Enough Of This Crap -- Just Cut Them Off

[dales]

I was wating for rube to show up on this.

[Sue U]

He's constantly saying that the main problem is that we just haven't elected enough Democrats,

Obviously. The GOP's 41-seat super-majority in the Senate has crippled Democratic policymaking.



Seriously, the problem is there haven't been enough Democrats elected who will actually vote with the Democrats in order to pass the legislative initiatives of the Democrats (I'm looking at you, Ben Nelson/Blanche Lincoln/Max Baucus/Evan Bayh). These douchbags have been even worse than the obstreperous GOP, which can always be counted on to say no. Democrats have no party discipline, so end up kicking themselves in the political nads at every single goddam opportunity.

[Andrew D]

This (and a lot of what Andrew has been posting lately) is all about the fact that his bunch are in for a right pasting this November and he knows it.

If that happens -- which it well might; but on the other hand, various prognosticators have been saying lately that it looks as if the Republicans won't take control of the House or the Senate after all -- it will be millions of ordinary Americans who will take "a right pasting".

I won't be one of them. I don't particularly need health-care reform. I am covered by a kick-ass health plan. My prescription-drug copays range from $5 to $15. When I've had to stay in the hospital for several days, my out-of-pocket cost has been $100. (That's per admission, regardless of the length of my stay.) And my health-care provider has never so much as batted an eye at my long list of preexisting conditions.

Although my line of work -- performing legal services for law firms -- is far from recession-proof (most law firms are not inclined to hire outsiders when they don't have enough work to keep their own employees busy), I am not completely out of work. And even if I were, my wife's job pays well, and her job security is rock solid.

But millions -- tens of millions -- of ordinary working Americans are not as fortunate as am I. My concern is not for myself; it is for them. And that is a concern which the people running the Republican Party -- a group of people very different from rank-and-file Republican voters -- quite obviously do not share.

If the Republicans do take control of Congress, then (unless Obama starts wielding his veto pen, in which case we will probably end up with total gridlock) we can expect to see more of the same Republican policies that got us into this mess in the first place. And although that might work out well for the privileged few who bankroll the Republican Party, it will be disastrous for ordinary working people, including millions of ordinary working Republicans.

We can expect to see more tax breaks for the rich, the very rich, and the super-rich. (Again, whether tax normalcy for those people is or is not restored will not affect my taxes.)

Right-wingers have been telling us that tax breaks for those in the upper echelons will create jobs by stimulating investment. Newsflash: The Bush tax cuts for the rich, the very rich, and the super-rich have been in effect for years, and what kind of job growth have we seen? Oh, that's right; sky-high unemployment.

Tax relief across the board would certainly help some middle-class Americans. And keeping the present tax rates in place for middle-class Americans makes sense to me. (It does leave unaddressed the whole problem of the national deficit/debt, but that is a problem best addressed during flush times, not during times such as ours now.)

But the people who need help the most are not going to be helped by tax cuts: The people who need help the most are the unemployed, and if you don't have any income to be taxed, reductions in (or no increases of) income-tax rates don't do you a damn bit of good.

We can expect to see rollbacks of even the modest gains that what is left of health-care reform -- after the Republicans did all they could to destroy it -- has provided to ordinary working people. Say goodbye to being able to keep your dependent children on your health-insurance plan until they turn 26. Say goodbye to knowing that your (minor) children cannot be denied coverage under your family's health-insurance plan because of their preexisting conditions. Etc., etc., etc.

We can expect to see our military engagements in Afghanistan and Iraq become permanent. No more draw-downs (incomplete as they are presently contemplated to be); instead, hundreds of billions of dollars pissed away while more and more Americans descend into poverty. And there is no reason to think that Afghanistan and Iraq will be the only objects of right-wing military adventurism. Expect to see us pouring troops into Yemen, joining ourselves at the hip with Pakistan's ISI, and pretending to chase terrorists all over the globe.

(But we won't, of course, be sending our forces in any significant way into Darfur or the Congo. Those are only places where millions of people are dying and being driven from their homes into starvation (and rape). Where's the money to be made dealing with that?)

