Prospects for the Seventies: Coalition Politics Revisited

...and a rule that delegate selection should start in the calendar year of the convention...

...But now the problems -are much more complex, and even a coalition trying to limit itself to thirties-style issues would have to acknowledge the presence of new forces, such as the organized blacks and the peace movement...

...reiteration of the Chicago decision barring use of the unit rule (state voting as one unit...

...It met and discussed the enormous task of the internal reform of a party heavily larded with bureaucracy and outworn rules designed to frustrate insurgent forces...

...The McGovern proposals, indicating that the first round of the struggle for major reform of the Democratic party is underway, are now in the hands of the party state machines for compliance and implementation...

...a banning of secret caucuses...

...Finally, there is the alternative of a progressive coalitionism, which believes that it is still possible to rally a large majority of the United States electorate for change...

...Writing on the politics of coalition in what now seems a distant past when progressive forces in the labor, civil rights, and liberalradical movements were working together as never before, we said: "A new style of politics" is certainly the order of the day...

...If liberalism was the ideology of classic American coalitionism, what may replace it in the coalition of tomorrow...

...For all their "revolutionary" rhetoric, even the Panthers accept the practical necessity for a coalition with whites—in their own version, of course—but nonetheless a coalition such as had previously been ruled out by Rap Brown, who has vanished, and Stokely Carmichael, who has been reduced to calls from Guinea for a return to "Mother Africa...

...OUR GOAL IS A BROAD-BASED majority co' alition for major social change in America, capable of winning elections and built around a concentration on domestic issues, though not to the exclusion of foreign problems...

...Professional and technical workers who constitute the new middle class are undergoing their first serious shock in the loss of jobs, underemployment, and a darkening of what had yesterday seemed the endless vista of prosperity...

...Nevertheless, and of much more immediate import, a strong tradition remains according to which the Democratic party is the more liberal, responsive, looser, and freer of the two parties...

...Third, there remain the familiar but urgent social issues that condition the daily responses of almost all Americans: crime, drugs, racism, campus life, etc...

...Now the Commission's proposals, many of them sensible and concrete, face opposition from the revived "regular" wing of the party, a group anxious to maintain control over the party, and trying to do so through a clever appeal to "unity...

...Surely the happiest and easiest solution for the radical condition is to think we can agitate the disaffected into our welcoming organizational arms—if only they would come...

...Is a major reorganization possible...

...Its outlook on foreign policy is essentially attached to the administration in power (Johnson, Nixon), and inflexible in its world view...

...These days people are too uneasy for that, too itchy, too independent...

...Could Golda Meir rule Israel without a coalition...

...Still, he received 10 million votes, 50 percent of them in the South and the other 5 million in the North...

...EMANUEL GELTMAN AND STANLEY PLASTRIK Changes in the Making A RECENT LABOR DEPARTMENT STUDY contains projections of great relevance to our subject...

...Or, consider the role of women...

...still, it is in comparisons that we have to deal if we want to participate in American politics at all...

...Because the liberal and radical forces in New York were unable to work together, Conservative James Buckley was elected a senator...

...Labor Department pamphlet, 1971...

...By 1980 there will be an estimated 37 million working women, as compared to 30 million in 1969 and 18 million in 1950—very near a doubling of the female labor force within two decades...

...If progressive coalitionism works—that is, if numbers and ideas can be brought together—it could propel the country along progressive lines which will lead us into the eighties with cleaner horizons and greater cheer...

...Scorned by many of the young New Leftists, whose attitudes toward conventional American liberalism often parallel those of traditional conservatism, the liberal forces are at the moment in disarray...

...Yet, we feel we are right in asking: what political course has met with success, what brave new political worlds have revealed themselves to us over, say, the past ten years...

...Concretely, this means that a liberal coalitionist politics in the seventies—even as it places heavy stress on domestic economic issues, along the lines of greater federal expenditure in behalf of jobs, housing, education, antipollution, and smaller expenditures on the military—must take great pains to speak in a language that would connect with the feelings and troubles of mainstream segments of the population...

