The inauguration is coming tomorrow, after perhaps the most eventful and contentious lame-duck session of Congress in our time. We seem to have collectively erased our memories of the 2012 election, despite the fact that it dominated public discourse for well over a year. Perhaps the double-whammy of Sandy and Sandy Hook are to blame for the amnesia, but I think the Right has done a pretty successful job of so thoroughly ignoring the results that their defeat is no longer discussed.
Well, whether they like it or not, Barack Obama is starting four more years in the White House tomorrow. Back in 2009 I would have been ecstatic by this prospect, but now I'm pretty much just exhausted, as happy as I am. The intransigence and extremism of the opposition party doesn't really give one much hope over the president's prospects for bringing new initiatives forth and getting them turned into law. I also have the sinking feeling that he will experience the second-term slump that even his most illustrious predecessors suffered from.
After winning a landslide in 1936, FDR went on to get involved in the aborted court-packing scheme and made cuts to his New Deal programs that brought on a recession. When his second term ended, his political standing was much weakened. Nixon didn't make it through his second term due to Watergate, and Reagan's second was also bedeviled by scandal, along with his increasing senility. The economy boomed in Clinton's second term, but he was impeached and almost didn't make it out intact. Obama's predecessor, George W. Bush, crashed and burned with the deterioration of Iraq, Katrina, and judicial scandals. Sometimes I feel that the pressures of the American presidency are such that it's impossible to sustain a high standard of performance for more than four years.
One reason Obama might be different is that unlike other presidents, he did not have a honeymoon period in his first term. From the beginning, his political opponents have obstructed and blockaded him at every turn. This experience has hopefully kept him sharp and his team from getting complacent. Obama also does not suffer from the deficiencies of other past presidents. He is younger than Eisenhower and Reagan, and not scandal-prone like Nixon and Clinton. He is not a cowboy buffoon like W, whose idiocy was not fully exposed to the American public until it was too late. My main fear is that his intellectual detachment will be more manifest once his fatigue with the job sets in. It just might get too tiring to force himself to do the work of retail politics that he today seems to approach with disdain.
I think the gun control issue will very quickly define the nature of his second term. For the first time since the early 1990s, there appears to be a groundswell of support for gun control, an issue Obama seemed happy to completely avoid to this point. That of course never stopped the gun nuts from spinning paranoid fantasies about Obama's true intentions. They went out and bought guns and ammo by the barrel-full when he was elected in anticipation of new gun control laws that never came. For his first four years, Obama seemed to think that even raising the gun issue was out of the question.
Current events certainly now make the gun nuts feel as if their fever dreams were right all along. By taking on the NRA and the hordes of wingnut "patriots," Obama is doing political combat with the faction of the Right that seems to hate and fear him the most. If he can get his legislation passed, this would be a political de-pantsing of epic proportions, and would clearly send a signal that the president will be in the driver's seat for his second term. Defeating one of Washington's most powerful and fearsome special interests, a lobby that has scared Democrats from even talking about guns, would give Obama the kind of political mojo he needs to get through his term without a slump. I could even see the Republicans giving way on the debt ceiling issue in this case, since they would finally have to acknowledge his position of power.
If the president is unable to get much done on gun control, it will greatly embolden those who despise him the most. He will have spent much political capital on a losing issue, and will most likely spend the rest of his term playing defense. A similar thing happened to W, who floated the idea of Social Security privatization at the start of his second term, only to have it smacked down faster than my 18-year old self was when trying to talk to members of the opposite sex. By tackling a brand new issue and a powerful lobby in the bargain, Obama is taking a huge risk, even despite the public's horrified reaction to Sandy Hook.
Mark my words, as goes the gun issue, so goes Obama's second term.
Showing posts with label election 2012. Show all posts
Showing posts with label election 2012. Show all posts
Sunday, January 20, 2013
Thursday, November 15, 2012
The New Republican Strategy: Pretend the Election Never Happened
Back in 2009, conservatives made their political goals pretty obvious: do anything in their power to make the Obama administration fail and thus limit it to one term. This was not some kind of secret conspiracy, everyone from Mitch McConnell on down to Rush Limbaugh said it out loud straight into the microphone. After four years of unprecedented filibusters, Tea Party histrionics, and wild accusations that the president is a foreign-born imposter hell-bent on destroying America's very essence, the American public rejected this irresponsible gambit at the polls.
