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Last year, dueling panels at Netroots Nation, the annual gathering of progressive activists, mulled the role of the federal courts in the progressive mission. One panel argued that the liberal fixation on protecting the courts contributed to a general apathy in off-cycle elections if federal judges can protect everything, whats the point of any other election? The other issued an urgent call to remember that the fate of the Supreme Court hangs in the balance and Justice Kennedy is playing coy with the fate of civil rights in America.

One year later, after an emotionally deflating electoral collapse, Nan Aron of the Alliance for Justice began another edition of her annual courts panel at the conference. The Trump era has brought the outline of a dialectical synthesis to these competing visions of the role of the judiciary. A realization that maybe theyve fundamentally had this judiciary thing wrong all along.

The panel, featuring Professor Kimberl Crenshaw of Columbia, UCLA, and the African American Policy Forum, Anisha Singh of the Why Courts Matter project at the Center for American Progress, and Sean Carlson from Revolution Messaging didnt say as much, of course, but the deeper they got into the discussion with Aron, two big themes stood out that challenged the way left-leaning people have talked about courts for years and, in the process, bridged the gap of those competing visions from last year.

First, the judiciary cannot be a progressive issue in and of itself all other progressive issues must be framed through the courts. Rather than say courts are important, activists need to seize on issues that are already stirring people, and then connect those issues to the courts. Singh specifically pointed to the health care fight as proof that theres an enthusiasm to fight for issues that people feel impact them directly. The problem is harnessing that same passion when the threat to health care (or any other issue of importance) is indirect, like in a judicial confirmation fight. Carlson agreed, explaining that progressives have a tremendous problem when they cannot make a connection between the courts and the issues the public cares about.

This bridges the gap that divided the panels last year, upholding the idea that the fight to control the judiciary holds critical importance without lionizing it as a vanguard against all threats. Instead its one building block in a larger struggle.

Second, Professor Crenshaw pointed out the elephant in the room: the Federalist Society set out years ago to create a platoon of ideologues to populate the judiciary that would be capable of passing any neutral test of qualifications. As Democrats strive to appear bi-partisan, these qualifications are used as a cudgel to peel off Democrats to support nominations because, after all, theyre qualified. She described the Clarence Thomas nomination and the reluctance of civil rights organizations before the Anita Hill testimony, of course to oppose Thomas out of the gate. That failure to get ahead of the narrative allowed right-wing activists to sell Thomas before his actual vetting. The fact that Democrats are starting to recognize that rsums cannot salvage people deeply unsuited for the bench is a testament to nominees like Judge John Bush of the Sixth Circuit and Damien Schiff and if you havent watched their hearings, you really should treat yourself.

This failure to embrace a coherent progressive judicial ideology was indirectly highlighted when Aron reminded the audience that Trump campaigned on a list of judges hed consider putting on the Supreme Court. But the real point is that this list existed before Trumps candidacy. The Heritage Foundation had its cast list of ideological purity drawn up already. Progressives have no companion list that the movement can fervently rally around.

Professor Crenshaw explained this Democratic discomfort with ideology carries over to their nominations. Republican nominees have cult-like adherence to their intellectually facile doctrines of textualism and (situational) originalism, while there is no such thing as a coherent left-leaning judicial ideology.

Crenshaw argued that until the left gains comfort with the courts as an ideological question until they create a new language for judicial expertise that cant be hacked by just throwing a Harvard diploma on it the left is playing gentlemans tennis while [conservatives are] dropping bombs.

Aron left the crowd with the prediction that a Kennedy vacancy would spark the biggest mobilization of progressives in the judicial arena. This year, it seems that if that retirement were to happen, progressives know how to harness that mobilization.

Earlier: The Liberal Argument Against The Supreme Court

Joe Patriceis an editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free toemail any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him onTwitterif youre interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news.

