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HOW PROGRESSIVES CAN WIN BY REWRITING THE RULES OF THE GAME

Some might remember a time when Republicans embraced the science behind climate change. It wasn’t so long ago—indeed, John McCain, running for president in 2008, was unembarrassed to stand with scientists and embrace evidence-based policy (at least on climate). But a combination of right-wing funders, hackers, and fake news destroyed any rational thinking in the Republican Party on issues relating to our global future. The Koch brothers drove much of this change, working to protect their large holdings in fossil fuels, including major refineries and pipelines for crude oil. Oil money fueled research in right-wing think tanks to discredit climate science, and hackers grabbed emails from academics that were released selectively to seed doubt about the accuracy of the research. Once Citizens United let loose an avalanche of dark money, the Kochs were able to launch what the New York Times describes as “an all-fronts campaign with television advertising, social media and cross-country events aimed at electing lawmakers who would ensure that the fossil fuel industry would not have to worry about new pollution regulations.”¹ From fringe websites to national newspapers like the Wall Street Journal, climate deniers disseminated their false narrative. Former National Post reporter Jonathan Kay witnessed how that Canadian newspaper’s coverage had suffered, commenting that “global-warming denialism turned the Post into a weird hybrid: a beefy entrée of genuine information, with a 1 percent garnish of fake news—a situation that persists to this day. And since many conservatives have an enormous hunger for respectable-seeming news sources that confirm their ideologically motivated skepticism of environmentalism, this tiny slice of fake fare accounted for a massively disproportionate share of our most popular stories.”²

A Koch operative laid out the strategy to a group of conservative bloggers: “If we win the science argument, it’s game, set, and match.”³ Each piece—an attack on science reporting; a charm campaign for susceptible judges; “scholarship” to support the fossil fuel lobby; a legislative, lobbying, and electoral strategy to produce bills and grab legislative seats for the climate deniers—added up to a big victory for the Koch brothers as Donald Trump pulled the United States out of the Paris climate agreement and is tearing down President Obama’s environmental legacy brick by brick. Game, set, match indeed.

Lewis Powell was a visionary. Where some in corporate America might have seen the advances in environmental, consumer, and workplace regulation as a reason to make accommodation with a protective welfare state, he called on business and conservative leaders to fight back, to advance a new and aggressive battle plan. What was needed, he believed, was a strategy not only to reverse these losses but to make advances that would be difficult, if not impossible, to undo. To regain and hold power required significant and sustained investment in a conservative infrastructure that would capture and keep the rulemaking process for our society.

Where has the Left been? Everywhere and nowhere, it seems. With no mechanism for choosing the most effective strategy,progressive leaders aggressively defend diffuse and multiple ideas rather than focused and tangible strategies and tactics. Major funders support an array of advocacy groups, most without members or an organizing mission, that often work at cross-purposes and in competition. There’s no collective focus or discipline on the essential building blocks of power—elections, foundational legislation, the justice system. Each piece is addressed singly and idiosyncratically without consistent and lasting support or coordination.

Back to North Carolina—if the Left had our own plan, it would be a state where the legislative and congressional districts are not manipulated by parties and where the government helps rather than hinders eligible voters to participate in elections. The state legislature and the congressional delegation would look a lot different and African American and Latino voters would find that their votes had more impact—and that would translate into different priorities for the state’s delegation in Congress and the statehouse. And in a system that no longer equates speech and money, which basically gives the person with the fattest wallet a bullhorn to drown out other voices, North Carolinians would see their policy preferences reflected in the votes of their representatives, not those of the biggest campaign contributors. Instead of big tax cuts for oil companies, the Tarheel State would have better funding for schools and improved infrastructure.

If North Carolina did not have an elected judiciary or gerrymandered districts for judges, the court system would not favor special interests over injured people, polluting hog farms, for instance, over neighboring African American homeowners. And were court rules structured to allow plausible cases to move forward, victims of discrimination or consumers harmed by faulty products would get into court, be able to join together with others, and get some recovery—and those cases would provide a disincentive to other wrongdoers. And these courts, no longer awash in special interests’ campaign cash, would try to rule impartially. These courts would evaluate election rules to see if they unjustifiably restrict voting or impose barriers. These would be courts of justice.

And people might begin to have faith again in their government. And that’s good for the Left.