Several ghosts from the civil rights movement haunted Capitol Hill on February 27, but it was a little unclear how many were the ghosts of CRM past and how many were the ghosts of CRM future. The State of Alabama, where so much civil rights history was made, had built the house from which many of these ghosts came.

On one side of First Street the ghost of Rosa Parks, embodied in a 9-foot-tall statue, waited in the Capitol’s Statutory Hall to be unveiled by President Obama, her political descendant. He was assisted by both party’s leaders while some still-living civil rights activists, a few blood relatives, members of the public and a lot of press crowded the space trying to see.

On the other side, the ghosts of CRM past, present and future were duking it out at the Supreme Court. Shelby County, AL had challenged the section of the 1965 Voting Rights Act that requires covered jurisdictions to clear any changes in how they conduct elections with the Department of Justice. Its lawyers argued that ghosts of racial sins past had no place in the present. The DoJ maintained that these racial sins were not yet ghosts.

Outside, a couple hundred civil rights supporters rallied on the sidewalk. Some of the speakers soon walked across the street where they had reserved seats in front of the stage in Statutory Hall. The ghosts of CRM present could be seen in the faces of the six elected officials who sat on that stage. The two Republican leaders were both white men. The four Democratic leaders included one white man, one white woman and two black men.

Behind both events is some history and politics, which didn’t generally make the press. Those six faces on the stage represented vast changes from the days when the Republican Party was the party that freed the slaves and the Democratic Party was the party of white supremacy. In the 19th century, not a single Democrat in Congress from any state voted for any civil rights bill, even though those bills were only intended to affect the South.

Not only were all the African-Americans elected to Congress in the 19th century Republicans, but so was the first African-American elected in the 20th century – Oscar dePriest of Chicago (1928-1934), who was born in Alabama. When President Johnson signed the 1964 Civil Rights Act he correctly predicted that the white South would leave the Democratic Party. Indeed it had begun to leave in 1948 when four deep South states left Harry Truman off of their ballots because they didn’t like his civil rights policy.

Shelby County was changed by the civil rights movement and the Voting Rights Act. It sits right below Jefferson County, whose main municipality of Birmingham is the site of a lot of CRM history. Shelby County is the site of white flight. It’s where the white folk fled after blacks took over Birmingham.

In the 1960s, Shelby was a rural county of about 35,000 people, 19 percent non-white. Jefferson had 640,000 people, 35 percent non-white. Birmingham, had 340,000 people, 40 percent non-white. Before the civil rights movement came to Birmingham only 10 percent of blacks of voting age were registered to vote, compared to a little less than half of the whites.

As the number of black voters shot up, whites moved out. In 1979 Birmingham elected its first black mayor (Richard Arrington, Jr.), and it hasn’t had a white mayor since. Over the next 45 years Birmingham’s population declined by 125,000 and became over 60 percent non-white. Shelby County’s increased by 165,000 and became almost 90 percent white. Birmingham is still electing Democrats. In Shelby County, every elected official running under a party label is a Republican.

With the whites, went the money. Most of them fled to Hoover, which became a wealthy suburb of Birmingham. Its median family income is three times that of Birmingham. More income in a county means more taxes to local governments. Whereas Shelby County is among the 100 highest income counties in the US, Jefferson County filed for bankruptcy on November 9, 2011.

These are also the ghosts of CRM present.

There will be more prose, less poetry, though President Obama will certainly highlight the themes of his Inaugural Address and his earlier poetic speeches. He will be specific about policy: on immigration, gun violence, climate change, military expenditures and reforms, and the need for a balanced approach to immediate and long-term economic challenges. He will hang tough on the sequestration, calling the Republicans’ bluff, and he will warn of the dangers the U.S. faces abroad, while he defends his foreign policy, including his major accomplishment of ending two disastrous wars (though he won’t call them that). The speech is going to be about jobs and the middle class. This is all expected by the chattering class, and I think Obama will meet expectations. But I also think that there will be more interesting things going on. The President will move forcefully ahead on his major project, moving the center left on issues foreign and domestic. And there are significant signs he is succeeding, see this report from a deep red state.

Look for an opening to Republican moderates. I suspect Obama will not only stake out his positions, but also point to the way that those holding other positions may work with him on contentious issues. This will be most apparent in immigration reform. He will also likely address Republicans concerns about long-term cuts in government spending.

He will highlight the need for a leaner, but as mean, military budget, as he denounces the dangers of the thoughtless cuts in military spending via the sequester. Real cuts in military spending will please his base, including me, but also some more libertarian Republicans, Rand Paul, though not John McCain.

Less pleasing for progressives would be what Obama very well may say about so-called “entitlements.” I am not sure he will do this now, but if not now, when?

He could make clear his priority – control medical and Medicare expenses, reminding us that this is a task of Obamacare, but he also may make gestures suggesting more Republican friendly solutions concerning intelligent cutting of expenditures: on indexing and eligibility issues for Medicare and perhaps also Social Security. He is unlikely to be specific. He will emphasize that these programs are essential. Yet, he could strategically reveal an openness to Republican ideas, as he emphasizes the need for bi-partisan support of infrastructure, education, research and development, meeting the economic and environmental challenges of the day. This would be an invitation to moderate Republicans to break away from the “party of no.”

Obama’s recent legislative victories included Republican votes on the fiscal cliff and the debt ceiling. I believe he will talk about the economy in such a way that he strengthens his capacity to draw upon this new governing coalition. He will do it in the name of the middle class and those aspiring to be in the middle class. This is the formulation of Obama for ordinary folk, the popular classes, the great bulk of the demos, the people. In this speech and in others, they are the subjects of change, echoing Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address: government of the middle class and those aspiring to be in the middle class, by the middle class and those aspiring to be in the middle class, for the middle class and those aspiring to be in the middle class. (More on this on another day.)

Obama will declare the state of the Union as fundamentally sound and improving. He will underscore the contingencies of the improvement. He will speak to the middle class and those aspiring to be in the middle class, but also to the members of Congress.  Speaking to the Congress, he will draw upon the themes of his re-election campaign and his recent speeches on gun violence and immigration. With public support, he will call on Congress to act, and he will suggest the path. He will speak in the name of those who voted for him, but will reach out to the representatives of those who didn’t to find common cause on key crucial issues. He will voice his fundamental commitments and suggest compromise. It will be interesting to see how he will balance these.

