What's a Name?

What we call ourselves politically can present more questions than answers

I obviously enjoy discussing politics.  My views are clear—or are they?  It's easy to pigeonhole people into categories that don't necessarily add clarity.

I grew up in a reasonably political home.  My parents didn't agree on politics.  We had TV so we saw politics on the news.  I was born at the end of the Ford Administration, was a young child through 4 years of Carter, and then Ronald Reagan was President when I began to understand what that meant.

He was a good starting point: an actor, a liberal who became a conservative.  The OG Neocon.  I liked his presentation as President.  He seemed genuine and caring, but I was a child.  I remember Iran/Contra and his overuse of the phrase, "I don't recall."  And then recently I saw him on Johnny Carson from the late 70s and heard him talk so much demagoguery that I was kinda grossed out.

And you could do a doctoral dissertation on Reagan's policies (and everyone before and since).  I remember blindly getting some Ollie North t-shirt but I didn't know why.  I was going along with the crowd.  As an adult I look back on him and them as criminals.

So politics can certainly be entered into blindly, ignorantly.  We can follow certain characters like a sports team or a famous musician.  The cult of personality is a powerful attractor and distorter of reality.  See our surreal current events for example.

But are we what people call us?  A liberal.  A leftist.  A Reagan Republican.  Tea Party.  Maga.  Maybe the names aren't a fair representation.  Maybe they're shorthand but with what context?  But then another question comes up and then another.  More unpacking is needed.  What trends are happening in politics?  What are the main powers/parties in politics where most people gravitate? Have these words ever changed meanings?

I argue that there has been a basic rightward trend in politics since the Civil Rights era and legislation.  Some would say since the Civil War.  The current conservative movement has been trying to take back the gains that were legislated after President Kennedy's death. See recent Supreme Court decisions concerning reproductive freedom, voting rights, Citizens United.

So, starting with Bill Clinton, the left has gone more centrist to try and go with the flow.  For me to be called a liberal is true, but it's a moving target.  To be a Clinton/Obama/Biden liberal is not to be a Franklin Delano Roosevelt liberal.  Not by a long shot.  But, these are the guys who made it through the primaries and won.  These are the guys that business supported enough to be elected.

These were the shiny objects, the guys who told us what we wanted to hear and sometimes delivered.

The parties, as well, are what they are.  I'm more liberal than the aforementioned democrats in lots of ways.  And yet, I'm open to solutions from wherever they may come.  If the GOP has a great idea, then let's give it a shot.  I'm a pragmatist too. 

However, I tend to believe that liberalism is trying to expand freedom, access to the economy and stewardship of the planet.  This belief has been borne out in the policies I’ve read about over my lifetime, especially the New Deal and the Great Society legislation which took place well before I was born.  Shorter work days/weeks, child labor laws, safety laws etc.

But the Democratic Party has not always been a great champion of its stated goals, to put it lightly.  They, like their GOP counterparts, have been largely co-opted by the big businesses that bribe/donate to their campaigns.

I will only speak of the modern party because the names and affiliations have flipped over the course of decades in the 20th century.  The Republicans were the party of Lincoln and emancipation.  They are no more. 

The Democratic Party was the KKK party of Southern Dixiecrats.  They are no more.

These parties morph along many fault lines like national defense posture, interventionism vs isolationism, tax policy, social issues, entitlements and so much more.  The GOP used to be the more interventionist party, more focused on a strong defense and helping our allies. They are no more.

The GOP has stood for reducing government programs, lowering taxes.  They've been the rich guy party, in my view.  But they manage to co-opt the poor into believing the GOP supports them and their freedom.  The idea that Laizzes-Faire Capitalism will support the poor doesn’t make sense to me.  They also use wedge issues and culture wars to distract voters and divide voters, since their policies, or lack thereof, make the GOP a minority party that needs division and low voter turnout to win.

So call me a liberal or leftist but the question isn't what tribe do we belong to, but why?  And what's the nature of that tribe?  Is the affiliation zealous or grudging?  Have we changed or softened?  Have we learned?  Has politics changed around us?

I'm not liberal because of rigidity, but because I tended towards it as a young man and as I learn more, I keep coming back to it.  As I see the politics shift to the right, I naturally want to stand with the left.  Not out of mere defiance, not in every situation, and not with dogma.  It appears the border needs a reckoning.  My liberal heart would say to let everyone in because their nations of origin were destabilized by our foreign policy carelessness.  I would be right about the causes, but naive, perhaps about the consequences of open borders.

Liberal woke-ism can become absurd, but I'd rather be on the woke side with all its blindspots than on the Insurrectionist side.  One you can come back from.  The other is treason.  That path puts us all at risk of losing our actual freedom that we clearly take for granted.

And lastly, political talks should be a place where ideas are shared and tested.  I think liberalism bears out over the last (almost) 100 years since the New Deal.  Almost all the best decisions that were made on issues that face real people were done from a liberal stance.  And I've posted them all before.

But bring me conservative ideas that will help our nation and our people thrive.  Who among us doesn't want that outcome?

Does calling oneself conservative mean Pro-Trump by default?  I was speaking to a conservative friend who does not support Trump by a long shot.  I’m sure there are plenty like him.  But the right has terms it uses or used that are deserving of inquiry.  MAGA, Make America Great Again, is a phrase that lots of US Presidents have used in their campaigns.  Bill Clinton did so.  But few have emphasized it and used it for demagogic purposes like Trump has.  Calling oneself A Regan Republican is and was popular too.  But it would appear that Trump has stolen the mantel from Reagan as the standard bearer for conservatism.  That causes me much consternation.