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In Wake Of Trump, Liberals Start To Realize They've Had The Judiciary All Wrong - Above the Law

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region A number of liberal politicians in Sweden are urging their government to welcome Kurdistan Regions decision to hold an independence referendum in September, citing the failed Iraqi government, Kurdistans protection of minority groups, and the right to self-determination under international law.

We liberals see that Iraq has become a so-called failed state and we think it would be better for all of its entities if Iraq and Kurdistan went separate ways such as Czechoslovakia in 1992 were divided into both the Czech Republic and Slovakia, reads the collaborative statement co-signed by eight Swedish politicians.

The opinion article was first published in Svenska Dagbladet, a daily newspaper. The politicians believe a peaceful separation from Iraq is a practical one.

If the people of Iraq cannot coexist within one and the same national boundary, they should, for democratic reasons, be able to proclaim independence and then live as good neighbors, it read.

They argued The central government has repeatedly shown inability to provide protection and care for the whole country. The new Iraq has been shown to pursue the same pan-Arabic policy towards Kurdistan that has always and undeniably failed.

The politicians highlight the defense of the Kurdistan Region against ISIS militants by a multicultural Peshmerga, pointing out the protection of minority groups in Nineveh province including Assyrians, Syriacs and Chaldeans, who also should be given the right to self-government.

They say they are optimistic about the future of various groups in Kurdistan, which has hosted more than 1.5 million displaced Iraqis since 2014.

We look forward to a Kurdistan where the various ethnic and religious groups continue to live in unity and with fundamental rights just as they do today in the autonomous region, read the article.

The Swedes believe that the right to self-determination is central.

We all shall be entitled to decide on our own future, they added. There are principles under international law and we support the Kurds' right to self-determination and the process that ensures this.

Liberal support in Sweden for Kurdistan is deeply rooted, the politicians noted, citing expressed support and work by their party since 2010.

Liberals have a long tradition of solidarity with the people of Kurdistan, and we therefore welcome the outcome of the referendum and look forward to the fact that the world is gaining a new state and the Middle East another democratic state, they concluded.

The op-ed was co-signed by the Swedish Liberals Birgitta Ohlsson (MP, Foreign Policy Spokesman); Cecilia Wikstrm (European MP); Fredrik Malm (MP, Migration Policy Spokesman); Maria Leissner (Ambassador and former Party Chairperson); Olle Schmidt (Substitute city council in Malm, former MEP and vice president of ALDE); Joar Forssell (Federal Chairman of the Liberal Youth League, Sukr Demir (2nd Vice Chairman of the International Committee of Solna); Sirwan Dabagh (Preparation for Democracy, Equality & Human Rights, Malm).

Translations by Biza Barzo

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Swedish Liberals: Let Iraq and Kurdistan go their separate ways - Rudaw

Wall Street Journal (subscription)

The Liberal Crackup Wall Street Journal (subscription) Donald Trump's surprise victory in last year's presidential election has finally energized my fellow liberals, who are networking, marching and showing up at town-hall meetings across the country. There is excited talk about winning back the White ... and more »

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The Liberal Crackup - Wall Street Journal (subscription)

Conservatives could rebrand as liberals, wrote Bill Kristol on Saturday, delighting the subset of the Internet that has long raged about neocon infiltrators and fake conservatives. But Kristol, editor at-large of The Weekly Standard and a one-time professor of political philosophy, meant something different. Seriously, he continued. Were for liberal democracy, liberal world order, liberal economy, [and] liberal education.

Is Kristol right? Some say yes, conservatives have been classical liberals all along. Truth in advertising was how Adrian Vermeule, the conservative Harvard law professor, characterized the American conservatives-as-liberals rebranding. An astute British observer had a knowing laugh: Is there anything funnier than watching right-wingers gradually realise theyre just liberals in real time?

This view, that American conservatism crossed the River Styx into philosophical liberalism with its embrace of the free market, is too clever by half. Really: Are we so devoted to Gladstone that we have learned nothing from Disraeli? So preoccupied with the Wealth of Nations that we have forsaken the Bible? All Locke, Smith, and Friedman, without Fortescue, Burke, and Kirk?

