The left has had so much success. If only they could see it
From listening to many people on the left, one could be forgiven for thinking everything is awful and all is lost. I really wonder if that is just in their nature. I have seen left-wingers, both online and in-person, be allergic to any positive news of any sort. Mention anything good and they’ll talk about what is bad or what is not perfect. As an example in my own life, in a recent class discussion of mine, I pointed out how household savings are very high now and the economic situation is much better than it was during the financial crisis. The response from some of my left-wing classmates was to say it’s just Jeff Bezos doing all the saving and everyone else is treading water. Sigh. They can never be happy with anything.
I hope I am overgeneralizing a bit on this, but I’m afraid that kind of mindset is fairly common among left-wingers. It’s as if they think that acknowledging anything good means that nothing more needs to be done on whatever the subject is. Undoubtedly, more can and should be done on many issues, but that does not mean we should all act like everything is awful and nothing has been accomplished.
It would be nice for them to just for a moment reflect on how successful they have been in just the last ten years. Looking back further since the start of the new millennium, it is amazing how much more leftward things have moved. It was not that long ago when on cultural and economic matters the right was dominant and looked like it would remain there. Times have changed dramatically and I really wish those on the left would for once quit bemoaning everything, be happy and take the W. There is plenty of work that needs to be done, but we should all take stock of how much has been won and be thankful for it.
With that as the backdrop, I want to discuss the two articles below. One is from the New York Times, written in October, and the other is from The Atlantic, written last week. The former is broad while the latter is specific to what Biden has accomplished so far.
The media coverage today has been dominated by things like inflation and the pandemic. Those are not happy subjects so it is understandable that many people are unhappy. I would be lying if I said I was the happiest I have ever been. I have written plenty about criticisms I have of Biden on some issues and stand by it. That said, it is important to take stock of what he has been able to do just in his first year.
As The Atlantic piece notes, Biden’s majorities in Congress are razor thin and he has had no margin for error. Still, Biden has accomplished more now than Obama had at this time in his presidency even though the latter had much bigger majorities. I have defended Joe Manchin many times and will do so again here. The fact is he is well to the left of where almost all Democrats were ten years ago. He voted for a $1.9 trillion stimulus package, which the last time Democrats were in charge never would have happened. He has shown Biden more support than moderate Democrats showed to Obama.
The fight over Build Back Better notwithstanding, Joe Manchin has always come around in the end and there is no reason he can’t again. The infrastructure bill is another example of how much Biden has already achieved. Infrastructure was something everyone had talked about for years and everyone agreed needed to be worked on. Obama wanted to do it, but by the time he was pushing for it, Republicans had partial control of Congress and did not want to give him anything. Trump talked about it endlessly, but did not really care about it so nothing happened. In less than a year, Biden got it done. If you think it’s just a highway bill, think again. It is a big deal and does so much more than just highways. Its effects will be huge and felt for a long time to come.
When it comes to appointing judges, Democrats have often been laggards. Obama barely appointed any for his first year and gave it very little priority. Clinton scored better, but still lagged behind Reagan. Biden has been on a tear. In his first year, Biden got 40 judges confirmed, twice as many as Trump did in his first year.
Victories in foreign policy
The Times article does a great job of laying out how victorious the left has been on several major issues in the last two decades. Looking back from when I was in high school, I am in awe of how many right-wing causes have gone by the wayside. As the article notes, Democrats and the left, and I counted myself among them, worried that the global war on terror was going to shape foreign policy for a long time to come. I genuinely worried about endless wars followed by invasions and occupations. It really seemed like extreme hawkishness and jingoism were going to be the rules of the game. How times have changed.
After the invasion of Iraq proved to be such a disaster, the zeal for the war on terror plummeted and hawkishness has been on a precipitous decline. Almost nobody today argues that invading Iraq was good. To say the least, that was not the case in 2003. I remember very well how much enthusiasm there was for it and how many people’s patriotism was questioned for opposing it.
Not only did Democrats win by nominating an opponent of the Iraq War in 2008, but Trump campaigned heavily against it in the Republican primary in 2016. He relentlessly attacked the Bushes over it and railed against an interventionist foreign policy. Sure, it was performative and I doubt he really believes anything about foreign policy that does not involve his pocketbook. Still, the fact that a Republican could denounce a hawkish foreign policy and come out ahead was a sure sign that opponents of the war in Iraq were right and there was no enthusiasm for any such adventures in the future.
Victories in economic policy
On the domestic front, the Times article notes that, economically, things have moved quite a bit leftward just in the last 10 years. That part to me is what is the most astonishing. When I think back to where things were in 2011, I am truly in awe of just how much more leftward everyone has moved. That is true not just of Democrats, but Republicans, too. It is not that Republicans became leftists, but that they no longer even pretend to care about the size of government. As it turns out, the Tea Party movement was Republican base voters venting their anger at Obama being president and nothing more. Speaking of which, when was the last time you heard the phrase “Tea Party”?
