Here's the dilemma we face as progressives and as a country. The Republicans have been captured by the far right. Ordinarily, that would be good news for Democrats. The Republicans may well nominate someone too crazy for most Americans to vote for. There is also the beginning of a serious backlash against the Tea Party among the general electorate (though not among the Republican base).
Through the smog of rhetoric and demagoguery, more and more Americans are coming to correctly blame Republicans for the obstructionism on the budget agreement that helped trigger panic in financial markets. With so many far-right Republicans having picked up House seats in the 2010 midterm, the election of 2012 could be a good year for a Democratic comeback.
Good news, right?
The only problem is that we have our own albatross in the White House. Barack Obama is not likely to have coattails. And his own strategy for dealing with prolonged stagnation neither motivates voters nor fixes what ails the economy. Oh, and it divides his own party. Talk to elected Democrats on the subject of Obama off the record, and you get unprintable rage.
The New York Times had an important piece Sunday, pointing to some of the differences among White House advisers. According to the article, the two top advisers, chief of Staff Bill Daley and senior political adviser David Plouffe, are totally in the deficit-hawk camp, and those advisers like Christina Romer and Jared Bernstein who wanted to give more priority to jobs have departed. The piece is worth quoting in detail.
"Playing it safe is not going to cut it," said Ms. Romer, a professor of economics at the University of California, Berkeley. "Not proposing anything bold and not trying to do something to definitively deal with our problems would mean that we're going to have another year and a half like the last year and a half -- and then it's awfully hard to get re-elected."But there is little support for such an approach inside the administration. A series of departures has left few economists among Mr. Obama's senior advisers. Several of his political advisers are skeptical about the merits of stimulus spending, and they are certain about the politics: voters do not like it.
Mr. Plouffe and Mr. Daley share the view that a focus on deficit reduction is an economic and political imperative, according to people who have spoken with them. Voters believe that paying down the debt will help the economy, and the White House agrees, although it wants to avoid cutting too much spending while the economy remains weak.
As part of this appeal to centrist voters, the president intends to continue his push for a so-called grand bargain on deficit reduction -- a deal with Republicans to make even larger spending cuts, including to the social safety net, in exchange for some revenue increases -- despite the strong opposition of Congressional Democrats who want to use the issue to draw contrasts with Republicans."
But if the voters believe that paying down the debt will help the economy, they are misinformed. No serious economist believes that more fiscal contraction in an economy on the brink of a second recession will create a recovery. The Fed has now made an unprecedented pledge to keep interest rates at close to zero for two years, and that has only moderated the slide a bit. Cutting spending will deepen the recession. So will raising taxes, unless that money -- and more -- is plowed back into economic stimulus and job creation.
What's appalling about Obama and his crew is that they have forgotten the role of leadership, and are simply going where the polls show voters currently are.
But as any good politician knows, real people don't wake up in the morning fretting about the national debt. They worry about their jobs, their health insurance, their retirement savings, the costs of sending their kids to college. The national debt is a vague proxy for worry about the state of the economy and the fact that Washington doesn't seem to be helping.
Think of the great acts of leadership by past presidents. Roosevelt himself started out as a deficit hawk. He had to alter his own thinking and then lead public opinion to appreciate that large public works programs reduced unemployment (and temporarily increased public deficits, but that was okay). He also had to lead public opinion when he called for rearmament and the first peacetime draft and lend-lease aid to Britain, because he foresaw war with Hitler. If Roosevelt had just followed polls, Nazis might well be still governing in Berlin.
Do you think Lyndon Johnson was guided by polls when he risked his presidency on enacting landmark civil rights legislation? Support for a greater federal role in desegregation was very lukewarm when Johnson succeeded the assassinated John Kennedy.
But great presidents lead. Obama seems to be taking the advice of Plouffe and Daley to follow. Even worse, their advice is wrong on the merits. Obama may think he is doing the brave and unpopular thing by calling for belt-tightening in a recession. But that is bravery on behalf of a fool's errand.
Obama may yet be saved by the sheer extremism of the likely Republican nominee. But we should not bet the farm on that either. I vividly remember being reassured that Ronald Reagan was too far-right, and George W. Bush too dumb, to be elected. So much for that theory.
Is there other possible good news? I can recommend is a smart piece by political scientist Andrew Hacker in a recent New York Review of Books arguing that maybe we shouldn't be so pessimistic because the electorate that voted in a Republican House was much smaller, whiter, and older than the one that elected Obama in 2008 and that will likely vote in 2012. In fact, Obama in 2008 received some 25 million votes more than Republican House members did in 2010.
This suggests a basis for some optimism -- until you realize that the 18-year-olds who voted for Obama with such enthusiasm in 2008 will be 22-year-olds looking for jobs in 2012. Do you think there will be anything like the energy, excitement, and hope there was the first time around? Only if our president reverses course.
