to writing in any style. Why are you angry at Chris, not why is there justification for anger in general.

Are you angry because everyone should know by now, that progressives dont have a marketing mindset, and therefor can't make their positions easily sold, and we should all know better than to even ask?

Is this close?

--

The government has a defect: it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect: they're pure tyrannies. -Chomsky

[ Parent ]
WHY is being fed up = "angry"? "Angry" (0.00 / 0)
is what the newspapers call the nuts who go run around and shoot people. When describing some nut who just ran out and shot 4 or 14 or 24 people, and calling the nut "ANGRY", well, that seems like a good use of "ANGRY".

My BLUNT, purposely impolitic, sarcastic, condescending commentary is typically called angry, or negative, or bitter, or cynical, or some or all of the above, by people who come from nice neighborhoods and nice schools.

Being BLUNT is NOT a $ocial more of the nice neighborhood$ or the nice $chool$, and gue$$ what is a common denominator of tho$e nise neighborhood$ and nice $chool$.

I'm fed up with losing, I'm fed up with losing for the same freaking reasons for decade after decade, I'm BLUNT about it, and it is interesting how 1 gets to be labelled with the same label applied to mass killers, and that labelling come$ from the $ocial more$ of those in the nice neighborhood$.

rmm.  

It is too full o' the milk of human kindness To catch the nearest way

[ Parent ]
i imagine there are many examples of right-wing (0.00 / 0)
legislation, opposed by the majority, passing... but off-hand i haven't been able to think of any.  

considering W's presidency:

social security 'reform' failed.

the wars were (probably) supported by a majority.

no child left behind might be an example, though i would doubt that polling would definitively show the country to have opposed its major provisions.

i wonder about the deregulations of the 80s and 90s.  were they popular?  

anyway, it is a very interesting question, whether congress can push the country leftward.  

W (0.00 / 0)
Ending the estate tax.  At a reasonable limit this only effected the super wealthy.  Right off hand the only example I can think of where a business was sold to pay estate taxes was the Cubs.  The Wrigleys kept the chewing gum company instead.
[ Parent ]
The estate tax didn't end though (0.00 / 0)
the permanent ban failed in the Senate in 2006 because Republicans couldn't break a Democratic filibuster. In 2006, polls I saw showed Americans were narrowly in favor of keeping the estate tax.

But in 2001 when the ban passed, a CBS poll said 71% favored repealing it;

http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/in...

[ Parent ]
None of the bailouts are particularly left wing (4.00 / 2)
since they neither are "guaranteed income" schemes, nor particularly good for the environment.

They are status-quo legislation.

Left wing legislation would be monthly 1000$ checks to all Americans in order for them to subside in the absence of the need for their labor in a free market.

Left-wing legislation would be an Apollo Program for renewable energy, no matter what the cost.

agree 100% (0.00 / 0)
I was just going to post a comment about how I wouldn't consider the auto industry thing "left wing". I think most people, myself included, were against that because "we" didn't get a damn thing out of it. I know that it's a complicated issue. "We" don't want it to fail, and lose those jobs.

But the talk that "we own an auto company", from the likes of Keith Olbermann and Michael Moore, (people I usually agree with) was bull. "We" don't own a damn thing, and the profit goes to the corporation. Hardly left wing.

And by the way, I'm for a "guarenteed income scheme"! Although I'm sure most Americans, including American liberals are not.  

I vote Democratic, I think Independent

[ Parent ]
The profit satys in the country, and that is very important. (0.00 / 0)
Let me remind everyone, when 10 12 15% of the economy is leaving a country all the time, it devastates the economy, like a sieve instead of a bowl for keeping water.

Some of the profit, at least temporarily, is going to the government revenue. Some profit is going to working people, some profit is funding retirement systems for people already retired. This is all great stuff. Dont be fooled.

--

The government has a defect: it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect: they're pure tyrannies. -Chomsky

[ Parent ]
1863-1877 (4.00 / 1)
In the context of the era, the Civil Rights Act (1866), the Freedman Bureau's bills (1863/1866), 14th (1868) and 15th (1870) Amendments, the Force Act of 1871, the Civil Rights Act of 1871, and the four Reconstruction Acts 1867-1868 were progressive.  I am not necessarily saying the authors of these bills were moved by progressive impulses, though I think (again, in context) some were.

It is safe to say I think that if the American population had been polled these measures would not have received majority support.  Why do I say this?  Well, it seems reasonable to me to conclude that a majority of white southerners opposed most of these measures.  They also had only tepid to non-existent support among many white northerners outside abolitionists.  Across the north (MN, WI, CT) state bills to give blacks the right to vote came close but failed and were nearly uniformly opposed by Democrats as well as many Republicans.

Did they get you to trade your heroes for ghosts? Hot ashes for trees? Hot air for a cool breeze? And cold comfort for change?

what about democracy? (0.00 / 0)
For worshippers of democracy, it does seem a bit blasphemous to endorse moving the country in any direction against the will of %50+1 of the populace...
Its not about force. Its about leadership. (0.00 / 0)
And the point is about the right moving the country right, against the will of the people.

For example: Health Care for every American as a right. Thats what people want, thats what right wing 'leaders' are preventing. Thats right imposition of a rightwing idea against the will of the majority. Happens all the time.

Chris is asking: when does that happen ever on the left.
And if its hard to define ant rime it does happen on the left, HOW COME?

Leadership is standing on a high rock as the herd goes by, pointing in a different direction and saying, we have to alter course.


--

The government has a defect: it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect: they're pure tyrannies. -Chomsky

[ Parent ]
Corporate vs. Populist (4.00 / 1)
I don't know.  I really don't think the issue any more is truly one of left::right in the US.  I think we've gone past that somehow into something more like corporate/elite::populist.

