The Argument

Reading the transcript of the HuffPost Live Chat with Matt Bai got me thinking about the swirl of discussion and debate surrounding his new book The Argument. While the book has been critically acclaimed, it has run into the same buzz saw of criticism that many in the netroots have faced when standing up to the conventional wisdom in Washington.

For a long time, many of the consultants that run Democratic campaigns have been afraid of actually saying anything bold and progressive when it comes time to face the voters. They have told candidates to just "keep it vague" and say "the Republican stinks." The result is, among other things, the Kerry campaign in 2004.

The comments on Bai's book seem to uniformly agree that it is an excellently-written, engaging book that makes you laugh and think but some of very bright reviewers have disagreed strongly with the main assertion of his book: that to win and govern Democrats need to actually SAY SOMETHING; to tell the country who we are and what we'll do in a way that is relevant to people's lives and the world we live in.

Those who criticize Bai seem to be saying that Democrats can't offer the kind of big bold thinking we did when we had leaders like Franklin Roosevelt -- that the way to get elected is to make small tactical moves. If the netroots ethos is about anything, it's about saying that this kind of thinking has got to end, that Democrats need to stop tinkering around the edges and make a real argument to the American people for big change.' Americans look at rising inequality and jobs being shipped overseas and want Democrats to say here's what we're going to do about it. We see a disastrous war in Iraq and Islamic jihadism winning the battle for hearts and minds in many places six years after 9/11 and want Democrats to say here's how we're going to really make America and the world safe.

Bai is a journalist not a polemicist. He doesn't pretend to have all the answers. The Argument is a great read even if you don't usually read books about politics. But if you believe that it's time the Democratic Party grew a backbone and a brain and jumped fully into the battle of fighting for ordinary Americans, it's must reading. You may not agree with everything Bai says, but you'll be ready to have the argument.

Comments

[Plowboy]

Keeping things vague is an attempt to deceive. Frankly I suspect those who want it vague of having nothing in mind but political power which, if they gaain it, would ber used just as it is now being used.
Keeing things vague is another form of lying.
What we need is clarity. Intelligent decisions are based on clarity of thought.But it is true that recent elections were pretty muddled and vague operations.
"I'm for sweetness and light."
"I'm for even more sweetness and light."
But for whose sweetness?
And what light will shine on whom?
"I'm for goodness."

[freedomis]

My contention is that the parties have merged into this one big club inside the beltway and everyone else is on their own.
TO THE DEMS


I have been meaning to write something like this for awhile because of your feckless responses and kowtowing to a president who is out to destroy this country. Why? Because you are cynical and political to an extreme. It is either that or you want to have all the stuff that is on the books now plus a war that you think will help you and without the blame. This is neither humanistic or morally defendable. Petraeus got what he deserves and cutting off funds for this war is the way to go because when it comes to priorities for this occupation it is contractors first and troops last. You can see this from any facts that you look at. So who cares for the troops? Some of you have been doing a lot of talking but nobody has thrown a rock at this glass house of an administration. Leave it to the people thru MoveOn.Org to do the heavy lifting for what you are supposed to be doing. You will not get my vote because you are no better than the repubs. Is there any difference in dictators, if one is a dem. or a repub? The way that you are acting you just want the whole pie for yourselves and forget the people again. I"m 71 and cant help but wonder what of the younger people? Because of your feckless nature it is a bleak future for them. Tony

[NABNYC]

When I was a teenager, I read all the teenager magazines about how to be popular, how to get asked out, how to get "him" to notice. And all the magazines told us girls that we should essentially appear to be nothing when we were with boys. Always turn the conversation to them. If the boy says "what bands do you like," the girl should say "Oh, I guess lots, but which ones do you like?" Then whatever he says, the girl should say "Oh yeah, me too, I just love that group." A blank slate for this young man to project his fantasies onto. We, as girls, should not have any likes or dislikes. Just learn what he thinks, then adopt that as our own beliefs.

