Beyond '08: Can progressives play for keeps?

Simon Rosenberg And Peter Leyden


November/December 2007 Issue

A conservative president who is deeply unpopular with Americans. A country facing profound economic and security challenges. New technologies upending old media. A cohort of new immigrants and a bulging generation of young people ready to transform the political calculus.

2008? No, 1932, the tail end of the Hoover administration. And you know how that one turned out. FDR and his fellow progressives took on the challenges of their day and built the domestic programs and international institutions that ushered in an era of unrivaled prosperity and stability. They used a new medium—radio—to reach citizens, and fashioned a new majority coalition from the emergent demographic realities of their time.

Today's progressives face a political opportunity as great as any seen since. The election of 2006 may well have marked the end of the conservative ascendancy that began with the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980. George W. Bush now has the potential to do what Herbert Hoover did in the 1920s—tarnish his party's brand for a generation or more.

As in FDR's day, a new media is emerging, one that will ultimately replace the broadcast model of the 20th century. A new American populace is emerging, led by the arrival of the millennial generation and a new wave of immigrants, particularly Hispanics. And once again, the nation faces massive challenges—from climate change to health care in the era of biotech and preparing young people for a global economy. On the eve of the 2008 election, it's worth raising our sights beyond what it would take for a Democrat to win the presidency, and begin thinking about what it would take to bring about deeper, more lasting changes. The stars have aligned to give progressives a chance to permanently shift the conversation about the nation's values. The question before us now is, Do today's progressives have what it takes to do what FDR and his allies accomplished 75 years ago—seize the new politics, take on the big challenges, and usher in a new era?

(More at the link at the top...)

The political stakes with this generation could not be higher. In 2008, young people
(ages 18-31) will number 50 million, bigger than the baby boom generation. By 2015 they will
likely comprise one-third of the U.S. electorate. While participation among young people still
lags well behind other generations, turnout increased two election cycles in a row and, in 2004,
jumped nine points (to 49 percent).2 In 2004, younger voters were the only generational cohort
outside of the World War II generation to support John Kerry (56 percent). In 2006, younger
voters supported Democrats by a 60 – 38 percent margin, the highest of any generation.3

The looming disaster Republicans face among younger voters represents a setback that
could haunt them for many generations to come. Both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama lead
Rudy Giuliani—the most acceptable of the Republican offerings among youth—by significant
margins, assembling a diverse coalition of support and leading the vote among independents.4
Exploring attitudes toward the parties themselves, young voters’ reaction to fundamental issues
and their perceptions of the GOP suggest a fundamental alienation from the Republican Party, a
crisis that will not leave with the Bush administration.

Young people react with hostility to the Republicans on almost every measure and
Republicans and younger voters disagree on almost every major issue of the day. The range of
the issue disagreements range from the most prominent issues of the day (Iraq, immigration) to
burning social issues (gay marriage, abortion) to fundamental ideological disagreements over
the size and scope of government. This leaves both potential Democratic nominees with
substantial leads over Rudy Giuliani, but importantly, both Democrats still have room to grow
their support among younger voters. The current problems with the Republican brand are not
fully reflected in young people’s preferences in for President.

Moreover, young people, while preferring Democrats on every measure, will need to see
them deliver on the issues that matter to them most. Locking down this vote means challenging
some of the assumptions and stereotypes about this population and the issues they care about
most. Without question, issues like global warming and the Iraq war can drive this vote. But
young people’s economic struggles, more than any other issue, defines their political agenda.
The economy leads their concerns when asked (on a volunteered basis) what issues they want their
President and Congress to address and an economic argument proves the most powerful
message tested. Importantly, young people’s progressive views on most social issues may not
be as important to energizing this vote as their economic situation.

extraverted Sensing (Se) ***************** (17.3)
limited use

introverted Sensing (Si) ************************ (24.2)
average use

extraverted Intuiting (Ne) ********************************************* (45.5)
excellent use

introverted Intuiting (Ni) ********************************* (33)
good use

extraverted Thinking (Te) ************************* (25.4)
average use

introverted Thinking (Ti) ************************************************** *** (53.7)
excellent use

extraverted Feeling (Fe) ************ (12.8)
unused

introverted Feeling (Fi) ********************************* (33.4)
good use




Summary Analysis of Profile
By focusing on the strongest configuration of cognitive processes, your pattern of responses most closely matches individuals of this type: INTP


Lead (Dominant) Process

Introverted Thinking (Ti): Gaining leverage (influence) using a framework. Detaching to study a situation from different angles and fit it to a theory, framework or principle. Checking for accuracy. Using leverage to solve the problem.


