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.
Yep. Been there for years.
Stalemate is the word. No movement.
Checkmate means you’re lost.
Liberals need a lot of things to be successful. When they are in place – change comes in bunches. 1933-1945, 1961-1973, 2009-2010.
Every meaningful liberal program was in enacted within 26 years of the past 100.
Financial regulation/SE/FDIC,Social Security, Medicare,CRA, Equal Opportunity, VRA, Obamacare,
3/4 of the time things are stalemated or in reverse, from a liberal perspective.
Liberals need to keep their head in the game all the time so they are ready when that 1/4 opportunity hits.
of a radical change in the conversation.
Recent Firsts:
The last 8 years have been dominated by an economic tidal wave. We may know be in a period of transition when people now believe the economy is returning to something like normal.
If, big if, the economic recovery continues 2016 may look like 2000 rather than 2004, 2008 and 2012.
gasoline
“Free” gasoline does wonders for making USians feel good all over. They don’t want to hear, much less deal with, what this means in the long term for their children and grandchildren. Today it means more cash to drive more miles or more cash to buy more crap made in China. Whoop-de-doo!
job growth has picked up, and there are now more job openings than there have been since 2007
Not to mention we are sick and furious of seeing lying liars lie when there is no chance and forget when there is.
As even farking Bush would say, “fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can’t get fooled again.”
If President Obama doesn’t mention the FACT that empowering workers to collectively bargain and politically mobilize are effective ways to empower the working poor and middle class and make them happier, healthier and wealthier, I’ll be very disappointed. Passing laws and initiating regulations which help workers represent their own interests is a very efficient and democratic way to do those things.
I will admit that I’m prepared to be disappointed by the President omitting this fact in his SOTU. It will be no less true if he fails to mention it.
I’m pretty sure the Democratic leadership wouldn’t allow any talk of increasing union participation. They are committed ordoliberals. As the Singaporean official said, “It’s very hard to control people if you allow them to be free.” They will probably allow Obama to talk about increasing taxes on the rich and large companies, because they have plenty of votes to overcome any Republican defectors who might go along with such heresy. There’s no chance these ideas will actually be debated for at least another thirty years. Then again, hoocoodanode public opinion would change so much so quickly on marriage equality. Maybe I can find a little gleam of optimism after all.
I doubt he’ll say anything in the speech but his actions speak louder than words on this issue
Well, the President’s SOTU mentioned the need to pass better laws to help unions, not hurt them, as a good way to help build the middle class. Particularly given what has happened since 2010, the failure to pass EFCA in Obama’s first, strong Congress is a real tragedy.
On the “actions, not words” front, we have seen the NLRB returned under the Obama Administration to its role as a defender of employees from some abuses by their bosses. That’s been happening even though the radical Federalist Society judges have stabbed the NLRB in the gut repeatedly during this time, including a series of Supreme Court rulings whose judicial premises are remarkably inconsistent. Results-based decisions are what this wrecking crew and their supporters are into.
“Baked in the cake” my ass. Shouldn’t this make liberal analysts such as yourself ask why Democrats don’t turn out for off-year elections? Because I see the conventional wisdom that they do not do so repeated again and again but none of you seems capable of doing any analysis to get at the causes.
Think about it: here we have voters who seem to be perfectly capable of finding their way to the polls in
certain years and are motivated enough to take the time to do so — yet these same people consistently and repeatedly lose either their motivation or sense of direction two years later.
I see only three explanations:
Maybe it’s time to think more about explanation number 3 since numbers 1 and 2 haven’t done much to change the actual situation you face.
I dunno. Was the Occupy movement a failure or did it create some profound changes in the way people perceive and discuss the issue of income inequality? Did the protests in Ferguson MO, and NYC, and cities all over the country accomplish nothing or did they highlight issues of white supremacy and white privilege that had festered for years?
How many Democrats running in the last election had anything useful to say about income inequality? How many Democrats running in the last election had anything useful to say about white supremacy? Are there issues that people care about profoundly, on which the Democrats have not one single useful word to say?
