I see signs that the Democrats are getting organized and coalescing around a populist economic message. Sen. Chuck Schumer is taking a time-out from undermining the administration’s Iran policy to give a speech at the Center for American Progress today, where he will outline a strategy to split rank-and-file Tea Partiers from their oligarch leaders, using an extension of unemployment insurance and a hike in the minimum wage as bait.
Likewise, the president will use the State of the Union speech to focus on income inequality:
A president who has yet to add to the big legislative accomplishments of his first term will call for raising the minimum wage to $10 per hour and extending federal unemployment benefits that expired last month.
He will also discuss energy and college affordability, two other issues that relate to the economic mobility message that is a major White House theme ahead of this year’s midterm elections.
The White House sees the State of the Union as a key part of the president’s second term reboot, and will accentuate it with a presidential road trip where Obama will tout his proposals.
Some recent polling suggest that the Democrats are on solid footing here.
When asked what would do more to reduce poverty, 54% of all Americans say raising taxes on the wealthy and corporations in order to expand programs for the poor. Fewer (35%) believe that lowering taxes on the wealthy to encourage investment and economic growth would be the more effective approach.
Now, if you think of the typical Tea Partier as working class, white, and somewhat culturally conservative, you might expect to find a lot of them in a place like West Virginia, and that is a state where the Democrats’ populist pitch ought to resonate. Will it?
Here in West Virginia, which has some of the shortest life spans and highest poverty rates in the country, the strength of the demand has surprised officials, with more than 75,000 people enrolling in Medicaid…Waitresses, fast food workers, security guards and cleaners described feeling intense relief that they are now protected from the punishing medical bills that have punched holes in their family budgets.
President Obama gave those waitresses and security guards access to health care, and the Republican Party wants to take that health care away from them. The Koch Brothers want to take that health care away from them.
And, the question is, can the Democrats break through the idiot wind being blasted out by the Mighty Right-Wing Wurlitzer and make their case to these people?
It’s interesting that they are even going to try. Being coordinated will help.
And in another sign of better coordination between congressional Democrats and Obama’s team, Organizing for Action, a grassroots action group created to support the president’s agenda, has helped coordinate events around the country this week to pressure GOP lawmakers to support extended unemployment benefits.
Outside groups such as the AFL-CIO, SEIU, AFSCME and MomsRising have also participated in the coalition targeting GOP lawmakers. They helped organize events targeting Sens. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.) and Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) on Wednesday, Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) on Thursday and Sen. Dean Heller (R-Nev.) on Friday, according to Democratic aides briefed on their activities.
I do try to maintain my optimistic nature, even though it is difficult sometimes. I’ve been arguing for more populist politics for a decade now. Let’s get to work.
Louie Gohmert apparently can afford to be stupid, conflating his unwillingness to accept a subsidy with his failure to acquire affordable coverage. He doesn’t want to be cast in with the “takers”, presumably?
The rest of “Real America” can’t afford to be stupid…
“I’ve been arguing for more populist politics for a decade now. Let’s get to work.”
BooMan,
You short-timer!
Some of us have been calling for it when Jimmy Carter was running – and after he got elected!!!
And we’ve had nothing but over 30 years of grief, blood, sweat, and tears over the path this country has taken, to show for it.
Ever since St. Ronnie got elected, and his “Reagan De-evolution” began, we’ve been going backwards.
Ronnie, the man with the sunny smile and disposition, who regular people loved – and the sharp serrated shiv to stab those same people in the back, and give a fatal twist – put in place by the Oligarchs and Plutocrats to help move money from the poor and the middle class up into their pockets.
It’s long past time for the Democrats to wave farewell to the pimps and whores on Wall Street, and see if their real families on Main Street will take them back.
I’m noticing a step beyond hopeful with the effects of the ACA as it sees enrollments translate into people who are accustomed to toughing it out actually walk into doctors’ offices and begin to get care.
Locally, our little clinic is busting at the seams with new patients and word is spreading fast about how various ailments ‘can be fixed’.
If this keeps up, the ACA alone (as long as Dems take credit for it) will boost voter count.
