How the Left Can Win Arguments and Influence People

A Tactical Manual for Pragmatic Progressives

John K Wilson, John K. Wilson

• Publisher: NYU Press
• Year: 2000
• Print ISBN:
  9780814793633
• eBook ISBN:
  9780814795149
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Political History & Theory
• Index: Politics & International Relations

If we were to rely on what the pundits and politicians tell us, we would have to conclude that America is a deeply conservative nation. Americans, we hear constantly, detest government, demand lower taxes and the end of welfare, and favor the death penalty, prayer in school, and an absolute faith in the free market.
And yet Americans believe deeply in progressive ideas. In fact, progressivism has long been a powerful force in the American psyche. Consider that a mere generation ago the struggle for environmentally sound policies, for women's rights, and for racial equality were fringe movements. Today, open opposition to these core ideals would be political suicide.
Drawing on this wellspring of American progressivist tradition, John K. Wilson has penned an informal handbook for the pragmatic progressive. Wilson insists that the left must become more savvy in its rhetoric and stop preaching only to the converted. Progressives need to attack the tangible realities of the corporate welfare state, while explicitly acknowledging that "socialism is," as Wilson writes, "deader than Lenin."
Rather than attacking a "right-wing conspiracy," Wilson argues that the left needs one, too. Tracing how well-funded conservative pressure groups have wielded their influence and transformed the national agenda, Wilson outlines a similar approach for the left. Along the way, he exposes the faultlines of our poll- and money-driven form of politics, explodes the myth of "the liberal media," and demands that the left explicitly change its image.
Irreverent, practical, and urgently argued, How The Left Can Win Arguments and Influence People charts a way to translate progressive ideals into reality and reassert the core principles of the American left on the national stage.

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: The Progressive Majority: How the Left Got Left Behind
• Chapter 1 The Death Of Socialism
• Chapter 2 The Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy (And Why The Left-Wing Needs One, Too)
• Chapter 3 The Failure Of Centrism And The Fall Of The Democratic Party
• Chapter 4 Polls The Circle of Lies
• Chapter 5 The Politics of Money Campaign Financing And One Dollar, One Vote
• Chapter 6 The Myth of The Liberal Media How the Press Attacks Progressives
• Chapter 7 The Globalization Wars How the Left Won (and Lost) the “Battle in Seattle”
• Chapter 8 Pragmatic Progressives
• Chapter 9 Talking Tax Cuts Lowering Taxes on the Poor
• Chapter 10 Making Crime a Progressive Issue
• Chapter 11 Winning The Culture Wars
• Chapter 12 Equality For Every Child Reforming Education
• Chapter 13 Fighting The Union Label Labor on the Left
• Chapter 14 The Race For Justice Defending Affirmative Action
• Chapter 15 Universal Health Care
• Chapter 16 Greener Politics Progressives and the Environment
• Chapter 17 Why We Need Welfare And How To Change It
• Chapter 18 Ending Corporate Welfare As We Know It
• Chapter 19 The Defense Industry How to Protect America by Cutting the Military
• Chapter 20 Saving Social Security
• Chapter 21 The Future of Progressives Generation Left
• About the Author