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It's late by Internet time, but I would like to comment on a recent post by Neil Buchanan on the Dorf on Law blog.  Buchanan argues that "conservatives have gone off the rails by adopting extreme anti-government positions."  He writes: "Few would doubt that there is a principled conservative position that falls well short of the Tea Partiers' 'Read the Constitution!' extremism. It is unfortunately true, however, that the leaders of the Republican Party, and of the conservative movement (to the extent that those two groups differ), seem to be embracing -- not at all secretly, and very widely -- [these] positions."  He worries that "there are so few voices on the right who are taking less radical positions at odds with the Republican Congressional leadership."  And he concludes: "I know that it must be difficult to be a principled, non-Tea Party conservative these days. I could imagine (in a far different world) finding that the party I support has suddenly become very extreme, putting me in the position of wondering how to respond. Today, however, we are not seeing such insanity on my side of the field."  The discussion incorporates by reference other discussions held at the Dorf on Law blog on this topic.  One commenter on the instant post argues that "conservatives talk more radically (imo), because they see themselves defending a beach-head (society against government). Liberals are more pragmatic, because they see a certain harmony -- not conflict -- between the public and private sectors."

I agree that claims of equivalency -- hey, there are left-wing wackos just like there are right-wing wackos -- can be false or misleading if they are not deeper.  One swallow does not a summer make, and if one believes that there are more extremist voices on the right today than on the left, one ought to say so.  (Note that this is a historical statement, and one might well believe this without believing that it has anything to do with the general characteristics of the left or right; there may have been other periods when there were more, and more influential, left-wing extremists.)  I happen to believe that, although I am certainly a product of my own perspective.  But I also think this kind of argument -- we liberals are reasonable, pragmatic folks; you conservatives have been taken over by crazies -- can be overdone.

For one thing, I think there is a tendency in this post, and in some of the attendant commentary, to treat Republicans, conservatives, and "the right" as a continuous category, while focusing mainly on Democrats and liberals and omitting the "left."  That brings more ideological extremists into the general category of "conservatives" and "Republicans," while ruling out some of the ideological extremists on the left.  For another, it overlooks the important fact that Republicans are currently in the minority.  Groups that are not governing tend to skew toward ideological purity; groups that are governing tend to skew toward pragmatism, for more (the duties of governing) and less (corruption or interest-group capture) admirable reasons.  

Third, is it really so hard to identify Democrats, or Democratic constituencies, that are extreme, depending on how you define that word?  Let me define it here as groups or individuals that, in keeping with the same populist sentiments that ostensibly fuel the Tea Party movement, take a position that is dramatically more populist and divisive, and more focused on the idea that the leaders at the top have betrayed the trust of the "real people," than do those in the mainstream.  To that one might add particular individuals who take an idiosyncratic, sometimes extreme, and non-mainstream view on some or many issues.  

By that definition, there certainly are Democrats who have met or meet this description in modern politics.  At the presidential level, Al Gore ran a populist campaign organized around the trope of "the people versus the powerful," rhetoric that would not be out of place at a Tea Party rally.  Bob Shrum has pursued an angrily populist theme to a successful (except electorally, of course) career as an elite Democratic political strategist.  If we adopt the same capacious view of the left that Buchanan does of the right, then we must include Ralph Nader, whose support by some Democrats certainly ate away at the chances of Democratic political victory in prior elections.  John Edwards, now in disgrace but once a serious figure in his party, took populist positions and attempted to move his party in that direction; so, for a time, did Howard Dean.  Hillary Clinton's campaign sometimes skewed in this direction.  And none of this yet includes those left-leaning figures who are frequent targets of mockery on the right (and by some of us on the left), many of whom have safe seats in the House and a loud, although not necessarily influential, voice within their party.  Maxine Waters is an excellent example.  Some of these figures have not always governed as extremely as they talk, but that's not because they're deep-seated philosophical pragmatists; often, it's because they are traditional self-dealing machine politicians.  But some of those figures have pursued chimerical projects quite vocally: they sought to refight the 2000 and 2004 elections for years on conspiratorial grounds, just as a few Republicans insisted on doing the same after 2008.  Nor does it include the MoveOn, DailyKos, etc. crowd, which seems a striking omission given the usual focus on the extremist right-wing echo chamber.  

None of this is to say that these figures are as powerful as Buchanan thinks the Tea Party constituency is right now on the right (although it's far from clear he's correct about that).  I, too, reject claims of false equivalency, and I think it is true that the Republican leadership has given a good deal of credence and encouragement -- too much credence and encouragement -- to the less responsible voices on its side of the aisle, and done too little to support what I would consider more reasonable voices.  But I don't reject all claims that there are parallels on both the left and the right.  And I certainly am inclined to reject the view that liberals and progressives and the left are just smarter and more reasonable.  Obviously, given my own priors, I am more inclined to that view than someone on the right would be, and I do think some of the unreasonable voices on the right have gotten further than they deserve to, in part because of the willing cooperation of some of the party leadership.  But I question the long-term value of these arguments, either as a matter of accuracy or as a matter of strategy.  No one wins a political argument by asserting that he and his side are just smarter and the other side are all a bunch of idiots.

If there is an imbalance here, we would be better off asking why it exists at a more structural level.  Why has populism been less successful for those on the left who espouse it than for those on the right?  As someone who is generally anti-populist, I'm grateful for this fact, but it's still worth asking why, not least because it's a cause of dissatisfaction for many progressives, who in fact raise many of the complaints raised by those on the right: that their party has abandoned the true cause of liberalism.  And how much does this have to do with the different structures of party politics for each party?  Does this have to do with the inherent reasonableness of one side or the inherent unreasonableness of the other, or does it have more to do with how their electoral structures are set up?  I doubt that left populism and extremism are as widespread in the United States as right populism and extremism; but it may also be that the Democratic Party's politics are, well, less democratic.               

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