Culture-less Politics?

» WaPo: Culture Wars? How 2004 (E.J. Dionne Jr.)

A perplexing take here by EJ Dionne ...

On the Democratic side, cultural and religious questions have played almost no role in the battle between Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton. They have spoken instead about economics, health care and the war in Iraq. Strikingly, both have been intent on putting an end to religious divisions in the electorate and have sought to welcome the devout to the Democratic Party.

Obama has been explicit about the need to broker political peace between Democrats and believers. "If we don't reach out to evangelical Christians and other religious Americans and tell them what we stand for, then the Jerry Falwells and Pat Robertsons and Alan Keyeses will continue to hold sway," he said in an important speech at a 2006 meeting organized by the progressive evangelical Jim Wallis. "More fundamentally, the discomfort of some progressives with any hint of religion has often prevented us from effectively addressing issues in moral terms." Clinton has also spoken movingly of the role of faith in public life. "I'm living by the Scripture that says we are all members of God's household," she told a Baptist convention in Atlanta in January.

In their efforts to push cultural issues aside, Obama and Clinton resemble no one so much as Roosevelt. He knew that maintaining a Democratic majority required overcoming the cultural divisions of the 1920s. And just as large events -- the Depression, the threats of Nazi Germany and imperial Japan -- helped him in his effort, so will the large questions of economic dislocation, the aftermath of the Iraq war, the continuing struggle in Afghanistan and concerns about long-term U.S. global influence allow Democrats to transcend the cultural battles of the recent past.

Among my pet peeves (which I should probably categorize at some point) is the sometimes sloppy substitution of the terms "religion" and "Christianity." The two should more appropriately be viewed as diametrically opposed. There are some natural corollaries to this: cultural issues/issues and matters of faith might apply here.

And once I get past the notion that it's EJ Dionne writing this Outlook piece, there's still plenty that I find maddeningly off-base. From the excerpt, in particular ... "In their efforts to push cultural issues aside." I'm drawing a blank on how and why Dionne sees the approaches of Clinton and Obama as such where I see them as more accepting of the need to explain the moral base of their political views.

Maybe Dionne is meaning something entirely different here. But his depiction of some sort of "holiday from cultural history" strikes me as even more off base. He notes that our place in the world and economic issues will be more important in the upcoming period of political history (er, future?). I think a quick read of Mark Lilla's NYT Magazine article should shake that faith. For the sake of backup, a quick thumb-through of a recent Madeline Albright tome might be of some use, too. Need more? A little Sam Huntington might help.

Yes, foreign policy will be important. But last I checked, the dividing line is based on elements of culture. Yes, the economy will be important. But last I checked, there are those who place an inordinate blame on some whose culture is viewed as insufficiently Anglo-Saxon.

In short, cultural issues aren't going away. A better argument is that they will more thoroughly permeate the very decisions likely to confront the next administration. Dionne shoves a great deal of "cultural issues" through the lens of "the religious right" ... who's era he deems "over." And this is where I suspect some sloppy interchange of terminology on Dionne's part. If Dionne had wanted to make an argument for the end of abortion, stem cells, and gay marriage as wedge issues, I think he'd be on somewhat better ground. If he wanted to make the argument that politics as defined by the likes of Falwell, Robertson, and Dobson were behind us, I think he'd be 100% correct. But it's not clear that that's the argument Dionne tries to make. Slapping the label "cultural issues" atop the narrow issue-set of the religious right doesn't quite capture the full reality of the shape of issues before us right now.

That makes Dionne's basic point untenable - that we now face a period of secular politics akin to what we saw from the Great Depression through the Islamic Revolution. For one, I'm not convinced the economic challenges we have on hand (daunting and serious as they are) are anywhere near the impact of the Depression. Secondly, Dionne notes that even in such a period, there was ample reference to the moral base underlying policy. I think it's an incorrect read on history to suggest that these are merely a means of "pushing aside" cultural matters, but instead serve as a reflection to the underlying importance of cultural concerns to even the most secular of policy proposals. And if that reflection is there ... it means you never get very far from it. That's the point that Lilla essentially comes around to (begrudgingly, it should be pointed out).