Shifting Coalitions?

We have all read about these matters before but here is a an interesting take on it from Mark at Publius Endures.

I'm not so sure I'm convinced about its long term viability. While it all may be fine and good on foreign policy, civil liberties and social issues, the economic side is still a huge 800lb gorilla in the room.

Even if Mark is right in expecting the Pro-Hillary (and Pro-Edwards) populist:

voters to slowly move towards the Republican Party, with its emphasis on American exceptionalism and power, so-called "traditional values," and increasing nativism.

...that would in my opinion do nothing to prevent the Dems from trying to outflank them on that front.

Sure, he's right when he says:

Principled Dems who long ago accepted the death of socialism (ie, most Dems under the age of 40) should not resist this changing coalition, but should instead embrace it, as it allows them to actually push forward proposals consistent with their political beliefs.

But that's the trick, isn't it? We who tried this over at DK no how well that went over. Granted DK is the lunatic fringe and hardly emblematic of most of the Left, for better or worse, but getting liberals with a penchant for government control of everything as means to the promise land to stop think in this conceptualization seems too much of an obstacle IMO.

Personally, I see both parties becoming less libertarian overall...even though this morphing will favor Dems somewhat in that this would mean the GOP becoming even less economically libertarian than they already are.

My uncle was just in and he said he would have voted for Hillary but now he's supporting McCain because of Foreign Policy experience. hmmm.

Strange Bedfellows is an example of a Progressive-Libertarian Alliance. Barr's excellent interview with Jane Hamsher of Firedoglake at least convinced many Progressives that Barr at least belongs in the Presidential debates, even though very few of them have any intention of voting for Barr.

To be frank, Barr is not the guy to trigger a libertarian-progressive realignment. Libertarians are not going to make inroads with Progressives making an essentially conservative argument that the Political Class is an inefficient Rube Goldberg device. The Left Libertarian argument against the State is that the Political Class is quite efficient in administrating the interests of the Corporatist State. Libertarian Class Theory is libertarian counter-argument to refute the likes of Nader who rails against "corporatist State" while promulgating the delusion that an expanded, "reformed political class" is the remedy. Capitalism + Political Class=Corporatism, no matter how you slice it, no matter the promises of good intentions.

Libertarians should certainly point out to the Progressive Netroots that the Dem Establishment is seeking to federalize and prosecute copyright violations using the exact same tactics as employed in the Drug war. The Progressive Netroots may not be libertarian in ends but it's libertarian in means. If H.R. 4279 is enacted into law, the government will be able basically to use IP violations as a pretext to regulate, raid, or possibly shutdown any "internet community."

In terms of the "Obama shift to the center" meme, it's only reflecting the consensus of his economic and foreign policy teams. Obama was never a "progressive" economically, so there isn't any real shift there. Foreign Policy wise, there has been a substantial shift to the right, but when i found out who comprised his foreign policy team these days, such a shift shouldn't come as any surprise...

I think it's worth noting that socialism, from the big picture view of the economy as a centralized economy, is clearly a thing of the past. Even Hayek in the 1960s argued that the socialism he was most afraid of was no longer a legitimate political threat to Western Europe and the United States. I also think that redistribution for the sake of redistribution--with an emphasis on anger over inequality--is a thing of the past and dead politically. What remains is a leftist desire for a regulatory state for the protection of the consumer and for the protection of the environment, and a welfare state to provide a level of income/basic needs that respects human dignity. This is far easier to manage, from a libertarian perspective, than outright nationalization of industries and class-war type redistribution of income.