...We see the politics of coalition taking three possible roads during the seventies: • First, a traditional coalitionism, modeling itself after the New Deal coalition of the thirties...

...homeowners and taxpayers whose central political concern tends to be the white man's fear of the black man's presence...

...Further, the new American middle class (technicians, experts, the vastly expanded academic community, white-collar specialists in electronics, social engineers) will simply not accept coalitions in which they do not have a prominent role...

...And a radicalized domestic program could influence foreign policies by encouraging a more tolerant view of radical alternatives in other countries...

...If a moderately toned middle-of-the-road but leaning-rightward politics works for the Republicans, then a moderately toned, but progressive left-ofcenter policy is indicated for the Democrats...

...Whatever may happen in the eighties, the Democratic party is the party of the politics of the seventies...

...Where this old coalition once ruled we now find decline, loss of influence, or outright disintegration...

...It is not so much Vietnam that divides us any longer...

...But it was a politics that could barely withstand the successive shocks of the Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy assassinations, the sour smell of the 1968 Democratic party convention, the -appearance of new movements, the aggravation of old issues...

...Party "regulars" have so far responded with hostility or studied indifference...

...Single-issue candidates and reformers will find themselves hopelessly outflanked...

...Among some of the young and disaffected, coalition politics may not be this season's vegetable but it remains this season's political strategy—provided we recognize that its virtue rests not in repetition but in changing political relationships and styles...

...Had they run as independent or so-called peace candidates, people like Julian Bond, Shirley Chisholm, and Allard Lowenstein, as well as the growing number of black mayors across the country, would probably have suffered utter defeat...

...While the terrain for political realignment remains the Democratic party, too much can be made of the question of whether all progressive coalitionist roads lead to the Democratic party, whether one should work "outside" or "inside" the party, etc...

...In its own way, the present turmoil in our cities reflects the taste for "more," as stimulated by the achievements of coalition activity during the early and mid-sixties...

...it is what to do about the United States...

...Or could Indira Gandhi steer India along progressive lines without a coalition...

...that the society is the arena in which we act as brothers...

...Any proposal for restructuring the Democratic party in the seventies must take this influential group into account...

...Just about all parties in American political life have been coalitions of one or another sort, brought into existence by leaders of fairly well-defined "interest groups" heading constituencies that make up the coalition...

...An overly drastic transformation of the Democratic party, or an enlarged influence of confrontationist elements, or efforts to initiate a radical new party—such developments would probably speed up "Wallace-ization," no matter how heroic the efforts of the unions to oppose it...

...No one, not even the heads of powerful organizations that number in the millions can simply declare by fiat the fixed shape of tomorrow's coalition—and expect sufficient acquiescence for political success...

...If there are now more secretaries and garage and gas station attendants in this country than college students, we ought to drop the notion that radical students can lead or change society or, in its smaller aspects, reform the Democratic party...

...Goals OUR GOAL is a broad-based majority coalition of progressive forces for major social change, fulfilling and expanding the welfare state...

...Reforming the Democratic Party THE MOST POWERFUL and best-established coalition in America worked traditionally in the Democratic party—a coalition of workers (trade unions), liberal city middle class, and minority groups...

...This would be built around the professional machine wing of the Democratic party dominated by men in their fifties and sixties, together with the cautious trade union leadership of the AFL–CIO executive council...

...In addition, it commanded national power for most of the period from the early thirties onward...

...And, in the early seventies, the traditional union preoccupation with the problem of whether a man has a job or not (full employment) has assumed new importance...

...Which is not to say that the radicalized students cannot play a ginger role, as they did in the McCarthy campaign...

...Among other things, job training for mothers who reenter the labor force and day-care facilities for the children of working mothers are less likely to be dismissed as luxuries, for they will have become social necessities...

...Some of the academic spokesmen for this new class reveal ambitions in excess of their probable power, and a snobbism toward the plebeian classes in excess of their democratic convictions...

...built upon such issues as Vietnam, Imperialism, "quality of life," particularly emphatic in proposing radical justice for minorities and disturbingly confrontationist to the bulk of the citizenry...

