Unfortunately, Douthat seems to be more interested in delivering blanket generalizations that are entirely divorced from reality. This week's column, "The Agony of the Liberals," exemplifies that. Douthat argues that liberals are disillusioned with Barack Obama, and this is because certain vices and unrealistic beliefs make liberalism a dying theory.
First, this conclusion that liberalism is a dying theory—"from the West Coast to Western Europe, the welfare state is in crisis everywhere"—is a very bizarre claim. Matt Yglesias addressed this in a recent post.
Five years ago, I think Douthat would have been writing columns looking at the success of market capitalism from California to the Carinthians in contrast to the desperate failure of Soviet Communism.
If you’re trying to posit a crisis of the welfare state, you have to ask compared to what? Among American states, high-tax California is in bad shape but the unemployment rate is higher in small government Nevada. Conditions are terrible in South Carolina. Spain is a mess, but so is Estonia. Australia and Canada are doing much better than the USA, but surely not because we’re a “welfare state” and they aren’t. I believe that if you want to find an example of a major developed economy with a minimal welfare state you have to look toward Japan, which is nobody’s idea of a robust economy.
Second, in describing the "vices" killing liberalism, he appears to be oblivious to the past decade of history. The first vice he describe is the "worship of presidential power." Say what? (If every there was a use for an interrobang....) Any person who has been alive for the past decade knows that modern-day liberals fear nothing more than unchecked presidential power. Liberals do not love centralized presidential power. In fact, much of the history of the 1980's involves the centralizing and politicizing of the technocratic administrative state set up by liberals.
No, liberals are now grudgingly forced into advocating for presidential power, because the alternative is keeping the federal government the hostage of Mitch McConnell. McConnell's plan is to discredit liberalism and do well in this year's midterm elections by "demonstrating" to the public that liberalism doesn't work. He is relying on the fact that only about 25% of Americans (according to a recent Pew Research poll) know that it takes 60 votes to get legislation to the Senate floor. Most Americans know only that (1) Democrats run things, and (2) that Democrats aren't doing anything. Republican shills like Ross Douthat contribute to this state of affairs. In this environment, in which the Republican party is putting winning an election above everything else, there is only one solution: Grudgingly put power in the hands of the executive, hoping and praying that he is more trustworthy than the last man to hold his position.
Second, Douthat thinks that liberalism's second vice is an "overweening faith in theory." This is absurd, coming from a conservative. Conservatives have this faith in the all-holy power of the market, and as one letter to the editor remarked, "the dysfunction of Enron, of General Motors, of American International Group, of Bank of America and of BP, and the failure of the health insurance industry to either improve care or control costs" should give people reason to reconsider this position. Liberals don't have an overweening faith in theory; they merely have recognized that the past 30 years of conservative faith in the free market to solve all problems have been an enormous blunder in almost every sector of the economy. We need a reasonable alternative, and for that, we must turn to the federal government and mostly untested Keynesian theories of economics. Liberals do this by necessity, because the technical term for somebody who does not modify their views in the face of overwhelming evidence of failure is "Republican."
Although President Obama has certainly not been as liberal as many liberals hoped, particularly on issues of national security, much of the rage against Obama that Douthat thinks is so important is simply misplaced rage at the incompetence of the Democratic Party and the utter selfishness of the Republican Party. The Republican Party has given up any pretense of trying to help govern, and the Democratic Party still loses every single messaging battle against them. Congress is the most important branch of government and is described in the first article of the Constitution, and there is only so much the President can do when Congress is held hostage by Republicans who care more about winning than they do about Americans.
The current Republican party is a selfish party without leadership, without ideas, and without any desire to help America or Americans. They simply want to win in November, full stop. And mouthpieces like Ross Douthat think that "liberalism" is to blame for this. Maybe it's time the party of "personal responsibility" took some responsibility for its intransigence.
Sorry, tool, but Douthat was right. In fact, his op-ed looks even better in retrospect.
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