Liberals: Out of the Mainstream and Out of Touch by Brendan Nyhan

Liberalism is no longer a political force in this country. On that, we can all agree. I mean, why the hell is this magazine called The L-Word? We all know - liberals have failed so miserably that calling someone a liberal in mainstream politics is now an insult. The important thing, though, is for liberals to realize is that it's our own fault. We screwed up over and over again and now the country is paying the price as Pat Buchanan and his reactionary pals win the culture war. This has to stop. Liberals have to take a look at the reasons the public hates us, which start right here with liberals at Swarthmore. We need to abandon the elitist and unrealistic ideology that pervades liberalism and adopt an appealing, populist liberal agenda. In the last twenty to thirty years, the Left has been overwhelmed by the blitzkrieg of the Radical Right's political and media army, forced to retreat again and again with our collective tail between our legs. From our failure on welfare reform, which will push one million more children into poverty, to the ongoing attacks that threaten affirmative action, liberals are on the run across America. And none of us are fighting back effectively. Liberal groups are in shambles even as millions of Americans continue to get screwed by our government and the economy. The reasons for this liberal decline start in America's colleges and universities. Many talented liberals have beaten a hasty retreat into Academic Land since the public turned on us when we pushed things too far, too fast for them. Although the Left isn't made up of just academics, and the Right has academics too, the ideological core of the Left is currenty located in the Academy, whereas the Right is based in the corporate boardroom and the Church. Guess who's more in touch with mainstream America? Liberal elites aren't going to change anything from the Academy   Since the core of liberalism lies in academia, liberals become spoiled. Real world politics involves compromise, and academics don't have to cut deals when writing for the British Marxist Feminist Journal. It's so easy to be ideologically "pure" and condemn anyone to the Right of Ralph Nader as a Clinton Democrat. Don't get me wrong, Clinton and Democratic Party officials are a bunch of corporatist sellouts, and we should criticize them. But progressives who try to advance mainstream liberal agendas as a first step toward real change should not be immediately criticized and derided as "centrists". The academic Left seems to think that the proletariat will throw off its chains at any moment, refusing to acknowledge that the path to reform is incremental change. While my personal beliefs are strongly progressive, I believe that this sort of pragmatic liberalism will be more effective. Academic liberals, who are members of elite institutions, unfortunately tend to look down on the public in an elitist fashion that belies their supposed ideology. Americans aren't stupid, though. They know that the Left looks down on them, or at least treats them that way. We have to start talking to people and treating them with respect. What Americans do listen to, and care about, are issues involving their very strong senses of nation, family and tradition. The Left can't grasp this - we ignore the values of the great majority of the public. This elitism is compounded by self-pity and alienation, especially among bitter academics, caused by the failures of the Left. Rather than fight out "dirty" politics in mainstream arenas, talented leftists debate the Other and the most recent article they read in The Nation about the Labor Party, but never actually act on their beliefs. However, we sure complain a whole lot about the current state of affairs. In the process, issues that have to do with real people's lives and values are forgotten. It's understandable, since most academics don't have contact with the real world, and liberals would rather talk to each other than anyone else. But change will never come from academia and our ideas won't reach a mainstream audience through The American Political Science Review. Real change comes from local papers across the country, talk radio, TV, and the interactions every American has with his fellow citizens on a daily basis. Unfortunately, liberals steeped in academia can't communicate worth a damn in mainstream media. Most academic liberals, in general, are unable to talk to real people anymore. Academics speak, write and generally see the world in a context that is incredibly different from normal people, and the voices of liberalism tend to be either professors or graduates of elite liberal colleges, like Swarthmore. In fact, at Swarthmore, everyone agrees so much that liberalism focuses on issues with little resonance for most of America. For example, getting Pepsi out of Burma, while an admirable sentiment, is not as high on the list of priorities for most people as making ends meet, putting the kids through college, or paying the rent next month. Even labor issues involving staff at Swarthmore are lost (except to a few student activists) in the high-minded atmosphere of philosophical inquiry. Basically, in the process of learning in colleges and univerisities across the country, liberals lose touch with reality. By the time we graduate our heads have been up our asses for so long that most peoples' concerns are lost from the political equation. We think that we're so intelligent that we don't like fighting it out in talk radio, TV talk shows, and other popular segments of the media that are too "lowbrow" for us. Thus, the Right has been there for years unopposed, shaping public opinion. The few liberals who do go into media tend to alienate the five Americans who still listen to the Left because they sound like lecturers or tepid apologists. We need to look at the Right. It deals with real people and real issues and talks about them in mainstream media. That's why they kill us at every election. Conservative leaders come from business and the Church and thus have a better sense of what real people want and care about than the Left, even as they ram through their racist, pro-rich agendas. Then, they communicate that message effectively every day on TV, in newspapers, and throughout the rest of the popular media. I want liberals to break from the status quo and listen to Rush Limbaugh, or watch pre-Alzheimer's tapes of Ronald Reagan. Yes, it may make you consider suicide, but it's worth it. Limbaugh/Reagan populist rhetoric is what the Left must emulate, although it goes even deeper than rhetoric. They understood how real people think, talk, and deal with the world (at least more so than liberals), thus allowing them to construct an effective and appealing political message. Once liberals are back in touch with people and real issues, we have to take to the streets. For too long, liberals have chosen to be the martyred minority, hiding in colleges and universities rather than fighting for the heart and soul of America. Far too many potent avenues of communication, such as talk radio, have been ceded to the forces of the Radical Right because they are not intellectual enough, or are "below" the Left. Instead, we read the New Yorker and call NPR. Liberals are so stuck on high-minded culture and inculcated in academia that they ignore the values and culture of mainstream America. Liberals must reclaim media and learn how to use it to its advantage like the Right has. 44% of Americans get their news from talk radio, and how many liberals call in or have shows? None. We must fight back and not allow media to bring liberalism down. The problems of the Left are rooted in America's colleges and universities. Once we realize this, we can work to reconstruct a liberal movement that can achieve the America we all want. It just takes a commitment to actually changing the world we all spend so much time criticizing.

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