If you've been paying attention to the political news since last Tuesday, you might think that Republicans are unaware that we just had an election where the president was re-elected, and Republicans lost seats in both houses of Congresses. Not only that, their Tea Party Senate candidates in Indiana and Missouri -states Romney won- went down in defeat, and the GOP maintained the House largely because of gerrymandering. By any rational measure, the Republican party and the ideas it stands for were clearly repudiated.
Despite these facts, John McCain continues to rant about Benghazi in a conspiratorial fashion that voters just don't buy. Worse still, he is doing so in a blatant attempt to smear Susan Rice, one of the likely replacements for Hilary Clinton as Secretary of State. (His insulting remarks about her "not being too bright" are rather reminiscent of John Sununu's infamous denunciation of our law professor president's intellect.) These shenanigans are an obvious shot across the bow to the president, sending the message that even though he just won re-election, Republicans will continue to obstruct and libel just as they did before.
I've also been puzzled and irritated by the fact that Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney are still in the news. One of the best things about Obama winning was that I thought I could be sure not to have to hear Mitt Romney's smirky, asshole boss voice over my radio ever again, and that his dead-eyed granny killer sidekick would take a low profile for the time being. Instead, I am hearing all about Romney's self-serving narrative about why he lost the election, which boils down to "Obama did a dirty deal by giving away freebies to those lazy black and brown people, and by enabling slatternly young women to engage in immorality." This makers vs. takers bullshit heavily tinged with racial animus and misogyny is the same kind of garbage the right subjected us to for the past election year. I can't recall a time when a defeated presidential candidate was this far out into the public eye and making such flagrantly divisive statements so soon after an election. He's almost acting as if the campaign is still going, and the election that he lost wasn't real or legitimate.
I guess the right's willingness to forget the election ever happened is consistent with their behavior before the election and on election night itself, when Republicans refused to believe the poll numbers were true and Karl Rove had his famous meltdown on live television. Both Mitch McConnell and John Boehner wouldn't get out of bed to talk to the president when he called their homes that night, a childish act of denial. Conservatives think they are the "real America," and thus it is simply impossible and against the laws of the universe that they would not be commanding it. If a liberal black Democrat is in charge, no matter if he beat them twice, it is an unacceptable state of affairs. A poll out today shows that a majority of Republicans do not think that the party ought to cooperate with the president, despite the oncoming "fiscal cliff" and the fact that their party has just lost an election.
I had hope that this election would be a wake-up call, especially after Chris Christie's willingness to put his animus against the president aside and act like an adult for once. It seems that my hopes were misplaced, and that the GOP will remain the ideologically extreme death cult that it has become in recent years. I can only shudder to think about the implications of this on our country's need to solve some pressing problems.
If you've been paying attention to the political news since last Tuesday, you might think that Republicans are unaware that we just had an election where the president was re-elected, and Republicans lost seats in both houses of Congresses. Not only that, their Tea Party Senate candidates in Indiana and Missouri -states Romney won- went down in defeat, and the GOP maintained the House largely because of gerrymandering. By any rational measure, the Republican party and the ideas it stands for were clearly repudiated.
Despite these facts, John McCain continues to rant about Benghazi in a conspiratorial fashion that voters just don't buy. Worse still, he is doing so in a blatant attempt to smear Susan Rice, one of the likely replacements for Hilary Clinton as Secretary of State. (His insulting remarks about her "not being too bright" are rather reminiscent of John Sununu's infamous denunciation of our law professor president's intellect.) These shenanigans are an obvious shot across the bow to the president, sending the message that even though he just won re-election, Republicans will continue to obstruct and libel just as they did before.
I've also been puzzled and irritated by the fact that Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney are still in the news. One of the best things about Obama winning was that I thought I could be sure not to have to hear Mitt Romney's smirky, asshole boss voice over my radio ever again, and that his dead-eyed granny killer sidekick would take a low profile for the time being. Instead, I am hearing all about Romney's self-serving narrative about why he lost the election, which boils down to "Obama did a dirty deal by giving away freebies to those lazy black and brown people, and by enabling slatternly young women to engage in immorality." This makers vs. takers bullshit heavily tinged with racial animus and misogyny is the same kind of garbage the right subjected us to for the past election year. I can't recall a time when a defeated presidential candidate was this far out into the public eye and making such flagrantly divisive statements so soon after an election. He's almost acting as if the campaign is still going, and the election that he lost wasn't real or legitimate.
