After the Future

Short-term vs. Long-Term Gains

There are two types of Progressives right now, those who are focused on the day-to-day pragmatics of politics--let's call them pragmatic Progressives--and those who are concerned about long-term systemic trends--Let's call them structural Progressives.

Structural Progressives worry about the long-term destabilizing effect of wealth being distributed upward the way it has been over the last 30 years. The structural group is big picture, and "symbolic" victories matter to them if they are understood as wins in the longer-term war that is being fought for the soul of the country.

If you don't think that the aggregation of wealth and the power that comes with it in the hands of so few is a problem for a democratic republic, you're probably fine with the Obama deal. Long-term trends don't matter that much to you--you're more concerned with making it to next week or to the next election cycle. Or you're oblivious of or incredulous that America is evolving into a stratified, Brazil-like oligarchical society. Sure, you're concerned about wealth stratification, but not that concerned. You've got other things to worry about.

The pragmatic progressives, and Obama is one of them, are, therefore, small picture, play-the-cards-you're dealt, get done what you can, and all that matters is getting the best deal in the short run. History will take care of the big picture. They focus on what's possible in the given political reality, and accept as a victory whatever progressive gains they can obtain given the hard political realities. They tend to look at structural issues as "symbolic" and impractical. There is for them no "war"; there is only the day-to-day skirmishing, and at the end of it, after one term or two, history will judge whether a presidency was net gain or net loss, success or failure. 

The Tax Deal

Since everything now is a bargaining chip, even unemployment insurance when we have chronic 10% unemployment, I guess extending an irresponsible, deficit aggravating, non-stimulative tax break for the wealthiest is a win for the president and the American people. They get another year of unemployment insurance in exchange.

The rich get their ten-course dinner, and  ordinary Americans get crumbs brushed from their table. Good times: Enjoy them while they last. Wait till the GOP takes over.

Get used to it.  That's the grown-up thing to do.

Go Bernie

Why is this so hard for Americans to talk about? 

Someone We Can Count On

The cliché criticisms of Obama are (from the left) that he is a naïve centrist, not the audacious liberal that Democrats thought they were getting, and (from the right) that he is a socialist out to impose government on every corner of American life. But the real problem is that he’s so indistinct no one across the entire political spectrum knows who he is. A chief executive who repeatedly presents himself as a conciliator, forever searching for the “good side” of all adversaries and convening summits, in the end comes across as weightless, if not AWOL. . . .

Christie’s popularity among national right-wing activists and bloggers has been stoked by a viral YouTube video where he dresses down a constituent in a manner that recalls Ralph Kramden sending Alice “to the moon.” But the core of Christie’s appeal at home is that he explains passionately held views in concrete, plain-spoken detail. Voters know what he stands for and sometimes respect him for his forthrightness even when they reject the stands themselves. This extends to his signature issue — his fiscal and rhetorical blows against public education. He’s New Jersey’s most popular statewide politician despite the fact that a 59 percent majority in the state thinks public schools deserve more taxpayer money, not less.

G.O.P. propagandists notwithstanding, Christie’s appeal does not prove that New Jersey (and therefore the country) has “turned to the right.” It does prove that people want a leader with a strong voice, even if only to argue with it. (Frank Rich)

The problem is that Republicans and Independents admire the Christie communication style, but Dems don't. Dems on the whole don't like confrontation.  They had a chance to put someone like that in national office in Howard Dean, but he was deemed unpresidential for his confrontational, straight-shooting style.

Liberals don't like confrontation; they like to be reasonable. But there's a time to be reasonable, and there's a time to fight. When your opponents show up to a negotiation with baseball bats, broken bottles, and bicycle chains, maybe that's a signal that it's not time to be reasonable and conciliatory. Maybe being reasonable in a situation like that signals to your opponents and everybody watching that you're a wuss whose afraid of a fight and that you can be intimidated into giving away the store.

Maybe that's why my relatives think Obama doesn't have the capability to govern. One told me over Thanksgiving that Democrats think that the president has to be the smartest guy in the room. Republicans don't. They just want somebody they can count on.

Elite Media Stupidity: It's Not a Bug . . .

Dougl at Balloon Juice thinks that maybe a big part of the problem lies in that elites in the MSM aren't very smart:

Maybe it’s time to admit that the people at the top of our political/media heap just aren’t very bright. Politics and media are both areas where there isn’t a lot of good accreditation and review of people (the way there is to some extent in law or medicine or academia), nor is there much opportunity for constructive entrepreneurship (you have to be at some large organization to get anywhere) nor is there anyway to get to the top by just beating other people, as there might be in something like sports (I realize there are elections to win, but they are mostly rigged via gerrymandering etc.). Most of it doesn’t pay very well at the beginning, with all these unpaid internships and so on.

