Now that the Republicans have taken back America and Obama is no longer relevant, a funny thing is happening. The chattering classes have started to notice that this country is in bad shape, is not getting better, and the people they've been gushing about might not have a real answer. They are belatedly waking up to the fact that the Tea Party agenda.....has no substance. There's no way to make it work - because it's full of contradictions where it isn't totally incoherent. Sure, they all proclaimed Obama screwed up - but just stopping him won't make the problems go away.
Meanwhile Nick Kristof is on the case with a recitation of unpleasant facts in Our Banana Republic.
C.E.O.’s of the largest American companies earned an average of 42 times as much as the average worker in 1980, but 531 times as much in 2001. Perhaps the most astounding statistic is this: From 1980 to 2005, more than four-fifths of the total increase in American incomes went to the richest 1 percent.
Remember the 1980's? That's when it was "Morning in America." Ever have a day you wish you could start over?
More after the jump
It's time for a little Disaster Anti-Capitalism, some Class Warfare Reprisals, because there's this one thing about emergencies. They can really streamline your thinking. What Republicans are promising to do is nothing short of sheer folly. It's time to hold their feet to the fire of their own rhetoric and make them own the consequences of their actions. Sara Robinson was laying it all out back in April of 2010.
...it's time to openly confront the fact that conservatives have spent the past 40 years systematically delegitimizing the very idea of constitutional democracy in America. When they're in power, they mismanage it and defund it. When they're out of power, they refuse to participate in running the country at all -- indeed, they throw all their energy into thwarting the democratic process any way they can. When they need to win an election, they use violent, polarizing, eliminationist language against their opponents to motivate their base. This is sedition in slow motion, a gradual corrosive undermining of the government's authority and capacity to run the country. And it's been at the core of their politics going all the way back to Goldwater.
This long assault has gone into overdrive since Obama's inauguration, as the rhetoric has ratcheted up from overheated to perfervid. We've reached the point where you can't go a week without hearing some prominent right wing leader calling for outright sedition -- an immediate and defiant populist uprising against some legitimate form of government authority.
Moderates and liberals are responding to this rising threat with feckless calls for "a return to civility," as if all that's needed to put things right again is a stern talking-to from Miss Manners. Though that couldn't hurt, the sad fact is that we're well past the point where it's just a matter of conservatives behaving like tantrum-throwing spoiled brats (which they are). When a mob is surrounding your house with torches and telling you they intend to burn it down, "civility" really isn't the issue any more.
emphasis added
McConnell is on record as declaring the most important goal for the GOP is ensuring Obama is a one term president. It's not about creating jobs. It's not about fiscal reality. It's all about grabbing for political power, and screw what happens to the country. That video of McConnell should be put into play every time the Republicans throw up a road block, to show Americans what GOP principles are worth. Kristof has plenty of material today to show why Republican policies have been a disaster. It's no longer necessary to blame W for everything - we can go right back to the Gipper. But here's the deal. It's not just about individuals; we have to start destroying the Republican brand in the popular mind by showing what conservative policies really do. (And why not? Conservatives have engaged discrediting Progressive policies since forever.)
Let's start with the continuing fight over the Bush tax cuts and what's at stake.
The richest 0.1 percent of taxpayers would get a tax cut of $61,000 from President Obama. They would get $370,000 from Republicans, according to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center. And that provides only a modest economic stimulus, because the rich are less likely to spend their tax savings.
At a time of 9.6 percent unemployment, wouldn’t it make more sense to finance a jobs program? For example, the money could be used to avoid laying off teachers and undermining American schools.
Likewise, an obvious priority in the worst economic downturn in 70 years should be to extend unemployment insurance benefits, some of which will be curtailed soon unless Congress renews them. Or there’s the Trade Adjustment Assistance program, which helps train and support workers who have lost their jobs because of foreign trade. It will no longer apply to service workers after Jan. 1, unless Congress intervenes.