I guess the right's willingness to forget the election ever happened is consistent with their behavior before the election and on election night itself, when Republicans refused to believe the poll numbers were true and Karl Rove had his famous meltdown on live television. Both Mitch McConnell and John Boehner wouldn't get out of bed to talk to the president when he called their homes that night, a childish act of denial. Conservatives think they are the "real America," and thus it is simply impossible and against the laws of the universe that they would not be commanding it. If a liberal black Democrat is in charge, no matter if he beat them twice, it is an unacceptable state of affairs. A poll out today shows that a majority of Republicans do not think that the party ought to cooperate with the president, despite the oncoming "fiscal cliff" and the fact that their party has just lost an election.
I had hope that this election would be a wake-up call, especially after Chris Christie's willingness to put his animus against the president aside and act like an adult for once. It seems that my hopes were misplaced, and that the GOP will remain the ideologically extreme death cult that it has become in recent years. I can only shudder to think about the implications of this on our country's need to solve some pressing problems.
Thursday, November 8, 2012
Lessons Learned from the 2012 Election
There are a lot post-mortems our there concerning the 2012 election, some smart, and some rather shallow and chained to the usual conventional wisdom. I think we need to be careful about reading too much into this election, for a couple of reasons. First, we ended where we started: Democrats controlling the Senate, Republicans with the House, and Barack Obama in the White House. Second, a lot of what happened merely validated what we already knew. Here are the lessons I did think we learned, or at least re-confirmed.
Asymmetrical Warfare Can Beat Carpet Bombing
The unleashing of super PAC money in the wake of the Citizens United decision was supposed to give the Republicans a huge advantage. However, the megamillions donated by the likes of Sheldon Adelson and the Koch brothers didn't buy the election. The GOP tried to win by carpet bombing with their political B-57s, while the Obama campaign maintained a stellar ground game and get out the vote effort. This type of political guerrilla warfare is hard to wipe out with television advertisements.
Weak Candidates Don't Unseat Sitting Presidents
Here's where we had something we already knew confirmed for us pretty obviously. It's hard to unseat an incumbent president, even one presiding over a struggling economy. Doing so requires an inspiring candidate, and inspiring is about the last word anyone would use for Mitt Romney. He'll go down in history as yet another weak challenger unable to defeat the champ, along with Walter Mondale, Thomas Dewey, Wendall Wilkie, Alf Landon, John Kerry, and Bob Dole.
This Election is Not a Broad Mandate
While the president's performance looks rather impressive on the electoral college map, he barely won the popular vote. Some of the pundits are talking about this election as some kind of sea change, but I don't see it. There is still a very large percentage of people out there opposed to the president, the Republicans are aware of that fact, and most likely not budge an inch in their obstinacy.
The GOP Played the Tea Party Hand One Too Many Times, But the Tea Party Will Still be Around
It's amazing to me that two years ago, when the Republicans swept back into Congress, everyone was talking about the power of the Tea Party, but suddenly this year we're hearing that the Tea Party is a liability and that the GOP can't survive if it is to be the party of angry white people. Did some kind of major transformation in the electorate occur in just the last two years? No, obviously. Using the Tea Party fury got their base to the polls in 2010, an off-year election when turnout is key. In a presidential election the number of voters is too much for a mobilized faction like the Tea Party to overcome. In fact, with more moderates going to the polls, extremists like Richard Mourdock and Todd Akin get smacked down. In 2014 we won't hear much about the Republicans compromising and reaching out to people of color because whipping up the conservative base will continue to pay dividends in midterm elections.
Asymmetrical Warfare Can Beat Carpet Bombing
The unleashing of super PAC money in the wake of the Citizens United decision was supposed to give the Republicans a huge advantage. However, the megamillions donated by the likes of Sheldon Adelson and the Koch brothers didn't buy the election. The GOP tried to win by carpet bombing with their political B-57s, while the Obama campaign maintained a stellar ground game and get out the vote effort. This type of political guerrilla warfare is hard to wipe out with television advertisements.
Weak Candidates Don't Unseat Sitting Presidents
Here's where we had something we already knew confirmed for us pretty obviously. It's hard to unseat an incumbent president, even one presiding over a struggling economy. Doing so requires an inspiring candidate, and inspiring is about the last word anyone would use for Mitt Romney. He'll go down in history as yet another weak challenger unable to defeat the champ, along with Walter Mondale, Thomas Dewey, Wendall Wilkie, Alf Landon, John Kerry, and Bob Dole.
