the point introduction
Thus Spake Zippererstrasse Politics gets real
Photo: Warren K. Leffler
I
FOUR novembers
Inside the Bernie Bubble Too much of a bad thing
D
o you know the man in the photograph above? If you are a liberal, you either do or probably should know him. That is John B. Anderson, the Great Whitish Hope of the 1980 presidential campaign. The Illinois Republican upheld the mantel of liberal Republicanism in that epochal election, which, as we all know, resulted in Anderson receiving about 6 percent of the vote but incumbent Democratic President Jimmy Carter losing with only about 40 percent of the vote. Conservative Republican Ronald Reagan won the election with slightly more than 50 percent, and he would go on to transform the Republican party and the country. The effects of that election are still going on today. This 2016 race is not the first presidential election in United States history, nor is it the first sharpelbows, high-stakes, controversy-laden presidential election in our history. That might be news to some of the followers of Senator Bernie Sanders, who seem to have tuned into politics for the first time in their lives in late 2015. Innocence is charming, and ever since Reagan won office by running against the establishment and against government, it has proven to be an allure to candidates in both parties. We have many friends who are supporters of Senator Bernie Sanders. We have many other friends who are supporters of Hillary Rodham Clinton—as are we. We have a smaller but still nice set of friends who have supported various Republican candidates in this race so far—and our sympathies to them. The GOP candidates have been for the most part self-parodying, so we won’t go into them here. But what is troubling is the bullying, dream-fulfillment approach of some of the Sanders people, who believe the country needs a revolution led by their messianic candidate who finds himself at a loss to explain how he would even legally fulfill his campaign pledges, as he proved in his disastrous interview with the editorial board of The New York Daily News. Worse was their candidate’s petulant response to his own supporters’ insult- and threat-laden uprising at the Nevada state party convention. If they’re really up for a the point (continued on page 8)
t is never time for a new magazine, if you listen to the critics and complainers. And a political magazine is treacherous business at the best of times. Nonetheless, Zippererstrasse. We introduce ourselves to you as a new voice of an ancient tradition: liberalism. We do this at a time when both liberalism and conservatism are at crisis points in this country. Conservatives are finally finding themselves confronting the debasement of their ideals to the better-paying god of the wealth gospel. Liberals are less aware of their crisis, but it is just as lethal, because it threatens to destroy the entire liberal enterprise. From campuses to media echo chambers, people on the left are falling for the allure of demands backed by emotion and selfrighteousness, sometimes obscuring the very real problems they are trying to solve. We believe that liberalism is not a set of policy stances. It is a way of arriving at policy, by subjecting ideas to examination and criticism (self and external), by including an appreciation for tradition and faith but giving primary place of honor to reason and fact. And so, Zippererstrasse. We don’t aim to provoke, but we invariably will be provocative, especially if you’re not used to having your ideas challenged. Together, we shall see about shaking up things a bit, bringing fresh thinking to everything from housing to political structures to arts and culture. We do aim to be thoughtful, and we welcome your feedback. After all, we’re all about ideas.
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