Frank Rich's column today touches on something that cannot be ignored when considering the current rage being vented by the teabaggers: misguided anger over continually getting the short end of the economic stick. Rich points out that while race is obviously a major issue at play, it is time to give consideration to the other motivating factors involved in the over-the-top histrionics currently on display. As always, it is worth reading Rich's piece in its' entirety.
The White House was right not to second Carter’s motion and cue another "national conversation about race." No matter how many teachable moments we have, some people won’t be taught. (Though how satisfying it would have been for Obama to dismiss Wilson, like the boorish Kanye West, as a "jackass.") But there is a national conversation we must have right now — the one about what, in addition to race, is driving this anger and what can be done about it. We are kidding ourselves if we think it’s only about bigotry, or health care, or even Obama. The growing minority that feels disenfranchised by Washington can’t be so easily ghettoized and dismissed.
While not pointing out that it is Republican economic policies that have created much of this sense of "disenfranchisement," Rich notes that part of the anger is derived from a sense that Wall Street has effectively purchased our government to use as it pleases for its' own ends. And though Glenn Beck is nutso seventeen ways from Sunday, it is worth noting that his crusade against government includes something of an anti-corporate message.
"Wall Street owns our government," Beck declared in one rant this July. "Our government and these gigantic corporations have merged." He drew a chart to dramatize the revolving door between Washington and Goldman Sachs in both the Hank Paulson and Timothy Geithner Treasury departments. A couple of weeks later, Beck mockingly replaced the stars on the American flag with the logos of corporate giants like G.E., General Motors, Wal-Mart and Citigroup (as well as the right’s usual nemesis, the Service Employees International Union). Little of it would be out of place in a Matt Taibbi article in Rolling Stone. Or, we can assume, in Michael Moore’s coming film, "Capitalism: A Love Story," which reportedly takes on Goldman and the Obama economic team along with conservative targets.
That Beck and many of his followers have cognitive dissonance the size of Texas that prevents them from connecting the dots between lack of effective government regulation and corporate malfeasance going unchecked is unsurprising; and, as Rich mentions in regard to race, some people are simply never going to be able to overcome their ingrained ideology of racism or "government is always bad."
However, there are a great many Americans who are distrustful of government precisely because it has been so unable to address their concerns for so long. Again, this is most often because of Republican politicians who got elected by railing against government as being "the problem" while simultaneously garnering votes on issues like abortion and guns - though it must be acknowledged that many Democrats have become beholden to corporate interests as well.
But whoever has been at fault, the truth remains that the support of many voters seemingly unwilling to consider supporting Democratic policies and candidates would be there if their economic lot were to markedly improve directly due to Democratic-passed reforms. It is not likely that many of these individuals can be found among the Obama-as-Hitler sign wavers, but a Democratic Party that is able to begin a genuine effort to curtail the power of the corporations would simultaneously begin to marshall the populist anger of left, right, and center into a new governing majority.
In early 2008 I saw more than one vehicle sporting bumper stickers supportive of the presidential campaigns of both Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul. Though there's an incredible gap between the philosophies of these men, one thing that is common to them is that, if enacted to any significant extent, their governing philosophies would seriously shake up the status quo in this country. And that, at bottom, is what unites Americans across the political spectrum: the knowledge that the system is rigged against us, and we want desperately for something, anything, to change. As Rich says:
Though there is nothing Obama can do to stop racists from being racist, he could help stanch the economic piece of this by demonstrating how a reformed government can at times actually make Americans’ lives better. That’s what F.D.R. did, and that’s the promise Obama made, swaying some Republicans and even some racists, during the campaign...Obama [has not] succeeded in persuading critics on the left or right that he will do as much for those Americans who are suffering as he has for the corporations his administration and his predecessor’s rushed to rescue.