Jonathan Chait recently argued that liberals often seem to favor negotiation with foreign adversaries but oppose concessions to domestic ones. This resulted in some quick pushback. Key points from the pushback: negotiating isn’t a concession and that playing hard ball in politics means very different things than playing hardball in an actual war. Here’s the key points of his retort:
Certainly, it's a way of thinking about your adversary that's at least somewhat in tension with the kind of thinking liberals prefer on foreign policy. On foreign policy, liberals like to understand that our adversaries' thinking can't simply be defined as the negation of our own values. (I agree, which is why I'm a liberal, albeit a moderate one on foreign policy.) It's fatuous to think that if we believe in freedom, then Islamic radicals must simply hate us for our freedom, or that if we believe in equal rights, then social conservatives must be motivated by a hatred for equal rights. Moreover, our adversaries are not always monolithic, and there are times when concessions can divide or isolate them from the center, not just encourage them to increase their demands.
I think Chait’s summary of how domestic and foreign policy strategy are similar in this regard is accurate. That said, the pieces he was responding to were more strategic than the excerpt he cited. So, is there strategic analysis correct? Well, coming from the other side, here’s Ross Douthat’s read:
If you're an unconflicted supporter of abortion rights, obviously, then you shouldn't support overturning [Roe vs. Wade], period: If second-trimester abortion is really a fundamental human right, then there's no reason to risk it's availability for some nebulous hope of a less polarized America
So, is a lot of the rhetoric about social conservatives hyperbolic? Sure. But that’s true of most any set of rhetoric when you’re dealing with an issue you actually care about. I think Chait may well be right in that liberals should do a better job of practicing what we preach when it comes to domestic strategy. That said, Obama’s outreach attempts to the House Republicans on stimulus netted him zero votes, so I don’t think this is a problem our leadership suffers from.
To have a meaningful debate, I think Chait needs to throw out an example where liberal strategic logic is flawed rather than one where the rhetoric is overheated. On this issue, positions don’t flow from your assumptions on human nature, they flow from how strongly you care about abortion rights and how broadly you define them.
Recent Comments