As I pointed out in another thread, Americans in the mid-term elections of 1934 were smart enough not to hand Congress back to the right-wingers whose policies played such a huge role in bringing about the Great Depression, even though the 1932 election had not yet produced the desired results. They were smart enough not only to back the right horse but also to ensure that right-wing obstructionism could not stand in the way of the recovery that the nation so desperately needed.

The same is true today: In order to get the things that most Americans want -- and, yes, most Americans want a health-insurance system that includes the core elements of the Democrats' proposals (and they want a health-insurance system even more to the "left" than that), and most Americans want a taxation system that places on the wealthiest a burden commensurate with the benefits which our society has enabled them to enjoy -- the key is to give the party that is promising those things a real opportunity to make those promises real.

Maybe the Democrats' policies won't work as planned. Who knows? I don't, and right-wing pundits don't either. But what should be obvious to all of us, and is obvious to most of us, is that right-wing policies have failed. The available alternative, given our unfortunate two-party system, is some combination of left-wing policies.

(As most here probably know by now, I am not a left-winger. I am a Libertarian. But constructing a libertarian society -- as opposed to merely throwing our hands up in the air and enacting some sort of anarchistic pseudo-libertarianism -- would require a fundamental reordering of society in a host of different ways. That is impossible in the short term. And when the house is on fire, the top priority is finding a way to extinguish the blaze; figuring out the best way to reconstruct the house must await a later day.)

When there are only two teams in play, and when what the policies of one team have brought us is disaster, the rational choice is to give the other team a chance to give its policies a try. And that means a real chance -- a chance to do what they have in mind to do, without having everything they want to do watered down into a pale shadow of what it really is by the obstructionism of those who do not represent a majority of the American people.

But we probably won't. The political attention span of Americans today is, by contrast to what it was 70+ years ago, puny. The quantum of "information" available has put a premium on masses of data and brought about a corresponding devaluation of the thought necessary to grasp the ramifications of those data. Dishonesty among politicians (whether self-identified as such or masquerading as non-politicians) of all stripes has always been rampant. But in those days, one could expect to be lied to once, twice, maybe three times a day. These days, one can turn on FOX and be lied to twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.

So we'll probably end up creating a Congress in which the Democrats have an even more fragile majority than they do now. And the Democrats will not get their chance to put their policies into effect. And because the simulacra of those policies will not achieve the effects which the actual policies might have achieved, the Republicans will use those failures -- the very failures which they are so assiduously engineering -- to claim that the policies themselves are wrongheaded.

And we'll end up doing very little. And the economic tides -- which are far less dependent on political action than most people on any side are willing to admit -- will shift. And America will muddle on through, just as she always has.

In the meantime, tens of millions of Americans will have been impoverished by the reckless and feckless policies of the Republicans. But in the long term, that won't matter much, just as the difference between my grandfather's having been able to leave a fortune to my father and his having (due to Depression-Era losses) been able to leave to my father a much more modest inheritance did not cause so much as a blip in the national economy.

Of course, a more humane approach would consider the impoverishment, even if temporary, of tens of millions of Americans a profoundly important consequence. Such an approach would demand policies calculated to prevent that outcome, if possible, and to remediate it if preventing it turned out to be impossible.

But we live in an age of the ascendancy of right-wingism. Humaneness is not presently a weighty consideration.

[Andrew D]

He's constantly saying that the main problem is that we just haven't elected enough Democrats,

Obviously. The GOP's 41-seat super-majority in the Senate has crippled Democratic policymaking.

Sarcasm aside, the GOP's ability to block Democratic proposals in the Senate has crippled Democratic policymaking. Don't you think that the results would have been far different if the Democrats had held, say, a 70% majority in the Senate?

Which also applies to this:

Seriously, the problem is there haven't been enough Democrats elected who will actually vote with the Democrats in order to pass the legislative initiatives of the Democrats (I'm looking at you, Ben Nelson/Blanche Lincoln/Max Baucus/Evan Bayh). These douchbags have been even worse than the obstreperous GOP, which can always be counted on to say no. Democrats have no party discipline, so end up kicking themselves in the political nads at every single goddam opportunity.

