In 2010 Democrats will be slaughtered, absolutely slaughtered, because Obama and the senior Democratic leadership does not learn.
In 2012 Obama will become a 1 term president, and a right wing populist will get into power. That populist will turn out not to be a populist, and will do even stupider things than Obama economically (and may start a war, too).
The job is to prepare for this, to get new members and leadership in in 2014. Start working on it now.
Because 2014 and 2016 are going to be your last chance. If the US doesn’t elect people who are willing to do what it takes in those two election years, then the US economy is going to be a smoking ruin, far worse even than it is now.
This group of Dems have proved they can’t learn. Fortunately, and yes, I do mean fortunately, they are going to be swept out of power. Yes, they’ll be replaced by Republicans who are marginally worse, but that will give you your one chance to fix America.
Up to you if you’re up for it. Good luck.
And yeah, it’s really looking like I’m not going to be eating crow on this one.
jcapan
“In 2010 Democrats will be slaughtered, absolutely slaughtered, because Obama and the senior Democratic leadership does not learn”
But learn what–to be liberal when they’re not? That they shouldn’t govern like the republicans they’ve become? It’s like gay camp, isn’t it? I’m afraid you can’t beat the establishment out of these folks.
“The job is to prepare for this, to get new members and leadership in in 2014. Start working on it now.”
Agreed about the urgency. But isn’t this essentially another call to elect new/better dems, to redeem the party? They/their patrons are simply not going to surrender power to an actual bottom-up movement. The astroturf teapartiers, no problem–they’re no threat to the oligarchs.
I guess I’d have to say Obama was our “last chance,” and it’s fucking gone. Sept 2001 and Jan 2010–these were the moments in history when change could have been dramatic. Not sure another moment will come our way, and I’m almost certain the duopoly wouldn’t capitalize on it if it did.
But, hell, at the very least, it’ll be incredibly gratifying to see the centrists get their ass handed to them. Nothing spells failure like a 1-term presidency.
marc sobel
So tacky to say I told you so. Can’t we just move forward ?
Sigh.
jeer9
As it should be clear to everyone by now, the whole point of the “two” parties is to maintain their hold on power and make sure the voters have no real choice. And if you opt out of the system, they’re fine with that as well. Just don’t mess with the corporate gravy train. There is no way to oust the hacks who control policy in the Democratic party because horrible policy consequences have no impact on job security. The best the progressive wing of the party can do is fend off the most extreme sellouts (Social Security this fall), though even in that area (war funding, the public option) they often capitulate in the name of rhetorical success. We need to hit rock bottom, driven there by the intellectual and spiritual bankruptcy of the duopoly, before this country will be ready for a DFH (and the subsequent reform movement) that’s demanded. Unfortunately, the whole voting process seems well on its way to sham status (2000 and 2004) and our ever-burgeoning surveillance system appears close to operational in the event that more rebellious elements than the Tea Party movement take to the streets in dissatisfaction. The one thing I am certain of is that protests won’t occur in the fall. Come hell or high water, the football season shall not be disturbed.
bayville
The U.S. myth is finally dead. Has been dead for a few years.
Smart, younger folks should think about escaping. Move to Canada, Europe, Hong Kong, the Canary Islands.
BTW, I see the creative, educated classists in the comments of that post at OL – by and large – are just so much smarter than Ian and the rest of us defeatist, Leftists, eh?
beowulf
So tacky to say I told you so. Can’t we just move forward ?
Well no. Its only tacky if the other side (in this case, the OL Obamanots) acknowledge they were wrong and that Ian was right . Since they won’t, why shouldn’t Ian pile on?
More to the point, the next time there’s a dispute over the political and economic impact of some damn fool blunder– I mean bold, decisive action– from the White House, then readers should be aware that Ian has a pretty good track record reading the tea leaves.
BL1Y
The reason things are going to such shit is that pretty much everyone, left right or center, is okay with politicians lying, cheating and stealing, so long as they bring home the bacon today.
If we voted for anyone who was honest, intelligent, and competent, regardless of party identity, we’d wouldn’t have half the problems we have today. Unfortunately, it’s hard to find a politician with even one of the traits, let alone all three. But, ultimately we have ourselves to blame. We only get from our leadership what we demand of them.
Tom Hickey
The fundamental problem is that the US political system is thoroughly corrupted, and a corrupt system eventually self-destructs. Unless campaign finance, including lobbying, is reformed in such a way as to get the money completely out of politics, and the revolving door is closed, the handwriting is on the wall. Since it is all but impossible to do this, the prognosis is that the patient is terminal. It’s now just a matter of time.
Lori
Yes, it’s campaign finance and the revolving door, but it’s also our national discourse as dominated by media. In our national discourse, truth has no intrinsic value – and that’s a mind-boggling thing. What our national discourse prizes is political opinion – thus everything is reduced to politics. We don’t hear about climate change from climatologists. We hear about climate change from Lawrence O’Donnell and Laura Ingram. Now, O’Donnell will have more facts on his side, that’s true. But his identity is political and the fact that he is talking about climate change reduces it to a political issue, just as completely as Laura Ingram being on television and denying it’s happening reduces it to a political issue. And as long as it’s only a political issue, then truth has no intrinsic value. That’s what Fox’s slogan is about – fair and balanced. There’s nothing about being truthful in there – they’re just promising to present both sides. That’s all.
That’s what television punditry has given us – a world where truth isn’t valued. Where journalism is synonymous with opinion. Where the opinion of an economist who has been publicly wrong about everything is equally valued to the opinion of an economist who, by and large, has been publicly getting right for years. Where the scholar for a think tank funded by the oil company is considered as substantive as an actual scientist working in a non-corporate environment.