Schumer’s going minimalist on his bait. And self-consciously talking about it as bait is the sort of cynicism that turns voters off. If Schumer wants to come off as a populist, he can call and introduce legislation to stop payday lending abuses and end the usurious credit card rates in which banks get free money from the Fed and charge over 20% to even regular-paying customers because of the “credit calculation”. And then there are student loans. Finally, the banks have not been held to account for their seven levels of mortgage fraud, and it is continuing (keep up with David Dayen’s reporting on this).
It’s great that OFA has rediscovered labor issues. But it still has the habit of going off and doing its own thing instead of properly working with coalitions. They create great training programs in DC but are ineffective in rolling them out to the field. Some folks who worked with them on the Obamacare roll-out complained that the strategy seems to be leadership building by letting things fall through the cracks and not being able to pick up on opportunities that turn up.
My worry is that it’s all message with little intent to move forward new or bold populist policies. Doing rearguard actions to save populist programs under attack is hardly mobilizing or bold. And it shows a failure of Democrats to defend their constituents. If that’s all there is, it’s going to create despondency, not turnout.
Well, there’s no moving forward as long as the Republicans controls the House. Once we have the trifecta back, that’s the time to transform the rhetoric into policy. Hopefully there will be no more backstabbing like Lincoln-AK and card check.
Crowing about what you’ve done in six years is not likely to get the House back. Hiring consultants who tell you that the PVI of some districts makes them absolutely impossible to get is not going to get the House back. Letting the Trans-Pacific Partnership through will not get the House back. Handing over any district in North Carolina without a huge fight is not going to get the House back.
If it’s truly a populist proposal, Republicans will not want to directly and openly oppose it. Especially if it is very popular in their district.
No backstabbing? Hah. Look at Menendez on foreign policy. Look at Landrieu’s behavior.
Please pardon this thread hijack, but I think Klein’s piece from yesterday is worth a read. It’s about Christie, LBJ and Obama and concludes thus:
Where’s SiDC to warn us that all this populism, which is just as bad as racism and sexism, will turn Virginia blood-red?
Sorry, couldn’t resist.
I’ve been taking some college courses to gain another degree and talk of income inequality and the 1% benefiting at the expense of most others is quite common in discussions. The youth definitely understand the stakes but it will take some careful messaging.
LOL
It will take more than messaging. It will take policy proposals that will actually help these kids, plus a real commitment to fighting for those proposals.
Schumer!!!???
You gotta be kiddin’ me, right? Next thing you know he’ll be denying being on the take from AIPAC. What bullshit. “Populist” is just another buzzword in his lying mouth. Tactics for the Democrats? Real, effective tactics? Do something. Talk is cheap. Even cheaper when it has been inflated. It’s like money. Too many dollars floated out there? They’re only worth a quarter now, and falling fast. Same with empty slogans.
You want the De,s seen as “populist?” Hell, Booman. Get them to do something popular. Like what? Oh, I dunno. Like amnesty for Edward Snowden and truly reining in the out of control intelligence and surveillance services. (Lookit your precious polls regarding that one. Even the professional poll spinners can’t hide that movement in the popular mind.)
Or indict the real movers and shakers of the financial scam that continues to bankrupt this country.
How about prosecuting the liars who forced the Blood For Oil war in Iraq on the American people through the use of the media.
Or maybe indicting the craven sons of bitches in the media who cooperated in that farce for being assets of a criminal enterprise called our “Intelligence” system.L;et’s start with the NY Times and the bosses who allowed Judith Miller to run the reporting show from Iraq. Front page all the way. What a coincidence,” eh? Please.
Obama is now about as populist as a drone strike on an Afghan wedding. That doesn’t even go over well in a Ku Klux Klan meeting, let alone the average American household. No amount of branding is going to change that fact. Only real change will have any lasting effect.
You want a nightmare for the Democratic Party? I’ve got one for you. By 2015 or so the only Republican left with a viable national standing and a functional organization will likely be Rand Paul. Meanwhile the public will have awakened even further to the “I’m a liberal,” “I’m a populist” branding sham that defines the Democratic Party pretty much as a whole.
Hillary Fucking Clinton and all, with Obama standing first in that sham line. Bet on it. Anybody with an ounce of sense would have backed off the royalty treatment the moment he realized that the entire economic system has cracked right up through the poverty classes and into the working and middle classes. The next photo of him and his scowling bride in thousands of dollars of finery attending a fund raiser or enjoying a vacation in some hideaway for multimillionaires will lose the Democrats more votes than they will ever be able scrape up with jiveass “populist” messages. Bet on that as well.
