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The Enthusiasm Gap
I had dinner the other night with a Democratic pollster who told me Dems are heading toward next fall's mid-term elections with a serious enthusiasm gap: The Republican base is fired up. The Dem base is packing up.
The Dem base is lethargic because congressional Democrats continue to compromise on everything the Dem base cares about. For a year now it's been nothing but compromises, watered-down ideas, weakened provisions, wider loopholes, softened regulations. Health care went from what the Dem base wanted - single payer - to a public option, to no public option, to a bunch of ideas that the President tried to explain last week, and it now hangs by a string as Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid try to round up conservative Dems and a 51-vote reconciliation package in the Senate. The jobs bill went from what the base wanted - a second stimulus - to $165 billion of extended unemployment benefits and aid to states and locales, then to $15 billion of tax breaks for businesses that make new hires. Financial regulation went from tough new capital requirements, sharp constraints on derivate trading, a consumer protection agency, and a resurrection of the Glass-Steagall Act - all popular with the Dem base - to some limits on derivatives and a consumer-protection agency inside the Treasury Department and a rearrangement of oversight boxes, and it's now looking like even less. The environment went from the base's desire for a carbon tax to a cap-and-trade carbon auction then to a cap-and-trade with all sorts of exemptions and offsets for the biggest polluters, and now Senate Dems are talking about trying to do it industry-by-industry.
These waffles and wiggle rooms have drained the Democratic base of all passion. "Why should I care?" are words I hear over and over again from stalwart Democrats who worked their hearts out in the last election.
The Republican base, meanwhile, is on a rampage. It's more and more energized by its mad-as-hell populists. Tea partiers, libertarians, Birchers, birthers, and Dick Armey astro-turfers are channeling the economic anxieties of millions of Americans against "big government."
Technically, the Dems have the majority in Congress and could still make major reforms. But conservative, "blue-dog" Dems won't go along. They say the public has grown wary of government. But they must know the public hasn't grown even more wary of big business and Wall Street, on which effective government is the only constraint.
Anyone with an ounce of sanity understands government is the only effective countervailing force against the forces that got us into this mess: Against Goldman Sachs and the rest of the big banks that plunged the economy into crisis, got our bailout money, and are now back at their old games, dispensing huge bonuses to themselves. Against WellPoint and the rest of the giant health insurers who are at this moment robbing us of the care we need by raising their rates by double digits. Against giant corporations that are showing big profits by continuing to lay off millions of Americans and cutting the wages of millions of more, by shifting jobs abroad and substituting software. Against big oil and big utilities that are raising prices and rates, and continue to ravage the atmosphere.
If there was ever a time to connect the dots and make the case for government as the singular means of protecting the public from these forces it is now. Yet the White House and the congressional Dem's ongoing refusal to blame big business and Wall Street has created the biggest irony in modern political history. A growing portion of the public, fed by the right, blames our problems on "big government."
Much of the reason for the Democrats' astonishing reluctance to place blame where it belongs rests with big business's and Wall Street's generous flows of campaign donations to Dems, coupled with their implicit promise of high-paying jobs once Democratic officials retire from government. This is the rot at the center of the system. And unless or until it's remedied, it will be difficult for the President to achieve any "change you can believe in."
To his credit, Obama himself has not scaled back his health-care ambitions all that much, and he appears, intermittently, to want to push conservative blue-dog Dems to join him on a bigger jobs bill, tougher financial reform, and a more effective approach to global warming. (His overtures to Republicans seem ever more transparently designed to give blue-dog Dems cover to vote with him.)
But our President is not comfortable wielding blame. He will not give the public the larger narrative of private-sector greed, its nefarious effect on the American public at this dangerous juncture, and the private sector's corruption of the democratic process. He has so far eschewed any major plan to get corporate and Wall Street money out of politics. He can be indignant- as when he lashed out at the "fat cats" on Wall Street - but his indignance is fleeting, and it is no match for the faux indignance of the right that blames government for all that ails us.
