In the 1970s, the CIA appointed a "Team B" to challenge prevailing assumptions about national security. Since then, there have been other Team B exercises to question prevailing views.
This is a smart move. An in-group of experts often becomes an echo-chamber, reinforcing their own prejudices and excluding people with different views. If you are inside, you demonstrate your own loyalty by not frontally challenging the top people, no matter how disastrous. This, of course, is the road to foreign policy debacles like Iraq and Vietnam.
But the same thing happens in politics and domestic policy. As we've just seen, Obama's A-Team of political advisers did not exactly shine.
It's not that others failed to warn of the disaster in the making. Countless posts and articles in the past year have pointed out that Obama had no coherent narrative. That he failed to squarely place the economic blame on the Republicans. His own signature initiatives did not do enough to restore jobs and prosperity for him to credibly campaign on them. His health bill may have represented incremental progress on insurance reform, but it was a political albatross. And he got much too cozy with Wall Street at the expense of his credibility with Main Street.
Columnists like Frank Rich and Bob Herbert, public opinion experts like Drew Westen and Stan Greenberg, scores of bloggers, as well as labor leaders like Rich Trumka, have been flagging these problems since mid-2009. I've been known to argue something of the same. And you heard this complaint privately from many Democrats in Congress.
This failure spans policy, politics, and messaging. So here is an idea: Obama should do a Team B exercise. He should invite in about six or eight smart people who have a very different view of how he should be leading.
He should give them an extended opportunity to make their case, without his usual advisers in the room. Then David Axelrod, Pete Rouse, Jim Messina, Valerie Jarrett et al. should be given a chance to rebut.
But Obama needs to hear the B-Team views, directly, uncensored, without the team that failed him undermining the critique. Then we'd have a real Team of Rivals, and maybe save his presidency.
And that's not all. If any team was a bigger disaster than the political team, it was the economic one.
Larry Summers, now back at Harvard, and Tim Geithner have been fond of arguing that their strategy in early 2009 of propping up insolvent banks (and bankers) rather than cleaning them out was vindicated by events. It wasn't. The policy kept Wall Street rolling in profits, but bequeathed a Japan Scenario of prolonged stagnation to the rest of the economy -- and of course gave a huge political windfall to the faux-populist Tea Party.
So let's bring in an economic B-Team to do the same exercise: Nobelists Joseph Stiglitz and Paul Krugman; Rob Johnson of the Institute for New Economic Thinking; Damon Silvers of the AFL-CIO; Larry Mishel of the Economic Policy Institute; Jamie Galbraith of U Texas; Bob Reich of Berkeley; Mike Konczal of the Roosevelt Institute; and Jane D'Arista or Robert Pollin of the Political Economy Research Institute, to name a few.
Even Paul Volcker, to whom the President turns only as a last resort, is an honorary B Team member. Several of these would make a better treasury secretary than Geithner, and Obama needs to hear their views unfiltered through appointees who have every reason to be defensive.
A final thought: I am weary of writing pieces whose theme is "Here's what Obama needs to do." Just between us, I'm not sure the man is paying attention.
So my next posts will be about what we need to do. And here is the general point: We need to build a movement--a movement that politicians and the media can't ignore.
If you are like me, you have been in dozens of conversations lately in which smart people ask each other, "How come there is no real grass-roots progressive movement?"
Among plausible answers I've heard are these:
Ordinary people are beaten down and fearful. Remember the expression, "a revolution of rising expectations"? This is a counter-revolution of depressed expectations.
Young people got their hopes sky high during the 2008 campaign. They built a movement. But then the Obama presidency extinguished O for A as an independent movement by bringing it under the Democratic National Committee, while Obama himself was far less inspiring as president than as a candidate. You think that's inevitable? Think Franklin Roosevelt or Ronald Reagan.
Young adults are so economically stressed that they don't have time for a movement. If you want to find a place where economically pummeled people logically should be organizing, look at community colleges. But there people are juggling work, family, and classes, and have no spare time go to meetings.
Young people who do have spare time think that volunteering for charitable causes is the same as movement building. It isn't.
Movements are passé. It takes an unpopular war plus a draft; or a once in a century cause like civil rights. Folks today are too busy being entertained with social networking.
