Gov. Martin O'Malley (D-MD)

In an exclusive interview Thurdsay, Gov. Martin O’Malley (D-MD) told ThinkProgress that while not every state will be able to move as quickly as Maryland has to embrace progressive legislation, incremental steps are possible everywhere. To achieve that, he recommends progressives use both moral and economic arguments for inclusion and diversity.

In O’Malley’s seven years as governor of Maryland, he has signed bills into law enacting civil marriage equality, repealing the state’s death penalty, preventing gun violence, creating a state DREAM Act for undocumented youths, and progressively increasing revenue to invest in education and infrastructure.

ThinkProgress spoke with O’Malley after he spoke at the Center for American Progress Action Fund in support of its new report “States at Work: Progressive State Policies to Rebuild the Middle Class.”

O’Malley noted that it is important to make the economic case for inclusion:

I think sometimes, as progressives, in our drive to do what we believe is the right thing for a host of moral reasons and cultural reasons, I think we leave out some of the stronger arguments for how an inclusive society, and an open society, and a society that welcomes and cherishes diversity — how those societies are also societies that can grow their innovation economy, that can expand middle class opportunity, and strengthen their middle class. I think we need to dial up sufficiently the economic argument that can and must be made for policies that are more open and more inclusive.

On Maryland’s successful enactment of the Civil Marriage Protection Act, he observed:

What we found worked in Maryland, that place to which we could call people of all political backgrounds and perspectives, was the conclusion that every child’s home should be protected under the law, that there is a dignity to every child’s home, and that civil marriage equality is the fair and just way for our laws to protect that dignity of every child’s home equally under the law. So that was the argument that we found made this final attempt more successful, perhaps, than other attempts had been, was our ability to stay very close to that message and call people together around that common ground we all feel in our hearts for the dignity of every child’s home.

O’Malley also highlighted the powerful economic case for immigration reform:

I think the immigration reform effort, which will hopefully succeed in Congress, will be a major major accomplishment for our country. And with the passage of immigration reform, I think you’ll see a number of benefits. I think you’ll see benefits in terms of more people living and paying the taxes that they owe, as part of an open society. I think you’ll see positive repercussions in terms of the sustainability and the trend-lines in Social Security. And I think you’ll also see an America that’s reinvigorated, certainly, when it comes to small business start-ups and innovation by that tremendous font of energy and work ethic that has arrived on these shores with every new group of new Americans.

While some states may move more slowly, he noted, it is possible to build consensus on incremental steps in every state:

Maryland might be able to accomplish some things ahead of other states, but there are always things that can be done that grow that consensus, if you will, for more positive and better actions that give our kids a better way of life. Maybe in some states you can’t go as far as passing a state level DREAM Act, but maybe there are things that you can do in terms of scholarships for people that are, say the first in the generation to be able to go to college. Maybe there are things that can’t be done on gun safety to the degree that Maryland and some other states have but certainly there are things that can be done to reduce violent crime and to reduce the carnage that happens across our country from guns and gun violence. We should realize that each of these steps is important and if any of them saves one life or changes for the better the trajectory of a single family,then it was work worth doing.

Watch the interview:

O’Malley also noted that he believes the biggest mistake progressives often make is limiting the conversation “simply to those who think and feel as we do on a given issue.” “I think it’s really really important to grow the consensus and to realize that there is always some value that can be shared with another American, on any issue,” he observed, “Starting from those points of common belief and shared values is very, I think, important to forging the consensus that allows these issues to more forward.”

Towards the end of a backpacking trip in the Smokies last week, I encountered a large SUV plastered with bumper stickers extolling the virtues of private property rights and decrying eminent domain – sitting in a public parking lot next to a public waterway in a national park.

My first somewhat cynical thought was of the infamous Tea Party banner, “Keep government out of my Medicare!”  It seemed incongruous for this person to bumper-lecture others about the abuses of government condemnation while enjoying the beautiful surroundings of more than 500,000 acres in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, land acquired through a mix of private donations and state and federal government use of eminent domain that displaced thousands of people and private businesses  from the area in western North Carolina and eastern Tennessee in the 1930’s.  A conservative might have a similar reaction, for example, encountering a liberal parent dropping off their kid at a private school with their foreign-made car covered in Obama stickers and end inequality and racism banners.  “Yeah pal, keep up the fight,” they might be thinking.