Robert Reich, one of the nation’s leading experts on work and the economy, is Chancellor’s Professor of Public Policy at the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley. He has served in three national administrations, most recently as secretary of labor under President Bill Clinton. Time Magazine has named him one of the ten most effective cabinet secretaries of the last century. He has written thirteen books, including his latest best-seller, Aftershock: The Next Economy and America’s Future; The Work of Nations; Locked in the Cabinet; Supercapitalism; and his newest, Beyond Outrage. His syndicated columns, television appearances, and public radio commentaries reach millions of people each week. He is also a founding editor of the American Prospect magazine, and Chairman of the citizen’s group Common Cause. His widely-read blog can be found at www.robertreich.org.
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24 Comments so far
Show AllAh, for a while Reich was making sense, until he lapsed into some nonsense about Obama's "health care ambitions." Obama's only "health care ambitions" were sweetheart deals for Big Pharma and other fat cats; otherwise his attitude was "I'll sign whatever you put on my desk."
Yeah, this is another mini pistola squeak in the Democratic campaign to keep progressives voting the Dem party line. Screw 'em all!
Surprisingly, one possible source of meaningful resistance to the babylonian captivity of our government is the church. Religious traditions can declare jubilee: a debtors' strike that could seriously set the bankers back on their heels!
http://www.witherspoonsociety.org/Global/jubilee_update.htm
It doesn't matter how or if the Democratic BASE votes in 2010, the swing voters determine election outcomes. Historically, swing voters support real Republicans more often than they support pseudo Republicans.
Since the Democrats recently pushed through so many bills, that only Republicans could love, but Republicans voted against, the Democrats handed the Republicans all the ammo they need to win in 2010.
"They say the public has grown wary of government. But they must know the public hasn't grown even more wary of big business and Wall Street, on which effective government is the only constraint."
__________________________________
Shouldn't this sentence read "public HAS grown even more wary of big business and Wall Street..."?
Typo or Freudian slip, Reich is still locked into the duopolistic myth or drama in which the corrupt, malignant Republicans and the temptations of Mammon thwart otherwise benevolent, altruistic Democrats.
In this dynamic, which continues to inspire so much of the liberal-lite, moderate progressive analysis published at CD, Obama is still the protagonist-- a beleaguered hero, perhaps a hapless Gulliver pinned down and hamstrung by vicious, vindictive Republican Lilliputians and left to rot by self-centered Democrats.
In Reich's view, Obama's "indignance" is merely "fleeting", whereas Republican indignance is "faux". Team Obama is a frustrated victim of the pervasive "rot" instead of a perpetrator and enabler of it.
"To his credit, Obama himself has not scaled back his health-care ambitions all that much" is a nice example of an otherwise true statement being marred by Reich's wishful thinking in the preposterous opening phrase. Obama's "health-care" ambitions begin and end with any old kind of "okey-doke" that will result in the passage of legislation that will pass corporate media muster as "health care reform"-- thus breaking the Clinton jinx and getting a Historic Win as a springboard to a Historic Second Term.
For a change, Reich avoids the familiar and predictable exhortations to progressives to clap harder: hold Obama's feet to the fire, or "give him political space" to challenge the corrupt and decadent elements in the status quo.
Instead, he seems to be scolding the corrupt and decadent Democratic leadership to clean up their act and reform the party until it is fit to serve its elected leader's noble purposes. Reich may be a nice man, but outside the liberal-lite circle jerk, it's beyond question that (Team) Obama is as much a part of the drained-enthusiasm problem as the Republicans and congressional Democrats.
· Yr Obd't Servant
A glaring typo. We live in the age of spell check and automated editing. A human being would have caught it.
Nicely expressed, Servant. Reich's piece attempts to give us the "let's be real" treatment. Sure, there have been some missteps, but Obama's intentions are pure, Reich seems to say.
Alas, only the stupid fall for this now.
