Tangle - PREVIEW: The Friday Edition: What is a liberal?

Episode Date: December 7, 2024

On today's episode, Managing Editor Ari Weitzman explores the evolution and current state of liberalism in the United States, particularly in the context of recent political events and the 2024 elections. He discusses the defining values of modern liberalism, including social protection, civil rights, foreign intervention, big government, and labor.This is a preview of today's Friday edition that is available in full and ad-free for our premium podcast subscribers. If you'd like to complete this episode and receive Sunday editions, exclusive interviews, bonus content, and more, head over to tanglemedia.supercast.com and sign up for a membership. If you are currently a newsletter subscriber, inquiry with us about how to receive a 33% discount on a podcast subscription! You can subscribe to Tangle by clicking here or drop something in our tip jar by clicking here. Today's podcast was written by Ari Weitzman and edited and engineered by Jon Lall. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75. Our newsletter is edited by Managing Editor Ari Weitzman, Will Kaback, Bailey Saul, Sean Brady, and produced in conjunction with Tangle’s social media manager Magdalena Bokowa, who also created our logo. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Watch the trailer now and secure your tickets for a truly unforgettable cinematic experience. A Complete Unknown, only in theaters December 25th. Oh, that coffee smells good. Can you pass me the sugar when you're finished? Whoa, whoa, whoa, what are you doing? That's salt, not sugar. 25th. To understand your situation, the more options and relief measures could be available to you. Learn more at Canada.ca slash it pays to know. A message from the Government of Canada. From executive producer Isaac Saul welcome to the Tangle Podcast, a place where you get views from across the political spectrum, some independent thinking, and a little bit of our take.

My name is John Law. I'm the executive producer for podcasts and YouTube here at Tangle News. And today we wanna bring you something a little bit different. Ever since the election, our managing editor Ari Weitzman has been circling a question.

And we decided that the Friday edition would be a great place to explore this idea. So not only did Ari write this piece, but he also took the time to read it for our podcast listeners. As a note, our Friday editions are exclusive to our newsletter subscribers and our podcast subscribers. So if you don't have one or the other,

you can sign up for one or the other or both. And there's a pretty good discount if you sign up for both. More on that later. Let's head over to Ari and get his thoughts on a question that has been making the rounds between politicians and pundits alike, especially amongst Democrats. What is a liberal? In early November, the Tango team had all descended on Philadelphia to cover the results of the upcoming national election. We'd spent weeks organizing an itinerary of events, planning what editions we'd release

in print and audio and visual media, arranging a list of interesting people for Isaac to talk to on the night of the election, and then executing a live event while also trying to host an election watch party for local members of the Tangle community. We've hosted live events before and they always have this buzz about them. Anything can happen at a live event, no matter how much you've read in advance about what to expect from the night's proceedings or learn about the people your team will be talking to. At the same time, anything that could happen is filtered through a rigorously planned schedule. On election night, I had the privilege of a sideline level perspective to incredible conversations between Isaac and people like Bill O'Reilly and Brian Williams, people whose

thoughts shaped the way we talk about the events we all experience. One of those people Isaac interviewed was Sharon McMahon. During a conversation about the future of the Republican Party, Sharon made a comment that immediately piqued my interest. And you know, one of the things that I think is interesting to point out is that Trump in many ways is actually not conservative. A conservative is somebody who by nature wants to conserve what is, who does not want to enact sweeping radical reforms. And in many ways, Donald Trump is proposing very, very

significant sort of radical reforms. And in many ways, Donald Trump is proposing very, very significant sort of radical reforms. I'd heard some form of these questions posed before about Trump. How will his base of support affect the Republican Party? How will his impact change moving forward? And then to Sharon McMahon's question, what will it mean to be a Republican after Trump? What will it even mean to be a conservative? Then the opposite question hit me. What will it mean to be a Republican after Trump? What will it even mean to be a conservative? Then the opposite question hit me. What will it mean to be a liberal?