Anyone with half a brain can see that electing Democrats (usually) leads to marginally better outcomes than electing Republicans does (although I note that Ferguson and Missouri both seem to be Democratic shops in the good-old-boy sense which says a lot to me about Democrats). So it seems that these “marginally better outcomes” aren’t enough to move the needle with enough voters to do the trick.
So maybe your candidates need to be more than just “marginally better”.
You’re “struggling to maintain your characteristic optimism” because you’re looking at the same old problems in the same old way and coming up with the same old answers that don’t work. You’re baking your own failure into your own cake.
Many Democratic voters come from the lower castes (yes, we have castes in America) and they only come out in presidential years because of the billion-dollar ad campaign that is a presidential election. During presidential elections we have well-defined teams, leading actors that people can focus on, and an opportunity to support your tribe and feel good about yourself for a few hours. There’s less press and hype during the midterms so there’s less turnout.
Also, the GOP base is in large part defined by fidelity to their team/tribe, which is why Dick Lugar could be called a liberal by a primary challenger who beat Lugar making that accusation, all because Lugar wouldn’t go full-on Tea Party. Also, too, Bob Bennett.
GOP voters are reliable because that’s how they define themselves, while Democratic voters could best be described as casual voters who need a lot of attention to get them to actually vote.
You beat me to it, Oscar. Right on the money.
Or is it “Money on the right?”
Whatever.
Later…
AG
Too simplistic and also more than implies that many Democratic voters in Presidential election years are too stupid to show up for midterm elections. Nor is it confirmed by election turnout and results.
For example, in 2006 when Democrats did extremely well, turnout was 37.1%. Yet Democrats did very poorly in 2010 when turnout was 37.8%. Republican voters were dispirited enough not to turn out in 2006, but if Democrats were more motivated that year, it wasn’t by much. And turnout in 2002 when Republicans did well was only slightly off from 2006 at 37.0%. Turnout was higher in 2008 than it had been in any Presidential election year since 1968. A fresh and exciting new face (and for a party that had delivered on the promise to raise the minimum wage for the first time in a decade) and for an electorate that had undergone massive change since 1968 when roughly 87% of the electorate split between Republicans and Democrats and 13.5% wanted a blatant racist in the WH.
It’s simply not true that only potential Democratic voters stay home for midterm elections and are more motivated in Presidential years. It varies. One component is how much the federal, state, and local elections are foregone conclusions. Clearest evidence for that was the 1996 election — lowest ever turnout in a presidential year. OTOH, 1992 and 2004 were strong turnout years.
Unlike in 1972 when the GOP could motivate and scoop up both Nixon’s and Wallace’s 1968 voters, there’s not much left untapped in the potential electorate for the GOP to motivate. Thus, they have no choice but to repress and depress unenthusiastic and unmotivated potential Democratic voters. They get an able assist on that score by Democratic candidates that don’t stand for much and then not clearly except the meta-message of “we suck less.” Even if a majority of the electorate sort of agrees with that, a certain portion also says, “Yeah, but not enough for me to care who wins.”
Why are they stupid? What is the Democratic Party going to do for them?
The Democratic Party is selling and no one is buying. Why is that? I can believe that some are stupid, but 70% of the populace? Nope, that’s way too high.
No, they aren’t stupid. They may not have the education or wherewithal to fill in the blanks of superficial campaign rhetoric and explanations of new legislation and/or the skills in logic to connect the dots by themselves, but that’s the fault of candidates and politicians if they are truly in the game for the little guy. Otherwise, those politicians are only in the game for themselves and those that bankroll their campaigns and bamboozling voters is all they’re about. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t, but Republicans tend to be better at that then the DINOs.
Those that say there is a “great deal of difference” between the parties is not at its highest since 1987. 21% say hardly any.
I know those who argue “if only the democrats were more liberal more voters will turn out” will completely ignore the evidence – frankly they ignore most evidence generally when talking about it.
