The Failure of the Democrats
Dave Lindorff says it better than I could ever imagine:
Blowing It: Democrats, Unable to Be a Party of the People, are Sinking Themselves
by Dave Lindorff
The smoking ruin that is the the Obama White House, and the rotting corpse that is the Democratic Party, have, incredibly, together been boxed into a corner by, of all things, the certifiably insane Republican Party.
This amazing situation has resulted not through any brilliant strategy on the part of the Republicans, but by the self-inflicted wounds of the Democrats.
Faced with a collapsing economy that is at serious risk of performing a reprise of the Great Depression, Congressional Democrats and President Obama were in a perfect position to grab the flag and run home with it by declaring war on unemployment and on the party that has unequivocally declared itself openly to be the standard bearer of the wealthy and powerful.
All the president and Congressional Democrats had to do was announce that Social Security, Medicare, education and programs to protect the poor were all off limits in any discussion of the federal budget, and to declare an immediate 25% cut in military spending, as called for earlier by Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA), the ranking member of the House Financial Services Committee.
How hard would that have been to do? The polls show it’s what the public wants. Any elected official who did this, particularly someone elected and re-elected as a Democrat, would have been hailed by voters for such a bold action.According to a Pew Research Center poll conducted in late May and released June 11, 60% of Americans correctly attribute the nation’s enormous deficit primarily to military spending, which eats up 52% of every tax dollar (Social Security and Medicare are entirely funded by separate payroll taxes, and not only have not contributed a single dollar to the federal deficit, but have been routinely borrowed from by the government to finance the deficit in the government’s operating budget caused by military spending). Only 24% blame the deficit on domestic spending other than military (and probably every one of those is a Republican or right-wing independent who likely believes that the earth was created 6000 years ago, and is flat, and who will never vote Democratic no matter what).
That same poll showed that the vast majority of Americans (73%) object to proposals to cut the budget by reducing federal funding for social programs, or federal funding to the states for education, or by reducing Social Security benefits (59%), for example by raising the retirement age.
What the Pew poll finds Americans do support is raising the cap on income subject to the Social Security Tax (FICA), from its current meager level of $106,000, to cover all income (66% in favor). They also favor raising taxes on those households that earn more than $250,000 a year (65% in favor), and they favor getting rid of tax deductions for corporations, which have allowed many wildly profitable companies like Exxon, GE and News Corp to pay no corporate taxes despite earning billions of dollars in profits (62% in favor). They also overwhelmingly favor reducing America’s military operations overseas, where the US currently maintains over 800 bases in countries all over the world, including wealthy allies such as Europe and Japan (62% in favor).
After being deluged with poorly written, simplistic and often ideologically-driven news stories all year hyping the supposed budget “crisis,” the percentage of Americans who say they are worried about the budget deficit has crept up from 24% to 28%, but far more Americans say they are worried about the jobs crisis (38%, up from 34% in March).
If you were a political advisor in the White House, or in the Democratic Congressional Committee or the Democratic National Committee, one would think that seeing those numbers, the strategy going forward would be obvious: declare the country to be facing New Depression, call the Republican Party out as a bunch of know-nothings, end the wars, bring the troops home, slash military spending, call for higher taxes on the rich, and, in Congress, introduce a public jobs program every day of every week, forcing the Republicans to vote them down, one after another through the next election day.
But the Democratic Party, as I said, is a rotting corpse, and it certainly is not an organization that sees itself as fighting for the common man and woman.
As for the White House political team, and the president himself, they seem to have long since lost their grip on reality.
The president has been hanging around with Wall Street bankers, taking their money and their self-serving ideas, for so long now he actually thinks like them. Congressional Democrats, like their Republican colleagues, are so covetous of corporate campaign cash and lobbyist perks that, with a few exceptions, they can’t imagine crossing any corporate interests.
This is not a case of Democrats being stupid. You’d have to be far worse than stupid not to see the correct political strategy to adopt at this point.
