National Liberalism: It's Still Very Much Alive

[Anthony '58]

That's my take from Saturday's gubernatorial election in Louisiana.  The text comes courtesy of the award-winning (j/k) blog, Category 6 (the strength of "hurricane" sure to happen unless we cut out this divisiveness, post haste) on facebook.


In a rare non-Tuesday election, Democrat John Bel Edwards was re-elected governor of Louisiana - an outcome that is instructive on many levels.

First, it is living proof that national liberalism - the philosophy that Rose Montefusco identified her husband Tony in the short-lived 1975 NBC-TV series The Montefuscos as having - liberal on most things but conservative with the (Catholic) Church - is alive and well in America (Senators Joe Manchin, Bob Casey, and Doug Jones, Congressmen Daniel Lipinski and Henry Cuellar, and Governor Roy Cooper of North Carolina, just to scratch the surface, are clearly national liberals).

The term "national liberal," by the way, was coined by Michael Lind, who used it in his two bestsellers in the '90s, The Next American Nation (1995) and Up From Conservatism: Why The Right Is Wrong For America (1996; in the latter book he quoted Marvin Harris, who correctly identified the 1958-68 baby bust in his 1987 work Why Nothing Works: The Anthropology Of Daily Life) to denote those who are progressive economically but conservative socially.

Second, it proved that holding an election on a weekend as opposed to the traditional Tuesday can greatly help the Democrat, since it will increase, or more accurately, not reduce, the turnout of Democrat-leaning constituencies - and that could have been the decisive factor in the Louisiana governor's race, which Edwards won by just 51-49 per cent. If the election were held on a Tuesday instead, Edwards very likely would have lost.

A Catholic, a Baby Buster (born in 1966) and a Desert Storm veteran who is staunchly pro-life, Edwards signed a bill banning abortion after 15 weeks of a pregnancy in May of 2018, and just 12 months later doubled down on this by signing an even more stringent "heartbeat law." But with an eye on his party's progressive wing, Edwards expressed support for banning discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation with only the most narrowly-drawn religious exemptions, raising the minimum wage, and equal pay for men and women.
Michael Lind posited that Catholic voters could position themselves as a moderate foil to both the low-church Protestant fundamentalists on the right and the "secular humanists" on the left.

The re-election of John Bel Edwards - who added the "Bel" to his professional name to avoid confusion with John Edwards, the former North Carolina Senator and unsuccessful Vice Presidential candidate whose career was destroyed by an adultery scandal, and who closely resembles an actor who subsequently appeared on a SunSetter awning commercial - is living proof that the death of national liberalism as a viable political philosophy has been greatly exaggerated.

This John Edwards, or lookalike thereof, won't be hawking awnings on TV anytime soon.

[Eric the Green]

Social conservatives are certainly viable in the deep south, with its prevalent and still influential history of racism and religious fanatic fundamentalism (Dixie and the Bible Belt). Some things never change, or change very slowly. Democrat Brashear who just ran for governor of Alabama was cut from the same cloth.

[Teejay]

I don't believe that Nationalism is a inherently bad ideology, indeed I have subscribed to Left-Wing Nationalism. Left-Wing Nationalism is based on the principles of social equality, popular sovereignty and national self-determination. While at the same time it rejects racism, imperialism and colonialism. Although I don't oppose international institutions, if they don't infringe on these principles I have described above, which is certainly not the case with the WTO, IMF and World Bank as they are currently constituted. However I reject the dominant form of nationalism in this present age, which is racist or religiously bigoted of the sort espoused by Donald Trump.

My left-wing nationalist tendencies, have informed my "Soft Euroscepticism", which sees the European Union increasingly infringing on popular sovereignty. Indeed I would rather see the European Union, go back to an organisation like the European Economic Community was, although with addition features such as freedom of movement inside the European Union.

However, I know I am becoming something of a dinosaur here in the west, because the Left are rapidly abandoning nationalism in any form, which is increasingly being seen as Fascist or even Nazi.

[Anthony '58]

(11-19-2019, 12:49 AM)Teejay Wrote: I don't believe that Nationalism is a inherently bad ideology, indeed I have subscribed to Left-Wing Nationalism. Left-Wing Nationalism is based on the principles of social equality, popular sovereignty and national self-determination. While at the same time it rejects racism, imperialism and colonialism. Although I don't oppose international institutions, if they don't infringe on these principles I have described above, which is certainly not the case with the WTO, IMF and World Bank as they are currently constituted. However I reject the dominant form of nationalism in this present age, which is racist or religiously bigoted of the sort espoused by Donald Trump.

My left-wing nationalist tendencies, have informed my "Soft Euroscepticism", which sees the European Union increasingly infringing on popular sovereignty. Indeed I would rather see the European Union, go back to an organisation like the European Economic Community was, although with addition features such as freedom of movement inside the European Union.

However, I know I am becoming something of a dinosaur here in the west, because the Left are rapidly abandoning nationalism in any form, which is increasingly being seen as Fascist or even Nazi.

National liberalism doesn't mean nationalism.  Think of it as the G.I. Old Left that was rebelled against by the Boomer New Left in the '60s - and contrasted starkly with the right's crude jingoism, expressed best by Curtis LeMay, George Wallace's running mate in 1968, who pledged to use nuclear weapons in Vietnam.

