"Unfucking the Donkey"
Sun Jul 31, 2005 at 08:22:13 PM PDT
Thomas Frank's book What's the Matter With Kansas? resonated with a lot of us who believe that Democrats can only start winning elections again by differentiating themselves from Republicans on economic issues, rather than by moving closer to their positions on social issues. Frank's contention that Democrats should at least try to stress pocketbook populism, rather than fighting or trying to change the subject on "values," is supported by consistent polling that shows majorities favoring progressive positions on social insurance programs and economic fairness.
I have some problems with Frank as prescription: the party still has to convince electoral majorities on its foreign-policy and defense bona fides, for one thing, and I worry that he underestimates the resonance of "free market/low taxes" rhetoric offered by th right wing. But I think his ideas are worth a try as both good politics and good policy.
Former Village Voice columnist Rick Perlstein puts some meat on the bones of Frank's theory--as shown by this speech he gave recently to a group of Democratic insiders, which his old publication printed under the title I've given this diary.
As usual, Ronald Reagan boiled it down to essentials. He liked to say--maybe he said it to some of you--"There are no easy answers. But there are simple answers." I'm here to say he's right. "Building a progressive idea structure" ain't the problem. It's recovering the progressive foundation. Do that, and we are unfuckwithable.
It's simple. Barack Obama put it exquisitely in his victory speech: "Government can help provide us with the basic tools we need to live out the American dream."
Here's a dirty little secret. The Republicans know this. Nothing scares them more than us returning to our simple answers.
Here's Bill Kristol, in a famous 1993 memo I'm sure you're all familiar with: "Health care is not, in fact, just another Democratic initiative . . . the plan should not be amended; it should be erased. . . . It will revive the reputation of the . . . Democrats, as the generous protector of middle-class interests."
I'd say this memo is the skeleton key to understanding modern American politics, if it didn't make me yawn. There's nothing here that's unfamiliar to historians who've read Republican secrets going back 25, 35, even 70 years. You can sum them up in 10 words: "If the Democrats succeed in redistributing economic power, we're screwed."
(Emphasis in the original, as throughout this diary)
Is it that simple? Perlstein says it is--and that driving a deep economic wedge between lower-income and higher income conservatives can make the difference between winning and losing:
There is a website that thousands of committed Republicans spend hours on, giving and receiving marching orders. When people stray from the party line, it's not unusual for them to be
banned. Free Republic, I'd argue, is far more crucial to the Republican infrastructure than the Heritage Foundation.
Please refer to your handout. The first column records some typical things "Freepers" say. The second records what the same Freeper said after the Senate voted cloture on the president's bankruptcy bill. Column A: "We are going to see a day, in our lifetimes, when schools force children to engage in homosexual acts as 'projects' or 'homework' for sex-ed." Same guy, column B: "The newly amended bankruptcy law is a criminal act perpetrated, bought and paid for by commercial pirates masquerading as legitimate businesses."
He goes on for awhile about the bankruptcy bill. I'll admit to a strong personal reaction here: I saw no redeeming value in the measure that ultimately passed, and was enraged and disgusted, then and now, that a handful of Democrats went along with special-interest donors to pass the legislation after a large number of Democratic amendments were voted down.
Filibustering that bill, as our side should have done, would have both kept a bad law from going on the books, and carried no national political cost--and the Democrats who might have faced political risk (Senators Biden and Carper, I'm looking straight at you) should have consented to take one for the team (and later been defended and assisted for doing so). There was also tremendous political hay to be made in pointing out the intuitive disconnection between harsh laws for personal bankruptcy, and the official national policy that essentially mimics the behaviors that stereotypically leave individuals and families destitute.
But that wasn't the only political opportunity lost.
When we are not credible defenders of the economic interests of ordinary Americans, we amount to little. When we are, we're a nuclear bomb to the heart of their coalition.
The Christian right is a political machine. Very little is asked of its cogs: just that they consult the call board on election day, and vote the way it says. It takes enormous effort to get them to do just that, as any of their leaders will freely tell you. Any of Richard J. Daley's precinct captains would have told you the same thing.
It doesn't take much to demobilize a machine voter: Just instill some doubt that people who claim to be their champions are not really their champions. If the Democrats had been united against the bankruptcy bill, we could even have demobilized some of these Freepers.
That's the way they did it with us. The stuff about the Democrats being "cultural elitists" spread a nagging doubt. People stopped looking to the call board. Even some of the activists.
Finally, Perlstein looks at history--and makes a powerful argument that modern Democrats are still living off the interest from the political investments of past decades. Similar investments now, he says, will yield equally dramatic rewards:
The most glorious thing about congressional Democrats is that they have drawn the line and said: No further. Don't. Touch. Social. Security. It is a heroic stand. What's more, it's been enormously politically effective.
Now think about this: They are drawing on the capital of an entitlement passed 70 years ago.
They'll be drawing on the capital from Medicare 35 years from now. Congressional Democrats won't let them kill it. Because they understand: These programs make life in America fundamentally better. And because these gooses, Social Security, Medicare, lay golden eggs. They manufacture Democrats.
Maybe it's the New Democrat in me, but I'm still not sure that the idea of offering new entitlements is wise as either politics or policy. But I think the particular example Perlstein closes with--universal health care--might actually work on both counts.
Health care costs are rising toward a point where, for most huge corporations, it would make more sense for them to pay taxes into a universal coverage program than to keep paying for privately provided insurance. I'm not an economist (much less a health care economist, a weird and somewhat surreal subspecialty), so I don't know where that point is. But I think it's fairly close, as this recent Paul Krugman article and the relevant woes of GM both suggest.
Maybe it would take a Democrat the business community trusts (Mark Warner?) to effectively sell this notion: a nationalized health care program supported by the private sector. Maybe it would take a national leader who could frame the issue as both patriotic sacrifice and indicative of a more equitable community (Wes Clark?). But the politics of it could be a tremendous winner for the party, and perhaps even more resonant with "values" than another homophobic screed or harangue about the evils of contraception.
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