What no one mentioned is that all the girls who succeeded in destroying their own mind and personality would likely end up very unhappy. Eating fish 5 times a week because he likes it, even though she doesn't. Going to the born-again church services every night because he wants to, even though she had another religion, or none at all. Having the number of kids he wants, living where he wants, socializing with whomever he wants, doing what he wants when he wants.

No thanks.

For decades now the Democratic advisors have been telling the Democrats to take the girls' role. Bill Clinton: you must be the girl. Have no real belief or thought. Say whatever the tough mean demanding "boys" (Repubs) want to hear, and maybe they will like you. Gore: be nice, don't be too strong on anything, stay away from the bad boys (Clinton) who might hurt your reputation. Kerry: be pretty, act nice, don't hurt anyone's feelings, watch your manners.

The Democratic Party needs to burn its bra, break loose, commit to hard work, honesty, integrity, and see if they can begin to make a real contribution to this country. After all, if we wanted a bunch of brain-dead politicians, we would have voted Republican.

[cadabra]

William Greider in his 1992 book, Who Will Tell the People, stated:

"American democracy is in much deeper trouble than most people wish to a knowledge. Behind the reassuring facade, the regular election contests and so forth, the substantive meaning of self-government has been hollowed out. What exists behind the formal shell is a systematic breakdown of the shared civic values we call democracy."

"Citizens are cut out of the politics surrounding the most important governing questions. The representative system has undergone a grotesque distortion of its original purpose. The connective tissue that in different ways once likened ordinary people to governing "political parties, the media, the secondary mediating institutions"no longer function reliably."

"At the highest levels of government, the power to decide things has gravitated from the many to the few. Governing elites tend to their own self-interest but, even when their intentions are broadly public spirited, the result is generally the same: The people are missing from the process of self-government and government itself suffers from the loss. The mutual understanding between citizens and government necessary for genuine democracy is now deformed or neglected. Democratic expectations are now confined and debilitated by the new power relationships that surround government and are buried in the everyday context of the nation"s politics"tacit understandings that determine who has political power and who doesn"t."

What the "People" don't know is that irrespective of whether Democrats or Republicans are elected, the power structure will remain unchanged.

He details how special interests dominate policy making, and the interests of the people overall count for very little.

[DrenchedOtter]

It amazes me that some Democrats think if they just say "the Republicans stink" often enough, people will believe that the Democrats would do any better. You need to give the people some reason to vote for you ... I don't agree it has to be something earth-shaking like universal health care, it may be more effective if it's something small and clearly achievable, like, I don't know, making sure our bridges are safe. But it has to be something, otherwise people will just shrug their shoulders and vote for the devil they know, and we'll get another Republican in the White House.

[fedupwiththis]

You people seem to think we elect "Leaders". Quit simply put, we don't. We elect REPRESENTATIVES. It is our job to set the agenda, to declare the issues and point the way. Politicians will never do that. Right now they are kowtowing to the corporatist and radical religious right because WE LET THEM SET THE AGENDA. Until they see that we will rally to their aide when the paid propagandists in the traditional media attack and the hit groups go on the attack they will always play it "safe". In other words their way (the corporatists and the wingnutz).

[angryhumanist]

"Democrats need to stop tinkering around the edges and make a real argument to the American people for big change." Absolutely! I am *praying* there are many more completely disheartened, life-long Democrats out there (like me), who will come together and wrest control away from tinkerers (to be kind) like Sen. Clinton.

[DrPaulProteus]

Democrats would change their tune quick if their base actually demanded something of them and threatened to withhold their votes unless and until they get something in return.

[oafishcad]

Really? Do you think for a minute a gay person or racial minority with more than 2 brain cells would ever vote GOP with the way they're viewed by Republicans? If we had a multi party system with proportional representation, then we'd have a decent government, now we get pablum and make the rich richer government.

[Herrington]

The Republican smear machine has shut us down. If we say nothing at all, they will find nothing to spin and decry. The message has been titled to the feel good or feel bad sound bite instead of substantive debate and detailed proposal. The Democrats, in playing on the home field of the Republicans, are giving up the advantage that they have. And that advantage is that the agenda of the right will not stand the light of day, never has.

