Features > January 14, 2008

Mr./Ms. Change Goes to Washington

Candidates promises break from Bush, but how far will they go?

By David Moberg

Republican and Democratic presidential candidates greet each other during the Jan. 5 debates in Manchester, N.H.

If Mr. or Ms. Change were a candidate for president, they would be the Democratic nominee by now. But we would not know precisely what candidate Change looks like. It’s an idea—or image—that is as ambiguous as it is popular with voters.

Polling and early votes in the presidential race show that Democrats, many independents and some Republicans want a sharp break with the Bush era on both domestic and foreign policy. The data also show that they’re ready for a departure from the conservative paradigm that started with President Reagan’s declaration that “government isn’t the solution; government is the problem” and went on to encompass President Clinton’s supine acceptance that “the era of big government is over.”

Now a strong majority sees an accumulation of problems—from uncaring healthcare to gross economic inequality, from global warming to globalization—that require profound government response. And in the aftermath of a botched war in Iraq and a bungled response to Hurricane Katrina, they want a government that is effective, honest and open.

But Americans are notoriously skeptical of government—even if, practically, they support government solutions to many problems. The central challenge for Democrats, as the country opens up to a new progressive paradigm, is to restore trust in government action as a solution.

With the occasional rhetorical exception of former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, the Republican candidates can be counted on to mercilessly attack the functions of government—except to wage war and prevent abortions. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, for example, derides government provision of health insurance by asking audiences if they want the people in charge of Katrina to make their healthcare decisions. Never mind that private insurance companies are already doing everything harmful and restrictive that right-wingers menacingly project would occur with government insurance—and more.

But even self-proclaimed Democratic change advocates, like Sen. Barack Obama and former Sen. John Edwards, are cautious about expanding government, especially on the key issue of health insurance. They sense—with some justification from public opinion polls—that people are still wary of government. And voting patterns complicate the politics of healthcare, according to pollster Celinda Lake, who does some work for Democrats and nonprofits: Roughly 95 percent of voters have health insurance (even if the insurance or quality of care is at risk), but “non-voting America is uninsured,” she says.

Americans want government that will both protect and empower them, says George Lakoff, the noted political linguist from the University of California, Berkeley. He says that a democratic government is based on empathy and caring for each other.

Government has a moral mission to address issues other than physical security—to make society more fair and to empower individuals through education, research, infrastructure investment, labor law reform and other policies to have more power over their lives. Regarding healthcare, Lakoff says progressives should argue that protecting people against the inevitable threats to their health is as important as protecting them against national security threats.

Yet because people fear both risk and change, even with current political trends, Lakoff says that Democrats will fare better on health issues if they talk about guaranteeing care—not insurance or coverage. Lakoff, who argues that care should not be determined by the marketplace or private insurance companies, says that a government single-payer plan is conceptually correct but linguistically flawed. Instead he describes the progressive alternative as run by doctors and patients, who can choose what care they get and from whom—in order to cut through right wing fear-mongering about “socialized medicine” (the tag that Republicans will try to stick on any progressive reform, however modest).

But ultimately, even with more persuasive language, Democrats will have to defend the role of government against those who want to shrink it so, as conservative strategist and Americans for Tax Reform President Grover Norquist once said, they can drown it in a bathtub. Republican proposals for healthcare move in precisely the opposite direction, subjecting healthcare to the risks and inequities of the marketplace.

Democrats, like Obama, often say that the best healthcare plan would be a single-payer plan, where everyone is guaranteed care and can decide with their doctors the care they need. But none of the leading candidates, including Obama, advocates it.

“Why do so many leaders surrender in advance?” Lakoff asks. “It has to do with neoliberal thought. They’re not talking about the moral issues of care and empathy, but interests.” Democrats too often talk about the needs of children, veterans, the poor, or the middle class, not about a failure of the market or the moral mandate for government as a protector of the entire national community.

Americans distrust government in part because they distrust politics and politicians. Restoring trust in government requires restoring hope in politics. Obama has staked his candidacy on stirring up hopefulness. His candidacy rests as much on symbolism as policy. His youth, his rhetoric, his newness on the national scene, his background and racial heritage all coalesce into a symbol of a new departure for America that endeared him to younger voters in the Iowa caucuses.

While Obama and Edwards both attack lobbyists and the political influence money game, their visions of the new politics needed for change are starkly different.