I think Obama’s constancy is the most remarkable aspect of his presidency. Tactics have changed, as he has worked with a Democratic majority in Congress, with a Republican dominated Congress, and against a Republican dominated Congress. But his goals have not changed, most clearly summarized, in my judgment, in two key speeches. The one that made him a national figure: his keynote address to the Democratic Convention in 2004 (and the many speeches that followed repeated its inclusive themes) and his recent Inaugural Address, which most clearly and compactly articulates his progressive aspirations. He is a centrist who wants to include into public debate the experiences and aspirations of the American people in its diversity, including the diversity of opinion: progressive, conservative and moderate. But he has his specific commitments, and he wants those commitments, most sharply revealed in the Inaugural Address, to be at the center of the debate. Expect a State of the Union that links these two speeches, pointing to specific actions, and, therefore, pushing forward the Obama transformation.

Accused of being an optimist once again last year, I was sure that Barack Obama would be re-elected and that this potentially had great importance. As the election contest unfolded, it seemed to me that Romney and the other Republican candidates made little sense and that a broad part of the American electorate understood this.  A major societal transformation was ongoing and Obama gave it political voice: on the role of government, American identity, immigration, social justice and a broad array of human rights issues. Thus, I think the re-election has broad and deep significance, and I conclude the year, therefore, thinking that we are seeing the end of the Reagan Revolution and the continuation of Obama’s.

But, of course, I realize that my reading is a specific one, and partisan at that. My friends on the left are not as sure as I am that Obama really presents an alternative. From their point of view, he just puts a pretty face on the domination of global capitalism and American hegemonic military power. I have to admit that I view such criticism with amusement. It takes two forms. The criticism is either so far a field, so marginal, that it is irrelevant, leftist sectarianism, which is cut off from the population at large, confined to small enclaves in lower Manhattan (where I work and have most of my intellectual discussions) and the upper west side, Ann Arbor, Michigan, Austin, Texas, Berkley, California, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Brooklyn and the like. Or there is the happy possibility that the critiques of Obama and the Democrats engage popular concerns and push responsible political leaders to be true to their professed ideals. I have seen signs of both of these tendencies, significantly in the Occupy movement. I hope the leftist critics of Obama pressure him to do the right thing. Marriage equality is an important case study.

I think the criticism of Obama from the right is much more threatening. If conservative critics of Obama don’t take seriously the significance of the election results, they are not only doomed to failure, they may take the country down with them, evident today as we are purportedly falling off the fiscal cliff.

Michael Corey in his response to my post on the Obama revolution exemplifies a significant problem.

“President Obama waged a very successful campaign; however, there is a darker side to it. One of the major reasons he was successful was his ability to destroy Romney’s reputation with innuendo and misinformation. President Obama also adroitly avoided dealing with major policy issues concerned with the longer term viability of a number of programs. President Obama is likely to get his way on tax rate increases and many other tax issues without giving up anything because he is more than willing to drive over the fiscal cliff, and then introduce his own legislation next year. It probably will work, but will have numerous unwanted negative consequences. When elephants dance, the grass gets trampled.”

I think Corey is mistaken about the elections, and though this is good willed, it is serious. To propose that Obama won by vilifying a good man, Governor Romney, is to ignore the significant principled differences between the two Presidential candidates and their parties. Obama emphasized economic recovery and a Keynsian approach to government spending. He proposed to address the problems of the cost of Medicare by working to control our medical care costs, more in line with costs and benefits in other countries that have significantly sounder public health. Obamacare is his solution, though his conservative opponents don’t take this seriously. If conservatives don’t face this, if they don’t take seriously that new alternatives to market fundamentalism are being presented, they can continue to work to make this country ungovernable, their apparent strategy for the past four years. I think they will suffer as a result, but so will everyone else in the States and, given our power, way beyond our borders.

But the situation is far from hopeless. There are numerous signs of hope. I am impressed by posts on Deliberately Considered by our contributors over the year as they reveal grounds for hope here and abroad.

Ironically, the Republicans might address their problems by moving ahead, while looking backwards.

And then there is the hope founded in the work of extraordinary individuals, who can and do make a difference, such as Vaclav Havel. See tributes here, here and here.

There is the engaged art of resistance, as it criticizes the intolerable, as in the case of Pussy Riot in Russia, makes visible distant suffering through artistic exploration in far flung places such as Afghanistan, and illuminates alternatives in Detroit, a central stage of the collapse of industrial capitalism.

And new media present possibilities of new forms of public deliberation and action, see this and this for example.

The possibility of action should work against cynicism, which is often confused for criticism, but actually is a form of resignation.

But I am not an myopic optimist. Suffering is knitted into the social condition, something I hope to investigate more systematically with my colleague Iddo Tavory in the coming year, starting with two posts in the coming week. Indeed as proof that I am well aware that naïve optimism about the future is mistaken, I view the last post of 2012 as one of the most important. The death of innocent victims through the force of arms has enduring effects. Richard Alba underscores this through personal reflection and professional insight. We all then suffer whether the violence is the result of accident, domestic or state violence, through the widespread arming of American citizens or the use of drones apparently far from home. Let’s hope next year is a better one.

Now that it’s over, I’ve spent two days reading reactions to the election results on conservative media, from self-proclaimed highbrow platforms like National Review and Human Events to populist platforms like Free Republic. What I see everywhere I look are central and fundamental internal contradictions in the values of the American Right.

On the one hand, the Right maintains an originalist attachment to American-style democracy. One of the most common criticisms made by the Right is that there exist in the U.S. a number of groups (the Left, minorities, gays, atheists and secularists) that seek to impose a policy agenda on the public by non-democratic means—a bad thing, they implicitly argue. They further often argue that the American system has become too open to undemocratic forms of manipulation by these groups, and that the result is an undemocratic society far removed from the intentions of its founders.

At the same time, through two presidential election seasons (but particularly in this most recent one), the Right has also maintained that there are other fundamental “American” values that these groups do not share. Anyone that has paid nominal attention to the campaigns is familiar with this list: limited or no government, self-sufficiency, Judeo-Christian morality, a kind of rugged individualism, the right to bear arms, a kind of practical nativism (integration rather than multiculturalism, limits on immigration, and cultural and demographic change), a particular affirmative conception of religious freedom (that the separation of church and state must create a believer’s right to practice his or her faith according to the dictates of conscience even when this practice imposes constraints, within the context of the policy status quo, on the rights of others), and so on.

