The death of multiculturalism?
Wish that David Brooks' column today wasn't behind the New York Times firewall. It's an important one. He writes about how ever so slowly, the Democratic Party is eking its way to saving liberalism. He points out that all the spark has gone out of the Dems' 1990s obsessions, all having to do with multiculturalism and identity politics. What's happening now, Brooks argues, citing a Michael Tomasky essay in The American Prospect, is that some smart liberals are starting to realize that interest-group politics are a dead end ... and that liberals need to start thinking and talking about the common good. As Brooks puts it, "Goodbye, Jesse Jackson. Goodbye, Gloria Steinem. Hello, Harry Truman."
Well, I sure hope so. It might give conservatives like me a real choice in some elections. And even if I never do vote for a Democrat, anything that gets us away from this Balkanized social model extolled as virtuous by the left for a generation is a huge step forward.
The Tomasky essay is a must-read, because it's one of the first things I've seen that suggests that the really creative political thinking is, for the first time in ages, going on among liberals, not conservatives. I have had real trouble even wanting to read liberal political writing over the past few years, because it's often so whiny and self-absorbed. Tomasky says in his piece that the Democratic left wants to think it's still 1968, and the Democratic center wants to relive 1992 again. But this is 2006, says Tomasky, and something else is required. Harry Truman-style civic republicanism, perhaps?
I remember watching the 2004 Democratic convention and listening to that race-hustling fraud Al Sharpton deliver a "forever Selma" speech--the kind of greatest-hits talk that could have been handed down from the podium at any Democratic convention since 1968. It was all grievance, all backward-looking.
But Barack Obama, now that man gave one hell of a speech. It was about, yes, civic republicanism, and what unites us as Americans. It was inspiring, it was fresh, it was just terrific --and I thought, you know, it might be heresy to think this, but I could see voting for a Democrat with a vision like that. But I'd rather vote for a Republican with that kind of civic-republican vision. Do we have any?
Well, I sure hope so. It might give conservatives like me a real choice in some elections. And even if I never do vote for a Democrat, anything that gets us away from this Balkanized social model extolled as virtuous by the left for a generation is a huge step forward.
The Tomasky essay is a must-read, because it's one of the first things I've seen that suggests that the really creative political thinking is, for the first time in ages, going on among liberals, not conservatives. I have had real trouble even wanting to read liberal political writing over the past few years, because it's often so whiny and self-absorbed. Tomasky says in his piece that the Democratic left wants to think it's still 1968, and the Democratic center wants to relive 1992 again. But this is 2006, says Tomasky, and something else is required. Harry Truman-style civic republicanism, perhaps?
I remember watching the 2004 Democratic convention and listening to that race-hustling fraud Al Sharpton deliver a "forever Selma" speech--the kind of greatest-hits talk that could have been handed down from the podium at any Democratic convention since 1968. It was all grievance, all backward-looking.
But Barack Obama, now that man gave one hell of a speech. It was about, yes, civic republicanism, and what unites us as Americans. It was inspiring, it was fresh, it was just terrific --and I thought, you know, it might be heresy to think this, but I could see voting for a Democrat with a vision like that. But I'd rather vote for a Republican with that kind of civic-republican vision. Do we have any?
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