(cross-posted at Deny My Freedom and Daily Kos)
A couple weeks ago, I wrote an entry entitled Poverty is a moral issue. The fact of the matter is, though, is that it’s not just poverty that is a moral issue. Far from it – in fact, every single political issue can be framed by a moral argument. Having recently finished former president Jimmy Carter’s Our Endangered Values: America’s Moral Crisis, it becomes clear that we need to battle the Republican Party on the ground that is their supposed strength. Whether it be social issues – reproductive rights, gay marriage, affirmative action – or economic issues – the estate tax, Social Security, loans to college students – these all have a moral foundation. As opposed to the capitalistic notion of survival of the fittest, regardless of the circumstances, the core beliefs of the Democratic belief embody the spirit of justice, equality, and community. Our political philosophy can be embodied by the Golden Rule: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”
Tip O’Neill famously said, “All politics is local.” What the Democratic Party needs to realize is that all politics is moral.
In reading Carter’s easy-to-read recollections of his past and his observances of the present, one can tell that religion has heavily influenced what he believes. The use of religion in politics is something that many liberals are loathe to support – but morals are not derived from religion. Instead, morals are simply a standard code of principles, independent of any given set of religious principles. Take a look at the various instances of the Golden Rule – it has a basis in numerous religions around the world, as well as more secular-based beliefs such as humanism. Talking about why we believe in policies such as having a fair, progressive tax system or defending the rights of homosexuals should not sound forced. The reasons we believe in them are grounded in our sense of what is right and wrong, of equality and freedom for all. The war in Iraq is immoral for several reasons, as Carter mentions: it denies people their human rights, as Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay have illustrated; it was based on false premises and deliberately misleading statements by our leaders; and it played upon the fears of Americans instead of to their hopes. Apply the Golden Rule to it: would we ever want another country making preemptive accusations and striking us without a factual basis? Of course not.
People support our agenda (and that’s a Fox News poll) – with the exception of dealing with terrorism, Americans prefer the Democratic Party to do a better job of dealing with the issues. And yet we’ve lost seats in Congress the last two elections, along with the presidency, despite our purported edge on the policy matters that affect average Americans the most. The Republican Party has been able to draw votes based on talk of their version of ‘moral values’ and their fiscal plan of neverending tax cuts, even though most, with the exception of corporations and the wealthiest of Americans, will never see any money, and the so-called ‘wedge’ issues don’t alter one’s life radically. To me, it’s a problem of coming off as genuine. The GOP doesn’t talk in policy-specific terms; instead, they often resort to sweeping, idealistic-sounding talk of a utopian (largely Christian) society. What do we sound like when we discuss our platform? Like salesmen:
In an interview Tuesday with USA TODAY, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi previewed the “New Direction for America” platform hammered out by Democratic members of Congress, mayors and governors. She and Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid plan to formally unveil the plan today.
“The American people need to know, if you win, what are your priorities,” she said. Reid said the party is standing “with the people we have always stood with: seniors, students and the hardworking families of America. We intend to tackle the issues that matter most.”
The Democratic Party often speaks about what it will do for various constituencies, but it comes out sounding like a sales pitch. Having gone to a couple of rallies during John Kerry’s presidential campaign, there was a striking inability to weave together any sort of narrative. There’d be a mention of controlling the Supreme Court for those who were interested in protecting abortion. You’d hear about outsourcing as a bone to labor groups. There’d be a bit about protecting Social Security to reassure the AARP and those set of interest groups. Indeed, we have no sweeping narrative; instead, we come off sounding like we’re pitching a bunch of assorted ideas to different customers. We don’t come off sounding like we are speaking to the average American, who may care a lot about one issue but has a vested interest in many others as well.
In particular, the ability to speak to Americans of all stripes is something our party would be well-served to learn from Barack Obama. Politics aside, the senator from Illinois clearly has a way with words. If you examine his classic speech from the 2004 DNC, you will see that he is able to tie everything together:
Tonight is a particular honor for me because, let’s face it, my presence on this stage is pretty unlikely. My father was a foreign student, born and raised in a small village in Kenya. He grew up herding goats, went to school in a tin-roof shack. His father — my grandfather — was a cook, a domestic servant to the British.
But my grandfather had larger dreams for his son. Through hard work and perseverance my father got a scholarship to study in a magical place, America, that shone as a beacon of freedom and opportunity to so many who had come before.
[…]
Tonight, we gather to affirm the greatness of our Nation — not because of the height of our skyscrapers, or the power of our military, or the size of our economy. Our pride is based on a very simple premise, summed up in a declaration made over two hundred years ago:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
That is the true genius of America, a faith — a faith in simple dreams, an insistence on small miracles; that we can tuck in our children at night and know that they are fed and clothed and safe from harm; that we can say what we think, write what we think, without hearing a sudden knock on the door; that we can have an idea and start our own business without paying a bribe; that we can participate in the political process without fear of retribution, and that our votes will be counted — at least most of the time.
[…]
It is that fundamental belief — It is that fundamental belief: I am my brother’s keeper. I am my sister’s keeper that makes this country work. It’s what allows us to pursue our individual dreams and yet still come together as one American family.
E pluribus unum: “Out of many, one.”
Now even as we speak, there are those who are preparing to divide us — the spin masters, the negative ad peddlers who embrace the politics of “anything goes.” Well, I say to them tonight, there is not a liberal America and a conservative America — there is the United States of America. There is not a Black America and a White America and Latino America and Asian America — there’s the United States of America.
The pundits, the pundits like to slice-and-dice our country into Red States and Blue States; Red States for Republicans, Blue States for Democrats. But I’ve got news for them, too. We worship an “awesome God” in the Blue States, and we don’t like federal agents poking around in our libraries in the Red States. We coach Little League in the Blue States and yes, we’ve got some gay friends in the Red States. There are patriots who opposed the war in Iraq and there are patriots who supported the war in Iraq. We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United States of America.
The need for an overarching theme that aspires to the best within Americans, that there is something for everyone, that our problems can be solved together – this is what we need. For Obama, the moral foundation for his beliefs, like Carter, comes from his religion. But other politicians have proven that there are other ways by which we can instill moral value into our beliefs. John Edwards is a good example – his humble upbringing as the son of a mill worker serves as the underpinning for his quest to alleviate poverty in America. Al Gore melds what he learned in college with the life-altering experiences he had with his the death of his sister and the near-death of his son to powerfully argue that global warming is a moral issue that the world must confront. Bill Clinton – the man from Hope – had a powerful sense of empathy that allowed him to be admired by many around the world and in America, even when his personal life was distracting from the real issues.
Ultimately, what our party needs to recognize is that it doesn’t have to lay out a platform for this election. It doesn’t need a cautious proposal for making America incrementally better. What Democrats need to do is to understand that we need to take bold steps forward, and that we need to do it in a fashion that everyone, from the Ivy League graduate to the high school dropout, from those who follow current events closely to those that watch the local news once in a while, can understand. And what we can all understand are the appeals to people’s sense of morality – the one that is ingrained in humanity, not necessarily the kind ingratiated by religion. If we speak to others as they would speak to us, then the Democratic Party will have no problem winning elections. All it requires us to do is speak the language of Americans and understand that inherently, all politics is moral.
