Some Thoughts On the Thoughts of That Liberal Who Couldn't Support Sanders or Corbyn

Tara Ella has written a piece, "Why This Liberal Couldn't Support Bernie Sanders or Jeremy Corbyn." It isn't very much about either Sanders or Corbyn; it's mostly a philosophical treatise from a self-described liberal who offers a preference for "smaller government." Some of my thoughts:

A lot of readers are going to look on your talk of preferring "smaller government" on rather vague "moral libertarian" grounds as allowing ideology to overrule reason. And they'd be right to do so. You don't actually engage with the arguments for the policies you're dismissing here, arguments that are much more practical than, as you seem to suggest, ideological.

The growing opposition to private health insurance, for example, doesn't flow from some ideological commitment to abstract socialism; it comes from entirely pragmatic considerations. Insurers don't add anything to patient care. They're just a middleman, and their rapacious pursuit of profit leaves huge numbers of people without any coverage, even larger numbers of people who theoretically have coverage without care or with constant bureaucratic intrusions into their care and it jacks into the stratosphere the price of care for everyone. One could perhaps do better with some theoretical public-private hybrid--it would be almost impossible to do worse--but any private involvement has to feature that profit motive, and it's just not a necessary expense.

You don't engage with any of this, and all you place against it is that ideological preference for "the smallest government method to achieve the aim…"

As another example, you write that "heavily restricting free trade is a retrograde policy that was discredited back in the 1970s," but this not only fails to engage with the objections to what is misleadingly called "free trade," it actively distorts them. The multilateral "free trade" deals to which progressives object have very little to do with trade. They're about granting legal superpowers to multinationals, establishing institutions that, among other things, allow them to collectively challenge democratically-enacted regulatory regimes and mete out economic punishment to nation-states that fail to fall in line. And falling in line means a race to the bottom for peoples everywhere in the name of profit by the few. Opposition to this is not, as you suggest, just long-out-of-date reactionary protectionism. Since you've expressed your preference for lesser government, it's also worth noting that these "free trade" agreements are, themselves, a major government intervention into economic activity, and are also protectionist (all of them extend new monopoly protections, for example, to "intellectual property"). It's just that it's carried out on behalf of these multinationals.

Now obviously, your article isn't about healthcare or this sort of "free trade" and it would be unreasonable to expect some sort of detailed discussion of every general issue you raise. What I'm describing is the impression you're giving by how you do deal with them.

When you discuss moral agency, you write that you believe "all individuals should have maximum liberty over their own lives" and that "a government that is too big is incompatible with this aim." But here, again, the issues you've raised beg questions regarding the application of this notion, questions you fail to address. Our experience with for-profit healthcare is that it utterly decimates large swathes of the population; all it takes is one injury or illness and that for-profit system can swoop in and take away everything one has, everything for which one has ever worked, completely destroying one's independence and one's opportunities in life. There's not much "liberty" left for someone in that fix. When the government facilitates the mass-export of jobs, that not only harms individuals, it devastates entire communities. This "maximum liberty" thing is a lot more complicated than you've treated it here; there's certainly much more to it than just some abstraction about the size of a government.

You ask a few questions that effectively critique elements of liberal democracy and, of course, that could be developed even further. Entrenched interests do exert undue influence over it, political representation usually isn't so great and politicians' actions frequently don't conform to public opinion--it's an extremely flawed system, arguably critically flawed. Still, the basic principle at the heart of democracy is self-determination, which is, of course, one of the most basic and indispensable principles of liberty. The liberal democracies are imperfect but they're an effort to apply this principle to a state system. Returning, in light of this, to one of those particular issues you raise, the push for single-payer healthcare is a democratic one. Advocates of the policy have been organizing, making their case for their preferred policy, supporting politicians who promise to enact it and so on. You write that the only way to preserve liberty is by limiting the size of government but that presents an obvious problem if the democratic consensus is opposed to that sort of limitation on government. That's a limitation on one principle of liberty. It may further others but again, that's an argument that must be made. You haven't made it, and your flat declaration that limiting government is the only path fails to acknowledge that the conflict exists.

Just some thoughts I had while reading your piece.

--j.

An Effort At A Contribution Toward Healthy Public Discourse On Progressives

Anthony Rogers-Wright has written a piece that asks, "Are 'Progressives' Becoming the Debasers of National Conversations?" It aims some criticism at Wisconsin congressional candidate Randy Bryce and Texas Senate candidate Beto O'Rourke, who are presently attempting to unseat, respectively, Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz. Some of this criticism is appropriate, some not so much. My effort to unpack it:

It's an unfortunate habit of the left to consume itself and let the perfect be the mortal enemy of even the very, very good. In your piece, you get some important things wrong, and while these are probably honest mistakes, they do make portions of your article an example of this. You write:

"Bryce and O'Rourke have both been bankrolled by corporate donations from 1% corporations including Amazon, Apple, Time Warner, Google and Raymond James. Accepting corporate cash is profoundly antithetical to the platform of the Justice Democrats PAC, who endorsed Bryce while appealing for, 'a strong Democratic Party that doesn't cater to corporate donors.'"