What has happened is that the Democratic Party is no more. It is, at this point, all about current incumbents gaining the favor of the corporate elite, lulling the public into a non-voting torpor or stupor, and of course, arguing that people worried about the nation’s future should vote for them yet again because “the Republicans are worse.”
In a press conference on Friday, President Obama made some incredible statements, all demonstrably untrue. He said “We are all part of the same country,” and yet he surely knows that when it comes to the leaders of America’s biggest corporations, including GE, whose chairman Jeffrey Immelt he appointed to head his Jobs Council, this is demonstrably false. While many of these leaders may be Americans by birth, the companies they run and represent earn the majority of their revenues and profits from operations abroad, and are thus, technically speaking, foreign enterprises, with foreign interests that trump any US interests. Obama said, “We are all in this together,” speaking of the supposed debt “crisis,” but of course, he has announced himself ready to cut Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid programs, upon which poor and working class families depend, while leaving the rich largely unscathed. He has said it is the “will of the people” to cut the budget, but to the extent that that is even true, which is highly debatable, the will of the people is actually to cut military spending, not to cut Social Security or Medicare or even budgets for education or Medicaid.
The good news is that an increasing number of Americans appear to be finally realizing that this president is a fraud–a shill for bankers, the corporate interests and the neo-con military establishment who has just been posing as a man of the people.
The bad news is that there is little likelihood of any Third Party arising before 2012 that could seriously contest the national election, meaning that we are probably headed for either more of the same or for a Republican-led government.
The hope has to be that the blatant sell-out of the public interest and the national interest by both parties and by the president is becoming so self-evident that the American public will actually wake up from its media-induced somnolence and will abandon them both.
The institutional obstacles to such an unprecedented rebellion are of course enormous, but then, these are unprecedented times.
I always said the reason why I am different from most of my family and my “crowd” is because I got turned on to reading when I was a little kid living in Jersey City and the bookmobile came down our street. I couldn’t BELIEVE they let us take out the books for FREE! I got lucky. The first book I chose, because of the picture on the cover, was a classic–Stewart Little by E.B. White. It started a lifelong love of reading and I believe reading has taught me to be open-minded and tolerant of others who are different. I even read what I don’t understand, for example, if the words are not in my vocabulary. I’ll push through it. I figure something might take. Of course nowadays, incredulously since this is 2011, we are up against the likes of people like Sarah Palin who want to ban books and the Texas government who are changing text books to fit their philosophical beliefs. It reminds me of “1984.” Which is ironic since that “don’t-tell-me-what-to-do” war cry is what the tea baggers are all about. But of course “don’t-tell-me-what-to-do” really means “I am right and you are wrong and we’re doing it my way you dirty Muslim, immigrant, atheist, queer,”–just fill in anything that’s different. And the rich corporations are capitalizing on that. Because people are too stupid to catch on because they don’t read!
And people believe what they see on TV! Worst of all is Fox News masquerading as real news. Dan Casey of The Roanoke Times just wrote an interesting article making fun of some tea baggers’ whacko conspiracy theories and he asked one of the extremists why he believed some lunatic idea–I can’t remember exactly what it was right now–and the guy said, “Because I read it on the Internet.” Ha! It must be true because it was on the Internet. So where do people get their real news and true information from? How to decipher what is real and what is not? Bill Maher, my favorite commentator/comedian, agrees with you about the American people being the most entertained and the least educated people in the world. He’s always saying how stupid everyone is. I’ve got to say, it’s pretty true.
How do you get real news and true information? First, there is no such thing as “real” or “true”. Everything is subjective when it comes to human actions. The ability to read and the ability to think critically are two entirely different things. So when someone says it must be true because they read it on the Internet, that says a whole lot more about the person who said it than the Internet. Is something true because it appears in The National Enquirer or The Star? I didn’t think so. The best way to find the truth is to read widely. Start with the classics, either fiction or non-fiction. Television is beyond horrible. Read Marshall McLuhan’s classic about the media,Understanding Media: the Extensions of Man.