Support (Auxilliary) Process

Extraverted Intuiting (Ne): Exploring the emerging patterns. Wondering about patterns of interaction across various situations. Checking what hypotheses and meanings fit best. Trusting what emerges as you shift a situation’s dynamics.

The Eight Functions - the following descriptions are from Dynamics of Personality Type by Linda V. Berens - www.tri-network.com



Sensing is a process of becoming aware of sensory information and often involves responding to that sensory information without any judgment or evaluation of it. Sensory information is concrete and tangible in nature. In the Sensing process, the focus is on the actual experience, the facts and the data. As an active perceptual process, it is more than stimulation of the five senses. It is the registration of that stimulation and actively being drawn outward to the concrete realities of a situation or inward\ to recollections of familiar experiences.

Extraverted Sensing - Experiencing and noticing the physical world, scanning for visible reactions and relevant data.You are one with the experience. There is no "naming" or describing - just pure, vivid experience. The whole scene comes into your awareness almost at once. You may be drawn to experience more and more, seeking any variation that will intensely excite the senses. Writing that is richly descriptive can also evoke extraverted Sensing as can other mental stimulation. The process is momentary and tied to the events of the iminediate situation. It is used in the here and now and helps us know what is really there in the physical world and to adapt to it. Extraverted Sensing occurs when we scan for information that is relevant to our interests, then we mentally register data and facts such as baseball statistics, the locations of all the restaurants in town, or the names of all the actors in the popular television shows. There can be an active seeking of more and more input to get the whole picture until all sources of input have been exhausted or something else captures our attention. Associated behaviors include eating a whole box of chocolates for the variety of tastes; playing an instrument for hours with pure enjoyment, not for practice; voracious reading or continual asking of questions to get specifics.

Introverted Sensing - Recalling past experiences, remembering detailed data and what it is linked to. Introverted Sensing often involves storing data and information, then comparing and contrasting the current stimulation with similar ones. The immediate experience or words are instantly linked with the prior experiences and one registers that there is a similarity or a difference - for example, noticing that some food doesn't taste the same and is saltier than it usually is. Introverted Sensing is also operating when you see someone who reminds you of someone else. Sometimes the feeling-tone associated with the recalled image comes into your awareness along with the information itself. Then the image can be so strong, your body responds as if reliving the experience. This could be seen as a source of feelings of nostalgia or longing for the way things were. In one instance, a young couple living in Europe spent their weekends trying out restaurants looking for food that tasted like American food.


Intuiting is a process of becoming aware of abstract information, like symbols, conceptual patterns, and meanings. It is an intangible "knowing" of what something means, how it relates to something else, or what might happen. Some call this the "sixth" sense. Sometimes this process is by an external event, or sometimes this abstract information just seems to present itself to our awareness.

Extraverted iNtuition - Inferring relationships, noticing threads of meaning, and scanning for what could be. Extraverted iNtuiting involves seeing things "as if" with various possible ways of representing reality. Using this process, we can hold many different ideas, thoughts, beliefs, and meanings in our minds at once with the possibility that they are all true. This is like weaving themes and "threads" together. We don't know the weave until a thought thread appears or is drawn out in the interaction with a previous one. Thus there is often an emergent quality to using this process. A strategy or concept emerges based on the here-and-now interactions, not appearing as a whole beforehand. Extraverted iNtuiting involves realizing that there is always another view. An example is when you listen to one friend tell about an argument and understand perfectly and then listen to another friend tell a contradictory story and understand that view also. Then you wonder what the real story is because there are always so many different possible meanings.

