The dollar is becoming as about as valuable as the peso. The federal budget deficit is soaring. Interest rates are rising. America's allies have become fearful and mistrustful of the US government. And the answer of the Republicans to all of that is to...focus on a woman in a coma!
Those who are waiting for the "political cycle" to re-assert itself and swing the pendulum of power back towards Democrats may be in for a shock--because...
The Republicans are willfully destroying the political cycle through their reckless spending. Here's a condensed version of the plan:
- Run the deficit and debt into the stratosphere.
- The deficit and debt spark an economic crisis, with rising inflation, a devalued currency, and sky-high interest rates. Massive unemployment will make the military draft unnecessary, as plenty of jobless "volunteers" join the Army as the only work they can find.
- The Republicans use the crisis they created as an excuse to gut the New Deal, especially the progressive income tax, Social Security, unemployment insurance--all social programmes, in fact.
- Even if the country turns against the Republicans puts Democrats back in charge, the Democrats will have to do the Republicans' dirty work for them because the economic/fiscal "train wreck" will be so catastrophic that the Democrats will have to slash social spending. HOWEVER, the Republicans have become very, very good at convincing working class people to vote against their economic interests, and there is no reason to think that "the people" will turn against the Republicans in huge numbers, no matter how bad the economy gets. It will be far easier to scapegoat gays and foreigners for America's problems than to grapple with its fundamental economic inequities (and don't Rove and DeLay know it).
At the heart of all this lies the Republican belief--which is a correct one, I think--that the American people will not support "class warfare" of the working people against the rich through higher taxes and other measures (but WILL, and have, supported "class warfare" of the rich against working people).
The Republicans are out to destroy all government spending except military spending. They are doing it in two ways:
- The threat of "the terrorists" has replaced the threat of "the Soviet Union" as an excuse to keep military spending sky-high.
- They are precipitating a broad economic crisis through a combination of tax cuts for the rich and excessive spending, creating a huge budget gap that will be closed by reducing social programmes to a shadow of their former selves.
It is a diabolical plan, designed to turn the US into a banana republic--and it is working.
The Democrats, which are the only cohesive opposition party, have so far shown no inclination to stop the Republicans and turn back the tide. The Republicans are providing today's Democrats with a golden political opportunity which the Democrats of FDR's or LBJ's time would have seized in an instant. Yet today's Democrats are timid, hesitant, reluctant...
The class warfare is not yet lost. But it WILL be lost the day Democrats agree to a programme of eliminating social programmes, instead of calling out for higher taxes on the rich and on the big corporations. The Democrats, in turning away from their progressive track in the past 20 years, have allowed the Republicans to make signficant gains. The Republicans control not only the federal government but also many state legislatures and the national agenda. Republicans act, Democrats react.
And that is the problem. Democrats need to stop playing defence and go on the offence.
Yet can they do so when Democrats are almost as closely allied with corporate interests and money as the Republicans?
We are in for a sea change in American politics. Either the Democrats will recover their progressive voice and tromp the Republicans into the ground, or else the Democrats will wither and die--and a new, more vigorous party will supplant them.