Rise of the Rest

Who's Coming to the Party

This article originally appeared in the National Journal

An August national survey of nearly 3300 Americans 18-85 years old conducted by research company, Frank N. Magid Associates, details the current composition of two party coalitions that are more distinctive from one another than at any time in the past 50 years, perhaps even since the Great Depression. 

In many democracies political parties represent particular interests: labor or business, specific religions, ethnicities, or regions. In America, with its continental dimensions, varied population, and a constitutional system designed to disperse governing power, political parties are historically and still remain, coalitions of various social groups. No party monopolizes the members of any one demographic and each party contains at least some representation from all segments of the population.

 Once formed, the party coalitions have staying power. During the Great Depression, Franklin Roosevelt assembled the New Deal coalition comprised of Southern whites; the Greatest Generation children of eastern and southern European immigrants; white workers; and urban blacks.  This coalition dominated US electoral politics for four decades and restructured public policy domestically, transforming public economic policy from laissez faire to governmental activism, and internationally, moving the nation’s foreign policy from isolationism to interventionism.

As new generations with new concerns emerged in the midst of the racial and lifestyle changes of the 1960s, the New Deal coalition fell apart. It was supplanted by a Republican coalition that increasingly added two former components of the Democratic coalition—the white south and working class whites—to the upper income white residents of suburbs and small towns outside of the South that had been the core of the GOP in the previous era. The new Republican coalition dominated national elections almost as long and shaped public policy almost as profoundly as had the New Deal coalition that it superseded. 

Party coalitions are formed in a nation with a constantly changing economy, political process, and demographic make-up and, consequently, are not permanent. The sharp differences between today’s two party coalitions are portrayed very clearly in the Magid data. 

 The majority of voters who identify with or lean to the Republican Party are males (54%) and members of America’s two oldest generations—Baby Boomers, those in their 50s to mid-60s, and Silents or seniors--who together comprise 53% of Republicans. The GOP coalition is almost entirely white (81%). It is disproportionately Southern (38% of all Republicans and 41% of strong Republican identifiers) and resides in above average numbers in small towns and rural areas (40%). Two-thirds of Republicans are married and three-quarters are Christian, while only 7% are unaffiliated with any faith. A third of all Republican identifiers and 42% of strong Republicans attend religious services at least weekly. And, not surprisingly, 56% of all Republicans and 68% of strong Republican identifiers are self-professed conservatives. 

The Democratic coalition is far different. A majority of Democratic identifiers are women (53%) and from the country’s two youngest generations—Millennials, voters in their 20s, and Gen-X’ers, people in their 30s and 40s, who in total make up 57% of Democrats. Forty-one percent of all Democrats and 45% of strong Democrats are non-white with about equal numbers of African-Americans and Hispanics. Nearly half of Democrats (48%) live in the Northeast and West and a disproportionately large number live in big cities or suburbs (70%). Just half are married. Only 57% are Christian, while about one in five each are either of non-Christian denominations or unaffiliated with any faith. Just 21% of Democrats attend a religious service weekly. Slightly more (24%) never do. The Democratic coalition is, however, more diverse ideologically than the Republican: while a plurality (42%) are either self-identified liberals or progressives, nearly as many (35%) say they are politically moderate. 

 America is undergoing major demographic, economic, and societal changes that have led to this new alignment and will continue to shape the two party coalitions. Some of the change—the Great Recession, the deepest and longest economic downturn since the 1930s--was severe and occurred almost overnight. Other changes, among them the transformation of the nation from a white to non-white majority country, the emergence of America’s largest and most diverse generation, the Millennials, and a makeover of the U.S. economy, are taking place more slowly, but equally profoundly.

In order to hold together and expand their coalitions, both parties will need to formulate a new “civic ethos” that addresses the fundamental question of what the size and scope of government should be in this new era. Both Barack Obama and Mitt Romney recognize this and used their party’s conventions to articulate distinctly different visions and values that they believe should shape and guide America’s politics and government in the coming years. The party that enunciates this new civic ethos in a way which enables it to build a majority electoral and governing  coalition is likely  to dominate U.S. politics for the next four or five decades. 

