Originally published on Facebook Tuesday, November 17th 2009
After about the second chapter of Hillary Clinton's book 'It Takes A Village', I was ready to throw it against a wall. I hate reading books that are so lauded and so apparently controversial that everyone talks about them, only to find out that they appear to be chock full of what, thanks to my personal experience growing up, I would consider to be, well, common sense. It wasn't a bad book and despite what a lot of Republicans will tell you, Mrs. Clinton isn't advocating, at least from what I could see, a governmental program to make up for the idiocy that sometimes passes for parenting in this country (though it wouldn't be the worst idea in the world)-- but what she is saying should be obvious to anyone with half a brain in their head: all adults that know a kid somewhere have the ability to impact that kid in a positive way. Which in turn, can have a positive impact on their upbringing as a whole. The wider theme being, of course, the downturn in ties of community in contemporary America today (something also explored by Robert Putnam in his book Bowling Alone-- another book that someday, maybe, I'll actually get around to reading.
But why am I reading a supposedly ghost-written book by a former First Lady? Well it stems from a long running and now tiresome debate I've been having on and off with one of my friends. He seems to consider Bill Clinton to be one of the great Presidents of the 20th Century, loves his philosophy and thought he did a lot of good for the country. Me being me, I disagreed with that notion, partially to annoy him, but partially because I thought wishy-washy centrism and pretty much 'doing and saying whatever you have to do to get elected' didn't really constitute a philosophy in my book. It may be good politics- at least it was in the 1990s, but it really wasn't a philosophy.
However, after some leg-work on the internet, I've decided to do the correct thing and offer a heartfelt 'mea culpa' for my argument:
I was wrong. (Hope you're happy, Colin.)
Almost. First of all, we gotta ask: what makes a philosophy a philosophy? Sure, I could make up Tomism right now, here at my computer that calls for everyone to read too many books and wear humorous t-shirts that say things like 'I'm What Willis Was Talking About' every Wednesday, but unless Tomism attracts something of a following, it's not much of a philosophy is it?
Where I went wrong with Bill Clinton was my usual mistake. I tend to judge politicians like I judge athletes- principles and tired, moribund ideologies don't mean a damn thing to me. It's how much you can get done and how effective you are at doing it that matter. It isn't just the fact that you've won an election that counts in my book- it's how you play the game. I confuse politics with philosophy- sometimes the two meet, sometimes they don't. And in the case of Bill Clinton, they manage to both at the same time, which makes him a somewhat unique figure in American history.
The fact is that Bill Clinton was a leading figure in the so-called 'New Democrats' movement that emerged in the early 90s and is represented by a variety of organizations, but chiefly by the Democratic Leadership Council or DLC. The search for a so called 'third way' on the part of the left was interestingly mirrored somewhat by the British Labour Party at the time- coming off a 1984 election manifesto that was called 'the longest suicide note in history' and somehow losing the 1992 elections to John Major and the Tories- again- both the United States and the UK were ripe for something new.
Whether both countries got something new is a point worth debating. Blair eventually emerged to lead the Labour Party to victory in 1997. (I'll let any of my British relatives who happen to read this and want to leave a caustic comment or two do so at the end.) And Bill Clinton took the Presidency in 1992. Surely, we can point to both victories as a triumph for the so-called 'third way' that 'the Left' had been seeking for a few electoral cycles.
So, I'll agree- reluctantly- and only almost- that Bill Clinton and the DLC crowd may have actually had some philosophical depth.
Where I'll jump off the bus however, is just how effective that philosophy was and just how unique it was in American politics- both at the time and even today. To me, like I said, there's no point in having a philosophy if no one believes in it. And it's doubly worse with the so-called 'third way' crowd because the positions they espoused were essentially a centrist set of Republican talking points, designed to be as inoffensive as possible to the most voters. No less an authority as wikipedia describes New Democrats as being identified with center right social positions and espousing neoliberal fiscal values.
Ah, so essentially, they're moderate Republicans?
Now, because I'm a good little scholar, I did some more digging and actually got on the DLC website to find a keynote address then Governor Bill Clinton gave to the DLC Conference in 1991. And lo and behold, the same basic things kept showing up: personal responsibility instead of government handouts and yep, neoliberal fiscal values.
So, still moderate Republicans?
