Day after day, day after day,
We stuck, nor breath nor motion ;
As idle as a painted ship
Upon a painted ocean.
-- The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Samuel Taylor Coleridge
When we think about liberal and conservative, we tend to think of them in terms of political positions -- reproductive rights, labor's ability to organize, the structure of taxes rates. These days it's hard to find politicians who will claim the liberal mantle even if their stand on these positions falls squarely in the progressive camp, but there have been times when many politicians -- and even political parties -- have squabbled over which of them was the true representative of liberalism. Liberalism grew as a response to the changes in society brought on by the industrial revolution and the rise of industrial corporations. Workers were no longer apprentices working directly with the people whose position they expected to hold some day. Instead they were separated from the owners of these new industries by many levels, and often their work gave them no experience useful for moving up in this structure. Liberalism formed around efforts to mend this new rift in society by using government as an instrument of egalitarianism.
Conservatism holds the opposite end of the field. From its foundations in 18th century Europe through the violent sex fantasies of Ayn Rand, the position of conservatism has been the same: stop liberalism. Rather than attempt to smooth out the inequities of society, conservatism seeks to maintain these chasms, and where possible to open them wider. The whole basis of conservatism is that this structure -- a wealthy elite holding the reins -- is the natural, desirable state.
And that's why conservatism always holds the advantage. Always. The framers of the Constitution may have fretted that they had given the poor the means of using government to topple the economic structure. But with rare exceptions, conservatives have pressed their advantages, turning law and regulations into a system that locks down their gains. The point of conservatism is the protection of privilege, the exacerbation of differences between the haves and have nots -- the preservation of power for those already in power. Liberals are always on the outs, almost be definition.
Just as an example of the edge held by conservatism, the Sierra Club has an annual budget in the neighborhood of $100 million in 2008 (we can argue about whether the Sierra Club is actually liberal, but I don't think any would argue that's a pretty good neighborhood). As the largest and oldest environmental organization in the country, the Club carries a, um, big stick. On the other hand, Exxon Mobil made that much by the end of the first week in January -- that much in straight profit, not revenue. Which one do you think is more capable of spreading it's message to the public? More capable of using the media to its advantage?
You can get millions of people in this country to join into a chant of "drill, baby, drill" because they've become convinced that more oil drilling in America will be beneficial -- even though the US passed peak production in 1972 and there is no doubt domestic production will continue to fall even if every inch of nation parks and wildlife reserves were opened for oil. The only difference that additional drilling will make is addition billions to those who hold the power, but they've successfully pushed the idea that this is a national benefit, not a money grab by an already wealthy few.
Why do many people still have doubts about something as straightforward as climate change? Because tens of millions are spent each year to see that they stay confused -- more by far than is spent trying to get across the truth.
Don't think for a moment that corporations worry about the possibility that liberals might be right about addressing issues. Maybe there will be millions of green jobs in energy. Maybe in a decade it'll make someone a fortune. So what? The leaders of conservatism are already rich, and investing a little to make sure they can keep doing what they're already doing seems to them a much more reasonable investment than sinking money into something that may pay off at some indefinite in the future. Not only do they fully understand that a million now is better than a million later, they know the words of the great sage: "Always in motion is the future." They're not taking any chances.
Conservatism is like an anchor. It doesn't propel either society or the economy. It's whole reason for being is to slow change of all sorts and keep the current situation in place for as long as possible for those who benefit most from the current system. It's not "I've got mine, and you can do the same" it's "I've got mine, and hands off while I get some more."
With the Supreme Court poised to make corporations not just super citizens, but unmatchable forces when it comes to campaign spending, politicians will find it more attractive than ever to hew the conservative line. And it's not as if conservatives are siting still. Sure, Republicans in Congress have opted over the last year to plant a stake in the ground and try to hold things as fixed as the pitiful ship in Coleridge's poem. But conservatives are never shy when the have their turn. They don't care about actual deregulation. They just want more regulation that's designed to anchor the current system in place.
So... conservatives represent the money and power. That's obvious. One might even say... duh. But what does that leave for liberals.
Hope, that's what. Was there ever a word so disdained, so scoffed at, so utterly dismissed as "hope"? It's a word no pundit can say without at least a hint of a sneer and a knowing roll of the eyes. It's a word that even its greatest proponents can feel embarrassed to trot out. In a room full of security and patriotism, a room of righteous anger and bottom line numbers, hope can seem like a kid looking up from among the legs of adults. But that's all we have to sell -- hope that we can heal the inequities of society, hope that we can address the problems facing the resources on which we all depend, hope that we can step a little closer to that egalitarian ideal.
That's how uneven the sides are in this struggle. It's pretty much everyone already in a position of power and privilege vs hope. When you think about it, it's a wonder we ever win. For liberalism to exist at all requires a abundance of hope.
Lately the most extreme conservatives -- the shock troops of guarding the elite's advantage -- have talked about "a second American revolution," one that may even include violence. They're fond of quoting Jefferson's appeal for regular overthrow of the existing order. Of course, Jefferson didn't make that call when he was in office himself. He made it before he was ever elected, before it was at all sure that the United States would be anything but the seating of New World aristocracy. Jefferson worried that the control of power would not turn over often enough. He didn't know at the time that we would hold a revolution every four years, and an uprising every two.
In that conflict we have to remember that liberals are always, always, always the underdog. We start every game on our own ten yard line, every battle outgunned. If we don't want the country to become the kind of rigid hierarchy that Jefferson feared when he advocated revolution, we have to be in revolution a continuous revolution of hope. If we, as liberals, are complacent for a moment, we'll find the anchor dug in deeper, the walls built up higher, and a few more rungs taken off the ladder.