-TIA
I understand that we often excuse the behavior of the Democrats by pointing to companies and industries providing them with huge campaign contributions, but what good are campaign contributions to a politician if by taking them and the strings attached to them that politician won't be able to turn out his or her base in the next election?
It does not seem to add up unless Democrats have decided that they are quite comfortable as the minority party. At least then it provides them with an excuse as to why they can't accomplish anything.
Ah yes, but it's those good paying lobbying jobs they are promised for after they retire or are turned from office that really puts the "fix" in.
"I understand that we often excuse the behavior of the Democrats by pointing to companies and industries providing them with huge campaign contributions, but what good are campaign contributions to a politician if by taking them and the strings attached to them that politician won't be able to turn out his or her base in the next election?"
the votes corporations buy are not the votes of elections...they buy the votes of legislation...
elections are not real...that is the beauty of them...they're pretend...
no one in power gives a shit about any base...why do you think electronic voting machines have come about? they'll tell you how you voted...
elections are critical, however, to maintaining the false cover of legtimacy to our process...hard to call it a democracy without campaigns, and 'voting'...
what counts is what happens on the Hill...that's where the coporations are paid back...
that is why lying is such a great political tactic...the people believe!
The Democratic base isn't lethargic so much as it is pissed off and ready to stay home or vote for any party but Democrat. The Republican base is just as foolish as the Democratic base was up to 2008. Frankly, I prefer that these two bases take a look at themselves in the mirror and consider going independent.
Finally I can say, Obama bores me. He’s not corrupt and evil. He has no hidden agenda. He’s not the “activist” the Right accuses him of being.
Obama is … banal.
Sure he's articulate. But he's conflict aversive.
Sure he's smart. But he's not smart enough to realize that facts and intellect haven’t mattered for 10 years.
What he fails to grasp is that America doesn’t need more factual truth, or an articulate lawyer who can make the case.
America needs leadership. And that is not in his skill set.
He can inspire people to believe with his words, but he cannot inspire people to act, to help him, to take to the streets by the millions for the causes of health care, financial and environmental reform.
I guess it’s slowly dawning on the insiders like Reich that Obama was the wrong choice for the job. You can hate Clinton to the core if you like, but she would not have gone down without a fight the way the bourgeois brother has.
I am tired of cheerleading for him from the sidelines, advising friends that he is simply waiting for the right moment to make his move. It has come and passed. He will soon follow.
I think this is who he is: an earnest organizer who is still stuck on his campaign promise to “bring us together” and end the ideological divisions of the past 20-30 years. He’s a fool for thinking these divisions are 30 years old. They are eternal. Haves and Have Nots. Rich and Poor. Right and Left. These were not the inventions of the 60's.
The guy has some sort of Messiah complex. He’s convinced he can heal us.
"Physician, Heal Thyself" I believe the man said.
I don’t know where to turn. An Independent candidate is NOT the answer. An Independent movement IS. But we don’t have one of these. We are lots of disparate and disunited special interest groups that can’t consolidate our electoral power into a viable progressive (or even moderate) coalition.
Everyone seems to be giving up. Democrats are staying at home. Politicians are retiring from politics. Voters will turn to small third, fourth and fifth party candidates. Former true believers like Reich surrender to the inevitability of the Right. We have lost our momentum. No ... we have lost our souls.
The whole process has become so toxic no one wants to participate in it any more. Leaving it behind for the rats and rodents of the Right. And they are truly fired up.
The only political energy out there is the “Mad As Hell Crowd”.
But all they have is their apoplectic rage.
They are like dogs chasing a car. Once they catch it they never know what to do with it.
The tea bag “movement” is like this, a constituency without a plan. If they can influence members in the house or even the Senate, or perhaps upset enough elections as they did in New York Sate, they will be happy. As long as they stop progress and encourage even more of their hair-brained ideologically driven policies.
No goals in mind. No end in sight.
Except perhaps, the end of America as we know it.