There is a whole, depressing genre of commentary that goes, "Here's what Obama needs to do." Well, gentle reader, he isn't reading these columns and he isn't going to do it.
If we are to be saved from wall-to-wall Republican government, or from four more years of Obama-as-Hoover, we will need to make it happen -- with campaigns for progressives for Congress and backing for our president that is not unconditional.
Beyond that strategy lie desperation moves like sitting out the 2008 presidential or even voting Republican in the hope that a progressive Democrat takes it back in 2016, or recruiting a candidate to challenge Obama in a primary. I'm not there yet. But I have to say Obama is doing just about everything he can to depress people who were so excited about him in 2008.
This is the hand history has dealt us. And a pretty lousy one it is.
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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Why does this author consistently, time-after-time, miss the point? Raising taxes takes money out of people's pockets. That money would go into the pockets of those who produce goods and services - which is kind of what we need. This stimulates the economy.
What we don't need is the government raising taxes and then selectively choosing who gets the gravy and who doesn't (in other words, in effect, buying votes).
Pay particular notice of the growth of GDP. What that means is that with more government spending, those who 'produce goods and services' have more money in their pockets. A higher tax rate on the more wealthy helps plow wealth back into the economy by putting people to work which puts more money in the pockets of the wealthy. Government spending helps float all boats. That is what we need to do as a nation. Float all our boats. Oh, and btw, the Big Bank bailouts. They got the gravy, but that doesn't bother you? I'm sure you whine that you were opposed to the bailouts, but in effect, you aren't when you don't want those who benefit the most from our system to pay a proportional amount of taxes for the privilege of being wealthy.
The wealthy already "plow" money into the economy - and they pay a higher percentage of their wages in taxes.
Responsible government spending can help with investments in new technologies, but we don't at present have a responsible government (note the level of the public debt and the yearly deficits).
The idea, certainly understood by those who mattered was to allow a tame, establishment Democrat to do three things: First pick up the pieces strewn all over the economic landscape by the incompetent Bush II crowd, and second to defuse as much left opposition as possible. Third and most important, foster a cynical pessimism in the population to drive down electoral participation so as to allow eventual Republican recovery, the real power centers in our polity being always more comfortable with that party. These goals have already been accomplished, and Mr Obama will be afforded a comfortable retirement come 2012.
No one more than Mr Obama understands this political reality.
As early as spring 2007, the press had already broken the Dem field up into "first tier" and "second tier" candidates. The so-called top tier consisted of Hillary, Obama, and Edwards - a combination that IN TOTAL had spent 14 years in the Senate and zero time in the House, in a Governor's mansion, or as any form of cabinet secretary.
Meanwhile, in the second tier, who thus labeled, had little chance of winning anything, you had a number of more seasoned candidates. Biden had more Senate experience than the top tier combined, and Richardson had a better resume than any of them. Nonetheless, the electorate allowed the MSM to convince them that experience did not matter, we needed to elect the "rock star" candidate Obama who as POTUS Obama seems unfocused and in over his head.
I'm sure Obama fans will quickly whine about Republican obstructionism, etc, but remember that Obama had the largest congrssional majorities of any POTUS in decades, and that previous presidents like Reagan, Bush41, and Clinton faced opposition congresses for all or most of their terms and still got things done. It's called leadership.
What I find so fascinating is that Democrats have forgotten that "No" is a historically acceptable answer in any debate. They are so into "feeling" that they have abandoned "thinking."
Sad for America, but particularly sad for Democrats.
BTW...where is all the enthusiasm for the election in Wisconsin today.....isn't today the day you re-elect the two Democratic state Senators?
The point of bringing this up is that people have to recognize that they were swept up by a media hype-job in 2008 and this is what it produced. It is only when people are ready to question the bs that comes out of the boob tube that there will be any chance of turning this game around. It's good news that people like Kuttner and Reich have woken up. Maybe they have begun to see the error of their ways when they piled on Clinton over Monica Lewinsky.
I do not doubt what you report about the staff turmoil in the White House. Jared writes here a lot, and I'm pretty sure he reads every comment. His influence was in the speeches today, and hopefully, in the month ahead.
Things may be worse than you fear. If we do not have a President who fights for us, who pushes through a jobs program, anger will be all that is left. That anger can be directed at the Tea Party obstructionists, or it can be directed at the President, but one way or the other, they will pick a target. You can't oppose the energy, you can't stop it. You can only direct it at a preferred target.
If President Obama and his advisers cannot figure this out, then God help us all in the summer of 2012.
http://my.democrats.org/page/s/contact_issues
Such an e-mail goes right into the bit bucket.