Conservative Americans, in particular, have learned to take this for granted. Because the idea of the liberal media has been so thoroughly inculcated into these people, they accept that real journalistic or scientific work is merely opinion, and that their uninformed opinions or the opinions of their favorite pundits, are of equal substance. And we see a repeat of that, in a large way, with the camp that supported and still supports Obama. They accepted lies about his opponents even though those opponents were of the same party. They accepted bigotry on behalf of their goal. They pretended the actual historical accomplishments never happened because they were unaware of them. They embraced the idea that if they didn’t know something, it didn’t happen. They were just as emotional and truthy as the right.
dandelion
Lori — plus 1,000,000 for that comment. I can understand where misapprehension of facts come from when all that truthiness is repeated by people who haven’t all that much education, haven’t had a chance to develop intellectual curiosity. But it really chaps my hide to hear repeated historical revisionism coming from people who pride themselves on their education and on being part of “the creative class.” Received wisdom everywhere, and not a fact in sight. Instead, truthiness on all sides — and so of course no one trusts anything from anyone anymore.
Lori
Dandelion,
I don’t think it’s related to educational level. The men who voted Bush and Obama into office are, by and large, well-educated and fairly affluent. It’s the valuing of opinion over substance that is the problem, and the educated may be more vulnerable to that particular flattery than the uneducated. When have you ever known a conservative male that didn’t think he was the smartest guy in the room? They all do.
This is narcissism at work. Think about Bush talking about his “gut”. There are a lot of people who are firmly convinced that their “gut” gets it right every time. Why? Probably because it’s so emotionally satisfying. What the GOP and the modern media does (particularly Fox) is validate people’s darkest opinions about others. Let’s be truthful, we all love hearing bad stuff about people we don’t like. We all like feeling like we’re the ones who really see what’s going on when we don’t like what’s going on. That’s what the GOP has run on for decades now, and it’s what Obama and his campaign ran with as well.
Everything is reduced to politics. We couldn’t talk about Hillary’s history of actual liberal accomplishments because Obama doesn’t have any. That made the opponents equal even though that political equality was dishonest. They couldn’t talk about what Obama had done for ordinary people so they wouldn’t talk about what Hillary had done for ordinary people. And because of that, we have a whole group of educated people who will scoff at the idea that she’s ever done anything for anybody (they don’t know about it therefore it didn’t happen) and then go on and explain that they expected her to govern as far right as Obama has – as if there’s anyway to come to that conclusion based on her actual history. Whereas when you look at what Obama has actually done in his life, there is nothing surprising about what he is doing now.
Z
Ian: Because 2014 and 2016 are going to be your last chance.
That’s ONE of the things that the demo-zombies that want to elect better democrats and still work within the corrupted infrastructure of their blessed party … instead of beginning the hard work of building a 3rd party … don’t understand: THERE IS A TIME ELEMENT INVOLVED. We don’t have the “luxury” of waiting out another 20 or 30 years of oligarchic rule until their blessed party is primaried clean enough to truly represent the vast majority of the public. But what should one expect from the party fan-dumb.
The linchpin is this and always has been this: we need purely publicly financed elections. Without that … at best … we’ll be stuck complaining about different people doing the same shit: selling us out. This is an issue that almost everyone can agree upon. We can sort out the other shit later on … but first we need to regain control of our government and purely publicly financed elections are the necessary first step.
Z
listen to the podcast
Can you tell jay to fix the fucking audio levels? Thanks.
lambert strether
Agreed. I was leaning toward the computer’s speakers the whole time.
The Raven
Headsets with sound processors and are Your Friend. For a start, I recommend a Plantronics .Audio 476 gamers headset.
I think the Dems may rebuild their base from moderate conservatives; that seems to be the goal of the “small”-business tax cuts. If it’s a choice between the Democratic Party and the Tea Party, I am for the Democratic Party, but I would rather vote for a liberal Party. Soon, soon, please.
anon2525
I was leaning toward the computer’s speakers the whole time.
Not me — Jay Akroyd’s booming voice kept me far back in my seat. But I did wonder what it was that Ian Welsh was whispering to him. I could never quite make it out…
CMike
listen to the podcast is right, Jay and Ian’s volume levels are fine when you “view” it “in iTunes.” (Does anyone know, was it available on iTunes in real time?)
Bernard
we have devolved to a state run by men, not laws. so men with the most power/money rule. when the laws when out the window courtesy of the Republicans, starting with Nixon. lol. i know people are so fed up with hearing about Nixon. which is why that’s where it started. Lack of accountability. pardoning Nixon was the beginning of the end of the rule of law.
When St. Ronnie pardoned the Iran Contra thieves, the Good ole Boys knew they had impunity to begin the destruction of American. We are now a society of men, not a society ruled by laws. reading the Rise and Fall of the Third Reich shows what happens when men rule and laws are jettisoned in favor of money.
what is most astounding to me is to see the all the White folks buy into the lies and sleaze that is the Republican party. all because of the Civil Rights Movement. Divide and Conquer really works as i have seen. i have such incredulity at how white people were willing to sell themselves down the river just to keep blacks out of the American dream. they actually believe there isn’t enough for all of us. And the Republicans delivered.
the White washing of the Civil Rights movement by the Republicans will only cement the stupidity and lies. Of course growing up listening to George Wallace was a harbinger of the evil unleashed upon America. like the people who grew up in the Depression, people from the South saw what happens when Republicans demonized blacks for political power.
i hope as many Americans can leave before the crisis gets worse. and it is, America is getting perverted more and more each year.
Ian Welsh
Yeah, it’s fine in iTunes, but not so much otherwise. I expect I need to get a phone or mic with volume boost. Ah well.
cookbook
Ian you were on the money in January. Political scientists keep trying to explain that November is a wave election. I think it goes beyond that. It looks from where I am sitting to be a complete rejection of the system of incumbency that strangled the Congress for far too long. Polls for decades have shown that the public hated Congress but loved their congressperson. This is over. The Democrats enchanted, bribed, and in far too many instances forced their Congress to vote directly against the interests of their constituents and their better judgment. Incumbency was a contract with constituents that implied power, trust, and goodwill. This WH took that and threw it out the window. A good friend and long time Dem recently told me that his congressman brought home some pork barrel road projects and then voted for the health insurance bill. I cannot convey the fury, hurt, and disgust he feels. It goes something like he will have a great road to drive on occasionally but will be f&@*ed to death daily by health insurance premiums.
lambert strether
anon2525 — Well, yeah. My concern was the guest, not the interviewer.
lambert strether
The raven:
I think the Dems may rebuild their base from moderate conservatives;
Ding! Exactly as Donna Brazile, bless her heart, said in 2008. So when the Opologists play the fear card, ignore them. In reality, they think Obama’s done a fine job, and perhaps for him they have. So the fear card is just for the rubes, since even they don’t believe it. As Raven points out, this election, like the Obama administration so far, is about shoving more of the old D base under the bus, and nothing else. It’s about control of the party apparatus, not “winning,” since the Ds “win” on either side of the revolving door, whether on K Street or as “progressive” consultants, or in office.
lambert strether
iTunes is a proprietary platform, right?