Here, too, Trump’s primary win is instructive. It was not too long ago that Paul Ryan was all the rage. Every single Republican elected official, donor, pundit and consultant worshipped at his altar. Every one of them wanted to cut Medicare and Social Security. Some of them were even openly talking about Ayn Rand and "takers and makers." Candidates for president in 2012 advocated for flat taxes, eliminating capital gains taxes, slashing non-defense discretionary spending to the bone and called Social Security a Ponzi Scheme. Mitt Romney ran on the most right-wing platform since Barry Goldwater. Trump came along and killed all that. He opposed any changes to Medicare or Social Security and never used phrases like “job creators,” "small government," or "takers and makers" and almost never talked about taxes or spending cuts. That is not because he is a leftist, but because he had a much better understanding of Republican voters than virtually everyone from the Republican establishment. As it turns out, Republican voters do not care about the size of government nor do they want to fulfill Atlas Shrugged.
Today, nobody is talking about cutting Medicare or Social Security nor is anyone talking about a flat tax. In 2011, deficit reduction was what all the cool people wanted to do, including Democrats. Today? Literally nobody in Congress is talking about it. Whatever momentum there was for it is long gone. Part of that is because Republicans do not care about it and never did, but part of it is also because Democrats have stopped being chumps. Democrats traditionally have been willing to limit their ambitions in the name of not adding to the deficit. They seem now to have realized that is a dead end and voters do not actually care about it. While their ambitions are still limited today, the deficit is not a reason for it.
The Times article mentions the Affordable Care Act (ACA) as another example of a leftward shift. I remember very well how obsessed Republicans were with repealing it. For years, that was almost all they talked about. Today? Crickets. Their one attempt at repeal failed and they have not said a word about it since and I do not expect that they ever will again. Their opposition to it was rooted in their dislike of Obama, not the law itself. Once he was no longer president and their one effort at repeal failed, they quit caring about it. If someone had told me in 2011 that in 2021, the ACA would be here to stay and Republicans would not care, I would have told them to see a therapist and yet here we are.
If Democrats can pass something that includes expanded ACA subsidies, I have no doubt Republicans will not try to undo it in the future. They will vote against it, but that will be the extent of their opposition. Between their indifference to policy and some of them having just enough political intelligence to see it is a losing issue for them, they will probably try to avoid talking about it altogether. Even Medicaid is likely safe now from Republican efforts to gut it. Having been expanded in all but 12 states and having proven to be popular even in red states, Medicaid is likely as secure as Medicare and Social Security. That was not the case even four years ago.
Victories on social issues
On the cultural front, it should be obvious how much more leftward things have moved in just the last decade. Gay marriage is now legal everywhere and nobody cares. The Civil Rights Act now applies to LGBT people and nobody has raised a fuss about it. Looking at the stakes of the cultural battles of today shows how far things have progressed. The big cultural arguments of today, i.e., pronouns, language policing, critical race theory, etc., are miniscule in terms of importance compared to the fights for gay marriage, against anti-sodomy laws and against workplace discrimination against LGBT people.
The religious right, the biggest culturally conservative force, has been badly weakened by losing many major battles and by showing its hypocrisy in supporting Trump. You have to give Trump credit here. He destroyed the religious right’s credibility in a way nobody on the left ever could. He single-handedly exposed an entire movement as being a bunch of hypocritical frauds. In one move, an entire movement showed that all of its concerns about morality, virtue and character were a joke. None of the religious right figures who supported Trump will ever be taken seriously again on anything. Trump will go away eventually, but the fact that so many people who claimed to care about morality above all else threw their lot in with him will never be forgotten.
It may be hard to believe now, but that crowd had the advantage on the cultural front not too long ago. I remember when I was in high school how Democrats did everything they could to sound as religious and culturally conservative as possible. I remember how they would fall over themselves to emphasize that they, too, opposed gay marriage and that they could be every bit as much of bible thumpers as Republicans. I remember how everyone wanted to talk about “family values” and morality. I remember how the FCC went on a rampage against anyone who used even the slightest bad word on TV. I remember debates when I was in college over whether gays should be allowed to serve openly in the military. All of that today is unthinkable. How times have changed.
The religious right’s weakening will be significant going forward on all kinds of cultural issues, but biggest of all may be abortion. The religious right has been a major driving force against abortion for decades now. With their credibility in tatters, it will probably make their power of persuasion much weaker. That will be very important in the battle over abortion because it will be fought on the state level if Roe v Wade is reversed next year. That battle will be hard fought, but the fact that nobody takes the religious right seriously anymore undermines their influence and that can only help the pro-choice side. That does not mean the pro-choice side will win every last fight, but it certainly helps that their biggest opponents have shown themselves to be frauds.
Years from now, we may look back at the religious right’s support of Trump as being a pyrrhic victory. In their zeal to get rid of Roe v Wade, they threw their lot in with someone who was the antithesis of everything they claimed to believe in. In supporting Trump, they finally got their wish and Roe v Wade was reversed, but in doing so they destroyed their credibility. They won the battle in reversing Roe v Wade, but lost the war when abortion was still legal in a majority of states and only expanded further with public opinion moving decidedly to the pro-choice side. They got their symbolic win but lost every major substantive battle and permanently destroyed their reputation, ultimately winding up with nothing.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/12/joe-manchin-biden-majority-agenda/621085/