In the Right’s estimation, a changing American public simply does not embrace these values in the way that it once did—in better times. What is interesting to me is that this is seen not as a problem with which the Right must come to terms, but rather one that inheres in the public at large. Of particular interest is the discussion, amongst those that accept this fundamental premise, about what the Right ought to do in response to this state of affairs.

What I encountered consistently over the course of my post-mortem reading was the strong claim that the Right ought not to compromise, moderate, or modify its platform or positions to appeal more broadly to the public.

Whatever one thinks of the claim that the present Left coalition comprises a vast conspiracy of affinitive groups with anti-democratic tendencies and approaches to policy, the fact is that a majority of U.S. voters have (twice now) democratically endorsed this coalition and indeed belong to it.

The Left coalition’s rejection of many of the value positions endorsed by the Right can thus be argued to be a nominally democratic one. In simpler terms, the Right and their values have been out-numbered and out-voted democratically.

Even so, what I saw again and again in the election’s immediate aftermath was a determination by many on the Right to press ever forward—indeed, to focus on changes in strategy in an attempt to turn back or marginalize the Left and restore the previously discussed constellation of Right values to a central place in American policy, despite the clear opposition of a majority of the public to this.

The left coalition, far from being seen as a democratic quantity, was seen as embodying illegitimate values and voters that cannot be allowed to stand. Dozens of accounts suggested that because the Left values and policy were un-American or incompatible with essentially American mores, the broadness of the base of support for them is irrelevant, or even exemplary of the collapse of American society.

Too many Americans have become takers and activists for the normalization of various forms of deviance or low status, goes the trope; they will continue to vote for undemocratic practices and for policy that runs counter to “real” American values. A Right with integrity ought not to appeal to them. Quite the opposite, if America is to be “saved,” Right values must triumph at the ballot box despite the present majority. These positions, these ways of thinking, are self-contradictory.

Surely there are conservative values, Right values, that have broad appeal, or that can even be said to be nominally “universal” in nature. Ought not the American Right focus on these? I saw no argument (nor do I find any reason to believe) that appeals to universal aspirations and values are unlikely to find support across the electorate at large. Let those values and propositions without broad appeal fall away from the national platform and from centrality to the Right’s political project.

If, on the other hand, it is true that there are no values or policy positions on the Right that are universal, or even that are any longer palatable to the majority of the American public, then surely it is the Right, not the Obama Left coalition, that has embraced an undemocratic ethos so long as it continues to seek a place for these in governance. Surely, in this understanding of things, it is the Right that seeks to undermine the “freedom” (a word that has been constantly used, if not uncritically overused, by the Right) of the American public.

There is a choice to be made: the Right can eschew a universalist appeal of the kind that the Left has made on the grounds that such an appeal is incompatible with conservative values, or they can advocate for and embrace the democratic over the undemocratic, nominal “freedom” over the effectively authoritarian imposition of minority values and policy positions on the majority.But they can’t have it both ways without founding their understanding of democratic freedom on an essentially undemocratic a priori definition of what the “real” America is and who the legitimate public contains.

I believe that the victory of truth over truthiness is the most important result of the elections last week. The victory is beautifully documented in Frank Rich’s latest piece in New York Magazine. In my judgment, the defeat of truthiness is even more important than the victory of Barack Obama over Mitt Romney and the victory of the Democratic Party over the Republicans, important though these are. A sound relationship between truth and politics will provide for the possibility of American governability and progress, informed by both progressive and conservative insights.

To be sure, on the issues, foreign and domestic, and on various public policies, the differences between the two presidential candidates and their two parties were stark, clearly apparent now as the parties position themselves for the fiscal cliff. Yet, these differences pail in comparison to the importance of basing our political life on factual truths, (as I analyzed here) instead of convenient fictions (fictoids), and on careful principled (of the left and the right) judgments and not the magical ideological thinking offered by market and religious fundamentalists (as I also previously examined) and by various xenophobes and racists (who promise to take their country back).

Stephen Colbert, the great political philosopher and public intellectual, the leading expert on truthiness, disguised as a late night comic, has most clearly illuminated the truth challenge in his regular reports. His tour de force, in this regard, was his address to the White House press corps in George W. Bush’s presence. But now it no longer takes a brave comic genius to highlight the problem. Republican and conservative responses to election polling and results provide the evidence, both negative and positive.

Though the polls clearly predicted an Obama victory, it is noteworthy that the Republican leaders and their advisers really didn’t see the defeat coming. They operated in an ideological bubble, which facts did not penetrate. Now they must (more on their alternative courses in our next post by Aron Hsiao on Monday).

After all objective reports on election night indicated a decisive Obama victory, Romney wouldn’t concede. Karl Rove on Fox News comically refused to acknowledge what Fox News (Fox News!) projected. Before the election, Republican pollsters systematically distorted their election predictions to confirm their desired results. A fact denying normality had become the order of things. The right-wing politicians, and their media enablers, were not simply lying to the public. They were blinded by their own fabrications. There were the fortunate (from my point of view) miscalculations of the campaign, but when it came to science, to climate change, to biology and much more, fact denying had become deadly. Thankfully, there is now sensible resistance, by the population at large and also by conservatives themselves.

As reported by Jonathan Martin at Politico notable young conservatives are now presenting important criticism. Ross Douthat: “What Republicans did so successfully, starting with critiquing the media and then creating our own outlets, became a bubble onto itself.” Ben Domenech: “The right is suffering from an era of on-demand reality.” Such self-criticism is heartening. Perhaps, it will be possible for serious conservative intellectuals and public figures to present positions without the craziness.

Severely conservative Romney continued his ideologically driven, fact-denying, forty-seven percent ways, blaming his defeat on “free gifts” to Obama’s core constituencies, free birth control to single women in college, health care to African-Americans and Latinos, and a special gift to Latinos — the promise of amnesty to children of illegal aliens, “the so-called Dream Act kids.” In the conservative cocoon at Fox, Bill O’Reilly strongly agreed, but it is very interesting to observe many Republicans running away from the remark. Surely political calculation is involved, but it is also a healthy matter that key conservative figures, such as Bobby Jindal and Chris Christie, are distancing themselves from the ideological fiction of the society made up of takers and makers, as Paul Ryan has put it.

I wonder, thinking ahead to 2014 and 2016, perhaps there will be a Republican civil war, between the ideologues and the conservatives. I have my hopes, but also my concerns. But at least in this election, those who used facts to mobilize their campaign won over the prisoners of fictoids.