This Election is Not a Broad Mandate
While the president's performance looks rather impressive on the electoral college map, he barely won the popular vote. Some of the pundits are talking about this election as some kind of sea change, but I don't see it. There is still a very large percentage of people out there opposed to the president, the Republicans are aware of that fact, and most likely not budge an inch in their obstinacy.
The GOP Played the Tea Party Hand One Too Many Times, But the Tea Party Will Still be Around
It's amazing to me that two years ago, when the Republicans swept back into Congress, everyone was talking about the power of the Tea Party, but suddenly this year we're hearing that the Tea Party is a liability and that the GOP can't survive if it is to be the party of angry white people. Did some kind of major transformation in the electorate occur in just the last two years? No, obviously. Using the Tea Party fury got their base to the polls in 2010, an off-year election when turnout is key. In a presidential election the number of voters is too much for a mobilized faction like the Tea Party to overcome. In fact, with more moderates going to the polls, extremists like Richard Mourdock and Todd Akin get smacked down. In 2014 we won't hear much about the Republicans compromising and reaching out to people of color because whipping up the conservative base will continue to pay dividends in midterm elections.
Sunday, November 4, 2012
Why I am Voting for Barack Obama
When I cast my vote for president on Tuesday, my vote will be, once again, for Barack Obama. Having lived in Illinois back in 2004 during his Senate campaign, this will be the third time I will have the pleasure to do so. The first set of reasons I am voting for him are positive in nature: bin Laden is dead, General Motors is alive, gay men and women can serve openly in the military, the economic stimulus brought the nation back from the brink of economic collapse, young immigrants have a clear path to citizenship, America is once again respected not hated by its allies, we have two new strong liberals on the Supreme Court, there are more avenues for women to sue for their rightful wages, America is out of Iraq and on the way out of Afghanistan, and we are finally on our way to having universal health coverage after a century-long battle. All of these things were accomplished against unprecedented levels of obstruction by the opposition party, unrelentingly mendacious propaganda spewed by Fox News and the mobilization of a corporate backed church and king mob (aka the Tea Party). While I wish the health care law had been stronger and stimulus focused on New Deal-style jobs programs among other disappointments, I am amazed at what the president has done in the face of levels of hatred, obstruction, and disrespect I have never before seen directed at a sitting American president.
I also have one very big negative reason for voting for Barack Obama, namely that he is all that prevents the radical conservative movement from gaining control of the levers of national power. As I have been saying time and again, the Republican party is not a traditional center-right institution, but the vehicle for a radical band of ideologues set on putting their Ayn Randian crossed with Christian dominionist vision of America into practice. A Romney presidency will see oil and coal barons free to pollute, banks set loose to exploit customers and wreck the economy, women's reproductive rights threatened, the conservative ideologues on the Supreme Court with a clear majority, a return to the old disastrous neo-conservative foreign policy, the social safety net shredded, and our horrendous social inequality worsen. That alone would be reason enough to vote for Obama, but I feel that he has not just prevented the Right from doing their worst, he has managed to do a lot of good against long odds.
In recent days I've heard from friends via social media and read in blogs and other online forums the disappointment of the Left in Barack Obama. They often point to things that I myself am greatly concerned about: his continuance of immoral and un-constitutional practices from the Bush era used in the war on terror (drone strikes, Guantanamo, extraordinary rendition, targeted assassinations), a tendency to compromise as a starting point in negotiations (his renewal of the Bush tax cuts is an obvious example), the weakness of the health care reform law, cowardice on the gun control issue, and the fact that his administration has done little to better conditions for the poor and working classes. I share these concerns, and even though the online quizzes tell me that my political views more closely align with those of Jill Stein, I'm still voting for Obama.
I used to vote for third party candidates; I didn't vote for a Democrat for president until 2004. Why the change? Because the Bush II administration showed me that as milquetoast and compromised as the Democratic party can be, the Republicans are extremists hell-bent on putting their dangerous ideology into practice. As much as I am horrified by targeted assassinations and drone strikes, the reality is that America is an empire, and that fact is much bigger than any one person who will be its president. In regards to domestic policy, I would love it if the president had stuck harder to his principles, but politics is the art of the possible. I am no longer enamored of the Left's obsession with the doomed noble cause or the beautiful loser. It's all well and good to romanticize Ted Kennedy's run for president in 1980 as a last stand for liberalism, but his actions and the liberals who voted for third party candidate John Anderson helped get Ronald Reagan elected. Power is what matters in politics, and putting that power in the hands of right-wing extremists must not be allowed to happen. In any case, the American political system is so beholden to corporate interests that Barack Obama is by far the most progressive president in my lifetime, despite his compromises and shortcomings. In fact, I will hazard to guess that it will be a very long time, perhaps never, before we have another president as progressive as him.
