Gotta love America, where anyone can become anything. No such thing as class, or if there is, it doesn’t hold people down. If you want to get ahead, all you’ve got to do is work hard, play by the rules, and stay off the sauce.
That’s the Right’s portrait of the country, a portrait commissioned by corporations and painted by their GOP allies, a pretty picture designed to sedate, distract, and delude. When Americans sense flaws in their portrait, the Right invites them to blame the poor, immigrants, gays, Arabs—everyone except for those responsible. And when politicians points out the flaws, the Right attacks them for engaging in “class warfare.”
For decades now Democrats have been docile in response, abandoning the class-based politics that mae them the dominant party in the middle of the century. Finally, though, they’re beginning to reawaken. A new group of populists—politicians, activists, and writers—has emerged, and one of its ranks, its putative leader, is running for president.
Populism means different things to different people, so let me define my terms. The populism I speak of, the populism I praise, is economic populism, as opposed to the cultural populism that portrays George Bush as a champion of the people because he mispronounces words and chews tehbackee. Further, I mean progressive economic populism: class-based programs and rhetoric that defend the interests of the non-rich and casts blame upward, where it belongs, not downward or outward. Populism works best when it's articulated in moral terms, and a little outrage doesn't hurt.
Democrats’ central message should be some variation of: “Rich people are screwing you.” Or, if you prefer: “Damn right, there’s a class war going on, and our side is losing.” It’s simple, it plays to the emotions, it’s true.
I won’t bother feeding you all the stats showing that income inequality is a problem; even conservatives—the honest ones, anyway—now accept it as fact. There’s a terrible gap between not only rich and poor but also super rich and everyone else. Virginia Senator Jim Webb, a prominent New Populist, recently smuggled some truth onto the Wall Street Journal's op-ed page.
The most important--and unfortunately the least debated--issue in politics today is our society's steady drift toward a class-based system, the likes of which we have not seen since the 19th century. America's top tier has grown infinitely richer and more removed over the past 25 years. It is not unfair to say that they are literally living in a different country. Few among them send their children to public schools; fewer still send their loved ones to fight our wars. They own most of our stocks, making the stock market an unreliable indicator of the economic health of working people. The top 1% now takes in an astounding 16% of national income, up from 8% in 1980. The tax codes protect them, just as they protect corporate America, through a vast system of loopholes.
The top-tier has grown increasingly wealthy and isolated at the expense of people below them, and as a result, economic insecurity isn’t just for the downtrodden anymore. In fact,according to Pew, economic insecurity is growing most rapidly among the affluent.
In addition, an increasing number of Americans subscribe to the sentiment “today it’s really true that the rich just get richer while the poor get poorer.” Currently, 73% concur with that sentiment, up from 65% five years ago. Growing concerns about income inequality are most apparent among affluent Americans; large percentages of
lower-income people have long held this opinion.
And Bush’s tax cuts—which passed with the support of some Democrats—have contributed mightily to the inequality. A recent Congressional study confirmed what we already knew: millionaires have benefited the most from Bush’s tax cuts. The cuts achieved their goal, in other words.
It’s no wonder, then, that most Americans crave a new approach. They need a new approach. Make no mistake: when it comes to economics,this country is progressive.
The Center for American Progress poll shows that the public overwhelmingly (by a margin of 77 percent to 20 percent) supports a reform that would “increase the percentage of federal revenues paid by corporate America and close loopholes used by companies to avoid taxes.” The same poll also shows widespread support for a range of initiatives to make the tax code more progressive. By 69 percent to 28 percent, for example, respondents favor reform that would cut taxes for middle- and lower-income families while “raising taxes on those making more than $200,000 a year.”
As these numbers show, populism is universal in its appeal; it transcends race and region. Outside of a few pockets—corporate suites, for example, and country clubs—populism plays well: north-south, city-country; you can take it anywhere, like a good pair of shoes.
But populism holds a special appeal and promise for a politically important group: the white working class. Blue collar workers of all races are disproportionately suffering the ill effects of globalization, technological change, and regressive legislation. Many blue collar workers, the so-called Reagan Democrats, switch back and forth between the parties from election to election, often deciding the outcome. Progressive populism, and only progressive populism, can bring them back home to stay.
If populism is such a patently excellent message for Dems, both effective and moral, why did they abandon it? Because Dems began to rely on corporations and rich people for funding, becoming almost as plutocratic as the GOP. And because Dems stopped wooing the working class in favor of swing groups du jour, like “Soccer Moms” and other suburban voters. And because Democrats are sometimes stupid.
The only candidate who ran populist campaigns at the national level in the nineties was Pat Buchanan. Al Gore struck a populist note at his convention speech in 2000, but it was both not enough and too much: not enough to win but enough for neoliberal critics to blame populism for the loss. Progressive populism was, to say the least, an unfashionable message when John Edwards ran for president in ‘03.