When you boil the political debate down to "they suck and we don"t" because you believe the electorate to be a bunch of brooding morons, you surrender the proposition that they might or could be more than that. The Republicans depend on a nation of brooding morons, therefore, changing the way we view the electorate is the key to a future in which the Republicans do not dominate the public discourse with their horse shit.

The Democrats seeming short term wisdom of playing it safe fits the Republican long term strategy like a glove. Keep the people disaffected with distractions, turn off attack ads and mind numbing platitudes and they will continue to elect based on personalities rather than policies, a Republican dream electorate. In order to change that future of the Republican"s making, and tilt the political landscape back to the rational, Democrats need to at least begin to dabble with raising the intellectual bar of campaigns. I mean really, you can combine sound bites with detailed expository messages.

Instead of surrendering the assumptions to the Republicans, namely that market magic will take care of things, that desegregation is segregation, that liberals are fascists, that globalization will pay off with cheaper products for Americans who earn less, that we need to fight them there so we don"t have to fight them here, Democrats need to attack the assumptions. If you can create questions, the answers will be received. Otherwise, policy debate has more the quality of a lecture than a solution.

[Boadicea]

I'm getting fed up with the way that Democrats continue to label each other as being without backbone when they disagree on campaign strategy. Backbone has nothing to do with it. Hillary Clinton, for all her flaws, is full of backbone, but no one would say that she's been bold and specific about the issues. On the contrary, she's leading in the polls precisely because she hasn't been specific or bold.

Because we are frustrated that so many people in our country don't agree with our agenda is no reason to label each other as being without backbone. Frankly, if bold, progressive ideas were really what would prevail, Dennis Kucinich would be way out in front. He's not. Nor is Ron Paul.

And as for FDR, I'm not so sure that he was as radical and specific in his campaign rhetoric as he was in his policies.

The thing that hands victory to the Republicans is this constant calling each other spineless over something as irrelevant as campaign rhetoric. Republicans just have to sit back and remain silent.

[DrPaulProteus]

This is true to a point. The Democrats do have backbone, and plenty of it. They stand up mightily and resist doing what the American people want them to do.

Americans by and large want universal health care in some form. They want more care taken of the environment. They want regulatory agencies with teeth who can watch out for them against corporate power and corruption. They want us out of Iraq, and a foreign policy that has nothing to do with imperial ambition and stoking the fires of Islamic extremism that may one day come back to wreak more havoc and destruction. Democrats have the backbone to fight US, the American people.

"Bold, progressive ideas" don't prevail partly because it goes against the media's interests to give them coverage, but also because Democrats don't make it a matter of policy to espouse them as core ideals, and educate the American people about them and how implementation of those ideas will help them on a visceral, daily level. Kucinich is marginalized because his own party keeps him on the fringes by not following his lead on many great ideas. Most voters don't pay attention until the election nears, by that time, the Kuciniches and the like are long gone, and their ideas forgotten.

In the meantime, the base has picked a candidate based on "electability", not ideals, and that's how you get puff pastry, unacceptable candidates like John Kerry. No one I knew liked John Kerry, they just didn't like Bush. They disliked Kerry because he offered nothing, no vision, no bold ideas. They voted for him anyway.

[nippersdad]

A very incisive post. Thank you!

[Uselessboy]

Just because you don't hear Republicans doesn't mean they're not messaging 5-10 times as much as Democrats. Between direct mail and the fundamentalist world there's a huge amount of push that never shows out in the mainstream.

What's their thinktank advantage these days, 50:1 or so? They're mostly about message and political strategy, not so much about problem solving.

Give the Republicans credit, they've gotten the majority of Americans to vote against their interests for 30 years.

Heck they started by mobilizing the New Dealers to repeal the New Deal. Quite a neat trick for people who originally lived through the poverty those programs helped end.

[tiggersthotfulspot]

The mistake is assuming that the average Democratic Party candidate is missing "backbone". What if they actually don't give a crap about fighting for "the ordinary American"?

At some point you have to start looking at the RESULTS (and the votes) rather than projecting what you WISH Democrats were.