So we face a choice. Is our economic priority the jobless, or is it zillionaires?
emphasis added
Democrats have been terrified to face up to Republicans over tax issues. Republicans have terrified everyone over deficits - but refuse to say what they'll cut to close the gaps. As long as we keep running scared, we'll never be able to solve the problems the conservatives have created. When they start screaming "Class Warfare!" it's time for the White House and the Democrats to start talking about War Criminals and pressing charges. God knows the foreclosure mess has enough bad actors in it that it's a wonder we haven't started seeing Merrill-Lynch mobs yet. The GOP answer to Kristof's question above is of course zillionaires get the priority. Call them on it, and their own Tea Party base will tear them apart. All it takes is somebody in the White House with cojones to do it and keep doing it. Because the GOP will drown it out with the Mighty Wurlitzer if allowed to do so.
The big thing Republicans have going for them is a simple message: lower taxes, less government. What we have around us is the consequences - but people don't make that connection. Sara Robinson has a strong commentary on why the Progressives have not been able to get any traction: They Don't Get Any Respect.
One of the biggest problems facing the Democrats going into this election is that they're getting absolutely zero respect for everything they've done for the average American over the past two years. Tax cuts, health care reform, financial reform, expanded veterans' benefits, direct funding of student loans -- the list is long, and one that, by rights, should get the Democrats re-elected handily.
The problem is that the average voter has no idea that any of this ever happened. In fact, if you ask most Americans (even a lot of Democrats), they'll tell you that Obama raised their taxes.
The conservatives have created the delusion that freedom comes from individual Americans acting on their own, unfettered by government regulations or mollycoddling. They completely ignore the concept that it comes as much or more from Americans coming together in cooperation to do what no single person could do alone. The iconic image of the rugged cowboy on the range or the determined pioneer setting out in a covered wagon is part of the American heritage - but so is a frontier community coming together for a barn raising, or a New England Town Meeting. In practice, the conservative appreciation of the virtues of the lone individual is much like that of the predator for the animal that wanders away from the herd. Or, as Robinson puts it:
Specifically, we need to drive home the fact that anybody who calls themselves an American cannot, in the same breath, declare that they are in any sense entirely "self-made." This is indeed the land of opportunity. But those opportunities exist only as long as we work together to create them; and willfully denying that is an insult to every other American who sacrificed to make your opportunities possible. It's like saying your parents had nothing to do with raising you. You'd expect them to be hurt, offended, and angry at your lack of gratitude. The rest of us who contributed to your success aren't wrong to feel insulted, too.
Kristof is among those starting to acknowledge the accumulation of scientific evidence that the inequality in America is not just an economic issue; it has much broader consequences.
Robert H. Frank of Cornell University, Adam Seth Levine of Vanderbilt University, and Oege Dijk of the European University Institute recently wrote a fascinating paper suggesting that inequality leads to more financial distress. They looked at census data for the 50 states and the 100 most populous counties in America, and found that places where inequality increased the most also endured the greatest surges in bankruptcies.
Here’s their explanation: When inequality rises, the richest rake in their winnings and buy even bigger mansions and fancier cars. Those a notch below then try to catch up, and end up depleting their savings or taking on more debt, making a financial crisis more likely.
Another consequence the scholars found: Rising inequality also led to more divorces, presumably a byproduct of the strains of financial distress. Maybe I’m overly sentimental or romantic, but that pierces me. It’s a reminder that inequality isn’t just an economic issue but also a question of human dignity and happiness.
This paper is just one of a vast store of work over that past decades that shows inequality is bad for everyone, rich, poor, and in-between - and not just in terms of money. The Spirit Level, by Wilkinson and Pickett, has sparked a huge debate which is largely being ignored in the U.S. Pity - because those issues are exactly what we need to focus on. The Spirit Level is a book every progressive should read if for no other reason than to be able put together sound bites and talking points based on the wide ranging information in the book. If you want to have a real argument about why Progressive policies make sense, there's stuff in there that will give you plenty of ammo.
