The Better Nation We’ve Become

In his post today (“Seneca, Selma, and Stonewall“), Paul Krugman links to a graph showing growing acceptance, over time, of interracial marriage in the United States:

I like this for the chart that indicates that 86% of the country agrees that it was OK that I married my wife. That trendline — and all the histrionics that underlie it, which we hear echoed today — is why I find the issue of “gay” marriage a non-question: Of course the state should recognize the longterm commitment a pair of consenting adults make to each other, full stop. (I’m of the opinion that the state has no business being involved in marriage qua sacrament, but that’s a whole other semantic argument.)

But I really like this post because Paul Krugman puts his finger on what’s gone wrong on the far right, and why even we progressives mourn the passing of grown-up conservatism: “And I don’t think the right has a clue how to operate in the better nation we’ve become”.  For a host of reasons, most people in America seem to believe things have gotten much much worse than it was a few decades ago.  Some of this is legitimate (economic mobility has ground to a halt; job security is now mythical; our infrastructure is fraying), and some of it is rose-colored nostalgia (there was crime and violence in the 1950s, believe it or not; and we had nearly half the world armed and ready to physically eliminate us).  I think things are better than people believe, and better than they were.  (See: Me, my wife, marriage to).

But let’s grant for the moment the thesis that things have gotten worse.  There are fundamentally two possible approaches to what comes next:  Things are going to get worse, or things are going to get better.  The difference I see between Ronald Reagan’s era of conservatism and Mitt Romney’s is:  The GOP doesn’t really believe things are going to get better.  Sure, they’re fight the good fight (as they see it; I disagree) and they’ll do what they can.  But the vibe coming out of Congress and Tea Party caucuses seems overwhelmingly defeatist, or at least resigned.  They might beat back a tax increase for now, but eventually those rascally takers are going to win.  They might hold to the guns for the moment, but the gov’mint’s coming for them someday.

Overarchingly, they don’t seem to offer any way forward.  They’ve mistaken conservatism for stasis:  If only we could go back to the Golden Age (which is the 1950s, or the 1920s, or the 1850s, or for a small number, the 1350s), everything would be right with the world.  Sure, some people would have to go back to being uneducated, to serving quietly, to riding in the back of the bus, but wouldn’t it be worthwhile?  It’s that sort of thinking that leads to idiocy like arguing “Slavery was a blessing in disguise“.

Now, this is a very broad brush.  There are some conservatives out there who genuinely are trying to carry forward the principles of the past to the world of the future — which is what I think legitimate conservatism is.  I know, because I’ve taught some of them.  Right now they don’t have much of a national voice. It’s possible that Marco Rubio is one of them, though I remain on the fence about that.

But overall, I think a backward-looking despair is the hallmark of the modern conservative movement, and it is a distinct difference to modern progressivism.  Progressives believe in, well, progress:  Things are, overall, better today than they were fifty years ago.  Moreover, and more importantly, we believe things should get better with time:  That our system should be geared toward expanding the opportunity and security of all, toward improving the quality of life for the greatest number, toward eliminating the eternal vexations that have bedeviled civilized life for as long as there’s been civilization.  The loud voices of the conservative movement see a changing demography as a threat to America.  Progressives see it as America.

It is a better nation, and we’re going to make it better still.  That is touchstone of liberalism, and why it’s not the curse word some on Fox News imagine it to be.