They have taken our loose co-operative of independent thinkers and turned it into a top down hierarchical party machine.
We get no voice as union organizers who oppose Obama for his complete lack of support. We get no voice as people who want an alternative.
But if the party has left me, if I am no longer a Democrat, then WHO AM I?
The only thing that has changed is that the Far Right has consolidated it's power over the American people. The "War on Terror" has been expanded,more wealth has been concentrated in the hands of the wealthy, the National Budget has been held hostage to a fanatical minority,and no candidate of the people will challenge the special interests that now control both parties.
What the TP did was tell the repubs if they didn't do as they were elected to do they would be sent packing and they got the message in the last election. Dems could do the same thing except for there is no real grass root movement with progressives. The majority of dem supporters are poor, uneducated, migrants, youth, and so on and it's tough getting these folks focused long enough to make a mark. Yes we have educated and wealthy dems and the money is there, but not in the numbers needed to sustain a true grass roots movement such as the TP. A movement can be manufactured for a short time, but without the a determined, politically educated electorate, it cannot be sustained very long.
During the campaign he had a clear plan, asked for our help and we responded with so much force that it was astonishing to everyone. He deliberately got my hopes up in order to get elected.
Which would have been fine, except that since he took office, the only time he asked for our help to do anything was to call Mitch McConnell and tell him to pass something that he should have been passing anyway (like the last 170 times the debt ceiling was reached).
That's all well and good, but what about everything else we audaciously hoped for? Like an end to the wars, the Bush Tax Cuts, the Patriot Act, Guantanamo Bay? What about creating TRUE healthcare and education infrastructure and economic safeguards?
I know that 30 years of Republican policy can't be changed overnight. But when are we planning on getting started? I am ready and waiting. I would love nothing more than to show these teabaggers what grassroots really means. But what's the plan? Where's that leadership I was so impressed with during the campaign?
But will vote against radical right-wing Republicans. Which is how they will be seen if Obama ignores Progressives. Fortunately he has done so to date, and will win in 2012 if he continues to do so.
The two most radical candidates of my lifetime were the two biggest losers: McGovern and Goldwater. Run a radical in the US, lose big time, turn the country over to the other Party. That's how it works here, and if "you all" are smart you'll let the Republicans do that.
Simple fact: in the 40 years before Obama two Dem Presidents served 12 years: Carter and Clinton, both from the Deep South, both conservative. I've voted for every Dem starting with McGovern, and I know a Progressive cannot be elected President in this right-wing US. All else is denial, and lost elections.
As a lifelong Dem, I'm glad Obama ignores Progressives. I can't take any more Repub rule.
(Note to disaffected Progressives: anything other than a vote for Obama is a vote for Republican rule, as the Green Party found out.)
Clinton did nothing but implement Republican policies. He signed DADT, repealed Glass-Steagall which deregulated Wall St and caused the meltdown and this recession.
Clinton repealed DADT, though Repubs forced him to keep Bush tax cuts to let him do that. Obama cleans up Clinton's mess, and Progressives rant because it wasn't fast enough.
Obama changed college loans, from a system where banks make the loans and get the profits, and the Fed government guarantees the loans, pays the banks if the student defaults. Now we lend the money directly to students. That cost Wall St about $30B a year in profits, and will end profiteering from college students.
Obama passed financial reform. You may think it's weak, Republicans don't think so. They are blocking it, won't approve anyone to the post, trying to defund it. Wall St is very afraid of it.
There has been nothing but conservative policies since Reagan, including under Clinton. Obama has stopped that, and is slowly reversing course. Obama has done a lot more, there are lists of it online, but I won't bother, it won't matter to you. Ideology is faith-based, not logical.
FDR took over in 1932, after soldiers were camped near the White House waiting for back pay, about to revolt, and the Socialist and Communist parties got a million votes combined. There is no such backlash against the rich now.
FDR implemented a lot of social programs, got unemployment down to about 10% (higher than now, and there were fewer two-income families then.) But he ran a deficit, about equal to ours now. So voters elected Republicans in 1936, forced cuts in spending. The result was a "double-dip", the economy crashed worse than ever (just like now). By 1939 the unemployment rate was 20%, only WWII saved the economy.
But note: as bad as things were, FDR was reelected in 1936, 1940, and 1944. Unemployment was more than double what it is now the first two times FDR was reelected. And unemployment was about 8% when Reagan was reelected. He had brought it down from over 10%, just like it has under Obama. That was good enough for Reagan to be easily reelected.
Incumbents almost always win now, the last to lose was Carter. Unless Obama gets his own Iran hostage crisis, he's in. Like Bush in 2004, people are afraid to change leaders when things are bad. They rightfully assume it will just make things worse :-)
Have you sent this to the White House?