...No one would claim the Democratic party is a beacon of enlightenment...

...And if the party succeeds in appealing to the new breed of independent "swing" voters coming largely from the ranks of youth and the new middle class of professional •and white-collar workers, it will quickly regain strength...

...We think this decline may well continue if only because the 1970 census figures indicate a steady population loss in these towns and cities...

...Their commitment, idealism, energy, and even their freedom to move about make them indispensable allies in a restructured democratic politics...

...The very magnitude of the issues precludes any other solution than that of coalitionism: i.e., the mobilization of the broadest number of people coming from all sorts of "interest groups" in an effort to find common answers...

...Though we have emphasized domestic issues, we take it as given that the quickest end to the senseless engagement in Vietnam is a sine qua non for innovative reforms and the huge expenditures they will require...

...As for foreign issues: an end to any remaining illusions about the "American century," or a Pax Americana, and the subordination of military (Pentagon) objectives to domestic priorities...

...The November 1970 elections back up these conclusions, if sometimes only negatively...

...Independents of the Left and radical-progressive candidates, recognizing that the mass of people still speak through the traditional parties, have similarly had little choice but to use the Democratic party if they wanted to get anywhere...

...Emphasis in original.] 1 Admittedly, the politics of coalition has not fared well since these words were written...

...It is calculated that ecological rebirth in the United States will involve sums running into the trillions of dollars...

...Now, in the 1970s the task of a progressive coalitionism is still more demanding: • First, there is the burning need for a redistribution of the nation's wealth, at present concentrated in the hands of those whom Gus Tyler calls the "superrich," so as to make possible funding of the tens of billions of dollars required to solve the problems of school building, housing, health care, alleviation of poverty and hunger, etc...

...prosperous citizens, at least until the Nixon-recession, either owning or running some service industry (insurance, auto sales, supermarket...

...of our society—alliances that may well assume fresh and unforeseeable forms...

...Third- or fourth-party activity was so feeble and distant from any reality in the 1970 elections that it barely surfaced, with the one partial exception of the right-wing Buckley campaign which, as we have noted, was as much coalitionist as independent...

...It used to command such cities as New York, Chicago, Boston, and Philadelphia, as well as such old factory towns as Scranton, Duluth, and dozens of others...

...A Coalition in New Dress...

...Such a coalition can claim credit for real achievements in the past, but is not likely to turn on the important new segments of the population we have mentioned, including the young workers...

...in other words, that section of today's youth population which does not succeed in getting into the ranks of the professional classes...

...This middle class has experienced the most rapid growth rate of any sector of the American population in the last decade, and even if this rate falls in the future, its absolute numbers will continue to grow...

...People are coming together politically around issues and personalities to a greater extent than before, particularly if the personality involved strongly symbolizes a position on a critical issue—traditional party labels could melt away before the growing number of "swing" or mixed-ticket voters...

...If recent investigations have indicated that a growing number of voters classify themselves (and act) as independents (probably the emerging younger voters, and hopefully a substantial percentage of those in the new 1821year-old electors' category, newly married couples, and the new middle class referred to above) , there is all the more reason to be flexible about labels and organizations...

...The argument is not all that abstract...

...All this is only comparative, which is to say, far from ideal...

...It must recognize that the popular concern with "law and order" isn't simply or always a code name for racism, though sometimes it is that...

...It is a plain and demonstrable fact that politics by coalition is a commonplace of political life everywhere, at least in democratic societies...

...Whether or not one likes this isn't nearly as important as recognizing that for the present, and very likely for the immediate future, it is a fact...

...At this point, sections of the white middle class and white working class form the source of Wallace support, even though in 1968 the trade unions did an effective, last-minute job of keeping blue-collar workers out of the Wallace ranks...

...Meanwhile, the question of Democraticparty reorganization is high on the agenda...

...By the 1960s it had acquired a new context: the context of the civil rights movement, of the struggle to right the wrongs of the Vietnam war and to prevent similar national catastrophes...

...Minor local and statewide reforms have been begun...