TaosJohn
Lambert, no: you can download iTunes for Windows.
Mandos
iTunes is utterly proprietary and a very “rentier” sort of thing. I’m an almost completely strict Linux user, and it is impossible for me to access, though for the most part I don’t miss it. Apple goes to great efforts to make sure that they set the terms for the use of the service, and they are narrow terms indeed. They made a concession to the prevalence of Windows machines to popularize iPod, but if ever the iPod/iPhone wedge makes other platforms into minority players, they’d retract that bridge from the moat faster than you can say “jailbreak”.
CMike
iTunes may be “utterly proprietary” but I’ve been getting a lot of use out of it for free. Apple makes all sorts of podcasts available at no charge.
jawbone
In reading the comments at Talk Left back in January for Ian’s post, I came across this comment by Paul Rosenberg:
Ah, yes, we Unterbussen, the Unter Klassen have forfeited “the confidence” of the Obama administration. Robert Gibbs said the unapprecfiative lefties need to be drug tested. We need to toe the line to prove we are worthy of Obama’s leadership.
With the help of the Republicans, Obama et al are working to “dissolve the people”: So, hurry up and lose your middle class economic standing, then hurry up and die. They’ve set up that mandate to buy something labeled “health insurance” which will probably not provide affordable coverage, so then the non-wealthy can hurry up and die — or at least fall out of the middle class faster and futher. Few political donations from those facing huge debts or bankruptcy…. Cut SocSec, the better to rid the nation of the unproductive elderly. Curtail the power of unionized labor, in all fields — the better to keep people cowed and also provide cheap labor for those MOTU’s who still own businesses which employ people. Especially go after those unions in the public sector.
I’m not sure how Paul meant readers to take Brecht’s words back in January, but it spells out how unprincipled power treats the less powerful.
lambert strether
CMike, the first taste is always free.
Mandos
Except, of course, it isn’t. You pay the admission fee for a copy of Windows or MacOS, unless you want to *gasp* break the law. I was forced to pay the admission fee when I bought my computer, but I still exterminated everything and put Linux on it. And am quite happy with my choice, even though iTunes, NetFlix, etc are all unusable.
The Raven
iTunes is proprietary, but not so bad. I wrote a while back that Apple and Amazon are medium evil; they do real and valuable things. Problem is, ever so often they try to take over the world.
Lambert, I’d infinitely rather have the conservative Democratic leadership than the Tea Party leadership. If the Democrats become a conservative party, so be it. Personally, I will join the People Progressive Libertarian Party (or whatever it calls itself) as soon as it has capable leadership and a shot at winning.
The Raven
I’d forgotten that I’d written about this back in April, at <http://adviceunasked.blogspot.com/2010/04/house-in-2010-elections.html>
Mandos
Yes, that’s the problem. Yes, it’s a scam. It’s a scam that works because they *can* actually recruit enough Americans to play what I think Kunstler calls the “corn pone Nazis”, and they *can* actually create a monster worse than what already exists. If they couldn’t do that, it wouldn’t work.
Now the question is, if y’all get your way and the Democrats are punished for their transgressions, what is the likelihood of creating a third party replacement that can win the White House in…5 years? Remember you’ll be dealing with a condition under which most liberals will be spending their time fighting the party in power more than they do so today.
I really hope, if this is what we’re headed for in November (which is still not necessarily the case…), that some kind of theory like this is intended and correct.
The Raven
Mandos, I figure 10 years. See <http://adviceunasked.blogspot.com/2010/06/deadlock.html>. Gonna be a rough decade.
But aren’t you the doomsman?
dougR
Lambert, sounds like you’re saying the DLC has already won (and OWNS) the Democratic party lock stock and barre. I didn’t see the actual moment come when conservadems won the day, won the party back and won control over policy, but looking around now, it’s pretty clear they did. And I had my own road-to-Damascus moment this week re Obama: enough with the contorted explanations about why he’s not doing all the things a generic Democrat is supposed to do (‘well, it’s elevendy-dimensional chess,’ or ‘well, presidents don’t have as much power as all that,’ or whatever). He doesn’t push for stuff that would actually work because he doesn’t WANT stuff that actually works. Whew, what a burden of puzzlement has been lifted from my poor brain! He doesn’t bother to purge the government of burrowed-in Bushies (as has happened with EVERY party change in Washington since who remembers when, and with particular brutality and viciousness when Republicans are doing the firing) and can’t even be bothered to nominate people for all those civil service, US Attorney or judicial jobs, because he genuinely doesn’t care, or genuinely doesn’t want a government that works. But for that minor BP slipup in the Gulf, Salazar would have let the MMS continue its merry way, and Salazar (who never met a timber baron or cattleman he didn’t like) is Obama’s idea of THE guy to run Interior?!. If you posit Obama as the guy he pretended to be during the campaign, none of this behavior makes a lick of sense. But if you say (as I finally heard myself say) “the campaign was one big lie, and THIS is who Obama really is,” well, THEN it all makes sense. He’s constructed “reforms” that actually REMOVE the American dream from the lives of millions for at least a generation, and he’s FINE with that!
Yeah, public financing of campaigns is a must. Here, let me contribute some money to the cause. Wait–where’s my wallet? Wha—who stole my wallet when I wasn’t looking? I just had it and now it’s gone! Wait…why is Rahm smiling?
Pepe
3 November 1992
jcapan
“3 November 1992”
Yup, 18 years later most energy is on redeeming the party. What a waste of decades. How much longer before people reassess where they’re directing their energy?
Andy Lewis
3 November 1976 is more like it.
Carter was the rough prototype; Blair and Clinton were model. Obama will be the last version as the annihilation of the Democratic Party is completed and our descent into feudalism is made irreversible.