I frankly can't think of any legislation over the last few years that has been of primary benefit to the lower/middle classes without having a big chunk of benefit actually going to corporate/special interests.  Although I suppose you could point to a few smaller initiatives (like SCHIP) I still think that as a general rule, most legislation primarily benefits corporation and the wealth.

The government is owned.  It is no longer "by of and for" the people.  As soon as we all figure that out, maybe we'll stop pretending that political parties actually matter.

Just my thoughts, of course.

I was with you until you called the ballgame before they dressed. (0.00 / 0)
Real change happens, all the time. Giving up becasue discerning the pattern is difficult is a muggs game.


--

The government has a defect: it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect: they're pure tyrannies. -Chomsky
[ Parent ]
Some examples (4.00 / 1)
that may or may not have had 50% approval:

The War Powers Act
shutting off aid to the contras
The '93 budget deal that raised some taxes
'90 budget agreement that raised taxes

It's a very short list, and if memory serves shutting off aid the contras was popular.

John McCain carried 22 states.  If a blue dog or a republican wins 40 of the seats in those 22 states, liberals do not have cloture.

There is no way around it: the filibuster is an enourmous obstacle for progressives.  One might even say an insurmountable obstacle.  

Reconciliation is a bull through that fence. (0.00 / 0)
We need to reassess that whole process.  

--

The government has a defect: it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect: they're pure tyrannies. -Chomsky
[ Parent ]
I'd say a few social issue topics have been that way (0.00 / 0)
On social issues people in government can be pretty progressive. On economic issues, forget it, upper class folks and business allies rule the day.

On foreign policy it's a little more complicated, but it's generally rule the entire world with bombs.

A More Important Question Is Whether Majority Governance is Possible in Plutocratic America? (4.00 / 1)
The issue that your post raises in my mind is not confined to "left-wing legislation".

It is about an even more serious problem, which is whether majority-supported legislation can be passed given the four factors you identify, namely,

1. Considering that where 60-votes are required to close debate on most pieces of legislation in the Senate;
  2. Considering the amount of money behind the right-wing corporate PAC and (especially) lobbying complex;
  3. Considering that and given the way that this complex is able to exert disproportionate influence over the Senate due to the small-state bias of the chamber;
  4. Consider the incredible effort necessary for large Democratic majorities to even pass overwhelmingly popular ideas like the public option (supported by 60%+ of Americans);

The fact that Congress chronically flouts the majority will of the American people is by far the most serious issue facing the country.

The legislative track records of lawmakers show that they refuse to enact policies that voters favor, such as the government-sponsored single payer health care system that a majority of Americans have repeatedly stated they prefer. Or lawmakers flout the popular will by enacting policies that a majority of voters oppose, such as bailing out insolvent banks, investment houses and insurance companies.

The other concern I have about your post, Chris, is that credible research by several independent researchers has identified an emerging progressive majority of voters which I believe encompasses the "left-wing".

These findings indicate that the "left-wing" to which you refer is on its way to becoming a progressive majority of voters who believe that government must play an active role in the economy, to make sure that economic opportunities are universally available and reduce economic inequality.

Now that unfettered free markets have been shown to be an unmitigated disaster, particularly in light of the recent financial meltdown of the unregulated "shadow banking system", progressive majority voters are going to want government to get involved in the economy and in other societal problems in a pro-active way.

I believe that "left-wing activists" will be a leading force within the emerging progressive majority to get government to serve the populace instead of corporate special interests.  

Nancy Bordier is the author of Re-Inventing Democracy. The book can be read free online by clicking here.

A prototype website illustrating how the Interactive Voter Choice System works can be accessed at Citizens Winning Hands.

We let the Rove tactics of framing everything cripple us (0.00 / 0)
Take the birthers: Why is this foolishness continuing? They expound on utter crazy sound bites and then we hustle to prove them wrong. They are making the story and we are responding to it.

Obama did not absorb Alinsky's tactics at all. For example:

Every  person in government would produce their birth certificate to see if it's real.

Or: Get fake birth certificates for hundreds of government people and put them online, just like the Obama one.

I mean this is street theatre in action. Why is everyone so stupid.?

I think its gentics abbey (0.00 / 0)
But nurture is important too.

Music makes the brain grow in size and complexity. Everyone is stupid because there us not enough good music.

Discussion spreads good ideas, good ideas are often implemented.

--

The government has a defect: it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect: they're pure tyrannies. -Chomsky

[ Parent ]
these are very good questions (4.00 / 1)
And I think they get to the heart of what should really be an existential question for the left in America, but which doesn't get nearly enough attention: is our political system simply too antiquated to function as a proper modern democracy?

It was revolutionary and awesome in the 18th Century to write a document like the US constitution. But at the time, after all, we still had slavery, and negligible rights for women, and other disenfranchised classes. And it was precisely because of slavery, in particular, that we ended up with the US Senate, which affords disproportionate representation for smaller (more rural) states; the Senate was designed in such a way as to uphold the power of southern states to maintain slavery. In other words: the government, though radically progressive by 18th century standards, was designed with the specific intent of thwarting progressive change. No country on Earth that was sincerely interested in adopting democracy today would design their institutions that way.

But if our institutions are just too inherently conservative to meet international democratic norms, what can we do about it? We can't even change the system of representation in the Senate by constitutional amendment (not that it would pass anyway). So what can we do about it? It's a real problem.

(Of course, there's nothing in the Constitution about the filibuster. The supermajority rule is just a function of Democrats' cowardice.)

Is Left-Wing Governance Possible In America? | 27 comments
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