A lot of Democrats are beholden to the same wealthy interests as their GOP counterparts. They go through the same revolving doors, so you end up with Kissinger-McClarty. Hell, Hillary even prays together with all the wingers (see Mother Jones magazine).

The faulty premise is that in order to change the Democratic Party you don't have to totally replace those people and the anti-democratic institutional flaws that put them there to begin with.

[belikejeanvaljean]

There are more disenchanted Republicans than the media lets on. If the Dems would promote candidates who take strong positions on issues - such as ignored Bill Richardson who has been saying all along that we need to bring ALL the troops in Iraq home NOW - I can guarantee that they would pull in voters from both parties.

As it is now, the Democratic Party pushes generic candidates like Hillary, whose stands on issues change with the wind, whose speeches sound pretty but commit to little.
Why should the Democratic base get fired up for someone like that? Why should GOP'ers switch parties in the voting booth when all the candidates are so similar?

[Miamiman]

I am a Republican based in Miami. I voted for Bush twice (Gore and Kerry - C'mon i sthis the best you got)..

I am VERY upset at how the Bush administration has handled many things including Iraq. After 9/11, we had the world aligned with the U.S. and we let that get away. We could have globally changed the world and started eradicating the muslim extremist with the help of our allies. What a missed opportubity!

However, as I look the see how we can do better, the Democratic candidates right now are not very talented. Obama is young with not much experience. Hillary is very polarizing and has the gall to say she is the most experienced for the White House? Perhaps the best choice is Richardson, but he will never make it that far.

The Republican's are a mess too. Mc Cain is the best amonst them but like Richardson will not get too far.

Right now I have no idea who to vote for.

[mommadona]

GEE, THANKS HEAPS FOR NOT DOING YOUR HOMEWORK BEFORE VOTING THE VILLAGE IDIOT IN...

But...if you voted for him TWICE....dude, you owe my Marine Vet kid a BIG apology.

[oafishcad]

Gore and Kerry were both better than Bush-as evidenced by the mess he's made of Iraq, Afgahnistan, the environment, worker safety, consumer safety, Job loss to China, huge ballooning of the debt, Politicizing of every single cabinet post, the USA torturing people!!!!!, allowing people to be rounded up on just the say so of the executive branch with no opportunity to prove their innocence, etc., etc., etc. Bush was NEVER qualified to be President. NEVER. Anyone who ever voted for this dim bulb was either not paying attention or fooling themself. That the GOP ever picked the schoolyard bully for their candidate should stand as a badge of shame forever. There must be at least one GOPer who could do the job. Though none of those running are it.

[Andydp]

Thanks. That's about how I feel. I voted for W once then for the loser the second time. I voted becasue I saw this Administration trying to put the US Constitution in a shredder. That's not what I spent 28 years in the Army for.
This administration eloquently showed you cannot hire people based solely on their party and religious alliances. Competence must also be a factor. This Administration demonstrated to all of us what happens when incompetents are given power. (Brown and Gonzales come to mind)
Not one of the candidates on either side has made me take notice. Hillary (my Senator here in NYS) is way too polarizing. Obama is saying a lot of the right things but again, he's very inexperienced - (Oh wait so are VP Cheney and Rumsfeld...)
I'll reserve my judgement for later.

[Uselessboy]

Elections are like marriages, you get the whole family.

The Republican family has run just about everything for the last few years, and everything is falling apart.

When the Dems ran everything, we climbed out of the Great Depression, won a world war and built a global middle class afterwards. Heck the last time we ran the White House we had a balanced budget heading toward repaying the national debt, and a growing economy--which did very very well for the rich who think the Republicans are their only hope.

That's got to tell you something.

[SpencerCat]

The Democrats need to grow more than a backbone. I have had it with the WIMPS in Congress. We need a bold leader. And I don't see any out there. However, Obama is starting to ramp up his rhetoric - let's see what he says in his speech today.

As for the rest of the Democrats...yawn. Business as usual. Just as bad as the Republicans at this point. Who will stop this rogue Administration? Anyone?

[researcher]

I have often wondered, "why the huge difference in mentality between the neo con far right and the liberal far left"? The neo con is more patriotic and nationalistic even to the point of warlike and usually much more about religious dogma (evangel) rather than spiritual in their beliefs.

