What's the matter with liberals?

By Russell Cobb
SPECIAL TO THE AMERICAN-STATESMAN
Sunday, March 19, 2006

Michael Lerner is the editor and founder of Tikkun, a magazine dedicated to a progressive Jewish critique of culture and politics. He is also a rabbi at Beyt Tikkun synagogue in San Francisco, a congregation that blends "spiritual and social justice concerns." In the mid-'90s, Lerner achieved brief notoriety as "Hillary's brain" when the Clintons invited him to the White House as a spiritual adviser. Hillary Rodham Clinton in particular latched on to Lerner's idea that the Democrats needed a "politics of meaning," as opposed to a series of policies. She might have dropped the phrase, but Lerner is resuscitating it in his new book, "The Left Hand of God: Taking Back Our Country from the Religious Right."

We spoke to him by phone a couple of weeks ago.

Austin American-Statesman: One of the most striking claims you make in your book is that there's "a real spiritual crisis in America." This isn't the kind of thing we're used to hearing from liberals. What exactly is this spiritual crisis?

Michael Lerner: I interviewed 10,000 middle-income working-class people who are moving to the right politically. What I learned is that there's a deep spiritual crisis in their lives. One of the things that was astounding was to find out that so many of these people want to have a life of higher meaning and purpose — not just money and power. They want a purpose-driven life.

We found that the spiritual crisis consisted of two elements: On the one hand, working people are surrounded by selfishness and materialism that encourages them to only look out for the bottom line. On the other hand, they live in a world where there is little opportunity to actualize their desire for higher meaning and purpose. And it's the right that has articulated this crisis in politics; they've gained a tremendous amount of credibility for doing so.

You talk about a purpose-driven life. That brings to mind some of the voices in the evangelical community like Rick Warren who speak directly to the idea that there's something lacking in secular society.

This crisis wasn't created by the right. This is what the Democrats have failed to understand: Most Americans aren't hurting from material deprivation. That's not the only thing they care about. They're deprived of a life of meaning.

That sounds like a direct critique of Thomas Frank's argument in "What's the Matter with Kansas." Frank argues that people are deluded into voting for Republicans because they aren't looking out for their economic self-interest. Am I sensing that correctly?

Yes. I'm critical of all those in the liberal, intellectual and academic worlds who think that the only needs that people have are material needs, and that people who express spiritual needs are totally crazy. The only people who are articulating spiritual needs are politicians on the right because the left — the Democratic Party — only has categories that talk about economic entitlements and political rights.

At the beginning of the 20th century, there was a populist progressive movement in the heartland. Somehow this has disappeared. Why is it so hard for the left to articulate its values to rural America?

Well, there's a religio-phobia on the part of the left. The left won't acknowledge that the point when it was at its strongest — in the 1960s — it was being led by Martin Luther King and a lot of its rhetoric came straight out of the churches. The irony is that a lot of people on the left have a spiritual life but they're afraid to talk about it because they're afraid that they'll be treated like second-class citizens. There is a disdain for religion in the mainstream liberal culture — in political organizations, in academia, in the media.

So how do you communicate this message in red states like Texas?

You have to be sincere about what you believe. Another thing I respect about the conservative movement is that they were willing to lose elections around what they really believe in. Democrats aren't willing to lose elections. Instead, they pretend they believe in something they don't believe in.

But it seems like liberalism is an anathema to the rural white voter.

That's because liberals are liberal about their liberalism. They have no backbone. They're wimps. No one can figure out what they believe in. Why did liberals support Kerry when he supported the war? Because they hoped the Republicans were right — that he was a flip-flopper and if he got elected he would flip and turn against the war.

But that begs the question: If liberals were to stand up and say what they believe in, there's a chance that rural white voters would say, "Fine, I really do disagree with you."

Well, they're not winning anyway.

Democrats are starting to talk religion. Hillary Clinton called abortion "a tragic choice." Do you think this is a good idea?

It's a baby step, but it won't be solved by having candidates quoting the Bible. There has to be a recognition that there's a deep problem in people's lives. Someone who heard me talk about this came up to me and told me a story that relates to this. This guy had been invited to do something on a Sunday morning, and he declined because he said he had to go to church. The other person said, "Church? You can't go to church — you're a Democrat!" There has to be a change in that culture.

When the left starts to adopt this rhetoric, commentators on the right accuse them of pandering.

Of course, because the right wants to own this issue. They understand that a spiritual left would be disastrous for them. So they do everything they can to put down people on the left that have a spiritual vision. They either say its manipulation — which, up to this point, it is — or they say it's flakey new age baloney. In that way they capture the mentality of a lot of liberals who say, "You're right, it is flakey new age baloney, but we figured we'd get some votes this way."

Are there people out there reinvigorating liberalism and remaking the Democratic Party?

Well, The Washington Post once called me the "guru of the White House" and you know how that turned out. That experience taught me that whispering in the ears of powerful people is not the way to social change. If you want to change society, you've got to build a movement. Major change only happens when you build from below.