Bai encourages Dems to find an argument for next election

New York Times Magazine reporter Matt Bai (LA '90) came to campus last night to speak about the future of the Democratic Party and how it can recover from the struggles it has encountered in recent years. "We live in an era where people say politics isn't about ideas, it's about winning," Bai told an audience in Braker Hall. "If you want to change the country, you need an argument. Elections don't change the country; they are the means to enacting the change you seek." But the party has been lacking an argument. And while it has not abandoned its ideology, it has been unable to adapt to the changing times. "I don't mean to suggest that there aren't ideas in the Democratic Party, nor do I think that the party doesn't know what it stands for," he said. "It's stood for largely the same ideals since the time of FDR. However, what has always enabled America to be the best system in the world is its ability to be flexible and creative and adapt over time." Bai's appearance came on the heels of the August release of his latest book, "The Argument: Billionaires, Bloggers and the Battle to Remake Democratic Politics." As the title suggests, he spent a good portion of time discussing the digitalization of journalism, a trend that caught many in the print-based industry off-guard. "Bloggers are people who came from nowhere and created a community out of nothing," he said. "Years ago, these people would have written their congressmen and received a thank you letter in the mail or attended a local party meeting and been given a pamphlet on rules and regulations. Today, these people have a voice." And this voice has filled a key vacuum. "[Blogging] is also a huge phenomenon in places across the country where the Democratic Party has up and left," he said. Bai was inspired to write his book when traveling with then-presidential-candidate Howard Dean, who started "the first political movement of the Internet Age," he said. "Traveling with Dean, I noticed the emotion of each crowd and their resentment, not just at conservatives, but also at the inability of Democrats to do anything," he said. One specific complaint that Bai repeatedly levied is that politicians are so tempted by the prospect of short-term victory that they ignore opportunities for long-term improvements. "I don't think it's healthy to put 95 percent of your resources into talking about how you win elections," he said. With the snugness of recent elections he said that this temptation is particularly strong because victory always seems in sight. "Today, we have two parties that are in mutual deadlock, so they focus on the short-term. Because to focus on the unpopular to win in the long-term, you lose elections," he said. The result is stagnant conversations unsuited to move a country forward. "There's very little policy debate going on in the Democratic Party. There's really only a debate about style," he said. What is instead needed is a candidate willing to take initially unpopular stances for the good of the nation. "There are unpleasant truths that must be told and difficult choices that must be made, and the most successful candidates are the ones who were controversial, who made arguments that some people weren't ready to hear," he said. "These people changed America." But that doesn't mean completely ignoring the preferences of the voters. "George Bush thinks ... leadership is doing what's unpopular, but he's missing the point. You have to tell the people what they don't want to hear, and then convince them that you're right," he said. Bai also touched on the relationship between bloggers and journalists. While bloggers are faster than their print companions, the two types of professionals do not need to be enemies. "That doesn't mean that bloggers are competing with journalists," he said. "They're the next generation of activists." His speech was well-received by the audience. "I found his arguments extremely incisive, and he described the party in a way that we don't hear very often," sophomore Will Ehrenfeld said. His book also got an enthusiastic response. "It's not a partisan book. It's a detached, disinterested book that advocates only political engagement. He could write the same book about the Republican Party," Professor Sol Gittleman said.See the Features section next week for more coverage of Bai.