Testing the Thesis
Stephen White and many others think that the primary nefarious function of TNR is to give otherwise wacky right wing ideas a patina of moderation and seriousness:
The problem with TNR is not that the magazine itself directly causes bad things to happen, but rather because it helps — along with a host of other factors — bad things to seem reasonable to serious people.
This is reasonable enough, and in some cases TNR has been an unfortunate enabler of bad conservative policy and ideas. While in the policy realm, I’m much more inclined to blame the actual Bush administration for pushing through bad policies, in the intellectual realm, TNR has enabled and provide cover for otherwise disreputable ideas — namely their hyping of the Bell Curve (of course, it was really Andrew Sullivan’s fault and the rest of the staff nearly resigned in protest) which otherwise would not have achieved similar mainstream credibility.
But if Stephen, Kathy G and many other liberal bloggers are correct that, as Brian Beutler puts it, “The New Republic ’s readers are center-lefters, center-righters, Very Serious People, and delusional neo-conservatives,” then shouldn’t their enthusiastic support for more left wing causes that don’t have much broad based institutional and media support have a similar effect as their support for the occasional right wing cause?
I’m thinking specifically of universal health care and mandatory vacation for workers, both of which are plenty popular among the political left, but haven’t quite gotten the necessary momentum from the media so that Democrats can strongly go to battle on these large, fundamental new reforms and programs. Can TNR’s support (Foer’s first editorial was supporting universal health care and they’ve editorialized in favor of mandatory vacation) for these two initiatives make them more palatable to their “center-righter, Very Serious People, and delusional neo-conservative” readership? If so, then maybe it isn’t such an awful publication after all.
It’s not that TNR can make anything happen. The argument they’re making — and I don’t know much about this, though it sounds plausible and I have my own reasons to loathe the magazine — is that TNR provides ideological cover for people who would promote TNR’s more right-oriented policies of choice regardless.
This doesn’t actually make the policies measurably more likely to be used, because the people in power would find cover somewhere else if TNR didn’t give it to them, and in any case cover’s importance is highly overrated. Still, that’s the argument.
For my part, I just wish they weren’t shockingly ignorant.
Mike Meginnis
August 26, 2007 at 12:49 pm
You’ve hit upon the essential weakness of the “even the Liberal New Republic” argument; if true, then the it must also logically apply to all the liberal policies they support (or as Michael Kinselycalled it,”even the Conservative New Republic”).
paxamericana
August 26, 2007 at 3:30 pm
TNR is viewed in general as a “liberal” publication, even though many leftie bloggers disagree with that label. When TNR publishes right-wing stuff, conservatives can say “Well, even liberals like TNR think ____ is a good idea.” But when TNR publishes left-wing stuff, liberals can’t make the opposite claim, because only a relatively small percentage of leftist bloggers actually think TNR is conservative. So when TNR talks about universal healthcare, it’s not “even the conservative TNR thinks universal healthcare is a good idea.” Instead, it’s “the liberal TNR along with all the other more liberal magazines think universal healthcare is a good idea.” It’s not nearly *as* effective at shaping the intellectual debate as when they promote conservative policies. But even still, it’s by no means an awful publication — it just has its Very Major Moments.
Steven White
August 26, 2007 at 4:45 pm
I definitely agree with some of the specific criticisms of The New Republic, but I find the whole “aiding conservatives” line to be wholly problematic. Do all magazines that are viewed as liberal have to agree all the time, lest they aide the VRWC? Or are there certain minor issues where disagreement is OK, but others where the line has to be held? Where does “the movement” end and journalism begin? As someone who thinks TNR has published a lot of stupid arguments in their day, this still disturbs me.
John Cain
August 26, 2007 at 10:21 pm
[...] Real Problem With The New Republic Jump to Comments Although I agree with some of the recent discussion about The New Republic enabling conservative nonsense, I’d also like [...]
The Real Problem With The New Republic « Pax Americana: Culture, Politics, and Ineffectual Debate
August 27, 2007 at 6:08 am