Looking forward, what is the best and worst that we can expect in politics and economics?
Suppose President Obama's jobs speech of last Thursday marks a turning point. He gets energized by being a little more partisan. He finds that putting Republicans on the defensive is good politics. His poll numbers improve. He wins some of his proposed jobs bill, and fights hard for the rest of it.
As unemployment remains persistently high going into an election year, he offers even stronger medicine. His base gets energized.
(Stay with me here, I know this is a bit wishful -- it's an exercise, a thought experiment, not a prediction -- but the alternative is to just slit our wrists.)
As the election draws closer, voters take a closer look at what Republicans are actually offering and it isn't very appetizing. Rick Perry, the likely GOP nominee, who has never faced tough media scrutiny, doesn't wear well. He has trouble dancing away from the truly nutty stuff he has embraced in the recent past.
So Obama is re-elected in 2012. Skeptical voters in the battleground states of Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin are not thrilled with the recession and the Democrats, but even less happy with Republican governors and austerity.
Even better, a resurgent Obama has coattails. The House flips back to narrowly Democratic. Keeping Democratic control of the Senate will be tougher, with 23 Democratic seats and just 10 Republican ones up in 2012. Democrats will have to take every winnable race, but let's say they do, and the Senate stays barely Democratic.
What then?
The economy is still mired in stagnation, and it's a long slog. The deflationary forces preventing a recovery will still be there: depressed wages and purchasing power; lost household wealth; a traumatized small business sector; banks that would rather use cheap money to trade than to lend; too little job-creation.
There is no easy fix other than massive government spending, radical reform of the banking system, and drastic restructuring of the mortgage mess. Budget austerity of the sort embraced by Team Obama in the debt-ceiling deal will only add to the economic downdraft.
Though it will be an uphill battle for Obama to win re-election, much less to take a Democratic Congress with him, it is actually easier to imagine Democrats pulling out an electoral win in 2012 than it is to envision them embracing the far bolder medicine that the economy needs. And, even under the best of circumstances, there will still be Republican use of the filibuster.
Obama would have to win back broad popularity, use the presidency to explain just what it will take to restore prosperity, trade austerity for New Deal II, and then use his political capital to force Republicans to take vote after vote against economic recovery -- or stop blocking his program. I would not bet the farm on any of this happening.
So, barring a miracle, even if Obama is re-elected, the likelihood is for a generation of depressed economic potential, sour politics, and more voter disillusion with government. At worst, Obama could be the Democratic Herbert Hoover for not just one term but two.
Okay then, suppose Obama loses. If the Republicans win, President Rick Perry will almost certainly take a Republican House and Senate with him.
We can imagine intensified assaults on Social Security and Medicare, more moves to turn America into a theocracy, and the courts will be lost for a generation. More deregulation and privatization, too.
However -- nothing the Republicans say or do will improve the economy for regular people. An austerity program, even tempered by tax cuts, will only worsen the stagnation. More Americans will be reliant on a safety net the Republicans are shredding.
So, going into 2016, the Republicans will own an economy in protracted depression. And as opposition party, progressive Democrats will be full-throated, no longer in the awkward position of being upstaged by their centrist president.
Assuming the Republicans don't find a way to cancel the 2016 election, a Democrat would have a good shot at winning. And a progressive Democrat (if one can be found) would have a good chance at being nominated.
Let me be clear here. I am not saying that we'd be better off if Obama lost in 2012. The risks of that course are simply too great. In the 1930s, German leftists adopted the slogan, "After Hitler, Us." It didn't work out so well.
No, I'd rather see Obama win, but win as a progressive -- because he will certainly not win as a centrist promoting more belt-tightening, much less as an appeaser letting Republicans roll over him.
There is a real risk, however, that the presidency in the years after 2012 will be a poisoned chalice. The economy is going to be depressed for a while. The party that owns the economy for the next four years is unlikely to be re-elected in 2016, unless that party governs with a far bolder and more progressive strategy than anything either party is currently offering.
Come to think of it, that describes the 2012 election as well.
Robert Kuttner is co-editor of The American Prospect and a senior fellow at Demos. His latest book is A Presidency in Peril.
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 |
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| Obama | Romney | |
|---|---|---|
| Electoral Votes (270 to win) |
332 | 206 |
| Obama | Romney | |
|---|---|---|
| Total | 65,899,660 | 60,932,152 |
| Percent | 51.1% | 47.2% |
| Democrats* | Republicans | |
|---|---|---|
| Current Senate | 53 | 47 |
| Seats gained or lost | +2 | -2 |
| New Total | 55 | 45 |
| Democrats | Republicans | |
|---|---|---|
| Seats won | 201 | 234 |
In your description of a possible Democratic presidency and majorities in the House and Senate in 2012 you quickly move past the continued ruthless and relentless use by the Republicans of the filibuster in the Senate.
There can be no real progressive, let alone mainstream Democratic solutions to any of our nation's problems while a de facto super-majority is needed to pass any bills in the Senate.
Changing the Senate rules is an issue Democrats of all stripes, as well as Independents and even Republicans who care about the constitution can all get behind.
We've seen the havoc and destruction 8 years of Republican rule under Bush has wreaked. We've seen the gridlock and obstructionism of the current congressional Republicans, with no regard for the suffering of the poor and ever-shrinking middle class. And we've seen in WI, FL, OH, MI and elsewhere the disastrous policies under Republican governors regarding voter ID's, women's healthcare, financial marshal law, drug-testing, the pushback against collective bargaining and on and on.
We can no longer afford the niceties of the Democratic "big house" debates.
Beyond re-electing President Obama and Democratic majorities in the House and Senate, we MUST pressure the Senate to change its rules. That is the fulcrum on which the future of our democracy rests. It's not sexy, it's not catchy, but i believe it to be true.