Raising Our Game: Crafting An American Response to the Rise of the Rest (Revisited)

A year ago I was asked by Salon magazine to write up some suggestions for President Obama.  As we all get ready for the State of the Union on Tuesday, I repost it, as many of its suggestions still apply:

Crafting an American Response to the Rise of the Rest

The first year of the Obama Administration was largely reactive to an agenda left by the previous Administration.   The new President and his team have spent their time cleaning up the extraordinary messes left for them – financial crisis, the Great Recession, Guantanamo, exploding deficits, Iraq, deteriorating Afghanistan and Pakistan – and attempting to tackle problems left unaddressed for far too long – climate change and energy policy, health care reform and immigration reform.  

In that regard the agenda of President Obama’s first year was determined to a great degree by the Bush Administration’s strategic reaction to a global political and economic environment which no longer exists.  While President Obama cannot escape the governing inheritance left to him, he can do more to discard the outdated vision and rhetorical framework which came along with it, and begin to offer a much more compelling, modern and Obama-driven take on the challenges ahead and how we must meet them. 

At the core of this 2nd generation Obama narrative must be a strategic response to the most significant transformation taking place in the world today, what Fareed Zakaria has called the “rise of the rest.”  The twenty years of American-led economic liberalization and globalization which followed the collapse of communism has brought – with extraordinary rapidity - dozens of countries and billions of people into the modern economy.  Their growing geopolitical and economic might is creating a radically different global environment than America faced in the 20th century, and arguably even 5-10 years ago when the Bush Administration made the strategic choices Obama is wrestling with today.  

The true scope of this transformation is only really becoming apparent now, and it leaves our new President with the historic opportunity, and tremendous responsibility, to craft a comprehensive strategic response to this global “new politics” of the 21st century.  It will also allow him to extricate himself from the anachronistic rhetorical framework suited for another day and another President. 

This new strategy might have three main elements:

Challenge America To Raise Its Game
– The global economy of the 21st century will be much more competitive for our companies, workers and capital than the century just past.  In the decade since China entered the WTO, for example, median income in the US has actually declined, an unprecedented event we believe is directly tied to more virulent global competition characteristic of this new age.  If America is to have rising standard of livings in the face of what will be extraordinary competition coming from China, India, Brazil, Mexico and many other countries, we will have to raise our game, try harder, invest smarter, accelerate innovation, lessen our exposure to foreign energy sources, over time bring our government's spending and income more in line, modernize our health care system, continuously upgrade our skills and radically improve our public schools.   This agenda is not about enabling the “recovery" of an economic age which will never return, but about building a 21st century American economy and workforce that can successfully compete in a much more competitive world.   

Reimagine the Architecture of Global Governance – The rising powers and their people will want – and deserve – a seat at the global rulemaking table.   We’ve seen the early stages of this new era with the recent discussions about updating the IMF, the swapping of the G20 for the G8 and the assertiveness of India, China and other nations at the recent Copenhagen conference.   The day in which the “Western powers” can call the global shots has come to an end, new arrangements will have to made, and a new and different role for America will have to be crafted.   Existing foreign commitments in Afghanistan and Iraq, and our global counter-terrorism efforts, will need to be explained in this new geopolitical context. 

But at the same time America will have to become a much more spirited advocate for ensuring that this new global political table is one where the traditional American formula of free markets, political liberty, democracy and the rule of law is not watered down or worse replaced by a much less liberal global formula.  At this time when so many people across the world are working to improve their own societies is the most important time for America to recommit itself to the values which have done so much to improve the human condition in recent decades. 

Modernize Government So It Can Do More With Less
– With a huge percentage of the federal workforce hitting retirement age soon, it is an opportune time to start thinking creatively about we can reinvent America’s government for the digital age.  Can we replace large bureaucracies with more entrepreneurial, problem-solving oriented, leaner work forces using the extraordinarily powerful set of new digital tools available to them to deliver better outcomes for less money?  Getting more for less will not only help deal with the growing federal debt, but also help free money up to make the investments needed for America to build a 21st century economy. 

