America swings to the Right. The Left loses. How has the Left dug itself into this hole?

Summary: Today we look at one of the defining political trends of our time — America’s movement to the Right. Like most political evolutions in our history, it’s bipartisan. Previous posts have examined how the Right has won. Today and tomorrow we look at how the Left has accomplished this (it didn’t just happen), and how they have responded to this long series of defeats. These are just sketches about vast and complex trends. At the end see links to other posts in this series.

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America has been moving to the Right since roughly 1980. Not in all things. The 1% cares about power and money; as a class it does not care who marries who. The US health care system’s decay, and the Right’s indifference to reform, allowed the Left to pass ObamaCare.

But the overall trend has been to the Right. A few examples…

1. Defunding public colleges.
2. Cutting taxes on the rich and businesses, shifting the tax burden down (as the GOP is doing in the States today).
3. Reducing the safety net (e.g., . Reducing the minimum wage (in real terms), Clinton “ending welfare as we know it” in 1996).
4. Crushing private sector unions.
5. Deregulation of corporations, especially banks.
6. Eroding away the 1970s reforms on the military and intelligence agencies.

We can debate the wisdom of these changes (I’m mostly against them all), but let’s leave that debate for another day. How has the Left responded? Today we’ll see how the Left has worked to gain public support — and failed. Tomorrow we’ll examine how they addressed the equally important (in an operational sense) task of maintaining internal cohesion during their long defeat.

The Left fights back

The Left responded its efforts on use of two tactics.

(a)  Legal leverage

The Left used its strength in the Courts to effect public policy measures they could not do through democratic means. Most notably, expansion of environmental protections, plus expanded rights to abortion and same-sex marriage. Although this produced some wins, the long-term effect has been catastrophic for the Left.

The focus on legalistic tactics led to an atrophy of grass-roots organizing, and a loss of legitimacy for the agenda. Legitimacy in the political sense, people’s acceptance of governmental authority. From bussing to abortion to closing logging in the NW to save the spotted owl, court-driven policy measures produce powerful backlashes unless supported with deep measures to gain public support — which step the Left has often skipped. An increasing fraction of the public believes the Left uses anti-democratic (even authoritarian) means to change public policy.

Now the real weakness of this strategy appears, as the increased strength of the Right results in more conservative judges at all levels. Judicial activism works just as well for the Right as the Left. Indeed for most of American history the Courts have been a conservative, even reactionary force. We might return to this old normal.

(b)  Gaining strength by sounding alarms

 

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The Left attempted to regain public support largely through one tactic: sounding alarms. Shrill, loud, warnings of certain doom. Exaggerating the science to gain public support for their long-standing public policy proposals. The Population Bomb.  Pollution. Pesticides (the Alar on apples hysteria). Nuclear war (the nuclear winter scare). Resource scarcity (from the exaggeration of the Club of Rome study to the Peak Oil hysteria of 2005-2009). Killer bees.

Doomsters like Paul R. Ehrlich and Lester Brown became their vanguard. Saving the world became their raison d’être. Catastrophic anthropogenic global warming. Agitprop became their major communication tool. Skillfully done, such as at the birth of the climate change crusade: opening the windows in the Senate hearing room to produce sweltering heat (see the story here).

Now much of that project lies in ruins, along with much of the Left’s credibility. They put much of their remaining resources — financial and political — on the climate change crusade. This seemed like a sure things, based on the public statements of some scientists (but not the peer-reviewed literature). But nature has disappointed them, and the public support is fading (see poll results here, and more here).

What next?

Major political movements do not die. But they can lose influence for generations, until either they reform or circumstances change. That appears to be the fate of the Left.

Tomorrow we ask how the Left maintains its internal cohesion while losing, and fights off internal pressure to change (e.g., adopt new and potentially more successful policies and methods).

For more information

(a)  Other posts in this series:

1. Nate Silver goes from hero to goat, convicted by the Left of apostasy, 25 March 2014
2. The Left stages a two minute hate on Nate Silver, Roger Pielke Jr (& me), 29 March 2014

(b)  Posts about America’s move to the Right:

1. The evolution of the Republican Party has shaped America during the past fifty years, 8 May 2010
2. The good news: America’s politics are neither polarized nor dysfunctional. That’s also the bad news., 16 November 2011
3. Remember the old days, when the GOP and Dems advocated different policies? No longer, since the conservatives won., 5 August 2012
4. The hidden major party, the key to political control of America, 9 November 2012
5. The world of wonders: Democratic Party takes center, pushes GOP right to madness, 19 February 2013
6. Recommended: Why the 1% is winning, and we are not, 26 July 2013
7. Look in the polls, as in a mirror, to see America drift to the Right, 31 January 2014

(c)  Posts about ways to reform America:

There are other ways to reform America. More difficult, but at least offering the potential to win.

(d) Reference pages about American politics:

1. Posts about politics in America
2. How can we stop the quiet coup now in progress?
3. Posts about reforming America

(b)  Posts about solutions to reform America:

1. Learning skepticism, an essential skill for citizenship in 21st century America, 1 December 2012
2. Remembering is the first step to learning. Living in the now is ignorance., 29 October 2013
3. Swear allegiance to the truth as a step to reforming America, 24 November 2013

(c)  Steps to reforming America:

1. The sure route to reforming America
2. A third try: The First Step to reforming America
3. The second step to reforming America
4. The third step to reforming America, with music
5. How to recruit people to the cause of reforming America
6. Swear allegiance to the truth as a step to reforming America
7. Today you can take the first step to reforming America, 6 February 2014

(d)  Other posts about reforming America:

1. Fixing America: the choices are elections, revolt, or passivity, 18 August 2008
2. How to stage effective protests in the 21st century, 21 April 2009
3. The project to reform America: a matter for science or a matter of will?, 16 March 2010
4. Can we reignite the spirit of America?, 14 September 2010
5. Should we despair, giving up on America?, 5 May 2012
6. We are alone in the defense of the Republic, 5 July 2012
7. Thoreau reminds us about one of the few tools we have to control the government, 24 June 2013
8. The bad news about reforming America: time is our enemy, 27 June 2013
9. Why the 1% is winning, and we are not, 26 July 2013
10. Understand our problem before you prescribe a cure for America. We’ve gone mad., 17 September 2013
11. In “Network”, Howard Beale asks us to get mad and do something. He’s still waiting., 19 October 2013
12. The missing but essential key to building a better America, 21 November 2013
13. How can we arouse a passion to reform America in the hearts of our neighbors?, 20 December 2013
14. Is grassroots organizing a snare or magic bullet for the reform of America?, 26 December 2013
15. Should we risk using anger to arouse America?, 16 January 2014

(e)  Posts about protests:

1. How to stage effective protests in the 21st century, 21 April 2009
2. Occupy Wall Street, another futile peasants’ protest, 5 October 2011
3. Thoreau reminds us about one of the few tools we have to control the government, 24 June 2013
4. Look at the protests in Wisconsin to see how America has changed, 31 August 2013
5. Martin Luther King Jr’s advice to us about using violence to reform America, 20 January 2014

(f)  Posts about using music as a tool to revitalize America:

1. A great artist died today. We can gain inspiration from his words., 26 June 2009 — About the Man in the Mirror
2. The New America needs a new national anthem! Here’s my nomination., 24 November 2012
3. Listen to hear the state of America (and its cure) explained in song, 8 February 2013
4. The third step to reforming America, with music, 3 September 2013

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