It is interesting that 44% is the highest since ’87 though.
http://www.people-press.org/2015/01/14/section-3-the-parties-and-congress-in-2015/
An excellent post. Thank you.
I only have one thing to add.
You are missing one very important explanation regarding why so-called “Democratic voters” do not show up on off-year elections. Almost the entire functioning electorate of the U.S. is entirely media-driven. The “Democratic voters” of whom you speak are in reality centrist/uncommitted voters….in a word, they are mostly people who are are simply not that involved in political questions or alliances. During presidential years they are bombarded from all sides by huge amounts of hottest-thing-ever media hype. In off-years not so much…the hype machine is much less involved in covering the elections, especially the national media. It’s simply too diffuse a subject to be able to produce the necessary big ratings and big sales. Ergo, the voter turnout falls off. And where in the political spectrum does it fall off the most? In the people who consume mostly centrist, big hype machine news. Who are these people? Mostly people who lean center to left. Please compare the massive outreach of right-wing Fox News and right-wing radio to that of say CNN, MSNBC or the increasingly rare left-wing radio. There is no comparison. Rather than apples to oranges it’s more like beach balls to peanuts.
Dassit.
That’s all she wrote…so far…and all that I have to say on the matter.
Is this some kind of massive conspiracy?
No. It’s just business as usual. Unrestrained big money seeks to perpetuate its position by any means necessary. So it goes. End of story unless some miracle happens and restraints are imposed from without.
End of story and down we go.
Ever downward.
Down like a motherfucker.
Watch.
Later…
AG
The Democratic Party is now totally unattractive to rural and lower-class white voters. The party has nothing NOTHING for them.
Every gay marriage win in court makes the Democratic Party LESS attractive. Because the lower class is not interested in that, and it does nothing for them.
Same with illegals. No lower class whites or blacks or hispanic citizens wants more competition for a small jobs pool. Yet the Democrats endlessly pimp the “hispanic vote”. Note, of course that Cruz and Susannah Martinez and a whole bunch more hispanics are republicans.
We are not going to do that well in 2016. WI is now Republican, same with MI, and OH too. All that “demographic inevitability” SHIT is SHIT. It is NOT true.
If Democrats want to win, find a way to get some miniscule program that actually helps rural areas. The internet bullshit is not it, either.
On gay marriage: In church today, one of our lesbian friends pointed out that gay marriage is now legal in SD. This is good.
However, the bill has not been fully paid in this. That is because the change in gay marriage is being done in the courts. If you will recall, Roe v Wade legalized abortion. Today, abortion is losing, big. That is because public sentiment has moved against abortion. Even Ruth Bader Ginsberg has stated that it might have been better to legalize abortion in the political process, rather than in the courts.
This may yet happen with gay marriage. There are huge numbers of persons who do not like gay marriage.
Wow, paleoliberals like you are still around? I have little love for the New Left and even less for the Third Wayers, but every time I hear you guys whine about the collapse of the New Deal Coalition and about how the Democratic Party should’ve and should currently shoo gays and women and blacks back into the corner to win elections all I hear is ‘herpa derpa, look at how straight and white and male I am’.
I have little love for New Left Dems and even less for Third Way Dems, but paleoliberals who insist that our biggest problem is that we’re not giving Bob Ewell and J. Edgar Hoover enough blowjobs make me want to puke.
Hey, whatever, but remember if you puke on your laptop, it’s probably toast.
The notion that we as dems can simply dump the working class is idiotic, and beloved by morons basically. We are losing, losing badly, because we have jettisoned the working class. 2016 is going to be very bad for Dems. You may wish to consider why Walker has won 3 times in WI, why Snyder in MI, why Susanah Martinez in NM, why Kasich in OH. Why, if Dems have the secret sauce and can dump working class voters, do they lose so many elections?
But, hey, in your superior world view, you can’t lose, because demographics are destiny, right?