I identify with Barack Obama’s political position, as a centrist wanting to move the center left. I identify with the democratic left because of its long and developing progressive tradition, addressing the problems of inequalities based on class, race, religion, gender, nation and sexual orientation, and because of its critique of the injustices of untrammeled capitalism and its conviction that the present order of things can and should be subjected to critique, its conviction that the way things are is not necessarily the way they must be. For these and other substantive reasons, I am very happy with the election results.

But further and in a less partisan way, I understand that alternative political traditions, broadly understood as conservative, are worthy of respect, especially as they illuminate the importance of learning from experience and highlight the limits of reason. I respect this tradition and have learned from it. I think a healthy modern republic should be informed by it. And, for these reasons, I even have sought to find conservative intellectuals worthy of respect at Deliberately Considered, see here and here. It is a terrible loss that fact-denying, right-wing ideology has prevailed in the Republican Party in recent years, amplified by racist currents during the Obama presidency. But perhaps the tide will now change among conservatives.

Conservative thinker, Edmund Burke, and radical icon, Karl Marx, are important thinkers for me as I try to make sense of the political world, but it is the ambiguous and ambivalent commitments and insights of Alexis de Tocqueville and Hannah Arendt that make them my primary political teachers. Tocqueville, the ambivalent democrat, highlighted the dangers of mass society as the underside of democracy. (I should post my thoughts on this one of these days.) Arendt more crucially observed the dangers of ideology and emphasized that a common factual base is the ground upon which democracy is built. I sense that the most significant result of this election is that we are moving back to this ground. I hope Fox News craziness, the right-wing entertainment industry, as David Frum is now describing it, is “so yesterday,” or at least no more intimately connected to the Republicans than the Democrats are tied to MSNBC. I can’t tolerate either as a source of news. It worries me that some think of them as such.

This is how I understand my centrist orientation. My primary political commitment is to a free public life, where people with different identities and principles meet between left and right, i.e. in the center. I don’t’ believe in watered down progressive and conservative positions, but a position where there is informed debate. For me, this is the meaning of “the vital center.” I think this election, as truth prevailed over truthiness, and as a principled leader prevailed over one that pretended to be a true-believer, who had a very problematic relationship with factual truth, provides hope for a centrist with leftist commitments.

In this post, Łukasz Pawłowski a contributing editor for Kultura Liberalna, one of the groups I met with while in Poland, offers his reflections on the American elections for a European audience. Pawłowski is currently an academic visitor at the Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Oxford. -Jeff

Barack Obama won re-election, his party managed to hold the Senate, and the House of Representatives is still – exactly as before the elections – dominated by the Republicans hostile to presidential administration. Nothing has changed? By no means, potential changes are more than plenty, but the most important one concerns the American right.

The Republicans, who for the last few years have been leaning heavily to the right, lost the second election in a row, and in their own interests, it is better they rethink this strategy. In a rapidly changing American society this party is becoming, as the political scientist Benjamin Barber told “Kultura Liberalna” magazine, “the face of an already disappearing America – white, protestant, poor and rural.” And indeed, exit polls indicate that Barack Obama won 71 percent of the Hispanic vote, 73 of the Asian-American and 93 percent of African American. Given that the share of the first two minorities in American society is increasing dramatically fast, GOP should start thinking of how to appeal to them.

Little better did the Republicans do to captivate other important demographic group – the young. Only 36 percent of American voters between the age of 18 and 29 marked the Romney’s name on their ballots. Obviously this does not mean that in a few years, when these young people entirely replace the now older generations, the Republicans will entirely cease to matter – let’s not forget voters get more conservative with age. Yet, in a society as relatively young as American – in 2010 the median age was 37.2 – winning the presidential election without the support of this age group is hardly possible.

Truly terrible news for the Republicans, however, is their decisive loss in the urban areas. In cities with over 500,000 inhabitants, the Democratic Party won 69 per cent of the popular vote, and in those from 50,000 to 500,000 inhabitants, 58 per cent. Given that American society is one of the most urbanized in the world – 82 percent of Americans live in cities or in the suburbs and this number is on the rise – the slump in support of the urban population should be a wake-up call for the GOP to immediately change the direction of the party. In short, the Republicans can either come to terms with the new reality, reduce the influence of the Tea Party radicals and move towards the political center, or further stick to the right corner of the political scene, only watching the central stage where the actual play takes place. Which of the options the GOP takes will have a crucial impact on American politics at least in the forthcoming two years until the next congressional election.

We will see the first indications of the choice made when the negotiations on how to avoid the so-called “fiscal cliff” begin. In August 2011, unable to come to an agreement on whether the best way to combat the deficit was to repeal tax breaks for the rich – introduced by George W. Bush and supported by the Republicans – or to reduce public spending defended by the Democrats – the two parties made a rod for their own back. It was decided that if by the end of this year no compromise is reached, radical tax increases and spending cuts will be introduced automatically, which in turn will reduce the deficit by about 550 billion dollars over a year, but would also probably send the U.S. economy back into recession. To avoid this, American authorities must agree upon which cuts to delay and which tax breaks to maintain. Until now, any compromise was impossible due to the upcoming elections. The Republicans, counting on Romney’s victory and on regaining the majority in the Senate, were reluctant to make any concessions. This institutional paralysis which began months before November 6th resulted in the lowest approval ratings for the Congress in years. Only 13 percent of the surveyed Americans believed their representatives were doing their job well! If after the election day nothing changes, it is the Republican Party that will be particularly hurt.

The second win has significantly strengthened Barack Obama’s negotiating position. We all remember his gaffe, when in front of cameras he assured the then President of Russia, Dmitry Medvedev, that after the election he will be “more flexible” in his dealings with the Kremlin. Regardless of what we think about these words, Obama actually told the truth – he renewed his public mandate, he no longer needs to worry about re-election and thus can be more assertive in defending his position. The president will now be less willing to give way – and as far as the budget is concerned, he already made some significant concessions – so the ball is on the Republican side.

But what does it all mean for an average European? Surprisingly, quite a lot. If the parties fail to reach agreement, and the U.S. economy after three years of growth will start shrinking again, the consequences will soon be exported across the pond. As (some) economists like to say: “When America sneezes, Europe catches a cold.” And this is extremely bad news for the old continent, which – as is the case with the oldies – already suffers from a number of other ailments. We should thus keep our fingers crossed for the American right, which is now going out of its mind with anger and disappointment, to return to it as soon as possible.