PS Listen to this! THIS is the kind of fearless leadership we need. Not bipartisan cum-ba-ya.
http://history.sandiego.edu/gen/text/us/fdr1936.html
There is no alternative to FDR's New Deal/WPA/CCC/Glass-steagal/PUHCA act.Wallstreet knows it, & is desperately trying to use their D.C. pawns to block it. It won't work. It's coming; redress is coming; retribution is coming.
We can add another epithet to the O-man : a clueless Neville Chamberlain, waving a stupid piece of paper, weakly pronouncing "peace (ie. reconciliation) in our time", just before the gigantic explosion occurs.
I wish he were that good. Our officials are not the appeasers of aggression, we are the source.
Joe
"You can hate Clinton to the core if you like, but she would not have gone down without a fight the way the bourgeois brother has."
Please, don't include me in this back assward assessment of what sort of leadership Hillary would have provided. Her history is bloodthirsty, advocating annihilation of countries and colluding with her husband in deaths by at least the hundreds of thousands, e.g., the embargo of Iraq. "A small price to pay," said their Secretary of State. No, Hillary is the same as the War President Obama, who kill in the service of showing that the Republicans are wrong to accusing them of being soft. If you are enthusiastic for Hillary, you can count me out.
Why should the Dems worry-- right now they are amassing huge campaign chests, enough to buy an endless supply of 30 second spots on TV. Isn't that enough? Who needs flesh and blood supporters? They are Machavellian in their calculations. What do they believe in their guts-- that the public is fickle, uninformed and easily manipulated through the media. Whoever spends the most in media will win. Maybe they are right but I will not vote for them--arrogant asses that they are. We will not get Democracy back until we turn off the TV, make candidates clearly define themselves to us, pledge to stand for what we believe in and become successful getting elected even if they don't have the most money. More than that we need to make the amount of corporate money they spend a stigma, a disadvantage, a disqualification from office not a means to an electoral victory.
Revulsion with unmentionable crimes committed against innocent citizens by the dictator who destroyed democracy in Honduras with US backing is why I do not support the Obama administration. Remember, Hillary Clinton is mixed up in the horrors visited upon nice families by the twisted minds of the elite in Honduras. The democrats in power are terrorist war mongers helping to loot the people of the world, they serve corporatism at the expense of life and the health of the planet.
Actually, there are still some pockets of enthusiasm out there. Andrew Joseph Stack was certainly pumped up.
Obama's "indignance" [sic: read "indignation"] is not only fleeting; it is feigned, self-serving and hypocritical. His Wall Street smart money is deserting him, and the Democratic base (if by that, Reich is referring to the Democratic left) will never get any respect for their agenda from this president while he's trying to win it back.
The only way progressives will get any respect from the Democrats is by leaving to form a third party. The entire spectrum in Washington and the media continues to drift right, and the people will go with them unless the left finds new leaders and carves out an alternative to the politics of the DLC.
This "hope and change" foolishness has lost whatever meaning and content it might ever have had, and needs to stop. Now.
Cicero: "Freedom is participation in power."
While this piece just restates the obvious it is rare for a D.C. insider (albeit one of the more progressive D.C. insiders) to admit the revolving door of the "implicit promise of high-paying jobs once Democratic officials retire from government." Reich and Krugman smell the blood in the water. They must feel pretty safe themselves but there's a storm a-comin' that's gonna shake even their ivory towers.
Yawn. Please give it up, Bob.
-TIA
Quite frankly, I'm sick and tired of people making excuses for Obama. As far as I'm concerned, Obama and the Democrats blew it bigtime, well before the election, when Obama voted for the FISA Bill, and with his war votes.
Barakus Obombus is a closet case Republican like Slick Willy. Let's stop wasting our time on him. We have to build progressive movements to put him and his Wall Street pimps on the defensive. That's the way to move in the spirit of Howard Zinn and real reform.
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Barakus Obombus hasn't scaled back on health care lately because he can't scale back from nothing. Oh, and what he was offering was piles of money to the health insurance industry.
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