"Merely liberal"

I was wrong about Progressives, a reader wrote me. 

He said Progressives are not  just "very liberal." They are not liberals.

Progressives want to change the power structure.  Don't think left-to-right. The real scale is vertical: bottoms up change, or top down perpetuation of the status quo.

Dale Borman Fink

Three days ago this blog compared Elizabeth Warren and Amy Klobuchar and the other Democratic candidates by positing a scale of progressive to very liberal to merely liberal to moderate. 

This scale is one of the conventional ways to think of the twenty-plus candidates. Left-right.

Dale Borman Fink is a college classmate. He said conventional thinking was wrong. "Mere liberals," he said, try to improve and reform the social order. Progressives want something very different, he said. Bernie Sanders, and perhaps others, want bottom up fundamental change with the power structure, something which comes from grass roots social movements, not the shuffling of people within the top of the power structure.

During the 2016 campaign this blog had warned that the Democratic prescription under Hillary for getting into or staying in the middle class was to go to graduate school and get a professional degree. The implication: Join the top, if you can, because they have the power and are going to keep it. Improve yourself. 

This was a loser argument, I wrote, and a thinly disguised insult to working people. Everyone cannot go to law school. We all can't be pharmacists. Liberals thought they were advocating for working Americans, but what they were really saying was that being a worker was a dead end, so stop being one. Become a professional. A great many workers felt abandoned by Democrats, because they were abandoned.  So they voted for for Trump, as I had feared and predicted. 

Dale Borman Fink told me Progressives have a different prescription. Working people don't need to change. They need to unionize. They need to use their numbers to seize power and make live better for the working people doing the essential blue and pink collar work of the nation by demanding a bigger share of the economic and political pie. It's a bottoms up approach, and it values those people for being exactly who they are, individually and as a group: working people in a democracy.

Dale grew up in Indianapolis, Indiana, where he lost the student council presidency of his public high school to Mitch Daniels, later to be known as "Governor Daniels."  After graduating from Harvard in 1972, Dale worked for many years in day care and early childhood education, and was a leader of the Boston Area Daycare Workers Union (BADWU), one of the first efforts in the country to unionize workers in childcare.  Currently, he is a tenured professor at Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts.

He commutes to work on a bicycle.

Guest Post by Dale Borman Fink

In a recent post, Peter Sage used the term "merely liberal" to contrast to "progressive." This is not a critique of Peter but what I see as  a teachable moment.  Millions of voters do not relate to the (oft promoted) concept that these terms are on a spectrum, with the latter being a bit farther out from the center than the former.  Many voters who call themselves progressive or democratic socialist reject liberalism and don't see it as just a more tepid version of ourselves.  

In polls, Bernie Sanders does not do that well with voters who call themselves "very liberal."  IN fact, I recently read that he draws over 20% as the first choice of those watching Fox, while he draws fewer than 15% of those watching MSNBC. MSNBC is liberal and leaning "very liberal" but Bernie is not. Nor am I. Nor are millions of those who supported him in the 2016 primaries.  He went to Trump country (invited by Chirs Hayes of MSNBC if I recall accurately) in West Virginia in the early months of the Trump presidency, and drew a huge throng and talked about Medicare for all, union rights, corporate greed, criminal justice reform, miners' benefits, and drew a great response--not because they saw him as a liberal but they saw him as a fighter for the people, against corporate America. 

What I would like classmates to entertain is the idea that "liberal" translates to "corporate." I would also use the term "top-down."  Those characterizing themselves as liberals largely have ideas about "improving people's lives" by tinkering with policy and legislation from the top. Progressives recognize that social movements, grass roots movements, civil rights and labor movements are what moves the needle, from the bottom up. Of course liberals and progressives should ally with one another--as John Lewis, the young radical SNCC organizer, to some degree allied with LBJ, the liberal (on certain issues) on civil rights legislation). 

I don't think many voters saw Hilary Clinton as desirous of upending the corporate or political establishment from the bottom up. They saw her accurately as a "corporate top-down liberal."  They did, for better--and mostly worse--see Trump as upending the system: a one-person billionaire wrecking crew.  Many liked the "wrecking" part of that equation even if not the man. 

I believe voters do see Sanders, Warren, and to some degree Castro wanting to empower people from the bottom to restructure the system.  Maybe DeBlasio too on a good day. 

Better to be a citizen than the media

Demoted from citizen to media

Citizens sit up front. Media in the back.

The convention had a big sign: "Closed to the public." So I went straight to the "Media Table."

