[This article also appears on Huffingtonpost.com. You can access it from my author page here.]
With the primaries now complete (and Republican voters in Delaware giving the Democrats a huge gift by nominating the East Coast version of Sharron Angle over the popular--and probably unbeatable--Mike Castle), the races are set for the midterm elections in November. With many forecasters predicting success for the GOP, it raises the question: When you cast a vote for a Republican candidate in November, what are you voting for?
There was a time when a principled Republican could fairly and accurately reply that he or she was voting for smaller government and lower taxes as a way of improving the fortunes of the middle class. (I personally disagree with that policy position, but it is a fair argument to make.)
But in the current Tea Party- and Beck-Palin-Limbaugh-dominated GOP, such an assertion is completely untenable. Recent news has shined a clear spotlight on exactly what the GOP is actually supporting. As I pointed out last month, odds are, the Republicans are not looking out for you.
1) A vote for a GOP candidate is a vote for the interests of the wealthiest Americans, at the expense of everyone else, including the middle class. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell put his cards on the table when he said that senate Republicans will not accept anything short of a permanent extension of the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, presumably voting against maintaining the tax cuts for those making less than $200,000 if the rich are not also included. It is important to note that just a day earlier, House Minority Leader John Boehner took a more reasonable position, saying he would vote for the extension of the tax cuts for those making less than $200,000 if he had to. (Here is a basic hint for life: If you are putting politics ahead of the good of the nation even more than John Boehner, it is a sign you have gone horribly off the rails.)
Unemployment is pushing 10 percent, Americans are concerned about the economy, and Republicans in the Senate are making their stand to support the wealthiest Americans? There is no reasonable, non-fringe economic argument that tax cuts on the top earners fuel job growth, but we know that these tax cuts have exploded--and would continue to explode--deficits (something House and Senate Republicans have previously said is just fine, putting tax cuts for the rich in front of deficit reduction).
McConnell's stand makes explicit what has long been clear in the actions of Republican lawmakers: They view their obligation first and foremost as protecting the wealthiest handful of Americans, above and beyond what is best for the rest of the country.
2) A vote for a GOP candidate is a vote to give power to a small handful of wealthy fringe Republicans who are pouring millions upon millions of dollars into anti-Democrat advertising. A front-page article in today's New York Times detailed how Republicans have outspent Democrats in House and Senate races so far, but that a bulk of the money has not come from the party or the candidates themselves. Rather, ads are being funded by independent interest groups who can accept unlimited contributions from individuals and corporations without any obligation to report the identity of the donors. That means that a few wealthy extremists (the article points to Swift Boat Veterans for Truth funder Harold Simmons, a Texas billionaire, and the infamous David Koch) have pumped millions of dollars into these campaigns. So no matter what any of these Republican candidates say, whether they are crazy, fringe-right Tea Partiers like Sharron Angle, Ken Buck or Joe Miller, or more mainstream Republicans, they will be at the beck and call of the Koches and Simmonses of the world. And we know whose interests they will be looking out for. (Hint: If you're not a millionaire, you just may be out of luck.)
Timothy Noah recently wrote a great piece for Slate.com on the concentration of wealth in the United States. He notes that in 1915, about 18 percent of the country's wealth sat in the hands of one percent of Americans. After World War II (a time economists have called the "Great Compression"), the income disparity between the wealthiest Americans and everyone else shrunk, bringing down the wealthiest one percent's ownership to less than 10 percent of income. Beginning in 1979, a period Paul Krugman has called the "Great Divergence" began, as the rate started climbing. And the disparity in income exploded during the Bush years, so that by 2007, not only had the gains of the middle class been completely erased, but the ownership of the top one percent had soared to 24 percent of the nation's income.
The moral of the story is that Bush extended a massive redistribution of wealth from the middle class to the wealthy.
As I've said again and again, there is anger in this country, and it is justified, but it needs to be channeled in the right direction. A vote for the GOP in November is a vote to reinstate the same wealth redistribution policies that helped to destroy the American middle class. In short, it is a vote for the top one percent to continue to increase its hold on the nation's wealth.
3) A vote for the GOP is a vote for the politics of fear. Since President Obama was elected, the Republican opposition to his presidency has been built on fear. Rather than offering competing policies, the GOP chose to lie and obstruct with the end game being scaring Americans into believing that the president was a dangerous extremist. It's not just the deranged ravings of pundits like Limbaugh, Beck and Palin, either. Reliance on fear (and absence of positive policy proposals) has been a hallmark of the Republican minority in Congress.