The neo con is much more in tune with capitalism (greed is good) rather than socialism (we the people) or stated another way the neo con is much more about "me" rather than about "we" as humans not just Americans. Michael Moore (liberal) stated it best when he stated we Americans have to be much more about "we" rather than "me" when it comes to health care.

I have heard neo cons say such things as "so what if America has 50 million people without health insurance they can go to the emergency room if they get too sick" and "I am proud that we are fighting in Iraq."

There is a huge difference in the level of consciousness between the neo con and the liberal. An interesting comparison of these two levels of mental development is the movie "The Planet of the Apes."

One group (the apes) were much more aggressive and warlike and the other (the chimps) were more concerned with relationships and learning about the subspecies humans and showed much more compassion towards others. This has nothing to do with intellectual abilities this aspect is genetic; a neo con like the atheist Hitchens can be very smart (genetic) but it suggests a difference in spiritual development.

There is tremendous overlap between neo cons and liberals in consciousness development so the lines are blurred.

You have to admit both sides view the world with a different set of eyes and neither understands the other"s point of view.

[Uselessboy]

But the left understands the right perfectly. They are taking it over on behalf of the richest few in the world. Everything they do is consistent with that, and with destroying all the systems of justice and rationality that would defend the weak and the masses against the strongest few. That's why everything about them is fear and punishment and eternal revenge.

There is nothing on earth easier to understand than a neocon. People have been fighting and preaching against that mentality since AD 33 and really a thousand years earlier.

[Squirtapotamus]

What is it that distinguishes a Liberal from a Conservative? What difference is there between progressive and fundamentalist?

I believe the difference is measured by degrees of an emotion called empathy.

Conservatives have little of it. What they do have is reserved for those who look and talk the same.

Liberals have too much of it and their empathy distorts into guilt.

Conservatives know they are right.

Liberals know they've been wronged.

How easy it is for the selfish among us to cast aside truth with one simple excuse, "don't interfere with my way of making money!" It's been the same excuse used throughout human history. There is only one thing a conservative will conserve and that is his privileged way of life.

A liberal, on the other hand, will want to rectify this inequality but in a nice way, not meaning to offend anyone.

Conservatives have no qualms about offending liberals, they react to a liberal in a predictable way: persecution, condemnation and crucifixion. John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Mahatma Gandhi, Abraham Lincoln, William Jefferson Clinton, Jesus, John Lennon, Harvey Milk, Yitzhak Rabin, Galileo Galilei, Theo van Gogh. All of them labeled as "terrorists" by those without a sense of empathy.

[emjay1954]

I haven't read Bai's book, but based on his articles in the NY Times Magazine, he seems only a half step ahead of Judith Miller and Michael Gordon, the Times' Senior Military Stenographers.

Take Bai's article this past Sunday about Giuliani. Read it closely and see how gingerly Bai elides the truth that it was Giuliani's decision to put the city's disaster command center in the World Trade Center.

My disagreement with Bai on the Dems is not because of his assertion that the party must say SOMETHING. It certainly should. The problem is that he seems to think it should say something anodyne and palatable to the Republicans.

[DemosthenesSpoke]

The book is somewhat more nuanced and interesting than the comments he's made. Not sure why that is, but there you go.

I personally enjoyed the book, and I think the central problem is vital: that while the bloggers may disagree tactically with the DLC types, the underlying fact is that most bloggers and pretty much all of the "names" haven't got any underlying ideas, ideals, or ideology... and appear to not even care about it. Sure, there's some discussion of policy, but "big ideas" are treated with distrust, despite the fantastic success of Dems with big ideas in the past.

(Kos came off really bad here, as someone who cares more about the trappings of power than the wise usage of it.)

The problem with the book is that it's mistitled: there is no argument. Nobody's discussing these things, THAT'S the problem.

[ElkoJohn]

well if a candidate chooses to do the typical meally-month "truthyness" then that's on their tab - they shouldn't listen to dumb consultates. Kucinich, Richardson & Ron Paul seem to talk straight about their plans.