If the Democrats had held, say, a 70% majority in the Senate, then the occasional off-the-reservation wandering by a Democrat or two would have made no difference. Precisely the problem -- well, a substantial component of the problem -- has been that the Democratic majority has been so fragile that any Senator who wants a special deal for her or his State or a special provision tailored to the preferences of her or his out-of-the-Democratic-mainstream constituents has been able to extort concessions by threatening to derail the whole thing (whichever thing that happened to be).

That would not be the case if the Democrats had a truly strong Senate majority. The leadership could then just say, "Oh, fuck off, Ben. With you, this is going to pass 70-30. Without you, it is going to pass 69-31. So unless you have ten other Senators with you, we don't give a shit what you think or how you vote."

But the Democrats did not, do not, and probably will not hold that kind of majority. And that is the crux of the problem: The Democrats have not had the opportunity -- as they did in the 1930s -- to implement their policies.

And that means that we have no way of knowing whether those policies would have worked. And that means that come November, we voters will, once again, be denied the opportunity to choose between the policies of the Republicans and the policies of the Democrats. We will have only the opportunity, if we wish to call it that, to choose between what might have been the policies of the Republicans (who haven't held the combination of the presidency and an unstoppable majority in Congress for a long time either) and what might have been the policies of the Democrats.

Choice?

Imagine yourself in a Chinese restaurant. One item listed as available is Kung Pao Chicken. Another is Sweet and Sour Shrimp.

Okay, fine. If you prefer the chicken, order it; if you prefer the shrimp, order that.

But what do you do when it turns out that the "Kung Pao Chicken" is actually 60% Kung Pao Chicken and 40% Sweet and Sour Shrimp? And the "Sweet and Sour Shrimp" is actually 60% Sweet and Sour Shrimp and 40% Kung Pao Chicken?

No matter which one you order, you don't get what you asked for. Either the chicken dish that you chose is actually 40% a shrimp dish that you didn't want, or the shrimp dish that you chose is actually 40% a chicken dish that you didn't want. And either your chosen Kung Pao sauce is made unrecognizable by the inclusion of 40% Sweet and Sour Sauce, or your chosen Sweet and Sour Sauce is made unrecognizable by the inclusion of 40% Kung Pao Sauce.

I can't speak for others, but when I order Kung Pao, I want Kung Pao, not some bizarre commingulation of Kung Pao and Sweet and Sour. And when I order Sweet and Sour, I want Sweet and Sour, not some bizarre commingulation of Sweet and Sour and Kung Pao.

And even if what I get turns out not to be the one I wanted, I would still rather have the wrong one than some revolting combination of both. If I order Kung Pao, I would rather end up with pure Sweet and Sour than with a mixture of the two; and if I order Sweet and Sour, I would rather end up with pure Kung Pao than with a mixture of the two.

Lamentably, all we ever get these days are unsavory mixtures. I am not aware of any time since FDR's presidency when one party has held the presidency and insurmountable majorities in both houses of Congress. So no party ever gets to seize the reins.

I am not unaware of or insensible to the dangers which giving one party -- whichever party -- full control over the legislative and executive branches can present. And I think that those dangers are, at least in very general terms, common knowledge. But I think that there are also dangers involved in refusing to give one party -- whichever party -- a measure of control sufficient to enable it to implement its policies.

Even if I don't care for Sweet and Sour Shrimp (and I am not a fan of sweet and sour), I would rather have a plate of Sweet and Sour Shrimp, knowing that I can follow it with a plate of Kung Pao Chicken, than have a plate of Sweet/Kung and Sour/Pao Shrimp/Chicken, if I can follow that only with a plate of Kung/Sweet and Pao/Sour Chicken/Shrimp.

In other words, I would rather have a few years of rule by one of the parties which I detest, knowing that I have the opportunity for a few years of rule by a party which I detest rather less, than have interminable years of some distasteful sludge formed from both of them, knowing that my only opportunity in the future is an endless flow of sludge with a slight seasoning one way and sludge with a slight seasoning the other way.