It took 8 years for them to see that Bush wasn't what they thought he was, and they've shown no sign that they've learned their lesson.
It had to be bailed out by drafting 18 million workers out of the labor force, wage/price controls etc
Why would we want to try New Deal II?
If we can't face them together then we fall apart.....The DIVIDED States of America !!!
The WORLD is watching too
Isn't ti amazing that a commentator - a good one like Kuttners- does not even consider how conventional and sclerotic it is to think in partisan terms when the country is in the shi#$%^&er?
Iceland and Belgium :please check their government situation: they essentially got rid of "politicians" in this crisis and they are much better off for it: we should do the same or at least mr kuttner please embrace the idea of kicking the 2 parties that manufactured this crisis out and replace them with a national assembly -type third party. If not now when?
Here's your evidence:
1) The Tea Party demands austerity that would be comparable to a city government declaring that because a drought makes them aks homeowners to cut their water consumption by 20%, the Fire Department will fihgt 20% fewer fires.
2) The Republicans in Congress have shown that they are, if not in agreement with Rush Limbaugh and Grover Norquist, too afraid of them to put the country's best interest first.
Don't you feel like smacking your forehead and saying "Duh!" right now?
However, those are mostly long term problems. They will spend enough to stem the demand crisis. They know they have to do that. It will be 1983-84 all over again.
So, unless we think everyone's all grown up finally, let's get on with repeating it.
I'll wait it out, suffering through a four year republican cycle, so that it gets to a point that schools are closed, healthcare requires a full year's salary, bread is $5 a loaf (for the cheap stuff), banks have failed, soup lines are long and misery is everywhere.
At that point, maybe, just maybe, we'll realize we've done the wrong things and start thinking about what we're doing.
Like - free trade. It's great if you're USING it. Trust me, I know! Start making furniture, or design a line of clothing (if you have startup funds), make your own job and employ 1,000 Chinese - it's what all the wealthy are doing.
Just don't tell everyone. The other Americans without work won't appreciate it quite so much, but really...really, it works!
One has to get over the fact that this new enterprise is based on a communist labor force, but that's just business. I can make 50 cents a shirt off a $5 retail price, doing nothing but artwork on a computer, some basic business accounting and some promotional stuff. At 50,000 shirts a week, I can live.
It's not healthy for America, but its the republican formula.
In other words, may be it would be better to elect a Republican President in 2012 (the economy surely will get worse). A Republican House & Senate would be even better. Then in 2016 people will elect a Democratic one (hopefully a good one this time) for two terms (hopefully). . This means a loss of four years.
If on the other hand Obama gets re-elected for a second term, people will surely vote for a Republican president in 2016, which is a loss of eight to twelve years until a Democratic President may be elected and is able to address the economy issues.
I am seriously considering voting Republican next year.
But one thing (ok, two things) I would caution: every election cycle will be a difficult premise for Democrats, even when they are the logical AND the emotionally sensible choice. No matter if it seems likely, or a slam-dunk, it will be an uphill challenge because of the full-throated Republican media machine drowning out working-class concerns with accusations of socialism, un-Americanism, pseudo-controversies (Acorn, Shirley Sherrod, Ground Zero mosques) and culture wars. The fact that Republicans haven't had to pay for two years of blatant obstructionism and know-nothingness is clear evidence of it.
The more worrisome concern is that under a President Perry and his austerity measures, we will likely fall into full-scale depression, unemployment will escalate, Healthcare reform will be aborted, and on top of it all they will try to revoke Social Security and Medicare (with Medicaid first on the list), God knows what will happen to the dollar, and in the midst of economic despair, I could see that in the hands of Fox News propaganda and asleep-at-the-wheel CNN and corporate-network-news, we could easily be led into another fraudulent war - or worse.
A people in despair can do dreadful things, looking for people to blame - I could see AM Talk Radio personalities suggesting to their listeners that neighboring Liberals are dangerous - and maybe they shouldn't be considered 'real' Americans.
I could see Fox News hosts telling their viewers that Mexicans should be feared, and that retribution for some invented atrocity was only appropriate.
I could see the cowering Democrats approving enhanced-interrogation techniques for political scapegoats.
In short, I could see democracy failing.
The republicans have 1 cable station that not even everybody gets, fox news and a radio station.
The democrats have abc, nbc, cbs, msnbc, cnn and most major newspapers in american.
And it's the "republican" media machine?
So no matter where it takes hold, government of the people and by the people sets a single standard for all who would hold power: You must maintain your power through consent, not coercion; you must respect the rights of minorities, and participate with a spirit of tolerance and compromise; you must place the interests of your people and the legitimate workings of the political process above your party.
I think that's the ONLY thing they've done well.
That message being: Obama bad, give more money to the rich (ahem, we mean cut taxes for the 'job creators'), smaller government (well, until we get into office of course, then we'll ramp up military spending as always and run up the deficit as usual),
Oh please oh please, inform us as to what message they aren't getting across well.
Oops! . . once again the Progressive Double Standard is showing . .
Oops! again . . . is this Post "Too Hot to Handle"?
Suppose....All the Caucasus backs her?
Suppose...All those who voted Obama in 2008, voted H Clinton in 2012?
Suppose...Obama can't count on the "black vote" with 16% unemployed and the black vote didn't win him the Presidency.
Suppose...Hillary can count on her base, Independents, moderate Republicans, and Women and the "minority vote" who represent majority of US population!!!
Suppose...2013 begins with President Clinton...You get 2 for the vote of one!!
I'm in.
Signed,
Reformed Hillary Clinton Supporter, former Obama Supporter.