Originally published in Kultura Liberalna in a special issue on U.S. Presidential Election.

What of Akin? What sense should we make of the fervid controversy surrounding Missouri Senate Candidate and Congressman Todd Akin’s musings on abortion? What do the howls of protest say about the Republican Party: true-believers and cynical consultants?

As Akin’s moment is apparently over (though he might yet become the distinguished gentleman from Missouri), his remarks require reprise. Interviewed on St. Louis television, Congressman Akin was asked about his opposition to most abortions, even after rape. The congressman replied,“It seems to me, from what I understand from doctors, that’s really rare. If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down. But let’s assume that maybe that didn’t work or something: I think there should be some punishment, but the punishment ought to be of the rapist, and not attacking the child.”

Akin’s unscripted remark produced a firestorm of protest, first, not surprisingly, from Democrats and then, more surprisingly, from Republican politicians and consultants who concluded that Akin could no longer defeat vulnerable incumbent Democrat Claire McCaskill.

Politics must be understood through context, not through truth. Congressman Akin, labeled a “Tea Party favorite” (a term that deserves unpacking) had just defeated two Missouri Republicans considered more “electable.” The party establishment was suspicious of this true believer. A replacement might make the seat “more winnable.” In social psychological terms, Akin did not have what Edwin Hollander spoke of as “idiosyncrasy credits,” allowing a do-over for a rabid gaffe. Akin lacked capital in the Grand Old Party’s favor bank. Soon after the remarks were publicized, Republican leaders, as well as former Republican senators from Missouri, called for Akin to quit. Rush Limbaugh suggested that Akin should look into his heart and do the right thing. Todd Akin was crucified by his allies, betrayed by his peeps.

But what of his remarks? The controversy centered on three claims: 1) some rapes are “legitimate,” 2) women rarely get pregnant through forcible rape, and 3) if a woman becomes pregnant, the unborn child should not be punished.

The most controversial, but the least substantial, is the first. Legitimate rape. The phrase chills. Can any rape be legitimate? Still, my readers are also talkers. Teachers ramble on with only a few scraps of notes before us: no presidential teleprompter. We create texts as we speak, hoping that we don’t get it too wrong. Congressman Akin got it too wrong, but perhaps in a way that each of us can sympathize. We have all stuck our foot in it. We search for the right word and when it can’t be found, we use a word that we pray is unnoticed.

Congressman Akin meant “forcible rape.” Does anyone doubt it? “Forcible rape” is a term of art, but one that distinguishes between violent rape and what is termed statutory rape (some statutory rape is forcible; some is consensual). The term blurs the line between stranger rape and acquaintanceship rape, both of which involve force. Implicitly, Akin suggests that what the public labels rape are distinct crimes that occasionally overlap (states characterize the crimes in legal terms as various degrees of sexual assault). The demand to “take back the night” through demonstrations and rallies recognizes that at the fearful core of the crime of rape is stranger danger, even if so-called “date rape” is more common.

Statutory rape – what might be labeled, following Akin, illegitimate rape – is a crime based on collective attitudes towards age. States differ in the age limits of statutory rape. “Children” could once wed at age twelve, and these crimes are based on our collective estimation of what children are capable of and what they can consent to. Puberty was once the marker of the right to marry. Today these laws make sense, even while, when consensual, they reflect a different category of acts from forcible rape.

Todd Akin erred in referring to “legitimate rape,” we give him that, but he did so in the attempt to distinguish violent rape (and, perhaps, stranger rape) from other acts under the same category. The goal of the “forcible” terminology, of course, is to narrow the instances of rape for which abortion is permitted.

The second issue is whether a woman who is forcibly raped is likely to become pregnant. Akin did not aver that such pregnancies could not happen, only that they were rare. This is a long-standing belief in the pro-life community. If he is wrong, he is not a fabulist, but a reporter of the fables of others. As I heard the statement, I wondered, “Is this true?” Might extreme trauma prevent pregnancy? As Joel Best argues in Damn Lies and Statistics, what we know depends upon what information we choose to collect, how we collect it, and from whom. We need to have a critical stance to all statistics we are fed.

Women who are raped can and do become pregnant. But statistics are conflicting. Estimates of pregnancies resulting from rape – extrapolation from surveys – range from as low as 200 to 3000 to over 30,000 in the United States each year. But Akin also claimed that stress or trauma prevents pregnancy. Again research appears mixed. Some research finds that rape victims are less likely to get pregnant than those engaged in consensual sexual activity; other studies suggest that rape victims are more likely to become pregnant; still other studies find that pregnancy rates are identical. I am not a biologist, haven’t examined the details of the study procedures and the populations involved. Surely some research is more credible than others. In my reading, there is some consensus in the fertility literature that extreme life stress decreases the likelihood of pregnancy, although this may involve long-term stress, rather than sudden trauma.

The third claim is neither a misstatement nor a factoid. It is a value. This pro-life perspective suggests that even if a woman gets pregnant after rape, she has a moral responsibility. The child should not be the second victim of the crime of rape. I do not find the claim persuasive, but it is one that I understand. If a fetus is a human life, deliberate abortion constitutes murder. And we recognize that the perpetration of one crime does not justify a second. The victim of sexual harassment does not have the right to castrate the harasser, and certainly not the harasser’s child. I find the logic of trauma more compelling, but this is not a wild and fanciful argument, but one of misplaced compassion.

Putting aside the gaffe and the controversial science, this value is the center of the Akin controversy. It is here that cynicism resides. This value led Republican Party mandarins to attempt to abort the Akin campaign. Yet, this same value is to be found in the 2012 Republican platform for all to read.

Todd Akin has been condemned for the sin of sincerity, a true representative of a false party. He claimed a belief that is ideologically central, but one that elites believe should be conveyed with a wink, a sop to the unsophisticated. This election is not to be fought over dead babies.

In the dark days of segregation, Strom Thurmond used to filibuster about States Rights and Southern traditions. His South Carolina colleague Olin Johnston, as explicitly a racist as there was in the Senate, cynically remarked of Thurmond’s crusade: “There is no use talking to Strom. He really believes that shit.” Todd Akin is a Republican problem because he believes his shit too well.