[Lord Jim]

The issue that you and Sue are raising here goes to a point I've made before both here and at the CSB....

Your problem isn't that there aren't enough Democrats elected....

Your problem is that there aren't enough Liberal/progressives elected to successfully pursue the Liberal/progressive agenda you would like to see...

And I'm sorry to have to tell, you, (well, actually not all that sorry) that there simply are not enough people who embrace Liberal/progressiveism in this country to produce the governing majorities you'd like to see....

If the Democrats had insisted on fielding only Liberal/progressive candidates, they would never have won the majorities they have, despite all the problems the Republican Party had. It was a deliberate strategy to find and finance moderate candidates (led largely by Rahm Emanuel) that enabled the Democrats to win majorities in 2006 and 2008. Without them, the Dems would still be in them minority.

I understand it must be frustrating to lefties to be living in a center-right country, (nearly twice as many Americans regularly identify themselves as "conservative" as call themselves "liberal" in public opinion polls) but that's just the way it is. (I suspect it's frustration over this fact that led to this silly "Liberalstan" idea)

As I see it, the left has two choices:

1.They can continue to work themselves into a tizzy, sneeringly and condescendingly accusing everyone who doesn't embrace their wonderful "enlightened" ideas of being ignorant morons who are simply too stupid to know what's best for them...(always a winning strategy)

2. They can actually do the heavy lifting of making arguments that will persuade the average person that their proposals are the most sound ones, and win the trust and confidence of a sufficient portion of the electorate to elect the governing majorities with the ideological orientation they would like to see....They can try to succeed in the market place of ideas and move the political center of gravity in the country from center-right, to at least center-left.

Given the track record, I fully expect they will choose the first course.

[Big RR]

And I'm sorry to have to tell, you, (well, actually not all that sorry) that there simply are not enough people who embrace Liberal/progressiveism in this country to produce the governing majorities you'd like to see....

Jim--the problem with this statement is that there have not been enough liberal/progressive (however you define it) candidates run to see if the people would vote for them. Some in the party leadership have taken it upon themselves to assure that these candidates are not able to run on the democratic party line, believing that any dem elected is a plus, regardless of his or her agenda. If people have no chance to vote for liberal/progressive candidtes they cannot be seen to have rejected them.

[Rick]

If people have no chance to vote for liberal/progressive candidtes they cannot be seen to have rejected them.

Again that falls back on the party, they support those they think have a chance of winning...

[Big RR]

Or those who "they" want to win; if you have a group of people who prefer a republican "lite" agenda calling the shots (and the dems have had a lot of these since the Clinton years), the progressives won't stand a chance.

[Lord Jim]

I'm sorry but the reality is that Liberal/progressives run in primaries all over the country, but out side of heavily urban areas and college towns (which is pretty much what "Liberalstan" would wind up consisting of) they rarely win....

If they can't even draw enough support even within a Democratic primary to get nominated, ,what makes you think that they would win general elections?

The Congressional Progressive Caucus currently consists of 79 House Reps and 3 Senators, despite the fact that the Dems have 255 House members and 59 Senate seats....

Nothing would make me happier than to see the Democratic Party run nothing but a bunch of Dennis Kucinich and Maxine Waters clones all over the country....

That would reduce the number of Dems to fewer than a hundred in the House, and perhaps 20 in the Senate....

[Big RR]

Jim--I think we must have a big difference between what you mean by liberal or progressive and what I do. I've even heard people like Lieberman described with that label.

[Big RR]

As for Kucinich and Walters, I think their biggest liability is not their politics, but their personalities.

[Andrew D]

I find it interesting that our most vociferous, at least in this thread (as in many others), defender of right-wingism has decided for himself and his children -- not for some abstract goup of "others" -- not to live under a right-wing regime.

He has chosen, instead, to live in the most "liberal" major city in America. He could have gone back to the city of "Mr. Jefferson's University". He could have moved to Alabama or Mississippi or Georgia or Kentucky or wherever. But he didn't. He chose instead to live -- and to raise his children -- in a bastion of "liberalism".

Sure, there are excuses/explanations/rationalizations. We've read them all. How convincing they are is an individual judgment for each of us to make.

