It’s always a good idea to read the best of thinking and analyses to be found across the ideological spectrum, which is why I have become a devoted fan of Walter Russell Mead, whose work can be found on the American Interest blog.
He has a post up now analyzing pollster Stanley Greenberg’s latest prescriptions for saving the Democratic Party from itself. But what makes the Mead piece particularly valuable is that he goes beyond the insights and flaws (and there are many of both) in Greenberg’s recommendations to present his own unique take on the issue.
Here’s a brace of paragraphs that give a good taste of Mead’s approach to things:
From the Prohibition and eugenics movements of the early twentieth century to various improvement and uplift projects in our own day, well educated people have seen it as their simple duty to use the powers of government to make the people do what is right: to express the correct racial ideas, to eschew bad child rearing technique like corporal punishment, to eat nutritionally appropriate foods, to quit smoking, to use the right light bulbs and so on and so on.
Progressives want and need to believe that the voters are tuning them out because they aren’t progressive enough.
But it’s impossible to grasp the crisis of the progressive enterprise unless one grasps the degree to which voters resent the condescension and arrogance of know-it-all progressive intellectuals and administrators.
They don’t just distrust and fear the bureaucratic state because of its failure to live up to progressive ideals (thanks to the power of corporate special interests); they fear and resent upper middle class ideology.
Progressives scare off many voters most precisely when they are least restrained by special interests. Many voters feel that special interests can be a healthy restraint on the idealism and will to power of the upper middle class.
Mind you, these thoughts are from a guy who is a devoted liberal, but one who has his feet firmly planted in reality. You can and should spend some quality time with the rest of Mead’s post.
I owe a hat tip to Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit to introducing me to Mead.
