John Nichols is excited about the president’s intention to embrace some economic populism in his State of the Union speech. I feel ambivalent about it.
With an eye toward addressing income inequality, the president will use his State of the Union Address to propose new taxes and fees on very rich people and very big banks. In any historical context, the tax hikes and fees are “modest,” but after a period of absurd austerity and slow-growth economics, Obama’s move is as important as it is necessary.
At a point when there is broadening recognition of the social and economic perils posed by income inequaliy, the president is talking about taking simple steps in the right direction. Congress is unlikely go along with him, but the American people will—Gallup polling finds that 67 percent of likely voters are dissatified with income and wealth distrution in the United States. And as this country prepares for the critical presidential and congressional elections of 2016, the president’s clarifying of the terms of debate on taxes becomes vital.
It’s a lot easier to propose policies that will in some sense “soak” the rich when there is absolutely no prospect whatsoever that those policies will ever be enacted under your watch. So, the real significance of these proposals will be, as Nichols actual does note, restricted entirely to how it sets up the eventual Democratic nominee for their contest against Bush 3.0, Romney 3.0, Paul 3.0, or whatever other Republican winds up winning the booby prize in 2016.
It’s worth noting that as far as I can tell, the president has never received even one small iota of credit for proposing things that are popular that never came to pass. In fact, the entire success of the Republicans in the 2014 elections was predicated on the idea that the president would received more blame for gridlock and dysfunction in Washington than they would for causing it. That game plan was completely vindicated in the most depressing manner possible, and there are zero reasons to believe that the playbook won’t work again.
Political scientists will correctly point out that the 2016 congressional elections will be much more favorable to the Democrats than the 2010 or 2014 elections were, but this is because of the higher turnout in the presidential elections and the makeup of Senate seats that will be contested in 2016. These factors are baked in the cake and are not responsive to policy changes or political rhetoric. Will the electorate care that the president proposed something that the Republicans laughed out of town?
No.
No, they won’t.
And just because a Democrat nominee is promising to do what the president could not we should not expect the electorate to find it credible or get excited about it. There are no easy fixes for the bind we’re in.
The bind can be explained simply: to be successful, we must convince the electorate that Washington can and should do things to improve their lives, but the Republicans have enough power to ensure that our premise is a lie. We can’t beat them badly enough to change that.
It’s really checkmate.
And that’s why I’m really struggling to maintain my characteristic optimism.
