Democrats Must Preach the Positive

Success in politics, as in war, depends on the ability to choose the terrain where you meet your opponent. Politics is not the art of the possible but the art of defining the possibilities.

The Iranian arms scandal might appear to bolster Democratic prospects for 1988, but the issue is more complicated. Over the last decade, Democrats have ceded to Republicans the power to define the political landscape and so draw the battle lines. As a result, many voters now believe that “liberalism” means having their money taxed away, their job opportunities lost through preferential programs only for others, their way of life destroyed--with the spoils going to welfare cheats, minorities, gays and women. Liberals used different terms--”fairness,” “equality,” things like that--but they have done little to challenge the lay given the land by the President. The outcome is that Democrats get the poor, the black and the guilt-ridden voters--roughly 39%, or Walter F. Mondale’s 1984 total.

Many take this to mean that liberalism is dead, and Democrats must move to the right. This is myopic. In any thoughtful society, liberalism means a belief in a nation’s ability to refashion social institutions to benefit both individuals and society as a whole. In contrast, the major conservative intellectual contributions of the past decade or two--supply-side economics, laissez-faire approaches to regulation, “cycle of dependency” justifications for welfare cuts--all boil down to assertions that there’s little we can do as a community to make the world better, so we might as well stop wasting resources on social engineering doomed to failure.

The irony of President Reagan’s popularity, based on his optimism and geniality, is that his is not a hopeful message. It plays to resentment, tapping people’s innate belief that if everyone were forced to sink or swim, they’d succeed. Nonetheless, most people still welcome any help they can get--and sooner or later, most need some. Ultimately Reaganism is wagering its political future on the belief that most people would rather get less help themselves in order to see less help for those they don’t like.

This latent message of limitation is the Achilles’ heel of the Reagan agenda. Most Americans are pragmatic rather than dogmatic. People like government programs if there is something in it for them. The trick Democrats must master is explaining to the bulk of Americans how the liberal vision of America helps them.

John F. Kennedy’s “Ask not what your country can do for you” might have worked in a different day. But the idealistic Democratic rhetoric seeking to proscribe all sorts of heinous activities--”you can’t discriminate,” “you can’t pollute,” “you can’t destroy helpless small countries”--has been transformed into a message of negativism. The perceived liberal refrain of “you can’t do that “ has been transmogrified by astute GOP tacticians into the sad whine “you can’t do that.” “That” being whatever it is people want to do, like “going for the gold” or “standing tall.” Recent Democratic Party history, and successful GOP efforts to repackage the debate, have reinforced the idea that the liberal message is simply about what people cannot do. Conservatives emerge as proponents of the idea that you can --combining the old hands-off approach to everything from business regulations to civil rights with the two most powerful themes in recent popular culture: financial success (“you can have it all”) and patriotism (“we can do anything--we’re American”).

Instead of letting the thematic difference be between “you can” and “you can’t,” the liberal agenda should be readdressed in positive themes and rhetoric that tell all voters they “can do it.”

The difference between liberals and conservatives, however, is that the conservatives want people to do it on their own. The liberal message must be that the government should help people do it.

Few people want to “ask not” what their country can do for them and Democrats should stop saying “ask what you can do for” everyone but you. An effective “liberal” message can encourage citizens to look favorably on a positive role for government that helps everyone--or, at least, everyone who needs some help, who make up a majority. The middle class wants to know that leaders recognize help is needed in their neighborhoods as well. Most Americans recognize that as long as the helping hand helps “us” there is a place for it to help others who also need it. It’s not the most idealistic appeal possible, but it’s the one now most possible for those still idealistic.

Henry Clay once declared, “I’d rather be right than be President”--after putting away his second chance to be President. Too many liberals, rather righteously, see the choice as being “left” or being President. Too many opportunists think you have to move “right” to be President.

Yet, given the current array of public concerns, a “liberal Democrat” could, in 1988, both be right and President. The mounting call for a move to the right is misguided in its one-dimensional analysis of the electorate. Liberalism is dead only as long as liberal Democrats fail to make it relevant to a majority, fail to retake the high ground above the gray plains of current U.S. politics.