Freedom, Work, & Wealth: A New Liberal Paradigm

As a longtime political thinker, activist, and organizer, J. Scott has put a decade of ideas to paper and created a single blueprint for a progressive resurgence that is both forward-looking and true to classic liberal ideas. As a queer man, spouse of an immigrant of contested status, father of multiethnic children, member of a multiracial family and community, and proud lifelong Democrat, J. Scott brings a personally-inspired, historically-informed, non-professional layperson's common-sense guidance to building an enduring FDR-style progressive majority that wins in all fifty states and governs for decades, making middle-class prosperity, stability, and healthy freedom of choice available to all again.

To begin, the Democratic Party needs to shed the divisive, narrow rhetoric of identity-based politics that alienates voters of all backgrounds and ditch the moderate neoliberal economic consensus that has benefited billionaires, pulled the floor out from the middle-class, and failed ordinary workers.

In their place, liberals must embrace the vision and language of old-school universalist progressive ideals, alongside a policy agenda of maximum social freedom, a grand immigration compromise that is both fair and secure, and a muscular “prairie populist” economic progressivism modeled on the pro-growth but pro-stability policies of the New Deal, 1950s, and 1960s.

This economic agenda will recreate the high productivity growth, broad job stability, living wages, affordable education and housing, widespread public safety, attainable upward mobility, above all, the broadly shared prosperity of the “American Golden Age” that spanned the mid-20th century, when families lived secure and dignified lives—but extended now to all Americans, regardless of identity, protecting the marginalized and vulnerable, from gender nonconformists to hardworking immigrants to committed evangelical Christians to military veteran patriots to ordinary families of every belief and stripe: in short, all of us who want to live our own truth.

The way we speak about and envision this agenda—universal, optimistic, patriotic, fair, dynamic—is critical to bringing it about. With an old-school FDR-style progressivism, wedded to truly universal social freedoms and choices, we can win not just in blue cities but in red rural areas, exurbs, suburbs, everywhere.

Voters are fed up with the status quo. It’s time for liberals to stop thinking small. It’s time to rebuild a truly dominant, enduring, nationwide, FDR-style Democratic majority that lasts for decades, based on a unifying liberal vision that appeals to hardworking Americans of all colors, genders, faiths, orientations, education levels, and ages who want a fair society of hard work and shared wealth that makes a stable, dignified, prosperous life attainable for everyone.

Book nearly complete and hopefully forthcoming soon!