We are in final shutdown. They came for the blue collars, and no one said boo. They came for the welfare system, and everyone said good riddance. They came for the techies, and we didn’t know WHAT to say.
Now, in the end stage, they’re coming for the seniors, and we have very little time, power or money left to fight them. Most likely we’ll lose again, and for the very last time. But we’ve got to try.
Andy Lewis
Oops…”model” s/b “refinements”.
BDBlue
Re when the centrists/rightist took over the Dem Party for good – I think it was 1988. Mondale was the last Dem in the liberal mode to get the nomination. And Tip O’Neill retired in 1987. Carter was a win for the centrists, but only in terms of a battle, not the war. The centrists didn’t solidify their hold until the late 1980s. 1988, at least according to Wikipedia, had more candidates win a primary than any other since the McGovern Commission reforms in the early 1970s. I don’t think that was a coincident, the party was in play. I had forgotten that Gore and Dukakis teamed up to take out Gephardt (who today I think of as an industry shill, but at the time was known more for being a labor candidate).
By 1992, Jerry Brown was running a very distant second to Bill Clinton. And by 2000, liberal Dems were no longer competitive in the presidential primaries. Bill Bradley was no liberal. Howard Dean is no true liberal. Dennis Kucinich is seen as a joke (and in some ways, is a joke, just not for the reasons the media claims).
But I think 1988 was the turning point, to the extent one can be pinned down.
dougR
I guess what I partly meant, but didn’t articulate, was “the moment when the conservadems took over the party without a chance of being shooed away from feasting on the carcass of the party by a credible opposition in the form of farther-lefters, progressives, DFHs who’d been incorporated into America’s political mainstream” etc. etc. Don’t forget, for years the vicious, vacuous right-wing loonies who today are lionized on the Sunday chat shows used to be relegated to a twilight fringe (where they belonged), and “responsible” debate occurred within a much wider spectrum of opinion, on both sides of the party. The institutional memory back then included a healthy respect in both parties for the disaster of the Depression, and the means government undertook to remedy it. No such institutional memory exists now, and no such spectrum of debate exists either, and the effects of money on our politics has made right-wing lunacy the “go-to” commodity for today’s “news” (which formerly, in the looming shadow of the FCC, had to mind its p’s and q’s about airing political advocacy).
Today, WE are the ragtag bunch of “loonies” the righties used to be, and I don’t have to tell anyone here how much help from the ultra-rich and corporate America the righties had over the last 20-30 years in gaining the total lock on the nation’s discourse they now enjoy.
To me, money’s truly the commodity that seals the deal for conservadems taking over, and until big money exerted such an influence there was still a grain of hope (and in fact, part of my point is that Obama SEEMED to be prepared to take on big money, though in light of his first two years that proposition is utterly laughable, admittedly).
I suppose everyone on this chat had their own point where they realized, “Dude, that ship sailed a long time ago.” Or, in today’s current favorite analogy, Mr. Frog says to himself, “Hmm, I’ve been boiling all this time & didn’t realize it. OUCH!!”
chicago dyke
Whew, what a burden of puzzlement has been lifted from my poor brain!
damn, it’s here too. amazing. i salute the Straussian who inserted this meme into the blogosphere. very effective, Sir or Madame.
right now there’s a “coming out/The Conversation” meme in heavy rotation. it goes like this: somebody puts up a blog post or comment about how scales have fallen from their eyes, and they are finally coming to understand 1) they are utterly different than their neighbors and will never be able to communicate some idea to them and 2) they are finally able and willing to cross some intellectual line, and feel compelled to declare they’ve joined the club of believers in X. i’ve seen this over and over in the last few days, and it’s very interesting given that this period is when americans traditionally talk politics in a way they mostly don’t the rest of the time. liberals who are finally realizing that conservative moderates will never accept or endorse progressive policy. atheists declaring they aren’t going to sit silently when religious claptrap is publicly touted as fact. employees who aren’t going to let idiot republican bosses dominate workplace political discussion with Obama is a Muslim nonsense. and more. someone is clearly trying to get the liberal blogosphere part of the american electorate more vocal and “proactive.”
anyone care to comment on the GOTV landscape? i’ve read the dems have a great deal of money and won’t really need the “new youth voter” construct from 08. i’m betting the dems will do a little worse than they expect, but i don’t know if i’d use “slaughter.” and don’t get me wrong, i mostly agree with what people are saying above. i just think that the republican alternatives in the closer races aren’t exactly the sharpest nails in the drawer, as it were. there’s still plenty of time for many of them to have a Breweresque meltdown or get caught diddling toddlers or something. and the tea party folks are unreliable voters; their primary track record isn’t exactly stellar this year.
meh, i’m mostly disinterested in the national game, these days. there’s so little effective difference between the legacy parties and there is certainly no difference in my life which one ‘represents’ me. i’ve been in the America is Doomed &trade camp since 2000. the only thing that is different today is the rate of decline has increased, and middle class white people are being slaughtered now, as well as all the rest of us down here. moderates and low information/awareness types are starting to panic, which is totally predictable. but as people are saying above, the system itself is inalterably broken. we’re on course for an ugly, neofascist kleptocracy and probably a global war. which is why i don’t think people running from this country will totally escape its implosion. still, i’d get out of the country if i could, but i can’t. i do advise anyone who can to do so. the northern EU, new zealand, places like that are probably where your chances will be best.
chicago dyke
feh, i guess that little trick doesn’t work here. “&trade” was supposed to show up as “tm.”
dougR
Special to chicago dyke: I don’t like your condescension. Your awarenesses are not mine, your background is not mine, your perceptions are not mine, and you can keep your dismissiveness to yourself as far as I’m concerned. It contributes nothing to the discussion except self-aggrandizement for the utterer.
jeer9
I still don’t see how we the progressive electorate have the power to change the composition of the Dems or the leadership by 2014 or 2016 given Ian’s dire prophecy and his admission of the party’s recalcitrant stupidity. As was mentioned in another thread, the Iron Law of Institutions (and Karp’s dark view of our system) seems to militate against such internal reform. Liberals or an outsider candidate are the enemy, and must be kept away from every lever of power. I do think it’s very poor judgment, though, to keep re-electing Democrats who enact or perpetuate Republican policy. However foolish it may appear to throw one’s vote away on a third party, voting again for this failed “socialist” administration tarnishes and undermines the Dem label even more. If this country can not stop its slow swirl down the toilet bowl of history, it needs to be clear that a conservative agenda of unadulterated selfishness, unrivalled indifference, and insidious law-breaking created the shitstorm (though I’m not sure that this knowledge will even matter by then as the elites will have created the society that they’ve always wanted).
