Here's why Elizabeth Warren should be Senator

Elizabeth Warren explains why society matters.



This partial transcript comes from Steve Benen.

Warren, after explaining some of the reasons for the nation’s deep fiscal hole, pointed to a more sensible approach to economic policy in general. “I hear all this, you know, ‘Well, this is class warfare, this is whatever,’” she said. “No. There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody.

“You built a factory out there? Good for you. But I want to be clear: you moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for; you hired workers the rest of us paid to educate; you were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn’t have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory, and hire someone to protect against this, because of the work the rest of us did.

“Now look, you built a factory and it turned into something terrific, or a great idea? God bless. Keep a big hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along.”

Republicans don't want bipartisanship. They want control

Ed Kilgore at The Democratic Strategist has the story.

Obama's support as measured by the polls has been unusually high. It has included a large percentage of the Republican voters. The recent drops in his ratings recently have all come from Republican voers in spite to their continued support for Obama's policy goals. There is discussion among Democrats that Obama needs to give up on bipartisanship, Ed concludes, however, that Obama's long term goals will require that he maintains a significant degree of support among Republicans.

Ed, of course, has been a long-time supporter of the Democratic Leadership Council, which has existed to promote bipartisanship and making Progressives more like Conservatives. While his bias is clear here, Ed is also extremely knowledgeable and should certainly be considered in the debate.

Jim Hightower on Texas Progressivism

Bill Sher from Campaign for America's Future took the opportunity at this weekend's Netroots Nation convention in Austin to interview Jim Hightower. Questions: 1) Is blogging changing Texas politics? 2) What impact is the Obama campaign having on Texas politics? 3) Is Obama Progressive?

As someone who has lived in Texas for 62 years I'd say that Jim Hightower throughly understands the politics of this state. Here's the interview.



Side note: There are some good video interviews coming from Netroots Nation, especially on Talking Points Memo. It looks like video reports is going to be the next big wave in progressive political blogging.

People have figured out how to actually record the interview and put it up on the Internet. My guess is that the next advance is going to be packaging the videos so that people know where to find them. Crooks and Liars has long been a good place to go for videos, but you never know what to expect to find there. Talking Points Memo is now using its main site to drive traffic to its videos, and it has set up a special category for videos like it has TPM Muckraker and TPM Cafe. There is a possibility of a big synergy there.

Campaign for America's Future has not gotten there yet. Each video there is a one - off. The website doesn't have the unity of direction that Josh Marshall has given Talking Points Memo.

Progressives effecting media narrative of candidates but not media view of policy.

This is an interesting observation. dday writing at Digby's Hullabaloo point out how the media narrative on the Republician candidates has become pretty much the same narrative that progressives have been pushing since the various candidates for nomination began campaigning. Here's the transcript that he published as his example:

BLITZER: It wasn't exactly a shocker today, Jack, that Fred Thompson announced he's dropping out of this race. But let's take a look at the political fallout.

Among the Republicans, who gains, who loses?

CAFFERTY: Well, if he hadn't announced it, I'm not sure anybody would have noticed.

(LAUGHTER)

CAFFERTY: I mean I -- you know, it's like he hasn't -- he's only been here what -- you know, he wasn't that interested in campaigning. I think he would have liked it if somebody would have said you can be president. But he didn't want to work to get the job. And I'm not sure it means a heck of a lot for anybody. Somebody said that he might be trying to position himself to be vice president. He'll deny that.

BORGER: ...So watch for Mitt Romney, who is also running as a social conservative, to go after those six or seven Thompson voters that are out there.

(LAUGHTER)

BORGER: And he'll try -- he'll try and get them.

TOOBIN: You know, Wolf, you have to go all the way back to Rudolph Giuliani to find a campaign that has been singularly as unsuccessful as Fred Thompson's has been.

(LAUGHTER)

BORGER: That far back?

TOOBIN: You know, I just don't think it will have any impact at all, his departure...

BLITZER: Well, it could have a...

TOOBIN: ...just as his arrival didn't.

BORGER: You know...

