Liberalism - The Big Things

When Peggy Noonan, staffer and memoirist of Ronald Reagan, wrote in the Wall Street Journal last year that, “Something new was happening in America.  It is the imminent arrival of a new liberal moment,” what did she mean?  She dreaded the arrival of the Obama juggernaut and its inevitable emphasis on health care for all, full employment, due process for terror suspects, more powerful unions, expanded voting rights, and financial regulation.  As an arch conservative, she chafed at what was coming, but as a keen observer of national life she knew instinctively that the time for a liberal transformation was imminent.Noonan likened the times to Franklin Roosevelt’s Democratic victory and the change it brought to American life.  She wasn’t alone; most had turned skeptical of the old free-market fundamentalism with the financial meltdown.  In effect, as a governing philosophy it had self-immolated itself under George W. Bush.  Barack Obama is a true liberal and he had made it perfectly clear that liberalism was all that could save America from its perilous decline.  It’s not without accident that Britain’s coalition leaders, Conservative David Cameron and Liberal-Democrat Nick Clegg, have described their own moment in the sun as a time in which to introduce “a more liberal nation.”Are conditions in Canada ripe for such a moment?  It’s more complicated.  Definitely, some of the same declining conditions exist here.  Yet, while in America the change came by way of transformation, in Britain the alteration was more of a coming together of different persuasions to produce a more equitable future.  If this country goes through change, it will likely follow the more sanguine British model.Definitely, the liberal spirit is alive and well in Canada, but it is scattered through various political parties, civil society groups, and even economists and scientists.  Yet such a diverse group is difficult to politically motivate, while at the conservative end, though smaller, it is more focused, angry, ideological and motivated in ways that permit the large “C” conservative agenda to endure, though only marginally.  The secret for true liberalism in this land will be in its ability to pull together its disparate parts – no small feat.Bill Clinton wrote of Franklin Roosevelt that he became a great president because in the end “he got the big things right.”  It was a liberal revolution, but Roosevelt hardly drew just from the left for his ideas.  The new liberalism in Canada will have to reveal a similar outlook.  The trouble in this country is that the old dispute between left and right has exhausted either one’s ability to clarify issues and to provide a roadmap for the future.  As noted in previous posts, there are powerful political influences in this land that have sealed themselves from debates and events that might expose the weaknesses of their convictions.  They only read those works written from a point of view identical to their own.  It matters not what the revelation of new facts reveal so long as they can maintain power.  Stereotypes and recriminations abound, while at the same time they refuse to acknowledge the probing social and economic commentary that says we’re in troubleBut while our present governing situation can be best described as intolerant and ideological, the overall condition of the country can be best described as “indifference.”  To be sure, there are groups of citizens rigorously probing the political order to deal with the pressing issues of our time, but they too experience difficulty in gaining broad enough support.  In this, we are wholly unlike our citizen counterparts south of the border or in Britain.  If the present time calls for a new liberalism, it can hardly be effective if it comes from the political order alone.  The citizenry must be aroused from its slumber if matters such as climate change, aboriginal inclusion, green jobs, the primacy of small and medium businesses, and an end to child poverty, to name a few, are to be truly addressed.In coming weeks we will discuss today’s citizenry and the media, and their role in our current malaise.  Many would rather these posts concentrate on the political order alone, preferring to see it as the modern cause of our ills.  But that would be both unfair and untrue.  The country will require two main ingredients if we are to discover a future for ourselves: a vibrant liberalism running through the political order, and sense of desire for renewal through the citizens of this land.It is one thing to pull the scatterings of the marginalized from both at home and abroad into a new vision of possibility for Canada; it’s another entirely to pull all the diverse populations of this land in the same direction.  For that we’ll require people, both leaders and citizens, who get “the big things right.”