Obama rejects what he portrays as artificial, partisan divisions. He appeals to the idea that as one America we can all sit down and reason together. Everyone can have a seat at the table and work out a mutually satisfactory solution. It’s a vision that appeals to the young, the disaffected, the politically independent, and non-ideological people who are turned off by conflict. But Obama also appeals to liberals who see him as a leader who can build, as he argues he will do, large majorities that make change possible.

Edwards holds out hope for change but not without a fight. He sees the pernicious, powerful and greedy hands of big corporations as controlling politics and government, and blocking any change that will challenge their profits and power. Change will come, he says, by fighting those powerful interests on behalf of the “middle class.” This message appeals to many union members, political progressives and voters who want a politician who understands them. But Edwards does not symbolically embody change as strongly as Obama does.

Sen. Hillary Clinton’s supporters—older, lower-income, more regular Democrats than independents—seem attracted to her as a more familiar figure, identified with the economic boom of the late ’90s. But in New Hampshire, women—for whom Clinton embodies change as potentially the first female president—accounted for her narrow win over Obama.

Huckabee attracts some voters for being, in his words, more like someone they work with than someone who lays them off (a not-so-veiled reference to millionaire Romney). But while he rhetorically identifies with workers and against growing inequality, his policies still favor the men handing out pink slips.

By contrast, Edwards’ proposals, while weaker than his analysis of corporate power, would protect, empower and bring fairness to the average working family. And Edwards’ analysis of the country’s political reality and what a president will have to do is much more accurate than Obama’s. But Obama’s, sometimes mushy, message of hope acknowledges the real need to build a broad base of political support for reforms. And it may be more palatable to many Americans.

Experiences from the past and expectations for the future both shape political consciousness. Edwards’ populist class analysis reflects how the distribution of wealth and power from the past shapes the present. Breaking those chains is a necessary step for change. Obama downplays how wealth and power constrain possibilities for change and instead taps into the increasingly endangered American expectation for a brighter future.

A successful progressive president will have to meld both Edwards’ and Obama’s politics, battling entrenched power and building a wider coalition that seeks new ways in which government can protect and empower them. That president will also have to confront the need for more money to finance a new “New Deal” and for a fairer sharing of the nation’s prosperity. Reaching those objectives will require progressive taxes, starting with a rollback of the Bush tax cuts for the rich.

But the new president will also need the initiative to more fairly share the common wealth, by better regulating the financial sector, strengthening workers’ rights to organize, reducing America’s imperial footprint and stripping out waste from the private healthcare system.

Edwards and Obama seem to recognize that their success, if either is elected, will depend on their ability to mobilize enough support for their programs to overcome entrenched private interests. The greatest change will come only if this year’s presidential campaign can transform politics into a grassroots movement that lasts beyond the election. The real faces of Mr. and Ms. Change are in the audiences of voters in Iowa, New Hampshire and beyond.

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• Reader Comments

  “Americans want government that will both protect and empower them, says George Lakoff, the noted political linguist from the University of California, Berkeley. He says that a democratic government is based on empathy and caring for each other.”

  Agreed. Some things have not changed…

  “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, (sic) promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

  I have always considered myself to be a fiscal conservative and an independent voter. I’m in agreement with most of what the author states here. Most people, most of the time do fear change. Our experiences and dashed expectations make us wary of politicians promises and government “solutions”. No party looks good and I don’t think another party would be different for long.

  At age seventy most of my life has become a series of reruns. I know (and so do the candidates) their promises will largely limited by what Congress may be able to prevent, what the lobbyists influence, and how the media forms public perception. Too much hype, too little help.

  The wisdom of the goals set in the Preamble to the Constitution is plain and simple, yet too often clouded or ignored. Health care, protection of workers’ livelihood, and other issues of “general welfare” do not require distribution of money or benefits — what’s required is prevention of concentrated power. This will never be a once and for all event, but a continual vigilance and remedy process.

  Kennedy’s famous, “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country,” rings true to me more than ever. But… also, now more than ever, I believe that Reagan was right on with, “government isn’t the solution; government is the problem.”
  
  Sure we need a health plan, tax system revision, jobs and many other things being cussed and discussed — but our country’s original goals as set out above are being overshadowed by special interests and unelected legislators.The true writers of most bills are the army of 36,000 lobbyists. My doctor told me he didn’t do a lab test because the insurance companies complain about the costs!

  Who is representing me?

