The public, pundits, and politicians alike could use a little schooling in progressive economics 101.

We have a president who, although technically a Democrat, acts more like a 1970s moderate conservative. On Capitol Hill, the House is run by a Speaker who embraces archaic and inefficient freshwater economics and who is constantly being pushed harder to the right by a group of Tea Partiers. Too many Democrats have lost the will to stand up for the hard-won victories of FDR, Truman, and LBJ.

But having politicians who are up to this task requires more than hitting the pavement and the hard work of stuffing envelopes and working phone banks. Something more is required -- a concerted effort to educate the public, pundits, and most of all the candidates in the basics of Keynesian economics.

In a recent post, Bob Somerby of the Daily Howler made a keen observation about the anti-tax crusader, Grover Norquist. Somerby said something most liberals don't acknowledge:

Grover has worked extremely hard down through all these years. His dogged efforts help explain why American political and journalistic cultures tilt quite hard toward spending cuts rather than toward tax increases. Along with other skillful, well-funded players, Grover has worked to defeat the ol debbil, higher taxes -- as is his perfect right.

We liberals get mad at Grover for this. We think the problem lies elsewhere.

Ask yourself this: Can you think of a comparable liberal figure? For example, can you think of a liberal figure who has worked in a similar way regarding Social Security? Can you think of a liberal figure who wrote a pledge in 1986 to this effect: Social Security benefits, present and promised, must never be lowered for any reason? Can you think of a liberal figure who spent the last twenty-five years exploring every possible aspect of that basic position? Who doggedly fought the endless deceptions churned against that program?

Of course you can't think of such a figure! For various reasons, no such liberal figure exists, which helps explain why your side is getting its ass royally kicked once again. Why everyone talks about cutting SS, while it seems to be against the law to even discuss tax increases.

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In essence, our side has lost control of the narrative. Needless to say, before Keynesian economical sense is restored to government, we have work to do. We all must work as doggedly as Grover Norquist to quell the deceptions this determined enemy of progressive taxation has churned against programs such as Social Security.

So what will be required of us? For starters, I propose that those of us who oppose the current narrative have to go out and walk into local Democratic clubs and talk basic Keynesian economics. A mechanism must be put in place where the thoughts and ideas of a Mike Konzcal, a Marshall Auerback, and a Paul Davidson must be voiced by the slate of 2012 Congressional candidates. They must be taught how to explain demand-side economics to the everyday voter.

And that is the problem: most voters do not see contemporary liberal economics as a vehicle for creating prosperity but, instead, as a device for taking hard-earned money and transferring it to a bunch of deadbeats. That fallacy must change so that our economy can change. The popular perception of Keynesian economics must be restored to it its original meaning: a means to create a just and efficient prosperity.

When confronted with the old myth that a dollar of stimulus money displaces a dollar of private investment, a liberal Congressional candidate must be prepared to provide the obvious answer: In an economy that's in recession, there is insufficient government investment; the government dollar is the only investment available, nothing is “displaced.” When a Tea Party congressman trots out the tired old myth that a 40% top marginal rate penalizes “job creators,” the economic liberal candidate must be prepared to quickly respond that: 1) demand creates jobs, and 2) the wealthy don't spend their tax cuts, but instead tend to hoard their money.

The education of policymakers and the public should be one of our most important tools in building a progressive movement.

Frank L. Cocozzelli writes a weekly column on Roman Catholic neoconservatism at Talk2Action.org and is contributor to Dispatches from the Religious Left: The Future of Faith and Politics in America. A director of the Institute for Progressive Christianity, he is working on a book on American liberalism.

Without explaining how the government can create prosperity for all, progressives risk playing into charges of elitism.

Contemporary liberalism runs the risk of becoming isolated. But this threat does not solely come from the likes of Michele Bachmann or Glenn Beck. It also comes from some self-described liberals whose behavior feeds into the right's caricature of who we are. We risk becoming a group that restricts membership to a certain kind of liberal, one that is educated, not merely nonreligious but anti-religious, and one that is simultaneously smug and self-righteous.

One of the dark risks in an open society is the ascendancy of the enemy/friend dichotomy: one helps only those seen as having similar goals, customs, and beliefs and opposes those who don't. Just observe the poisoning of American political discourse over the past few decades. Discussion and engagement have given way to rants and demonization. In his September 2, 2009 edition of The Daily Howler, Bob Somerby identified a good example of how the right uses this to its advantage -- and how liberals enable its use:

It's simple-minded - but it works. On our side, we stand in line to help. For decades, almost all conservative spin has derived from two simple messages. When you get to work with such clear messaging, being a conservative pundit is the easiest job in the world:

Big government never did anything right. Liberal elites think they're better than you are.

Almost all Republican spin derives from those two messages. The conservative movement has been actively pushing those messages at least since the time of Nixon. No matter what happens in the real world, the conservative pundit simply dreams up a response which derives from one of those notions.