A hundred thirty odd years ago, I’m sure someone with your political perspective said,
Such a position wrt to woman having full control of their own bodies and gays being afforded equal treatment just gives politicians license to scare people into voting against equality. To pander to ignorance and the worst in human nature and cultures. It violates a core principle of a democracy and the founding of this country — All people are created equal. Even if in practice that wasn’t realized initially by this country. Enlightenment evolves over time and sometimes legislators overturn the old and sometimes legislatures are too chickenshit to do the right thing and courts step in to right a wrong. Only bad people want to turn back the clock or bad politicians cater to such bad people to do it with bad laws.
All laws and court decisions that recognize a past injustice and implement greater justice, fairness, and equality are good for all. If it doesn’t personally apply to you, it’s no skin off your nose. It’s here, get used to it, and STFU.
You have a great deal of trouble seeing reality. Sad, truly.
Specific case in point:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-chicago-march-for-life-met-20150118-story.html
This is the state of abortion politics in the US. POLITICS. Pro-choice side is LOSING. Anti-choice side is WINNING.
RUTH BADER GINSBERG said “Ginsburg has also said that the ruling damaged the growing movement for abortion rights by going “too far, too fast” and catalyzing the conservative pro-life community, which considers Roe a monumental act of judicial overreach. Her words ring truer than ever today as the movement that was then on the decline has since has been successful at unwinding Roe protections in the Supreme Court and at dramatically curtailing abortion rights in red states, potentially nudging the issue back to the justices in the foreseeable future.”
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/ruth-bader-ginsburg-roe-wade
If you actually read things and thought about them, you might actually learn something. Doubt that would happen, but you never know.
Equal rights and full individual autonomy over one’s own body aren’t some win/lose competition. Everybody loses when law supporting discrimination prevail and when busy-bodies think they have the right to tell other adults what they can and can’t do with their own bodies and demand laws to enforce their will on others.
If you are paying attention, the homophobes are now in retreat. Their bigoted legislative proposals are now failing in ballot boxes, legislatures, and the courts across the country.
I disagree with Ginsberg on Roe. It wasn’t too much (it was too little) and wasn’t too soon. It was that women’s voices and organizations advocating for autonomy weren’t sufficiently organized for winning Roe and repeating and framing the message that women know best about their own bodies. They took the SCOTUS win and went to sleep assuming that the battle was over. A movement of more or less upper middle class women with assistance from upper middle class men in public office and other positions that were visible to the general public that didn’t raise holy hell when Congress was considering the Hyde amendment. How dare we let Congress deny poor women on Medicaid access to abortions. They same freaking assholes that never stop complaining about welfare for poor women and their children are the same ones that demand they have those children rather than the abortion they would prefer.
Later at the national level we got the Clintons “safe, legal, and rare” messaging that with that “rare,” directly reinforced the anti-abortionist position that abortion is wrong. Not the role of government to legislate personal morality or put a finger on some imaginary personal morality scale.
Abortion is within the full range of women’s reproductive health care. It’s not some exception that requires separate legal restrictions. Women in European countries that have affordable access to all reproductive healthcare have lower abortion rates than women in this country. Health wise, pregnancy prevention is somewhat preferable to an abortion, but again health wise, an abortion is preferable to an unintended and unwanted pregnancy.
Is Inequality Killing U.S. Mothers? (Wrong question to ask but not going to delve into that now)
During the same 25 year period the percentage of US births covered by Medicaid increased significantly. Just under 50% BEFORE the ACA took effect. This is one area in which the ACA in expanded Medicaid states should have a demonstrable and positive impact. Because poorer women will have access to reproductive healthcare long before they’re in a hospital giving birth when they first qualify for emergency Medicaid. Given the full range of birth control options, poorer women can choose not to have children before they’re more able to financially and physically afford them.
“If men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament.” If only men could get pregnant, the birth rate would plummet, and we might not much like many of those men that were too irresponsible not to avoid pregnancy.
Whatever.
