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Liberals will never win the name-calling game with the reactionary movement. They're just better at it, good at hate-mongering and milking anger and spewing venom. But what reactionaries have never been good about is governing. This is borne out time and again. That is their fatal weakness. That is also why they attack government as bad -- because to them, good government is a huge threat, undermines their whole reason for existence. What's more, they aren't about good governance, so much as seizure of power. Reactionaries keep to this standard operating procedure, wherever they crop up.
But what liberals are about is good government -- and that means government that gets the job done, does what it's supposed to do, avoids corruption, takes care of its citizenry, is responsible and supportive, works for the people, and not against them. The liberal conception of good government is the not-so-secret weapon liberals have against reactionaries, which is why the Right in America has worked so hard to inflict a tyranny of diminished expectations on the majority of Americans, souring the very idea of "good government" so people see government as part of the problem, not part of the solution (and reactionaries work the levers of power to make bad government even worse, confirming their own propaganda).
So, rather than just putting "Liberal" on lapels and cufflinks, actual liberals need to bring back the conception of good government, that government can be good, that government can help Americans -- and they need to push hard for legislation that makes this so. Not purely symbolic identity political posturing, but nuts-and-bolts improvements for Americans. This will rebuild a constituency for liberalism again in this country.
In so doing, in demonstrating to Americans that government can be good again, in improving America, liberalism will then move past the empty sloganeering of reactionary-dominated politics toward a Good Society, a revitalized America, a tolerant, peaceful, diplomatic, prosperous, hopeful, and diverse America ready to tackle the problems of the 21st century with grace, dignity, and honor. Then "liberal" will resume its proper place in American society.