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What was surprising about Edwards’s message in ‘03 was that it was surprising. It was like listening to a song you hadn’t heard in a while, a song you’d forgotten you loved. But it wasn’t quite the same song; Edwards made it his own. He was like the Black Crowes of politics, playing classic rock and making it sound fresh.
Today, under George W. Bush, there are two Americas, not one: One America that does the work, another America that reaps the reward. One America that pays the taxes, another America that gets the tax breaks. One America that will do anything to leave its children a better life, another America that never has to do a thing because its children are already set for life. One America—middle-class America—whose needs Washington has long forgotten, another America—narrow-interest America—whose every wish is Washington's command. One America that is struggling to get by, another America that can buy anything it wants, even a Congress and a President. 2004 is a make-or-break election because we need to create one America again. And that is the one thing George Bush will never do. Dividing us into two Americas—one privileged, the other burdened—has been his agenda all along.
Such speeches caught the attention of New Populist intellectual, Thomas Frank, who reflected on the 2004 campaign in an interview with The Believer.
If the Democrats bring back the class critique or at least confront the Republican vision of social class with their own vision of social class, they could win overwhelmingly. But as far as I can tell, they’re really not interested in doing that. Some are. John Edwards was.
Ever since 2003, Edwards has been sharpening his message. Out of the view of the national media, long before the 2006 election had ratified the wisdom of class-based politics, he was traveling around the country, talking to workers, like miners in Nevada.
The listeners were the kind Democrats have lost in recent elections, but Edwards captivated them with a fiery populism in remarks Tuesday that framed economic issues such as poverty, health care and labor rights in stark moral terms, a way of talking usually chided by Republicans as "class warfare."
"I don't know about you, but I've been worried about whether Exxon is making enough money," he said sarcastically, talking about subsidies for the oil industry. "At the same time we're taking away health care from children. It's immoral, and we should be screaming from the rooftops."
It was a different kind of Democratic rhetoric, once standard-issue, but now rare, as Democrats have chased after suburban and exurban voters and toned down their Robin Hood rhetoric.
It’s fair to say that in ‘04 Edwards’s policy positions hadn’t caught up with his message. Now they have. He’s fully parted with the Neoliberal Church of Rubin, a doctrine that requires you to pray to balanced budgets and “free” trade. Do you remember what honest-to-goodness progressivism looks like? Edwards advocates an activist government, which makes programs that help people (and stimulate the economy) a higher priority than short-term balanced budgets. He supports trade agreements that, unlike NAFTA, protect workers and the environment. He believes that markets should serve people, not the other way around.
He's laying out a bold progressive agenda, too comprehensive and detailed to adequately describe here. Its centerpiece is his plan for universal health insurance, which could lead to a single-payer system. His energy planseeks to create a million jobs by revitalizing our manufacturing base with "green collar jobs," and by investing in renewable energy and clean-tech industries. His new plan to overhaul of the tax filing system would not only defy H & R Block and other accounting behemoths by making it easier and cheaper to pay taxes; it would also make sure that low-income workers take full advantage of the Earned Income Tax Credit, which lifts four million Americans out of poverty every year.
Ezra Klein—one of a number of young populist writers, a group that also includes David Sirota and Chris Hayes—calls Edwards “the most populist presidential candidate we've seen in many decades.” That’s why labor liberals like Barbara Ehrenreich and John Burton—people who were populists before populism was cool (again)—support Edwards. But his campaign is also drawing support from moderates like Roy Barnes, former governor of Georgia, and Ken Lucas, former congressman from Kentucky, who know that populism—especially populism presented by a man with a Carolinian accent—will play well in the South. Edwards is a one-man 50-state strategy. In a recent Kos diary, Philgoblue examines the potential of the Edwards message in the South, and nationwide.
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When you’re a populist politician--a very rich one, no less--you open yourself up. Calls for moral policies can portrayed as moralizing. Critics on the left and right will inevitably search for signs of hypocrisy. But the more people learn about Edwards, the more believable he becomes. For Edwards, populism doesn’t mean simply putting out labor-friendly press releases and positions. It means working for workers, marching with them, helping them to organize. Here’s David Bonior, who agreed to run Edwards’s campaign because of their mutual commitment to the poor and the working class.
I haven't seen someone as a national figure do as much on workers' rights and poverty in my lifetime. That includes Bobby Kennedy and people in politics in the ‘60s. He helped organize people in probably 85 different actions, from hotel workers to university janitors to people who work in buildings and factories. He was out there demonstrating, marching, picketing, writing letters to CEOs, demanding that [workers] have the right to organize and represent themselves. He started a center on poverty and became the director at the University of North Carolina. He traveled the country and was a leader in getting a minimum-wage bill passed in eight states.
His platform alone would probably be enough to win Edwards the support of unions; his far-ranging commitment to the movement makes such support all but inevitable. This week in New York, Edwards will be the first candidate to participate in the Service Workers's (SEIU) "Walk a Day in My Shoes"campaign. After a recent event sponsored by the Service Workers, which is the fastest growing union in North America, an official told The Nation Magazine that, "If the election were held today, we'd be supporting Edwards. When he comes into town he asks what he can do for us. Hillary asks us what we can do for her."