Actually, what is a liberal now? In the immediate aftermath of Republicans' big electoral victory, I posed this question to members of our team, and then again, after we all return to our respective homes, I brought it up in comment threads, during newsletter editing, and on team calls. It became something of a trope within our team. Eventually, through something between fascination with the idea and sheer annoyance from me, I was able to convince Isaac to let me write a Friday edition

exploring the idea. So today, after forcing countless discussions with my colleagues and digesting numerous articles about what liberalism in the United States is, has been, and should be, I want to answer the question, what is a liberal? First, I want to bound the discussion. I'm defining liberalism in a modern sense. Classical liberalism can refer to concepts as far-reaching as democracy

and higher education, which isn't really meaningful in our contemporary political landscape. In that context, I landed on five general areas where modern American liberalism has defining values. Social protection, civil rights, foreign intervention, big government, and labor. Earlier this week, liberal writer Freddie DeBoer gave a rundown of the aspects of liberalism that he thinks Democrats have been failing to fight for since Al Gore's 2000 presidential campaign. Quote, with Democrats having moved against the social safety net, fighting for gay rights, criminal justice reform, nascent efforts to end the war on drugs, humane immigration reform,

and a drawdown of hostilities and several foreign conflicts, there wasn't much for Gore to run on as a positive agenda, DeVore wrote. I think my five categories cover all those bases. To define what liberalism is in those categories, I'm first going to explore consistent liberal stances in those areas from the past several decades. Then, because I think exploring what opposes something is a good way to understand it, I'll talk about how conservatism defines its philosophy. And finally, I'll describe liberal principles in those areas at this exact moment

to see if and how liberalism has shifted in recent years. At the end, I'll give something of a my take on what I think it will mean to be a liberal in the post-Biden era. In some of these sections, the ideas and concepts liberalism has supported have achieved broad bipartisan consensus, moving contemporary liberal stances further. In other instances, conservatism was won over more support among moderates, creating some schisms within the left. And one area in particular is much more complicated. So those are the five areas, social protection, civil rights, foreign intervention, big government, and labor. We'll be right back after this quick break.

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In a 2021 report, researchers from the United Nations International Labour Organization defined the term social protection as the set of policies and programs aimed at preventing or protecting all people against poverty, vulnerability, and social exclusion throughout their life cycles, with a particular emphasis towards vulnerable groups. In the United States, I think we've seen social protection play out in several different ways, but most visibly liberals have pursued social protection for consumers, for the environment, and for vulnerable or marginalized groups.

Regulatory bodies have existed for a while. The Department of Agriculture, the USDA, and the US Food and Drug Administration, or the FDA, for instance, were founded over a century ago. But if I had to pinpoint the start of the modern era of consumer protections to a year, I'd point to 1965. That was the year that Ralph Nader published a book called Unsafe at Any Speed, which had an enormous impact on automotive safety regulations and effectively mainstreamed the concept of non-governmental consumer advocacy groups. In his book, Nader detailed safety issues that had yet to be addressed by the automobile industry, which led to seat belts, standard safety features, and inspired social movements against drunk driving. The history of modern environmental protection is just as traceable and just as recent.

Again, if I'd pinpoint a year, I'd point to 1962, which was when marine biologist Rachel Carson published the Seminole Conservationist text, Silent Spring, exploring the environmental impact of pesticides. Environmental protections have spanned many areas since then. Endangered species classifications, the founding of the EPA or the Environmental Protection Agency, clean air, clean water standards, and more. Protection for vulnerable groups has its roots in the civil rights movement, which obviously overlaps with the civil rights section in places.

However, whereas civil rights is a movement focusing on the equality of all people and opposing discrimination based on innate and uncontrollable characteristics like race, protections for vulnerable groups is a slightly different concept. This bucket includes protections for the aged like social security, protections for the sick like Medicare or Medicaid, or protections for the disabled like the Americans with, or protections for the disabled like the Americans with Disabilities Act or the ADA. What opposes it?

At a root level, the concepts of social protections are not opposed by conservatism ideologically. What conservatives have opposed is the idea that the federal government is best suited to provide these protections, holding instead that the government can become a dangerous enforcement arm for draconian overregulation. Towards the more libertarian end of conservatism, laissez faire economists argue that the free market is a better and more efficient regulator of what we should and should not do. Along with civil rights, many of these traditionally liberal protections have gained significant bipartisan support, and many have enjoyed that kind of support for decades, even since the first legislation addressing

these issues was passed. Many consumer protections were either passed by Republicans or have been enforced with broad bipartisan support over the decades. The EPA, for instance, was founded by Republican President Richard Nixon. The Clean Air and Clean Water Acts also were passed by Nixon. The ADA was passed by Republican President George H.W. Bush, and Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are some of the most widely popular government programs in existence. On environmental protection in particular, conservatives don't push back on the notion that clean air and water are invaluable resources. Instead, conservatives emphasize that we need to take advantage of our natural resources like oil, natural gas, and rare earth elements like lithium in order to develop a