Lori
Maybe you guys are all too young to remember. By the mid-1980s (at the latest), the media talk shows were stacked 3-1 against liberals. Real liberals couldn’t get air time. Their opinions ceased to exist. The faux liberal like Sam Donaldson and Cokie Robertston arose. The visceral experience of being a liberal when you watched tv was that you were a tiny, despised and irrational minority. Now, polls showed most Americans disagreed with Reagan’s agenda but you couldn’t find anyone on television representing what real Americans wanted. And that’s what skewed our national discourse to the right. Dems who ran on a liberal agenda were inundated by the media with hostility. More Americans died from rightwing terrorism during the Clinton years, than died from foreign terrorism – almost twice as many. That’s incredibly significant. That goes to just hostile our national discourse was to any kind of liberal goal.
You can’t fix this problem even with public financing if you don’t have a fairness doctrine that covers all broadcast media. Media is what this possible. Corporate money can only control elections when the media is in sync with their agenda. And yes, I know the media is corporate. But with a Fairness Doctrine of one kind of the other, with some real teeth, corporate money wouldn’t have nearly the power.
Mandos
The Raven: As you may recall, I’m generally not permitted to reveal it 🙂
anon2525
Now, in the end stage, they’re coming for the seniors, and we have very little time, power or money left to fight them. Most likely we’ll lose again, and for the very last time. But we’ve got to try.
I think that you are correct to say that we have very little time, power, or money left, but that does not mean “they” have those in abundance. They, in fact, are foolish because they are playing by rules that predate the industrial era. We are now in an era where the biosphere cannot be relied on indefinitely and the energy base of the industrial era (among other resources) is running out. These are two more fundamental elements of existence that cannot be altered by ballots. We are running out of time, power, and money — all seven billion of us and all other life.*
*Recent data: The amount of phytoplankton in the ocean is about 40% less than it was before the industrial era.
Mandos
So as for when this all started, a related idea is discussed in this OpenLeft post on the trajectory of neoliberalism and the Obama administration’s relationship it. And the thing is, for all that the left has screamed about its consequences, the neoliberal trajectory that was really baked in by about 1980 has, in some sense, “worked”—at least until recently.
In a sense, neoliberalism is a movement to conflate the economists’ concept of Pareto efficiency with “real” social effectiveness, buttressed by nostrums like “A rising tide lifts all boats.” In the neoliberal mind, the social democratic state is inefficient—there is “fat” that can in theory be cut and reallocated without harming the health of the patient overall.
This is why—in addition to his heated candor—it’s possible to believe that Alan Simpson is actually sincere at some level, sincere in a belief that Social Security is more optimally allocated elsewhere. (That he and his friends may benefit from this isn’t a categorical barrier to sincerity.) It’s also why economists are often enthusiastic about destroying other forms of worker protection, such as, well, trade protectionism.
So what do you do when you drain the “swamp” of social-democratic worker protection if you want to avoid worker revolt of some kind, left-wing or right-wing populism? You blow bubbles. America has been pacified by the blowing of bubbles as a substitute for wage increases and better labour bargaining power. These bubbles vary in quality: for example, the tech bubble accompanied real improvements in communications technology.
Neoliberals—especially the most sincere ones in the economics profession—eventually convinced themselves that we had entered a “Great Moderation”. That is, bubbles weren’t a compensatory stopgap measure for social democracy but instead a stable, repeatable paradigm for replacing social welfare.
And what has happened now, and I think what explains the Obama administration’s apparent inability to provide even a cosmetic appearance of acknowledging the concerns of the left, is the fact that it has turned out that the bubble machine is broken. Having believed their own propaganda, the neoliberals couldn’t do anything other than rely on the bubble machine that had to work. They banked everything on it. And they couldn’t well have had a backup plan, because all reasonable backup plans have a preparatory burden that would interfere with the bubble machine, which depends on draining the social-welfare “swamp”…
dougR
Lori–I WISH I were too young to remember the 1980s. My previous reference to the FCC (which was in the 80s a much stronger version of what it is now) had to do with the pre-cable, pre-broadband age when the only way to get broadcast content was over the PUBLIC airwaves, which the FCC had a statutory and moral authority to regulate, in part via the Fairness Doctrine, in part via much stricter ownership regulations, and regulate it DID.
But it’s like trying to put smoke back into a bottle at this point, UNLESS you had a seriously activist president who would have the courage to re-make the FCC to re-introduce and then vigorously police the notion of “equal time/equal voices/diverse voices”. This would mean finding convincing public-interest rationales to re-assert government authority over previously unregulated media like cable and broadband, and then sell it to the public with as pithy and direct a moniker as “The Death Tax.”
But I agree with you. Communications policy has a lot of potential as a way to even out the playing field of public discourse. We got anybody working on that?
anon2525
In a sense, neoliberalism is a movement to conflate the economists’ concept of Pareto efficiency with “real” social effectiveness, buttressed by nostrums like “A rising tide lifts all boats.” In the neoliberal mind, the social democratic state is inefficient—there is “fat” that can in theory be cut and reallocated…
Maybe in a “sense” neo-liberalism is what you describe, but in reality neo-liberalism is the dictatorships of the small minorities that make up private companies CONvincing the democratic majority not to exercise its power, but to instead let the dictatorships exercise power (for their private profit). Until people have a clear understanding of that reality, they’ll be susceptible to the con.
P.S., Metaphorically speaking, “A rising tide lifts all boats” implies trickle-up economics. Neoliberalism is trickle-down economics. At least, until they can get that leak fixed.
Mandos
anon2525:
Sure, fine, at some level that’s true. I mean bad people are bad, and they collude. That provides a rather impoverished model for why policy-makers behave the way they do.
anon2525
…it’s possible to believe that Alan Simpson is actually sincere at some level, sincere in a belief that Social Security is more optimally allocated elsewhere.
