Joel Rogers.

• Author: Nichols, John
• Position: A founder of the New Party - Crashing the Parties - Cover Story - Interview

`The relationship between progressives and the Democratic Party is an abusive one--they take our votes and go south. The way to end abuse in a relationship is to leave it.'

Joel Rogers worries less about 1996 than about 2000 and 2004. Although Rogers finds plenty to bemoan in the current election, he is more concerned with fixing the structure of American politics. Progressives need a party of our own, argues Rogers, one of the founders of the New Party. Until we have it, until that party is a strong and vibrant part of the American political competition, voters will be doomed to an endless parade of essentially conservative candidates who march to the drum beat of Wall Street managers and special-interest lobbyists, Rogers says. Progressives, he adds, need a new approach to activism--one that speaks directly to the millions of disenchanted and disengaged American voters.

Rogers was a wunderkind. After graduating from Yale at age twenty with a triple-major in economics, political science, and philosophy, then sailing through Yale Law School, Rogers picked up a Ph.D. in political science at Princeton and studied the intricacies of German philosophy at Heidelberg. Along the way, he listened to Al Green and Bob Dylan, conspired with Ralph Nader, watched the Reagan revolution stall the march toward economic and social justice, and began to hatch sophisticated theories for revitalizing the labor movement and reinvigorating American democracy.

From the University of Wisconsin campus, where he works as a professor of sociology, law, and political science, Rogers has spun a web of economic, social, and political theories that have earned the notice not just of academics, but also of labor leaders and grassroots political activists around the world. The MacArthur Foundation recognized the ferment Rogers was stirring when it awarded him a "genius" grant last year.

At forty-four, Rogers could simply write books, teach eager young sociologists, and run the think tank he founded to create models for revitalizing American inner cities. But he stays up late at night, working on the more complex task of building a new political party.

Rogers is the national chair of the New Party, a progressive group now organized in thirteen states--with particularly strong bases in Wisconsin, Arkansas, and Montana--that has won ninety-four local races in the past four years. With his wife Sara Siskind, a specialist in employment law, and Harvard Law School professor Laurence Tribe, he is preparing briefs for a Supreme Court battle this fall that, if successful, would clear the way for different parties to endorse the same candidates.

This "fusion" strategy, banned in most states at the turn of the century to prevent the rise of populist coalitions, could lead to an explosion of third-party activity. With it, Rogers believes, will come the shift in politics America so desperately needs.

As the fall campaign season began, Rogers sat down to discuss how the 1996 contest illustrates what's wrong with America, and to consider the prospects for a rejuvenated American politics.

Q: Are you disappointed in Clinton?

Rogers: In all sorts of ways, Clinton has just not delivered on the populist promise that got him elected.

There has been no serious challenge to the Wall Street dominance of monetary policy. The whole stimulus package on public works and other sorts of domestic investments that might plausibly be thought to build for the future was basically not pursued. At different points in the Clinton Presidency, the level of investment in all sorts of things has been considerably lower than under George Bush.

This deficit-reduction push is more or less ludicrous. Clinton just goes with the whims of public opinion. He's not using the Presidency in any intelligent, bully-pulpit way to show some leadership on the issue. There are investments that need to be made in the United States, but Clinton won't make them because of this simplistic approach to the deficit.

Clinton and Gore have brought us NAFTA and GATT--two bad trade agreements. They brag in their platform about 200 other sorts of agreements. Clinton has perfected this image of the President as "closer" on big deals, but very little has been done for the bulk of the population.

There has been no direct support for unions and other worker organizations that would plausibly advance the interests of ordinary people in the economy. There has been no concerted strategy to address economic problems, which need to be addressed by closing off the low road on industrial restructuring that too many firms are taking and helping to pave the high road.

The Clinton Administration messed up the health-insurance initiative. The minimum-wage increase came very late in the game, and was not what it could have been. Apart from some decent appointments to the National Labor Relations Board, the Clinton people have done nothing to improve worker rights.

The welfare policy that they have advanced virtually guarantees some wage reductions, at least in large population centers where there are large welfare populations.

There's been no serious progress in terms of improving the environment. Clinton has failed to deliver what might be called "the environmental dividend"--that is, the tremendous savings in workplace...