Those of us in the U.S. find ourselves embroiled in that recurring cabaret often euphemistically called “election season.” It is a time for those of us that prefer to be informed to prepare to read the political platforms that are to be revealed in coming conventions and to evaluate the candidates to which they have been matched.

As it happens, I’ve read an already released party platform a few days ago that offers a fresh look at many of the problems that we face as a nation and that ought to have a place in U.S. national political dialogue.

Though I certainly don’t agree with the entirety of the platform, I found much of it to be sensible or at the very least no more objectionable than what is expected from either of the major parties in the coming election.

Some Platform Highlights –

Because not everyone has the time (or wants) to read these things, I’ve taken the liberty of surveying and summarizing what I found to be some of the more interesting points of the platform in question. It calls, in part, for—

In the “Taxation and Fiscal Policy” section:

Reduction of government size only while safeguarding essential government services to the public. Reductions in taxes “with particular consideration for low and middle income families.” Tax policy with an eye toward the unequal effect of taxes on those being taxed. Strong support for the Federal Reserve and the tools available to it.

In the “Business and Economic Policy” and “Small Business” sections:

Massive highway, air, and maritime programs to support economic expansion. Federal loans to small businesses and strong support for the Small Business Administration. Closer federal scrutiny of mergers and enhancement of anti-trust enforcement. Vigorous SEC regulation to protect investors and small businesses.

In the “Labor” section:

Raising the minimum wage. Applauding collective bargaining and labor unions and suggesting that the government ought not interfere with these, save to protect their rights. Providing federal assistance to struggling workers. Guaranteeing the integrity of private pensions with the force of law. Equal pay for equal work.

In the “Health and Welfare” section:

Federal programs to accelerate the building of public schools. Federal support for free vaccines and adequate medical care. Historic increases in science research funding. Federal assistance for the training of scientists. Community organizing, vocation rehabilitation, home ownership stimulus and low-rent public housing. The “extension and perfection” of social security.

In the “Agriculture” section:

Regulating production to create a “soil reserve” for the future. Protection for clean water and soil. Coordination between federal and local concerns to implement research, education, service, and regulatory programs. Federal loans to ensure stability and productivity. Support for cooperatives.

In the “Federal Government Integrity” section:

The presumption that there ought to be legal limits to lobbying power and the determination to stop cases of improper influence of money in politics.

In the “Post Office” section:

Radically expand the service. Modernize operations. Promotion based on training and safety and increases in compensation and fringe benefits.

In the “Civil Rights” section:

Combating federal employment discrimination and discrimination in interstate commerce. Liberty, due process, and equal protection of the law for all people. The belief that “true progress” is attained through “education, understanding, and good will.”

In the “Immigration” section:

“[A]n immigration policy which is in keeping with the traditions of America in providing a haven for oppressed peoples, and which is based on equality of treatment, freedom from implications of discrimination between racial, nationality and religious groups, and flexible enough to conform to changing needs and conditions.”

In the section on “The Future” of the nation:

Continued “vigorous support” for the United Nations. Assistance to underdeveloped areas around the globe and a “policy of impartial friendship” for states across the Middle East, whether predominantly Arabic or Jewish. Freedom for all peoples and an end to colonialism. A “progressive elimination of the barriers” to the free flow of information around the world.

In the “Guarding and Improving our Resources” section and a few related sections that follow:

The conservation and safeguarding of natural resources for the greater good and for future generations. Extensive financing and protection of national parks, national forests, and wildlife refuges. Studies to gauge the effects of works projects on wildlife.

The Party in Question –

All of the detail above is prefaced by a statement of values that includes, amongst other things, the following:

“We are proud of and shall continue our far-reaching and sound advances in matters of basic human needs—expansion of social security—broadened coverage in unemployment insurance —improved housing—and better health protection for all our people. We are determined that our government remain warmly responsive to the urgent social and economic problems of our people.”

“We firmly believe in the right of peoples everywhere to determine their form of government, their leaders, their destiny, in peace.”

and

“America does not prosper unless all Americans prosper. Government must have a heart as well as a head. Courage in principle, cooperation in practice make freedom positive.”

Just who is this presumably center-left or even left-leaning party (at least by today’s standards), steadfast in support for the United Nations, unions, public services, regulation, and conservation? The Democrats? The Greens?

Hardly. This is the Republican Party platform of 1956.

I encourage those that are interested in what they read above to revisit, if only for a few minutes, a very different political landscape than the one seen in the U.S. today.

Important Caveats –

The items outlined above are a quick and selective reading of the 1956 platform. There are many statements in it that I didn’t include or summarize in the list above because they might have given up the (admittedly prosaic) game in this case, and that are more in keeping with the Republican rhetoric (though not rhetorical style) of the present. It remains possible that I’ve missed the part of the platform that clearly and directly foreshadows the Romney/Ryan campaign of the present.

These items have also been presented a-historically. 1956 was, of course, 1956 and 2012 is clearly not 1956. One could plausibly argue that it is not only the platforms that have changed, but the facts on the ground as well. I haven’t taken the time to find or read the Democratic platform from the same time period, nor to track the evolution of following Republican platforms with reference to history over the same period.

Despite these omissions, and the necessarily limited nature of the conclusions that can be drawn, what is striking about this list is the number of positions represented in it that in today’s U.S. political landscape have been framed as either left or far-left in nature, and the at times expansive, optimistic, and pragmatic tone of the writing, even about such economically risky and potentially oppressive (we’re told today) propositions as unions, environmental regulation, and the United Nations.

Where Are the Conservative Intellectuals? –

It was Jeff’s waning search for conservative intellectuals that led me to the document, and while it doesn’t provide names or faces, it supports the sense that the conservative intellectual of the present—inasmuch as today’s conservative movement is willing to own him or her—is a different kind of thinker than was the conservative intellectual of the past.

The search will no doubt continue, but for those on the right with aspirations to renew the conservative intellectual tradition, one flip answer to Jeff’s question as to the whereabouts of the conservative intellectuals might be that they have taken up residence in some cases in the past.

Might I suggest the Republican Party Platform of 1956 as an important initial resource for young, headstrong conservatives?