To be considered media, it is best to carry a briefcase, but don't over-dress. The only media people wearing a sport coat were a few of the people who went on camera. Most of "the media" are people are carrying cameras or boom microphones, or sitting at laptops. 

They are casually dressed. 

Why would I present myself as "media," rather than "citizen"?  Mostly I would not. It is better to be a citizen. But sometimes events are considered "closed to the general public," and at those I tell the gatekeeper the simple truth that I write a blog with 2,000 readers. 

Then they treat me as media and have me sign in.

There is a disadvantage to that. At the Biden events I went there early and had good casual visits with the young staff people and what it was like to be on the ground organizing. A "Field Director," i.e. someone in her mid-20s, asked about this blog, and thereafter the young staff people she supervised (generally people fresh out of college with liberal arts degrees) were warned that I was "media" and they should not talk with me about anything except where to find my seat. Prior to their being given that admonition, I was just another Biden potential supporter, a citizen, someone to court, and they were chatting me up, telling me about their majors, that this was a first real job, that they lived with supporters or had an apartment, that they were thrilled to be part of something big. Nice young people.

"Political tourism has a kind of hierarchy." The best seats are for citizens voters. Sometimes the very best seats are reserved for donors or activist leaders, i.e. party chairs, and depending on the event I qualify for those, but usually do not. I am mostly a token-dollar donor to the presidential campaigns. Usually it does not matter. The important thing in getting to sit in the front row is getting there early. 

The worst seats are for the media people.  There is a practical reason for that. At events with major presidential candidates, there are camera crews. They need a raised dias and their setup is intrusive and blocks the view of others.  Plus, by being at the back they can film whatever happens in front of them.

The writers get a table in front of the cameras, typically, as in this case at the AFL-CIO convention, a long table made up of short tables put side by side.  They get one advantage over "regular citizens": they get special power outlets brought to that long table. 

So far in the convention, two hours into it as I write this,  we were stood up by Donald Trump, who had a speaking spot at 10:00 a.m. by video. He did not call in.  

We just heard from candidate John Delaney, who spoke of his gratitude to the IBEW--the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers--which union his father belonged to. It assured a family wage job for the Delaney family, he said, and it had a scholarship fund that paid half his tuition at Columbia.  He said he was pro union and the companies he founded had a superb record for being worker-friendly.

Elizabeth Warren spoke next. She said she said that "unions built America and unions will re-build America" and that is something that she has said at every single Town Hall she has done, and not just here at a Labor convention. She got a big standing ovation when she entered and when she concluded. She has been organizing in Iowa very successfully, the locals tell me.

Photos of the convention below:

Tables up front, for citizens

Photos of the set-up below:

Table for print media

Room setup--250 attendees.

Cameras in back

Warrior or Civility?

Swords or a Round Table

Yesterday's post looked at the differences between Elizabeth Warren and Amy Klobuchar. 

Athena wisdom; Athena warrior

That post evaluated a scale based on presentation style. The post said that Warren was looking like a political rock star: confident, bold, big gestured, and that Klobuchar was presenting like a legislator: deliberate, steady, low drama.

There is, of course, a second scale on which to measure them, one of left and less-left, progressive vs. moderate.

There is a third scale: Battle vs engagement. It is the subject of a Guest Post by Tony Farrell, a college classmate, and an expert on branding and strategic positioning, with a long career managing marketing for products sold by The Sharper Image, the Gap, and The Nature Company. He represented Trump Steaks.

Tony Farrell lives among the comfortable 1% in the San Francisco Bay Area, a Country Club environment of educated people who have capacity to fund the campaigns that the 99% observe, and therefore they have outsize influence on American politics. Readers of this blog who object to the power and influence of special interest politics would do well to understand what motivates the people who play key roles in that arena.  

Guest Post by Tony Farrell

Battle or engagement?

Thinking about 2020 (even though, as a Californian, I’ve nothing to contribute, as there is no real contest for president here), it seems Democratic voters are looking for either a “warrior” to battle and conquer Trump (best example: Warren the Warrior; but Bernie, too); or they seek a candidate who models the behavior polls indicate most people would like to see, which is a return to civility and reasonable engagement, breaking gridlock and making progress (Biden, Bullock and Buttigieg and more?).

Every Trump supporter I know has two degrees, with at least one from an Ivy institution; so, they’re not typical (or numerous). But their reasons for voting Trump are the same as many of their less-educated brethren: They hated Hillary and all her attendant political correctness. There are many who claim they voted Obama twice, and then Trump. 

