Howard Dean has a lot on his plate. Patrick Doherty says the governor has to add something else: Democratic ideology. Liberal economists and historians agree that the conditions that enabled the New Deal, the Great Society and even Rubinomics have changed so drastically that they are undermining the foundation of the Democratic program. If Dems are to have a fighting chance in 2008, we need the debate to begin now.
Patrick C. Doherty is senior editor at TomPaine.com. Previously, he spent a decade working on conflict and economic development in the Middle East, Africa, the Balkans and the Caucasus. His column, Quo Vadis, focuses on America's big picture: where we are, where we're going and how to get there.
In his speech accepting the chairmanship of the Democratic National Committee, Howard Dean said he wants to stand up for what Democrats believe. That may be a good slogan for becoming chairman, but now it’s time to get down to business.
Clearly, Mr. Dean has enough to do to rebuild the party's morale, organization, fundraising and discipline. Unfortunately, that's still not enough to win. Outrage, institutions, money and message are all important, but they are an empty shell without a clear and credible plan for governing America.
Mr. Dean has to make big ideas a key priority now because the party can't wait for the 2008 presidential primaries for real debate. A positive Democratic agenda—one that really addresses our problems—needs more time to take root in the minds of Americans. That said, as chairman, Mr. Dean cannot force policy down the throat of the party. Rather, Mr. Dean's most urgent and important job as the new chairman of the DNC will be to create the space for honest, transparent debate within his party on the direction of the country.
What will that debate look like? Some Democrats, like John Kerry, think the party has the right ideas already and "doesn't need some massive shift." Other Democrats, like The New Republic's Peter Beinart, think the party needs to rally against 'totalitarian Islam' the same way Democrats coalesced around anti-communism in the early days of the Cold War. At the grassroots, the state Democratic chairmen who threw their weight behind Mr. Dean believe that Democrats will find salvation at the statehouses, rather than inside the Beltway.
Others are beginning to see that the challenge before the Democratic Party is more fundamental. Liberal and progressive ideology, rooted in the economic reforms of the New Deal, the post-war boom and the Great Society “has been undermined by structural changes in the global economy,” as political columnist John Judis wrote recently in The New Republic . Those changes have hit at the party’s traditional base of support by weakening labor unions as they compete with cheap foreign labor. At the same time, our debt-laden economic system makes the party’s post-1964 focus on social welfare seems out of touch.
Former Clinton adviser and economist Brad DeLong explains the conditions that, from 1948 to 1973, allowed our economy to flourish have simply disappeared. Energy is no longer cheap. America is confronted with three significant economic competitors: Europe, Japan and China. Tax policy is now redistributing wealth up instead of building a middle class. The Baby Boom is entering its dotage. Suburbs, once the main driver of prosperity, are now fraught with increasing commutes, unsustainable consumer debt and increasing crime.
James Galbraith adds that the Clinton-era solution to fix deficits first won’t work this time. The problems are deeper. “Declining deficit forecasts will not ensure stable, low interest rates. And easy money will not suffice to bring us back to full-employment prosperity. More—much more—is going to be needed.”
As long as America fails to fully recognize these changed conditions, the post-war economy will continue to work against most Americans' interests. Federal housing and highway subsidies keep expanding the boundaries of suburbia, leading to state deficits, underfunded essential services (Medicaid, Head Start, first responders) and damaged families. Our dependence on fossil fuels is destabilizing the planet politically and environmentally. Faced with overseas competition, corporations cannot afford—and refuse to pay for—adequate health care and pension plans. Income inequality and income insecurity are increasing rapidly. The bond traders on Wall Street are warning of a major stock market crash if our consumer and federal debts are not reined in.
Meanwhile, the conservative movement is throwing fuel on the fire. Their present-day corporate coalition includes industries dependent upon public subsidies for their existence: auto companies depend on highway and fuel subsidies. Oil and gas companies rely on U.S. military protection of producing regions. Homebuilders rely on federal mortgage assistance that bias homeowners towards new subdivisions. Investment houses rely on tax-shielded investment products. Mining, forestry and fishing interests rely on the government not charging for the resources they exploit from public lands and waters. ‘Big box’ retailers like Wal-Mart rely on highway, housing, auto and resource subsidies combined.
As foreign competition increases, conservatives dependent on the old economic order are forced to occupy oil- producing nations, destroy our life-sustaining ecosystem and let corporations dismantle their healthcare and pension plans to cut costs. To add insult to injury, conservatives are financing this perverse economy by indebting our children to totalitarian China.
The implications are dire. Yet the Democratic leadership has so far failed to recognize that behind the economic larceny of the Bush administration lies an economic engine that is simply burned out. As long as Democrats resist implicating the post-war formula of sprawl, fossil fuels and corporate welfare, Democrats will be forced to extend that system in vote after vote. On the one hand Dems are happy to vote for more highway bills, more war supplementals, more mortgage assistance and more corporate welfare. But when they complain about Wal-mart, unemployment, inequality and environmental depletion, they do not seek to change the economic causes of the problem.
That’s why it was so important to get an outsider like Dean into the chairmanship of the DNC. As one of the few leaders with responsibility for the big picture, Dean can lead the party beyond the status quo. As an outsider, he can look beyond the old orthodoxies that maintain powerful constituents but add up to a losing national party.
If he doesn’t at least shape a process for building consensus, the outlook is grim. John Kerry cannot reverse course again and adopt a wholly new agenda without charges of flip-flopping. Peter Beinart’s Bush-lite adoption of the war on terror ignores all of the underlying dysfunction and puts all our energy into fighting one symptom. And devolution to the states risks shattering the party into 50 special-interest groups. Delaying that fight until 2008 is sheer folly.
Welcome aboard, Governor Dean.