By reorienting his government around meeting the challenge of the rise of the rest and a much more competitive age, President Obama can extricate himself from a faded strategic orientation of a bygone era; give the nation a powerful national mission to rally around in the years ahead; and help ensure continued American prosperity and pre-eminence in a vastly changed world outside our shores.

Update: See this related essay about the role of the ever tougher struggle of every day people in recent American elections, The Great Volatility in the American Electorate Today.

Staring Down the High Tax, Big Government Bogeyman

In prepping for my Fox News appearance this morning, I thought a lot about that old conservative bogeyman of "tax and spend liberal,"  and the current attacks on Obama for being for high taxes and big government.  I've always thought that one of the greatest accomplishments of the 20th century conservative movement was to reduce the conversation about our economic future into a purely fiscal discussion, about tax cuts and size of government talk - as if there was no difference between the two.  For in ideological terms, the right has believed that tax cuts and smaller government create growth, high taxes and big government stifle it.  But is this true?

Consider:

The Clinton Presidency - Raised taxes, size of government shrunk, deficits became surpluses, growth exploded, incomes went up. 

The George W Bush Presidency - Cut taxes, size of government exploded, debt and deficits went to historic levels, most challenging recession in 70 years, incomes dropped. 

Oops.  Guess the conservative bromide of big taxes and big government is just that, a terrible and inaccurate bromide.  The economy is a little more complicated than it first appears, I guess.

Of the many things all this means is that Democrats should not give into arguments and statements which however attractive they may sound are untrue.  My own read of the polls is that people don't want the economic conversation to be reduced to a fiscal one.  They want their government to have a strategy that ensures broad based prosperity first and foremost.  They understand, perhaps unlike Washington, that such a strategy must have many parts, of which taxes and spending are only a part.  The message goal here this week is for the President to stay focused on his "strategy," and explain that his strategy is big enough to actually solve the problem most feel - which is ten years of no income games.

People are willing to give the Democrats time to get the economy going, tackle the deficit, create jobs because they understand more than wealthy folks how long the economy has been bad for them, and reasonably, don't expect it to be fixed overnight.  But the American people are only going to give Democrats time if they feel that the government has a plan big enough to actually fix the economy in the years ahead.  Small bore ideas - like small tax cuts for middle class families as we saw in 2009 - aren't going to cut it.  This is not the 1990s.  The troubles with the middle class and the economy are not small - they are big, perhaps the biggest in all of American history.  Small bore initiatives - the "school uniforming" of the economy - aren't going to cut it this year.  In fact there is a strong argument that doing a series of small things may in fact be the very opposite of what is needed, and reinforce that the President and his party really don't get how tough it is out there.  

And along the way the President and his party will have to do everything they can to stare down the high tax, big government bogeyman who will be very present in the national debate this year.  People don't like taxes, but they will like governments who are unwilling or unable to do what is required for them and their families to succeed even less. 

Last week I penned a piece for Salon on the economic way forward, Crafting A Response to the Rise of the Rest.  You can find it here.

Plouffe's WaPo Piece a Must Read

David Plouffe returns to the national scene with an ambitious and thoughtful op-ed in the Washington Post today.  It is a true must read for anyone trying to make sense of the national environment right now, and where it might be headed this fall.

Also of interest on this busy Sunday morning is a sort of GOP response to the Plouffe piece in the WaPo, this one by the one of the message architects of the Scott Brown race.  And of course if it is Sunday there is Frank Rich.   

For good measure I will toss in my own essay which ran in Salon earlier this week.  It offers some thoughts on where the President's governing narrative might head this year.

Secretary Clinton's Internet Freedom Speech

If there is any organizing principle or central theme to my 20 years in political life, it has been promotion of the idea that the technology and media revolution taking place across the world today had the potential to dramatically improve the human condition, perhaps on a scale never seen in human history. 