This is why the word “self-serving” came into the English language.
It reminds me of the story I heard of a judge in the post-Civil War era talking to a man who had been held in slavery before the war. The judge was describing all of the benefits that the man used to get when he was held in slavery. After the judge finished, the man said something to the effect of “well, that job is still there if you want it.”
Simpson is “sincere” in his belief in a system that would benefit him at whatever cost to you. Apply the Sinclair Principle to Simpson’s “sincerity.”
Mandos
Oh, and:
This assumes that the democratic majority has a “true” interest which you, of course, know in advance. For example, the democratic majority might be interested in, say, banning abortion. It’s one of the conceits of the left that a lot of the things people vote for are merely products of ephemeral propaganda that ultimately conceal a “true” self-interest that need only be revealed.
It’s why people discount the Tea Party, or claim that some form of economic common ground can be found with them, or…
Heh. Sure, fine, but the fundamental claim of neoliberalism is that what trickles up somehow trickles down in greater value. Once of the favorite accusations made by the libertarian right towards the left is the left’s tendency to discount the OMG TRULY MASSIVE contribution of Randian captains of industry to creating value by creatively coordinating capital and labour…
And I wouldn’t discount the extent to which the captains of industry believe that they are performing a social good.
anon2525
That provides a rather impoverished model for why policy-makers behave the way they do.
A model isn’t “impoverished” if it matches the data. That’s a realistic model.
Private companies are not run as democracies.
Private companies work for private profit. If they can get away with it, they will push the risks/losses on to the public (“socialize losses”). In order to do this, they have to CONvince the majority that it is for their (the majority’s) benefit. Dress up “neoliberalism” however you want (“pareto efficiency”, etc.), but it boils down to who benefits and who pays. All of the dressing up is simply the necessary part of the con. Policy makers are either in on the con or are one of the marks.
Mandos
I suggest that an excessively cynical form of class analysis isn’t necessarily helpful to understanding. Simpson is an old man (by his photos) and may well believe that he’s doing right by society as a whole. Self-serving ideologies are not necessarily wrong because they are self-serving.
anon2525
This assumes that the democratic majority has a “true” interest which you, of course, know in advance.
Yes, I do assume that the majority does not want profits privatized and losses socialized. It’s one of my elitist opinions.
Mandos
This is naive empiricism, it is possible to overfit the data and reduce the predictive effectiveness of the model. I think a lot of internet leftists have a tendency to overfit the data this way. It’s possible for statements to be true without containing useful generalizations. It’s trivially the case that private, self-interested entities collude, socialize risks, privatize benefits. So? It’s only useful information if it elucidates the mechanism by which this takes place, which requires a much more complicated model.
Yes, it’s probably the case that you consider any more bells and whistles to be mere obfuscation. I don’t think this approach has served the left very well over 30 years.
Mandos
Well, but the majority also wants all kinds of other things at various times, as revealed by their voting patterns. Or does that data not count?
anon2525
Self-serving ideologies are not necessarily wrong because they are self-serving.
Yes, and zero equals one.
“self-serving” means “interested only in yourself” which means “regardless of whether it harms others”
One of my elitist opinions about what the majority believes is that systems that help a minority’s economic position while hurting the majority’s economic position is a system that is “wrong,” meaning it is not something the majority would accept.
dougR
I think one of the left’s greatest communications failures (granted, the media deck is stacked against us, but still…) is that the average American is pretty well-versed in the “fat” that can be trimmed out of union contracts, teacher salaries, employee benefit packages (especially municipal workers) and whatnot, but are utterly ignorant of, or oblivious to, the “fat” in CEOs’ pay packages (and all the rest of the corporate “fat” that we now pay out-of-pocket for that was once covered more cheaply from overall tax revenues–garbage pickup, school materials, parks maintenance, etc.)–or the even more elemental fact that THEY are getting “fat” off of all of us getting LESS. Due in part to communications failures on the left, and to media failures in general (as Lori mentions), that bright, direct line between their MORE and our LESS is obscured to most people.
Mandos
Alright, we have different definitions of the word “self-serving.” It’s possible to serve your own interests while (believing one is) serving the interests of others. Doctors do it every day.
Sure. But that interacts with *other* beliefs, that don’t necessarily relate to economic class. Or did I miss all the conflicts over, e.g., affirmative action, gay rights, etc, etc.?
anon2525
Simpson is an old man (by his photos) and may well believe…
Yes, he is an old man. A bitter, vicious, vile, not-very-bright old man.
anon2525
But that interacts with *other* beliefs, that don’t necessarily relate to economic class. Or did I miss all the conflicts over, e.g., affirmative action, gay rights, etc, etc.?
No, you missed the fact that this discussion has not been about minority rights (see the Bill of Rights, etc.), but about neo-liberalism, which I did not bring up irrelevant points about guaranteeing minority rights.
anon2525
…which I did not… should be …which is why I did not…
anon2525
Alright, we have different definitions of the word “self-serving.”
I am using the dictionary definition of “self-serving,” for example, http://www.thefreedictionary.com/self-serving
One of my elitist opinions is that using dictionary definitions of words aids in communication.
Mandos
But the point is that they’re not irrelevant points. If you want to discuss how neoliberalism came to power and where it is going, these are definitely not irrelevant points, unless you want to live with an impoverished model of politics that overfits present data at the expense of predictive power. e.g., it’s not enough to say that private vested interests spend a lot of money on propaganda, it matters what form that propaganda takes.
The American public as a whole has one point of contact with the political system, which is the ballot box.
A case in point of the myopia of many people on the economic left when it comes to this point is Nader’s “Non-Voter Tour”, which was a big part of his 2000 campaign. As I recall, it was based on the theory that people don’t vote because neither of the big-party candidates available really reflect their economic interest, being both neoliberal candidates. So Nader should have been able to tap into this non-voter set by appealing to that interest. You’d think considering the high non-voting rate that Nader would have been a lot more successful than he was because of that. But it’s not the case that people don’t vote only because their economic interests aren’t being served. There are lots of people who don’t vote even when their interests are being served…
Mandos
anon2525: A debate over dictionary prescriptions is kind of silly. I’m using this one:
I take “especially” to mean “not necessarily”. We could keep lawyering our way through dictionary definitions if we want, not sure what is elucidated by that process.
