The Cole Assembly Room was filled with both students and townspeople as Brooks and Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne discussed the current political climate in light of the 2008 campaign, focusing on the segmentation of American society, the desire for a new unity that transcends partisanship and the need for liberals to embrace their own liberalism. Brooks and Dionne kept the atmosphere of the forum very light-hearted with numerous jokes. Both noted how much they enjoyed spending time with the College students who participated in the two-day colloquium, “What Do We Mean by ‘America?’ Liberalism, Conservatism and the Future of the Culture Wars,” that preceded the open forum.
“The students that we’ve interacted with have been tremendous … very lively and very witty,” mentioned Brooks. “Unlike my alma mater University of Chicago, these people actually seem to have friends and know how to make friends,” he added with a laugh. But the two columnists were also serious and informative at the right times.
Brooks began by explaining the importance of sociology when dealing with American politics and how complex segmentations in American society force politicians and their campaigners to divide the electorate into thin micro-slices in order to appeal to all the different groups in American society.
He focused on lifestyle segmentation and discussed how, in addition to differences in income and education, the family structures of rich and poor families are also no longer the same. In addition, Brooks introduced religious segmentation and media segmentation where people always want the news show or blog that “tells them how right they are all the time.”
Brooks went on to discuss how this segmentation has changed the voting patterns in America, leading to a doubling of the counties in the country where one party or another has a landslide victory. He also explained how college voters tend to give themselves an ideological label and vote for the same party over and over again while high school voters are actually more likely to split their tickets.
Still, Brooks was optimistic that the country still has many commonalities. Despite the stereotype of the red and blue divide, said Brooks, societal differences are much more complex and subtle than that with a “middle” existing in America which is not reflected in the current politics. Brooks also believes a sense of “American-ness,” common behavioral patterns and a common history still unite all Americans.
Following Brooks, Dionne addressed the current state of liberalism and how it has changed since the 1960s, beginning with the discrepancy between what the opponents of liberalism have tried to label liberals and what liberals actually believe. Dionne said that it has been a long time since any candidate has dared to declare he is liberal and that candidates have been trying to use other words such as “progressive.”
“Liberals seem to accept this conservative definition that they are elitist, out of touch, enemies of community, believe only in abstractions, are soft, self-satisfied,” said Dionne. “I think it’s time to rescue liberalism as an idea, as a tradition in which American progressives can take pride,” he declared.
“No political movement that dares not speak its own name can ever expect to prosper. If liberals aren’t willing to defend a word, what in the world are they willing to defend?” By avoiding this word, Dionne explained, liberals have allowed negative stereotypes to define liberalism for a majority of Americans while neoconservatives have embraced their name and have used it to their advantage.
Despite this, Dionne concluded by saying how this election is illustrating how “conservatism is reaching the end of its time in power” as the contradictions of conservatism are becoming more apparent. Republicans are unable to balance their tax rates with government spending and are unable to get the business and evangelical wings of their party together. Dionne further explained the difficulties of the Republican Party in trying to relive the past through Ronald Reagan, especially with respect to Mitt Romney.
Dionne cautioned that none of these facts mean that liberals or progressives will win the upcoming election or will succeed or govern well in power. America would have to come up with a more realistic foreign policy, find a solution to the problems of globalization that many liberals are ambivalent about and “put these culture wars behind us.”
“I believe this is fundamentally a moderate nation culturally,” said Dionne. Before taking questions, Dionne finished by comparing the period after 1960 to the present as an “opening to rendezvous with the American spirit of progressivism and experimentation. I believe we have that moment right now before us and I hope as a country we seize it and do something with it.”
Students who attended the two-day colloquium enjoyed the insightfulness of Brooks and Dionne and the informal atmosphere of the discussions and lectures. “They were exceptional for the standard school-invited speaker,” said Chris McConkey ’10. “What made it really worth going to was that they each had special access to the candidate and other prominent figures in politics so that they could give an insider’s account that the average voter would never have.”
Andrew Newman ’11 appreciated how Brooks and Dionne understood and recognized the values of both sides of the issues. “They were fair and balanced in their arguments …They weren’t ideologues.” Newman also enjoyed how accessible the two speakers were during the colloquium. “At the lunch and breakfast that they had, we got to sit down and talk to Dionne and Brooks and ask them questions. You could hear what they thought. They both turned out to be really nice, friendly people.”