Today, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gave a speech about Internet Freedom that will be written about and discussed for years to come, and may be the most important speech I have ever personally witnessed.   I strongly encourage you to watch it and read the text which is available here. I won't try to dumb down the speech to a short post, for it needs to be read in its entirety.  It was a big speech, inspirational, smart, on target, and more than anything else began to reconnect the 21st century American center-left to the successful liberal internationalism of President Franklin Roosevelt and its mid-20th century past (If you'd like to read the original text of the Four Freedom Speech by FDR visit here). 

For those who follow NDN you will see many of the themes and ideas we've promoted in recent years in the vision and words of the speech.  Through our friends at State, and through the constant advocacy of these themes, I have no doubt that our work here helped inspire and inform the argument she made this morning.  And for that I thank all of the NDNers, here in the office, and throughout our national network who played a small role in this big speech today. 

For more on our work in this area please review this comprehensive aggregation put together by Sam Dupont earlier this week; review Sam's excellent writeup of the initial work of the transformative 21st Century Statecraft Initiative; enjoy this recent post on FDR's Four Freedoms: read this front-page Huffington Post essay I wrote in the spring, Obama: No Realist He; and check out a 2007 call from me and Alec Ross to make the promotion of internet freedom a central tenet of American foreign policy.  

I have known Secretary Clinton well for 18 years.  We first met when I was the Communications Director of the 1992 Clinton New Hampshire primary effort.  I have never been more proud of her than I am right now for delivering a courageous, vital and necessary speech updating America's foreign policy for a new and very promising century.

On Internet Freedom

Later this morning Secretary Clinton will be delivering a major address on Internet Freedom.  You can watch it live on the State Department site.  I will be headed over in a bit to check it out in person. 

Her Senior Advisor on Innovation, Alec Ross, has been a significant force for pushing ahead on this very important initiative.   In the spring of 2007 Alec and I wrote a paper for NDN which made called for making open and free access to the Internet a core pillar of American foreign policy.  Here is the key passage:

A single global communications network, composed of Internet, mobile, SMS, cable and satellite technology, is rapidly tying the world's people together as never before. The core premise of this paper is that the emergence of this network is one of the seminal events of the early 21st century. Increasingly, the world's commerce, finance, communications, media and information are flowing through this network. Half of the world's 6 billion people are now connected to this network, many through powerful and inexpensive mobile phones. Each year more of the world's people become connected to the network, its bandwidth increases, and its use becomes more integrated into all that we do. Connectivity to this network, and the ability to master it once on, has become an essential part of life in the 21st century, and a key to opportunity, success and fulfillment for the people of the world.

We believe it should be a core priority of the United States to ensure that all the world's people have access to this global network and have the tools to use it for their own life success. There is no way any longer to imagine free societies without the freedom of commerce, expression, and community, which this global network can bring. Bringing this network to all, keeping it free and open and helping people master its use must be one of the highest priorities of those in power in the coming years.

Crafting An American Response to the Rise of the Rest

Salon Magazine asked me and a few others to offer their thoughts on the first year of the Obama Presidency.  My short essay is below.  A version of the essay can be found on the Salon site here. 

Crafting an American Response to the Rise of the Rest

The first year of the Obama Administration was largely reactive to an agenda left by the previous Administration.   The new President and his team have spent their time cleaning up the extraordinary messes left for them – financial crisis, the Great Recession, Guantanamo, exploding deficits, Iraq, deteriorating Afghanistan and Pakistan – and attempting to tackle problems left unaddressed for far too long – climate change and energy policy, health care reform and immigration reform.  

In that regard the agenda of President Obama’s first year was determined to a great degree by the Bush Administration’s strategic reaction to a global political and economic environment which no longer exists.  While President Obama cannot escape the governing inheritance left to him, he can do more to discard the outdated vision and rhetorical framework which came along with it, and begin to offer a much more compelling, modern and Obama-driven take on the challenges ahead and how we must meet them. 

At the core of this 2nd generation Obama narrative must be a strategic response to the most significant transformation taking place in the world today, what Fareed Zakaria has called the “rise of the rest.”  The twenty years of American-led economic liberalization and globalization which followed the collapse of communism has brought – with extraordinary rapidity - dozens of countries and billions of people into the modern economy.  Their growing geopolitical and economic might is creating a radically different global environment than America faced in the 20th century, and arguably even 5-10 years ago when the Bush Administration made the strategic choices Obama is wrestling with today.  