As for “elitist”, um, I never ever used that word and am not sure of its relevance. If you really, really want me to appoint to you a pejorative epithet, I think “slightly myopic” or “a little unimaginative” or “a bit narrow-minded” might be more descriptive.
Mandos
Replace “mean” with “include the possibility of” just in case someone nitpicks the definition of “especially” 😛
Bart
The bad news: “In 2010 Democrats will be slaughtered”
The good news: My taxes will be cut! Oh, wait; I am not wealthy.
Old W sure did poison the well as he left. However, whoever follows Obama will also be a four termer.
Formerly T-Bear
Welcome to the Anon & Mandos Show, tonight they bring you a return of “How to hijack a post” They are this season’s revival of Amos n Andy. Be sure you don’t miss them and the inane dialogue that amuses them.
BDBlue
The when did the centrists win debate as well as Lori’s comment about media reminded me of this quote from John Caruso (h/t ms_xeno at Correnet):
There is no competing narrative and there isn’t going to be so long as lefties top priorities are 1) defending Obama and Dems and 2) making fun of tea partiers. Mocking people is not the same as creating a counter narrative (and without the counter narrative is largely useless, the reason the Birchers were considered “fringe” was because people could place them in a political context, the left no longer supplies any kind of political context and instead relies on heavy handed class context, which is just going to backfire 9 times out of 10).
Also compare Caruso’s quote regarding “process” and “reform” with Adolph Reed’s take on Obama in 1996 when he was an up and comer and it sums up pretty clearly why Obama was the perfect leader for the Democratic Party in 2008:
In Chicago, we’ve gotten a foretaste of the new breed of foundation-hatched black communitarian voices; one of them, a smooth Harvard lawyer with impeccable do-good credentials and vacuous-to-repressive neoliberal politics, has won a state senate seat on a base mainly in the liberal foundation and development worlds. His fundamentally bootstrap line was softened by a patina of the rhetoric of authentic community, talk about meeting in kitchens, small-scale solutions to social problems, and the predictable elevation of process over program–the point where identity politics converges with old-fashioned middle-class reform in favoring form over substance. I suspect that his ilk is the wave of the future in U.S. black politics.
What, of course, makes Obama even more damaging than the usual centrist/rightwing Dems is his almost universal support of African-Americans, a group that has historically been critical to organizing and pressuring Dems from the left.
BDBlue
Sorry for the typos, I need a preview!
BDBlue
The paragraph that begins “In Chicago” and ends with “black politics” is the Reed quote.
Z
BDBlue,
Adolph Reed’s take on obama back in 1996 is interesting. I saw enough to not vote for him or any of the other establishment candidates, but I wondered about his past and wondered why no one really stood up during his campaign … as far as I know … to share their personal experiences of how his community organizer work touched their lives. I concluded, probably correctly, that his community organizing was nothing more than a resume builder … building up his street cred for possessing empathy, something that certainly had some value. If you wanted to believe, you’d fall for his words and that community organizer tag “vouched” for his credibility and, hence, you’d ignore a lot of his voting record and other actions as a u.s. senator.
I’m glad that this is the case: that he’s been a vacuous sellout from day one basically. At least we know that the political process isn’t necessarily so corrupting that it could twist someone who entered politics sincerely wanting to serve the people, who is independently wealthy and will be able to do speeches the rest of his life for big money, to lose their principles on why they entered politics to begin with and continue to sellout even when they reach the pinnacle of u.s. politics and have nothing to lose by doing what is right for 4 years and letting the reelection chips fall where they may. He wasn’t completely transformed by the process, this is who he was 14 years ago and, unfortunately, still is today. It would hardly be a shocker that his whole career has been entirely about him … this is what I believed all along … but at least it’s confirmation from back in those community organizing days of what I suspected.
Z
The Raven
“Well, but the majority also wants all kinds of other things at various times, as revealed by their voting patterns. Or does that data not count?”
It turns out that most people don’t vote on policy–don’t even seem to care about it very much. See. So whether or not “the majority does not want profits privatized and losses socialized” is hard to say. But I don’t think you’d have a lot of problem proving that the majority does not want to be poor, governed arbitrarily by large businesses, and so on. Just because I’m not a doctor does not mean I deserve malpractice.
anon2525
It turns out that most people don’t vote on policy–don’t even seem to care about it very much. See.
Doubtless, that is true, that people don’t vote for or against a particular policy when voting for a politician (single-issue voters such as anti-choice or “protect my guns”, excepted). People make a judgement on whether a politician or the ruling majority has been a failure or not.
So whether or not “the majority does not want profits privatized and losses socialized” is hard to say
1) I don’t think that having profits privatized and losses socialized is a policy. It is a description of criminal behavior. So, your first point, above, and this one are not related. Putting them together is a mistake.
2) I don’t think that it is “hard to say,” either. I was understating when I said “the majority.” No one wants profits privatized and losses socialized. Not even the banksters, who happen to be having their losses socialized while their profits (bonuses) are private. If you were to propose to a bankster a scheme in which some people (who are not the bankster and his friends/family) were going to possibly profit, but in which the bankster, among others, was going to have to pay if there are losses, then the bankster would tell you that he is against that (unspecified) scheme.
The well-known, public recent example (among others) of this was the TARP. The “majority” (basically everyone who was not a politician supported by banksters) of the country was against that scheme of socializing the banks losses, after the banks had spent a decade of privatizing losses, but the majority was ignored.
anon2525
But the point is that they’re not irrelevant points. If you want to discuss how neoliberalism came to power and where it is going, these are definitely not irrelevant points…
That would be your mistake. You initially provided your description of neo-liberalism, providing some justification that neo-liberals give for their con. I then pointed out that what they were doing with their “explanation” was making a CONvincing argument — an argument to us to accept their con. You then decided that you wanted to discuss how “neo-liberalism came to power and where it is going.” Just because you wanted to throw some more stuff into your stew doesn’t mean that I was going along with your tale. I am only pointing out that neo-liberalism is a con dressed up as an “economic argument” to make the con sound plausible. It is an attempt by a minority (dictatorships, at that) to convince the majority to give up its interests and its power to the minority.
