The Recurrent Rejection of Liberalism

In the aftermath of last November’s Republican landslide victory, President Obama has made a widely publicized shift to the right. He hired a pro-business centrist Chief of Staff, compromised with Republicans on Bush-era tax cuts, and in other rhetorical ways indicated his willingness to abandon hard-left ideology in favor of a more centrist, pragmatic approach to governing.

On the other hand, the professional left scoffed at this rightward shift, with many liberals blaming the Democrats’ historic defeat on poor messaging, not on liberal governance. The problem was not that Obama was too liberal, but that he didn’t do a good job of communicating the benefits of his liberal policies, the argument went. Some liberals even argued that Democrats lost because they weren’t liberal enough, citing the failure to include a public option in the healthcare bill, not passing cap and trade, and the failure to shut down Guantanamo Bay.

It comes as no surprise that marketing is a popular scapegoat of electoral defeat. It requires less agonizing self-reflection to attribute losses to poor marketing, than to failed policies. Certainly, no one expected liberals to reject liberalism in the aftermath of one unfavorable election. But in light of the broad electoral mandate given to liberals to govern following the 2006 and 2008 elections, is it really plausible that a communications mishap is the primary reason for the left’s reversal in fortune?

The enthusiasm on the left following Obama’s victory was palpable. Finally the left had an ideological liberal, one of their own, in the White House, reinforced by a Democrat-led Senate and House. It appeared as though most road blocks to liberal governance had been removed. Until Republican Scott Brown’s upset victory in Massachusetts in January 2010, Democrats even enjoyed a rarely seen filibuster-proof majority in the Senate. Great Society 2.0 could now finally take root. Democrats succeeded in passing the Stimulus, investing taxpayer dollars in GM and Chrysler, nationalizing student loan programs, enacting a centralized healthcare reform bill, and pushing through far reaching financial regulations. To be sure, the left didn’t get everything it wanted; in part because of public opposition, and in part because centrist Democrats at times refused to fall in line. But the fact that the government made a dramatic leftward shift following the 2008 election can hardly be disputed.

Unfortunately for Democrats, voters don’t measure success by the number of bills signed into law. Persistently high unemployment, out-of-control debt and deficits, and the perception that the country was headed in the wrong direction led to dismal approval ratings for Congress and a precipitous drop in the President’s popularity, especially and most significantly, among independents. Americans had had enough and voted out the liberal majority in favor of a tea-party driven conservative one.

To accept the theory that poor marketing sunk the Democrats, one has to believe that Democrats did nothing wrong policy-wise (except maybe not govern even further to the left, as some would have us believe). The path to reestablishing a Democratic majority, therefore, is to continue full steam ahead with a left-wing agenda, while tweaking marketing techniques.

There is at least one liberal leader who appears to have serious doubts about this theory.

President Obama’s decisions to reshuffle his cabinet and extend the much maligned Bush-era tax cuts belie the notion that messaging was at the root of the Democrats’ defeat. Obama’s overhaul is an implicit admission that his rigid, left-of-center governance ushered in the conservative majority.

Not surprisingly, many liberals resent President Obama’s newly found centrism. With Obama’s election, liberals were hoping for a new and vigorous era of liberal governance, unimpeded by Republican obstructionism. But a Republican House, a narrow and politically vulnerable Democrat Senate majority, and Obama’s move to the center, appear to have dashed liberal hopes for radical transformation. Whether Obama’s cabinet changes will lead to sustainable centrist governance, and are not merely ruses to appease a disaffected electorate, the moves by themselves affirm that President Obama and his advisors understand that governing from the far left is politically untenable in the long-run.

This should not come as a surprise. When American leaders steer to the far left, voters rebel at the ballot box. Americans rejected the Great Society’s economic programs that promised and ultimately failed to reduce poverty, electing and then reelecting Richard Nixon. Jimmy Carter’s dramatic leftward shift was resoundingly rejected, paving the way for the conservative Reagan revolution. After Bill Clinton pursued a left-wing agenda during his first two years in the White House, Republicans won control of Congress, forcing the politically shrewd President Clinton to abandon left-wingism and embrace the now famous triangulation strategy.

By shifting rightward, President Obama is sending a message to voters that he is through being a rigid liberal ideologue. That in itself is recognition that Americans have once again rejected hard-line liberalism.