The true scope of this transformation is only really becoming apparent now, and it leaves our new President with the historic opportunity, and tremendous responsibility, to craft a comprehensive strategic response to this global “new politics” of the 21st century.  It will also allow him to extricate himself from the anachronistic rhetorical framework suited for another day and another President. 

This new strategy might have three main elements:

Challenge America To Raise Its Game
– The global economy of the 21st century will be much more competitive for our companies, workers and capital than the century just past.  In the decade since China entered the WTO, for example, median income in the US has actually declined, an unprecedented event we believe is directly tied to more virulent global competition characteristic of this new age.  If America is to have rising standard of livings in the face of what will be extraordinary competition coming from China, India, Brazil, Mexico and many other countries, we will have to raise our game, try harder, invest smarter, accelerate innovation, lessen our exposure to foreign energy sources, over time bring our government's spending and income more in line, modernize our health care system, continuously upgrade our skills and radically improve our public schools.   This agenda is not about enabling the “recovery" of an economic age which will never return, but about building a 21st century American economy and workforce that can successfully compete in a much more competitive world.   

Reimagine the Architecture of Global Governance – The rising powers and their people will want – and deserve – a seat at the global rulemaking table.   We’ve seen the early stages of this new era with the recent discussions about updating the IMF, the swapping of the G20 for the G8 and the assertiveness of India, China and other nations at the recent Copenhagen conference.   The day in which the “Western powers” can call the global shots has come to an end, new arrangements will have to made, and a new and different role for America will have to be crafted.   Existing foreign commitments in Afghanistan and Iraq, and our global counter-terrorism efforts, will need to be explained in this new geopolitical context. 

But at the same time America will have to become a much more spirited advocate for ensuring that this new global political table is one where the traditional American formula of free markets, political liberty, democracy and the rule of law is not watered down or worse replaced by a much less liberal global formula.  At this time when so many people across the world are working to improve their own societies is the most important time for America to recommit itself to the values which have done so much to improve the human condition in recent decades. 

Modernize Government So It Can Do More With Less
– With a huge percentage of the federal workforce hitting retirement age soon, it is an opportune time to start thinking creatively about we can reinvent America’s government for the digital age.  Can we replace large bureaucracies with more entrepreneurial, problem-solving oriented, leaner work forces using the extraordinarily powerful set of new digital tools available to them to deliver better outcomes for less money?  Getting more for less will not only help deal with the growing federal debt, but also help free money up to make the investments needed for America to build a 21st century economy. 

By reorienting his government around meeting the challenge of the rise of the rest and a much more competitive age, President Obama can extricate himself from a faded strategic orientation of a bygone era; give the nation a powerful national mission to rally around in the years ahead; and help ensure continued American prosperity and pre-eminence in a vastly changed world outside our shores.

Update: See this related essay about the role of the ever tougher struggle of every day people in recent American elections, The Great Volatility in the American Electorate Today.

Are Free and Open Societies in Retreat?

The Economist has a thought-provoking article in this week's edition which discusses the findings of a new Freedom House report, "Freedom in the World 2010: A Global Erosion of Freedom."

The article has this compelling passage:

For freedom-watchers in the West, the worrying thing is that the cause of liberal democracy is not merely suffering political reverses, it is also in intellectual retreat. Semi-free countries, uncertain which direction to take, seem less convinced that the liberal path is the way of the future. And in the West, opinion-makers are quicker to acknowledge democracy’s drawbacks—and the apparent fact that contested elections do more harm than good when other preconditions for a well-functioning system are absent. It is a sign of the times that a British reporter, Humphrey Hawksley, has written a book with the title: “Democracy Kills: What’s So Good About the Vote?”.

A more nuanced argument, against the promotion of electoral democracy at the expense of other goals, has been made by other observers. Paul Collier, an Oxford professor, has asserted that democracy in the absence of other desirables, like the rule of law, can hobble a country’s progress. Mark Malloch-Brown, a former head of the UN Development Programme, is still a believer in democracy as a driver of economic advancement, but he thinks that in countries like Afghanistan, the West has focused too much on procedures—like multi-party elections—and is not open enough to the idea that other kinds of consensus might exist. At the University of California, Randall Peerenboom defends the “East Asian model”, according to which economic development naturally precedes democracy.