Introverted iNtuition - Foreseeing implications, conceptualizing, and having images of the future or profound meaning. Introverted iNtuiting often involves a sense of what will be. The details might be a little fuzzy, but when you tune in to this process, there is some sense of how things will be. Using this process, we often are able to get pictures about the future or at least a sense of what will happen before we have any data. Sometimes it is an awareness of what is happening in another location and we have no sensory data to go on. Other times introverted iNtuiting operates when we conceptualize and get a sense of a whole plan, pattern, theory, or explanation. These are the kinds of images that come to us in the shower, in meditative states, or in dreams and help us deeply understand something. Sometimes they are profoundly symbolic and even universally so. In using this process, we tune into a likely future or something universal. This infonnation can then be used to decide what to do next, what to plan for. Introverted iNtuiting involves synthesizing the seemingly paradoxical or contradictory, which takes a problem or situation to a new level. Using this process, we can have moments when a completely new, un-imagined realization comes to us. There is a disengagement from interactions in the room, followed by a sudden "aha!" or "that's it!" kind of experience. These kinds of experiences are often seen as if they are "psychic" in nature. The sense of the future and the realizations that come from introverted iNtuiting have a sureness to them and an imperative quality that seems to demand action.


Thinking is a process of evaluating and making judgements based on objective criteria. Using this process, we detach ourselves from our values and seek to make decisions based on principles. Activities like discriminating according to a set of criteria or objectively defined standards, analysis according to a set of principles, logic, and cause-effect reasoning are all examples of using the cognitive process of Thinking.

Extraverted Thinking - Organizing, segmenting, sorting, and applying logic and criteria. Contingency plaiming, scheduling, and quantifying utilize the process of extraverted Thinking. Extraverted Thinking helps us organize our environment and ideas through charts, tables, graphs, flow charts, outlines, and so on. One woman labeled the shoeboxes for her 100 pairs of shoes for color, height, style, and comfort. Sometimes the organizing of extraverted Thinking is more abstract, like a logical argument that is made to "rearrange" someone else's thinking process! An example is when we point out logical consequences and say, "If your do this, then that will happen." In written or verbal communication, extraverted Thinking helps us easily follow someone else's logic, sequence, or organization. It also helps us notice when something is missing, like when someone says he or she is going to talk about four topics and talks about only three. In general, it allows us to compartmentalize many aspects of our lives so we can do what is necessary to accomplish our objectives.

Introverted Thinking - Analyzing, categorizing, and figuring out how something works. Introverted Thinking often involves finding just the right word to clearly express an idea concisely, crisply, and to the point. Using introverted Thinking is like having an internal sense of the essential qualities of something, noticing the fine distinctions that make it what it is and then naming it. It also involves an internal reasoning process of deriving subcategories of classes and sub-principles of general principles. These can then be used in problem solving, analysis, and refining of a product or an idea. This process is evidenced in behaviors like taking things or ideas apart to figure out how they work. The analysis involves looking at different sides of an issue and seeing where there is inconsistency. In so doing, there is a search for a "leverage point" that will fix problems with the least amount of effort or damage to the system.


Feeling is a process of making evaluations based on what is important, where personal, interpersonal, or universal values serve as guideposts. Using the cognitive process of Feeling, situations and information are assessed subjectively. The impact on people, circumstances, appropriateness, harmony, likes, and dislikes are all considered in making Feeling judgments. Weighing different values, considering ethical and moral issues, attending to personal and relationship goals, and having a belief in something all involve this process.

Extraverted Feeling - Considering others and responding to them. The extraverted Feeling process is used in relation to particular people and situations and so has a more here-and-now quality than a universal, future, or past quality. When particular people are out of our presence or awareness, we can then adjust to new people or situations. This process helps us "grease the wheels" of social interaction. Often, the process of extraverted Feeling seems to involve a desire to connect with (or disconnect from) others and is often evidenced by expressions of warmth (or displeasure) and self-disclosure. The "social graces" such as being polite, being nice, being friendly, being considerate, and being appropriate often revolve around the process of extraverted Feeling. Associated behaviors might include remembering birthdays, finding just the right card for a person and selecting a gift based on what a person likes. Keeping in touch, laughing at jokes when others laugh, and trying to get people to act kindly to each other also involve extraverted Feeling. Using this process, we respond according to expressed or even unexpressed wants and needs of others. We may ask people what they want or need or self-disclose to prompt them to talk more about themselves. This often sparks conversation and lets us know more about them so we can better adjust our behavior to them.