The GOP policy of fear is most apparent in the recent fomenting of Islamophobia. With unemployment strangling the nation, Republican politicians thought it was important to demonize an Islamic community center in Lower Manhattan. Last month I discussed how Republicans are cynically using the Islamic community center for political gain. But the issue is really bigger than just this one building in Manhattan.
Despite the Obama administration's stellar record in catching and capturing al-Qaida and Taliban leaders, Newt Gingrich spews out nonsense like:
“What if [Obama] is so outside our comprehension, that only if you understand Kenyan, anti-colonial behavior, can you begin to piece together [his actions]? ... That is the most accurate, predictive model for his behavior.”
It's a blatant use of baseless fear for political gain, seeking to scare Americans into believing that the president can't keep them safe (even though, so far, he has). That is the way of the modern Republican party.
But the Republican use of fear goes beyond foreign policy and terrorism. Fear is at the center of GOP domestic policy as well.
Rather than debate the president's stimulus bill or budget on the merits, the GOP resorted to fear-mongering, calling the president a socialist. Debate health care? Why, when it is easier to scare senior citizens with made-up death panels and again trot out charges of socialism and government takeovers?
In his New York Times column today, conservative David Brooks described how the misunderstood and overly rigid application of anti-government theory by mainstream Republicans like Rep. Paul Ryan is a recipe for a "political tragedy," a "fiscal tragedy," and a "policy tragedy." What especially struck me in Brooks' piece is a passage he cited from a Wall Street Journal op-ed penned by Ryan and American Enterprise Institute president Arthur Brooks:
"The road to serfdom in America does not involve a knock in the night or a jack-booted thug. It starts with smooth-talking politicians offering seemingly innocuous compromises, and an opportunistic leadership that chooses not to stand up for America’s enduring principles of freedom and entrepreneurship."
Ryan, one of the Republican leaders in the House, invokes terms like "serfdom" and "seemingly innocuous compromises," as well as making accusations that Democrats are not standing up for American principals. Let's be clear here. Ryan and Brooks are not saying that Democrats, in trying to dig the country out of an economic mess (created, incidentally, by a Republican president and Republican Congress), chose policies they thought would best do the job (which by any honest and fair assessment of the situation is the actual truth), but that they disagree with those choices. No, instead, they are accusing the president and the Democrats in Congress of actively trying to overthrow the American way of life, and to make citizens into serfs.
Ryan and Brooks aren't offering positive solutions. Rather, they make wild accusations to stoke fear in Americans.
Fear is really the only item Republicans are offering voters in November. The GOP isn't running on what they want to do (all they ever offer are more tax cuts for the rich), but instead on what bad things will happen if voters don't elect Republicans in November. Under the Republican narrative of fear, it's not that Democratic policies are well-intentioned but ineffective. It's that the Democrats are out to hurt Americans, and if voters leave Democrats in office, Americans will become serfs in a socialist takeover, which might not matter since the president is a Kenyan who doesn't want to defend the United States from Muslim terrorists.
Is this the country we want to be? Do we want to be ruled by fear?
Historically, that hasn't worked out so well for us. From the internment of American citizens of Japanese ancestry during World War II, to the McCarthy inquisition of the early Cold War, to J. Edgar Hoover's anti-civil rights investigations, America has taken actions out of fear that we, as a country, later came to regret. And after 9/11, George W. Bush's reaction was similarly extreme, in effect doing everything the perpetrators of the atrocity hoped he would (curtailing the rights of Americans and damaging the economy, American military power and the United States' standing in the world through the ill-conceived and botched invasion and occupation in Iraq).
And yet, fear is all the GOP has to offer voters in November.
Republicans will run in November against what they say is an expanding federal government, an echo of the GOP traditions of small government and lower taxes. But make no mistake: A vote for the Republicans in November will be a vote for something very different. A vote for the GOP will be a vote for policies that favor the richest one percent of the country at the expense of the rest of us. And it would be a vote for the kind of fear that, in our history, has resulted in anti-American behavior that we, as a country, eventually come to regret. That is the real Republican platform for November.
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Is the GOP Looking Out for You?
[This article also appears on Huffingtonpost.com. You can access it from my author page here.]
With the midterms just over two months away, we are inundated with daily media reports on the election, most of them predicting doom for the Democrats. But what jumps out at me is how telling so many of the proposals and actions from Republican officeholders and candidates are, since they reveal that they are acting on behalf of a small group of right-wing extremists, not in the best interests of the American people.