These prospective 2020 swing voters would not be persuaded by an anti-Trump “warrior” message because that’s already proven to be unconvincing, in 2016. (The base, obviously, is immutable, as are Trump’s arch-critics.) So, the voters who can be turned back from Trump to the Democratic side will have to be persuaded by someone who expresses empathy for their plight and a promise to hear them; and one way to demonstrate that is to signal a clear willingness to compromise, work with opponents, and “get things done.”

Model of modeling

I hesitate to say this but I’ll evoke the movie “Miracle On 34^th Street” (1947), a charming Christmas fantasy. When Macy’s (real) Santa Claus sends customers to Gimbels for gifts not found at Macy’s, Gimbels is forced to respond in kind, because Macy's earned so much goodwill for doing the right thing. Santa modeled the desired behavior, demonstrating Christian values, plus mutual respect for each store and all customers. I guess my fantasy is that a serious Democratic candidate will model the desired behavior—even praising rivals for help in achieving good outcomes (Veterans Affairs; federal incarceration; there are examples even when it seems there are none). Swing voters once distracted by Trump's fake promises may return to the candidate whose promises address their concerns, but are grounded in reality and have a prospect of succeeding.

Additional Note by Peter Sage:  

This is one of several guest posts by Tony Farrell. Readers have asked me who is this man I introduce as a prosperous Bay Area political observer. In this political environment I am simultaneously qualifying him as an anthropologist doing field work, while inserting him into a group vilified by both left and right populism. 

From Tony Farrell:  "Summer of 1970, I worked on a SeaLand container ship out of Baltimore, heading to Europe and the Caribbean; union work, courtesy of my father, who was a shipping executive. I was "Wiper #2" of two wipers; the lowest of the low. My job was to wipe stuff down in the engine room, which, during the summer, was well over a hundred degrees and often pitching quite violently. Every other week, I got "head" duty, which was great because the bathrooms were air conditioned; all is relative; cleaning toilets as luxury! In the engine room, I knew I was going to bonk my head really hard at least twice, usually three times a day. (Perhaps that accounts for some addled-ness late in life.) "

I vividly remember being angry most of the time; one source of anger was feeling that people did not know or appreciate what I was going through; I felt invisible and I resented it. It was such hard work; so hot; bonking my head; getting woke up in the middle of the night to "blow tubes" (which required me squeezing behind a boiler to pull chains. Wore through several pairs of work gloves doing that). I told myself to not forget that anger and resentment, and that has helped me to always bear sympathy and empathy for people who do hard physical labor, many for not much reward. And to be a good boss.

Also, now as never before, I understand the fear physical laborers must feel as their aging bodies weaken and they can see the end of their productive lives well before the end of their living."

Elizabeth Warren vs. Amy Klobuchar

Warren

Different politics, different styles.

Warren is acting like a star. Klobuchar is acting like a legislator.

Each of them had their hour with Native Americans in Sioux City, Iowa. Seeing them back to back, speaking about Native American issues, put a focus on presentations.

Warren has the presidential charisma piece.

In a normal Town Hall type free for all it would be quite evident that Warren and Klobuchar are in different policy lanes. Warren wants more dramatic change, "systemic change" as she puts it. She doesn't say "revolution" or "socialism" but she takes a sharper attack on the pharmaceutical industry, the banking industry, on the overall system. She is contesting Sanders as the electable progressive.

Klobuchar is the midwest moderate, in a crowded lane.

The singular focus on Native American issues at this event, and the fact that both of them have similar records of full, engaged sympathy with those issues, means that policy was a tie game. They both promise more money, more Indian-friendly policies, and becoming a total friend in the White House if elected.

That changes the focus to style, how each presented her total embrace of Indian issues.

Elizabeth Warren is animated. Her voice goes up and down in expressions of empathy for Indians, outrage at Trump, frustration with bad government. Warren oozes emotional intensity. Warren is selling.

Klobuchar is even-toned, serious, professional. Klobuchar describes. Klobuchar is calming. She projects enormous professional competence as a senator. But she is no rock star.

It is easier to show than to describe.  Here is Klobuchar:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Ua5_rX2iQSQ

Here is Warren. Warren's clip is longer but there is no need to watch all 3 minutes. After thirty seconds the difference is fully apparent:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=S6F0kaltIng

Klobuchar

Hand gestures and general animation tell the same story. Warren gestures broadly, her body demonstrating how much she cares, emphasizing her points. Klobuchar is more subdued.

