The Left is right about everything, always, cont.

So at places as variegated as Atrios, The American Prospect, and Talking Points Memo, there's a bit of a discussion about how the Bush Administration has driven even middle of the road Democrats - people who spent the 1990s reading Friedman and thinking "y'know, he's got this globalization thing wrapped up nicely" - in to fits of screaming madness.

I think maybe the most interesting effect of the Bush Administration has been to rehabilitate the left in the public discourse. Casting our eyes back to, oh, 1998 or so, it's difficult to remember that even Democrats ran, screaming, from both the label "left" but more importantly most of the policy prescriptions of actual leftists. People like Robert Reich and James Galbraith were among the few to consistently and vocally raise issues of inequality and class. And they were - outside of places like The American Prospect magazine - entirely ignored. It took the capricious cruelty of the Bush Administration to make people remember two things:

1) Competence matters. The Clinton administration, for all its faults, was competent to a degree like no President since... well, maybe ever. If, after five years of Bushocracy, you still doubt this is important, I reccomend a vacation to New Orleans.

2) The economy doesn't always grow. Sometimes, the economy starts to downright suck. This cuts two ways. If the economy is growing, concerns about inequality can be muted, if only because a growth in absolute wealth silences a lot of concerns about relative poverty. This was a benefit for Clinton-style Democrats, as it let them address poverty and unemployment (which Clinton genuinely cared about) without having to use "old" Democratic ideas like stronger unions, fiscal stimulus, etc.

But the problem is - if you govern as Clinton did, and assume that growth is a substitute for improvements in equality - when the economy starts to tank again (and it always does) then the floor falls out from the people who didn't have much to begin with.

Of course, this was exactly what was being yelled by economists on the left. Problem is, the party of the Left (which Truman's Democrats unquestionably were) no longer existed. Indeed, I'm not convinced it exists today, even with the insanity of the Bush administration. Like Billmon, while I'm happy to see the Bushies driven from office (preferably with fire) I have a hard time believing that Bush's removal will harken a new age of good governance - which is not the same thing as competence, which I do believe the Dems will deliver.

The problem is that we no longer have the room or time to spare for mere competence. Far too many problems were put off for another day during the Clinton Administration, and those issues have positively worsened during the Bush years. We don't need a caretaker President in the US, we need a revolutionary. Think first term FDR, and then add some extra ambition.

Shortly before I began blogging, I emailed friends and family with a note written the day Kerry conceded the election. In it, I noted that when Kaiser Wilhelm dismissed Otto Bismarck as Chancellor of the German Empire, the British press called it "dropping the pilot."

The meaning was this: Bismarck has proven his ability to navigate the treacherous shoals of late Victorian-era European politics. He'd wielded the German military with both incredible efficiency and daring, and he'd humiliated Europe's traditional great power (France) while doing so. Unfortunately for Bismarck, his personal strength and reputation conflicted with the desire for grandeur of the new Kaiser, so Bismarck had to go. The Wilhelmine era that followed was one of crisis after crisis, eventually leading to World War I.

The short list of crises on Bush's watch would include Iraq, Lebanon, Afghanistan, nuclear proliferation, Sino-US relations, Sino-Japanese relations, Indo-Pakistani relations, climate change, energy shortages, the disembowelling of the American treasury, and the total collapse of American legitimacy abroad.

In 2000, the American people were given the choice of continuing the Clinton legacy, and they dropped the pilot.

In 2004, they were given a chance to recant, and they stuck with their latter-day Wilhelm.

If, in 2008, the Democrats attempt to win by running for President as "Wilhelm, but more competent", or even another Clinton, then we might as well all go home. We'll already have lost.