To be clear, I'm all for political debate. I think for democracy to work, there has to be a free exchange of ideas, with the best solution to a problem winning the day. But in the current American political environment, we are missing two key elements necessary for our democracy to work. First, thanks to the dissolution of the mass media and the rise of a right-wing propaganda machine (Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, etc.), there is no longer an accepted common set of facts on which to base a debate. Instead, the right wing has decided to use lies and fear-mongering (everything from inventing death panels to questioning the ideological and religious beliefs of the president, including where he was born, to stoking fear of Islam) as a strategic method to win elections. As a result, we have a situation where, according to a recent Newsweek poll, 52 percent of Republicans think President Obama "sympathizes with the goals of Islamic fundamentalists who want to impose Islamic law around the world," and nearly a quarter think he is, in fact, a Muslim. Second, regarding the tea party-dominated Republican Party, in most cases, their proposals and tactics are not chosen with the best interests of the majority of Americans in mind, but are instead cynical attempts to win elections.
Today, Media Matters revealed how several right-wing media sources took a report from the InterAcademy Council on global warming and trumpeted it as proof that the threat from climate change was exaggerated, even though it said no such thing.
Again, policy debates are a good thing. And if someone thinks that we have no responsibility to act to beat back the debilitating effects of climate change, that person has every right to do so, and to make his/her best argument for that point of view.
But what is not useful for democracy is for partisans to knowingly lie about the facts in play to make an argument that plays to their rigid ideological position. The scientific community is not in a 50-50 split about the causes and effects of global warming. The IAC report (the one the right-wing propaganda machine insists debunks the global warming "myth") says: "Climate change is a long-term challenge that will require every nation to make decisions about how to respond."
I think a majority of Republican officeholders know that scientists are almost universally in agreement that global warming is a real issue, but they are choosing to allow the right-wing media to use lies to keep Americans doubtful, all for political gain. If the effects of global warming are real, these Republicans are not just failing to look out for what is best for Americans, they are actively preventing solutions from being discovered and implemented.
Global warming is just one example. On the myriad of problems we have to face as a nation, solutions are hard to come by because the tea party-controlled Republican Party has put political gain ahead of helping the American people.
Who are Republicans looking out for when they insist on extending the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, even if they add to the deficit? By definition, the tax cuts would be a windfall for a tiny portion of the population (those making more than $250,000 a year) at the expense of the vast majority of Americans, both individually and collectively (higher deficits, fewer services and benefits). So to defend this gift to the wealthy, Republicans have to resort to fudging the facts. They argue that somehow the tax cuts help job growth by helping small business owners. But as numerous writers have laid out (a good example comes from Ezra Klein in the Washington Post), that argument has no basis in fact, as only a tiny percentage of small business owners are directly affected. (In fact, this paper from the Tax Policy Center of the of the Urban Institute and Brookings Institution argues that "a majority of households that report small business income will end up worse off than they would have been without the tax cuts.")
When Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty issues an executive order forbidding his state from applying for federal health care aid, is he looking out for his state's citizens or his presidential aspirations? Clearly it's the latter, as he is blocking potential help to individuals in the name of his ideology. But such an action is not surprising given the Republican positions in the health care reform debate. Rather than engage in a productive discussion over how to handle the real problems facing the American health care system (as I've written many times before, while I support health care reform, I can easily make a thoughtful, compelling argument against it, even though no Republicans chose to do so), Republicans instead turned to fear-mongering and lies. (Death panels! Socialism!) Pawlenty is protecting his true constituency (corporations over individuals) and his own political ambitions, not the best interests of most of the people in Minnesota.
Similarly, with our education system falling behind many other countries of the world, and with the South's schools doing worse than the rest of the country, who is Georgia Republican gubernatorial candidate Nathan Deal helping when he said he would reject federal education aid if elected? Certainly not the children of his state. And when Nevada Republican senatorial candidate Sharron Angle says she would have voted against federal aid to victims of Hurricane Katrina (something, by the way, not a single senator actually did at the time), she clearly isn't looking out for the well-being of the people of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. And the list goes on and on.
That's actually the heart of the problem here. You can disagree with the approach the president and the Democratic-controlled Congress took in addressing the massive problems left by the inept Bush administration. Again, debating solutions to problems is what underpins the people's faith in our democracy. But the Republicans never engaged in such a debate. They instead spoke and acted as if the Obama presidency was somehow illegitimate, even though he won a convincing majority of the American people. Rather than debate the benefits of a stimulus bill (and reveal that they were protecting their constituency: the wealthy and corporations), Republicans called Obama a socialist. Rather than debate foreign policy, politicians and candidates gave a wink and a nod as right wingers questioned his religion and his place of birth.