I dont think so. Any fair appraisal of the American conservative movement would not, like Scooby-Doos Mystery Team unmasking the ghost only to find a man underneath, find liberalism all the way down.

But does that mean conservatism is illiberal? In last Fridays Wall Street Journal, Israeli philosopher Yoram Hazony argues that theres no such thing as an Illiberal. This is true as far it goes. Describing populists, nationalists, and Nazis alike, illiberalism too often functions as a lazy catch-all for critics. This is similar to how Richard Dawkins and the New Atheists beat up on religion in the abstract, conflating dissimilar belief systems to gain an argumentative advantage. However, illiberalism is also a useful grouping of the alternatives to liberalism, our ancien regime. Conservatism, a certain type of traditionalist would hold, is just one of these alternatives, entirely distinct from liberalism.

Yet this too seems unlikely and unfair. Just refer back to Kristols list: Conservatives can comfortably embrace liberal democracy, liberal world order, liberal education, and arguably, a liberal economy. I would add liberal free speech, religious liberty, and the values of the American Founding. Id also note that Edmund Burke and Adam Smith were mutual admirers, viewing each other as allies not enemies.

What emerges is a complicated picture of conservatives as not wholly liberal yet not wholly illiberal either. Conservatives, it seems to me, are more than liberals; or, put it this way: We are liberals secondarily. By this I mean that we have commitments that precede our liberalism, and these commitments are themselves pre-liberal. Their authority is ancestral, not chosen. They are the first, the permanent things, and contra Locke, conservatives find their authority legitimate.

Conservatism, for example, may include liberal capitalism, but with a prior commitment to the dignity of the human person, the redeeming covenant of marriage, and the goods of family, faith, and community. Those are the foundations that we attempt to conserve, before we employ liberalism. It allows conservatives to escape from a self-undermining, pure libertarianism and pursue economics as if people mattered, as E. F. Schumacher put it.

Behind every conservative embrace of liberalism, there is a prior and pre-liberal commitment. We are for liberal free speech, but with a prior commitment to decency. We support liberal democracy, but with a prior commitment to justice, not just conflict de-escalation. We praise liberal education, but to save it from undermining itself with skepticism, we need a prior commitment to Truth.

Finally, conservatives defend liberal world order, but with a prior commitment to the nation, America. This is why U.S. conservatives (including Bill Kristol) overwhelmingly supported Brexit while Britains Liberal Democrats were its strongest opponents. And for much the same reason, Leo Strauss presciently identified Zionism as a conservative movement in 1956. As Strauss reminded the editors of National Review,

The moral spine of the Jews was in danger of being broken by the so-called emancipation which in many cases had alienated them from their heritage....Political Zionism was the attempt to restore that inner freedom, that simple dignity, of which only people who remember their heritage and are loyal to their fate, are capable....It helped to stem the tide of progressive levelling of venerable ancestral differences; it fulfilled a conservative function.

A full commitment to a liberal world order leads liberals to sacrifice national identity and sovereignty to international organizations such as the EU and U.N. It induces Jews and Christians to accept emancipation from religion and nationality in the hopes of joining Hillary Clintons global village or becoming Karl Marxs species-beings. This is why Prime Minister Trudeau insists that Canada has no core identity and President Macron rejects any single French culture. It is why President Obama, in so many words, dismissed American exceptionalism.

But American conservatives walk a different path. We understand that such a liberal order would be brittle; standing for nothing, it is left with no tool but force to secure obedience. But who would fight and die for the European Union? This sort of unrestrained liberalism risks losing the pre-liberal loyalties upon which our liberty and security truly rely.

Irving Kristol had a similar worry about liberalism in economics, the unrestrained free society of Friedman and Hayek. It is interesting to note what Hayek is doing, wrote the elder Kristol in 1970. He is opposing a free society to a just society because he says, while we know what freedom is, we have no generally accepted knowledge of what justice is. Kristol thought Hayeks characteristically liberal move was dangerous. Can men live in a free society if they have no reason to believe it is also a just society? he asked, I do not think so.