I find it amazing that lots of smart people still don't understand that the MSM is closed system whose primary purpose is to serve corporate and shareholder interests. Big media organizations hire and promote careerists who understand that they don't move up the ladder unless they can prove themselves to be a prodigies of the banal and commonplace. The whole media structure exists not to challenge entrenched power but to reinforce it, and no one gets promoted who isn't on board with that.

Maddow and Olbermann have their liberal ratings niche for the time being because the conservative ratings niche is already occupied, and they pose no significant threat to elite power because they cater to a relatively small, toothless group that has no desire or capability to rock the establishment. And they play their role to keep the culture war alive, which keeps most Americans who have common interests otherwise divided and conquered. As long as the American people fight among themselves, they don't fight elite power. The most important thing for entrenched power is to make sure that we're all segregated into our respective tribal silos. 

Quote of the Day: John Cole

Not to go all Eeyore on you, but I’ve about abandoned all hope with the news the Democrats are going to cave on taxes. I’m astounded that they are going to fuck this up. Literally, they have to do nothing and the tax cuts expire. It will take actual work to fuck this up, but they are going to pull it off. Why they won’t listen to folks like Kos, let the Bush tax cuts expire, and then craft their own tax policy and dare the GOP to vote against it is beyond me.

I thought maybe after being the GOP’s prison bitch for the last two years, the administration would come out swinging and put up a fight. Instead, it looks like they intend to shiv their supporters.  (Source)

He's not caving to the Republicans; he's caving to the transpartisan insider power elite whose support he thinks he needs to govern. Popular opinion is irrelevant 95% of the time, and the 5% of the time it does matter, it's easy to manipulate. Although I still can't quite bring myself to accept it, It's pretty clear now that he's simply not in control; he's doing as he's told.

Dems: Party of the Rich

As 2009 passed into 2010 and government deficits ballooned, the worries of corporate America and the rich deepened. They saw unemployment rise and stay around 10% and a flood of foreclosures eject millions from their homes. They saw Obama losing support from his electoral base as economic conditions kept deteriorating. They feared that he might be tempted (politically compelled) to regain his base's support by taxing corporations and the rich rather than middle and poorer citizens. Then some Obama remarks blamed Wall Street for helping to cause the crisis and criticized the high executive salaries in corporations receiving government aid. In response, a significant portion of corporations and the rich decided to block Obama from moving any further in such directions.

The way to do that was clear: help Republicans. They reliably oppose taxes on corporations and the rich by blocking all tax increases. Corporations especially interested in preventing Obama from other efforts to recoup his base -- such as regulating energy companies after the Gulf of Mexico disaster -- helped the Tea Party's total demonization of Obama and Washington. Media exposure for the Tea Party -- its activities and candidates -- became extraordinary and often quite favorable. Media attitudes toward Obama became much less sympathetic. Funds shifted to Republicans and lobbying against Obama's legislative efforts ramped up.

Obama's team ignored the classic flaw in Keynesian deficit spending policy: underestimating the political struggles over taxes. Middle and lower income individuals were desperate to ease the burdens of the recession on them, while corporations and the rich had no intention of accepting such burdens. As the crisis persisted (no drops in unemployment, foreclosures, job deterioration, etc.) and deficits soared, Obama's base felt increasingly betrayed as very little improved for them. Meanwhile, corporations and the rich shifted support toward Republicans in significant numbers. By mid-2010, it was already too late for Obama. The six months before the November elections were, for many Democrats, like watching an approaching car wreck from inside the car yet powerless to stop it. (Rick Wolff.)

Whoah.  Let's keep the conversation focussed on culture war issues, shall we--it's much safer. Don't want to get into that nasty class warfare stuff. It cuts too close to the bone.

At some point Americans are going to figure out that the central political issue of our day is not conservative vs. liberal, but a classic power struggle between the wealthy and the rest of us. The wealthy already understand this; the rest of us don't.

I believe Obama could have prevented his electoral spanking if the broad American public saw him and the Dems as a whole as in their corner against the rich. If nothing else he needed to use his bully pulpit and his prodigious communication skills to make the case for the rest of us. He did not because he's too afraid of the rich and their power, and he, along with ther rest of the corporate Dems, is broadly perceived as being the agent of the rich.

And that's why he's in no man's land, neither here nor there.  The rich don't care about him and clearly have no respect for him, because he caves time and again, and the rest of us don't care about him, because clearly he doesn't care about us.

We know--it's harder to govern than to campaign.  We know it's a tough job, and that it's complicated.  But at some point you have to take a stand, Dude. You have to fight for the people who put you there.