Last week, the distinguished liberal thinker and activist William Galston, along with an equally distinguished conservative counterpart, David Frum, announced in the Washington Post the forthcoming founding of a new organization called “No Labels.” The stated aim of No Labels is to combat the “hyper-polarization” of American political debate by “calling out” politicians, media personalities, and opinion leaders who “recklessly demonize” opponents. Unfortunately, their announcement gives us reason to fear that No Labels will only increase the level of political acrimony by attempting to constrain debate, thereby exacerbating the very polarization the group claims it seeks to combat.
No Labels aims to “expand the space” of public debate in America by reducing the fear of “social or political retribution.” But this expansion is, by the two men’s own account, really a contraction. That is, Galston and Frum intend to moderate public debate by “establishing lines that no one should cross,” as they put it. Specifically, they seek to police the use of labels like “racist” and “socialist,” which they believe are used recklessly in a way that undermines democratic discussion of “legitimate policy differences.”
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What this represents, in part, is an attempt to delegitimize and silence the substantial number of Americans who believe, with good reason, that President Obama’s policies are socialist in both effect and intent. Far from reducing the fear of “social and political retribution” in public debate, Galston and Frum mean to engineer an increase in such retribution, and to direct it to their own ends. In a democracy, we ought to be at pains to avoid preemptively drawing bright lines against any substantive point of view. Arguments instead ought to be tested and winnowed in the marketplace of ideas, with citizens judging political advocates on how well they support their own assertions and how effectively (and how fairly) they address counter-arguments.
What exactly do Galston and Frum mean when they say they intend to “call out” those who use labels like “racist” and “socialist” in public debate? I think I can answer that question, since a series of attacks engineered by Frum on my then-unpublished book, Radical-in-Chief: Barack Obama and the Untold Story of American Socialism, appears to have been a dress rehearsal of sorts for the operation of No Labels.
On July 27, 2010, I announced the forthcoming publication of my book at National Review Online’s blog, the Corner. The announcement made it clear that my book was the result of more than two years of empirical and historical research into Barack Obama’s political past, and would marshal “a wide array of never-before-seen evidence to establish that the president of the United States is indeed a socialist.” Frum, however, didn’t wait to consider my evidence or argument, or even bother to read my book. Instead, he invited a self-described Democratic activist who writes under the pseudonym “Eugene Victor Debs” to attack the very idea of my book — before either had read it.
I would probably not have responded to an anonymous attack on an unpublished book were it not for the fact that I knew and respected Frum, who warned me in advance that Debs’s piece was coming and invited me to respond. I did reply to Debs, after which, to my surprise, the attacks kept coming, both from Debs and from Frum himself . In my responses to Frum and Debs, I finally began to speak more frankly about my dismay and puzzlement at their persistent attacks on a raft of new evidence that I had not yet even had a chance to present to the public. Oddly, since the actual publication of Radical-in-Chief, there has been not a word about the book from either Frum or Debs.
The announcement of the No Labels project by Galston and Frum makes perfect sense of all this. Given Frum’s response to the mere title and description of my book, it’s clear that the purpose of No Labels is not to engage those who call Obama socialist in a serious intellectual exchange, but rather to put their arguments beyond the pale of acceptable public debate. Far from being a recipe for moderation, Galston and Frum have hit on a surefire way to excite the very polarization they claim to oppose.
The meta-debates about how to debate by frum, friedensdorf, Sullivan (malkin award anyone?) are a bore. If I don't like your tone I won't listen. If Frum thinks your book is wrong, he should try to refute it. You don't need a new organization to write a scathing review, but it takes effort to do it well - though I seem to recall that effort is something frum loathes to exert.
Heck anybody that took the time to at least skim thru Freddoso's would have known that Obama was a shabby, unprincipled Chicago pol with socialist tendencies. Plus he was caught on tape criticizing the Warren Court for NOT in essence debasing the Constitution further by embracing the notion of "positive" rights. Since Breyer has said similar things I would call him a socialist also. "Socialism" comes in many varieties and the positive rights notion is central to them all. "Progressives" are socialists, plain and simple.
"..an equally distinguished conservative counterpart, David Frum"
David Frum is not a conservative and is not distinguised. He is a good wordsmith who calls conservatives names to endear himself with the legacy media.
Read who he critiques or attacks and it is conservatives.
Mr. Kurtz, what is currently "distinguished" about Mr. Frum?
I mean, for the 50% of America with below-average intelligence, it's sometimes helpful to avoid nuance and to paint with broad brush strokes.