In order to recover that prior commitment to justice, which was so necessary to sustaining capitalism and liberty, Kristol recommended the long trek back to pre-modern political philosophy....Perhaps there we shall discover some of those elements that are most desperately needed by [our] spiritually impoverished civilization.

Accordingly, Irving Kristol would write in 1993 that religion was the most important pillar of modern conservatism. Vying for second and third were nationalism and economic growth. Liberalism surely requires all three elements to survive, but the first two are pre-liberal. Liberalism risks abandoning them in its fixation on abstract theorizing about universal, natural man, disconnected from faith, family, community, or nation.

There is certainly a tension, and more than one, in this conservative relationship to liberalism. We need liberalism to bring our nation freedom, wealth, power, and peace. But that same liberalism weakens the pre-liberal commitments that form its very foundation. Liberalism, then, risks undermining itself and therefore must be managed or rationed. As a parent might say, liberalism is good in moderation.

But even still, American conservatism is destined to be odd. If we are to be patriots, loyal to our founding ideals, then liberalism must be part of what we strive to conserve. This feature of American conservatism has led some thinkers, most notably Notre Dames Patrick Deneen, to urge a reevaluation and even a rejection of the American Founding. But such a rejection would threaten to render conservatism always confusing in a country founded by a revolution incoherent. Our venerable American difference, so obvious to observers such as Edmund Burke and Alexis de Tocqueville, is our passionate commitment to liberty. As American conservatives, defending liberalism is part of what it means to stand athwart History.

It would be un-conservative for Americans to abandon liberalism, just as it would be un-conservative to give in too fully to the liberal temptation. Calling ourselves liberals, as Bill Kristol suggested, would obscure what many of us really believe to be foundational. We dont need a Liberal Party or an Illiberal Party either, for that matter. Both are hasty attempts to rebrand the movement in response to the election of President Trump. Instead, let us focus our conservatism. It should cherish the spirit of liberty while defending the goods that come before and sustain it.

READ MORE: Is the GOP a Republican Party or a Conservative One? Rise of the Young Traditionalists Did William F. Buckleys Conservative Project End in Failure?

Elliot Kaufman is an editorial intern at National Review.

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American Conservatism & Liberalism: Is a Rebranding In Order ... - National Review

The high-profile stars of the Democratic Party's populist wing have steered the agenda their way on Capitol Hill this year, but the fight over the party's direction is far from settled.

As the party faces great expectations of big gains in the 2018 midterms, Democratic centrists are increasingly worried that the disproportionate share of attention shown to Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and the agenda pushed by his anti-establishment allies will do more harm than good.

That direction, the thinking goes, will energize liberals in places that Democrats are already winning by big margins. But it might drive away the voters needed to win inland races that will shape the House majority and determine which governors and state legislators are in charge of redrawing federal and state legislative districts early next decade.

Enter a group called New Democracy, a combination think tank and super PAC trying to reimagine the party's brand in regions where Democrats have suffered deep losses.

Leaders of the group want to focus on rebuilding in states where, during the Obama presidency, Democrats lost nearly 1,000 legislative seats and more than a dozen governor's mansions.

"Our most important work will be done outside of Washington," Will Marshall, founder of New Democracy, said in an interview.

The effort is publicly being labeled as sand"supplemental" to the emerging agenda being crafted on Capitol Hill, including the highly populist "Better Deal" proposal touted by party leaders in the House and Senate last month. But the new group's leaders do not see that agenda, including a push for lower prescription-drug prices, as particularly helpful to Democrats in exurban districts or key Midwestern states where President Trump won last year.

"That is an accurate reflection of many Democrats who represent deep blue districts. But it has limited appeal beyond the coasts," Marshall said.