In the end, with the country facing massive problems, the Republicans decided not to act in the best interests of the American people and try and find solutions. The vast majority of Republicans holding office know that the president was born in Hawaii and is not a socialist. They know he advocated for health care reform out of a desire to help Americans, not as part of a plan to seize control of private corporations. They know that his economic proposals were his honest attempt to boost a recession-addled economy and restore a near-collapsed financial system, not an attempt to redistribute wealth. They know that his foreign policy actions were his honest best judgment meant to protect and promote the interests of the United States, not a secret plan to help radical Muslims. And they know that as president, he is doing what he thinks is right to help the American people, not to bring down the United States.
They know these things even as they stridently disagree with his policies. But rather than make that clear, these Republicans chose, instead, to allow the demonization to occur, knowing full well that many Americans would start to believe the lies. (We saw in the March Harris poll that revealed that 57 percent of Republicans think Obama is a Muslim, and 45 percent think he wasn't born in the United States.) Clearly, allowing these lies to take root is not in the best interest of the American people.
(It is interesting that Republicans accused Obama of intervening on behalf of the failing auto industry and proposing federal stimulus as part of an ideological attempt to assert government power over private industry. But these same Republicans have been completely silent over the fact that the American auto industry has not only rebounded since the federal government intervened, but the government will soon be selling off its shares in General Motors to private owners, as well as the report from Moody's chief economist Mark Zandi finding that the stimulus legislation was successful in saving and creating millions of jobs.)
As I wrote in July, I understand that Americans are angry. They have a right to be. But if they take that anger out by voting for Republicans in November, they will only be making a bad situation worse. In addition to playing into the GOP strategy of obstruction and dishonesty, they would be making it harder for the country to address the real and massive problems facing the country.
The GOP is looking out for a select group of constituents, but unless you are an extreme right-wing ideologue or in the top one percent of American earners, Republicans probably aren't trying to help you.
With the midterms just over two months away, we are inundated with daily media reports on the election, most of them predicting doom for the Democrats. But what jumps out at me is how telling so many of the proposals and actions from Republican officeholders and candidates are, since they reveal that they are acting on behalf of a small group of right-wing extremists, not in the best interests of the American people.
To be clear, I'm all for political debate. I think for democracy to work, there has to be a free exchange of ideas, with the best solution to a problem winning the day. But in the current American political environment, we are missing two key elements necessary for our democracy to work. First, thanks to the dissolution of the mass media and the rise of a right-wing propaganda machine (Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, etc.), there is no longer an accepted common set of facts on which to base a debate. Instead, the right wing has decided to use lies and fear-mongering (everything from inventing death panels to questioning the ideological and religious beliefs of the president, including where he was born, to stoking fear of Islam) as a strategic method to win elections. As a result, we have a situation where, according to a recent Newsweek poll, 52 percent of Republicans think President Obama "sympathizes with the goals of Islamic fundamentalists who want to impose Islamic law around the world," and nearly a quarter think he is, in fact, a Muslim. Second, regarding the tea party-dominated Republican Party, in most cases, their proposals and tactics are not chosen with the best interests of the majority of Americans in mind, but are instead cynical attempts to win elections.
Today, Media Matters revealed how several right-wing media sources took a report from the InterAcademy Council on global warming and trumpeted it as proof that the threat from climate change was exaggerated, even though it said no such thing.
Again, policy debates are a good thing. And if someone thinks that we have no responsibility to act to beat back the debilitating effects of climate change, that person has every right to do so, and to make his/her best argument for that point of view.
But what is not useful for democracy is for partisans to knowingly lie about the facts in play to make an argument that plays to their rigid ideological position. The scientific community is not in a 50-50 split about the causes and effects of global warming. The IAC report (the one the right-wing propaganda machine insists debunks the global warming "myth") says: "Climate change is a long-term challenge that will require every nation to make decisions about how to respond."
I think a majority of Republican officeholders know that scientists are almost universally in agreement that global warming is a real issue, but they are choosing to allow the right-wing media to use lies to keep Americans doubtful, all for political gain. If the effects of global warming are real, these Republicans are not just failing to look out for what is best for Americans, they are actively preventing solutions from being discovered and implemented.