But the inescapable fact remains that someone who derides "liberal" policies at almost every opportunity has chosen to take up residence -- for his children as well as for himself -- in the quintessentially "liberal" major American city.

If it is true that actions speak louder than words, then there seems one and only one ineluctable conclusion: Whatever one may think in the abstract about "liberal" policies, even "conservatives" agree that in the real world, the "liberal" policies of "liberal" cities make for better places to live. And in the end, aren't better places for us and for our posterity to live what all of us, "liberal" and "conservative" alike, really hope for?

[Andrew D]

I also find it interesting that although there is a great deal of talk here about its being unlikely that the productive States -- the States that have for decades been providing the welfare necessary to the right-wing States' survival will actually throw the freeloading States out, there has been very little talk about why they should not do so.

Yes, it is clear that in the context of the moment, the States that actually produce more than they suck up -- and it is not an accident that when one stacks up those categories of States, the ones that produce more than they suck up are the forward-looking States, whereas the States that suck up more than they produce are the backward-looking States -- cannot throw the leeching States overbaord to swim or sink (and they would quite obviously sink).

But like all ephemeral contexts, this one too shall pass.

There was a time when the abolition of slavery seemed a hopeless cause. But we did it.

There was a time when the nationwide guarantee that women would have the right to vote seemed a hopeless cause. But we did it.

We are now in a time when it seems to some people -- most of whom are (unsurprisingly, given their historical antecedents) are gleeful about it -- impossible that the States which have already made themselves prosperous and are seeking to advance into the twenty-first century (and beyond) will cast off the neck-wringing albatross of the States that are mired in ignorance and stupidity. If ordinary working Americans are fortunate, there will come a time when they also can look back and say "We did it."

Meanwhile, though, it is striking that we have not seen any justification of the fact that our system is run by ignorant cowpokes from so-called States that don;t even deserve to be called cities, let alone States. (See, e.g., Wyoming, with a total population less than (and an average IQ charitably estimable at half) that of San Francisco; the Village of Alaska (same).)

I haven't the time or the inclination to run down all of the other examples. Everyone here knows that the right-wingers exercise influence disproportionate to their numbers. If what really mattered were the numbers, instead of the peculiar calculations (which are not without historical justification) of the American electoral system, the Republicans would be fondling themselves in the political wilderness that they so richly deserve.

But suppose that that were not true. Suppose that the right-wingers' influence in Congress -- especially in the Senate, where Mitch "Where Is Rupert Murdoch's Anus That I May Crawl To It And Lick It Clean?" McConnell has his minions goose-stepping along to his "Make The Democrats Look Bad, And If That Screws Most Americans, Why Should We Care?" agenda -- were an actual reflection of how much support the Republicans' unwissenheit uber alles approach to, well, everything, actually has.

What would that actually prove?

Exactly what I am saying: The States that are equipped for the modern world should give the boot to the states that would rather atrophy in a swamp of centuries past.

[Andrew D]

As for Kucinich and Walters, I think their biggest liability is not their politics, but their personalities.

Yep. If politicians who really favor the interests of ordinary Americans want to succeed, they will, lamentably, have to adopt the Republican artifice:

"Yes, I'm on your side. (Well, actually, my real job is to ass-rape you and laught at you afterwards.) Can't you tell by televangelist pompdour?"

[rubato]

"....

If it is true that actions speak louder than words, then there seems one and only one ineluctable conclusion: Whatever one may think in the abstract about "liberal" policies, even "conservatives" agree that in the real world, the "liberal" policies of "liberal" cities make for better places to live. And in the end, aren't better places for us and for our posterity to live what all of us, "liberal" and "conservative" alike, really hope for?

The fundamental difference is that Liberals accept cause and effect. Conservatives by nature are mired in superstition counting their rosary beads and pretending that if you do the same stupid thing it will all come out differently next time.

I have yet to hear 1 Republican admit that their policies caused the worst catastrophe in 80 years or explain how their policies have been changed based on this experiment.