But let me not end on such an negative note. I will not be voting for president Obama out of the fear I have of his opponents or as a "necessary evil," but because he has managed to accomplish a great deal of positive things; I would even say he has done more for this country in his four years than any other president in my lifetime, including Bill Clinton. If that's not worthy of my vote, I don't know what is.
I also have one very big negative reason for voting for Barack Obama, namely that he is all that prevents the radical conservative movement from gaining control of the levers of national power. As I have been saying time and again, the Republican party is not a traditional center-right institution, but the vehicle for a radical band of ideologues set on putting their Ayn Randian crossed with Christian dominionist vision of America into practice. A Romney presidency will see oil and coal barons free to pollute, banks set loose to exploit customers and wreck the economy, women's reproductive rights threatened, the conservative ideologues on the Supreme Court with a clear majority, a return to the old disastrous neo-conservative foreign policy, the social safety net shredded, and our horrendous social inequality worsen. That alone would be reason enough to vote for Obama, but I feel that he has not just prevented the Right from doing their worst, he has managed to do a lot of good against long odds.
In recent days I've heard from friends via social media and read in blogs and other online forums the disappointment of the Left in Barack Obama. They often point to things that I myself am greatly concerned about: his continuance of immoral and un-constitutional practices from the Bush era used in the war on terror (drone strikes, Guantanamo, extraordinary rendition, targeted assassinations), a tendency to compromise as a starting point in negotiations (his renewal of the Bush tax cuts is an obvious example), the weakness of the health care reform law, cowardice on the gun control issue, and the fact that his administration has done little to better conditions for the poor and working classes. I share these concerns, and even though the online quizzes tell me that my political views more closely align with those of Jill Stein, I'm still voting for Obama.
I used to vote for third party candidates; I didn't vote for a Democrat for president until 2004. Why the change? Because the Bush II administration showed me that as milquetoast and compromised as the Democratic party can be, the Republicans are extremists hell-bent on putting their dangerous ideology into practice. As much as I am horrified by targeted assassinations and drone strikes, the reality is that America is an empire, and that fact is much bigger than any one person who will be its president. In regards to domestic policy, I would love it if the president had stuck harder to his principles, but politics is the art of the possible. I am no longer enamored of the Left's obsession with the doomed noble cause or the beautiful loser. It's all well and good to romanticize Ted Kennedy's run for president in 1980 as a last stand for liberalism, but his actions and the liberals who voted for third party candidate John Anderson helped get Ronald Reagan elected. Power is what matters in politics, and putting that power in the hands of right-wing extremists must not be allowed to happen. In any case, the American political system is so beholden to corporate interests that Barack Obama is by far the most progressive president in my lifetime, despite his compromises and shortcomings. In fact, I will hazard to guess that it will be a very long time, perhaps never, before we have another president as progressive as him.
But let me not end on such an negative note. I will not be voting for president Obama out of the fear I have of his opponents or as a "necessary evil," but because he has managed to accomplish a great deal of positive things; I would even say he has done more for this country in his four years than any other president in my lifetime, including Bill Clinton. If that's not worthy of my vote, I don't know what is.
Saturday, November 3, 2012
Fun and Games With Election Predictions
There's a fun little game on the BBC's website where you can predict which swing states will go where in the election, and what the electoral vote totals will be. My total ended up being 281 for Obama, and 257 for Romney. Here are how I called the "swing states" according to the BBC, and some commentary. What are your predictions?
Nevada: Obama
The Obama campaign's ground game is well-developed here.
New Mexico: Obama
Not even sure why this is a "swing state."
Colorado: Romney
I agonized over this one, but I really do think that some potential Obama voters will go over to the Libertarians on the weed issue in a state that has a big Republican base.
Iowa: Obama
He's got a special relationship with this state, and I think the Midwest is becoming a Democratic stronghold.
Wisconsin: Obama
This is embarrassing for Paul Ryan.