healthy and productive economy for everyone. Furthermore, conservatives are much more likely to critique the modern liberal ethic of managing carbon output. What it is now. That leads us to today. We can start with environmental protection. Liberal environmentalism is predominantly focused on one main point, climate change. In fact, many younger liberals are so concerned about climate change that it impacts their decision on whether or not they'll have children. Modern consumer protections are heavily influenced by the fallout of the 2008 financial crisis, which liberal critics say did not result in any of the significant reforms

needed to rein in corporate malfeasance. Today, the standard bearer for this anti-Wall Street brand of consumer protections is Senator Elizabeth Warren's Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which was established in 2010 to oversee financial products and services as part of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. You can also see the liberal inclination towards consumer protections at play in the Supreme Court case, Loper-Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, where the liberal viewpoint was that the court went too far in weakening the regulatory mechanisms the government has to fight malfeasance. Progressive liberals are often at the forefront of social protection movements like those advocating for unauthorized migrants or Palestinians, but a major party-wide

focus for social protection is directed onto those in poverty. Both previous and modern iterations of liberal movements have focused on protecting the poor with legislative assistance, including through minimum wage increases, the expansion of welfare programs, and recent democratic initiatives like the expansion of the child tax credit, which briefly cut child poverty in half. Dividing out what falls under civil rights or big government or even labor can be pretty squishy, but this tenet of modern liberalism is actually pretty straightforward. Is there an inequality? Can it be viewed as systemic?

If so, fight against it. We'll be right back after this quick break. Timothy Chalamet transforms into the enigmatic Bob Dylan in a complete unknown, a cinematic captivation that explores the tumultuous life of a musical icon. This mesmerizing film captures the essence of Dylan's rebellious spirit and his relentless pursuit of artistic innovation. From the director of acclaimed films Walk the Line and Logan, this extraordinary cinematic experience is a testament to the power of music and the enduring legacy of a true visionary. Watch the trailer now and secure your

tickets for a truly unforgettable cinematic experience. A complete unknown only in theaters December 25th. Polyphia and Wisp, live in Toronto. Roger Stadium, September 3rd. Get tickets this Friday at noon at LiveNation.com. System of a Down and Deftones. Roger Stadium, September 3rd. For more, visit SystemofaDown.com. Next up, civil rights. What it's been. Somewhat paradoxically, I wouldn't start this liberal focus on civil rights with the

civil rights movement of the 50s and 60s. Instead, I think you can see the same philosophical principle of equality at play with the passage of the 14th Amendment in 1868, which granted African American citizenship, then the 15th Amendment in 1870, which granted African Americans the right to vote, and then the women's suffrage movement, which granted women the right to vote of the 1920s. The Civil Rights era didn't start reforms for racial and social equity, but it did advance and broadly popularize them through events like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s March on Washington in 1963.

In many ways, the Civil Rights Movement was both a follower of that work and a predecessor to modern LGBTQ equality movements. Leaders of that LGBTQ movement have invoked the language of civil rights and used similar tactics of coalition building in their movement, and their tactics have been successful. Over less than two decades, support for gay marriage grew from under 40% in 2007 to over 70% today. What opposes it? As is the case with much of the protections described in the previous section,

outcomes of the civil rights movement are broadly popular. There is no mainstream conservative pushback against civil rights and women's suffrage. And while majority of conservatives still do not support same-sex marriage, acceptance of same-sex marriage has also become more mainstream among the right. Social conservatives value traditional institutions of family and faith and support existing binary gender theories, but they're mostly tolerant of free expression and private. However, social conservatism often pushes back against contemporary legislation meant to address these issues, as you can see with affirmative action and laws guaranteeing access to transgender health care or access to abortion. On issues of racial awareness, some conservatives worry that a focus on the topic often amounts

to racial essentialism, where racial identity sets confines around how someone can act or be perceived. What it is now. Though you might have to squint to see it at first, I think you can view the three major social movements from the left today as inheritors of the civil rights movement, abortion, transgender rights, and immigration. All three movements are framed as a fight for access to rights and protection for a marginalized group. They all seek protections to be enshrined in law, and they're all animating issues for politicians on the campaign trail and heavy motivators for

voters of the ballot box. In 2024, the only one of those issues that Vice President Conala Harris explicitly ran on and put front and center in her campaign was abortion. She did not similarly stress transgender rights or racial equality, but the left is clearly the side that represents advocacy for those issues. Similarly, immigration was an issue that Democrats mostly avoided in 2024 while still being the home to the candidates who are more likely to fight for migrants' rights. Campaign clips that centered Donald Trump's anti-immigrant rhetoric played throughout campaign season while many Democrats embraced the refrain that the United States is a nation of immigrants and argued that our economy needs immigrant workers to function healthily.

