It looks like David Brooks has finally discovered that our national political discourse is incredibly stupid. He even seems to almost sort of get where the root of the problem lies.
The Republican growth agenda — tax cuts and nothing else — is stupefyingly boring, fiscally irresponsible and politically impossible. Gigantic tax cuts — if they were affordable — might boost overall growth, but they would do nothing to address the structural problems that are causing a working-class crisis.
Republican politicians don’t design policies to meet specific needs, or even to help their own working-class voters. They use policies as signaling devices — as ways to reassure the base that they are 100 percent orthodox and rigidly loyal. Republicans have taken a pragmatic policy proposal from 1980 and sanctified it as their core purity test for 2012.
But, of course, none of this is sufficient for Brooks to take leave of the Republican Party. He must craft a narrative in which the Democrats are equally at fault.
As for the Democrats, they offer practically nothing. They acknowledge huge problems like wage stagnation and then offer… light rail! Solar panels! It was telling that the Democrats offered no budget this year, even though they are supposedly running the country. That’s because they too are trapped in a bygone era.
Mentally, they are living in the era of affluence, but, actually, they are living in the era of austerity. They still have these grand spending ideas, but there is no longer any money to pay for them and there won’t be for decades. Democrats dream New Deal dreams, propose nothing and try to win elections by making sure nobody ever touches Medicare.
Covering this upcoming election is like covering a competition between two Soviet refrigerator companies, cold-war relics offering products that never change.
Never mind that the Democrats successfully raised the minimum wage in 2009, or that they’re the party that believes in progressive taxation, taxes on unearned income, and an estate tax to keep the nation’s richest from gobbling up all wealth we collectively create through increased productivity.
The number of business start-ups per capita has been falling steadily for the past three decades. Workers’ share of national income has been declining since 1983. Male wages have been stagnant for about 40 years. The American working class — those without a college degree — is being decimated, economically and socially.
Does Brooks not make the connection between Reaganomics and these thirty year trends? Here he is pooh-poohing clean energy and efficient transportation as “nothing.” Which party is standing in the way of creating a green economy with new green industries that create new manufacturing jobs?
The Democrats offered plenty in 2009-2010. They offered so much, in fact, that they created a political backlash. They’re not offering much now because the Republicans have the power and the willingness to block anything and everything.
The Democrats have adjusted to the times. They’re not offering to go back to the New Deal. They realize that old solutions will not work as well in our modern age. Defending Medicare and Social Security is not some ossified ideological rigidity. It’s basic decency.
Seventy-five percent of the problems we’re facing in this country we either caused by the Republicans (unemployment, wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, income disparity, the budget deficit) or are going unaddressed because of Republican opposition. Another 15% of our problems are caused by stupid rules adopted by the U.S. Senate which give the minority party as much power as the majority power. That leaves about 10% left over for blaming the Democrats. And I’d say about 9% of the that 10% can be laid at the feet of our campaign finance laws (or lack thereof) that only exist in present fashion because of Republican-appointed judges.
Our country is totally screwed up, but it’s not the left’s fault. And the Democratic Party is the only institution we have in this country that can at least keep the country running without destroying everything it touches. Find me another institution that can do that much and I’ll give it my support instead.