And speaking of social networking, the internet, absent strong political leadership, is not the medium of a real movement though it can be tactically useful. MoveOn, in its prime, was the germ of something real. But progressives have too many parts, and no coherent whole. The Colbert-Stewart sanity rally was a hoot, but no movement.
The one enduring mass movement on the progressive side, the labor movement, is still feisty but because of corporate union-bashing it is a shadow of its former self.
There is a formidable immigrant rights movement, a model of progressive movement-building, but it speaks for only one segment of the economically vulnerable.
Okay, fine. But somehow, none of this stopped the Tea Party from working with Fox and Limbaugh on one side, and the billionaire Koch Brothers on the other, to organize a mass movement.
Sure, the Tea Party phenomenon is partly a fake but it's also partly real. There is a lot of anger out there, and the right is capturing it. The right is more demagogic, more disciplined, more in synch with its media messaging, more relentless.
So all of the alibis on the progressive side are only partial truths. In circumstances like these, it is possible to build a movement. The Tea Party proves it, and what's doubly galling is that most of these people are voting against their own economic self-interest.
Given that reality is on our side, where's our movement?
More on all this next week. Comments welcome.
Robert Kuttner is co-editor of The American Prospect and a senior fellow at Demos. His latest book, "A Presidency in Peril," published in May, warned that Obama was setting himself up for failure. He wishes he had been proven wrong.
Let's look to trust-busting Teddy Roosevelt. The one thing my crazy Republican uncle and a lively liberal like myself agree on is overwhelming influence of Wall Street and big money on government. With Larry Summers and Tim Geithner on board, Obama and Congress let the banks off the hook and it just continues. I live in NYC and believe me, my banker friends are still living large, while my friends in other industries have been severely cut or are still unemployed.
We need a trust-busting, fired-up, Teddy Roosevelt inspired Square Deal movement. A movement that offers a square deal for the poor, working, middle and even upper middle class Americans. A movement that is unafraid to be "mad as hell" and go after those whose influence has stripped the rest of us of the American dream. Can the Dems do this or will it take a new party with a fresh voice?
Pablum of bad economic philosophy is what he is spoon fed by his econ team every day. Is the man gullible or completely owned?
Obama is like a rabbit caught in the headlights of a car with so many problems facing him, He needs to act now there is only one game in town ...It's the economy stupid, Although I fear he has dithered too much and for two long. Show boating around Asia is not going to cut it. The emerging economies are going to swamp the us with cheap goods.
The so called consumer based economies are all dead in the water.
Ok when the spoils of war start to trickle through maybe things will start to pick up again and the whole shabby non productive and none jobs are created the feel good factor will return and off we go again.
The sad part from my perspective is that we have the technology in the west to beat them at there own game but not many are prepared to do the work.
And those that are prepared just want to get on and do their manual work as this requires no thought what so ever. If you do not wake up and smell the coffee you will wake up one morning and there will not be any.
Also, Lakoff's ideas need to be "retweeted" with less jargon, i.e. by people other than him. He tries hard but still uses too much jargon. I think Cenk Ugyur actually understands Lakoff.
I have written several letters to Obama. I try not to pepper him with letter, so I try to make the ones I send count. I am convinced now that he never sees them, or even representative samples from them. They might be tabulated at some high, almost meaningless, level, but I wonder if that is even done. He just sits in a bubble with his annointed advisers, and no one can reach him.
I can hardly wait to hear what you have to say next week.
We've already got the 'Plan-B' team in place. The current US driving political philosophy _ market fundamentalism _ has been embraced by both Republicans and Democrats for the past 30 years and has utterly failed us.
It is not the 'original' US postwar political philosophy, which is one of regulated capitalism and strongly protected labor rights, and which created the most prosperous era in US history. That is the original 'Plan A,' and it is the one we've got to go back to. We are not pushing a new, second-rate philosophy. We're embracing a return to the original model, so don't let the corporate-driven Tea-baggers assume the 'A' designation.
Make the new team promise above all else to attempt to derail the unholy freight train of ideology and money that is now running between business and the political establishment.