I think you are being unfair to dataguy. He didn’t say that he was turned off by gay rights. He said that working class (mostly white but not entirely) voters are turned off. I, myself, have stopped listening to progressive radio on my homeward commute after they replaced Thom Hartmann with Michelangelo Signourelli whose entire program is exclusively about gay issues. It’s of (occasional) interest, but irrelevant to me. It doesn’t mean I hate gays. It means that I’m a whole lot more worried about dying broke and homeless along with all of my descendants. That seems to be the issues that the Democratic Party is trading for gay marriage. I don’t care if you marry someone of the same sex or many men/women or many men AND women. It’s your thing, do it. But a monomania that excludes economic justice for the majority is not going to help get votes. The republicans are against economic justice but they hide that by proclaiming that business could treat their workers better if it wasn’t for those pesky regulations. And they attack pocket book issues directly by promising lower taxes. Democrats answer that with “hey, you can marry a man now” and “we want a totally open border”. It ain’t cutting it with those working class voters that you despise so much. Notice I didn’t say “white working class” because the most socially conservative men (yes, they are all male) that I know are working class black men! Surprised the Hell out of me!
Got to add that the most homophobic people I know are black men.
You articulate these issues better than do I. Your comments are spot-on. The issue is NOT what is right. The issue is what works politically. The Democratic party is exclusively about rights for gays and illegals at this time. No discussion of the needs for jobs for American citizens. If you say that, the reflexive “racist” epithet is heard.
I also do not respond well to lectures. If I want a lecture, I talk to my mom. Everyone else can stuff their lectures into a dark smelly place. I know all that shit.
The issue is what works politically. Democrats are going to find 2016 a very bad time. Every state that they believe is Democratic is very very red except CA. IL? R gov. WI, MI, OH? Red top to bottom. OR? 2:1 vote against driver’s licenses for illegals. You will see more votes of that sort, and these do not have the constitutional cover that gay marriage has.
Disagree. He wasn’t saying that white rural voters are turned off by print/TV/radio content that advocates for same sex marriage and the right of women to control their own bodies. People are free to read/watch/listen or not. (I never bother with the daily trans diaries at dKos. Discrimination is wrong — dress and act whatever way makes you feel most comfortable.)
He said that they won’t vote for Democrats that support those positions, and therefore, the Democratic Party needs to back off “liberal” social issues and not object to discrimination and inequality in those areas. It would be wrong to do that. That leaves Democratic politicians two options. 1) Be more or less silent on those issues and hope that is enough to get some votes from the “anti-” equal rights crowd. Naive as the GOP will never let them forget why they can’t vote DEM. or 2) Frame the issues properly so that some of that crowd can see that it has nothing to do with them but speaks to the “higher angels” that we aspire to.
Well, I’m certainly not saying back off. I’m saying be the big tent again. I see the social issues as a smoke screen so that wall street can rob us blind.
I can’t speak for the white Southerners. I don’t understand them. You have to talk with TarHeelDem regarding them. I speak for the white blue-collar worker, particularly the Northern ethnics whether in Chicago, Milwaukee, Detroit (only in the suburbs now), Cincinnati or Pittsburgh.
What I actually said and what Marie says that I said are not at all related. I said, and say again, that the Democratic Party is today emphasizing goods that the working class (black, white, whatever) is not buying. If they want to continue to promote the identity politics of the last 20 years, the slide into irrelevancy and total electoral losses will continue. In state after state, no one NO FUCKING ONE outside of the big cities votes Democratic. And when IL gets the bad news from Rauner about pension, no one in the collars will vote D either. 2014 was the election that basically told D pols that NO ONE WAS BUYING THE SHIT THEY WERE SELLING. People like Marie basically say “well double down on that shit, and sell more aggressively.” Well, have at it. Waste the money. Blow the election.
Democrats are going to lose big in 2016. Because Americans are not buying the identity politics bullshit of the D party.
I really don’t give a crap about what is right. Really. Not a crap. Because what is right has NOTHING to do with politics.
The D party has lost the brand appeal. And therefore they can push whatever issue they want. Working class voters will not buy because Democrat. Because Democrat.