Whatever the eggheads may be saying, there are some obvious reasons why Western governments’ zeal to promote democracy, and the willingness of other countries to listen, have ebbed. In many quarters (including Western ones), the assault on Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, and its bloody aftermath, seemed to confirm people’s suspicion that promoting democracy as an American foreign-policy aim was ill-conceived or plain cynical.

In Afghanistan, the other country where an American-led coalition has been waging war in democracy’s name, the corruption and deviousness of the local political elite, and the flaws of last year’s election, have been an embarrassment. In the Middle East, America’s enthusiasm for promoting democracy took a dip after the Palestinian elections of 2006, which brought Hamas to office. The European Union’s “soft power” on its eastern rim has waned as enlargement fatigue has grown.

But perhaps the biggest reason why democracy’s magnetic power has waned is the rise of China—and the belief of its would-be imitators that they too can create a dynamic economy without easing their grip on political power. In the political rhetoric of many authoritarian governments, fascination with copying China’s trick can clearly be discerned.

I have believed for some time now that the way the world was developing would inevitably force President Obama and his Administration to become much more spirited global advocates of political freedom and liberty than was their initial instinct. Why?

For the great political dynamic of the early 21st century is what Fareed Zakaria has called "the rise of the rest" - or the increasingly rapid rise in power and socio-economic status twenty years of globalization has brought to many developing nations.  In these nations there are billions of similarly "rising" people, individuals and families who though this process of modernization have seen a dramatic rise in their affluence, education levels and access to information.  It seems inexorable that these rising citizens, tied to the world through the rapid beat of global technology, media and commerce, will increasingly demand greater openness, transparency, accountability and democratic institutions from their leaders.  They will want more than affluence and stability - they will want the political self-determinination and freedom they see in other nations.

As I have written before, I think the emerging ideological struggle in the world today is more open society versus closed, than it is a replay of the 20th century construct of left and right.  As this Freedom House report reminds us, it is at this moment in history, when so many nations and peoples are rising and reinventing old and less modern societies, when America and its ideological allies must make their case for their vision of how humanity will best prosper together in a very different century ahead.  We really don't know how the 21st century will turn out.  But with the world being so young now, and with so many nations going through profound transformation, we have to see this struggle to ensure successful transitions of these rising nations to modern, democratic, and free countries as the next stage of the great battle we waged to defeat totalitarianism, communism and fascism in the 20th century.  Our work, my friends, is not yet done.

In that regard I think it is critical, essential, required that this President and this Administration make it crystal clear to the people in these rising nations that America stands with them and their aspirations; that we want to work side by side with them in forging better nations with greater opportunities and freedom; that we will be patient but resolute in our commitment; for at no moment can an authoritarian government which denies basic freedoms to their people ever be considered better or even an acceptable alternative to well constructed democratic societies which offer liberty, democracy itself, free markets and the rule of law.

Of course we cannot be foolish in how we advocate for this traditional American creed in the new world of the 21st century, but nor can we ignore it.  Too many people across the world are waiting to hear from us.  And I dismiss the idea that this discussion is about "human rights," or "universal rights," as if these things are somehow secondary to the important things great powers discuss when they meet.  The firm and resolute advocacy of open and free societies has to be the very cornerstone of America's foreign policy at this critical - and exciting - juncture in human history.  It is not something left to the coffee after the diplomatic main course.   There has been no moment in our history in fact when so many people and so many nations have had the chance to rise to the level of freedom and self-determination the 21st century offers; which is why the effort to help them achieve it should be seen as the great geopolitical opportunity for America of this new era, one which must be enthusiastically seized.

We will get a sense of the state of the Administration's thinking on all this Thursday, when the very able Secretary of State will deliver an important speech on internet freedom.  My hope is that she goes big, is bold, and makes clear what is at stake, and helps us all understand the historic opportunity in front of us today.

