Blogometer PM Extra

DEBATE OF THE DAY: Populists and Pragmatists

Left of center Brad DeLong's Semi-Daily Journal got lefty brethren talking after taking on every lefties favorite New York Times pundit, Paul Krugman for his 9/1 op-ed calling for "a smart, bold populism" to address the root causes of the disconnect between good economic news and the unhappiness most Americans feel about the economy.

DeLong writes:

But when I read Paul's call for "smart, bold populism," I am reminded of earlier calls a couple of decades ago by Milton Friedman, Marty Feldstein, and their ilk for smart, bold conservatism or smart, bold libertarianism. But they did not get what they ordered: on the economic policy front the policies of Reagan and of Bush II have been a horrible botch. What populist policies that we can think of would be smart? And how can we make our high politicians allergic to populist policies that are stupid? Lyndon Johnson, yes. William Jennings Bryan, no.

Eric Rauchway at The New Republic was moved to defend Bryan's honor:

In Bryan's defense, some Populist policies that were not so bad were substituting the income tax for the tariff, establishing a managed currency, and generally opposing corruption in the press corps and the government. ... But of course, I'm pretty sure that's not really what either Krugman or DeLong means. What they seem to mean by populism is, a movement championing the downtrodden, wielding the symbols of oppression against the oppressor. And DeLong seems to demur, noting the dangers of symbolic politics and (tacitly) disputing Krugman's argument for more "workers' bargaining power"--an idea that, let's note, Matthew Yglesias recently proposed as better than most LBJ-like solutions.

Temperamentally, personally, I think I'm with DeLong on this: but temperamentally, personally, I'm not the representative voter. Making a judgment as to whether the Democrats should adopt a more populist approach to politics depends on how you judge that representative voter. Is DeLong right to think she'd be more moved by tax policy proposals than populism?

DeLong then attempted to answer Rauchway's query:

I am, as I said above, a reality-based center-left technocrat. I am pragmatically interested in government policies that work: that are good for America and for the world. My natural home is in the bipartisan center, arguing with center-right reality-based technocrats about whether it is center-left or center-right policies that have the best odds of moving us toward goals that we all share--world peace, world prosperity, equality of opportunity, safety nets, long and happy lifespans, rapid scientific and technological progress, and personal safety. The aim of governance, I think, is to achieve a rough consensus among the reality-based technocrats and then to frame the issues in a way that attracts the ideologues on one (or, ideally, both) wings in order to create an effective governing coalition.

while I am profoundly, profoundly disappointed and disgusted by the surrender of the reality-based wing of the Republican policy community to the gang of Republican political spivs who currently hold the levers of power, I do think that there is hope that they will come to their senses and that building pragmatic technocratic policy coalitions from the center outward will be possible and is our best chance. Paul, I think, believes otherwise: The events of the past decade and a half have convinced him, I think, that people like me are hopelessly naive, and that the Democratic coalition is the only place where reality-based discourse is possible. Thus, in his view, the best road forward to (a) make the Democratic coalition politically dominant through aggressive populism, and then (b) to argue for pragmatic reality-based technocratic rather than idealistic fantasy-based ideological policies within the Democratic coalition. He may well be right.

DeLong's paean to technocratism sent Atrios fuming:

This statement by Brad DeLong disturbed me on so many levels and I've had difficulty sorting them all out.This, in a nutshell, is the worldview of the Sensible Liberal. It's the belief that there are Sensible Policies concocted by Wise Men (and women), preferably ones with advanced degrees, which are Right and True and Good. Wise Men may disagree a bit about the means, and we should throw a few conferences to hash these differences out. Politics and ideologues who do not share the ideology of the Wise Men, who of course are not really tainted by ideology, get in the way of enacting policies which are Sensible. It's a dangerously wrong view of the world. ... How's that "free trade" working out for Mexico? How'd that currency peg work out for Argentina? How'd that energy deregulation thing work out for California? How'd that shock therapy work out for Russia? How's the privatization of federal government functions coming along? Oh, and how's that Iraq war coming along?

Kevin Drum at Washington Monthly was more open to technocratic rule but didn't see the GOP trending toward moderation anytime soon:

I'd like to believe that too, but there's just no evidence of it. Over the past 30 years the Republican Party has gone from Gerald Ford to Ronald Reagan to Newt Gingrich to Dick Cheney — i.e., from conservative to reactionary to crazy to bat[excrement] insane — and Rove's "two T's" are further evidence that they have no intention of rowing this back.

For all the talk of Joe Lieberman being "purged" from the Democratic Party last month, that was a one-off deal. It's the Republican Party that's been steadily (but relentlessly) purging moderates for the past couple of decades, swearing electoral death on anyone who refuses to accept Grover Norquist's screwball economic ideas. The result is that there's virtually no one left in the party who can be described as a moderate, and the party's continued existence depends wholly on nurturing the most radical elements of its base and then radicalizing them even further.

That's not a strategy Democrats should emulate, but at the same time it certainly doesn't bode well for the prospect of the Republican leadership coming to its senses and building pragmatic technocratic policy coalitions from the center outward.

Like Atrios, TalkLeft was in no mood for centrism, instead arguing for stark contrasts with GOP policy:

I think populism is critical to Democratic politics. ... It is not clear to me that the idea that the Republican Party may return to its senses is incompatible with the political prescription Krugman advances. ... With this insight, like Digby, I argue for a politics of contrast that not only highlights what Dems are about, but also highlights what Republicans are about. This view has placed me in conflict with the Lakoffian view of outreach to conservatives, as I advocate an agressive negative branding of conservatism and Republicanism - to wit, to an attempt to redefine the political middle. ... As always, the important thing is to be proud of who you are and what you stand for - Democratic values on both domestic and foreign policy are the right ones for our country. We should not be shy about saying that, and saying what Republican policies have been - a disaster.