Wake up and smell the smoke, Booman. The whole fucking edifice is on fire and all Washington can think of doing is to play branding message music on its media violins.
Wake the fuck up.
AG
It would be easier if you just made a list of the people who shouldn’t be arrested.
A chippy;little answer to a very serious question, Booman. You get more lightweight as you descend into the bowels of the PermaGov. You are being digested. So it goes. But…as always…I’ll give you a logical set of answers to who should not be arrested.
Noam Chomsky, just for starters. Mike Taibbi and the rest of the truth tellers in the alternate media/alternate universe. It still exists, thank whatever really runs the universe
All of the whistleblowers of the past 14 years of so…there are a lot of them, bro’…including Edward Snowden, Chelsea/Bradley Manning and Julian Assange as well.
Those who have not compromised their conscience for safety and/or profit/position no matter on what level of the system they reside.
Can a sitting president bed arrested? Put Obama on the list too, after his boy James Clapper flat-out lied to the Senate…another bunch of criminals, which is why Clapper wasn’t really called on his lie…regarding the thoroughly proven extent of NSA wiretapping on innocent American citizens. Had he fired Clapper on the spot maybe he would have been able to mount a Christie “I din’t know!!!” defense…it’s lame, but it’s also survivable given the plausible denial setup so well in place for people like Presidents and other crime bosses
But…who’d do the arresting, Booman? The Dept. of Justice? Hell, no!!! Military prosecutors? Please!!! The whole system is now rotted out from the inside. Only action from the outside of this rotted PermaGov can do the job. The only viable “outside” now? Libertarians. It could happen.
Watch.
While you are at it, top, look and listen too.
The cracking foundations of this system can be heard by anyone who is not talking so much about how to prop it up that they can’t hear anything but their own voices and the voices of those who are running the same lame game.
WTFU.
AG
P.S. By the way…those Buffalo Springfield motherfuckers could tune their instruments and play in good time, Booman. That’s why they never became cultural superstars/billionaires like the Rolling Stones or heroes to the hopelessly wrecked like the
Grating…errrr, ahhh…Grateful Dead. Bet on it.Buffalo Springfield motherfuckers could tune their instruments and play in good time, Booman. That’s why they never became cultural superstars/billionaires like the Rolling Stones or heroes to the hopelessly wrecked like the Grating…errrr, ahhh…Grateful Dead. Bet on it.
You mean people like Neil Young, who made enough millions to buy 20%of Lionel Corp?????
Or Stephen Stills, who in 2000, served as a member of the Democratic credentials committee from Florida during the Democratic National Convention, and was an actual delegate in previous years.
Both have lived in the upper 5% economically since their Woodstock days.
Just like members of the Stones and Dead have done …..
They are not cultural icons, clif. Just damned good musicians. Walk down any street and say “The Grateful Dead,”, “The Rolling Stones” or “Mick Jagger” and see how many people know what you are talking about. Then do the same w/Stills, Young or Buffalo Springfield. No contest. That’s just the way it rolls here in the E. A. E. (The Extended American Empire) Mediocrity (or worse) hyped by the Mediacracy produces the Mediocracy.
Bet on it.
AG
If the dems had any brains they’d push a massively advertised platform where they swear on a stack of bibles that if the house and senate are in democratic control in Jan. 2015 the first order of business will be to raise the minimum wage to $15 – not $10 – a full $15/hr. Make that the #1 and only issue of the 2014 campaign. First of all, it will not only help inequality, it’ll also boost the hell out of the economy as a whole. Second, the GOP has no comeback other than 47% 47% 47%.
There’s just no way all the white trash in those gerrymandered districts won’t pull the lever for a 60% raise – “what’s the matter with kansas” syndrome notwithstanding. There’s just NO WAY.
I think TarheelDem’s “no co-pays and no deductibles” for health care might be more of a winner.
What I’ve been wondering about is the number of Republicans–Paul Ryan, Marco Rubio–who have been talking about poverty and economic inequality lately. When even Republicans start pretending to care about poor people, you know something is going on.
Well, let’s not give too much credit to the fascists just yet.
Republicans will mouth poverty and inequality just long enough to tell you that all we need is less taxes on the job creatorsTM and corporations.