Frankly My Dear, We Are All Losers In This Apocalypse

One of an historian's greatest contributions to society has to be the ability to see the big picture. We start with oftentimes unrelated primary source documents and weave them into connecting prose. Like beads strung onto a string, these primary documents become more than the sum of their parts in historical analysis, revealing clues about the past to make a significant (sometimes even beautiful) picture about where we are. With enough empirical data, an historian can generalize about his or her subject. For instance, that food was a much higher proportion of a family's budget than rent in 1900 compared to 2000. The researcher, and/or others, makes use of the new data extrapolated from the primary sources to make further generalizations. If this process is repeated enough a narrative emerges, describing the world in a particular time and place. During election season it is very easy to get lost in individual races, issues, and events. To get at the big picture of American politics and society it is necessary to seek out narratives that ask the right questions. This essay compares two articles by authors asking those questions.

Thomas Frank is an historian whose works dig deep into the underbelly of American political life often agreeing with John Winger that we are mutants whose ancestors were kicked out of every civilized country on Earth, who thrive on getting over on each other at every social class level. If anyone can give a good narrative on the big picture it is Dr. Frank. His latest article in Salon, We are such losers is something of a reaction and tie-in to Rick Perlstein's latest big picture work The Invisible Bridge, which will have to wait for it's own review from this blog. Frank uses the tool of historical comparison to make his larger point, that liberals fall in love with leaders who claim to be "post-partisan" and project their own values onto that leader. So the American left is continuously let down when those leaders turn out to not share their values. We are losers because we keep hoisting bland, well-meaning conservatives like Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and now Barack Obama into "great man" status and feel betrayed when they do not magically transform into liberal lions once in office. But liberals have always fallen in line behind standard bearers who not strong liberals, from Adlai Stevenson's day right down to presumably Hillary Clinton.

If one tried then to read patterns from Schlesinger's classic The Cycles of American History onto the Carter years to today, you find almost a complete reversal. Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. argued with strong evidence a strong tendency of American politics to rotate from periods of reform to periods of conservatism where the public and institutions swallow the changes and the reformers are spent. While not usually thought of as a reformer, Richard Nixon did in fact bring about some sweeping changes. Notably the Environmental Protection Act that established the EPA and the Occupational Safety and Health Act were major domestic reforms that Nixon deserves at least some credit for enacting. But as Frank points out, Carter brought religion into the White House in a way it had not existed before, along with an almost authoritarian leadership style that saw social problems as simply a complex equation that when solved was also resolved. Popular belief is that deregulation began under Reagan but it was Carter that took the crucial first steps.

Since then, the cycles have been between periods of reactionary attacks on social programs and regressive tax cuts by Republicans, and efforts to close deficits and slow the cuts by Democrats. This reversal makes the supposed conservatives into reformers, much to the detriment of most Americans. And the supposed liberals into conservatives, putting much energy into simply preserving the New Deal. So what Frank points out in his article is that progressives are playing a losing game by backing "antipoliticians" like Carter and Obama. So if the only choices are conservatives and radical authoritarian reactionaries, what are actual liberals supposed to do?

Despair.

That is basically what Don Hazen, editor of AlterNet.org, argues in his look at the big picture.

Apocalypse Now: Seriously, It's Time for a Major Rethink About Liberal and Progressive Politics.

We are losing badly to the corporate state. Here's what we need to do.

Every day, [the entire range of horrendous and growing problems we face as a society and a planet] passes by before my eyes. At AlterNet, there are no issue silos—there is just the open faucet of depressing political information coming and going every hour of every day (with the occasional story of success and inspiration). 

That is pretty gloomy, even to a GH. Hazen skewers much of the supposed liberal's conventional wisdom, that "if people just knew the truth they would vote for real change," and the insanity of continuing to do the same thing when it so rarely works. Elite, highly educated people control much of the apparatus of liberalism and progressivism in this country; people who do not feel the pain Republican budget cuts cause. Hazen does not state it openly, but this apparatus for reform has itself become conservative, with little imagination or new ideas.

 

So, the political system is blocked by out-of-touch conservatives while being wrecked by the opposition reactionaries, even reaching the political system is impossible due to the lobbyists guarding the gates. No money, no access. Meanwhile, the money that does come in for reform efforts is hopelessly diluted between single issue groups. Even the Democratic party is divided into so many parts, each chasing the same small pool of donations and often working at cross-purposes. Hazen also points out that many progressive thinkers believe in technology as a panacea, citing:

[M]y old friend Jerry Mander, formerly a guru at the Public Media Center in San Francisco. Mander is perhaps best known for his somewhat culty, much-loved 1978 anti-technology critique, 4 Arguments For the Elimination of Television. He made the case that problems with television are fundamental to the medium and the technology, and consequently cannot be reformed.

 Facebook and Google are not alternatives to the old-fashioned grind of organizing. Hazen reports that most progressives get their news from these giants, that we are at their mercy. I stand guilty of this as well, it is sad to say but talking to real people, in person, is very hard. But organizing is the only way out, making connections one-on-one, and building a real network instead of a virtual one. As I just said, I am as guilty as worst offender out there. I wish I possessed the social skills and courage to be an organizer. Those people exist right? They cannot all have been co-opted by the corporate world, using their skills simply to con people and make money. There have to be some Norma Raes out there somewhere.

Is the big picture this bad? Can small victories or success in your personal life make these generalizations less meaningful? After all, these articles present the opinion of just two people, albeit smart and wise ones. How do reading these articles make you feel? Resentful? Angry? Inspired to prove them wrong? Or should you just brush the idea that there is anything wrong with the world off and go about your daily life without giving any more thought to the big picture?

It is, after all, up to you.