Make the new team promise to strive for four objectives _ a universal public health care option, regulation of private industry in the interest of consumers, legislatively strengthened labor rights and curtailment of military adventurism.
Make them stand up and use their public-profile voices to confront the inactivity of the Democrats and the venality of the Republicans. Make them announce that the concerns and values of a majority of Americans _ those of a modern social democratic country _ are not 'radical' as portrayed by the corporate world and its lackeys among the Tea-baggers.
1. A universal public health care option. Doubltess to be provided by the government, requiring that many more bureaucrats, administrative staff, regulators, etc. to implement, and subsequently that much more of MY income confiscated in taxes to pay for it.
2. Regulation of private industry in the interest of consumers. And just how is that interest determined, by whom, and at what further cost? More regulators, administrative staff, bureaucrats, etc. And not to mention the entire new lawsuit industry designed to "protect" consumers.
3. Legislatively strengthened labor rights. With of course unions influencing the legislation through lobbyists and campaign contributions (probably mostly to Democrats), designed to strengthen Labor's power through forced unionization (closed shops) and driving up the cost of goods and services for the rest of us.
4. Curtailment of military adventurism. What, you mean the defense of the nation? The pre-emption of armed conflict on our own soil? A PRIMARY responsibility of government?
"the venality of the Republicans"? Yes, the Republicans are financed by corporations; but to pretend that the Democrats aren't is disingenuous. Democrats ALSO received campaign contributions from Wall Street and Democratic special interest groups, so don't pretend their hands are any cleaner than Republicans....
I would embrace a compassionate, Liberal social democracy. And I would fight for it.
Eventually is now, Sir. Free markets have trashed your country for my children.
Corporate bureaucrats and administrators are only more 'efficient' than government ones to the extent that they can squeeze our sweat and dollars more efficiently. For example, without regulation, it is an insurance company's prerogative ~not~ to deliver the service for which we pay.
Regulation of private industry for the benefit of consumers can be determined by the extent to which Americans have access to life _ as in health care, liberty _ as in no PATRIOT act, no military-based national morality and no State religion _ and happiness, as in the ability to live without constant fear of privation and without slavish devotion to work.
Unions have only become what they are by following a free enterprise model. They function as businesses, and in league with businesses, because no legislation allows workers to freely associate, as before.
The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are nothing about defending the nation or preventing armed conflict on our own soil, and all about defending financial interests of big corporations.
Republicans have surrendered to rule by venal and fascist bigots, Tea-baggers. Of course the Democrats are controlled by corporate interests. They both just suck.
The core problem, is what we need to identify. The core problem with our government as it currently functions. Identify THAT, and then you have the basis for a truly revolutionary movement that can bring a lasting and beneficial change in government.
There was a time in this country when people actually outlawed war. There was a time when people believed that progress on all fronts was inevitable and that advancement was a moral duty, an internal manifest destiny to solve the material problems of mankind. We need to return to the stalwart resolution of our forefathers and mothers and lead with our conviction that future change is inevitable and it will either be progress or retreat because stagnation is not an option.
Center to Center-Right: Democrats
Far Right: GOP
Lunatic Fringe Right: Tea Party
So....where's the left?? They're splintered into endless non-profits and special interest groups. If we were united, we'd kick butt. Someone of stature needs to get us all together, before the Tea Party imprisons all poor people and grants tax immunity to the wealthy.
Next up for the profligate elite and their venal political allies...tax cuts, tax cuts, tax cuts more tax cuts.
Wait and see. Hello anyone there...hel loooo. Heckofa job Timmy.
Thank you for anouncing it. This election is the turning point. Not only progressives but moderate Democrats and independents must cut loose of Mr. Obama. His vaunted achievements are in fact a incrementalist patchwork mess. His efforts to change the direction of the country as a whole, and of the executive branch, have been insufficient when not downright laughable. A symbolic example: Two years ago he signed an executive order closing Gitmo - and two years later Gitmo is still open. How does one sign an executive order and then have Emanuel promise the military it won't be enforced?! What commander in chief does that?! What a joke!
We must attempt to reclaim the Democratic Party from this loser, and if the DNC is too bound up with the DLC, we need to campaign against the Democratic Party itself.