By Shadi Hamid I The Wall Street Journal
In polarized times, those without a
clear guiding ideology become the most vicious partisans.
Democracy dies when one side loses respect for electoral
outcomes and comes to consider the other illegitimate. Recent U.S. presidents,
at least since Bill Clinton, have faced a degree of implacable opposition from
the further reaches of the opposing party. But of late the problem seems to
have intensified—and disrespect for democratic outcomes has become particularly
acute on the center-left.
That may sound odd. We generally assume the political
“middle” to be more reasonable and rational—and less partisan. Ideologues are
the ones less amenable to compromise. But although centrists are by definition
skeptical of ideology, that does not make them any less prone to partisanship.
In polarized times, political competition comes to
resemble tribal warfare. Everyone is under pressure to close ranks and boost
morale. Lacking an animating vision beyond expert-led incrementalism,
center-left politicians and pundits have few options to rally the Democratic
base other than by attacking adversaries and heightening partisan divides. The
other option—laying out an alternative that differs from what Hillary Clinton
or even President Obama offered—requires ideological conviction.
That would explain why Rep. Adam Schiff —previously
“known as a milquetoast moderate,” according to the New Yorker—has emerged as
one of the most outspoken figures in the Russian collusion investigation.
Before being appointed to succeed Mrs. Clinton in the Senate, Kirsten
Gillibrand was an upstate New York representative who belonged to the Blue Dog
Coalition. Her 2013 New Yorker profile was titled “Strong Vanilla”—and she now
boasts the upper chamber’s most anti- Trump voting record.
Many Democrats are unwilling to accept that Mrs. Clinton
actually lost to Donald Trump. Those who find her standard center-left
technocratic worldview congenial are disinclined to accept ideological
explanations, so they look for scapegoats: Russia, James Comey, even the voters
who supported Donald Trump.
Mrs. Clinton herself pre-emptively offered the last
explanation in September 2016, when she consigned half of Trump supporters to
“the basket of deplorables”—“they are irredeemable, but thankfully they are not
America.” As 2020 approaches, Democrats run the risk of repeating that mistake,
taking for granted, as Mrs. Clinton did, that Mr. Trump’s unique flaws will be
sufficient to ensure his defeat.
Contrast the centrists with leftist standard-bearers like
Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. They’re no fans of Mr. Trump, but
they haven’t been at the forefront of calls for impeachment or intensifying the
Russia investigation.
Instead, they have focused their efforts on broadening
the Democratic Party’s base with a more inclusive populism that takes seriously
the systemic causes of inequality. Both have resisted the urge to write off Mr.
Trump’s supporters, and Mr. Sanders in particular has made outreach to
Republicans a major part of his postelection message. Mr. Sanders seems
instinctively uncomfortable with identity politics, a Democratic preference
that makes it harder to reach out to Trump voters since identities are more
fixed than interests or ideas.
The mainstream media generally share a center-left
worldview. Most reporters aren’t Marxists or even Sandernistas, and anti-Trump
alarmism—what some scholars have called “tyrannophobia”—has become a consistent
theme.
The idea of a Trump dictatorship may be compelling, but that doesn’t
make it right, particularly when it distorts how one perceives actual tyranny.
Consider the weekend’s fawning Olympic coverage of Kim Yo Jong, sister of North
Korea’s Kim Jong Un. “Despite Mike Pence’s sabotage, North Korea’s ‘charm
offensive’ appears to be working,” reads a Sunday tweet from ThinkProgress—an
affiliate of the Center for American Progress, founded by Mrs. Clinton’s 2016
campaign manager.
People want something to believe in, but in the absence
of a strong ideological sensibility among Democrats, partisanship and alarmism
offer ready recourse. Having an enemy is a powerful motivator, and hating Mr.
Trump is entertaining to boot. Politics might otherwise return to boring
discussions on how to improve health care or education, why we need more
experts, or why facts are important.
The relationship between partisanship and ideology may be
changing in unexpected ways. Yesterday’s centrists have become some of today’s
most intense partisans. There’s nothing wrong with partisanship per se, but
it’s a problem when the parties view each other as enemies and existential
threats. Centrism may seem an obvious solution, but too little ideology can be
as dangerous as too much.
Does this mean we need more ideologues? The word sounds
like an insult, connoting inflexibility and narrow-mindedness. But politicians
who are committed to a set of ideas also tend to have less to prove. They don’t
need to play to the base; they can lead the base. Congress—and the
country—could use more of them.
Mr. Hamid is a senior fellow at the Brookings
Institution and author of “Islamic Exceptionalism: How the Struggle Over Islam
is Reshaping the World.”
