{"blocks":[{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"Democrats and Republicans are doomed unless they focus on what really matters: making progress for all Americans. In this new book excerpt, CNN journalist Van Jones reveals what’s holding each party back."}},{"type":"header","data":{"text":"AN OPEN LETTER TO LIBERALS","level":2}},{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"Sometimes it feels as though liberals have gone through a process of divorce from our own country — and we need to reconcile when and where we can."}},{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"I grew up in middle America. I got my feelings badly hurt growing up as a nerd in a small town. I was too emotional, artistic and sensitive to fit in, and I left as soon as I could. Like a lot of people who now live in liberal strongholds, I fled to the cosmopolitan coasts, where I felt like I could belong. I joined some of the subcultures on the coasts that felt more welcoming to me. And I was able to find my place and find my voice in doing that."}},{"type":"image","data":{"file":{"url":"https://vip.nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/10/van1.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=300"},"caption":"Van JonesWireImage"}},{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"But at some point along the way, despite my best intentions, my capacity for connection with my hometown friends began to atrophy. It showed up around the Thanksgiving table back at home in Tennessee. I suddenly discovered that I could not talk with or be heard by people with whom I had grown up. I went back to neighborhoods and churches where I had grown up, and when I got going on my high horse, the room would often freeze. People would squirm uncomfortably, and when I finished my philosophical rant five to 10 minutes later, some relative would gently say, “Well now, that was a mouthful. Boy, can you pass the ketchup?” And the conversation would move on."}},{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"A good chunk of liberals and progressives are addicted to the bickering and infighting, rather than to solving real problems."}},{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"Perhaps the biggest immediate threat to progressives is not President Trump at all but the way progressives treat one another. A dysfunctional pattern has emerged in which progressives are launching mad-dog attacks against one another, especially through Internet diatribes. This dynamic in fact may prevent the type of coalition necessary to defend and extend democracy."}},{"type":"quote","data":{"text":"

Liberals and progressives are addicted to the bickering and infighting, rather than to solving real problems.

","alignment":"left"}},{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"Examples abound on social media. On March 10, 2017, when a British Channel 4 interviewer asked Nigerian novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie to comment on whether a trans woman was “any less of a real woman,” Adichie’s response, that “trans women are trans women” and that “I don’t think it’s a good thing to talk about women’s issues being exactly the same as the issues of trans women,” elicited a firestorm of criticism and condemnation on social media. Adichie was accused of being a trans-misogynist and was chastised for speaking on issues she had no business addressing, since she is not a trans woman. One big problem here is the way in which a single statement in an interview transformed Adichie overnight from ally to enemy. The debate consumed the energy of the progressive community for over a week."}},{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"I don’t mean to discourage critical thinking or dissent. Certainly, those of us who do not share the trans experience have much to learn from that community, and Adichie (and myself) may need correcting in this regard. However, the harsh condemnation following her comments did not speak to Adichie’s LGBTQ advocacy work, not by a long shot. In 2014, Adichie, along with other Nigerian writers, risked her life by taking a public stand in Nigeria against the law that criminalized gay and lesbian love, making it punishable by death. She has taken a strong public stand for trans rights and has defined issues facing trans women as feminist issues. She is under constant fire in Nigeria and the USfor her tremendous feminist advocacy. To call her a “misogynist” is shortsighted."}},{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"Indeed, many international observers of our progressive infighting have made this exact point. Activists from nations where certain liberties cannot be so taken for granted can see the futility of our current trajectory. The South African website Africa Is a Country and the Man Booker Prize–winning Jamaican writer Marlon James have both noted the self-defeating nature of our progressive “call-out culture.” In May 2017, James observed on Facebook that “conservatives may be a lot of things, but it would be a cold day in hell before ‘kill friends first, kill enemies later,’ becomes their code of conduct. Progressives love to think they are at war with conservatives, but right-wingers laugh at such nonsense, because they already know you don’t need to bring a gun to your enemy’s suicide. I look at you all, and all I see is a two-term Orange President.”"}},{"type":"image","data":{"file":{"url":"https://vip.nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/10/sanders.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=662"},"caption":"Proving who’s most progressive stymies Dem leaders Rep. Nancy Pelosi, Sen. Bernie Sanders and Sen. Chuck Schumer.REUTERS"}},{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"We’ve all been in situations where people have been shorter with each other, sharper with each other, meaner to each other, than we should have been. The results have been less unity, weaker organizations, more brittle ties, collapsed coalitions. That has to change."}},{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"The hard left has a critical role to play. They work to hold elected progressives accountable to our highest ideals. They make a point to give voice to the needs of our most vulnerable community members. Without people putting their bodies and voices on the line, especially young people, the Democratic Party might never have addressed the inhumanity of our prison system, the plight of the Dreamers, violent attacks on the trans community or police killings of black children, women and men. But all criticism should be aimed at strengthening our solidarity, not shattering it. I do want to encourage principled dissent and constructive disagreement. Our discussions and debate must be aimed at improving our ability to work together to solve the most pressing human problems of our time: poverty, addiction, an obsolete workforce, environmental crises and threats to democracy."}},{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"I often say that most progressives don’t have to ask the question: “How do we learn to talk to America?” We have to ask the questions: “When did we make the choice to forget how to talk to America? Why did we make that choice? And how can we heal enough so that those old traumas no longer rule us?”"}},{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"At some point we have to accept responsibility for this country and everything in it. The country is waiting for a pro-democracy movement that can inspire it and not just critique it."}},{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"Whatever #resistance movement is emerging should be organizing not just to protest but to govern, too. We have a broken country, a hurt country, a country that needs solutions — not just critiques and complaints. Our country needs strong people who are willing to take responsibility and honestly try to fix things. Such a movement will be welcomed, beloved, accepted, celebrated and lauded at Thanksgiving tables in blue states and red states.
\n Let’s build one."}},{"type":"header","data":{"text":"AN OPEN LETTER TO CONSERVATIVES","level":2}},{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"There is a difference between a conservative party and an anti-liberal party. In recent years, the Republican Party has tried to bring many different constituencies together — Southern evangelicals, poor whites ignored by Democrats, rich bankers concerned with financial regulation and many more. A good way of uniting otherwise disparate tribes is to pit them against someone — in this case, liberals. This has resulted in a party that is anti-liberal rather than pro-conservative. Starting in the ’90s, Republicans built an army to win the culture wars. Now, having sacked Rome, they’re facing tough problems. It is challenging to turn these incongruous and marauding troops into a policy-focused governing alliance capable of and interested in getting things done."}},{"type":"quote","data":{"text":"