BLITZER: It could have an impact in new episodes of "Law and Order," though.

BORGER: It could. It could. But, you know, this was such an interesting candidacy. It was created by the Republican establishment in Washington, who felt that they needed a new horse. They needed someone else. So they created this. They took a guy who was television. They said let's turn him into a presidential candidate. He will clearly appeal to the American public. And it totally flopped [...]

TOOBIN: That was the ultimate problem.

CAFFERTY: Take a look at all the other ideas the Republican establishment in Washington has had for the last seven years.

(LAUGHTER)

CAFFERTY: It's no surprise to me the Fred Thompson thing didn't go anywhere.

BLITZER: I can't tell you how many people in that Republican establishment -- especially here in Washington, the beltway, you know, the Republican lobbyists...

BORGER: Right.

BLITZER: ...the so-called elite, when they were even thinking of getting him in, they said this is the new Ronald Reagan. He's an actor.

CAFFERTY: Yes.

BLITZER: He's media-genic. He's powerful. And he's really going to turn things around.

(CROSSTALK) CAFFERTY: If you want to look at the definition of irrelevant, look up the Republican establishment in Washington, D.C.

BORGER: Right.

CAFFERTY: That's irrelevant.

(LAUGHTER)

TOOBIN: Fred Thompson definitely was the tallest candidate.

BORGER: Right.

(LAUGHTER)

BORGER: But, you know, it's so...

CAFFERTY: And the baldest.

BORGER: ...it's so arrogant, though, you know, to think that you can be anointed in Washington and you're pretty good on television and you look pretty good and you -- and you have great name recognition because you're in "Law and Order," and, gee, I can then become president.

And I think they talked him into it. And I think they said to him, you know, you don't have to work that hard.

(LAUGHTER)

BORGER: You can actually just get this job, get in late, let the public take a look at you. You're different. You're going to win. It didn't work out that way.

CAFFERTY: He bought that part about not having to work very hard. He liked that part.

(LAUGHTER)

CAFFERTY: You can sit in the trailer until it's time for your close-up, Fred.

(LAUGHTER)

[dday's comment on the transcript.] It has the usual Village cattiness, but these are themes that progressives pushed from the moment Thompson entered the race. He's lazy, he's an actor who wants to play the role of the President, he was pushed upon people by the establishment. And this is true across the line: Romney's an insincere flip-flopper, Rudy's a homicidal maniac, Huckabee's a Jesus freak, McCain wants to bomb the whole world (this narrative took hold until McCain dropped off the map and we stopped pressuring him), etc.

Now, we're aided by a really terrible slate of candidates. But it's clear that progressives have shot these narratives into the media bloodstream. Initially, Thompson was the guy you could smell the Aqua Velva on, and Romney was a guy who has shoulders on which you can land a 747. I really think the movement is maturing and deserves a lot of credit.

dday then goes on to point out that this is only the media narrative, and not a set of policy arguments. Progressive policy arguments have not yet taken root in the media, so they are still reported as "extremist." (My word, not dday's.)

I suspect that this is a function of two factors. First, the Progressive Movement is very new, and still finding its way. There are not yet a lot of media-accepted spokespersons the media can quickly call on for "the other side of the issue." That is purely a matter of time and getting the right names onto TV Producer's and reporter's Rolodexes. Second, and probably more significant, the Republican candidates are clearly a poor bunch who demand explanation, and there is no entrenched explanation that has to be overcome. Since each of the candidates is working hard to establish an image nationally, it is relatively easy to point to the candidate himself and supply a reasonable but alternative image.

Most of the planks on the Progressive agenda do not have clear faces like the Republican candidates do. What is the "face" of a broken healthcare system? It is difficult to point to a clear image, so the no longer accurate entrenched existing ideas about the "greatest health care system in the world" is much more difficult to overcome. The facts no longer support that entrenched idea, but the insurance companies have a vested interest in maintaining it and they spend a lot of money on both advertising and lobbying to do exactly that.