Some readers may worry that Warren is too progressive for today's electorate, and think a moderate-sounding, bipartisan Minnesota-nice candidate might be a stronger matchup against Trump. On policy grounds that might be right, although readers on the Bernie-progressive left disagree strongly. But this event sharpened my attention to who would shine as brightly as Trump when seen side by side.

Who looks like C-SPAN, vs. who looks like reality TV? Who would voters actually pay attention to?

Warren is on fire. Klobuchar is mellow. Warren is theatrical, overplaying her emotions, like an actress on stage making sure she is understood even in the balcony seats. That risks turning off some people, who might read her as over-excited and radical.

But she is more interesting to watch. If the Trump era taught us anything, it is that a politician needs to attract attention in order to communicate and lead.

Klobuchar would not be out argued by Trump, but she would be out-shined by his bigger than life manner. I suspect the meta message of a Trump-Klobuchar matchup would be that a lion is engaging a smart, reliable antelope. It would be a simple story of dominant vs. agreeable, weak vs. strong, engaging vs. impersonal.

If voters really want low-drama, then Klobuchar will rise to the top. But to be noticed as the low drama Democratic alternative to Trump, she has to be noticed, and one does that by being interesting enough to cut through the clutter.

Marianne Williamson's bully pulpit

She is selling herself as a host of a daytime TV show. Like Ellen, only more New Age.

I wouldn't watch her TV show, but lots of people would.

She isn't running for president, not really. She wants to change our souls, for the better. She is a minister in the church of Aquarius.

She is addressing a Presidential Forum organized by Native American groups.

She is extraordinarily well spoken and fluent. She speaks effortlessly in full sentences and paragraphs. It doesn't seem memorized, but it must be.

She keeps saying she wants deep understanding, deep engagement with Native Americans. I am at a Native American conference in Sioux City, Iowa. Nine different candidates will be here in two days, including all the leading candidates, except Joe Biden.

I see it is a pander-fest. What else could it be?  Promises and assurances.

Candidates are paraded in here, one hour each, to assure Native Americans that they want the support of the six million Native Americans and that they deserve it. Both Williamson and Warren have been here and each have promised them she had the Indians' backs, that they would move heaven and earth for them. Klobuchar and Bullock will be here later this afternoon. Tomorrow: Delaney, Castro, Sanders, and deBlasio.

If this were a group of college students--or disabled veterans, or women, or labor unions, or small businessmen, or solar energy contractors--I would expect the same thing: letting each group know they offered their full support. This just happens to be Native Americans.

(Linguistic hint: white people tend to use the word "Native American." Native Americans mostly refer to themselves as "Indians.")

Click for short video

Most of the promises cost money. Marianne Williamson knew her history. She condemned the portrait of Andrew Jackson on the White House wall. It got the biggest spontaneous applause of anything in her talk.

Andrew Jackson had the nickname "Indian Killer." He considered it a compliment.

Introducing Joe Sestak

Joe Sestak

Admiral Joe has a plan for America.

It includes being its president. He is one of the Democratic candidates.

I thought I was paying close attention and I didn't know who he was.  He held a town hall in a brew pub in  Iowa. I didn't know who he was until he was introduced and came to the microphone.

Twenty people attended.

He is a liberal who won election twice as a Democrat in a GOP-leaning district in Pennsylvania. He is a graduate of the Naval Academy and he has a Ph.D. from Harvard.

He outlined a suite of liberal positions, and I would place him as a traditional liberal Democrat.  

He wants universal health care by restoring and extending the Affordable Care Act, which, he said is the process for getting to that universal care.

He wants paid family leave, paid medical leave, and federal support for child care.

He wants increased broadband in rural areas.

I wants to invest in American infrastructure.

He wants universal early childhood education.

He wants tax free savings accounts for first time home buyers.

He says he want to "expand green industries."

Click for a video clip

He says our democratic processes are corrupted by corporate influence.

None of these positions will startle anyone or differentiate him.

He walks the talk of a candidate who wants to reduce special interest influence of our government.  He ran and lost a race for US Senate. As a former congressman and retired 3-star Admiral he was a "twofer" as a potential lobbyist, and he was offered a 7-figure job, which he declined. He took a job teaching at a historically black college and at Carnegie Mellon at a fraction that income.

He said America does need one wall: a wall between Congress and K Street, and he cited the figure that 485  Congressman in the past few years left Congress to be a lobbyist, which he said helps explain why congress doesn't really represent the people. It is Plan B for Members of Congress. Plan A is taking lobbyist money to get re-elected.  Either way, the special interests have control. 