Starting in the ’90s, Republicans built an army to win the culture wars.

","alignment":"left"}},{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"This coalition is tenuously held together by a commitment against the liberal agenda and against liberals themselves. This means that blocking action by liberals, rather than working toward solutions, becomes the primary commitment. Think of Mitch McConnell’s directive to his colleagues that their main goal should be to make Obama a one-term president. His legislative priorities were negative, not positive. Although he failed to achieve that goal, McConnell forged and led the most effective opposition party of the modern era. He successfully blocked action on climate change, any sort of infrastructure jobs package, middle-class tax cuts and countless judges and executive-branch employees. He even shrugged off constitutional guidance and hundreds of years of precedent and declared the sitting president would not be allowed to fulfill his constitutional responsibility to appoint a justice to the Supreme Court. Or consider recent congressional threats to shut down the government altogether, putting vital services and millions of jobs on the line, all in an effort to block Democratic legislation. These efforts were led by members of the congressional Freedom Caucus — associated with the Tea Party movement — who were willing to hold their party and the rest of the country hostage in order to stymie legislation."}},{"type":"image","data":{"file":{"url":"https://vip.nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/10/repubs.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=662"},"caption":"House Majority Leader Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell must focus on improving lives rather than blocking legislation.AP"}},{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"I have heard Republican friends and politicians bemoan this approach. I know that many of you are committed to the hard work of governing, and I want you to ask yourself: What do you owe to the people who are counting on you for a decent education, for access to jobs, for stable housing and a vibrant community? You have poor people in your party in red states and red counties. But you haven’t done much for them. You accuse the Democrats of letting down our poor urban voters. But the modern conservative movement is structured to ignore its poor rural and suburban base in the same way."}},{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"Sooner or later, your constituents will realize that you are not building anything, that you are not promoting their interests. In the short term, potshots at liberals and refusals to work on bipartisan legislation can curry favor with Republican activists and their media boosters. But at the end of the day, ordinary conservatives are being left behind."}},{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"Make a push to move your party from being anti-liberal to pro-conservative. There are big problems that could benefit from conservative policy ideas: criminal-justice reform, the opioid epidemic, keeping our air and planet free from harmful pollutants, creating new jobs and training opportunities for those left behind in the digital economy. These problems impact liberal and conservative citizens alike."}},{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":" $\"\"$ Turning the Republican Party away from blocking liberals and toward solving real problems is smart politics. You have the opportunity to show your base that you can deliver on what you promise and to show potential new voters what you really stand for. There are so many examples of bipartisan success to draw on. Think of the extraordinary work done by conservative Sen. Orrin Hatch and the late “liberal lion” Sen. Ted Kennedy, who could not have disagreed more. As Hatch said when Kennedy died: “If the two of us — positioned as we were on opposite sides of the political spectrum — could find common ground, we had little trouble enlisting bipartisan support to pass critical legislation that benefited millions of Americans.”"}},{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"Over the years, their legislative achievements were staggering. Together, they provided health insurance to children of the working poor and tax credits to spur treatment of rare diseases. They improved the availability of care for low-income and uninsured victims of AIDS. They passed the Americans with Disabilities Act. The list goes on and on."}},{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"Working together is not easy, but it is what our country desperately needs. In the end, the promise of America is liberty and justice for all. My fellow liberals are so focused on justice, we too easily forget about liberty. Conservatives can be so committed to liberty that you become blind to cases where injustice curtails freedom. We need each other."}},{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"If we focus only on winning elections, we end up demonizing the other side. If we focus on solving problems, we’re forced to build bridges. To build bridges, we must listen to each other. When we listen to each other, both sides change and grow. We find ways to disagree without disrespecting each other. As we better articulate our visions and solutions, we find points of tension — but also points of cohesion. This is what America needs, and it will take contributions from all of us to get to a better place."}},{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"From the book “Beyond the Messy Truth: How We Came Apart/How We Come Together” by Van Jones. Copyright ©2017 by Van Jones. Published by Ballantine Books, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. All Rights Reserved."}}]}

Van Jones

NypVanJones@RoundtableIO

Both the Dems and GOP have shot themselves in the foot