Join Me This Thursday for Special Presentation - The Dawn of a New Politics

I hope you will join me this Thursday, January 14th for a special presentation, “The Dawn of a New Politics." This hour long presentation takes an in-depth look at big changes happening here at home and abroad which are making the politics of the 21st century very different from the century that just past.  Among the subjects we will take a deep dive into:  

Accelerating changes in global technology and media. Twitter, Facebook, DVRs and the rise of cable TV, smartbooks, notebooks, web video and satellite TV, Droids, Nexuses and iphones, Smartphones, Kindles, Tablet PCs.  A new media and technology age is emerging globally, putting ever more powerful tools in the hands of every day people.  It is radically transforming the way people across the world and here at home communicate, advocate, organize, govern and do just about everything else we do;

Extraordinary demographic changes taking place here at home. Huge waves of immigration.  The rise of the Millennial generation, the largest in US history. America now on a path to be a "minority majority" nation by 2042.  The demographic changes playing out in the US today are among the most consequential in all of American history, which among other things is forcing each political party to forge new and very different electoral coalitions and electoral maps;

Globalization and the "rise of the rest." Twenty years of globalization and economic liberalization has helped bring about what Fareed Zakaria has called "the rise of the rest."  This process has brought about a degree of modernity, education, affluence and access to information to billions of people in developing nations inconceivable even a decade ago, a development with profound implications for America and the world.

This powerful presentation will take a look at all these issues and more, and if you have the time there will be time left for thirty minutes of spirited discussion at the end. For those wanting to make sense of all the political news of the last few weeks this presentation will offer some very relevant context. 

This presentation of “The Dawn of a New Politics” is free and open to the public, so feel free to bring friends and colleagues along. And for those who cannot make it in person, the presentation will be webcast live, in high-definition, for any one in the world to see, starting at 12:15 pm ET. Feel free to forward this invitation on to any one you think might be interested--the more the merrier, in-person or on-line. For those who may have seen earlier versions of "Dawn," this new one is substantially retooled, and will be fresh to anyone who has not seen it in the last six months or so. 

To RSVP for lunch and the in person showing of “Dawn,” please contact Jessica Singleton at jsingleton@ndn.org. To watch live, just follow this link (www.ndn.org/livecast) at 12:15pm and sit back, watch and listen.   NDN is located at 729 15th, St, NW between H and New York, just a block or so from the White House and Treasury.  The presentation will take place in our event space on the 1st floor. 

For additional reading on the arguments in this presentation, click on the various links below.  

Thanks my friends and Happy New Year to you all.  

Related Reading:

Anticipating the Coming Debate Over Foreign and Security Policy, NDN.org, 12/31/09

The Key to the Fall Debate: Staying Focused on the Economy, NDN.org, 9/3/09

Meeting the Challenges of the 21st Century, Demos, 7/24/09

Obama: No Realist He, Huffington Post, 6/16/09

On Obama, Race and the End of the Southern Strategy, NDN.org, 1/4/08

The 50 Year Strategy; Beyond '08: Can Progressives Play for Keeps? by Simon Rosenberg and Peter Leyden, Mother Jones, 10/28/07

A Laptop in Every Backpack, by Simon Rosenberg and Alec Ross, NDN.org, 5/1/07

The Foreword to Crashing the Gate, 3/7/06 (a book by Markos Moulitsas and Jerome Armstrong)

The Four Freedoms

Been thinking about the concepts of liberty and freedom a bit of late.  Wanted to revisit, with you, one of the great articulations of these ideas, FDR's Four Freedoms:

In the future days, which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms.

The first is freedom of speech and expression--everywhere in the world.

The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way--everywhere in the world.

The third is freedom from want--which, translated into universal terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants--everywhere in the world.

The fourth is freedom from fear--which, translated into world terms, means a world-wide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor--anywhere in the world.

That is no vision of a distant millennium. It is a definite basis for a kind of world attainable in our own time and generation. That kind of world is the very antithesis of the so-called new order of tyranny which the dictators seek to create with the crash of a bomb.

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