News that the American Civil Liberties Union plans to spend millions to back ballot initiatives and various political issues in the 2018 election cycle is yet more concrete evidence that the progressive backlash provoked by Donald Trump’s election is very real. The ACLU is in a position to spend $25 million for this purpose because, whereas it raised $5.5 million in the year before Trump’s election, it has raised as astounding $93 million in the year since. Alongside this massive increase in fundraising has come a quadrupling of its membership, to 1.75 million. This combination of increased members and financial resources is deeply heartening for those of us looking for evidence of a real changes in the political landscape, as is the ACLU’s ambition to become a left-wing analogue of the National Rifle Association in terms of its ability to affect policy. The growth of the ACLU is also a reminder of the importance of building out an infrastructure and fighting the good fight even in less receptive times; now that the political environment is in rapid flux, the ACLU is not only positioned to act, but is a recognizable organization through which people are able to band together and flex their political muscle.
I’ve been a member of the ACLU for many years; in fact, as far as I can remember, it’s the first political organization I joined (in an early example of how political backlash can work, nothing could have made me more excited to sign up than the patrician George H.W. Bush's famous accusation that Michael Dukakis was a "card-carrying member" of the organization). Its emphasis on civil rights and particularly free speech, even when these positions might receive scant support from either side of the spectrum, spoke to my youthful sense of righteousness and a foundational belief in free speech that has only grown stronger over time. And so it’s not surprising that the ACLU’s current success feels especially gratifying to me.
But though what I’ve written so far might sound like a testimonial in support of joining the ACLU (and I will neither encourage nor discourage any of you from reading it this way), I want to sound a note of caution about the left’s increased ability to throw large amounts of money and advertising behind points of view that are not simply progressive, but also exist in a world in which the right wing has spent much time and energy attempting to define their meaning for the public. It’s not enough to advocate for certain issues; we also need to proceed in ways that incorporate philosophical arguments for why these positions fit into a broader American morality and patriotism. Not to do so would be to tacitly embrace a naive, overly optimistic, and potentially self-sabotaging read of the perilous and propagandistic state at which American politics has arrived.
Take protection of immigrants’ rights. For millions of Americans, defense of immigrants and refugees is an expression of our shared humanity, a clear case of a politically weak or even powerless group requiring assistance on the most basic moral grounds. But this is clearly not the way that many Americans view the matter. Donald Trump and a great deal of the Republican Party have identified newcomers to this country as an existential threat, explicitly on the grounds that they take American jobs and act as vectors for terrorism, and somewhat less explicitly on the grounds that they threaten the culture and whiteness of our country. Because this framework has such a powerful hold in the public discourse, any pushback from the left needs to be aware of it and answer its wrongful assumptions, lest progressives inadvertently provide more ammunition to positions they oppose.
For example, it makes sense to ground advocacy for documented immigrants to our country in America’s centuries-long status as a nation of immigrants, where newcomers are welcomed as the citizens of tomorrow, just like nearly all of our own ancestors once were. It’s also crucial that we argue for the net economic benefits of immigrants, and demonstrate the basic economic fact that rather than taking away jobs, immigrants help to grow the economy by creating new jobs, paying taxes, and helping drive demand as consumers. These arguments have the benefit of being neither liberal nor conservative positions, but reiterations of basic facts.
More fraught are (mostly conservative white) racialized fears about demographic and cultural change. Frankly, such fears can’t be addressed directly. A person who believes the United States should be majority white forever is in the throes of a racism that we still have no easy cures for, and the response to which should ever and always be unremitting opposition and contempt. But such fears can be countered and undermined by reminding everyone of the very American story of immigrants contributing to American greatness. Just because people express bigoted views worthy of contempt doesn’t mean the right answer is to ignore them; if there are ways to neutralize nativist appeals, then we need to explore those avenues. And as I’ve repeatedly argued on this site, we have to acknowledge the very real economic malaise that many people face: that these Americans have chosen to blame the wrong targets for their predicament doesn’t mean they don’t deserve an economy that helps them as well.
I’ve also been thinking about the backlash against liberal initiatives in light of the effort underway in Florida to re-enfranchise to citizens who have permanently lost their voting rights due to felony convictions. An incredible 1.6 million otherwise-eligible Floridians are currently unable to vote, including a staggering 20% of the state’s African-American population. An ongoing petition would put an initiative on the ballot in 2018 to restore voting rights to those who have served their time and completed their parole requirements. All efforts to strip people’s right to vote should be viewed with a deeply skeptical eye, and Florida’s status as one of only three states with a lifetime ban on the franchise puts it in scandalously poor company.
Yet I can’t help thinking of the likely Republican counter-attack against this initiative. They will contend that the Democratic Party is the party of criminality and minorities. It would not be surprising if they also used the success of this initiative to attempt to discredit future outcomes in Florida elections — not because any law has been violated, but simply because casting doubt on our electoral process is increasingly part of what the GOP views as an acceptable path to power. There is nothing any of us can do to stop Republican politicians from adopting anti-democratic stances — but we can at least anticipate and counter them. In this case, I would hope that the Florida ballot initiative is supported by a broader discussion of the basic immorality of removing a person’s right to vote, the implicit racism of a policy that disproportionately affects minorities, and the undeniable fact that the Republican Party has all but abandoned its ability to win over a majority of Americans and so has grown reliant on undemocratic means to suppress the vote.
Tying specific issues back to their roots in American tradition, morality, and democracy; and framing them in a way that cuts through the right-wing framework rather than simply adding easy fodder to backwards conservative arguments: I can't say I know how we do this effectively, but my gut is telling me we need to figure out how.