But for your typical NR reader? What does it mean to label someone a "socialist"? Are we supposed to conjure images of jackbooted soldiers goose-stepping below a grim-faced Central Committee standing high atop a Kremlin wall during a May Day parade? How about a chain-smoking North Vietnamese devil in a captain's uniform ordering his corporal to shove another bamboo shoot underneath a captured American pilot's fingernails?
Didn't Ronald Reagan end the Cold War? Singlehandedly, with his bare hands?
Any attempt to suppress labels is an attempt to suppress symbols -- and all our thinking is done in symbols.
The use of labels such as "racist," "socialist," and so forth is valid when those labels are tied to specific meanings, against which persons so labeled can be measured in a reasonably objective fashion. Yes, they can be abused; yes, they often are. But so long as they designate a specific set of stances, we'll be the poorer for their exclusion.
Can we assume that Frum has repudiated his own use of incendiary labels with the NR cover story from a while back, titled "Unpatriotic Conservatives"?
Though I do believe that some prominent libertarians and paleocons are reluctant to support the American use of arms in any circumstances -- e.g., Murray Rothbard and Pat Buchanan -- I most certainly think that article was far too heavy-handed.
(Frum's writing is a mixed bag: I liked the reporting in his book on the Seventies but found his concluding analysis glib. His NRO blogging on his favorite books was delightful, but his willingness to smear pundits like Limbaugh shameful.)
Regardless of how much one agrees with that article, it contradicts his now high-minded call for "no labels."
Frum, like Kathleen Parker, is another example of how National Review sabotages its own mission. Not that long ago, Frum had his own blog on NRO. What happened? Did he suddenly switch his true beliefs from conservatism to a definitely left of center moderatism (or even out and out liberlism)? Or did such factors as Sarah Palin finally make it more expedient for him to reveal his true self instead of trying to undermine "center right" journalism from within?
I think it's the latter, and it was always pretty obvious to most of us non- wine and cheese crowd conservatives that Frum was the kind of "conservative" journalist who simply found it easier to carve out a niche for himself in the less crowded field of conservative commentary than to compete with 10,000 almost identical voices on the acknowledged left.
A much more beneficial campaign would have been, not to decry "labels," but to decry the threats, intimidation, and actual retribution (in the eyes of the perpetrators) aimed at those with whom one disagrees.
Groups that publish the names and addresses of those who support an issue with which they disagree (think Prop. 8 in CA) do significant damage to our political discourse. Yet, these groups tout their efforts as part of vaunted "Free Speech." No, it doesn't make sense, which is why we need more exposure of idiocy(Is that a label?), not less.
Those who might use intemperate words will get the audience they deserve: small, fringe, and temporary.
I think this was an especially good point: Making some propositions off limits is more likely to increase partisanship than decrease it.
All this recent talk about "civility" and "bipartisanship" makes me think that the Beltway elites are really worried about losing control of the process.
Far more important, PatrickJ: What is National Review's mission? "Right" as in correct or "right" as in wing? Could there ever be a situation when the two didn't overlap?
Even when Sarah Palin isn't running for office or supporting those who are, she is a favorite target of David Frum who frequently expresses his displeasure with everything the woman says and does. In addition to hating her politics, he hates her books, her TV show and the way she and her family live their lives. Will "No Labels" apply to Mr. Frum's anti-Palin obsession? Journalists who use their national venue to repeatedly attack individuals they dislike is as harmful to national debate as using labels.
No labels? Perhaps David Frum is afraid of being labeled (accurately, I think) as 'one of those self-appointed elites' who thinks he has a right to tell the rest of us what we are allowed to say or think.
Perhaps try reading Mr. Kurtz's book to get an idea of how socialism was incrementally introduced into this country and posited to the American people as a "moderate" solution to the perceived problems of capitalism.
David Frum is a guy who thinks that he has a right to decide who makes debate legitimate. If the Founders wanted a select few to control debate they would not have included as the First Amendment the right to free speech.
Thought provoking question of the day: If Bernie Sanders, William Meyerson and Laurence O'Donnell describe themselves as socialists, why does the former caucus with the Democratic Party and the latter two align themselves with the Democratic Party? Perhaps the party should admit to its nature, or I could be just be pretending to speculate on the alignment of a group of people.
Stan...you're worrying too much about David Frum. His goal is just to create a chilling effect against using the word "socialist". Dont think about his silly carping even for a second. Frum is the moron who predicted that the GOP agenda of "No" would lead to massive losses. He has no crdence on anything.
Any why say only that "most" charges of racism against the tea party are baseless? Every single one of them has been baselss. Sure, if you dig you can find some openly racist tea party member, just like you can find openly racist liberals. ( And you can find disgusting reverse racists among them withouit even trying.) That's meaningless. You should not be so tentative in rejecting leftist canards.