I always thought that Madigan wanted Rauner to win because, with a veto-proof majority in both houses, he and Cullerton can do whatever they want and the public will blame it on Rauner. The public always blames the Governor or President. They aren’t interested in the minutia of politics like bloggers. The Chief Executive has a face and a name and that is “government” to the people.
You are totally correct that the Illinois voter does not trust the Democratic Party, and for good reason.
Now that is a devious sneaky notion. Madigan is a slimy weasel, no question. But what are they going to do about the pension situation? The amount outstanding is truly staggering. I’ve always been proud of Illinois. Not so much anymore – the pension thing has been so badly mismanaged.
When we were in Sarajevo, we saw House Blagojevic’ – the ancestral home of the Blagojevic clan. I always thought he was a Serb, silly me. Turns out to be a Bosnian, or as my grandma said, a Bosniak.
We need pension reform for the future. Pensions based on the last X years, not pay at retirement that so often doubles or triples the legitimate pension. A cap on each pension, not to exceed the
averagemedian Illinois full time salary. A minimum amount of time to get a pension, not $150K for one month’s teaching as in Daley’s case. The Federal CSRS/FERS systems should be models. I hesitate at FERS because the comptroller would get to decide where the 403b money would be invested. If Illinois and other states could be allowed into the TSP system that covers the Federal employees and military, that would be good for everyone.But the real problem right now is the reckless raiding/de-funding of the existing pension funds. Can any be clawed back from cronies? The only way out that I see is another income tax hike. But even I won’t stand for that without the reforms.
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.
If we had a real, functioning party this is what would happen. Hillary, or whomever, would step up and get behind this. Then they’d promise to enact it, and other stuff, once elected. And to help elect candidates that would help make it so.
Card check anyone?
You are partly right here, Phil.
This part:
But the following sentence should be…if truth be told:
This is a post-FDR historical truth. For both sides of the UniParty
Bet on it.
AG
Or, alternatively, there are campaign promises that Obama attempts to keep which are called, derisively, “campaign promises” by right-wingers (example: Guantanamo), and they successfully block the President’s ability to keep his promise with the help of a few sack-of-shit Congressional Democrats who refuse to support the platform of the Party.
And the amazing part? Obama gets ENTIRELY blamed by many people, including by many lefties. That’s really fucked up.
It’s checkmate to the centrists and VSPs in the Democratic Party, who can’t think of a better strategy than ‘maybe Hillary Clinton’s numbers and low-grade identity politics will hold for 2016 without us having to do a serious re-examination of our policies and strategies’ and ‘if Hillary Clinton gets elected, hopefully this inscrutable economy thing doesn’t bite us in the ass and we don’t get nailed by a scandal or FP’.
This isn’t the fucking 70s and 80s or even the 90s anymore. We have the demographics and we have the policies. But much as physicists in the 1930s had to admit that, while useful for its time, Newtonian physics were obsolete and the ones who didn’t embrace Einsteinian physics would only be permanently marginalizing themselves it’s time to admit that the Clinton Consensus doesn’t work anymore and can’t be made to work.
Of course, this would require the centrists in the party to break themselves of their addiction to Wall Street and MiC sugar. Well, either they can break themselves of it or they can be made to go cold turkey in 2018 when Hillary’s coalition gets permanently marginalized after it turns out that even if they’re able to get a majority they can’t wield it effectively.
Off-topic but it appears that the Kiev government is using their $350 million in US aid to restart the war in Donbass. Expect more American-made deaths presently.
OT:
MEDIA ALERT:
OWN Network tonight
Oprah Winfrey Presents: Legends that Paved the way
Honoring Civil Rights Pioneers
9pm EST
Sure there are.
Just finally run progressive-enough candidates and the scores of millions of non-voters, who as we know are mostly crypto-social-democrats, will respond and sweep them into office by FDR v. Landon-esque landslides, providing veto-proof majorities as far as the eye can see.