Of course, with racial justice, specifically the brand of racial justice aligned against police violence, that remains an animating issue for liberals. A 2020 survey found that a democratic voter is more than three times likelier than a Republican voter to view racial inequality as a major issue. Racial equity movements from the left have become so mainstream that the term woke has become commonplace since the George Floyd protests in 2020 to refer to them along with gender issues. And liberals clearly want to make not just race a civil rights issue, but abortion as well as gender and immigration. Which leads us next to Foreign Intervention. What it's been. Going back to the counterculture

movement that followed the Eisenhower administration, anti-war protests have been a mainstay of modern liberalism. Protests of the Vietnam War were front and center for liberals in the 60s and 70s, followed by consistent critiques of the military industrial complex through the 2000s, which included liberals criticizing President George W. Bush for his interventions in the Middle East after the 9-11 terrorist attacks. Here it's worth saying that anti-war protests have never been the sole domain of the left. Going back to the First World War, isolationism as a means to economic productivity has been a tenet of conservatism. Additionally, a desire to protect our veterans and keep Americans out of

harm's way has a moderate stance that has been shared by both liberals and conservatives at points throughout American history, while isolationism is currently on the rise among both conservatives and the progressive left. What opposes it? There are a couple ways to write about conservative opposition to the liberal anti-war stance. First, the military, along with the police, is one of the most revered institutions among conservatives. One of the best examples of this goes back to the Vietnam protest, which overflown into violent clashes at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in 1968 with police. Conservative Americans were so opposed to what they saw as an attack against police and disrespect for veterans

in the aftermath of those clashes that it contributed to the reelection of President Nixon in 1968 and a landslide. Second, mainstream Democrats are invested in our military as a matter of national security interest. Likewise, hawkish mainstays of the Republican Party like John Bolton or Liz Cheney favor military support for US allies in Ukraine and Israel. Both groups hold these positions often in disagreement with anti-war members on the wings of their respective parties. This more traditional liberal anti-war tenant has instead given way to a neoliberal tenant of maintaining consistent military presence abroad which opposes the wings on both parties that are more anti-war. Which gives us the third point which is the MAGA branch of the modern Republican Party which

simply does not oppose the anti-war tenant, in fact, and embraces it. Anti-war proponents on both sides of the aisle pointed to Trump's promises not to start new wars and his demands that our NATO allies do more to support Ukraine as reasons why they voted for him in 2024. Trump and MAGA Republicans have also embraced criticisms of the failures under President Biden in the Afghanistan withdrawal, President Obama in Benghazi, and President Bush in entering Iraq and Afghanistan in the first place. What it is now.

In 2010, following the Bush administration, journalist and liberal author Christopher Hedges published the book, The Death of the Liberal Class, which among other things excoriated democratic politicians and left-leaning cultural leaders for not doing enough to oppose American expansionism abroad. Hedges still rails against the lack of opposition to what he calls permanent war economy, writing just last year, quote, there were three restraints to the avarice and bloodlust of the permanent war economy that no longer exists. The first was the old liberal wing of the Democratic Party led by politicians such as Senator George McGovern, Senator Eugene McCarthy, and Senator Jay William Fulbright, who wrote the Pentagon propaganda machine.

The self-identified progressives, a pitiful minority in Congress today, from Barbara Lee, who was the single vote in the House and the Senate opposing a broad open-ended authorization allowing the President to wage war in Afghanistan or anywhere else to Johann Omar, now dutifully line up to fund the latest proxy war. The second restraint was an independent media and academia. preview of our latest Friday edition. If you are not currently a newsletter subscriber or a premium podcast subscriber, and you are enjoying this content and would like to finish it,

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Isaac and Ari will be here for the Sunday Podcast and I will join you for the Daily Podcast on Monday. For the rest of the crew, this is John Law signing off. Have a fantastic weekend, y'all. Peace. Our podcast is written by me, Isaac Saul and edited and engineered by John Law. The script is edited by our managing editor, Ari Weitzman, Will Kabak, Bailey Saul and Sean Brady. The logo for our podcast was designed by Magdalena Bokova, who is also our social media manager. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75. And if you're looking for more from Tangle, please go to readtangle.com

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