Whenever I write about possible policy options that would be (partial) solutions to our looming crisis, there is always a noisy proportion of kossacks that complains that my proposal would unfairly hurt them, and that I don't understand about the USA, how big it is, or how necessary a car is for their job, or their shopping, or how wind would spoil their view, etc, ad nauseam.
Whenever I write about unions, government regulations, workers's rights, I get similarly hammered for not understanding economics (or blasted away with arguments about French unemployment, or various looming European crises like population, pensions, ...). I am permanently amazed by the lack of attention on the websites for issues like poverty, inequality, workers' rights, and by the hostile comments on my diaries on such topics (if they even manage to get noticed) which sound just like anything you'd hear from rightwing commenters in Europe.
Is dKos rightwing?
So let me attack head on several group of professional whiners who sound suspiciously like rightwingers:
- the wind NIMBYs. There is no better example of NIMBYism, as they usually state that they are in favor of wind, only elsewhere, not spoiling their view or their little bit of the country. Not In My Backyard. Some have the honesty to recognize that they are NIMBY, but others will simply cloak it in tortured arguments against wind, sometimes pulled straight off astroturf sites of the coal industry. I may also be told in no uncertain terms that I have no right deciding, as a foreigner, whether any site in the US is fit for wind power. Wind needs to be absolutely better on every single criteria, 100% inconvenience free, and out of sight or it should not even be considered; meanwhile the polluting, common-good-destroying coal-burning status quo is apparently just fine;
- the SUV promoters. There are lots of justifications provided to own a SUV on dkos: to transport kids, to carry "stuff", to drive in inaccessible rural areas with tough weather, or simply to travel in comfort in traffic. These arguments are, quite frankly, a load of self-serving nonsense. The number of people that actually require 4WD is tiny, and small 4WD vehicles exist. Go to Switzerland, where people actually live in the mountains, andwhere you see lots of small manufacturing and industrial activity - they don't have massive SUVs, nor trucks. Big trucks are just an indulgence made possible by cheap gas. As to people with lots of kids and/or luggage, here are a couple of pictures from today, where I drove to the beach with my family. 3 kids, each with its babyseat, 4 suitcases, various bags, 2 cats in their box, and 3 bikes. It all fit in a Ford Focus sized car:
I cannot see that a family needs a bigger car Sure, it can be nice to have more space, or to be higher above the road, but these are not needs, just luxuries. Larger vehicles, trucks, SUVs or otherwise, consume more oil and pollute more, as that chart demonstrates:
Manufacturers that produce large (or powerful) cars are bigger polluters; Toyota, despite its high-profile hybrids is doing rather poorly because so much of the rest of its range is mediocre in that respect; interestingly, the European affiliates of US manufacturers (Ford and Opel for GM) are amongst the best performers. If they aren't selling these cars in the USA, it's not a question of supply, but of demand, and the general tone of comments by kossacks about cars confirms that, apart from a small activist minority, big cars and SUVs are simply not negotiable. Don't blame Detroit.
- the economic libertarians. Apart form bonddad's excellent diaries, and JR Monsterfodder's series on WalMart (which get much less play) economic stories have very little visibility, and then again they focus on the problems of the middle class (house values, qualified jobs, etc..). While this might not be surprising in a mainstream news outlet, it is a lot more so in a website dedicated to the Democratic party, i.e. the party of the left. Who is going to represent the poor if not the Dems? Yet the topics associated with that population class are barely touched. And, quite in contrast, libertarian viewpoints are a lot more prevalent, starting with kos himself. Government is viewed with skepticism, as is organised labor, as are regulations to protect workers and the environment, quickly seen as stifling companies, entrepreneurs and the economy. Like I said, the hostile comments that come whenever examples of European style regulations are brought up are quite typical of that mindset. Again, in Europe, such comments would be expected from the most laisser-faire wing of the rightwind parties.
- the gas tax haters. Oddly enough in view of the above, this is the only topic where worry about the poor is prominently displayed: gas taxes are regressive and thus bad for the poor and they should not be supported by the Dems. Of course, it never matters that I have always presented gas taxes as part of plans (whether Energize America or otherwise) which include specific measures to use the gas tax proceeds to alleviate the pain for the poorest Americans (via redistribution, targetted subsidies, and spending on things like public transport that will help the poor most), the argument that it is regressive is supposed to win the day, full stop. What transpires, naturally, is that a number of kossacks are already outraged at the price of gas and find it inconceivable that they should be voluntarily increased at their expense, even if their are sound policy reasons to do so. It's a variant of the NIMBY syndrome above: don't touch what's mine. Not much concern there for goals of public policy like a saner energy policy and less dependence on imported oil.
This graph shows tax proceeds on oil for rich consuming countries (the blue, bottom bars) and for oil producers (the dark, top bars), in billions of 2000 dollars (i.e. corrected for inflation). Until 2004, rich countries' governments made more money from oil than those of oil producing countries. This has now changed. It is also quite obvious that we dropped the ball in the mid-90s, and stopped our regular gas-tax increases (that's true in Europe as much as in the USA), and not so coincidentally, SUVs and the general trend towards larger cars took off at that time. And now, not only do we spend much more money on oil, but a much bigger proportion goes to unstable and unfriendly countries in the Middle Eat and elsewhere - which makes our arms and luxury goods manufacturers and our private bankers happy, but not many other people. But I've presented this argument and others in many different guises without having a noticeable impact on the arguments used against gas taxes. While in this case this may not be a rightwing position per se, it still fits in with a general trend to fight for private benefits at the expense of collective goods, an attitude that still smacks of the right.
Im sure many of you will be outraged by my points, but you should know that I am not the only one to have such perceptions. Most leftwing Europeans are nonplussed at that aspect of DailyKos.
Again, who will fight for the poor if kossacks (in general) won't talk much about it? Or, with a slightly different angle, how will DailyKos claim the mantle of the left if it largely ignores a big part of its core constituencies?