Global warming is just one example. On the myriad of problems we have to face as a nation, solutions are hard to come by because the tea party-controlled Republican Party has put political gain ahead of helping the American people.
Who are Republicans looking out for when they insist on extending the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, even if they add to the deficit? By definition, the tax cuts would be a windfall for a tiny portion of the population (those making more than $250,000 a year) at the expense of the vast majority of Americans, both individually and collectively (higher deficits, fewer services and benefits). So to defend this gift to the wealthy, Republicans have to resort to fudging the facts. They argue that somehow the tax cuts help job growth by helping small business owners. But as numerous writers have laid out (a good example comes from Ezra Klein in the Washington Post), that argument has no basis in fact, as only a tiny percentage of small business owners are directly affected. (In fact, this paper from the Tax Policy Center of the of the Urban Institute and Brookings Institution argues that "a majority of households that report small business income will end up worse off than they would have been without the tax cuts.")
When Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty issues an executive order forbidding his state from applying for federal health care aid, is he looking out for his state's citizens or his presidential aspirations? Clearly it's the latter, as he is blocking potential help to individuals in the name of his ideology. But such an action is not surprising given the Republican positions in the health care reform debate. Rather than engage in a productive discussion over how to handle the real problems facing the American health care system (as I've written many times before, while I support health care reform, I can easily make a thoughtful, compelling argument against it, even though no Republicans chose to do so), Republicans instead turned to fear-mongering and lies. (Death panels! Socialism!) Pawlenty is protecting his true constituency (corporations over individuals) and his own political ambitions, not the best interests of most of the people in Minnesota.
Similarly, with our education system falling behind many other countries of the world, and with the South's schools doing worse than the rest of the country, who is Georgia Republican gubernatorial candidate Nathan Deal helping when he said he would reject federal education aid if elected? Certainly not the children of his state. And when Nevada Republican senatorial candidate Sharron Angle says she would have voted against federal aid to victims of Hurricane Katrina (something, by the way, not a single senator actually did at the time), she clearly isn't looking out for the well-being of the people of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. And the list goes on and on.
That's actually the heart of the problem here. You can disagree with the approach the president and the Democratic-controlled Congress took in addressing the massive problems left by the inept Bush administration. Again, debating solutions to problems is what underpins the people's faith in our democracy. But the Republicans never engaged in such a debate. They instead spoke and acted as if the Obama presidency was somehow illegitimate, even though he won a convincing majority of the American people. Rather than debate the benefits of a stimulus bill (and reveal that they were protecting their constituency: the wealthy and corporations), Republicans called Obama a socialist. Rather than debate foreign policy, politicians and candidates gave a wink and a nod as right wingers questioned his religion and his place of birth.
In the end, with the country facing massive problems, the Republicans decided not to act in the best interests of the American people and try and find solutions. The vast majority of Republicans holding office know that the president was born in Hawaii and is not a socialist. They know he advocated for health care reform out of a desire to help Americans, not as part of a plan to seize control of private corporations. They know that his economic proposals were his honest attempt to boost a recession-addled economy and restore a near-collapsed financial system, not an attempt to redistribute wealth. They know that his foreign policy actions were his honest best judgment meant to protect and promote the interests of the United States, not a secret plan to help radical Muslims. And they know that as president, he is doing what he thinks is right to help the American people, not to bring down the United States.
They know these things even as they stridently disagree with his policies. But rather than make that clear, these Republicans chose, instead, to allow the demonization to occur, knowing full well that many Americans would start to believe the lies. (We saw in the March Harris poll that revealed that 57 percent of Republicans think Obama is a Muslim, and 45 percent think he wasn't born in the United States.) Clearly, allowing these lies to take root is not in the best interest of the American people.
(It is interesting that Republicans accused Obama of intervening on behalf of the failing auto industry and proposing federal stimulus as part of an ideological attempt to assert government power over private industry. But these same Republicans have been completely silent over the fact that the American auto industry has not only rebounded since the federal government intervened, but the government will soon be selling off its shares in General Motors to private owners, as well as the report from Moody's chief economist Mark Zandi finding that the stimulus legislation was successful in saving and creating millions of jobs.)
As I wrote in July, I understand that Americans are angry. They have a right to be. But if they take that anger out by voting for Republicans in November, they will only be making a bad situation worse. In addition to playing into the GOP strategy of obstruction and dishonesty, they would be making it harder for the country to address the real and massive problems facing the country.