The answer is for people to stop watching the spin-meisters on TV and to start reading and learning about what is really happening in this country. But that won’t happen – Americans are the most entertained and least educated people on the face of the earth. The ruling elite is very happy to see that situation continue. I don’t share your opinion that Obama is “sincere about caring for the regular guy”. If you’ll do some investigation into his background, you will find that he cares not a whit for the regular guy. The health plan is a boondoggle for private insurance companies. If you want socialism, you will be an advocate for single-payer. Government is the collective expression of the will of the people but because 90% of the people don’t participate in government in any meaningful way, that collective expression turns out to be the will of the elite. They control the dialog by determining what appears in the papers and on TV. Turn off the damn TV!!!
It said this in that article you included the link for: “While the Democrats have compromised again and again on economic issues that might have brought real relief to the unemployed, the Tea Party continued to direct all of its anger, its threats, its waving of guns in the direction of the man in the White House and his allies. The billionaires who poured cash into the Tea Party got their money’s worth by deflecting outrage onto the president.” THAT’S what’s happening. That’s what I mean by Obama being blamed for everything and I think he’s doing the best that he can and I truly feel that he is sincere about caring about the regular guy even though he has compromised more than some of us wanted. He is extremely intellingent and sometimes you have to lose a few battles to win the war. I hope that article is right and the rich people are getting scared that they’ve pushed us too far. For years we’ve all been saying “the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer.” It is so true. And now it’s at catastrophic levels. What’s the answer Jeff? I was thinking about you today when I was driving. I was thinking, it would be real nice if we could just become a socialistic society but big change like that doesn’t happen easily. Little baby steps. The health care plan, though not nearly enough, is one baby step. Or we could become dog trainers!
Okay, I finally got a chance to read it. It sounds like he’s saying Obama orchestrated this shrewd maneuver for reelection. Obama somehow gets blamed again. I don’t think it’s that simple. But perhaps he is more clever than we thought. Perhaps he gave the Republicans a run for their money by letting them make assholes of themselves. I don’t blame Obama. I give him credit. I hope this enables him to win again because then maybe this country will get on its feet.
As far as the Republicans not having any good candidates for the next reelection. Don’t underestimate Perry from Texas. He is well-loved by the screaming right wingers and he comes across as “normal.” The average person who doesn’t spend a lot of time reading and deciphering, even some Democrats, will vote for him because he’s good looking. He is a big threat. He lives with Big Oil and is tied up with pharmaceutical companies. He even changed laws in Texas to increase the required vaccines kids have to get before they go to school because his mother-in-law works for Merck.
Anyway, I don’t know the details yet but it appears they’ve come to some sort of an agreement.
I don’t see where he blamed Obama at all. He merely provided an explanatory framework for understanding what he is doing. Whether the author’s thesis is right or wrong will be discovered in time. So you think the outcome of this manufactured debt crisis is good for the workers in this country? Some sort of agreement is right – it’s called stealing from the poor and giving to the rich. Some agreement! Why do people consistently shoot themselves in the feet? I don’t doubt that Rick Perry could get elected because of his “good looks”. Stupid Americans. The right wing will drag all of us down to Hell just so they can be rich. I’ve got news for them: keep it up and they will all be looking at the wrong end of a gun barrel.
Who should cry “uncle” Jeff? Just wondering what you think should happen now?
I read a very interesting perspective on the whole spectacle at Vichy Democrats that goes into detail about the Machiavellian tactics that the author says Obama is using. The author’s thesis is believable, to be sure, but it doesn’t change the fact that Obama is a pawn of Wall Street and that the outcome of the manufactured crisis will not be good for working people. I say manufactured crisis because the debt ceiling has been raised some 40 times in the last 70 years – this is nothing new. The fact that the Tea Party has tied the debt ceiling to cutting taxes may well be their swan song. It looks like Boehner may well lose his job as Speaker of the House because of the Tea Party shenanigans.
That was a good article. I still think the president is doing the best that he can considering he’s up against the whacko Republicans.