This is exactly what the white working class is waiting for. So it’s actually a two-fer.
Very helpful snark, but is there any platform upon which candidate could run that would score millions of non-presidential-year-votes? Or is that also Green Lantern emoprog nonsense?
If they could be heard by the masses and the political candidate messengers were authentic, yes. As yet haven’t figured out how to accomplish the first and recruit the latter. Fifteen years ago, the internet seemed to hold much promise for an end run around the first barrier. Unfortunately, the seduction of cat blogging, corporate commerce, and pornography seems to have defeated this potential, inexpensive political communication route. Then again, abstract communications without actual, committed, authentic social democratic candidates is a dead end and the candidates never emerged.
A forthright promise to seize the commanding heights of the economy in the name of the workers is all that is needed.
Oh, and a call to expropriate the expropriators.
The masses are, by nature and temperament, naturally revolutionary. Surely American history teaches us that.
Seriously, the problem with non-presidential-year turnout is not platform-related. Courtesy of Charlie Cook. It’s age, and partisanship.
Show me an issue difference, or platform difference, between those two elections and you have your answer.
Whatever the difference is, it worked more in ’08 than ’06.
Back to the presidential populism, there’s one proposal I think we should not be cynical about, pushing the capital gains tax back up to 28%. Not that it has any chance to be enacted in the next two years, but that it’s been decades since anybody in power challenged the view that money made by money is somehow superior to money made by working and deserves a preferential treatment; it needs to get back into the discourse and it needs to be associated with Democrats.
It sometimes seems as if the party can’t stop apologizing for the idea of redistribution or “leveling the playing field” at this very simple and obvious level, and this move on Obama’s part could signal a huge turnaround. As could the junior college for all proposal. If the deep connection between the programs and the party principles is understood.
We hired Obama because of his gift at telling a liberal story and he practically stopped telling it sometime in early 2008, in favor of talking Clintonishly about particular programs for specific subgroups in isolation from the society as a whole and without tying it to principles more specific than the American Dream (“if you work hard and play by the rules…”). People were so confused with the “if you like it you can keep it” issue because the whole sales pitch for the ACA was “it won’t affect you.” So why were we even doing it? It must be a trick!
I think these ideas for the 95% or 99% are a great development, anyway.
“If you like it you can keep it” was in response to claims that the government wold select your doctor and that obamacare would replace all existing policies. The President could hardly anticipate (I surely didn’t) that people would prefer crappy worthless policies just because they were cheap.
They preferred crappy worthless policies that were expensive, too, provided they were untainted by Obama…
Also when he made that promise, I was under the assumption that he was talking to you and I; people with employer insurance.
I never saw it as a broken promise because that’s how it was supposed to be interpreted: “Hey, all you people with insurance in the broad majority, this doesn’t affect you so don’t worry.”
Still, I saw an article where a 60 year old woman was complaining about her insurance premiums doubling to $400 a month. That’s prior to subsidies…but she is refusing to take the subsidies because “handouts”. Stupid, prideful people. Her old policy must have been $20,000+ deductible to be that cheap for someone her age.
Or maybe one of those $100 a day max benefit policies. Dumb shit deserves what happens to her.
I understand that and I always insist that he was telling the truth. I’m only saying it was such a negative approach to advertising it: he could have said “If you have insurance with your employer we’ll improve it; it you don’t we’ll get you some.”
“[…] the president would received more blame for gridlock and dysfunction in Washington than they would for causing it.”
You have hit it exactly. The Republicans figured out that, when the government was unable after six years of disaster to fix all the problems staring America in the face, people would give up on politics and stay home from the elections – neatly handing power to the rich white guys because they ALWAYS vote, no matter what.
Self styled radicals like the overwrought simpletons at the Daily Kos pretend to believe that an army of leftists will stand up to vote for anyone who mouths their milquetoast slogans, but I don’t buy it for an instant. The road to power goes through effective reforms skillfully implemented, which means that we can safely ignore those clowns and their ridiculous fantasies.