There’s more to life — and to politics — than Social Security. Perhaps most crucially, as this bloody week in Iraq reminds us, there’s national security, the issue that metaphorically killed the Democrats in 2004 and that literally kills people each and every day. As the author of an article criticizing the Democratic Party’s tendency to try and avoid these issues and head for the high ground of domestic economic policy, I must admit to some fears that the party — and liberalism more broadly — may be falling into just that trap at the moment. Social Security is an important issue, this fight is an important fight, and we need to try our best to win it.
But at the same time, it’s a comfortable fight for liberals. We’ve won a lot of elections on Social Security over the years. And when that strategy hasn’t worked, it’s never been because the other side won the debate about retirement. Instead, it’s been because the public just didn’t think Social Security was the most important issue. Right now, Bush has made it the most important issue, and he’s paying a price for it. But unless you assume that the Republican Party’s campaign operatives are all going to be replaced by idiots, you can get that national security will be back with a vengeance in the election cycles to come. And rightly so since there’s no government responsibility more fundamental than national defense. To succeed — and, frankly, to be worthy of success — Democrats need to get better at tackling this stuff.
Yesterday on the excellent, new-ish Democracy Arsenal blog, Suzanne Nossel cited “The Energy of the Progressive Foreign Policy Opposition” as one of the top ten things at stake in the John Bolton nomination. “Letâs face it,” she wrote, “Boltonâs helping us get our groove back.” I certainly hope that proves correct. But so far, the debate over his nomination has centered heavily on questions about Bolton’s personal behavior. Not personal in an illegitimate sense — the material’s all been relevant to his conduct in office — but personal in the sense of being idiosyncratic to Bolton. That’s a good way to beat a nominee, but it doesn’t do much work in terms of discrediting the broad approach of the Republican Party toward these issues or bolstering the public’s sense that Democrats have a good handling on them. Perhaps this isn’t the time or place for doing that, but we’re going to have to find some time and some place to really lay out a compelling liberal internationalist vision for the 21st century.