THE PROGRESSIVE INTERVIEW JOEL ROGERS

...Rogers: Whether people like to hear it or not, egalitarians make progress under capitalism only when they show that what they're doing is in some ways good for capitalism—or at least good for some sort of dynamic portion of capitalism...

...Just imagine this on some small scale: Say we got 15 percent of the national vote in the 1998 Congressional elections, and we had some significant number of candidates elected on this slate in a series of cities...

...we could have a real tight...

...One thing that's happened that's really central to the misfortunes of the progressive movement is that people don't see what the possible contribution of that movement could be...

...The progressive movement is no longer much of a movement, in part because it doesn't have an electoral vehicle in a mass public space...

...Q: But what's the strategy for making those ideas part of the political discourse...

...Rogers: America is a very big country, so, yes, in most of America we are more theory than reality...

...That means you raise the minimum wage to a living wage: you build a series of supports—alternative investment vehicles, alternative capital goals, better training systems, better regional labor-market administration, modernization of services—that tend to promote growth...

...Nader put that on the agenda...

...But it will all be done on a very candidate-centered basis...

...Clinton and Gore have brought us NAFTA and GATT—two bad trade agreements...

...Rogers: I think it's basically the sort of stuff that the New Party is promoting—avoid the low road, help pave the high road...

...But I would think that, if you had fusion both at the federal level and the state level, you could mount full-fledged slates of candidates fairly early on...

...The welfare policy that they have advanced virtually guarantees some wage reductions, at least in large population centers where there are large welfare populations...

...You're talking about building a distinct electoral strategy...

...There are all sorts of things you can do to facilitate in essentially costless ways the organization of people in their major secular, social roles—as voters, as consumers, as workers, as taxpayers, as shareholders in public and private wealth...

...They brag in their platform about 200 other sorts of agreements...

...If we actually made some investments in cities, we could have really splendid, attractive, multiracial, well-educated, productive cities in this country...

...Clinton has failed to deliver what might be called "the environmental dividend"—that is, the tremendous savings in workplace improvements and health we could get simply by taking existing technologies and massively applying them...

...Clinton has perfected this image of the President as "closer" on big deals, but very little has been done for the bulk of the population...

...If all of these groups don't come together, we're doomed...

...He's not using the Presidency in any intelligent, bully-pulpit way to show some leadership on the issue...

...Progressives, he adds, need a new approach to activism—one that speaks directly to the millions of disenchanted and disengaged American voters...

...But he's not willing to say that that's what he's trying to do here...

...The progressive movement is blowing it right now...

...And it's not clear what his views are on what should happen after a campaign...

...People talk about the corruptions of the campaign-finance system...

...I consider Nader one of the truly great living Americans...

...They grow when they not only do something for their members and potential members, but when they also help solve problems in the broader society—often, unfortunately, the problems of capitalism...

...Rogers is the national chair of the New Party, a progressive group now organized in thirteen states—with particularly strong bases in Wisconsin, Arkansas, and Montana—that has won ninety-four local races in the past four years...

...I don't think the 1996 Presidential election is that test case, though...

...And it would get us out of our marginal ghetto and into the business of running the country...

...That, I think, is a hideously stupid, terrible, terrible mistake...

...Q: Recognizing that, why should progressives even consider Clinton, particularly when they have the option of a Ralph Nader candidacy that—while quixotic at times—certainly offers an alternative...

...John Nichols, an editorial writer for The Capita...

...He's gotten nowhere on the peace dividend...

...As the fall campaign season began, Rogers sat down to discuss how the 1996 contest illustrates what's wrong with America, and to consider the prospects for a rejuvenated American politics...

...certainly, all the issues that concern virtually all of us...

...Rogers: People must organize to impose constraints on firms that behave badly and offer support that encourages firms to behave better and still be competitive...

...Q: What is the relationship between progressives and the Democratic Party today...

...From the University of Wisconsin campus, where he works as a professor of sociology, law, and political science, Rogers has spun a web of economic, social, and political theories that have earned the notice not just of academics, but also of labor leaders and grassroots political activists around the world...

...When they have not, either through intention or by the pressure or bar of law, they have not succeeded...

...We don't care what we call ourselves, let's just get this thing bigger, let's just get ourselves into the fight...

...Those things can only be provided by people who get organized...

...If we declare the fight that wav...

...Q: Why the New Party as opposed to the Labor Party or the Greens...

...As examples of democratic reforms, you want to reward those who work and invest here and not to reward those who are simply moving resources out of the country...

...What sort of timetable are we looking at...

...Anybody who wants to merge with us, let's merge...

...We're now active in thirteen states...

...Until we have it, until that party is a strong and vibrant part of the American political competition, voters will be doomed to an endless parade of essentially conservative candidates who march to the drum beat of Wall Street managers and special-interest lobbyists, Rogers says...

