Third Way Is the Wrong Way

By Guy T. Saperstein, AlterNet. Posted May 14, 2007.

An organization has emerged in Washington, D.C., Third Way, which claims to be both centrist and progressive and which has gained a foothold of influence with some Democratic lawmakers. It is important to assess if Third Way's political strategy makes sense, and to examine whether Third Way is undermining progressives' efforts.

Third Way's seminal political philosophy is set forth in the "The Politics of Polarization," written by Bill Galston and Elaine Kamarck, which informs Third Way's perspective and direction. "The Politics of Polarization," which Third Way rolled out under the banner, "Third Way Releases Groundbreaking Report," is a long document, but it is predicated on one core premise -- a premise that I think is not only utterly fallacious, but one which attempts to lead Democrats in the wrong political direction. The core premise of "The Politics of Polarization" is that more people self-identify as "conservatives" (32%) than "liberals" (20%), so polarizing the electorate favors Republicans, not Democrats. Thus, Democrats must trend toward the center and/or conservative positions to attract the "moderates," and avoid supporting clear, but polarizing, "liberal" positions.

If the fact that more people self-identify as conservatives were used only as description, there would be no problem, but the problem arises from the failure to understand why this is so, what it means and doesn't mean, why it is not immutable and what we should do about it.

The fact that more people self-identify as conservatives, of course, should surprise no one and required no poll: Conservatives have had the benefit of a huge infrastructure -- approximately $400 million per year -- attacking liberals and advancing "conservatism" for nearly 30 years, with little response from Democrats or the left in defense of "liberals." Even today, with the tide shifting to Democrats, I don't hear Democrats calling themselves "liberals." Indeed, most of us call ourselves "progressives," at least in part to avoid being designated as "liberals." So, with a viciously effective 30+ year attack on the very concept of "liberal," it should surprise no one that more people self-identify as conservatives.

But what does this mean? Indeed, what does it even mean to be a "conservative?" "The Politics of Polarization" doesn't help much here, as the terms "conservative," "liberal" and "moderate" lack any definitions in it. And, here is where "The Politics of Polarization" and Third Way makes their first big mistake: They fail to understand or factor into the analysis the single most dominant political fact of the past 30 years, to wit, the radical change in the meaning of "conservative." What conservatism meant to Theodore Roosevelt and Dwight Eisenhower, or even Barry Goldwater, is radically different than what it means today in the Bush/Cheney world of phony-conservatism.

To put the point another way, I can even imagine a world where I might be happy with 32% conservatives if we could get back to Teddy Roosevelt's environmental conservatism (he called it "conservation") or Eisenhower's understanding of the limitations of military power and his distrust of the Military-Industrial complex. But that would require dealing with content, not just categories and self-definition, which "The Politics of Polarization" fails to do.

By accepting the content-less self-identification landscape as a given, "The Politics of Polarization" and Third Way essentially accept and "lock-in" the conservative/liberal status quo disparities. What "The Politics of Polarization" and Third Way choose not to do is precisely what made the conservative movement so effective: Challenge the existing status quo and educate the public about a new vision. What "The Politics of Polarization" and Third Way fail to do is precisely what progressives need to do: change the underlying terms and norms of political discussion.

"The Politics of Polarization" and Third Way back away from any such ideological confrontation because, in their opinion, "polarization" works for conservatives but it won't work for progressives. What flow from this, predictably, are policy positions which don't stray far from conventional wisdom -- see the Iraq example, which follows below -- despite the fact that conservatives in a relatively short period of time moved from the downside of 2-1 disparities to a dominant position in American politics by challenging then-conventional wisdom(s) and pushing the electorate in their direction. What "The Politics of Polarization" and Third Way miss is that the public is elastic and willing to move in the direction of new ideas, even liberal ideas, if they make sense and progressives promote them. While this has worked best for conservatives in recent years because they invested in, and disseminated ideas, it is neither inevitable nor permanent that conservative ideas will prevail -- unless, of course, we "lock in" current perceptions, fail to challenge them, and move millimeter-by-millimeter to attract center/moderate/conservatives, accepting many conservative assumptions in the process.

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Guy T. Saperstein is a Democracy Alliance partner and past president of the Sierra Club Foundation; previously, he was one of the National Law Journal’s "100 Most Influential Lawyers in America."

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