But you don't establish that either Bryce or O'Rourke have gotten "corporate donations." Direct corporate donations to a candidate are, in fact, illegal. Such donations are still made, of course, but it's done through various backdoor means. Mostly, it comes in through PACs, super PACs and various dark-money groups but while you suggest--and at times even say--Bryce and O'Rourke are accepting money from such sources, you fail to establish this. And, in fact, both have forsworn corporate money from such sources.

You compare Bryce and O'Rourke unfavorably to Bernie Sanders "because as we see in the graphic above, some of their donations lack transparency and, therefore, could be characterized as 'Dark Money'--with warrant." But the only graphic above those words shows contributors to Bryce's campaign from ActBlue and various individuals. ActBlue is not a dark-money org; it's a conduit PAC. It merely provides, for a small percentage fee, fundraising infrastructure for campaigns engaged in grassroots fundraising. Donors earmark their contributions; the donors are disclosed.

Campaign finance law doesn't require disclosure of the names of small donors--those who give less than $200 to a candidate--but anyone who donates has to list his employer. Your chart regarding O'Rourke's fundraising lists various business interests as having made donations but your source, OpenSecrets, includes in those calculations anyone who works for a given company. If, say, 10 employees of Time-Warner donate $250 each to O'Rourke, that will be listed on OpenSecrets as $2,500 from "Time-Warner," even though it may just be from janitors, drivers, comic book colorists who work for parts of this huge corporation and don't even know one another.[1] The larger chart from which you drew the data you've used does make it clear that all of the money from these sources comes from individuals. This doesn't, of course, mean there's no possible corrupt influence here--that's a much more complicated matter[2]--but contributions from working people are just that: from working people. All of them work for someone. All who contribute have to list that someone. The big employers with the most employees have the most people who may decide to contribute to a political campaign. You can immediately see the problem your framing has created; presenting their contributions as "corporate contributions" is a profound mischaracterization.

You've accused Randy Bryce of accepting such "corporate contributions"--a toxic charge when it comes to progressives--but Bryce is, in reality, mostly funded by small contributions:

That's a larger percentage than Cathy Myers, his primary opponent whom you've spotlighted, though her cut from small donations--64.24%--is also impressive.[3] And compare either to Paul Ryan, who has a massive super PAC and has only raised 5.62% of his campaign war-chest from small contributions.

Among progressives, this kind of crowdfunding is a thing that should be encouraged, not met with ill-founded attacks.

The matter of Beto O'Rourke is a bit more complicated. He's been an advocate for campaign finance reform for as long as he's been in congress and has sponsored and co-sponsored a string of bills on the subject, but in his first two campaigns, he took the corporate cash like most other pols.[4] In the last cycle, he apparently had a come-to-Jesus moment or at least recognized the irreconcilability of this and dumped the corporate PAC money. Still, he's always had a disproportionate number of large contributors; they supplied over 86% of his funds in that 2016 run. The zeroes begin to increase in a Senate race but so far, he's at least improved on that--at present, 60.28% of his funds come from the larger $200+ individual donations. It will be curious to see if that percentage goes up or down as this year proceeds.[5] He's bragged about raising most of his money from Texans.

You write:

"Additionally, both Bryce and O'Rourke's campaigns have been bolstered by a who's who list of Hollywood celebrities from Gwyneth Paltrow, to Charlize Theron, to Rosie O'Donnell who all live thousands of miles away from Wisconsin and Texas, and likely not fully informed of the specific challenges faced by the people who live in both states."

Hollywood celebrities are ideological givers. They give to causes in which they believe, not in an effort to purchase congressmen and receive favorable treatment for some business interest to the detriment of everyone else. Bernie Sanders received donations from a large number of celebrities. None of this is to say such contributions aren't potentially problematic but as corruption problems go, they're pretty far down the scale.

Down there with them at the moment is any serious fear of a "progressive Establishment," at least in the way you describe it. The last two years have seen the rise of a number of new orgs and a rejuvination of some older ones, all devoted to electing progressive candidates around the U.S.. This development is in its infancy--it hasn't even been through a single major campaign cycle yet--and as far as it has gotten, it's still a very tiny--cellular, even--David compared to the Goliathean forces arrayed against it. It's years--maybe decades--away from devolving into the kind of rich, fat, intellectually bankrupt and exclusive country club that perpetually rests on its flabby laurels, revels in old campaign war stories from the Glory Days and smothers innovation while complaining about those darn kids and their lack of respect for its Great Accomplishments. It may never make it that far; that remains to be seen. For now, it's an embryonic, neophyte, outgunned underdog, nowhere near the Man.