There was an interesting exchange on my Facebook page following my last post. I am re-posting it this afternoon because I think it opens some important points and may serve as a guide to understand more deliberately this week’s Republican National Convention. The dialogue reveals alternative positions on conservative politics and the way progressives engage with conservative thought and practice. I think it is an interesting beginning of a discussion beyond partisan intellectual gated communities, as Gary Alan Fine has called for in these pages. I welcome the continuation of the discussion here, hope it illuminates theoretical and pressing practical questions . -Jeff

I opened on Facebook by quoting a central summary of the post. The irony: “Ryan’s nomination, I believe, assures the re-election of President Obama. The basis of my belief is a judgment that Americans generally are guided by a conservative insight, an American suspicion of ideological thought. Conservative insight defeats the conservative ticket.” And then a debate followed.

Harrison Tesoura Schultz: Would you say that the conservatives have become too extreme for most people to believe that they’re still actually ‘conservatives?’

Alvino-Mario Fantini ‎@Harrison: What I always want to know is: “too extreme” in reference to what? Public opinion? (It seems to shift.) In comparison to conventional wisdom? (It, too, seems to change over the centuries.) The problem, I would suggest, is not that conservatives have become too extreme for people but that basic conservative ideas and principles are no longer known or understood, and increasingly considered irrelevant.

Jeffrey Goldfarb: Extremism in defense of liberty is a vice and it is not conservative. So, I think you are both right. People who call themselves conservatives are often not, rather they are right wing ideologues. Too much for the general public, I think, hope. On the other hand, people who are interested in limited government and in the wisdom of custom and tradition, but recognize that things do change, should be able to have a conversation with people who think change is imperative and the government has an important role to play, but know that there are no magical solutions to all our problems in the form of one “ism” or another.

Harrison Tesoura Schultz: Akin’s comments certainly seemed to transgress the conventional wisdom of public opinion. Even Romney’s tax evasions and Ryan’s plan also appear to be striking some of the conservatives I talk to on FB as too extreme as well. It seems to me as if the Republicans themselves are the one’s who are increasingly misunderstanding basic conservative ideas and principles.

Aron Hsiao: My anecdotal and personal impression is rather than defending the abstract ideals of freedom and liberty in many cases, what they are defending (and mistake for these) are a narrow group of substantive individual freedoms that are indeed being lost in recent decades—those that inhered in white, male, and/or U.S. privilege/exceptionalism as individually or as a set of statuses. These statuses did in fact once grant very real social and economic power to those that enjoyed them and/or identified with them, a power that has not been replaced and is not easily replaceable in the case of middle and lower classes. The impulse to preserve these is the nature of the conservatism.

The rejection of enlightenment rationality and epistemology (surely that’s what’s at stake here) is not a critical response for at least some of the current U.S. far right rank-and-file, as was the case for the postmodernists, but an instrumental and reactionary one. The logic, values, and methods of the Enlightenment ultimately demand basic equality between, for example, men and women, or blacks and whites, or Americans and non-Americans, or at least forms of status adjudication that do not rest on skin tone, sex, nationality, or other characteristics that grant privilege by birthright.

To those that have had their status upset and have lost social power as a result (or that see themselves having been cheated of it by previous generations), there is only one answer: since it is clear to them (as a matter of socialization, culture, and values) that there is and (at the practical level of their own interests) *must be* a natural hierarchy of races, genders, nations, populations, etc., in which either they or those that they identify with are in the upper echelons, then any logic or epistemology that threatens these hierarchies (i.e. the Enlightenment and that which proceeds from it, including modern science), or the status and power that they are expected to provide, must by definition and practical exigency be rejected as improper and “radical” in nature.

Instead, a logic and epistemology must be found that appears to unconditionally support (or even provide a “restoration” narrative about) essentialist status and power hierarchies, and selective readings of certain strands of Christianity (which holds strong traditional authority for them, an additional affinity and congruence) fit the bill.

In other words, to my eye the Tea Party isn’t about defending Liberty (capital ‘L’) but rather a set of practical liberties that can no longer be taken with (for example) people of color, women, the colonial and postcolonial “other” places, etc.

The ideological substance in the equation conflates this narrow set of practical freedoms with Freedom (capital ‘F’), asserts that that the hierarchy that once granted them was Natural (capital ‘N’), and thus also asserts that the enlightenment worldview and all that proceeds from it (i.e. science, equality, the democratic impulse) are thus destructive of Freedom (again, capital ‘F’) and Nature (and another capital ‘N’).

Note that this opinion is neither scientific nor expert, but merely personal and with significant qualifications. It is not meant to characterize all of American conservatism today and proceeds primarily from my having many family members (both immediate and extended) that are Tea Partiers. It’s likely therefore to be highly regionally, economically, and culturally idiosyncratic.

But it is one reading of at least one current in the present political milieu.

Jeffrey Goldfarb: Interesting note Aron. I wish this discussion appeared on Deliberately Considered itself [which I am now acting upon]. All points have been interesting, it seems to me, Schultz’s and Fabino’s, as well as yours. As far as your note, in contrast to your primary concerns, I am interested in understanding the form of the commitments of present so called conservatives and try to explain why many “conservatives” are actually not conservative. They are ideological rightists instead. You are doing two things: illuminating the seamy side of conservative thought (its attachment to custom as it enables privilege) and understanding present day “conservative” motivations. I worry about your second move. Following it exclusively leads to the cynical dismissal of those one disagrees with. On the other hand, if one carefully analyzes your first move, this is avoided. Seems to me it is especially important to do so when the “conservatives” who you are thinking about are family. I must admit, that is very far from my experience. I know no Tea Party supporters personally, only rarely overhear them in public places. They exist for me mostly as characters in the media spectacle.

Aron Hsiao: … With regard to dismissal, I understand your concern but feel somewhat differently—I take each point to suggest the need to take the issue very seriously. Apart from its sins, one of the insights of postmodernism is that it is difficult to persuade or even engage others about points using one system of knowledge, lexicality and epistemology when they specifically reject it and employ another. The same holds true in the opposite direction.

Yet there are practical issues—dare I say, lives—at stake in politics. Ultimately, like you in some ways (but probably not in others), I think that common dismissal of the Tea Party and the far right is wrongheaded, not to mention undemocratic in nature (never mind that the Tea Party itself is undemocratic in nature, and that this is precisely one of its biggest values). To dismiss it out of hand and reject it without acknowledging and understanding its worldview is to (a) commit the same sin of which we accuse them, strengthening rather than weakening the prevalence of that worldview and (b) render ourselves powerless to influence or engage with that movement in a way that remains ethical or moral within our own worldview. And of course we ought also to take it seriously because of the outcomes that it seeks (and has had some success already in achieving), many of which are, to say the least, undesirable to the other half of the population.