It's no surprise, then, that the newly recreated progressive movement has made a lot less progress on getting the media to accept progressive policies as mainstream than they have in getting the media to accept the Progressive narratives on the Republican candidates for President. Both are true, both are really mainstream, but the media investment in the older policy prescriptions is a lot more entrenched deeper than are the images of the current crop of Republican candidates for nomination as President.

That would account for the slower adoption by the media of progressive prescriptions. It shouldn't take too long to bring the media into line, though. A majority of the American public is already there, and the media is caught between a large and growing portion of their public on the one side and the progressive movement on the other, while the reality of the economy is clearly closer to that described by the Progressives than that described by the conservatives. The media will be forced into line. It's just going to take more time and effort.

There is no left-wing, right-wing or center, just Progressives and Authoritarians

George Lakoff gets it (mostly) right. The idea that there are political left-wingers, political right-winters and political centrists is a fiction, created by People who do not understand people or politics. The apparent linear spectrum is a creation of ignorant people who want unrelated things to be related.

There are two systems of values and modes of thought -- call them progressive and conservative (or nurturant and strict, as I have). There are total progressives, who use a progressive mode of thought on all issues. And total conservatives. And there are lots of folks who are what I've called "biconceptuals": progressive on certain issue areas and conservative on others. But they don't form a linear scale. They are all over the place: progressive on domestic policy, conservative on foreign policy; conservative on economic policy, progressive on foreign policy and social issues; conservative on religion, but progressive on social issues and foreign policy; and on and on. No linear scale. No single set of values defining a "center." Indeed many of such folks are not moderate in their views; they can be quite passionate about both their progressive and conservative views. [Snip]

Get rid of the very idea of the right and the left and the center. American ideas are fundamentally progressive ideas -- the ideas this country was founded on and that carry forth that spirit. Progressives care about people and the earth, and act with responsibility and strength on that care.

The progressive view of government is simple. Progressive government has two aspects: protection and empowerment. Protection is far more than the military, police, and fire departments. It includes consumer protection, worker protection, environmental protection, public health, food and drug safety; social security, and other safety nets. It also includes protection from the government itself, and hence a balance of powers, openness, fundamental rights, and so on.

Empowerment include roads and bridges; public education; government-developed communications like the internet and satellite communications systems; the banking system; the SEC and institutions that make a stock market possible, and the court system, mostly about contracts and corporate law. Progressive government makes business possible. No one makes any money in this country without the progressive empowerment by government. A progressive foreign policy is not based solely, or even mainly, on the state -- about the "national interest" defined as our military strength and GDP. Progressive foreign policy focuses on individual people's interests as well as national interests: on poverty, disease, refugees, education, women's and children's issues, public health, and so on.

These are simply American values. The progressive movement is a patriotic American movement. People who call themselves "centrists" share progressive views on important issue areas, but have conservative views on other major issue areas. The areas vary from person to person. There is no single moral perspective, no single set of agreed upon issues.

I disagree with Lakoff that there are progressives and conservatives. There are actually progressives and authoritarians. Progressives want to empower other people. Authoritarians, operating from fear of those who are different from them or who are not under their power, want to control and tyrannize others.

People who cannot understand comedy are authoritarians. Authoritarians cannot accept the ambiguity that is the bedrock of good comedy. They base their decisions and actions on fear of being wrong or of losing something, or on fear that someone else will get something they don't have. Authoritarians demand certainty and control of those near them. That's why the authoritarians like Tom DeLay have removed the progressive Republicans from their Party.

We Democrats have strayed too far from Progressivism. Instead of fear, progressivism is based on respect for others, curiosity regarding the unknown and a tolerence for ambiguity (assuming that it will be resolved in its own time.) It is time to return to the roots of America.

Only a minority of Americans hold conservative beliefs

The majority of Americans hold progressive views. From "Our future":

This report by the Campaign for America’s Future and Media Matters for America shows that in study after study, solid majorities of Americans take progressive stands on a full spectrum of issues, from bread-and-butter economics to the so-called “values” issues where conservatives claim preeminence.

So go read the report (.pdf)