Now is the time. The Republicans are largely bluffing at this point. They have to know what they want is impossible and unworkable, but they plan to use smoke, mirrors, fear and anger to slide through the next two years in hopes of taking back the White House. They'll do it too, if the White House is allowed to keep pretending things aren't that bad, and that there are no fundamental issues that can't be addressed by 'bipartisanship'. Kristof is joining Krugman in openly proclaiming what the Villagers are still trying to pretend doesn't exist. (They have David Brooks to tell them what the peasants are really thinking after all.) Even Maureen Dowd is sliding around it in her mean girl way. This election should have driven a stake through the heart of bipartisanship; you don't reach for help putting out a fire from the arsonists who started it and are fanning the flames. We do need consensus, but it's something that can only be built from the grass roots up - not by reaching out to the people whose whole grasp on power depends on keeping America divided against itself.
We have a tremendous opportunity. The Republicans have put themselves into a spot where they can only dodge responsibility if the Democrats let them. It's up to the Progressives to make sure they don't - because what Kristof is writing about today is a burning fuse on a powder keg. We can't keep a lid on it forever, and we damn well can't let the conservatives be the ones deciding where to channel the blast.
UPDATE: Wow - the Rec List. It must be the extra hour ;-) Thanks!
As long as I'm getting such a strong response, let me put in a word for Griftopia, the book that just came out from Matt Taibibi. A book about "Bubble Machines, Vampire Squids, and the Long Con That Is Breaking America" is just the book for these times. I'm still working through it, but it's the kind of book you want to read with a highlighter in hand - there's lots of stuff in there that makes you go "Day-um" when you read it. And don't forget to take a look at The Spirit Level too. It's available for Kindle, and judging by the numbers and identities of the people trying to take it down, the authors must really be on to something. There's a wealth of material at the link for the book covering and amplifying what's in the book.
UPDATE: FDR is a model we look back to on the Progressive side, and one of the things we forget is that FDR had the Fireside Chats to get his message out and frame the issues. It was the age of radio - no TV, and he could frame the issues and set the message with an ease that's impossible today. And he HAD a message. There were 30 fireside chats; here's an excerpt from Number 6 that was broadcast September 30, 1934 that seems just as fitting today.
.....More than twenty years ago, when Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson were attempting to correct abuses in our national life, the great Chief Justice White said:
"There is great danger it seems to me to arise from the constant habit which prevails where anything is opposed or objected to, of referring without rhyme or reason to the Constitution as a means of preventing its accomplishment, thus creating the general impression that the Constitution is but a barrier to progress instead of being the broad highway through which alone true progress may be enjoyed."
In our efforts for recovery we have avoided on the one hand the theory that business should and must be taken over into an all-embracing Government. We have avoided on the other hand the equally untenable theory that it is an interference with liberty to offer reasonable help when private enterprise is in need of help. The course we have followed fits the American practice of Government - a practice of taking action step by step, of regulating only to meet concrete needs - a practice of courageous recognition of change. I believe with Abraham Lincoln, that "The legitimate object of Government is to do for a community of people whatever they need to have done but cannot do at all or cannot do so well for themselves in their separate and individual capacities."
I still believe in ideals. I am not for a return to that definition of Liberty under which for many years a free people were being gradually regimented into the service of the privileged few. I prefer and I am sure you prefer that broader definition of Liberty under which we are moving forward to greater freedom, to greater security for the average man than he has ever known before in the history of America.
Words to remember; words to live by and fight for.
UPDATE: I'm seeing a wistful response in comments to the idea that the President should do something like fireside chats today. It couldn't hurt, but I'm also mindful of the fact that Democrats haven't mastered groupthink the way Republicans do, so how many of us would actually pay attention? Obama would really have to reach out, and at this point he's got a lot of 'splainin to do to the progressive wing to convince us. I posted about a This American Life episode that looks at just the communications problem here. Go download the free mp3 file at the TAL link, and listen to Act Two.