moving the sticks

It seems to me that the most important aspect of the conservative ascendancy of has been the gradual rebranding of what constitutes liberalism and leftism and the attendant squeeze on the media to shift the goalposts accordingly.

Human politics is a politics of meaning. It is an utterly banal thing to say the ability to define terms grants incalculable political power. Conservative talk radio and punditry has, for the last several decades, demonstrated great discipline in one key endeavor: redefining the center of American politics and relegating liberalism to the status of weird fringe ideology. All of this happens, of course, in a country which has historically been an idiosyncratic but largely consistent exemplar of liberal values and liberal government. And it remains a place where, on many issues, liberal policy prescriptions are consistently popular. The difference now is that a much larger percentage of those who endorse those policy prescriptions refuse to call themselves liberals, out of embarrassment or shame or, most perniciously, a genuine misunderstanding about what the term means and how it is positioned relatively on the political spectrum in any kind of historical or international context.

In a world where Nancy Pelosi, Shaun Penn, Hilary Clinton, Hugo Chavez, Al Gore, Noam Chomsky, and Barbara Streisand are all routinely referred to as "ultra-left", the term has no meaning. This is why it's important for people like Matt Yglesias to push back against the steady moving of the goalposts, and why I find conservative freakouts about things like referring to the Atlantic or Slate as center-right so disingenuous. It's the

When people talk about a liberal media I simply don't know how to respond. The media has become so utterly cowed by the "liberal media" accusation that they've become reflexively anti-liberal. This is not the same as conservative. But in a zero-sum electoral political system like the one we have, the effect is to empower conservatives. As I've said before, the dominant attitude of the media towards liberalism is the sneer. Liberalism is always something to fear or to deride; it is definitionally "out of touch", and by default contrasted to the mainstream. Conservatism reflects the real America, the thinking goes, the common man, the heartbeat of our country, whatever the actual demographic reality of the people of the United States. Conservatives convinced the media that they were biased, and totally chagrined, the media caved into a sad parody of fairness that treats insistent criticism of the left as a victory for neutrality. In this rhetorical space the right pushed furiously against the definition of what it meant to be liberal, and what it meant to be mainstream, and left us in a place where liberalism is a dirty, unspeakable thing. This was the most successful rebranding effort in the history of advertising.

So when Ericka Andersen asks how progressives would feel if they saw the media through conservative eyes, I ask if she could put herself in my place the other night. I'm watching CNN, and Wolf Blitzer is asking James Carville whether the Democrats are making a mistake by opening the convention with so many liberals. Why, Ted Kennedy and Michelle Obama and Hilary Clinton! What kind of message were the Democrats sending, Blitzer wanted to know, by having so many liberals at the start of the convention. Never mind that the actual leftist credentials of just about anyone speaking at the Democratic convention are suspect. Just consider that Wolf Blitzer, in his role as neutral journalist, thinks that it is a plain fact that liberalism is inherently some bizarre affectation that the people of America fear and revile. Can you imagine, under any circumstances, Blitzer asking a conservative pundit about the wisdom of having so many conservatives opening the Republican convention?

Of course not, because the Republican party is the party of conservatives, and unapologetically so. This is so unremarkable a fact that it feels funny writing it down. And yet Very Serious people like Wolf Blitzer assume quite straightforwardly that the Democratic party shouldn't be a liberal party if it is to be relevant or powerful. No, embracing liberalism won't strengthen the Democratic party by making it a genuine alternative to Republicans and conservatism. Because liberalism is defined as an inherently lunatic ideology, the degree to which Democratic candidates and ideas are to be taken seriously is only a function of the degree to which they represent capitulation to conservatism. In America, it seems, we are meant to have two political parties, center-right and right-right. I don't believe that Blitzer would have been appeased by anyone to the left of Joe Lieberman or Zell Miller.

I read a lot of conservative blogs, though truth to tell they are almost all of the "reformist" or heterodox variety. I don't in fact believe them to be heterodox in the true sense, but that is a question for another day. What is true of them is that they all operate under certain considerations of fair dialogue and process. Most of them, however, seem to accept the notion that there is simply something untoward or unmannered about unapologetic liberalism. I find myself wanting to ask them to consider what it's like to come of age in a political time when the default stance is the defensive crouch, where I feel expected to offer every idea and position with a note of apology. I know what some of you are thinking: this is exactly what conservatives have expressed feeling like for decades. That may be fair. But if we are to step off of the hamster wheel of recrimination and bitterness in politics, we can't take turns marginalizing the other side. And simply as a matter of understanding the current time, I think that it behooves us all to acknowledge the degree to which conservative notions of what is or isn't moderation have seeped into the media, and for conservatives to abandon the canard that they are an oppressed, powerless minority.

Update: And, look: people who support John McCain do not get to complain about media bias. Ever. The media's portrayal of John McCain, at least since his unsuccessful Republican presidential campaign in 2000, has been one of the most unfailingly positive and noncritical imaginable. The effect is so obvious and so powerful that even he is in on the joke. The man called the media "his base". The media like Barack Obama. But they distrust narratives about hope and racial redemption. What they love are narratives about toughness and character and being a Real Man, and they like people who claim to embody straight talk, no matter how often that straight talk is demonstrated to be a dodge. And more than anything else, they like candidates who kiss their ass. McCain is commonly called "a man of the people", or similar, which is a neat trick for someone as hugely wealthy as he is. What he really is is a man of the media, like George W. Bush, and like Al Gore before him Barack Obama consistently refuses to play the game. And he, and my party and my ideology, are paying the price for it. Again.