But thinking through it a bit, the scene made more sense.  I’m no libertarian but I sure would not want the government to take my home even with compensation.  Yet I love hiking the national park system on a regular basis.   Maybe the libertarian driver I encountered recently had a fight with a local government over their own land and needed to unwind away in a peaceful spot by the river, government owned or not.

Understanding that this is just a small anecdote, it’s fair to ask whether people on the whole are ideologically blinded or just plain confused about what they believe.

In highly polarized political times, we often overlook the fact that few Americans are ideologically consistent.  In 2009, we conducted a large-scale study of political ideology that explored reactions to 40 different statements split evenly between progressive and conservative ideas.  The survey asked people to rank their level of agreement or disagreement on a scale of 0-10 with progressive statements such as, “The gap between rich and poor should be reduced even if it means higher taxes for the wealthy,” and conservative ones like, “Government spending is almost always wasteful and inefficient.”  Combining responses to each of the 40 statements, we determined a composite score for various groups (you can determine your own ideological score by taking this quick quiz based on the survey):

As the chart above highlights, American ideological attitudes basically converge in the middle.  “Although there is a substantial range of ideological positions (from conservative Republicans at 160.6 to liberal Democrats at 247.1), no one group approaches the most extreme poles on either the progressive or conservative side of the continuum. Second, this middle convergence implies that Americans are not fully convinced of many ideological positions on their own side are open to ideological positions that may be different than their own.”

We also found that people’s self-described ideological labels (liberal, progressive, moderate, conservative, and libertarian) did not correspond directly to attitudes about government and society and often overlapped with beliefs typically ascribed to different ideological views:

Case in point: Majorities of self-identified conservatives agree with four out of five progressive perspectives on the role of government while majorities of self-identified progressives and liberals agree with conservative economic positions on things like trade and Social Security.

Additionally, self-identified progressives and liberals share many views and beliefs about government and the economy but hold somewhat differing beliefs on cultural and international concerns. Likewise, although conservatives and libertarians are frequently considered to be part of the same tribe, our research finds that self-identified conservatives look rather poorly upon the libertarian approach (only 35 percent of conservatives rate “libertarian” favorably).

This research shows the highly fluid nature of political ideology and suggests that people can hold seemingly contradictory political ideas in their heads without undermining their overall political identity.    The libertarian driver by the river in the national park was being reasonable if not entirely consistent with his bumper sticker views — something that affects most of us based on this data.

People often ask what, exactly, do progressives believe?  Over the past few years, we’ve worked with a great group called the American Values Project, representing a cross section of leaders from think tanks, philanthropic organizations, and environmental, labor, youth, civil rights, and other progressive groups, to try to distill progressive beliefs and values into clear language in one digestible resource.

The result of this collective effort is called Progressive Thinking: A Synthesis of Progressive Values, Beliefs, and Positions.  The document is free and we encourage you to read, review, critique, and pass it around to others.  As the handbook states, the central progressive message is one of fairness and equality:

Our approach is simple to summarize and is built upon the ideas of generations of progressives from Theodore Roosevelt and Franklin Roosevelt to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Barack Obama:  everyone gets a fair shot, everyone does his or her fair share, and everyone plays by the same rules. As progressives, we believe that everyone deserves a fair shot at a decent, fulfilling, and economically secure life.  We believe that everyone should do his or her fair share to build this life through education and hard work and through active participation in public life.   And we believe that everyone should play by the same set of rules with no special privileges for the well-connected or wealthy.

The book is divided into sections outlining the overall progressive story, foundational beliefs about government, the economy, and national security, and the application of this framework to contemporary issues.  It also includes a number of useful speeches and essays that show progressive values and beliefs in action throughout our nation’s history.
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