...Rogers: Basically, our view is that, in a first-past-the-post, winner-take-all system such as the one in the United States, you need to include a multiparty alliance strategy...

...You want to liberate the worker-owners of $5 trillion in assets—pensions, 401-K plans—to actually be real owners, in the sense of being able to dispose of those assets and to direct them in certain ways...

...We wait around for the Democrats to nominate somebody, or maybe for Ralph Nader to run for President, and then we go and vote for them...

...Rogers: In all sorts of ways...

...Ralph himself says he's not really running...

...Rogers: A generation of economic decline and failed government response has not only made American politics ugly, it has also created a huge potential audience for what should be the signature issues for a new progressive politics...

...We want to get to a system where people have some real serious chance at equal opportunity: we want to make equal opportunity actually mean something...

...And the other side, those opposed to democracv and opposed to an\ sort of corporate accountability, should reallv be seen as the tinv minority they are...

...When you think about concrete good that has been achieved during the past thirty years, you have to say that Nader played a critical role in cleaning up water, cleaning up the land, getting worker-safety laws on the books, promoting consumer protection, and all sorts of things...

...Q: Yet, the polls and the pundits suggest that he will be reelected...

...But the activity is basically confined in its most conscious respects to issue advocacy, usually single-issue advocacy, sometimes cluster-issue advocacy, but not...

...Certainly, our strategy has always been to say: We're out here...

...Clinton just goes with the whims of public opinion...

...For a long time, he's been a lonely voice out there talking about the deep and pervasive corruption of our democracy...

...We don't have an electoral strategy now...

...Anybody who wants to join us, come on in...

...Ultimately, that means that, at some point in the future, America won't be forced to choose between the likes of Bill Clinton and Bob Dole...

...What they do is they vote...

...When you compare us with other countries, we are put to shame by the avenues that are provided to move capital in directions that actually help society and the individual...

...Then you'd want to think about fixing the society itself, fixing the democracy—things like campaign-finance reform, the full public financing of elections...

...Often, this issue advocacy operates without a popular base, clearly and self-consciously appealing to people in only part of their identities...

...Q: So how do progressives change the dynamic...

...To reach that politics, progressives have to simplify their message...

...The labor people who are interested in independent action, and the Green people who are serious about the environment, the New Party people who are serious about labor and greenness and racial justice and rebuilding cities, are all going to come together...

...That's all very important work...

...We, the progressives, have too long accepted our definition as the "all-time liberals...

...Q: But doesn't there come a point where progressives have to move beyond that same old "lesser-of-two-evils" argument if there is ever going to be a new politics in America...

...Q: What, then, is the relationship between this independent progressive grouping and the Democratic Party...

...That's what has to change, and we're open to anything that will make that change happen...

...And then the person will get elected and we'll say, "Good luck...

...But doesn't that process open up the prospect that the New Party will simply become a stepchild of the Democrats...

...At different points in the Clinton Presidency, the level of investment in all sorts of things has been considerably lower than under George Bush...

...Rogers: Let's start by saying that it's a different strategy than we've used so far...

...Q: If the way is cleared for fusion, and if other factors begin to fall into place, then can you sketch a trajectory for the New Party...

...There are going to be certain offices where you're simply not going to have the ability to run for it and win, and to run for it and lose is going to do you more harm than good...

...Rogers was a wunderkind...

...If we started simply by removing subsidies that promote sprawl—the $5(Mo-$100 billion that we spend to reduce gasoline costs, to build roads, to provide economic-development incentives to corporations to move firms out of cities into ex-urban regions—we would begin to let the natural economic advantages of cities come to the fore...

...Unless you have the credible threat of exit, your stature is always going to be proportionally diminished...

...Rogers: I think he will certainly be elected again...

...You better make some sort of economic contribution...

...But to do that, we have to assemble that critical mass of people who see the need for a progressive electoral strategy and are prepared to work on it...

...With it, Rogers believes, will come the shift in politics America so desperately needs...

...That's what the New Party is all about...

...I'm not saying that we could win at the Presidential level, but in the Congress you would have these New Party people who would provide a critical progressive swing faction...

...So, apart from the question of whether voting for Nader would throw the election to Dole, I think that there are pedestrian reasons that suggest a Nader candidacy may not be something to get excited about...

...Q: Fusion would allow the New Party to cross-endorse Democratic candidates, and vice versa, just as it would allow the Libertarian Party to cross-endorse Republicans...

...We will get enamored of some politician and work on his or her campaign, throw what money we can into their campaign, maybe work in a phone bank...

...Fusion is a tool—if you use it as the sole basis for what you're doing, then you're using it badly...

...Egalitarian-minded organizations are always going to be at a disadvantage under capitalism...

...Third parties in American history have succeeded when they have been able to include that sort of alliance strategy in their repertoire of strategies...

