Last night's real winner wasn't a party or an ideology. The real winner was Wall Street. Once again the wealthy and powerful have applied the Shock Doctrine to US politics, using a financial crisis to increase their power. The Democratic Party tried to accommodate the Wall Street crowd for two years and failed. Now Democrats must decide whether to adopt a new, bold and coherent strategy, or keep listening to the same advice that got them here.
They may need to decide quickly. The party's usual suspects are already out in force, making excuses for themselves and peddling the same shopworn "centrist" wares. The president used the words "responsible," "responsibly," or "responsibility" thirteen times in today's press conference. It's admirable when someone takes responsibility for their actions. That's an act that will hopefully include taking stock of what went wrong and trying something different.
The Failure of Pseudo-Centrism
We're still suffering from the massive failure of a radical, free-market-run-wild ideology that devastated the economy. The public understood that, so they gave the Democrats an enormous mandate to change economic direction. Yet just twenty months later conservatives scored a huge triumph, leaving Democrats with a choice: Continue to blur the distinction between themselves and their opponents, or lay out a clear agenda for job creation and economic growth.
Of course, that's been the choice all along. But the president and many other senior Democrats chose to take the advice of the "centrist" experts within their party by adopting unpopular Republican positions and getting nothing in return. After last night's rout, what are these experts advising? You guessed it: more of the same so-called "Centrism." That's an odd word to use for policies that most Americans oppose, like cutting Social Security or allowing bankers to enrich themselves by endangering the economy, but theirs is an Alice-in-Wonderland world.
Real centrists would defend Social Security and do more to rein in Wall Street, since those positions are popular across the political spectrum. It's a good thing the president said today that he wants to spend more time with the American people. Bankers and the Deficit Commission aren't "centrists" where most Americans live.
If Democrats want to keep passing bills that include unpopular right-wing ideas, Republicans and their Wall Street patrons will be happy to let them do it and suffer the consequences. They've done it before, most notably when they let Dems take the fall for their unconditional bailout of the big banks. We saw the results yesterday. And yet, incredibly, the usual suspects are still pushing the same failed approach.
The Usual Suspects Respond
If the president wants new ideas, he won't get them from the ever-predictable Mark Penn. He's the mastermind who ended Hillary Clinton's nearly invincible run for the presidency with the same "centrist" pablum he peddled to Obama today. After noting correctly that "Republicans and the Tea Party won the turnout war" while Democrats' core constituencies of young voters and minorities stayed home, Penn nonetheless (and inevitably) concludes that the party must "move to the center." How will that increase turnout? Penn also says that "President Obama got out of step with the voters" -- apparently by enacting a few of the policies that voters elected him to carry out. The idea that Obama didn't enact enough of them never comes up -- but then, that wouldn't be very "centrist," would it?
Paul Begala's election response -- "A Centrist Democratic Agenda: More Jobs, Less Corruption" -- isn't as wrongheaded as Penn's, but it's convoluted and somewhat confusing. That's probably because Begala's Prime Directive, which seems to demand a "centrist" approach, conflicts with some vestigial common sense that he can't shake long enough to deliver the conventional wisdom.
Even as he advises moving to the "center," Begala correctly notes that the president's first responsibility is to create jobs. That's absolutely right: This election was about jobs, not ideology, and the Dems will continue to get hammered until people see some movement toward creating them. Begala's also right to suggest that Democrats stop using the word "stimulus" and keep repeating "jobs" instead.
Here's the real problem for Begala, and for all the other "centrists" who have rightly said that this election was about jobs and the economy: Doing more to create jobs and help the economy is a progressive agenda. It requires more government action (unless you believe in invisible tax fairies, which reputable economists do.) But moving to the "center" means embracing less government action.
Call it whatever you want. To win elections Democrats need to get the economy moving, and you can't do that in a "centrist" way. With Congress now able to block every sensible economic move, the Democrats must lay out a clear path toward more jobs. They should compromise when they must, of course, but this time they need to make it clear that they are compromising.