Introverted Feeling - Evaluating importance and maintaining congruence. It is often hard to put words to the values used to make introverted Feeling judgments since they are often associated with images and feeling-tones more than words. As a cognitive process, it often serves as a filter for information that matches what is valued and wanted. We engage in the process of introverted Feeling when a value is compromised and we think, "sometimes, some things just have to be said." On the other hand, most of the time this process works "in private" and is seldom expressed directly. Actions often speak louder than words. This process helps us know when people are being fake or insincere or if they are basically good. It is like having an internal sense of the "essence" of a person or a project, and reading another person or action or project with fine distinctions among feeling-tones. When the other person's values and beliefs are congruent with our own, we are inclined to feel kinship with them and want to connect with them.





Which function seems to fit you best? After you have identified it, it is time to learn your 2nd (or auxillary) function. This function often supports the first one. However, you cannot pick any function necessarily...if your 1st function was Extraverted, then the 2nd needs to be Introverted. As well, if your 1st function was a perceiving function (Sensing or iNtuition), then your 2nd function must be a judgement function (Thinking or Feeling). This leaves you with two choices. Here is a list that explains what your 2nd function must be.


If your 1st function is...

Extraverted Sensing, then your 2nd function must be Introverted Thinking or Introverted Feeling.
Introverted Sensing, then your 2nd function must be Extraverted Thinking or Extraverted Feeling.
Extraverted iNtuition, then your 2nd function must be Introverted Thinking or Introverted Feeling.
Introverted iNtuition, then your 2nd function must be Extraverted Thinking or Extraverted Feeling.
Extraverted Thinking, then your 2nd function must be Introverted Sensing or Introverted iNtuition.
Introverted Thinking, then your 2nd function must be Extraverted Sensing or Extraverted iNtuition.
Extraverted Feeling, then your 2nd function must be Introverted Sensing or Introverted iNtuition.
Introverted Feeling, then your 2nd function must be Extraverted Sensing or Extraverted iNtuition.

The Portrait of the Architect Rational (iNTp)

Of the four aspects of strategic analysis and definition, it is the structural engineering role -- architechtonics -- that reaches the highest development in these Rationals, and it is for this reason they are aptly called the "Architects." Their major interest is in figuring out structure, build, configuration -- the spatiality of things.

As the engineering capabilities the Architects increase so does their desire to let others know about whatever has come of their engineering efforts. So they tend to take up an informative role in their social exchanges. On the other hand they have less and less desire, if they ever had any, to direct the activities of others. Only when forced to by circumstance do they allow themselves to take charge of activities, and they exit the role as soon as they can without injuring the enterprise.

The Architects' distant goal is always to rearrange the environment somehow, to shape, to construct, to devise, whether it be buildings, institutions, enterprises, or theories. They look upon the world -- natural and civil -- as little more than raw material to be reshaped according to their design, as a formless stone for their hammer and chisel. Ayn Rand, master of the Rational character, describes this characteristic in the architect Howard Roark, her protagonist in The Fountainhead:

"He was looking at the granite. He did not laugh as his eyes stopped in awareness of the earth around him. His face was like a law of nature-a thing one could not question, alter or implore. It had high cheekbones over gaunt, hollow cheeks; gray eyes, cold and steady; a contemptuous mouth, shut tight, the mouth of an executioner or a saint. He looked at the granite. To be cut, he thought, and made into walls. He looked at a tree. To be split and made into rafters. He looked at a streak of rust on the stone and thought of iron ore under the ground. To be melted and to emerge as girders against the sky. These rocks, he thought, are here for me; waiting for the drill, the dynamite and my voice; waiting to be split, ripped, pounded, reborn, waiting for the shape my hands will give to them."

Many regard this attitude as arrogant, and Architects are likely, especially in their later years, after finding out that most others are faking an understanding of the laws of nature, to think of themselves as the prime movers who must pit themselves against nature and society in an endless struggle to define ends clearly and adopt whatever means that promise success. If this is arrogance, then at least it is not vanity, and without question it has driven the design engineers to take the lead in molding the structure of civilization.

Albert Einstein as the iconic Rational is an Architect

Thomas Jefferson and Robert Rosen are examples of the Architect Rationals