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There could hardly be a better time for a populist to be running for president. Why is populism cool again? Income inequality, primarily. Plus Ken Lay, Dennis Kozlowski, Tom Delay, Jack Abramhoff, Halliburton, Bernie Ebbers, Gary Winnick, International Coal...
Although neoliberals will continue to exert a huge influence, especially in the institutions of Washington's establishment, populists are starting to win back the party by winning elections. The 2006 Senate campaigns of Webb and Sherrod Brown and, to a lesser extent, Jon Tester and Claire McCaskill, demonstrated the potency of populism in red states and swing states, and 2008 promises more of the same. Here’s Paul Krugman.
The good news is that all the GOP’s abuses of power weren’t enough to win the 2006 elections. And 2008 may be even harder for the Republicans, because the Democrats—who spent most of the Clinton years trying to reassure rich people and corporations that they weren’t really populists—seem to be realizing that times have changed.
What exactly is the New Populism, as practiced by Edwards and the new Senators? How does it differ from other strains, both previous and concurrent? Probably the best way to describe it is to describe what it isn’t.
It is not a retreat in the struggle for liberty and equality. Some Democrats downplay or alter their positions on cultural issues to appeal to white men. While some of the new populists might hold relatively conservative positions on gun control and national security, they are generally progressive on cultural issues. In his campaign for Senator in Ohio, for example, Sherrod Brown didn’t back down from his opposition to a ban on gay marriage. The New Populists seem to understand that cultural issues like abortion and sexual harassment are also economic issues, and that economic issues like equal pay and health care are also cultural issues. The fight for freedom and the fight for economic justice don’t clash; on the contrary, they are the same fight; Edwards gets this. That’s why feminists like Amanda Marcotte and Kate Michelman support his candidacy.
Nor is the New Populism a cover for xenophobia. Some populism, including the version espoused by both Lou Dobbs and Pat Buchanan, plays to fear of Latino immigrants. Such a philosophy is a gift to the ruling class, which loves to see divisions between low-income groups. The New Populism espoused by Edwards is a direct challenge to Dobbesian populism. Edwards not only supports progressive immigrations policies, he makes a point of includingimmigrants in his populist narrative.
…[W]hen I was young, we moved to a small town in rural North Carolina, which is where I grew up. That town is now half Hispanic. My family moved to that town because my father, who has a high school education and is still living, believed that by working hard and doing the right thing that his kids would have the opportunity for a better life. These Hispanic families? They came to Robbins, North Carolina, for exactly the same reason. And those who came and live there, who work hard and are responsible, they have earned the right to be American citizens.
Nor is the New Populism an attempt to scapegoat the poor. Historically, populists have directed the anger of the middle toward the bottom. Edwards, by contrast, has made it his mission to help the poor. In some ways, his commitment to the poor complicates his message. Not only does he have to be Harry Truman blasting the corporate interests, he also has to be Bobby Kennedy leading a moral crusade. Ever a good pol, Edwards convincingly makes the case that such an undertaking is in our self-interest.
Maybe you've heard the phrase "it's expensive to be poor." Well, it's also expensive for America to have so many poor. We all pay a price when young people who could someday find the cure for AIDS or make a fuel cell work are sitting on a stoop because they didn't get the education they need.
We all pay a price when our people turn to crime because they have no other hope. Harvard's Richard Freeman estimates that growing incarceration costs and unemployment of ex-offenders costs 4 percent of our economy, each and every year…
It's wrong we have 37 million Americans living in poverty—separated from the opportunities of this country by their income, their housing, their access to education and jobs and health care — just as it was wrong we once lived in a country legally segregated by race. Too many places today are segregated by class. Poverty is the great moral issue of our time, and we all have an obligation to do something about it.
Edwards sees the country as it is: "segregated by class." The top one-percent and the bottom ten percent are dangerously divided from the rest of us, and Edwards wants to lessen both divides. It’s no small task, of course, but really, is there any other choice? Could a presidential candidate of worth try to do anything less?
Should Edwards emerge as the nominee, Republicans will attempt to peel away middle class and working class voters by portraying him as the candidate of the poor. Republicans have no ideas for addressing income inequality, none whatsoever, so their strategy, as always, will be to exploit and stir up irrational fear. A few years ago Arlie Hochschild, a sociologist, discussedthe economic struggles of Americans and the anger it arouses.
But is that anger directed downward—at "welfare cheats," women, gays, blacks, and immigrants—or is it aimed up at job exporters and rich tax dodgers? Or out at alien enemies? The answer is likely to depend on the political turn of the screw. The Republicans are clearly doing all they can to aim that anger down or out…What we urgently need now, of course, is a presidential candidate who addresses the root causes of blue-collar anger and fear and who actually tackles the problems before us all, instead of pandering to the emotions bad times evoke.
Arlie, meet John.
Crossposted at Diatribune