As I read the endless diaries in the Obama pie fights, I can't help but feel that the Obama supporters have no clue as to what I and people like me care about with respect to government. I am continuously given lists, told of all of Obama's accomplishments, yet the central problem, the central worry, is perpetually overlooked. For me, the single most important political issue and struggle of our time, the one that trumps all other political issues and structures all other political problems, is the issue of economy. Despite some grumbling about Obama on queer issues and the environment, all of my ire with this administration arises from issues surrounding economy.
Economy, in my view, effects everything else. Our economic positions and their enactment determine whether or not we have a free and humane society. Economy determines whether or not we actually have representation. Economy is at the heart of our environmental problems. Economy plays a key role in the emancipation of women and minorities. Economy is fundamental.
Economy is not simply a question of whether or not unemployment is high, whether wages have stagnated, and whether a huge gap has opened up between the wealthy and everyone else. Our economic philosophy plays a role in nearly everything else. In this regard, everything comes back to whether or not you support unregulated free markets or whether you support highly regulated markets. Everything comes back to whether or not you believe that what is good for Wall Street is good for Main Street, or whether you believe that what is good for Wall Street is often at odds with the interests of the vast majority of Americans.
Since the 80s we have seen the results of experiments with deregulating markets and lowering taxes on the wealthiest. The reasoning here was obvious enough: Deregulated markets and lower taxes leave big business with more money. More money allows for greater investment in production. Greater investment in production allows for the creation of more jobs. More jobs means more money put into the market which leads to the creation of even more jobs and more revenue for the government even though the wealthiest end up paying less in taxes. Ergo the conclusion is that what is good for Wall Street is good for Main Street or, in Reagan's famous aphorism, "a rising tide lifts all boats".
In reality we've seen, however, something quite different. The experiment has been tried and we've seen the results. On the one hand, we've seen the concentration of wealth in the hands of a few (7% of the population controls 70% of the wealth), we've seen wages stagnate, we've seen massive unemployment (especially among African-Americans where unemployment hovers around 20%), we seen a revenue crisis that has forced government, across the board, to cut back on education (which creates opportunity and assists in righting class, gender, and minority inequality), as well as vital social programs people rely on to survive and prosper, and we've seen massive devastation of the environment which promises to bring water, agricultural, and migration crises that devastate the economy in the next forty years in ways we can scarcely imagine. Policies of deregulation and tax cuts have been an absolute disaster for both the majority of Americans and the world itself. It's a mess.
However it is not just the darkening of the world that this deregulation has wrought-- as Tolkein might put it --that has been a disaster for America. No. It is also our freedom and representation. Corporate money has infected our politics to such an extent that now our politicians are more or less bought, such that the rest of us no longer have any political representation. We've lost our freedom. We've lost our political representation. And many of us do not even realize it. Even in those instances where there is massive popular support for certain policies, even in those instances where certain policies are extremely unpopular across the political spectrum, we see our politicians refusing to act. There's only one plausible explanation for this: 1) The rely on donations from big business to get reelected, and 2) they live in terror of attack ads from corporations as a result of Citizens United.
Here, then, is the source of my ire with the Obama administration. I am often told that Obama is not an emperor or god, that there's only so much he can do, that one must be pragmatic and compromise, but what this blithely ignores is all those decisions Obama did make that he wasn't compelled or forced to make out of compromise. These were decisions that Obama made out of his own free will and they reflect an economic philosophy where it is believed that what is good for Wall Street is good for Main Street. No one forced Obama to select the likes of Gheitner and Bernanke on his economic team. No one forced Obama to cut deals with pharmaceutical companies and insurance companies, taking the public option off the table or, heaven forbid, negotiating from the stance of single payer at the outset. No one forced Obama to discuss the budget as a budget crisis demanding cuts rather than a revenue crisis requiring us to close corporate tax loopholes and raise taxes on the wealthiest. I never see these points addressed by the supporters or the administration. Yet these are the source of my ire.
I remember, with deep clarity, seeing Obama give the keynote at the democratic national convention years ago. I turned to my then partner at that point and said "that man will be president some day". When he finally through into the ring and decided to run for president, I was over the moon. I supported him enthusiastically from the beginning. Why? Did I believe he would be an uber-progressive? No, I'm not that naive. I supported Obama because of his communication skills. I knew that the rightwing had spent decades taking over the media, churches, forming think tanks, etc., so that they could form a new American common sense where it was just obvious that what's good for Wall Street is good for Main Street. I believed, perhaps naively, that Obama would use his profound oratorical skills to fundamentally change the frames of American political debates so that certain forms of policy-- worker and middle class friendly policy --would become possible in the future. I understood that things couldn't change over night, but believed that at least the assumptions about economy could be changed. And if these assumptions could be changed, popular will and consensus could be created, and more just and egalitarian policy could be produced in the future.
In short, I believed in the power of words. Yet sadly, I haven't seen Obama use his power of words since being elected. Everything he said during the primaries and elections deployed this power of words, speaking to an America for all of us and not simply for corporate fat cats. Yet since he's been elected, in both his cabinet choices, negotiating strategies, and policy proposals, he's perpetually bought into rightwing frames. What happened? I see Obama's hair went gray after being elected. What did he learn those first few weeks in office?
I mourn and am full of despair. Mock me if you will (though understand that it's ironic for you to do so) but I really did believe in hope and change. Oh what joy I felt casting that ballot in the primaries and then the election. What solidarity I felt with the others at my polling place as we joked and smiled about the election. Oh what hope I felt that finally, at long last, we would begin to move past the Reaganite rhetoric of the DLC and Bush era, where now, finally, at long last new political sensibilities would be created, new popular sentiment, new assumptions and therefore new possibilities in the long term. Reagan changed everything in American politics with his rhetoric and way of framing issues. I believed, I truly did, that Obama had the power to produce a similar fundamental reorientation, where, not now, but perhaps thirty years from now, America could become a very different political space. Instead we've seen Obama again and again bow to Reaganian frames and assumptions.
Today I just feel powerless and hopeless. I increasingly believe that political change is not possible, that the oligarchy and plutocracy have won, and that the only change will occur through the collapse of our society and revolution. I am terrified by revolution because I believe there are so many reactionary and superstitious forces in the United States that such a revolution would be very ugly and oppressive. Yet given the economic inequalities that now place unbearable tension on our population and what is looming in the future with the economy, it's difficult for me to see how our polity can avoid encountering an eventual breaking point. At any rate, the Obama supporters need to understand this: No matter how many lists you give me of Obama's accomplishments, people like me will never be persuaded so long as Obama continues to reinforce economic frames of deregulation, tax cuts, and policies that disproportionately benefit big business while hurting the rest of America and the world. Don't waste your ink or breath. You're not convincing anyone. Nothing forced Obama to frame himself in this way, no matter how ardently you argue otherwise. What's truly sad is that you now find yourself bashing progressives left and right when, during the primaries and election, Obama was the greatest progressive promise we'd seen in decades. How far you've fallen. And for what?