The question then becomes this: did a decade of conservatism move the Democrats or did they move themselves? And if it was conservatism that moved the Democrats, then it represents more a triumph for Reagen and company than for Clinton and all his merry men. Personally, I don't want a party that lets itself be ideologically moved by the opposite end of the spectrum. I don't want a party that thinks that the secret to success is to move towards their opposition and try and come up with a set of talking points that just about nobody can get offended by.
Such strategy is weak. Such philosophy has the efficacy of a wet piece of toilet paper. My fifth grade teacher had a banner that ran along his wall- it said 'What is right is not always popular and what is popular is not always right.' For some reason, I've never forgotten that- and it could not be more true when it comes to the philosophical crudity of the proponents of the 'Third Way.' Weak populism was never the answer to the problems the left was facing- the problem was what to do when it had become apparent that socialism and communism were no longer the answer. With the New Deal Coalition ascendant in the 40s, 50s and 60s, Conservatives sat down and had decades of brutal ideological fighting about what it meant to be a Conservative. The Left, to date, has never done anything like that. There is a government solution to every problem out there. The social safety net made need reform, but it'll still be there are the end of the day-- even as Republicans and Conservatives offer us nanny-statism that wants to sit in our closet and make sure we're not, god forbid, having anal sex with anyone, for example- Democrats and Liberals still think that at the end of the day, the government knows best.
The problem I have with this is that it's a dead idea it's been dead for 20 years now when the people of Eastern Europe stood up and said 'enough' to state planning and autocracy, enough to bloated government and enough to the excesses of the Left. What does it mean to be a Liberal (excuse me, 'Progressive') these days when both socialism, communism and increasingly capitalism are either on the dung heap of history or heading there quickly?
I think Clintonian Populism proved to be a disaster for the Democratic Party. His philandering aside- he was a competent President, which is high praise, coming from me, because Democrats and Republicans don't impress me that much. Were it not for a blowjob, he might have been able to put his stamp on the country, ideologically speaking that could have avoided the final immolation of the Conservative movement that happened under Bush The Younger-- but at the end of the day, it seems that the idea of 'doing and saying whatever people will agree with so you can get elected' became the governing modus operandi of the Democratic Party. And voters saw through it- it took Howard Dean of all people to move the Democratic Party back to where any sane political party in any country should be- working every corner of the country for every vote they can get. I applaud him for that, even if I don't often agree with the Democratic Party itself.
To me, there's no point in running for office unless you're going to offend somebody. The problem is this age of hyper-partisanism that we have in America today is that people don't listen to each other. Even as there's no point in running for office unless somebody is going to be offended, there's no point in being offended unless you listen to what the other person has to say. Differences are important- especially between political parties. And politicians shouldn't be afraid to revel in those differences!
The problem with the two parties in America today is that we are increasingly resembling Mexico from 20 years ago. Soft corporatism, but with two parties instead of one. No seriously- stop and think about it. How effective is the government at tackling the problems of America today? Does anyone out there really think we are going to get health care reform? Reform of entitlements we can no longer afford in their current form? Republicans and Democrats compete every electoral cycle to see who can have the slickest media message. That is what wins elections in America today. It's not how much you can do or get done- it's how the Fourth Estate portrays you to the voters that matters.
Our democracy becomes more stagnant with each passing day. Voters matter less and less and money matters more and more. The disconnect between Washington and the average voter out here in the boonies could not be greater. The problem is that voters like you and me have been convinced that we don't matter, so we don't care. Which is why we don't vote nearly enough in this country.
The Republicans promise us small government, low taxes and less governmental interferences, but spend the last Republican administration expanding government, blowing a surplus so we'll have to raise taxes and trying to fit the government into everyone's bedroom- or worse, everyone's uterus.
The Democrats promise us all kinds of things so we'll write them checks to fund their campaigns. And then deliver on nothing. Nothing.
And at the end of the day, Bill Clinton presided over eight years of economic growth and didn't fuck the country up beyond repair. I'll call that competent. And I will say that moving to the center and blurring the differences between the parties in search for the elusive 'third way' did help him win an election or two. But blurring those lines between the parties did nothing to stop the stagnation of our democracy, it in fact contributed greatly to it.
So I'll say mea culpa again. He did have a philosophy.
Just not a very good one.
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