Does He Have Politics

As I get deeper and deeper into the world of secretly progressive political operatives here in Pennsylvania, I am starting to get a better understanding of the codes. You know what I mean - the codes we use to talk about each other and to talk about the other folks the people we know meet.

If you’re sitting around having beers with a few other campaign types and you mention some other person in the struggle (or peripherally in the struggle) that you like - for whatever reason - there is a question you often get asked.

“How’s his politics?” (or hers, for that matter)

For a little while, I wasn’t too sure what this meant. I did know this: my politics were fine. This isn’t a self-assessment. You get a sense that the people who ask this question don’t ask it of you unless they’ve already decided yours are good. If someone says, “How’s her politics?” what they are also saying is: you’ve been judged and found acceptable. We trust your assessment of others’.

At first, I thought it just meant “are they liberal like us?” Only I knew that wasn’t quite right. It’s a weird construction, though. You know, a lot of people are cool on the issues. They see unfairness in the economy. They like Unions. They like gay people. They see a link between poverty and crime. All good.

After a while, though, I realized that a lot of perfectly well-meaning fellow liberals had been judged and found wanting. These were folks who were on our side, but they didn’t have “good politics.”

Now I’m starting to understand it better. I think what people mean when they talk about someone’s “politics” is whether or not they have really dug into what it means to be a progressive. Both on the front end: how much are they willing to put into the fight. And on the back end: what are the underlying assumptions, values and historical contexts to the fights we wage and how do we feel about all those.

Having good politics, I’m beginning to understand, has something to do with digging into the real trade-offs a truly down progressive has to confront if they are to fully embrace our worldview. And stand by the worldview when the tough times come.

Where do taxes fit in?

What price in security could we pay?

What about social unrest?

What’s up with poor people?

Race: Can you deal?

It’s pretty easy to be a limousine liberal, give lip service to the larger liberal cause but never actually confront any of the country’s inequities and so never face any of the tough issues.

It’s also pretty easy to go do something that everyone knows to be perfectly good and right — like be a teacher or social worker — and not really think much about it. To never explore the other issues, or the deeper ones in your context, or confront the harsh reality of the real upheaval and real conflict meaningful change could lead to.

Having politics, I guess, is our current code for saying a person’s dealt with it and gone through the soul searching and the reading and they are still on the side of truth and justice.