...Given the American political structure, the diversity of this country, and the deep tradi PROSPECTS FOR THE SEVENTIES tion of political and social pluralism, it seems unlikely (to put it mildly) that any single political constituency or social group, no matter how large or powerful, can expect to gain sufficient support or power in order to cope effectively with the issues we face...

...Americans believe that the war is a major issue but one in a series of related problems...

...In such states as Kansas, Michigan, Ohio, and Indiana they came to 10-12 percent...

...that only on a national scale can our social problems be solved...

...This fact alone will initiate major changes in our society...

...Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1965...

...Second, there is the whole ecological problem, which includes such matters as a voluntary population redistribution in order to decongest urban density, the collossal issue of pollution, and the more conventional questions of resource conservation...

...A vast number of policies must be worked out: population control, land usage, recycling of wastes, readjustment of resource allocations, reestablishment of control over the use of air, water, fuels, etc...

...And the welfare-state solutions proposed in that period still remain urgently to the point...

...Such a coalition can probably not be constructed simply along the lines of the classic New-Deal-FDR pattern of the thirties (Democratic party, labor unions, and urban poor), anymore than it can simply rehash the slogans of that period—though the issues raised in that period are by no means completely resolved...

...In addition to a doubling of the number of women workers as compared with 1950, there will be, for the first time, as many professional and technical workers by 1980 as blue-collar workers...

...By welding together the sizable minority of conservative forces, mainly through working with and through the Republican party, they could exercise an effective, and often decisive, voice in national politics...

...Yet there were significant advances...

...But the content of that new style can be given a wide range of meaning, from isolated, if brave, sorties, to turbulent intervention in American political life as it is lived...

...Parts of the traditional lower middle class, however much against its will, may now be shoved into working-class ranks, a kind of belated quasi-confirmation of the PROSPECTS FOR THE SEVENTIES old Marxist view that the lower-middle class will be reduced to proletarians...

...It is our contention that, had a more vigorous coalitionist policy been pursued and preserved, a policy designed to unite people behind desirable goals, the tone and level of political life in the United States would not be in its present dismal condition...

...Often enough, this concern is an authentic one, the response of people who feel harried and threatened, and who have a perfect right to want to live under conditions of reasonable personal security...

...In the defeatist mood after the 1968 election, the McGovern Commission was appointed...

...Such a coalition has barely the slightest chance for political success in the next decade, though if it acted independently at election time it could virtually assure the success of the Nixon and still more conservative Republicans...

...an end to corrupt proxy voting practices...

...Some lower-middle-class workers and service employees (mainly white, of course...

...For our part, we think that the outlook of a new liberal-left coalition must be that of social cooperation...

...All in all, fundamental shifts in the composition, activity, and personnel of the world's most gigantic labor force are bound to have major political consequences and to act as a stimulus to forming alliances between this mass of human labor and other sectors 2 United States Manpower in the Nineteen-Seventies, U.S...

...Is there any reason to suppose that such a rightist mixture of nostalgia and cynicism is likely to help the country...

...We are, of course, not proposing an isolationist absurdity this late in the 20th century...

...While American liberalism may not be nearly as ex EMANUEL GELTMAN AND STANLEY PLASTRIK hausted a force as some maintain, its strength both as an ideologic tendency and a practical force is at a low point...

...but even after such spokesmen are deflated, the power of the new class of technicians and specialists will be considerable...

...Even without having formally declared themselves, these coalitions were as a rule easily recognizable and definable...

...The skepticism that coexists in the electoral mood together with traditional voting habits is not very receptive to "freakish" or "wasted" political effort...

...There EMANUEL GELTMAN AND STANLEY PLASTRIK are recommendations for proportional representation of minority groups on all delegations, so as to include young people and women...

...Apart from the enormous difficulties that follow whenever former McCarthy supporters, New Politics people, and New Leftists come together in the same room, such a gathering on the Left might well find itself unrelated to the very people— racial minorities as well as others—it proposes to serve...

...But we do not think that an outlook as deeply ingrained in the American experience as liberalism is likely to go under— though, for revival, it may have to rethink its premises and take on a sharper radical edge...