These criticisms aside, your larger point, that candidates should debate their primary opponents, is dead on target. It's a regular practice for frontrunners to refuse to debate their opponents. Some, like Nancy Pelosi, make it a regular practice to refuse to even acknowledge the existence of their primary challengers. One either believes in liberal democracy or one doesn't, and if one does, playing those sorts of games simply isn't defensible. For the new wave of crowdfunded progressive candidates that has arisen, carrying on in this way doesn't really debase the national conversation--that's pretty much where things have been for years--but it doesn't elevate it either, which is something such progressives should be in the business of doing. Any respect for a healthy public discourse demands no less. Something else it imposes is an obligation to try to get things right, and it's in this spirit that I offer my remarks here.

--j.

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[1] OpenSecrets is, in general, an invaluable resource but its data when it comes to this sort of thing must be used carefully.

[2] Bundled contributions, for example, can be used by various interests to get around campaign finance law; on paper, they're just a bunch of contributions from individuals. When it comes to trying to track campaign finance, such bundling can cause some real headaches.

[3] The items listed on Bryce's ledger as "PAC Contributions" aren't the big business corporations either:

[4] Thought it was never a big part of his overall take.

[5] Back in the Summer, Politifact did a piece on his fundraising that turned into a great little primer on the difficulties of tracking some areas of campaign finance via the publicly available resources.

Texas Democratic Primary Wrap-Up

[I started this as a Facebook post, it ran a bit long, so I just decided to put it here--easier for those interested to share.]

Yesterday's Texas primaries were pretty good to the progressive House and Senate candidates spotlighted by this blog, most of whom either won or made it to runoffs to be held later this year (the Texas runoff system is triggered when no candidate wins more than 50% of the vote).

--Born-again progressive Beto O'Rourke handily won the Democratic Senate primary, beating progressie Sema Hernandez and capturing over 61% of the vote. He will face Republican incumbent Sen. Ted Cruz in the general.

--In the much-contested 7th District, progressive Laura Moser will take on EMILYs List-backed corporate "Democrat" Lizzie Fletcher in a runoff. Progressive Justin Westin finished in 3rd place. This race drew a lot of attention because the DCCC savagely attacked Moser only days before the vote but corporate "Democrat" Alex Triantaphyllis, who was recruited by the DCCC, finished in 4th, drawing only 15.7% of the vote.

--In the 12th District, progressive Vanessa Adia's opponent withdrew from the race at the last moment. Adia will go on to face Republican incumbent Kay Granger in the general.

--In the 14th, progressive Adrienne Bell dominated Levi Barnes, raking in nearly 80% of the vote. She'll go on to face Republican incumbent Randy Weber in the general.

--In the 16th, progressive Veronica Escobar dominated a crowded field, capturing over 61% of the vote. She'll face off against Republican Rick Seeberger in the general but this is a very strong Democratic district, the seat Beto O'Rourke gave up to run for Senate, and her win in the primary virtually guarantees she's going to Washington.

--In the 21st, Progressive Mary Wilson and the DCCC's pick, self-financing "ex"-Republican Joseph Kopser, will face off in a runoff. Progressive Derrick Crowe fared relatively poorly, finishing in 3rd place with only 23.1% of the vote. Today, he endorsed Wilson.

--In the 22nd, progressive Letitia Plummer will face off against Sri Kulkarni (who seems relatively progressive) in a runoff. Progressive Steve Brown finished in third place.

--In the 23rd, progressive Rick Treviño will square off against Gina Jones in a runoff. Jay Hulings, the DCCC's conservative pick, finished in 4th place.

--In the 26th, progressive Linsey Fagan defeated Will Fisher--she will advance to the general, where she will face Republican incumbent Michael Burgess.

--In the 29th, Sylvia Garcia, who, when I was researching her, seemed a pretty standard-issue Democrat, crushed self-funder Tahir Javed in a one-sided massacre. This is a heavily Democratic district; Garcia is virtually guaranteed to win the general. Hector Morales suffered perhaps the worst progressive defeat of the evening, finishing in 4th place with only 3% of the vote.

--In the 32nd, Colin Allred and Lilian Salerno--the two progressives in the crowded primary--will now compete in a runoff. Ed Meier, Hillary Clinton hecubi and backed by the Clinton machine, finished in 4th place with only 13.7% of the vote.

--In the 26th, progressive Dayna Steele crushed Jon Powell; she will go on to face Republican incumbent Brian Babin in the Fall.

Other notes, both good and bad: The Associated Press reports today that turnout in the Democratic primaries was the highest it had been in 16 years. Believe it or not, Texas has apparently never sent a Latina to congress; wins in two heavily Democratic districts mean it will probably be sending two this year (Escobar and Garcia). The 28th District is heavily Democratic and could elect a good candidate but instead, Henry Cuellar, a "Democrat" who votes with Trump over 60% of the time, ran unopposed there and will be going back to congress next year. Trumpanzee Kathaleen Wall spent $6 million trying to get the Repub nomination in the 2nd District and ended up in 3rd place--didn't even make the runoff.

--j.