He knows national defense and foreign policy thoroughly, and most of his Iowa Town Hall addressed stories and lessons from his time in the military. He described the damage that Trump is doing to the patchwork of alliances, trade agreements, and institutional and soft influence that is the basis for American influence in the world. He says Trump's "America first" policies are a disaster. A rules-based international system has given a framework for America to bring together other countries to bring pressure short of war, and Trump is dismantling it. 

He said some alarming things. Among them is the vulnerability of America to cyber warfare. We are building aircraft carriers instead of dealing with cyber security, he said. Our elections are vulnerable, our electrical grid is vulnerable.

The Chinese can listen to our phone conversations right now, and they can turn off your phones if they choose to, he warned.

He said the Chinese have been smart and strategic. They get foreign military bases by loaning money to poor countries for giant infrastructure projects. They get over-built, they cannot pay back the loan, they default on the loan, and the loan is forgiven in exchange for an overseas military base for China. They have taken the lead in solar technology and communication technology, he said. They created 5-G, and it will revolutionize the internet and they will control that.

Selfie with Sestak

He is a pleasant, intelligent man, but I cannot for the life of me understand why he is doing this. It is not for the media attention. There were no TV cameras, no photographers, and no visible media people other than myself.

Seth Moulton is well positioned to beat Trump

Except he won't be the Democratic nominee.

His campaign hasn't caught fire.

A woman asks him, "Who are you?"

Seth Moulton is a candidate for President.  He needs a miracle. The miracle would be that the media notices him. Maybe he can be at the right place and time and save Oprah's life when a news crew is there to film it. Or maybe Trump can go on a tirade against him and tell him to go back to Afghanistan.

Moulton is Biden, only better, without most of the things people don't like about Biden. Moulton is young, without the gaffes, without the vote for the war in Iraq, without the enemies built up over five decades.

Moulton is 40 years old, a three term congressman, a former Marine officer with four tours of duty in Afghanistan. He has policy positions that are in the sweet spot of Democratic and national popularity: liberal but not socialist, somewhere between that of Biden and Kamala Harris. He doesn't criticize wealth; he says we should celebrate success and work to be sure everyone has the opportunity to find it.

Moulton isn't in the Bernie/Warren lane, so he is not getting attention from the motivated, engaged progressive left voters. Still, Moulton projects a message of energetic government and change, not restoration of a status quo, so I anticipate that he could unify Democrats behind him. He is prominent in leading the effort to replace Democratic leadership, i.e. Nancy Pelosi which gives him credibility as a change agent.

The broad segment of Democrats consider themselves moderate, and appear to want someone projecting more of a change message than Hillary voiced, but are uneasy with going too far left, with policies that risk raising their taxes,  doing damage to the economy, or messing up their health care. Many Democrats are personally doing OK. They like a message of system change, but they don't want to lose what they have.  Moulton wants universal health care but says that people who like what they have can keep it. He wants immigration reform, with immigration laws enforced. He wants corporate taxes increased, but not to the levels they were prior to the 2017 tax act. He wants Amazon to pay taxes.

He is married and has two young children. He has three degrees from Harvard. Moulton is square jawed and looks good on TV. He doesn't look or sound "soft" or the word the GOP attributed to Obama, "feckless."  Moulton projects a strong, manly image. Trump looks old and fat in comparison.

The Iowa caucus rules require people to demonstrate support for a single candidate, which gives the advantage to candidates with a special constituency, not to someone who is broadly acceptable and who would be an acceptable second choice. Seth Moulton does not have an obvious interest group--women, environment, labor--as a sponsor.

CLICK for Video: "Who are you?"

New! Improved! Updated!

There is a moderate lane open within the Democratic voter base. Currently Biden dominates it. Biden seems safe and many people are sick of Trump and his drama. Moulton is the younger, better version of Biden. He lets America turn the page and move on.

None of this will matter. The Democratic field is too crowded and there simply is not mental shelf space for him. Moulten had a town hall on Friday and thirty people attended. I could sit right up front, and I did not to get there early. Here is a short clip of Moulton, on taxes and wealth: "You're not evil if you're rich. We should aspire to be successful." CLICK: Video clip

He spoke at the Iowa State Fair Soapbox on Saturday and fifty people attended. Democrats would like him if they heard him.

I asked him what he was doing in the race. He said he plans to be president. Watch for me in eight years, he said.

He expects to be back.