Making Excuses Instead of Making History
The centrists knew they'd have to defend themselves once the votes were counted. Maybe that's why political strategist Brendan Nyhan has been preemptively trying to stifle criticism with an approach that blends cogent arguments with a barrage of derision and dismissal. His "preview of post-election storytelling" even included a bingo card that mockingly laid out every possible explanation for the anticipated Democratic failure, including those of progressives like Robert Kuttner, in a way that makes all of them look equally absurd -- except Nyhan's, of course.
Unfortunately, Nyhan's explanation is just a slightly better-articulated version of the typical bag of excuses: A bad economy, the passage of time, and the fact that the party in power almost always loses a midterm election (more about that "almost" later). Nyhan even described President Obama as "a victim of circumstance." (This group of Democrats seem regrettably comfortable with the language of victimology and the use of the passive voice). (1)
The excuse makers also keep reminding us that the party in power always loses in midterm elections. That's using history to set the bar as low as possible. In this argument, history isn't just prologue: It's destiny, a fate as certain as Heaven or Hell in a Cotton Mather sermon. Two years ago we overthrew history's precedents when an African American named Barack Hussein Obama ran for president and won. According to the standards set by this excuse, he shouldn't even have bothered.
Crisis Management
There have been at least two major exceptions to this "midterm setback" rule. One was the congressional election of 1934, when Roosevelt's party gained seats in both the House and Senate halfway through his first term. (That was before he listened to the "centrists" who suggested he dial down on government activism, leading to an upturn in unemployment and a loss of seats in 1938.) The other was 2002, when the nation was still reeling from 9/11 and was preparing for wider war. That's different, say the centrists. We were in a crisis, and the nation rallied around its leadership. The only rational response to that argument is: Don't you think we're in a crisis now?
The Excuse Makers dismiss 2002 as an exception by insisting, as Nyhan and Jonathan Chait do, that economic forces inevitably determine the outcome of midterm elections. But a president with solid majorities in both houses should have been able to do more to change those economic forces, or at least lay out a clear agenda for changing them. They can't take that position, though, because it undermines their version of "centrism." So we're left once again with the Excuse Makers' two best friends: a victim mentality and the passive voice.
A Time to Choose
It was heartening to see the president stand up and take responsibility for last night's events, avoid any hint of victimology or passivity. The next step is to see the common thread that links Franklin Roosevelt's 1934 Democrats with George W. Bush's 2002 Republicans. Both parties were governing in a time of crisis, and both of them acted like it. Their leaders understood the power of the Shock Doctrine, whether or not they'd ever heard the term. In Bush's case, he used it cynically and destructively. But Roosevelt saw how important it was to act decisively, with a clearly articulated agenda and bold government action.
The president and his fellow Democrats have a choice. They can listen to the architects of yesterday's defeat by enacting policies on Social Security and Wall Street that most voters -- Democratic and Republican, liberal and conservative -- don't want. The usual suspects call that "centrism." (In an even more Orwellian phrasing, Nyhan even labels Markos Moulitsas' advocacy for widely popular policies "extremism.")
Or Democrats can learn from experience and choose a different approach. They can articulate a clear vision for the nation and its economy. A battle has been lost, but the war continues. Wall Street's shock doctrine tactics worked this time, but they've been defeated before and can be again. Let's hope the president continues to take responsibility in the best way possible: by learning from experience and then leading his party in a new and more effective direction.
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(1) Nyhan also offers a more interesting, more technical excuse: " ... demand for government tends to move in the opposite direction of the party in power -- increasing during the Eisenhower years, declining after the Great Society ..." Note the phrase "declining after the Great Society." That's a sleight of hand meant to distract the reader from an important fact: Demand for greater government did not decline during the Kennedy/Johnson years, until late in Johnson's presidency when his popularity plummeted because of the war and urban unrest. (The war in Vietnam was Johnson's most "centrist" policy, while other "centrists" blocked him from sending more aid to the inner cities.)
Richard (RJ) Eskow, a consultant and writer (and former insurance/finance executive), is a Senior Fellow with the Campaign for America's Future. This post was produced as part of the Curbing Wall Street project and the Strengthen Social Security campaign. Richard also blogs at A Night Light.
He can be reached at "rjeskow@ourfuture.org."