  Look at the record of the last several Congresses. What have they accomplished? How much time is spent posing before C-SPAN cameras?  Investigating baseball’s drug usage??? Who said what and when? Who is to blame for (whatever)? What percentage of their time concerns genuine national problem solving?

  How is the Katrina mess doing?

  How soon can we expect another subprime fraud if no one is held accountable?

  Is your elected Representative’s health care like yours, or is it more like a CEO’s?

  How about their retirement plan — guaranteed, or in danger of underfunding and reduction like yours?

  We don’t need a Constitutional convention, but a return to Constitutional goals and principles.

  Can it be done?

  Posted by whattheheck on Jan 14, 2008 at 8:33 AM

  Change, like hope, is a word in which people can make an emotional investment without requiring thought or work.  Rational adults do not waste time with emotionally charged nullities. 

  A big chunk of our population has a child-like faith that they can wish upon a rock star, who will take care of them without effort on their part.

  So, why are so many Demonicrats in a state of arrested development?

  Posted by scorp on Jan 14, 2008 at 3:46 PM

  I want to preface this expression of frustration with some qualifications.  The sense I get is that I am farther left than most.  Also, being a graduate student in philosophy I am not prone to anti-intellectualism, but if I have to read one more article giving us empty headed fancily regurtitated conventional wisdom mush from Lakoff I will scream.  If you want to read a linguist with interesting and informative things to say about American politics, go read some Chomsky.

  The problem with American politics is not politicians getting caught in linguistic traps.  It is that there are significant centers of power that are against people getting what they deserve, because right now the powerful have what ought to belong to others.  Obama doesn’t present a conservative health care plan because he isn’t focusing enough on ‘care’ or ‘nurturing’ or whatever catchphrase Lakoff is trying to sell us in place of genuine critical thought.  He presents the plan he does because he is funded by people who would not fund him if he actually suggested single payer health care.  The thought that he is an agent of change when he is bankrolled by people who only stand to lose from change is ridiculous.  And if you read Chomsky you would appreciate this, because despite being a far more important figure in the feild of linguistics (inspiring one of the major continuing research projects in linguistics, philosophy of language, neuroscience and evolutionary biology) than Lakoff will ever be, Chomsky is not arrogant enough to beleive that the feild he is good at holds all the damned answers.

  Posted by Poppolphil on Jan 15, 2008 at 1:53 AM

  Poppolphil,

  re: Lakoff
  If when he says, “...democratic government is based on empathy and caring for each other,” what is stated in the Preamble to the Constitution...provide for common defense, general welfare, etc., OK.  But this is certainly not enough to motivate and maintain a government or a society.

  Where politics goes off the tract is in using either/or solutions — Republican OR Democrat, My Plan or the bad plan — whatever.
  (They should try the creative design approach article on this website. Not to be confused with Intelligent Design, which appropriated that label already.)

  Let’s take health care as an example.
  The pitch by Republicans is anti-socialized medicine and presents downside examples of Canada, Sweden and of course, the failed 70-year Soviet experiment. They throw in the cost in tax increases and a lowering of quality/personal care.  The Democrats speak to those without any or enough insurance coverage, those who must choose between care and dinner and of course KIDS. Would you buy a used car from someone only because the lot across the street is worse?

  What if we look at the benefits of “empathy and caring” AND the upside for the country in general (the preamble). Making or saving money is a potent incentive for all.

  • We are now paying for emergency care mandated by law. National estimates put emergency room care at 30% more than regular health care. 
  • If people get preventive rather than “repair” care the costs are far lower overall.
  • Communicable diseases, such as aides or TB, can be kept to a minimum.
  • Lost working hours reduced — increasing production
  • Fewer and lower claims — saving employers on health insurance

  A reasoned approach, right? Who could be against this? Well, those “centers of power” you mentioned — State and Federal government which are so attached to the money offered through lobbyists and PACs.

  Posted by whattheheck on Jan 16, 2008 at 9:16 AM

  Anyone interested in learning more about the ideas about health care George Lakoff spoke of?  If so, you might want to check out the Rockridge Institute report “Don’t Think of a Sick Child - Logic of the Health Care Debate.” I work with George at the Rockridge Institute and strongly recommend this report, which is co-authored with Eric Haas, Glenn Smith, and Scott Parkinson.

  You can view the report and our entire health care campaign here:

  http://www.rockridgeinstitute.org/health

  Joe Brewer
  Research Fellow
  Rockridge Institute

  Posted by Rockridge_Joe on Jan 16, 2008 at 4:42 PM

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