The grandchildren of the mid-20th Century national liberals (the first of whom were actually last-wave Missionaries like FDR), such as the Buster Michael Lind (born 1962) who coined the term, are determinedly anti-racist, support "big government" liberalism, and believe that the conspiracy theories targeting the WTO, the IMF and the World Bank - and especially the CFR - are inherently anti-Semitic (Lind went Mit Brennender Sorge on these types in his second book).

And I say that nationalism is best expressed at the Olympics, when everybody chants "U.S.A." regardless of the race of the athlete competing.  BTW, being old enough to remember what Jane Fonda and the hippies did during the Vietnam (I was 11 years old when the "Hard Hat Riot" happened, and I was totally on the side of the hardhats), I am vehemently opposed to what Colin Kaepernick and his fellow seditionists have been doing.

[Marypoza]

(11-18-2019, 07:08 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Social conservatives are certainly viable in the deep south, with its prevalent and still influential history of racism and religious fanatic fundamentalism (Dixie and the Bible Belt). Some things never change, or change very slowly. Democrat Brashear who just ran for governor of Alabama was cut from the same cloth.

-- no Eric Andy Beshear won in KY. But Bevin is a sore loser & is talking about challenging the vote. Thing is KY don't have automatic recount so Bevin would have 2 pay 4 a recount out of his pocket. So we'll see. As it stands right now the KY Senate can't do a thing about the results. (& how do l know all this? Bcuz l live across the River from that f-ed up state & this is local news)

[Eric the Green]

(11-20-2019, 04:57 AM)Marypoza Wrote:

(11-18-2019, 07:08 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Social conservatives are certainly viable in the deep south, with its prevalent and still influential history of racism and religious fanatic fundamentalism (Dixie and the Bible Belt). Some things never change, or change very slowly. Democrat Brashear who just ran for governor of Alabama was cut from the same cloth.

-- no Eric Andy Beshear won in KY. But Bevin is a sore loser & is talking about challenging the vote. Thing is KY don't have automatic recount so Bevin would have 2 pay 4 a recount out of his pocket. So we'll see. As it stands right now the KY Senate can't do a thing about the results. (& how do l know all this? Bcuz l live across the River from that f-ed up state & this is local news)

Oh I must have got the names mixed up. But the candidate in Mississippi (not Alabama) was the same social conservative, economic liberal type as Edwards. His name was..... Jim Hood

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Missi...l_election

[Tim Randal Walker]

Wasn't the New Deal basically an expression of national liberalism?

[Anthony '58]

(11-20-2019, 11:07 AM)Tim Randal Walker Wrote: Wasn't the New Deal basically an expression of national liberalism?

Yes it was.

[Bill the Piper]

Nationalism (Brown) and working class movements (Red) meet on my diagram, so it's not a surprise for me. Scottish and Irish nationalists are mostly left-leaning. More hardcore examples of left-leaning governments with strong nationalist sentiments are Belarus and Venezuela. Israel was originally of the same variety.

[Marypoza]

(11-20-2019, 04:57 AM)Marypoza Wrote:

(11-18-2019, 07:08 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Social conservatives are certainly viable in the deep south, with its prevalent and still influential history of racism and religious fanatic fundamentalism (Dixie and the Bible Belt). Some things never change, or change very slowly. Democrat Brashear who just ran for governor of Alabama was cut from the same cloth.

-- no Eric Andy Beshear won in KY. But Bevin is a sore loser & is talking about challenging the vote. Thing is KY don't have automatic recount so Bevin would have 2 pay 4 a recount out of his pocket. So we'll see. As it stands right now the KY Senate can't do a thing about the results. (& how do l know all this? Bcuz l live across the River from that f-ed up state & this is local news)

 
-- update: Bevin conceded

[Eric the Green]

(11-26-2019, 07:44 AM)Bill the Piper Wrote: Nationalism (Brown) and working class movements (Red) meet on my diagram, so it's not a surprise for me. Scottish and Irish nationalists are mostly left-leaning. More hardcore examples of left-leaning governments with strong nationalist sentiments are Belarus and Venezuela. Israel was originally of the same variety.

I doubt these conclusions can be made. 

Venezuela's cannot any longer be called a left wing government, and I don't see much nationalism especially since it's being propped up by Russia and Cuba. Anti-American, sure. But that's not enough to be considered "nationalist." 

Belarus as far as I know is just an authoritarian state that has no nationalist aspirations beyond I presume preserving its national rights from Russia. On the other hand, it might soon seek to rejoin Russia.

Scottish nationalists within the UK seem to be left leaning, but not necessarily working class movement-dominated. Irish nationalists are Catholics, not part of a working class movement.

Nationalism consists of one or more of these traits, as far as I can tell:

A movement to free a colony or conquered territory of imperialist rule and define itself as a nation.
A movement of a people to overthrow feudal aristocratic or otherwise localized rule in a certain territory and declare itself a nation.
A nation with an ambitious (usually tyrannical) leader that aspires to make the nation more powerful, including the aspiration to conquer and rule other nations that it considers inferior and to assert its national greatness.
A group such as an oppressed race or religion that seeks to establish a nation to promote and protect that group.
A racial or religious group that seeks to define itself as a nation so that it can exclude other races or religions and discriminate against them or oppress them or deny them entry.
A governmental entity or empire ruled by one group that seeks to consolidate its rule and its culture by oppressing or eliminating or re-educating and imposing its culture on other groups within its rule.