The GOP is looking out for a select group of constituents, but unless you are an extreme right-wing ideologue or in the top one percent of American earners, Republicans probably aren't trying to help you.
Monday, August 16, 2010
The Proposed Lower Manhattan Islamic Center Deserves Nuanced Discussion, Not GOP Fear Mongering
[This article also appears on Huffingtonpost.com. You can access it from my author page here.]
Given how far to the right the mainstream of the conservative movement has moved in the last few years, it is not often that I read a piece from a right-leaning columnists that actually adds to the national discussion of an issue. Which is why I was pleasantly surprised by Ross Douthat's column in the New York Times today on the proposed Lower Manhattan Islamic center.
I have been disgusted by the right's decision to politicize the issue, using the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the proposed Islamic center as a way to turn fear of "the other" into votes. (Newt Gingrich, an avid practitioner of fear mongering, has, not surprisingly, staked out a far-right position, equating Islam and the Nazis.) With each appeal to our basest, most xenophobic selves, the Republicans are systematically eroding the great American traditions of tolerance and diversity that have been a large part of the growth of the nation. (Note to the GOP: The Statue of Liberty is not just a pretty sculpture. It actually stands for something.) Even the use of the term "Ground Zero mosque" to describe the project is incendiary, intended to alarm at the expense of accuracy (the proposal is not for a stand-alone mosque, and the building would not be at Ground Zero).
Most of all, I have found it depressing that the right has turned a truly nuanced and complicated issue into a mean-spirited, us-versus-them test of patriotism.
Enter Douthat, who, frankly, I usually find to be a stealth apologist for distasteful policies on the right. He tends to act as if he is taking a reasonable, moderate position on an issue, only to come in with his true doctrinal-conservative take on the subject in the final paragraphs. (A great example is Douthat's piece on gay marriage, in which he begins by debunking several arguments against same-sex unions, before swooping in during the final third of his piece to declare an "ideal" in which "children grow up in intimate contact with both of their biological parents," and that Judge Vaughn's ruling "suggests that any such distinction [between gay and straight relationships] is bigoted and un-American." In other words, he set himself apart from the typical right-wing arguments on the issue, only to take a position that is every bit as insulting to same-sex couples--they're not "ideal," after all--as those mainstream right-wing arguments.)
While I don't agree with many of Douthat's points on the proposed Lower Manhattan Islamic center (more on that later), I think he astutely recognizes that there are two issues at play here. Douthat says there are two Americas, one "where allegiance to the Constitution trumps ethnic differences, language barriers and religious divides," and another "that understands itself as a distinctive culture, rather than just a set of political propositions." While I find his set-up strategically chosen to reach his intended result, I give him full credit for being one of the few writers who has acknowledged the complicated and potentially difficult-to-discuss aspects of the issue.
I would turn Douthat's two Americas into two questions. The first is whether those proposing the Islamic Center should be legally permitted to open the facility on Park Place. I think there is really only one correct answer, one we have heard from Mayor Michael Bloomberg and President Barack Obama: Of course the Constitution protects the right of the sponsors to build the Islamic center. And I can't believe any American would take the opposing position, let alone file lawsuits to prevent it from happening. Telling a religious group that it cannot purchase private property and open a house of worship is about as un-American as it gets. You would think a modern conservative movement that has fetishized the right of citizens to act without government intervention would support the side of private citizens seeking to maintain private activity on private property.
But there is a second question, and, to me, this is the question that has really spurred the debate, but one that deserves thoughtful and honest discussion, not the political games-playing and fear-mongering of the right: Should the sponsors of the Islamic center build their project at this location. Those on the right paint the decision as insensitive, as the location is two blocks from the site of a terrorist attack carried out by those who claimed Islam as the justification for their barbarity. Others see the establishment of a center by self-described moderate Muslims as a positive (or at least benign) action, sending a message to extremists like Hamas and al-Qaida that they are powerless to intimidate Americans into surrendering their ideals out of fear. (To be clear, not surprisingly, I am in the latter group.)
But buried in this second question is an inquiry that Douthat gets at that I think is absolutely justified, and it is at the heart of the question of what American culture really is. Douthat's point (in his "second America") is that there is an essential American character (he describes it as being Anglo-Saxon and derived from Protestantism and later adapted to include Jewish and Catholic values), and that immigrants had to assimilate into this American way of life to survive and prosper, thus allowing this essential American character to continue to hold the country's society together.
