David Brooks, champion of the people?

The right-wing columnist used my work to bash Dean and MoveOn as elitists -- conveniently ignoring the big-money interests that pull the GOP's strings.

By Theda Skocpol

Feb 8, 2005 | Are MoveOn.org and Howard Dean, who is about to be named chairman of the Democratic National Committee, major threats to democracy in America -- and bastions of elitism within the Democratic Party? That is what David Brooks would have us believe. His Feb. 5 Op-Ed column in the New York Times invoked my 2003 book, "Diminished Democracy: From Membership to Management in American Civic Life," in support of the notion that a secularist, "newly dominant educated class" is using advocacy groups and Internet fundraising to take over the Democratic Party. In Brooks' vision of politics, Republicans have meanwhile morphed into a true party of ordinary people.

I was not a "Deaniac" in the 2004 election, but I must protest the way Brooks has used my research to support his claims. Democrats today certainly face challenges in building broad coalitions of educated professionals and populist supporters. But MoveOn and the Dean campaign have gotten more people involved, not fewer, in the party. Republicans, meanwhile, can hardly brag that they represent the values of ordinary Americans. Their effort to destroy the popular and inclusive Social Security program, a plan hatched by ultra-right advocacy groups and think tanks, is a textbook case of manipulative elitism and faux-populist conservatism.

Brooks got part of my argument right. For much of U.S. history, large voluntary associations and social movements mobilized millions of Americans from all walks of life to become active in community life and national politics. Reform crusades, fraternal associations, women's federations, veterans associations, farm organizations and trade unions all encouraged members to meet regularly and pool their energies to affect social trends and political decisions at the local, state and national level. Women's groups championed programs for families and children; trade unions and fraternal groups supported Social Security; and the American Legion -- a rather conservative veterans association -- wrote and lobbied for the G.I. Bill of 1944, one of the most generous social programs in American history.

But voluntary associations changed rapidly after the 1960s. Many that linked men or women across class lines went into sharp decline, with aging memberships and faltering local chapters. Battered by opposition from business as well as industrial shifts, blue-collar trade unions also went into a free fall. Meanwhile, professionally run advocacy groups proliferated.

Big social and political changes converged to remake the face of American civic democracy after 1960. The civil rights and feminist movements challenged the racism and gender segregation of traditional membership associations. Foundation grants, television and computers made it easy for educated professionals to launch single-issue national associations without regular members or local chapters. In the late 1960s and 1970s, hundreds of freshly fashioned advocacy groups, think tanks and PACs pursued liberal causes such as equal rights for women and environmentalism. By the 1980s, conservatives had counterattacked, founding their own professionally run groups, mostly funded by the very wealthy, to advocate for causes such as lower taxes, deregulation of business, "family values" and opposition to abortion.

Through the 1990s, conservatives became more adept than liberals at building bridges between professionally run groups and surviving voluntary associations, learning to coordinate with evangelical churches and groups like the National Right to Life Association and the National Rifle Association. The Republican Party mobilized millions and reaped the benefits in the voting booth. By contrast, most of the Democratic Party's advocacy groups lacked local roots or the capacity to mobilize large numbers of citizens into politics. Issues also divided Democrats, as old-style New Deal liberalism was often at odds with "new" liberalism and public interest liberalism.

Brooks reports these findings from my research accurately enough, but he presents an oddly one-sided and partisan picture of elitist threats in American politics and civic life today. True, just as educated middle-class people often send checks to public interest advocacy groups, liberals with college degrees may appear in disproportionate numbers on the e-mail lists of MoveOn.org and the Dean campaign. But both of these efforts at mobilization have surely expanded the ranks of people involved in politics, reducing the sway of big donors and "insider" professional consultants in the Democratic Party.

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