MY NEW HERO
Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI)
In a speech at the Nation Institute’s annual dinner — which helps support one of the most liberal publications in the country — Baldwin delivered an unapologetic defense of progressivism and its contribution to America…. “It’s not that we’ve forgotten how to create wealth in this country. It’s that we have allowed that wealth to be concentrated in fewer and fewer hands. And as the distance between top and bottom has widened, the bonds between us have stretched — and broken,” she said according to her prepared remarks, which were provided to The Huffington Post. “Progressives want to restore those bonds.”
Conventional political wisdom holds that a wise politician (or at least one who wants to win) should always play to the middle, because that where millions of Americans make their ideological home. Play it safe…and whatever you do, don’t use the “L” word or allow your opponent to smear you as a Liberal. In other words, be anything except what you are.
This school of thought holds that being a Liberal means wearing a badge of shame, as if Liberalism is some evil, Socialistic ideology whose adherents despise America and wish only to create a Worker’s Paradise, a Potemkin village to hide the reality of Big Government overreach. For too long, being a Liberal has meant to be accepting the burden of having to wear a metaphorical scarlet letter. Some of us have taken to calling ourselves “Progressives”, which, while being a weenie way out, is merely splitting hairs. Whether you call yourself a Liberal or a Progressive (or both), don’t you think it’s about damned time that we stood up for ourselves and took the initiative back from those we’ve allowed to demonize us?
And isn’t it about time we work to show the American Sheeple who REALLY hates them?
During her speech, Baldwin pointed to the “proud progressive tradition” in her own state as a model of what the movement can accomplish.
“Wisconsin was one of the first states to guarantee access to a free public education,” she said. “We were the first state to ratify the 19th amendment allowing women the right to vote. We were the first to protect gays and lesbians from workplace discrimination. Wisconsin was the first state to grant collective bargaining rights to public employees. We invited workers’ compensation. We invited unemployment insurance. But recently, that progressive tradition has come under attack by extremists.”
In her remarks, Baldwin never mentioned any of the Republicans vying to take her on in the general election, but she nevertheless drew a sharp distinction between the conservative and progressive visions for America. Besides just criticizing the right, she outlined what the left stands for.
“Our vision cannot be defined on the other side’s terms or on the other side’s turf,” she said, alluding to a frustration that has often characterized the progressive base, which gained steam in 2004 by outlining its opposition to the Iraq War and President George W. Bush’s policies.
Never has the difference between Progressives and Conservatives been more stark. This distinction now means we must choose between moving forward to a vision of America where we care for one another, where accept the primacy of the community over the individual- or backward to a vision of America that’s little more than “every man for himself.” At this point in our nation’s history, we’re faced with a very distinct and stark choice in November. Do we value compassion, fair play, and community? Or will we come down on the side of war, destruction, self-interest, and a broken social contract?
Rep. Tammy Baldwin is one of the few politicians on the Left with the moral courage to call it as she sees it, proudly and without fear of being ridiculed and demonized by the Far Right. By staking out the moral high ground in this debate, Baldwin is showing us what Liberals can and SHOULD be doing.
The Occupy Wall Street movement, while not a partisan effort, nonetheless is something that Liberals should get behind. The goals of OWS dovetail closely with the values Liberals hold dear; now we have an opportunity to put our money where our beliefs are…and it’s about time.
For too long, Liberals have had a well-deserved reputation for lacking cojones and the strength of character and conviction to stand up for what they believe in.
“It must be our fight — for an economy and a government that works for the 99 percent. A fight that says we’re all in this together. A fight that declares we have an obligation to each other. An obligation to be fair and just. And where there are wrongs, an obligation to change it,” she continued. “Believing in that — that’s what it means to be a progressive.”
More concretely, Baldwin called on Americans to “break the grip that big corporations and big banks have” on society, “hold Wall Street accountable,” invest in schools, put the “middle class back to work” and “reclaim the American dream.”
As Rep. Baldwin pointed out, the Republican Party has become the party of Big Banks and corporations. The GOP has lost sight of what true Conservatism is. It’s become a party of radicalized zealots devoted to protecting the interests of the super-rich at the expense of the vast majority of Americans. All one need do is survey the field of intellectual and moral lightweights who make up the 2012 Republican Presidential candidates to understand that today’s Republican Party has gone off the rails. They’ve become completely beholden to a radical Tea Party that lives in its own demonstrably false reality and brooks no dissent. They may scream, “WE WANT OUR COUNTRY BACK!!!”, but it’s those of us on the Left who should be making that phrase our own. I can only hope that Rep. Baldwin represents the beginning of a trend by Liberals to display pride in who and what they are. We need to step up and be proud of what we stand for as we work to take our country back from Wall Street, Fox Noise Channel, and the Koch brothers.
If you don’t believe that the GOP has jumped the rails, allow me to introduce a bit of perspective in the form of the words of two former Republican Presidents:
I hold that while man exists it is his duty to improve not only his own condition, but to assist in ameliorating mankind.
- Abraham Lincoln
The absence of effective State, and, especially, national, restraint upon unfair money-getting has tended to create a small class of enormously wealthy and economically powerful men, whose chief object is to hold and increase their power. The prime need to is to change the conditions which enable these men to accumulate power which it is not for the general welfare that they should hold or exercise. We grudge no man a fortune which represents his own power and sagacity, when exercised with entire regard to the welfare of his fellows.
- Theodore Roosevelt
Those words are older than probably 99.999% of people walking the Earth today, and yet they’re as true today as when they were first uttered.
Liberals/Progressives begrudge no one their success. What we expect is the recognition that success is never achieved completely on one’s own, and that success creates a concomitant responsibility to pay one’s fair share toward the common good. No more. And certainly no less.
November 2012 is still 11 months away, but for the first time in a long time, I find myself daring to feel something that feels like confidence. If we continue to stand our ground, we might just take our country back from those who’ve hijacked it for themselves. Real change will take years, of course, but we can use the 2012 election to set that process in motion. Electing Tammy Baldwin would be a great start.
Oh, and did I mention that Rep. Baldwin, if elected to the Senate, would be the first open Lesbian in that august old White Boys club? And wouldn’t that be a great way to shake things up?