...It should be a fight between those who want to impose some human values on the operation of this economy and those who don't...

...It means rebuilding the cities, which are the natural anchors of a high-wage, low-waste economy...

...Fusion is an element in that strategy...

...Q: At this point, however, the New Party remains more theory than reality in most of America...

...In doing those things, they gain the social cachet and political support that they're always going to need in order to maintain and defend their own organization, which is naturally disadvantaged in a world where property rights are unequally distributed...

...He clearly doesn't take it seriously in any conventional way of measuring what campaigning is about...

...For major players like labor, what fusion offers is the ability to institutionalize an outside-inside strategy with the Democrats...

...The New Party offers labor an ability to leave the Democratic Party...

...Well, Nader started talking about that, big time, early on...

...Q: So you think there is a market for progressive politics and policies...

...Q: What sort of new approaches would make a progressive candidacy successful...

...But if you look at the progressive movement, you see that we don't have a strategy for reaching them in this most basic activity—the only political activity in which large numbers participate...

...The whole stimulus package on public works and other sorts of domestic investments that might plausibly be thought to build for the future was basically not pursued...

...Times in Madison, Wisconsin, covers electoral politics for The Progressive...

...There's been no serious progress in terms of improving the environment...

...But we have to recognize that, for most people most of the time, that sort of work demands a level of commitment they are not willing, and in some cases not able, to show...

...That's the level of "sophisticated" progressive practice in political campaigns, and it's pathetic...

...There has been no fundamental reform of campaign finance...

...I'm not discouraging it at all...

...This "fusion" strategy, banned in most states at the turn of the century to prevent the rise of populist coalitions, could lead to an explosion of third-party activity...

...Along the way, he listened to Al Green and Bob Dylan, conspired with Ralph Nader, watched the Reagan revolution stall the march toward economic and social justice, and began to hatch sophisticated theories for revitalizing the labor movement and reinvigo-rating American democracy...

...These changes are needed to keep this capitalism from really killing us—treating workers like road kill, treating the Earth like a sewer, and lowering our living standards—which is what is happening right now...

...The reason not to vote for Ralph Nader would only be if you thought that your vote would—by coming away from Clinton— deny Clinton a victory and thus give the election to Bob Dole and Jack Kemp, who I think are even worse men than Clinton and Gore...

...The way to end abuse in a relationship is to develop the ability to leave it...

...People talk about "corporate welfare" now as if it's a new idea...

...So I yield to no one in my respect for Ralph Nader...

...Progressives have to go on the offense in ways that mark the new terms of debate in American politics...

...But what equally needs to be said is that the enormous task before us could be relatively easily executed if people simply agreed to do it...

...The strategy is to build a third force in American politics, relying upon a grassroots base, offering an alternative that does not waste people's votes...

...Q: You're not talking here about merely voting for the best available option...

...With his wife Sara Siskind, a specialist in employment law, and Harvard Law School professor Laurence Tribe, he is preparing briefs for a Supreme Court battle this fall that, if successful, would clear the way for different parties to endorse the same candidates...

...As bad as Clinton may be, he is better than Dole on issues like the minimum wage, support for education, taking on the tobacco companies...

...American politics is conventionally mapped as running on this liberal-to-conservative spectrum—from big-government do-gooders without popular values to free-marketeering rich people without hearts—and most people sensibly find themselves in the middle...

...Q: Are you disappointed in Clinton...

...Whether that ends the relationship itself is a different matter, but it alters the dynamics of the relationship...

...But that's not where we stop...

...After graduating from Yale at age twenty with a triple-major in economics, political science, and philosophy, then sailing through Yale Law School, Rogers picked up a Ph.D...

...But we must show the need for those structures in order to promote that organization...

...Rogers: What I think is that, in the long run, all these groups are going to merge...

...Also, in terms of the welfare state, we want to move toward an increased social wage—with national health insurance, a decent child-care system...

...Compared to the enormity of the task before us, what we've done so far is admirable but very small...

...The Clinton Administration messed up the health-insurance initiative...

...Rogers: Fusion is not the strategy...

...So, where I see things going is much more toward a shareholder democracy, a shareholder capitalism...

...It's a tactic that can be used well and can be used poorly...

...There is also some retail organizing—the creation of a battered-women's shelter here, the organization of a union there...

...The minimum-wage increase came very late in the game, and was not what it could have been...

...But we don't come together in a regular way to target electoral offices, to devise programs for people to run for those offices on, and to build an organization that monitors those people and supports them and also disciplines them once they get into office...

...If you, as a movement, commit yourself to a strategy most people are not going to be able to participate in anytime soon, you're basically committing to a strategy for failure and a strategy that over time will lead you to organizational elitism...

...At forty-four, Rogers could simply write books, teach eager young sociologists, and run the think tank he founded to create models for revitalizing American inner cities...

