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Bill Moyers & Company S1E12: The Case for Old-School Faith & Politics [New]

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Two popular political writers share how American liberalism and Christianity have gone off the rails — and the implications for American democracy:

1. Eric Alterman on Liberalism’s Past, Present and Future: Writer Eric Alterman argues that liberals have overpromised, underperformed, and need to regain their “fighting spirit” (24:53).

3. Bill Moyers Essay: Keep Political Ads Off Public TV: Bill decries a recent court decision to allow political and issue advertising on public TV and radio channels (3:26).

Episode description:

The Case for Old-School Faith & Politics

April 20, 2012

Two movements once at the vital center of our society, liberal politics and American Christianity have gone astray. In separate conversations on this weekend’s Moyers & Company, Eric Alterman and Ross Douthat discuss the implications of these wayward courses on American democracy.

First, Eric Alterman describes the grand aspirations, ambitions, and historical ironies that prompted him to write his new book The Cause: The Fight for American Liberalism from Franklin Roosevelt to Barack Obama. He calls on liberals to regain “the fighting spirit” that characterized Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal and to put it in service of new liberal policies for the 21st century. Liberals, he tells Moyers, have overpromised and underperformed, and it’s time once again to make government credible.

Ross Douthat, the conservative op-ed columnist for The New York Times and author of Bad Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics, is just as candid about how traditional and institutional Christianity has declined from a vigorous, mainstream, and bipartisan force to a polarizing, heretical combatant in the culture war. He argues that a revival of true and basic Christian principles can lead to American renewal.

Also, can you imagine Super Grover from Sesame Street followed by a super PAC ad from K Street? Neither can Bill Moyers. In an essay at the top of the show, Moyers talks about the recent U.S. Circuit Court decision to allow political and issue advertising on public TV and radio channels. “Just say no,” Moyers urges station managers across the country — but they need your help.

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 Ross Douthat? Yikes…

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Friday, 20 Apr, 2012 at 5:00 pm

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  1. The Big Hurt [New]

    Saturday, 21 Apr, 2012 at 12:13 pm

    I’m not very good on the history of American liberalism so I’ll just ask you. does this quote from alterman contain any truth?

    The great division in postwar American liberalism is between Roosevelt and Truman and Kennedy’s notion that– I’m not so sure about Kennedy, but certainly Roosevelt and Truman, that this was a majoritarian movement to help everyone, lift all boats. And that by doing so, you would help the people who needed help the most.

    And then beginning with the Great Society, it became much more about trying to help particular victims of past discrimination and past wrongs and so forth. And so people no longer saw themselves in this project. And that’s when I think liberalism was seen to go too far. Now philosophically, you can say it was the right thing to do, because these are the people who needed help. But it’s a political loser.

    http://billmoyers.com/wp-content/themes/billmoyers/transcript-print.php?post=6678

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    • David [New]

      Saturday, 21 Apr, 2012 at 4:33 pm

      I don’t think so. First, the rising tide thing doesn’t really help the most disenfranchised. Certainly, at best it affects the economic realm. But it didn’t, for example, help prevent racial violence, or political exclusion.

      Second, the March on Washington was quite explicitly about extending the New Deal to African Americans. It was not about special rights (neither was saying African Americans should have the right to vote or use public accommodations.) The Great Society was a (somewhat flawed) attempt to do just that.

      Third, liberalism was seen to go too far when it dared suggest that the North might need to address racial exclusion.

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