On the surface, leftward carping at the president seems out of proportion. Sure, the Republicans have squeezed too many concessions out of him. But the man is hardly George Bush. Let alone Barack Hitler.
And it isn’t like he hasn’t been doing what every other president has done in order to clear a logjam, or move things along. (Yup, even FDR, whose initial Social Security measure excluded farm workers—meaning lots of Latinos—and domestic workers—meaning lots of African Americans.)
Plus, he’s up against a crowd for whom conversation is defined as ‘you shut up while I talk.’ You know. Morons. With their thoughtful mavericky independence of thought—while voting as a solid, monolithic bloc on Every. Single. Issue. Even ones they said just yesterday they agreed with. A person can’t negotiate with people like that, though as president you must seem to, especially if you are gifted at seven-dimensional chess. If you uniquely “see quickly the trade-offs among policy options.”
Feint and dance out of the way, swirl the cape, perform the delicate balancing that political jiu-jitsu requires. Keep your eyes out there, on the horizon. There’s just no other way to make progress.
So, if it’s only a little water leaking in over here on the liberal side of the boat, no big deal. If we all will just pitch in and help out with the bailing, things’ll be fine. We’ll just have to lay down that old campaign speech and get out the coffee can. Bailing out this leaky tub isn’t what we signed on for, the hope and change still a-glimmering, but come on, let’s be pragmatic about this, shall we?
Unless. Unless, after that one more drop, we hit that what they call the threshold amount. And ga-bing! this whole thing heads for the bottom. And not one damn thing you can do about it. Self-organized criticality, is the fancy term. Positive feedback run amok.
The line between survival and calamity, that is so easy to cross unawares. The small vibration that sets off the avalanche, that little give in the plate that triggers the earthquake, the shooting of an archduke in some pissant little country that cascades failures through interdependent connections into world war.
So, what if enough water has already come in? What if we’re already—what’s the fancy term for it? Oh, right. Fucked.
There are undeniable signs.
The collapse of the middle class.
The Zillow Home Value Index has now fallen 26% since its peak in June 2006. That’s more than the 25.9% decline in the Depression-era years between 1928 and 1933.
Emergency Fascist Managers in
Michigan. The
dismantling of public education, public resources, public assets. For
profit.
Whose profit?
The top 10% have 80% to 90% of stocks, bonds, trust funds, and business equity, and over 75% of non-home real estate. Since financial wealth is what counts as far as the control of income-producing assets, we can say that just 10% of the people own the United States of America.
As Harold Bloom notes:
It is scary to reread the final volume of Gibbon these days because the fate of the Roman Empire seems an outline.... We have approached bankruptcy, fought wars we cannot pay for, and defrauded our urban and rural poor. Our troops include felons, and mercenaries of many nations are among our 'contractors,' fighting on their rules or none at all. Dark influences from the American past congregate among us still. If we are a democracy, what are we to make of the palpable elements of plutocracy, oligarchy, and mounting theocracy that rule our state?
If we have already passed the tipping point, if the water is rushing into the hole faster than anyone can possibly bail, then any concession to fascists, bigots, plutocrats, militarists, torturers, and thieves is capitulation. And it won’t do us any good, long or short term. Because these things never go into reverse by themselves.
In that event, the least we can do for ourselves and posterity is go down fighting, not giving one goddamn inch. To fight for our principles with the same ferocity and determination that the monsters have fought to undo them.
The difference between the president’s supporters and his critics over here on the left isn’t about where we want to be. No, it’s about where we think we are.
Me? I hear a sorrowful song.
Two riders were approaching, and the wind began to howl.