Website: Eskow and Associates
Follow Richard (RJ) Eskow on Twitter: www.twitter.com/rjeskow
Voting for the Democrats is just like voting for the Republicans only one or two years slower.
If you LIKE selling the nation to the rich and their corporations at bargain basement prices then stick with the two parties. If you're ready for a change start looking for a third party.
The first thing they will when they get back is stand passively by and let all the Bush tax cuts continue.
This is a flat out lie.
A savings of 15% or more can be achieved through a government-administered plan like Medicare - for everyone. (And by the way, a CBS/New York Times poll June 2009 showed that 72% of Americans favored this approach.)
The quickest and easiest and sane way to save is move to a single payer system. Advocates for such a system were blocked from speaking by Senator Max Baucus last year; but the facts are the facts.
When the President of the United States allows his White House Director of Management and Budget lies about such a fundamental reality, it reflects very poorly on the President and his leadership.
President Obama does not need people working for him who lie to the American people. Whether it’s “Heck of a Job Timmy” or Orszag, people are tired of being lied to.
If President Obama does not have the courage to stop his own staff from lying to the American people, he is no leader.
Sad as this may sound, I would bet my life that Obama learned no lessons over the "shellacking." And I will bet you that rather than enact bold populist measures, he'll move more cautiously, more timidly, and more to the Right.
First the Fed is not Obama, it's not even government. Second, it is being done as a rather desperate attempt to get the economic heartbeat going again -- that is, the Fed recognizes the heart attack is ongoing and that Congress is not going to do a damn thing about it.
Consequently, the Fed is really trying an untested procedure in the hope that it will work. So if you want to "get real" there, rchham, get "real" mad at your congressfolk, not Obama (but then I suspect you would just prefer to be mad at Obama for, uhhh...oh you'll come up with something I'm sure).
Banks and corporations have record amounts of capital on their books-waiting to be deployed. How does this 600 billion do anything for mainstreet.
And if Obama would have taken a bold approach to the economy when he still had political capital the FED wouldnt need such desperate measures....oh well.
His current team seems to buy into two faulty economic theories; 1) trickle down economics (supply-side theory) and 2) the theory of comparative advantage in trade.
These ideas have lead to the wealth and income being sucked out of the middle class. That is, what was to trickle down, didn't and we lost our manufacturing base.
Not enough of them......And isn't that strange?
I've brought that up here many times. And always had the faithful jump me for it. There's always an excuse. Party of No. Only been in power a year, 14 months 20 months. And my personal fave--He's just the president, he's not a king or a dictator.
Obama lost us this election. He lost it by not DOING the right things at the right time. His centrist told him to take care of Wall Street, and he did.
And what about jobs?
Someone told me that the stimulus was really a jobs bill. If it was, it never was sold to us on that basis, and the 9.6% unemployment we still have says it didn't work, and as the money finishes cycling through the system, what little effect it had will taper off to nothing. So, No it wasn't a jobs bill.
But a Real Jobs Bill is exactly the 'enough' that we--working class, jobless, foreclosed on middle America, Really needed. But it's funny how his centrist walked all around getting us the help we need while unloading truck loads of our money on wall street.
http://www.data360.org/dsg.aspx?Data_Set_Group_Id=248
and the jobs they say that were created, weren't created, they were supposedly "saved" with the stimulus. These were mostly government jobs... Teachers, firefighters, police etc. Not exactly a way to stimulate the economy, when we already know that most new jobs are created by small business.
The fact is, neither party have any ideas for creating a new economy, and that's what we need because the manufacturing sector has been destroyed through job exportation, and now the service industry is vanishing because of the same problem. We have an economy that's based on what? Consuming? Consumption and debt are part of the problem, and why the economy came to a standstill when the financial crisis took hold, because the debt/consumption model wasn't able to sustain itself.
I'm sorry that the Dems lost so many people, but I'm not surprised. Many of them will not be missed. Why should Democrats go out and vote for the DINOs who angered and disappointed them so many times? And I guess the DINOs found out that Republicans won't vote for them, either. So sad.
Okay, I'm exaggerating but I hope makes the point.
we must seperate and look at our economy as internal & external. and what need is to fix the internal and our external will fall in line...