Empiricism requires that when you do an experiment and it comes out differently than your theory predicts that your theory is wrong. Liberals understand this.


yrs,
rubato

[rubato]

"...
I haven't the time or the inclination to run down all of the other examples. Everyone here knows that the right-wingers exercise influence disproportionate to their numbers. If what really mattered were the numbers, instead of the peculiar calculations (which are not without historical justification) of the American electoral system, the Republicans would be fondling themselves in the political wilderness that they so richly deserve.
... "

Appeals to hatred and fear are easier than appeals to reason, and more effective. Witness Newtie Gingrich whipping up hatred for Moslems and the RNC whipping up hatred for Gays. And the entire right-wing whipping up irrational hatred for immigrants.

If all you care about is 'winning' and have no morals then its easy. The number of ignorant and stupid people who can be manipulated is legion.


If your household income was less than $180k (taxable*) then you are in the 95% of the country that Republicans fucked with their policies:

http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/income/d ... R_2009.xls

Amazing how many people don't mind being fucked if they can hate someone else.


yrs,
rubato

[Sue U]

Amazing how many people don't mind being fucked if they can hate someone else.

From all indications, that's pretty much what drives the Teabaggers.

The discontent with the two major parties stems from the fact that because modern U.S. politics actively eschews any actual political philosophy or coherent policy program, each party is forced to run candidates who may support only a fraction of the party's ostensible platform. Voters are then forced to choose between candidates with whom they agree on, say, only 55% of issues and those with whom they agree on an even smaller fraction. The result is that substantial blocs go unrepresented, only the most ineffective and useless legislation is attempted, and we never get a principled approach to government. A multi-party system of proportional representation might not cure all that's wrong with government, but it may allow parties to focus on actually developing serious policy programs rather than stupid and meaningless theatrics.

But of course, the way things have shaped up so far, we're all doomed.

[Andrew D]

Proportional representation is also problematic. It would require that States with more than one Representative hold at-large elections for those Representatives. (States that have only one Representative already necessarily hold at-large elections for those Representatives, and Senate elections are intrinsically at-large.)

If the Democrats received 1/3 of the total votes, they would get 1/3 of the State's total delegation in the House; if the Republicans received 1/4, they would get 1/4; if the Libertarians received 1/5, they would get 1/5; etc. (That also poses the problem of which candidates in each party would actually occupy the seats won by that party, but I assume that each party will manage to work that out.)

But in the U.S., at-large elections have a sordid history: They have been used to prevent various disfavored groups (most conspicuously African-Americans) from having representation anywhere near their proportion of the population.

For example, suppose that a State has nine Representatives. And suppose that that State is 2/3 white and 1/3 black. Assuming an approximately racial-bloc voting pattern (and such patterns are far more the rule than the exception in US politics), the likely result is nine white Representatives and zero black Representatives.

In other words, at-large elections can create unconstitutional discrimination against certain groups of voters. Indeed, that is the principal reason underlying the statutory requirement that States with more than one Representative use district elections to choose those Representatives. (The Constitution itself imposes no such requirement.) So I am not sure that at-large elections for Representatives in States which have more than one Representative can pass constitutional muster.

[Lord Jim]

Posted this over at the CSB; thought it bore repeating:

June 25, 2010

In 2010, Conservatives Still Outnumber Moderates, Liberals
Last year's increase in conservatism among independents is holding

by Lydia Saad

PRINCETON, NJ -- Conservatives have maintained their leading position among U.S. ideological groups in the first half of 2010. Gallup finds 42% of Americans describing themselves as either very conservative or conservative. This is up slightly from the 40% seen for all of 2009 and contrasts with the 20% calling themselves liberal or very liberal.

Now let's all put our thinking caps on and see if we can glean a pattern here....

I'm sure some weak, sophistic song and dance rationalizations will be forthcoming to try and find some explanation for this other than the clear and obvious fact that the vast majority of the electorate has consistently, for decades, had no interest in identifying itself with Liberalism....

The bottom line is that you will never create a working elected liberal majority in a society where one fifth or less of the electorate identify themselves as liberals.

[Crackpot]

It might mean more if it extended back to the time before "liberal" was considered a dirty word. Much like they're trying to do to progressive now.