Liberal-As-Personal
by Aaron Michael Gordon
www.dissidentvoice.org
June 3, 2006



 

In case you’ve missed it, “liberal” is a bad, naughty word in the United States today. Apparently, things like equal rights for all, decent treatment for the working class and a collective desire for the common good just aren’t as cool as bashing gays and blowing up countries for oil (the news stations would agree: if it “bleeds” it “leads.”)

The Democratic response to this lack of hipness has been to respond with even less: a measured, analytical statement of what makes liberalism great. Well guys, unless you’ve missed the last 25 years or so, the American public has no desire to engage in a literal debate over anything realer than reality TV. They want their politicians to be corn-fed stereotypes of their next door neighbors . . . and they don’t want to be pointed out the obvious facts about them (namely, that they’re playing a role to get your vote and then take your money.) Our current Nero exemplifies this trend: all the red staters want to grab a beer with old Georgie, to make some barbeque and watch some NASCAR with someone who acts and speaks just like them . . . all the while ignoring the silver spoon that’s been rammed up his ass for his entire life (he went to Yale for Chrissakes!)

This banal truth telling, this insistence on honest discourse . . . isn’t this tactic what killed Gore in 2000? And especially the deeply intelligent, deeply dull Kerry in 2004? Taken collectively, their speeches put the country to sleep, even though they were the only people in the room talking about the facts. Democrats. Wake up. We, the people, we don’t care about the facts. If we did, the Vietnam war wouldn’t be re-imagined as yet another case of “liberal” failure (I’m still astonished that the desires of the military-industrial complex can somehow be considered progressive.) Religious African-Americans wouldn’t be voting Republican (white supremacists throughout the land must be exclaiming “it’s like they’re setting themselves on fire! Let’s stay in tonight, honey.”) And the fierce Ann Coulter, a woman representing the conservative voice against liberalism, would be told to shut up, get married, and start having kids, girly! (Is her place not in the home, at least according to the “traditional” view?)

I’m hesitant to give Ms. Coulter any attention whatsoever (I have this running fantasy where we’ll all just stop listening and she’ll go far, far away,) but she and the rest of her cohorts on the right understand a key point that the Democrats don’t: they make it personal. Sure, Coulter’s rants against liberals tend to make no sense and lack support from the pesky facts that history provides, but she sure seems emotional when she’s on a tirade, doesn’t she? I may not believe a single word she puts out there, but I truly believe that she believes them (or more likely, knows a very good acting coach.) The same is true for the Hannitys, the Buchanans and the Bushes of the world. They know that the more politics resemble a great, cliff-hanging episode of Dallas the better off Republicans will be. They make it personal.

Take gay marriage. The debate is never framed as “should the United States discriminate against tax paying Americans,” but rather, “do you want some married dykes to move here, Myrtle?” Or the media, which are never portrayed as merely a part of a synergistic marketing loop (Homer Simspon insults the government on Fox at 8pm. Fox News reports on the controversy at 8:30pm, and Rupert Murdock makes tons of money throughout), but as a liberal conspiracy to “corrupt our precious children with sin! SIN!” It’s not global warming but “city slickers and evil scientists trying to take away your truck, Bob!” In short, the Democrats keep trying to make it about the collective We, the people, while the Republicans make every issue about You and only You.

While there are many personal cheerleaders on the conservative side of the bench, I’d like to return to Ann Coulter. In a very real way, feminists should celebrate Coulter, because without their hard work and diligence during the last hundred years, Ann wouldn’t have the opportunity to display her voice. Coulter saying what she wants, when she wants, without taking a backseat to any man -- is the very point of the feminist movement! The paradox of a woman expressing herself freely, by speaking for ideologies that would, in effect, shut her the hell up does nothing to tarnish the truth: Ann Coulter is living proof of liberal potential made kinetic. She’ll never admit it, but the unmarried-without-children life she leads makes Coulter a feminist. Moreover, the fact that she’s one of the most important conservative voices out there makes her (quite disturbingly) a feminist icon. Period. Did we not celebrate Helen Keller’s equally independent life and her equally independent (but far-left) voice?

But see? I’ve made the now-classic liberal mistake: I’ve used reason and deduction to make a logical point, and that won’t cut it in today’s deeply conservative world. In order to make it stick, I need to make it personal, to wrap the facts up in feelings. To bring it home. So, in honor of all feminists out there (including the misguided Coulter), I’m going to try.

