Wednesday, August 3, 2011

Recommended: The Progresssive Crisis

Walter Russel Mead has a long. well-reasoned and fascinating piece in the American Interest website: The Progressive Crisis. He discusses the question of why, even though a large portion of Americans agree with progressive values, they distrust progressive policies and politicians. Here is a telling excerpt:
At bottom, that is what the populist revolt against establishments of all kinds is about. A growing section of the American population wants to think and act for itself, without the guidance of the graduates of ivy league colleges and blue chip graduate programs.

The fight for limited government that animates so many Americans today isn’t a reaction against the abuses and failures of government. It is a fight to break the power of a credentialed elite that believe themselves entitled by talent and hard work to a greater say in the nation’s affairs than people who scored lower on standardized tests and studied business administration in cheap colleges rather than political science in expensive ones.
I find his argument convincing, and I find that I too have exactly the same feelings: I agree with many progressive ideals, but I often find the approach progressives want to take high-handed, arrogant, and not rooted in the real world, but in some academic ivory-tower, elitist view of the world.

That is not to say the conservative politicians don't have their problems too. My favorite quotation from the last election was the working man being interviewed who said "All I want is the damn Democrats out of my wallet and the damn Republicans out of my bedroom".