Legal Commentary

Politics, Populism And Policy

By Big Tent Democrat

Paul Starr writes:

[T]here are good reasons why Obama cannot and should not indulge in a full-bore populism that, in practice, would yield nothing but deadlock and disaster. The Democrats are the party of responsible government, and America needs at least one of those. Rather than play to the crowds and have their programs go down in flames, Democrats need to make progress on the central problems facing the country, and the only way to do that is to make difficult choices that upset some of their own supporters.

This is ahistorical and illogical. Obama has gotten no cooperation whatsoever from Republicans, has faced demagogic attacks from the Right for everything he does and the Dems now face a bleak November, with control of the Congress in jeopardy. And the price of this "non-populism" has been sub-optimal policy.

The strange thing is the Democratic Party has been a populist party in terms of politics throughout its history (sometimes for the worse.) Where does Starr come up with this stuff? Anyway, back in 2006, I argued the inverse of Starr's prescriptions:

FDR governed as a liberal but politicked like a populist. When LBJ rightly and to his everlasting credit removed one of the Dem pillars of paranoia - racism, the GOP co-opted populist racism, added the Jeffersonian notion of government and institutional hatred, throw in a dash of paranoid Red scare, now terrorism scare, and you get political victories.

The lesson of Hofstadter is to embrace liberal governance and understand populist politics. It may sound cynical, but you must get through the door to govern. Lincoln knew this. FDR knew this. Hofstadter knew this. I hope Obama can learn this.

Transformational change requires transformational persuasion. For Dems, this has always meant populism. The moment in time was ripe for someone with the political talents of Obama. But it is just not in him. He is who he is. A Clintonian triangulating "consensus builder." Populism is not something he is inclined to do.

As a result, we have a Presidency of incrementalism. It is ironic that during the 2008 campaign, Obama (for political reasons surely) unfavorably compared Bill Clinton to Ronald Reagan in terms of being a "transformational President."

In fact, Obama has presided over the third term of the Bill Clinton Presidency. He could have been so much more.

Speaking for me only

Full post as published by TalkLeft on May 04, 2010 (boomark / email).