Why aren't we agreeing with Republicans? We ARE a banana republic. Aren't we?
First our economy is tanked by economic interests who've so completely corrupted the system that they've collapsed it from the inside...
...then those economic interests blackmail our elected political leaders into looting the treasury on their behalf, threatening to collapse the economic system even further, should they not be paid off...
...then finally a post junta party is swept to power on a popular wave and the scale of the crimes people ignored with spectacular cognitive dissonance for years come to light...
...then the intelligence community blackmails our elected political leaders into not prosecuting any of their members who participated in who-knows-how-many acts of illegality during the period of the junta.
We're a Banana Republic. It's not a stupid Republican line of attack, as many Americans just know it to be true in their gut. By attacking on "is America a Banana Republic?" Republicans can make the Democrats look on the defensive on the subject. which suddenly puts them on the wrong side of where people want their leaders to be on the issue: acknowledging we might just be a Banana Republic and doing something about it.
Please do not misunderstand me. I think that the Republicans really do believe this - that we risk being a banana republic - but they believe it in a different way and for different reasons.
Their argument would be that what makes a Banana Republic a Banana Republic is not the installation of a dictator, like Pinochet, and the Chicago School economic extremists to secure the economy for the financial elite those economic interests we started this conversation talking about.
They believe that what makes a Banana Republic a Banana Republic is that these fascists failed to persevere; that these corporatist extreme right wing revolutionaries, who, were almost always feted as heroes in their day by the political right in this country, didn't make it stick. That the subsequent elections actually delivered a real change in regime. That this change prosecuted the crimes that had propped up their predecessors (sometimes in more than one party going back decades). In their mind it would be Obama, prosecuting the crimes of those who had gone before him, that led America into Banana Republic territory.
Their view might go something like this:
We finally had a leadership prepared to put the country where it rightfully belongs, as a fascist dictatorship structured to increasingly serve a tiny set of powerful wealthy elites;
and then suddenly elections happen that actually do sweep away the junta;
and the incoming party decides they didn't like the track we were on and needed to put a stake in the ground and say "no more... no further... the long walk back starts here".
Now, what i worry about is that Obama won't do that. That Obama won't hammer that stake in the ground by prosecuting these people.
What they fear is that he will. They feel that that failure to make it stick is what turned these countries into Banana Republics. It's what would turn America into a Banana Republic instead of what it is so close to being - a victory for their belief system and worldview.
So we should not be frightened about, or run from, the Banana Republic conversation if we are prepared to embrace the frame and the focus on the inevitable question at the heart of this debate: why are we here?
That question which holds within it so much more:
- Why are we living in an America that has become a Banana Republic?
- What got us here, what needs to change?
- Who got us here, what are we going to do about it?
If we aren't prepared to do that (as I worry Obama might not be), we actually should be frightened of the Banana Republic conversation. I worry that a confused, scared public may not think this stuff through when they're only presented with one side of the argument for a prolonged period. Believing in their gut that they're not living in the America they feel they should be living in - knowing on some level that they are living in a Banana Republic - wanting something to be done about it, they might start lazily aligning with the party talking about the issue.
But this is our strongest territory. Rove is going after us on our strongest turf - it's what he ALWAYS DOES. How long have we known this is what he always does? It's what he always does. This is our strongest territory. If we lose this one we start to rapidly lose ground on so many more.
There's every good reason for those on the left to ask the same question as those on the right: Mr Obama - are we a Banana Republic?
We just need to make sure we also ask:
...if so, how did we get here?
...if so, who got us here?
...if so, what are we going to do about it?