A couple of weeks ago, I was treated to a remarkable moment: my younger sister graduated Magna Cum Laude from Law School. I’ve never been more proud, and never been more inspired to continue my life forward. You see, in my immediate family, my middle sister is the overachieving scholastic wizard the rest of us can only hope to be. Her dedication to academia sparked so much sibling rivalry in me that I went back to school and back to “real” writing at sites such as this (the pay sucks, but the impact is priceless.) But this story isn’t about me and my issues . . . or really about my sister the future lawyer, as brilliant and wonderful as she is.

This story is about my grandmother, also in attendance at the graduation. Now in her early 80s, my grandmother was a feminist before the word even existed. A Cum Laude graduate herself, Grandma “had it all” in the 1950s, raising three boys while holding down a white-collar job as a Certified Public Accountant. Many of her professional memories include the phrase “I was the only other woman in the office other than the secretary.” Grandma didn’t need Gloria Steinem or Jane Fonda to lead; she forged ahead professionally all by herself.

Not that she didn’t make concessions to the times. In order for my grandmother to dutifully make the family dinner for her kids and my future grandfather, she’d go into work a couple of hours early. Like all of the other wives in their Bostonian suburb, Grandma would host a cocktail party, looking positively radiant with her highball and hoopskirt. But when the rest of the women went home, back to their lives of domestic boredom, my grandmother went back to work. Alone. Obviously this put Grandma in a place of being “other”, of being outside of the mainstream of the social norms of the day. And none of her stay-at-home contemporaries ever let her forget that.

Which is why my sister’s law school graduation affected her so much. Not only was her granddaughter continuing a proud family tradition (of scholastic achievement paired to diligent professionalism,) but she wouldn’t have to fake the domestic bullshit. My sister could be a professional and have her spouse stay home with the kids, and that’s perfectly fine. Or she could arrange a lifestyle that would allow her to work from home, thus raising her children and working, and that’s perfectly fine. Or she could choose to not have children at all and focus on her career with the intensity and single-mindedness that she attacked Law School. Like Ann Coulter, my sister has the opportunity to lead her life they way she wants to lead it. She has many options. She has choice.

But, as proud as she was of my sister, Grandma was more impressed with the other graduates. Specifically, the amount of women who put in the time and energy to get their JD degree. Fitting right into an ongoing trend in higher education, more of the marchers that day were women than men. Which means that, unlike my grandmother, the-crazy-working-alien, these women won’t be solitary in their professions. It means that they can share advice on how to balance the professional and personal in their lives. It means that they won’t be alone in the workplace.

So, as my parents gleefully arranged us into picture-taking formations, they inadvertently captured this one: the new lawyer, flanked by her mother, her sister and her grandmother. My mother is also a college graduate, and has worked constantly for the past 35 years. My other sister is two months away from a nursing degree. In one snapshot, my father captured the beauty, the meaning and the personal nature of feminism: four wonderful American citizens making the most out of their lives that happen to be women. In one picture, he proved that my grandmother and mother’s struggles for equality (from being the only professional woman in the workplace, to burning her bras) were worth it. Just look to the left in the frame at my sisters. Look to the left as examples that liberalism works.

Therefore, the next time you hear Ann Coulter on a rant against liberals and for McCarthyism, remember that somewhere there’s a picture of young Ann at her graduation, demonstrating the promise of liberalism. When Condoleezza Rice absurdly claims that Affirmative Action had nothing to do with her success in life, imagine the “Colored” drinking fountain she’d be drinking at today. And when you hear a “heartland voter” lamenting about the state of the country while voting Republican, don’t forget to make it personal. Remember the time when you had a job that provided benefits? Remember when you could support your family and hold onto your house? Remember when the grandkids would come and visit, and you could buy them little treats without worrying about missing a debt consolidation payment? Those times, they are a product of liberalism, just like my sister’s law school graduation. And if we don’t hurry, these pictures, these little scraps of memory, will be all that is left of the left. And all that’s left of what is right in America.

Aaron Michael Gordon is an award-winning advertising writer. Working in South Florida, Aaron has written and produced countless television, radio, print and web-based advertising. In addition, Aaron is a freelance writer and a playwright. You can see some of his other work at jimhillmedia.com, realityblurred.com/exposed and Freezerbox.com, and at various stages throughout the country.

Other Articles by Aaron Michael Gordon

* Ethanolaburbia
* Questioning The Twinkie
* Evolution and the Space Dog
* Psychotic America: Feeling The Heat

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