...Rogers: At some point the argument has to be inspected in the context of a serious, challenging campaign that is not going to be successful, perhaps, but that could make a significant showing of some sort and could contribute to further organization...

...Rogers: We should take that axis and rotate it...

...Q: What would the program of this new prosresshe movement be...

...When you look at our activity, we're working very hard, working like dogs...

...clothed, housed, educated in every way possible...

...This deficit-reduction push is more or less ludicrous...

...That means everything from revised regional labor-market administrations, to training systems, to laws saying that you've got to pay a living wage...

...But I'm pretty underwhelmed with that as a rationale for electing someone as President...

...Rogers: That's right...

...That would come when there's not much more than a dime's worth of difference between the two major party candidates—or three, if you include Perot...

...That ensures our cultural differences from the mass public and our defensiveness about failed policies...

...Rogers: I have very high regard for Nader...

...He has succeeded in a deadly science of lowering people's expectations of government, and of public authority in general...

...We should make the fight not between liberalism and conservatism as they are conventionally defined...

...From the perspective of those lowered expectations, he might look like a competent manager...

...There are investments that need to be made in the United States, but Clinton won't make them because of this simplistic approach to the deficit...

...The first group, I think, is the unspoken-for majority of the American population, and we—progressives—should see ourselves as their palladin and their spokespeople...

...There's something going on...

...There has been no serious challenge to the Wall Street dominance of monetary policy...

...We should be clear that what we want is starting-gate equality for kids—we want every kid to be fed...

...That guy has done more good for more people than, I think, almost anybody alive...

...We don't have a strategy for capturing the support which is implicitly ours if we ever were to go out and give people an opportunity to sign on...

...I think we could win it...

...There has been very little push for other democracy-supporting measures...

...In those situations, whether you do it informally by working inside a Democratic primary, or formally through cross-nomination or "fusion," you need to be able to make alliances...

...Clinton has just not delivered on the populist promise that got him elected...

...Rogers: It all depends on the resources, and it all depends on people's willingness to get together in the first place...

...Most average Americans do not make a bunch of contributions to some issue-advocacy organization, and they certainly do not go out to form a union...

...They can be as friendly as they want with the Democrats who back labor, and they can have a capacity to run someone against the Democrats if those officials go south on them...

...A hammer is a tool—if you use it for brain surgery, then you're using it badly...

...We can use tax policy to do this in ways that immensely increase the well-being of both the middle class and the poor, driving them back together again against the insanely and absurdly rich...

...Q: Can you describe that possible contribution...

...There has been no concerted strategy to address economic problems, which need to be addressed by closing off the low road on industrial restructuring that too many firms are taking and helping to pave the high road...

...If you're going to do something this important, if you're going to run for President of the United States, you have to take it seriously...

...There have been islands of breakthrough, and there's a lot of potential...

...Although Rogers finds plenty to bemoan in the current election, he is more concerned with fixing the structure of American politics...

...The development of the New Party would give it that threat without necessarily ruining the relationship...

...in political science at Princeton and studied the intricacies of German philosophy at Heidelberg...

...We should seek to make interventions earlier in life...

...It's pathetic because it's so clear—when you look at the numbers on what people think about the minimum wage, and trade, and campaign-finance reform, and helping kids, and rebuilding cities—that if we had a vehicle we could easily capture 15, 20, maybe 25 percent of the vote...

...Apart from some decent appointments to the National Labor Relations Board, the Clinton people have done nothing to improve worker rights...

...I think there are significant enough differences between the major-party Presidential candidates, differences that are important to the national health and well-being...

...You better do something that people can see...

...Rogers: The relationship between progressives and the Democratic Party right now is an abusive relationship—they take our votes and then go south...

...The way to end abuse in a relationship is to leave it.' BY JOHN NICHOLS Joel Rogers worries less about 1996 than about 2000 and 2004...

...Well, I think that would make things very interesting indeed in the next Presidential race...

...He's sort of standing in place...

...To get that political support, you better be attractive...

...Obviously, there are lots of good Democrats out there, but the party does not have the discipline or a natural tendency to promote progressive values...

...But he stays up late at night, working on the more complex task of building a new political party...

...There has been no direct support for unions and other worker organizations that would plausibly advance the interests of ordinary people in the economy...

...They have to focus it much more on these economy and democracy issues that unite people...

...The MacArthur Foundation recognized the ferment Rogers was stirring when it awarded him a "genius" grant last year...

...Progressives need a party of our own, argues Rogers, one of the founders of the New Party...

...I've talked to him many, many times about the idea of running for President—trying to get above the 5 percent threshold for getting federal financing and using the money to support some sort of ongoing third-party effort...

...More importantly, I don't think the Nader campaign is mounting the sort of serious run that would further organization down the road...