Over at The New Republic, former Clinton Labor Secretary Robert Reich has made another important contribution to the Democrats' long road back from the wilderness. (Full disclosure: I supported Reich during his 2002 gubernatorial campaign in Massachusetts.) In his feature piece "Story Time", Reich looks at the Democrats' defeat in the battle to frame debates and describes a path forward. As with George Lakoff, though, while Reich's story is good one, it needs a different ending.

Reich traces the Democrats dilemma over the past generation to their failure and the Republicans' corresponding success in offering voters a familiar narrative, one featuring values, victors and victims that have resonated with Americans almost back to the founding of the republic. For Reich, the Democrats' post-World War II success and their subsequent undoing in the 1970's, can be traced to their ability to leverage four traditional American stories, two positive and two negative, the their appeal to voters:

Reich is at his best describing how Democrats went off the rails with Vietnam, McGovern and identity politics, while a resurgent and disciplined conservative movement led by master storyteller Ronald Reagan appropriated these four American stories for a new GOP narrative. Today, in the America of George Bush and Karl Rove, tax cuts empower the "triumphant individual" and faith-based initiatives build the "benevolent community." Abroad, the "mob" is the blood thirsty terrorists, aided by evil dictators and abetted by wour eak-kneed European allies that threaten the United States. And the "rot at the top" is the out-of-touch, secular, bi-coastal liberal elites whose cosmopolitan tastes and moral relativism insult and undermine traditional heartland American values.

Unfortunately, Reich's suggested outlines for a new Democratic narrative seem to lack the landscape changing potential the party so desperately needs. He's right that a retelling of the "mob at the gates" tale as the threat of Al Qaeda and global terrorism supports the need for new American-led "global alliance against the terrorist organizations." By adding the need for good health care and education as key ingredients to a revised version of the "triumphant individual", Reich provides an important rhetorical basis for key Democratic initiatives that enjoy broad popular support. Solutions to those problems for each American, he points out, will require the action of all Americans, its "benevolent community."

The biggest challenge to the new Reich American epic may be its populism. Reich is certainly right that:

"The main thing holding us back is the Rot at the Top--concentrated wealth and power to a degree we haven't seen in this nation since the late nineteenth century. Mammoth corporations and hugely rich individuals have abused their power and wealth to corrupt our democracy, take over much of our media, give executives stratospheric pay packages while firing workers, and pad their nests with special tax breaks and corporate welfare. In this, they have been helped by a Republican Congress and White House whose guiding ideology seems less capitalism than cronyism, as shown time and again through legislative sops to the pharmaceutical industry, the credit card companies, and Wall Street."

Sadly, even with Enron, Worldcom, and Halliburton, the anti-corporate populism of the left is still no match for the anti-government populism of the right, especially intoday's "infotainment" media environment. That may yet change, but short of the coming implosion of American health care and the collapse of the Bush leadership under the weight of its own scandals, the critique of the GOP's "Opt Out Society" is not enough to change Democrat's fortunes. In 2000, Al Gore got more votes than George Bush in spite of, not because of, his campaign for "the people against powerful."

What's needed for Democratic renewal is a different kind of narrative, one that updates Reich's four tales with the values - and hopes - of 21st century America. "Fairness" is surely one ingredient, but certainly not enough. Today's American hyper-capitalist society rewards success, values competition, and stresses winning. Americans consistently view themselves as living higher up the socio-economic ladder than they do in reality. The themes of a new Democratic tale must be universal and aspirational, speaking to the hopes and dreams of all Americans as they would be.

As I wrote in "Team America: Making Lakoff Work for Democrats", that narrative requires not a family, but a team:

"What’s needed to articulate that is a different frame. One that projects confidence, unity, aspiration – all the while working with, not running counter, to the trajectory of 21st century media. Forward looking, rewarding success, respecting personal autonomy, requiring shared responsibility, empowering each citizen to achieve their utmost and setting and achieving common national goals (a concept of “winning”, if you will), those are the values needed in a new Democratic “frame.” And the model for that is not a family, but a team. Call it Team America"

A "Team America" narrative gives Democrats a powerful language, an implicit "New American Bargain" to use in overcoming the good vs evil, rugged individualism of conservatives. Team America's emphasis on winning, success, competition and the future supports a new internationalism abroad and American capitalism and the market model at home. Except, that is, where market failure or limitations imperils the success of the American team and its members, as with health care, child care and retirement security. And Team America's civil religion respects personal privacy, including rights to marry and reproductive choice, while requiring sacrifice (national service, energy conservation, wartime levies) and the best from each citizen (progressive taxation).

One of America's leading progressive voices and among its foremost analysts of economic change, Reich has done a great job telling the story of America's recent past. He just needs a little help with the sequel.

—Perrspective 5:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) |