...Those, however, who stress one issue above all else—the "peace" candidates PROSPECTS FOR THE SEVENTIES —aren't likely to thrive...

...There will be much shifting of political chairs in the next decade...

...Though Buckley ran on an independent ticket (with veiled support from large sections of the Republican party), he benefited from a conservative version of coalition strategy...

...The "population explosion" is centered in what may be described as the neoconservative places—Tulsa, Shreveport, Orlando, Albuquerque—relatively new towns, with a population quite different in ethnic and social composition from the old industrial and commercial centers of the country...

...Hence, forming coalitions is a process at once looser, less clearly definable, and harder to arrive at...

...that its philosophy must be based on the conviction that man can make the Machine do his work...

...It has become more difficult to grasp the interests and aspirations of the multitude of groups making up an infinitely complex society...

...This may no longer hold true...

...1 "The Politics of Coalition," The Radical Papers, Irving Howe, ed...

...Groups tend to coalesce around issues (or personalities associated with issues), but new issues constantly arise that strain and break apart yesterday's coalition...

...an end to closed, slate-making sessions...

...The "mandatory" proposals include a welcome to the new 18-year-old national voter, urging his full participation at every level of party activity regardless of state law...

...It is not quite that easy to rub against the realities of American politics, to educate people, convince them, move them...

...At best, they will share the leadership of the coalition movement with other forces in the Democratic party, most of all the labor movement which, in addition to supplying experience, political drive, and organizing capacity, influence large numbers of voters...

...2 Estimated to reach 100 million workers by 1980, the labor force will show a major increase in the number of young adult workers, particularly in the number of young black workers...

...If only on the simplest level of helping the developing nations to survive, the United States cannot avoid a leading role in the world...

...Would any alternative but chaos and confrontation exist for Chile's President Allende without a coalition...

...These changes are bound to generate social and economic problems that will require the broadest kind of political coalition to supply the mass basis for new and humane solutions...

...Who are these "conservatives...

...Even the coalitionism of a few years ago differed sharply from the classic coalitionism familiar in the United States since the days of the New Deal...

...These reforms deal with access to power rather than with distribution of power within the party...

...Second, at the opposite pole, a radical coalitionism modeling itself on the tradition in American history that consists of sharp breaks with past politics (the Abolitionists' Liberty party, Teddy Roosevelt's Bull Moose party, Henry Wallace's Progressive party...

...This represents a growth in the country's labor force of 15 million workers within the next decade, of whom 50 percent will be 25-34 years old, a carry-over of the famous post-World War II "baby boom...

...Now, however, this has changed somewhat...

...We view this as an empirical approach to progress because it preserves, but intensifies, a strong relation to long-standing ideals and the traditional way in which we have lived our political life...

...We ought to expect a phase in our history during which coalitions will seem rapidly to come and go, though in practice what may happen will be the shifting of tactical realignments (like European cabinets) of pretty much the same forces...

...More significantly, it is estimated that the number of young black workers entering the work force will outnumber—perhaps as much as five-fold—the entering young white workers...

...Or, to put it another way, coalitions already formed fall apart much easier than ever before...

...Easy or not, it is possible to accomplish these ends if we use the resources that are available to us in coalition with others of more or less similar purpose and mind...

...THOUGH THE EVENTS of recent years have bruised its image, the idea of political coalitionism is still very much with us...

...While no single proposed new rule is drastic, the McGovern package as a whole is striking...

...It seems likely that, in the seventies, because of the troubles of liberalism there will flourish a sophisticated conservative ideology stressing self-centered individualism (plight and flight of the individual when faced with the Machine) and state and local "decentralization...

...This, together with the presidential nominating drives already in progress, places the Democratic party at the center of the struggle for political change...

...Social and demographic facts are against such propositions, and showdown challenges usually encourage rightist victories at the polls...

...A key issue, as of this writing, will be the matter of qualifying delegates for the 1972 convention, a convention that some would like to see as "safe and sane" as the 1968 convention was stormy and dangerous...