Now, Douthat's approach seems to justify bigotry and discrimination as a means to an end that forced new immigrants to become Americans (citing as examples the need for Mormons to give up polygamy and for Catholics to shake their "illiberal tendencies" so that they were inspired to "prod their church toward a recognition of the virtues of democracy, making it possible for generations of immigrants to feel unambiguously Catholic and American"). I can't get behind this kind of thinking. Bigotry and discrimination are always wrong, full stop.
But the underlying question of core American values is a valid one. It is clear that there has to be an American culture, at least strong enough to have acted as a uniting element for the country as it expanded and prospered over more than 200 years. It had to be strong enough to allow Americans to unite after the Civil War (to the extent that they did), and to rally together in the face of tragedies and wars. And it was on full display with the sacrifices of ordinary citizens who stepped up to help after the 9/11 attacks. There clearly is an American culture of some kind (although I'm not sure I agree with Douthat as to what is at its core), and it seems to me obvious that immigrants have found a way through the decades to come to the United States and assimilate into that culture, even while keeping the traditions and beliefs of their homelands.
The reason the GOP sees an opportunity here to score political points is, in part, due to concerns of some that the nature of Islam prevents its adherents from embracing these values that have held together American society. Personally, I think that the existence of a moderate-leaning Islamic center in Lower Manhattan could, potentially, demonstrate why such a fear is unfounded. But given world events and the behavior of those who have used Islam as a justification for violence (or even for societal intolerance, misogyny, etc.), it is fair to discuss these questions. Burying concerns doesn't mean they'll go away. Only through airing our society's darker thoughts can they be confronted and hashed out.
Obviously, when you throw religion, politics and a seminal tragic event in modern American history into a pot, it's going to get sticky, messy and potentially unpleasant. Such a cocktail requires a thoughtful discussion of the issues with a goal of reaching the truth and finding consensus.
Which is why the GOP strategy of using these issues to stoke fear for political gain has been especially odious. But it's also why a progressive blogger should highlight a conservative columist's attempt to have a more nuanced discussion of the issue (and to address some of the hot-button topics in a more mature way), even if he doesn't agree with all of what that conservative columnist has to say.
So I thank Douthat for taking a more thoughtful approach to the proposed Islamic center in Lower Manhattan, and I am happy to point out the places where I agree with his analysis, and those where I find his arguments to be less convincing. If only the majority of Douthat's conservative colleagues would take the same approach. If nothing else, we should all agree that what is best for America is a thoughtful discussion, not cynical attempts to stoke fear for political gain.
Given how far to the right the mainstream of the conservative movement has moved in the last few years, it is not often that I read a piece from a right-leaning columnists that actually adds to the national discussion of an issue. Which is why I was pleasantly surprised by Ross Douthat's column in the New York Times today on the proposed Lower Manhattan Islamic center.
I have been disgusted by the right's decision to politicize the issue, using the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the proposed Islamic center as a way to turn fear of "the other" into votes. (Newt Gingrich, an avid practitioner of fear mongering, has, not surprisingly, staked out a far-right position, equating Islam and the Nazis.) With each appeal to our basest, most xenophobic selves, the Republicans are systematically eroding the great American traditions of tolerance and diversity that have been a large part of the growth of the nation. (Note to the GOP: The Statue of Liberty is not just a pretty sculpture. It actually stands for something.) Even the use of the term "Ground Zero mosque" to describe the project is incendiary, intended to alarm at the expense of accuracy (the proposal is not for a stand-alone mosque, and the building would not be at Ground Zero).
Most of all, I have found it depressing that the right has turned a truly nuanced and complicated issue into a mean-spirited, us-versus-them test of patriotism.
Enter Douthat, who, frankly, I usually find to be a stealth apologist for distasteful policies on the right. He tends to act as if he is taking a reasonable, moderate position on an issue, only to come in with his true doctrinal-conservative take on the subject in the final paragraphs. (A great example is Douthat's piece on gay marriage, in which he begins by debunking several arguments against same-sex unions, before swooping in during the final third of his piece to declare an "ideal" in which "children grow up in intimate contact with both of their biological parents," and that Judge Vaughn's ruling "suggests that any such distinction [between gay and straight relationships] is bigoted and un-American." In other words, he set himself apart from the typical right-wing arguments on the issue, only to take a position that is every bit as insulting to same-sex couples--they're not "ideal," after all--as those mainstream right-wing arguments.)
