LEFT FOR DEAD: The Life, Death, and Possible Resurrection of Progressive Politics in America

by Michael Tomasky

There was once a familiar American left. Progressive unions, the civil rights movement, the women's movement, campaigns against poverty, war and other ills - all were recently a part of our national scene. Today all are faded or gone. Now, from Michael Tomasky, one of the most intelligent voices to emerge from the American left in years, comes a stirring challenge to our nation's progressive tradition. Left for Dead examines the troubling recent history and tenuous future of our nations' once-significant progressive movements, and makes an uncompromising study of how the left has been destroyed by its own contradictions and ills - and what must be done if there are any hopes for revival. With penetrating insight Tomasky uses revealing "case studies" to explore how today's left lost control of crucial issues such as welfare, immigration, affirmative action, and health care. It would be all too easy to blame the forces of the right for the left's slippage; but Tomasky explores how today's left has found its own way of "making enemies of everyone" - narrowly representing eccentrics, academic specialists and malcontents above the vast expanse of working-class Americans, whom it has come to regard with near-contempt. With each chapter a unique stepping stone in recent history, Tomasky traces the uneasy relationship between the left and the Democrats, the early institutionalization of identity politics in the McGovern campaign, the dead-end pursuit of welfare rights in the halls of academia, the confused and ultimately failed campaign for national health care and the ill-conceived politicking over immigration - all of which came to life with insight, freshness and candor in the pages of this book. It is from these ruinous times, however, that Tomasky finds the potential for a newly impassioned and American left, one that can understand all that is truly good and promising in America and can become reconnected with the hopes and the motivations of everyday people. But it is a potential that can be realized only with a dramatic break from recent years. If there is to be a recognizable American left in the next century, the thoughtful and urgent work can begin the discussion that will take it there.

240 pages, Hardcover

First published June 1, 1996

About the author

Michael John Tomasky is an American columnist, commentator, journalist and author.

Reviews

[Brett · Rating 2 out of 5]

The introductory section of this book, where longtime magazine columnist Michael Tomasky positions himself as a leftist ready to throw some truth bombs at the left, is actually fairly engaging. Tomasky is sort of a forerunner to Matthew Yglesias, making the argument that the left marginalizes itself by taking unnecessarily unpopular opinions. This line of argumentation continues that the way to win elections is to run on popular ideas. Hard to object to that.

The advice is commonsense if the audience is Democrats or other left people running for office in competitive districts. But this book seems to be directed more at an amorphous left, composed I guess of academics, professional activists, students, and a smattering of other people. Is it important for this group not to say unpopular things about immigration or the welfare state? This is a much more complex and not-clear-cut proposition.

Tomasky covers four topics in Left for Dead: immigration, affirmative action, welfare, and the health care. For the first three topics, his advice to the left is that they should adopt positions closer to the middle or right end of the political spectrum. He criticizes the left for not having an affirmative program of reform in these three areas, and allowing the right to demagogue on them.

The fourth area, health care, is a strange inclusion in the book since it is an area where the left undoubtedly does have a good idea, either the single payer or nationalized health programs in place in every other industrialized nation.

Tomasky is very unconvincing in his criticisms. He is constantly acknowledging the correctness of left positions, such as it would good to expand the welfare state or affirmative action is a small step toward correcting a massive historical injustice, but then turning around and arguing that the left ought to accept right-wing framing on these issues. It's as though he barely believes what he is saying himself.

There is no discussion in the book about how to try to shift popular attitudes over time, which I believe should be the goal of people who think of themselves as on the left. Politicians should do what they need to do in order to have a chance at winning in their districts, and I don't expect a Democratic candidate in my home state of South Dakota to run as a democratic socialist but we have to think more broadly than just winning a handful of competitive races in the next election cycle. It is easy to confuse means and ends, and I think this book does just that.

[Claire S]

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