To be sure, Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., have been trying to offer the sort of economic agenda items that can appeal to voters in Iowa as well as California, targeted at working class voters who abandoned Democrats for Trump.

But some centrists fear this populist message will get tuned out by heartland voters if it is accompanied by the party's increasing embrace of staunch liberal positions on cultural matters, from abortion rights to transgender issues.

Marshall helped launch similar efforts as Democrats lost three straight presidential elections in the 1980s, under the auspices of the Democratic Leadership Council and its offshoot, the Progressive Policy Institute.

Back then, operating under the New Democrat banner, the centrists helped create the ideas behind the 1992 presidential campaign of Bill Clinton, who became the first two-term Democrat in the White House since FDR.

New Democracy is taking shape under the failure of another Clinton - Hillary - whose loss to Trump helped solidify the already growing divide between Democrats and voters beyond large urban centers. Several dozen Democrats have signed on with New Democracy, including Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, former Iowa governor Tom Vilsack, Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto and Rep. Stephanie Murphy, Fla., a freshman rising star.

The two Democratic wings could be headed for a fierce clash over what the party needs to stand for in the wake of the stunning 2016 defeat. Sanders, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and other liberals have been making gains in getting congressional Democrats to support ideas such as a $15-an-hour minimum wage, some form of free college and demanding a full-frontal assault on big banks and big corporations.

So far, however, the college plans pushed by Sanders have not been in the "Better Deal." Senior Democratic advisers say that their effort has been to embrace economic populism without focusing on less politically popular liberal ideas.

The early portions of the "Better Deal" agenda tilt in the populist direction, with calls for stronger antitrust regulations and its tough talk on trade deals. Their belief is that white, working-class voters - millions of whom voted for Barack Obama but then switched to Trump - felt left behind in an economy with fewer manufacturing plants and those jobs went offshore or disappeared through automation.

Marshall and other Democrats fear that the populist tone is built around a negative message of casting blame and lacks the optimistic tones around which Bill Clinton and Barack Obama built their successful presidential bids.

Combine that negative tone with what critics say is a cultural elitism among urban liberals on social issues, and the centrist wing feels that voters in the heartland simply do not embrace the Democratic message anymore.

"The party's gotten a little too comfortable with its urban and coastal strongholds," Marshall said.

New Democracy's mission statement is even more blunt, warning that both parties have engaged in "a civically corrosive form of identity politics" and Democrats should "avoid vilifying people whose social views aren't as 'progressive' as we think they should be."

"For many working class and rural voters, the party's message seems freighted with elite condescension for traditional values (especially faith) and lifestyles," the group says.

The first big public event for New Democracy will come at an October summit hosted by Vilsack, who grew increasingly disenchanted last year with what he felt was the Clinton campaign's unwillingness to court rural voters.

In the 2008 elections, Obama won the Hawkeye State by nearly 10 percentage points, giving Iowa Democrats a 32-to-18 edge in the state Senate and a 56-to-44 edge in the state House. The governor, Chet Culver, was a Democrat. Four of the state's seven members of Congress were Democrats.

In 2016 Trump won Iowa by nearly 10 percentage points, Republicans now hold a comfortable nine-seat majority in the state Senate and a 19-seat majority in the state House. Trump appointed the state's popular Republican governor, Terry Brandstad, to be ambassador to China.

Iowa now sends just one Democrat to Congress.

That kind of shift happened across many states far away from the Atlantic and Pacific coasts over the past eight years.

It remains to be seen how much efforts like New Democracy really will supplement the party's efforts to reach new voters - and how much of this turns into a deep fight with the liberal wing.

New Democracy is reserving the right to wade into primaries to support moderate candidates, which could foreshadow the type of expensive primary battles Republicans have had the past eight years.

"Obama's success has masked the narrowing of the party's appeal," Marshall said, fearing that Democrats are not reaching beyond liberal elites. "Dogma seems to be in the driver's seat."

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Centrist Democrats pushing back against Bernie Sanders, liberal wing - Chicago Tribune