Jonathan Alter: We’re Heading Left Once Again

We’re Heading Left Once Again

The test for the next president is whether he can use the powers of government to act on behalf of Americans. That's a liberal idea.

By Jonathan Alter | NEWSWEEK
Published Oct 18, 2008
From the magazine issue dated Oct 27, 2008


John McCain's "Joe the Plumber" would no doubt like to have a beer with Sarah Palin's "Joe Six-Pack." In truth, Joe Wurzelbacher isn't a licensed plumber and Joe Six-Pack is a horrible cliché, but no matter. They're cultural kin to the iconic "Average Joe" who was part of Richard Nixon's "Silent Majority" in the early 1970s and Jerry Falwell's Moral Majority in the 1980s. But conservative majorities come and go. If the polls are to be believed, today's hard-strapped Joes have more in common politically with Joe Biden. And millions of them are preparing to do something that they never thought they'd do in a million years—vote for a black guy with the middle name Hussein for president of the United States.

Even if Joe stays Republican, Barack Obama will still likely win. That's because he has built a huge base of non-Joes—better-educated, younger whites, as well as women and minorities. These voters are the future of the electorate and they're progressive. If they turn out in the numbers expected, they could restructure American politics for a generation.

For all the statistical permutations, analyzing the makeup of the American electorate for the past half-century is fairly simple. About 40 percent of voters are reliable Democrats (whether they call themselves liberals or not), 40 percent are conservative Republicans (a term starting to lose its coherence), and the shape of our politics is determined by the 20 percent in the middle, mostly independents.

Since about 1980, we've been living in a center-right America, but we're center-center now, and likely headed left. Even if McCain pulls an upset, the Democratic Congress would nudge him leftward on issues like alternative energy and taxes (and his health-care plan would be DOA). Should Obama win, he will press hard for his ambitious agenda, even, aides say, at the risk of being a one-term president. Then it would all be about execution.

If Obama moves "smart left" next year, he will have succeeded in rewriting the American social contract—the obligations of the government to the people on the economy, energy, health care and education. But if we see a revival of the dumb left with old-fashioned capitulation to interest groups and a series of rookie mistakes on foreign policy, even a big Democratic victory next month would be a speed bump on the Ronald Reagan highway.

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