While I don't agree with many of Douthat's points on the proposed Lower Manhattan Islamic center (more on that later), I think he astutely recognizes that there are two issues at play here. Douthat says there are two Americas, one "where allegiance to the Constitution trumps ethnic differences, language barriers and religious divides," and another "that understands itself as a distinctive culture, rather than just a set of political propositions." While I find his set-up strategically chosen to reach his intended result, I give him full credit for being one of the few writers who has acknowledged the complicated and potentially difficult-to-discuss aspects of the issue.
I would turn Douthat's two Americas into two questions. The first is whether those proposing the Islamic Center should be legally permitted to open the facility on Park Place. I think there is really only one correct answer, one we have heard from Mayor Michael Bloomberg and President Barack Obama: Of course the Constitution protects the right of the sponsors to build the Islamic center. And I can't believe any American would take the opposing position, let alone file lawsuits to prevent it from happening. Telling a religious group that it cannot purchase private property and open a house of worship is about as un-American as it gets. You would think a modern conservative movement that has fetishized the right of citizens to act without government intervention would support the side of private citizens seeking to maintain private activity on private property.
But there is a second question, and, to me, this is the question that has really spurred the debate, but one that deserves thoughtful and honest discussion, not the political games-playing and fear-mongering of the right: Should the sponsors of the Islamic center build their project at this location. Those on the right paint the decision as insensitive, as the location is two blocks from the site of a terrorist attack carried out by those who claimed Islam as the justification for their barbarity. Others see the establishment of a center by self-described moderate Muslims as a positive (or at least benign) action, sending a message to extremists like Hamas and al-Qaida that they are powerless to intimidate Americans into surrendering their ideals out of fear. (To be clear, not surprisingly, I am in the latter group.)
But buried in this second question is an inquiry that Douthat gets at that I think is absolutely justified, and it is at the heart of the question of what American culture really is. Douthat's point (in his "second America") is that there is an essential American character (he describes it as being Anglo-Saxon and derived from Protestantism and later adapted to include Jewish and Catholic values), and that immigrants had to assimilate into this American way of life to survive and prosper, thus allowing this essential American character to continue to hold the country's society together.
Now, Douthat's approach seems to justify bigotry and discrimination as a means to an end that forced new immigrants to become Americans (citing as examples the need for Mormons to give up polygamy and for Catholics to shake their "illiberal tendencies" so that they were inspired to "prod their church toward a recognition of the virtues of democracy, making it possible for generations of immigrants to feel unambiguously Catholic and American"). I can't get behind this kind of thinking. Bigotry and discrimination are always wrong, full stop.
But the underlying question of core American values is a valid one. It is clear that there has to be an American culture, at least strong enough to have acted as a uniting element for the country as it expanded and prospered over more than 200 years. It had to be strong enough to allow Americans to unite after the Civil War (to the extent that they did), and to rally together in the face of tragedies and wars. And it was on full display with the sacrifices of ordinary citizens who stepped up to help after the 9/11 attacks. There clearly is an American culture of some kind (although I'm not sure I agree with Douthat as to what is at its core), and it seems to me obvious that immigrants have found a way through the decades to come to the United States and assimilate into that culture, even while keeping the traditions and beliefs of their homelands.
The reason the GOP sees an opportunity here to score political points is, in part, due to concerns of some that the nature of Islam prevents its adherents from embracing these values that have held together American society. Personally, I think that the existence of a moderate-leaning Islamic center in Lower Manhattan could, potentially, demonstrate why such a fear is unfounded. But given world events and the behavior of those who have used Islam as a justification for violence (or even for societal intolerance, misogyny, etc.), it is fair to discuss these questions. Burying concerns doesn't mean they'll go away. Only through airing our society's darker thoughts can they be confronted and hashed out.
Obviously, when you throw religion, politics and a seminal tragic event in modern American history into a pot, it's going to get sticky, messy and potentially unpleasant. Such a cocktail requires a thoughtful discussion of the issues with a goal of reaching the truth and finding consensus.
Which is why the GOP strategy of using these issues to stoke fear for political gain has been especially odious. But it's also why a progressive blogger should highlight a conservative columist's attempt to have a more nuanced discussion of the issue (and to address some of the hot-button topics in a more mature way), even if he doesn't agree with all of what that conservative columnist has to say.
So I thank Douthat for taking a more thoughtful approach to the proposed Islamic center in Lower Manhattan, and I am happy to point out the places where I agree with his analysis, and those where I find his arguments to be less convincing. If only the majority of Douthat's conservative colleagues would take the same approach. If nothing else, we should all agree that what is best for America is a thoughtful discussion, not cynical attempts to stoke fear for political gain.
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