Rare News Desk
In 2010, when Rachel Maddow cornered Rand Paul over his lack of support for the entire Civil Rights Act of 1964, most liberals proceeded to streak through the streets waving bloody shirts. We told you they were all racists and we were right!
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The late Alexander Cockburn, at the time one of the most outspoken progressives alive, refused to join in. Though he said Paul had seemed “dumb,” he also burned Maddow for her “grandstanding.” “You think the Civil Rights Act of 1964 is going to come up for review in the U.S. Senate?” he asked rhetorically.
At the time Paul was locked in a Senate race with Kentucky’s Democratic attorney general Jack Conway. Cockburn called Conway “an awful neo-liberal prosecutor,” and then came this: “Between Conway and Paul, which one in the U.S. Senate would more likely be a wild card – which is the best we can hope for these days – likely to filibuster against a bankers’ bailout, against reaffirmation of the Patriot Act, against suppression of the CIA’s full torture history?” The answer, of course, was Paul. It wasn’t exactly an endorsement, but it was pretty damned close.
If you’ve never read Cockburn, do yourself a favor and pick up one of his books. He was a flamboyant writer, a refreshing contrast to today’s liberal wonks who communicate in the sort of prose usually found in Sharper Image instruction manuals. Long after the sixties ended, Cockburn remained the id of the anti-authoritarian left. This meant he was often spectacularly wrong, but also that he harbored little sympathy for the Democratic Party of JFK and Johnson. Watching Rand Paul was probably cathartic for him.
Last week progressive writer H.A. Goodman made ripples when he endorsed Rand Paul over Hillary Clinton at the Huffington Post. And while most liberals haven’t gone as far as Goodman, some, especially those who remember the ethos of last century’s counterculture, have developed a muted affinity for the Kentucky senator.
Robert Scheer is another child of the sixties—he even makes a brief appearance at a demonstration in Tom Wolfe’s The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test—who had an unorthodox take on the 2010 Kentucky Senate race. “Count me as one lefty liberal who is not the least bit unhappy with the victory by Rand Paul in Kentucky’s Republican primary for the U.S. Senate,” he wrote. Scheer lauded Paul’s foreign policy and welcomed a “Republican senator questioning the Washington spending spree.” He acknowledged that his support was “an act of desperation,” but said it was a necessary one given that Democrats had fallen under the sway of neo-liberals like Tim Geithner.
Ralph Nader, the party-less progressive populist, was recently asked by Bill Maher whether he prefers Rand Paul or Hillary Clinton. “You mean Generalissima Hillary Clinton?” he responded. When pressed, he said: “I support Rand Paul on foreign, military policy, the Federal Reserve, and the bloated budget. All of which she is on the other side.”
If you’re sensing a trend here, so is Nader. His book Unstoppable, released earlier this year, chronicles “voluntary alliances for the common good by positive-spirited persons of the Right and of the Left.” This right-left convergence has united disparate politicians and thinkers, many of whom eye each other warily, but who have enough in common to work together, especially when it comes to stopping unnecessary wars and restraining the power of big business.
Some of this was borne out of a simple acknowledgement of reality. Liberals used to see big government as a needed check on big business, and conservatives used to see big business as under assault by big government. Over time it’s become clear that neither is presently true. Big government and big business have teamed up to ensure maximum meddling for the former and maximum profit for the latter. The left and the right are watching their nemeses blur together.
As a result, there are two consensuses in Washington now. The first is often heralded on Hardball as “centrism” or “bipartisanship”—Republicans and Democrats setting aside their differences to tackle supposed problems. Its adherents are biased in favor of government activism, whether it’s drafting more farm regulations or intervening against Middle East dictatorships. This consensus is stale, boring, insular, and responsible for much of the destructive policy of the last decade.
The second consensus is what has Nader so excited: a left-right coalition dedicated to limiting government (and thus corporate) power. This consensus is more nascent and unformed than the first. It’s achieved almost no political victories and very few policy successes. But it’s imbued with a freshness that’s lacking at today’s Georgetown cocktail parties. And with voters enraged at political parties and governing institutions, it just might catch on.
We can already see this consensus in action, as Rand Paul works with Cory Booker on sentencing reform, and Mark Udall and Ron Wyden on NSA reform. He may find few other outstretched hands: most Democrats these days seem more wedded to the Obama presidency than any set of principles, and even some of the liberals open to Paul have since qualified their praise.
But let’s accept their handshakes where we can. I’ll take Cockburn, Nader, and company over some faceless national-security Republican churned off the American Crossroads conveyor belt any day of the week.
The times they are a-changin’. It’s not just the left that’s countercultural now.
