Former Congressman Barney Frank died yesterday. He contributed a lot to his country and his party, but one of his most significant contributions was made in his final days.
In the last few months Frank has been promoting his final book, The Hard Path to Unity: Why We Must Reform the Left to Rescue Democracy. It’s a message that Democrats badly need to hear and it’s made more powerful since it comes from one of the left’s pioneering social justice advocates.
Frank was the first member of Congress to come out voluntarily. That in itself was a courageous thing to do back in the 1980’s, but he wasn’t just a symbol. He was a serious and hard-working public policy craftsman. His Dodd-Frank legislation, written in the wake of the 2008 housing meltdown, provided needed regulations and consumer protections related to the banking industry.
And he had something all too many liberals lack: a sense of humor. When anti-abortion social conservatives opposed child care legislation, he quipped that they, “believe life begins at conception and ends at birth.”
But while he was as progressive as they came, Frank was also a pragmatic, smart political tactician. That’s why his final advice for his party should be taken so seriously. In a story that appeared in The Atlantic only days before he passed away, writer James Kirchick wrote:
Frank contends that left-wingers have saddled his party with a “vote-repelling platform” of open borders, defunded police departments, and “the rule of the pronoun police.” By voicing his criticism of these stances, Frank hopes to give cover to fellow liberals who share his political concerns, if not his courage. “I know most Democrats agree with me,” Frank told me via Zoom from his home in Ogunquit, Maine, where he recently began hospice care. “But they’ve been intimidated out of saying so.” Frank’s physical infirmity had no apparent effect on his mental acuity and, if anything, made his message more urgent. By refusing to repudiate far-left ideas, he said, Democrats “allowed the impression that we agree with them.”
I highlighted that last sentence because it is key. Frank goes further than even practical strategists like David Shor would go. Shor argues that Democrats should pursue a policy of “popularism.” That is the idea that they should simply emphasize their popular ideas (save Social Security, expand child care) and downplay their unpopular positions (most of their social agenda). That won’t work, Frank said, because his party would still be pummeled with those unpopular ideas. Even if Democrats don’t bring them up, the other guys surely will.
Instead, Frank argued, the Democratic Party needs to take different positions — and to actively repudiate the unpopular ones.
Frank’s quest here was a fool’s errand. It won’t happen because identity politics and anti-capitalism are religion to the activists and major donors who give the party its image. They won’t even follow Shor’s advice to keep quiet. They sure as hell won’t actively disavow their most cherished beliefs.
If there was any chance that my party would follow Frank’s advice I’d recommit as a Democrat. Because they won’t I’ll look for other options.
Nonetheless, thank you Barney for everything you’ve done over a long and distinguished career. It was not without its bumps and scrapes, but everybody who steps in the arena and wants to actually do something there experiences those. And thank you especially for the good counsel you gave us on your way out the door. If only we would follow it.
Yellow Stripes & Dead Armadillos 