______________

Here the discussion on my Facebook page ends. I did receive, though, a personal note from Fantini, which takes the discussion one step further and which I am posting here with his permission:

Jeff: Aron’s lengthy post screams for a response to be written in time I don’t have! Let me share with you what I’d like to say:

Point 1: Conservatism is not, as Aron says at the outset, simply an attempt to preserve white, male privilege. That is an old and tired argument. The most recent attempt to revive this trope is The Reactionary Mind by Corey Robin. The book conflates the old, throne-and-altar conservatism of Old Europe with the Anglo-American variety rooted in Edmund Burke and elaborated by Russell Kirk—and, thus, Robin cannot avoid but concluding that conservatism is nothing but a defense of hierarchy.

In short, I think what has been provided is a post-modern caricature of conservatives and their world-view.

There have been, of course, many other attempts during the 20^th century to dismiss the ‘conservative mind’ as nothing more than a genetic predisposition or a “mental defect”. (Richard Hofstadter’s 1964 essay, “The Paranoid Style in American Politics”, famously tried to dismiss conservatism as an extension of a psychologically paranoid personality.) But these are all reductionist arguments and I don’t think one can say that they represent serious efforts to engage with—let alone understand—conservative thought.

2. Conservatism is not an outright ‘rejection’ of Enlightenment rationality but rather a criticism of it. That alone, however, does not a conservative make. Conservatives have such criticism in common with, well, almost any critic of the ‘Modern Project’—and that includes people on the Left.

3. The source of the ‘impulse’ toward natural hierarchies, as Aron argues, is not simply confined to conservatives reflexively trying to maintain a pecking order—any pecking order. May I suggest that order and hierarchy are simply extensions of the nature of man, of human societies and of political communities everywhere (regardless of political orientation, party affiliation or ideological stance)? A pecking order has emerged in all regimes, from early nomadic tribes, to principalities on small islands, to the brutal regimes that emerged [precisely to do away with one pecking order] in Russia, China and Cambodia.

4. Finally, I think Aron mischaracterizes what the Tea Party is about. I don’t know any conservatives—except perhaps a few old-school, unreconstructed reactionaries in the Old World, all of whom are probably in their 90s and are still raging against  the break-up of the Holy Roman Empire—who believe in rigid hierarchies, with little or no social mobility, or limited economic freedom. Nor do I know any conservatives who are against the scientific advances proceeding from the Enlightenment. Furthermore, the democratic impulse that he speaks of began to emerge as part of our ‘worldview’ centuries before, not from the Enlightenment.

In short, I think what has been provided is a post-modern caricature of conservatives and their world-view.

I think this is an important discussion and hope it continues, unsettling the certainties of left and right. Next a post from Hsiao on a political platform that moves further in this direction.

The people have spoken, and they have decided that “fat cat teachers,” and not greed gone wild on Wall Street and beyond, are the source of their problems. A deep disappointment. A defeat. This was my initial response to the results of the special recall election in Wisconsin.

I noticed a Facebook post blaming Obama and the Democratic Party. They betrayed the grassroots. He who engages in a crazy militaristic foreign policy killing innocents abroad was denounced. This is irrational, self-defeating and irresponsible. Politics is about alternatives, and the direction the country would go if it follows Wisconsin’s lead last night is profoundly problematic. There is a deep seeded problem in our political culture that must be addressed at the grassroots and in the Democratic Party.

Big money surely played a role, as John Nichols at the Nation quickly declared, reflecting on whether people’s power can overcome money power. But something more fundamental is at issue. How the broad public understands the problems of our times. Somehow in Wisconsin, at least last night, the Tea Party’s diagnosis of our problems made more sense than the view of those engaged in and inspired by Occupy Wall Street. This was my first reaction this morning.

This afternoon I feel a bit less alarmed, though still deeply concerned. There is considerable evidence that the campaign itself made a difference. With the 7 to 1 spending advantage of the Republicans, many Wisconsinites seemed to be critical of the idea of the recall absent major malfeasance in office. They, along with Walker’s most passionate supporters, prevailed. The Democrats were not as united as they needed to be. Their message was muddled. Yet, despite this, in fact, there was a progressive advance. The Democrats took control of the State Senate. Governor Walker won’t be able to count on the rubber-stamp approval of his proposals anymore.

And oddly polls indicate that if the election were held today, Obama would win in Wisconsin decisively. Wisconsin with a long and deep progressive traditions, including a distinguished record of supporting labor unions, would re-elect the President, but conservative Wisconsin, the state that elected Joe McCarthy to the Senate, affirmed Walker and his very aggressive deeply conservative (really reactionary) policies.

In the end, the results tell us what we already knew about the upcoming election, and not much more. As in Wisconsin, the Presidential election is going to be not only about the incumbent and his party, but, more significantly, about Obama’s and Romney’s competing political approaches and personalities. It is often noted the Democrats will try to make the election a choice, while the Republicans will try to turn it into a referendum on Obama and the present state of the economy. But because the principles upon which the two men will be running are so strikingly different, it is hard for me to believe that it will just be a referendum. It is interesting to note that few national commentators observed the Wisconsin recall as being about Walker himself and the state of the state under his leadership, which it was formally. Rather the big principled issues have been emphasized, for and against unions, for and against austerity as an economic policy, sharply highlighted by none other than Sarah Palin.

The election results present a big challenge to those of us on the left. The union movement and not only public employee unions, has suffered a serious blow. The momentum of the Occupy movement has been turned. The focus on inequality is in danger of being lost. It was not a good day.

But giving up on electoral politics, or blaming Obama, as I read on Facebook, is extraordinarily foolish. Two strongly competing visions about America are in competition, on the economy and much more. Elections matter, as was revealed last night. For the general public, Wisconsin announces some of the key issues that lie ahead: blame teachers and their unions or finance gone wild for our present fiscal woes and depressed labor market. Address the problems by working for a more just economic framework, or by breaking unions. For the left, the challenge is to engage, and to link grass root concerns with the Democratic Party and truly reach out to the general public. I observed how powerful this worked in the case of the anti-war movement and the Dean campaign in The Politics of Small Things. I showed how this became the base for the Obama campaign and how it contributed to the project of Reinventing Political Culture, in my book by that name. The task is to win hearts and minds. If we don’t, the trouble suggested by the results last night will come to define our political reality.