Tag: E.J. Dionne

Progressives have some intellectual and moral work to do. What are cast as political challenges to liberals and the left are also philosophical problems. All politics is about identity in some way, since all of us think of ourselves as, well, something. To use an example I am especially familiar with: I’m a reasonably well-off white male liberal who grew up in a middle-class family in a working-class city in Massachusetts where Catholicism and trade unions were important parts of life. This limited tour of my political psyche is the sort of exercise all of us can engage in. This alone makes the war on identity a non-starter among progressives and Democrats. On the left, the word “intersectionality” has gained popularity as it deals with the cross-cutting effects of race, gender and class, and there is no doubt that progressive politics will, of necessity, be intersectional. But beyond buzz words, progressives must find a politics that links worker rights with civil rights, racial and gender justice with social justice more broadly. In his book “Modernity and Its Discontents,” Yale political scientist Steven B. Smith offered this in an essay on the philosopher Isaiah Berlin: “Identities are not just things we have, they define who we are. If I am only for myself, what am I?” Hillel was not a political consultant, but his balanced approach remains sound, electorally as well as morally.

Washington • In the era of President Trump, politics is reduced to a fatuous, debilitating spectacle. I speak not of some political resistance movement but of quiet, intellectually serious debates taking place around the country that relate neither to Trump nor to our political parties. As Deborah Fallows told Slate’s Isaac Chotiner, the conversations she and her husband had during their travels were "heavily weighted toward in my neighborhood, at my schools, on our main street, what people need here, what people want from my town. "I don't know if people had just given up on the national scene," she added, "or they didn't want to talk about it anymore." They know all three have to pull together to make a place work. But the new localism should make us think harder about how national policy can encourage local innovation and initiative. Social Mobility vs. Economic Equality: The basic question is whether we are primarily interested in a society that provides expansive opportunities for people to rise, even if we maintain large disparities in income and wealth; or if instead we see the priority as closing those wealth and income gaps and offering better pay to those in poorly compensated lines of work. Guaranteed Jobs vs. Guaranteed Income: The growing concentration of wealth and the threat posed to work by technological change has heightened interest in establishing a universal basic income (UBI), the subject of Annie Lowrey’s recent book “Give People Money.” Although UBI is, broadly speaking, a progressive idea, some conservative thinkers such as Charles Murray have embraced versions of it. On the left is a fear that, as the economist Jared Bernstein has argued, the UBI would be used to rationalize dismantling all manner of other social programs. He is most recently a co-author of “One Nation After Trump.” ejdionne@washpost.com.

WASHINGTON — We human beings cling to dogmas long after they’re disproven. This is certainly true of our assumptions about electoral politics. Third, that Republicans and Democrats are becoming increasingly and equally extreme, so they should be scolded equally. “Over the past two decades,” he writes, “the proportion of party supporters … who have strongly negative feelings toward the opposing party has risen sharply. A growing number of Americans have been voting against the opposing party rather than for their own.” People rate their own side about the same as they used to. Polarization, in other words, is not just an elite thing. When it comes to casting ballots, “leaning independents as well as strong and weak party identifiers are voting more along party lines than at any time in the past half century.” Factoring out independents who tilt toward a party, “only about 12 percent of Americans have fallen into the ‘pure independent’ category, and these people are much less interested in politics and much less likely to vote than independent leaners.” Independents are plainly not some magical force that will call into being that centrist third party that looms so large in the imaginations of many pundits and fundraisers. Abramowitz’s data also makes clear that the two sides are not equivalent. The comparable figures for Republicans were 44 percent and 22 percent, double the Democratic swing. The upshot: The share of Democrats in the ideological middle is nearly twice that of Republicans.

KELLY: So we started the week with zero tolerance and with families being separated at the border. KELLY: Eliana, what is your read on this about-face by the administration this week? JOHNSON: You know, this really seemed to me to be - regardless of what you think of the zero tolerance policy, to be a crisis in large part of the administration's own making. KELLY: Well... DIONNE: And I - could I say... KELLY: Please. KELLY: All right, now, to follow up on a point you made, Eliana, about Republican lawmakers, Congress was also trying to work on immigration this week. I think there was an idea when Trump came into office that the Republican Congress would be able to do whatever it wanted because the president didn't have clear policy views. DIONNE: ...Because I think you've got two big problems here. Problem one is this bill - this second bill which they can't get through is described as a compromise. It's a compromise among Republicans. DIONNE: And to you.

Dionne of The Washington Post and Brookings Institution and Mary Katharine Ham of The Federalist about the political news of the week including the Korea summit, EPA administrator Scott Pruitt and Ronny Jackson's withdrawal as VA nominee. Earlier today, the world witnessed a historic handshake between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in. DIONNE: Well, if North Korea gives up all its nuclear weapons, I promise I'll say yes to that. And Kim Jong Un seems more to be the driver of events so far. HAM: Yeah, I mean, I think he does deserve some credit for his unorthodoxy and unpredictability, changing the calculus in a really intractable problem. CHANG: Well, about that strategy, I mean, in the next several weeks, the president's expected to sit down with Kim Jong Un. CHANG: But it wasn't just Jackson this week. CHANG: Sure. I mean, the the list of people who have left is staggering compared to any other administration, and a lot of the people who leave leave with their reputations much diminished from where they were before, which I think is dangerous for the country, putting aside what you think of Trump, 'cause it's going to be very hard for Trump to attract people to government - good people to government 'cause they don't want to be soiled by the very process you describe really well. CHANG: All right, that's E.J.

Dionne of the Washington Post and the Brookings Institution join NPR's Ari Shapiro to discuss the week in politics. Dionne of The Washington Post and the Brookings Institution. SHAPIRO: David, you've been critical of President Trump's reluctance to criticize Putin, and yet the actions of the United States in this case seem to be pretty tough on Russia. My thinking on all this is that their Trump is better than our Trump, that Putin, like Trump... SHAPIRO: (Laughter). SHAPIRO: Although... DIONNE: If... SHAPIRO: If his goal has been to undermine NATO and the European Union and these other Western alliances, his actions sure seem to have brought those countries together in this case. SHAPIRO: David, do you think this China-North Korea meeting is helpful or harmful to American interests with North Korea? And but to run the second-largest bureaucracy in the U.S. government without any administrative experience or health care administrative experience strikes me as putting him in an impossible position. SHAPIRO: A lot of people in Washington don't have to imagine it. SHAPIRO: David Brooks and E.J. BROOKS: Thank you.

Fmr. Watergate prosecutor Nick Akerman says the steps that Robert Mueller is taking in his investigation indicate the probe is ramping up and will likely lead straight to the questioning of Trump himself. E.J. Dionne & Daniel Dale also join…

Fallout from Tillerson reportedly calling Trump a "moron" intensifies. Axios reports Trump wants Tillerson out and may appoint CIA Director Mike Pompeo. Can the White House take another dramatic exit? E.J. Dionne, Neera Tanden, and Daniel Dale join Ari Melber.…