What was Somerby talking about? With regard to the charge of elitism, part of the answer could be found in a Washington Post column by conservative commentator George Will. Writing in April 2008 shortly after then-candidate Obama's comment about working-class voters who “cling” to God and guns, Will noted:

What had been under FDR a celebration of America and the values of its working people has become a doctrine of condescension toward those people and the supposedly coarse and vulgar country that pleases them.

When a supporter told Adlai Stevenson, the losing Democratic presidential nominee in 1952 and 1956, that thinking people supported him, Stevenson said, "Yes, but I need to win a majority." When another supporter told Stevenson, "You educated the people through your campaign," Stevenson replied, "But a lot of people flunked the course."

Does President Obama despise working-class folks? Of course not. His economic policies, though far from sufficient from a Keynesian standpoint, are more beneficial to these very folks than anything put forth by today's movement conservatism.

But his comments on guns and faith clearly display something of a disconnect that, three years later, still exists with many of our liberal talkers. Public faces of progressivism Ed Shultz, Rachel Maddow, and Bill Maher would rather play in the mud, demonizing the other side, than explain how contemporary liberalism is the best means available to create a prosperous capitalist economy for all, including those in the working-class.

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Instead of broadening the liberal base, the aforementioned public faces of the left act as though our philosophy were a restricted community. Too many of us howl with delight when Bill Maher derides poor working people as “one-toothers” or those who believe in God as delusional. During any give broadcast of Real Time, the host's constant drumbeat of proclaiming "American dumbness" is ever-present. If anything, he risks turning himself into the poster boy for what movement conservatism says is wrong with liberals. Would FDR, Harry Truman, or Robert F. Kennedy have engaged in such self-defeating, elitist behavior?

What these public figures could be doing instead is rebutting the conservative mantra that Reagan's tax cuts drastically increased revenue (they didn't). Better yet, how about pulling the rug out from under the GOP myth that big government doesn't do anything right? Projects put forth by economic liberals have led to generations of local wealth creation, such as the TVA or the Lower Colorado River Authority. They brought electrical power -- and production -- to whole sections of the South, areas “the invisible hand” of laissez-faire didn't want to touch. More importantly, such a discussion would be a very powerful tool in explaining how an activist government does indeed create private sector jobs.

Maddow and Shultz could take a cue from Thom Hartmann and use their programs to explain how administrations that based their domestic policies upon Keynesian economics were also examples of “big government” getting things very right. (In fairness, Maher does this with Real Time.) For the 30 years after World War II, an activist government ensured increased wealth for a greater number of citizens in a manner far more disciplined than those based upon laissez-faire dogma. Instead, Maddow wasted precious airtime on a June 15 segment with Samuel L. Jackson narrating "Go the F**k to Sleep," a bedtime story for adults.

Such silliness is an ongoing wasted opportunity; it is snarky entertainment that plays to a crowd of cynics instead of engaging those beyond the base. More than that, it is smart alec behavior that can cause some independent folks to feel empathy for liberalism's adversaries.

“When men are once enlisted on opposite sides," Enlightenment thinker David Hume observed, "they contract an affection to the persons with whom they are united, and an animosity against their antagonists: And these passions they often transmit to their posterity." Movement conservatism has taken Hume's observation and honed it into a potent weapon, all while some self-described liberals insist on telling the world how clever they are.

Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh can shape the public perception of liberals because we too often choose to disassociate ourselves from blue-collar folks. Whether it be the public or private faces of liberalism, we constantly fail to refute the myth that “government doesn't work.” That, too, illustrates the “liberal elites think they're better than you are” meme Somerby warned us about. The right's talking heads know full well that it is easier to hate a stranger and his ideas than the beliefs of a real-life friend. And to that end, when we segregate ourselves from the very folks contemporary liberalism was intended to help, we make it easier for movement conservatives to beat them down a bit more. It tends to make those who empathize with some, but not all of the of the political right defensive and protective of their own, creating greater identity with "whom they are united." Ranks close and camps become further polarized. Then we all retreat into our restricted communities and the discourse sinks deeper into the mud. And that plays right into the right's hands.

It doesn't have to be this way. One of my favorite photographs is of FDR shaking hands with a soot-covered coal miner during the 1932 Presidential campaign. That photograph of the patrician politician locking grips with a hard-bitten but proud everyday man speaks of common dreams. And it reminds us that contemporary liberalism should never be an exclusive club for the well-educated. As FDR knew, it should be a true pathway to mutual prosperity, one that is equitable and inclusive for all Americans.

Frank L. Cocozzelli writes a weekly column on Roman Catholic neoconservatism at Talk2Action.org and is contributor to Dispatches from the Religious Left: The Future of Faith and Politics in America. A director of the Institute for Progressive Christianity, he is working on a book on American liberalism.