Now, you can describe this critique any way that you want (“you’re overfitting the data! overfitting!”), but description does not provide a counter-argument. It does not say that companies are not dictatorships, that they are not minorities, and that they are not acting to get the majority to give up its interests and its power to the minority. In brief, your description of what neo-liberalism is is wrong, regardless of how “sincere” some of its proponent are.
anon2525
Welcome to the Anon & Mandos Show, tonight they bring you a return of “How to hijack a post” They are this season’s revival of Amos n Andy. Be sure you don’t miss them and the inane dialogue that amuses them.
It’s always so good to hear from the peanut gallery.
That you think I’m amused says a lot about your reading comprehension.
That you think a discussion about neo-liberalism is unrelated to the democrats chances in the upcoming election says a lot about your observational skills.
The Raven
Not failure or success. Love or hate. Converse found that the plurality seems to judge based on group affinity (“Republican,” “Democrat,” “Christian,” etc.) or dislike (“black,” “Muslim,” etc.) The second largest group didn’t seem to base their votes on anything sensible. The last group, under 20%, votes on issues. The majority, as far as anyone can tell, simply does not care about “profits privatized and losses socialized” enough to vote on it. If the bums are voted out, it will be because they have alienated enough people, not because they are criminals. If we are to win this, we must either change the public consciousness (doubtful) or show the public that, in fact, the pols who are mistreating them, are mistreating them, and are their enemies.
Ref: Philip E Converse, “The nature of belief systems in mass publics,” reprinted in Critical Review: A Journal of Politics and Society 18, no. 1 (2006): 1 – 74. I recommend it to everyone with a serious interest in politics.
anon2525
Ref: Philip E Converse, “The nature of belief systems in mass publics,”
Thanks. Do you know whether Converse’s study was done exclusively in the U.S. or affluent societies, or does he claim that his results are universal and apply among all societies? What I’m wondering is whether his studies apply to “mass publics” that are under stress, or were the studies only done among populations that can afford to be self indulgent (that is, not placing their economic interest as their primary concern because they feel that their economic well-being is basically assured).
The Raven
It was a cross-section sample of the USA in 1956, with follow-ups in 1958 and 1960 (and perhaps more, but I don’t want to reread the whole 70+ page paper right now.) So…depends. There was plenty of stress in that period–it was the height of the Cold War, after all–and everyone was not rich. It was overall a prosperous and fairly equitable time, however. There was not the kind of economic stress that we are now experiencing and, while there was a widespread fear of imminent war and invasion (as now, and about as well justified), neither were there the privations of real war.
I don’t think personal loyalties in politics are self-indulgences. My sense of very damaged countries, impoverished, war-torn, or in the grip of civil wars, is that in such places the pattern Converse described is actually stronger. In such places, personal loyalties—ultimately family loyalties, but “family” being widely extended to clan or tribe—and fanatical ideological loyalties are the only loyalties strong enough to be of value. The rising tide of fanaticism and hardship in the USA is perhaps pushing us into such a situation.
Whoa. I think I just explained the failure of the Second International.
lambert strether
Great quote, BDBlue, from Caruso.
Mandos
anon2525:
Um, if you read my post correctly, I didn’t merely provide a description of how neoliberalism views itself. I said:
And later:
That is to say, I started and finished pretty explicitly from the perspective of how neoliberalism operates, where it’s going, etc. It’s not something I tossed in later, it was the entire point of my comment, in order to put neoliberalism in the context of the OP statement that the “Democrats will be slaughtered.”
You responded with a statement about what interests neoliberalism really serves—something I daresay nearly everyone who regularly reads Ian’s blog already agrees—and I assumed you were writing in rebuttal to the gist of my comment. So I responded, effectively, that it was insufficient to place neoliberalism in the context of the political mechanics of elections merely by describing who is best served by neoliberalism. I guess I didn’t realize that you weren’t actually responding to my post.
Mandos
BDBlue:
I assume you understand why that is the case. Also relevant is this Salon interview with someone who wrote a book about how the New Deal coalition fell apart, apparently.
(h/t this thread at Cogitamus.)
anon2525
Um, if you read my post correctly, I didn’t merely provide a description of how neoliberalism views itself. I said:
And the thing is, for all that the left has screamed about its consequences, the neoliberal trajectory that was really baked in by about 1980 has, in some sense, “worked”—at least until recently.
Oh. It has “worked.” In other words, the left’s screaming was wrong, because it “worked.”
No, it has not. When a farmer eats his seed corn, it has not “worked” — he has made a fatal error. Neo-liberalism has not “worked” — it has simply eaten through or spent or borrowed its way through the wealth of the nation. The left’s screaming was justified, they were right, and no amount of self-serving (actual dictionary definition usage here, not someone’s personal definition) rhetoric (neo-liberals like to call it “economic reasoning”) changes that.
That is to say, I started and finished pretty explicitly from the perspective of how neoliberalism operates, where it’s going, etc.
Um, if you read your own post correctly, you’ll see that at no point in there do you describe where neo-liberalism is “going.” You simply state, over several paragraphs, that neo-liberalism has failed (see, for example, your final three sentences), something I daresay that regular readers of this blog already agrees with. Prior to that you describe how you think neo-liberalism operates and why you think it is reasonable to think that some people support it — because of their “sincere” belief in an economic system that — coincidentally, mind you — happens to benefit their minority at the expense of the majority.
I assumed you were writing in rebuttal to the gist of my comment
As best I can tell, the gist of your comment is “neo-liberalism has failed, and as a result the democrats won’t be able to deliver a booming economy.” There was nothing in your post about “how will neo-liberalism respond next” (more of the same, I expect, until they are ushered out of office) or how this interacts with minority rights. Maybe it was there in your mind, but we cannot read that.
I guess I didn’t realize that you weren’t actually responding to my post
A problem with long, explanatory posts is that the writer makes many interconnected points with many contestable assertions. Each paragraph in your post contains assertions that I consider doubtful or contestable. I responded to one of them rather than accepting a long chain of reasoning and contesting the conclusion.