Michigan: Obama
After the auto bailout, this will be a cinch.
Pennsylvania: Obama
The polling has been very pro-Obama, although with power outages turnout might go down, helping Romney.
New Hampshire: Obama
I just don't believe the hype on Mitt peeling this one away.
Virginia: Romney
This is a state in the balance, but in my experience traveling through it, the rural regions are scarily reactionary and motivated. I never saw more anti-Obama bumper stickers than I did in the rural portions of that state. With whiteness such a key motivator in this election, I don't see any state in the former Confederacy going for Obama.
North Carolina: Romney
Ditto
Florida: Romney
Obama might have a chance here, but it looks like all those who would like to vote for him stand a good chance of waiting in line for hours or having their votes invalidated.
Ohio: Obama
This will be the deciding state (yet again.) While I am worried about shenanigans, Obama seems to have enough of a lead that rigged machines and long lines won't be able to swing the election to the other side. I only hope I'm right.
Nevada: Obama
The Obama campaign's ground game is well-developed here.
New Mexico: Obama
Not even sure why this is a "swing state."
Colorado: Romney
I agonized over this one, but I really do think that some potential Obama voters will go over to the Libertarians on the weed issue in a state that has a big Republican base.
Iowa: Obama
He's got a special relationship with this state, and I think the Midwest is becoming a Democratic stronghold.
Wisconsin: Obama
This is embarrassing for Paul Ryan.
Michigan: Obama
After the auto bailout, this will be a cinch.
Pennsylvania: Obama
The polling has been very pro-Obama, although with power outages turnout might go down, helping Romney.
New Hampshire: Obama
I just don't believe the hype on Mitt peeling this one away.
Virginia: Romney
This is a state in the balance, but in my experience traveling through it, the rural regions are scarily reactionary and motivated. I never saw more anti-Obama bumper stickers than I did in the rural portions of that state. With whiteness such a key motivator in this election, I don't see any state in the former Confederacy going for Obama.
North Carolina: Romney
Ditto
Florida: Romney
Obama might have a chance here, but it looks like all those who would like to vote for him stand a good chance of waiting in line for hours or having their votes invalidated.
Ohio: Obama
This will be the deciding state (yet again.) While I am worried about shenanigans, Obama seems to have enough of a lead that rigged machines and long lines won't be able to swing the election to the other side. I only hope I'm right.
Friday, November 2, 2012
White Like Me: Romney's Not-So-Secret Weapon
Some news sources have been discussing the narrowing of the "gender gap" in presidential polling this year, which is awfully surprising given that one candidate signed an equal pay for equal work measure into law on his first day in office, and the other represents a party full of Bible bangers obsessed with controlling women's bodies.
One thing we're not hearing much, however, is that the erosion of the "gender gap" might be greatly explained by the growth of the "race gap." In Florida, for example, Romney leads by 30 percentage points among white without college degrees, despite Romney's support for policies totally antithetical to the economic interests of the working classes. This matches the numbers across the South, where in 2008 Barack Obama won 98% of the black vote and 11% of the white vote in Mississippi. The gap is getting bigger, and as Chauncey DeVega at WARN has pointed out, Romney is gaining among white voters even after losing two debates! There seems to be an implicit, lizard-brain notion among many white people that Romney is inherently more worthy of being president because he is white like them. Charles Blow's recent blog backs up that interpretation with poll numbers that show a significant chunk of (white) voters who think Obama is more trustworthy than Romney, but will be voting for Romney anyway. That, my friends, is white privilege at its most fearsome.
Occasionally some public figures just come right out and say what they're really thinking in regards to the fact that Romney is white like them. Take for instance Thomas Friedman, that oracle for suburban businessmen who are too busy to actually formulate real thoughts about the global economy. He recently commented that many (white) voters decided for Obama in 2008 out of the novelty of having a black president, and are now willing to try "something new," as if Romney is in any way "new." The subtext was clear: "it was an interesting novelty to have a black president, but now let's give the White House back to the type of person who really belongs there." Sarah Palin's "shuck and jive" nonsense came out of a more overt dehumanization of the president via his race.
I'd long known that voting for Obama put me in a minority as far as white males were concerned. Obama won only 41% of white male votes, and this was considered a "strong" performance. It now looks like Romney is leading among white women as well, and, as I have mentioned, is getting a lot of support from the white working class. When you think about the numbers, it's a little crazy that only 41% of white men voted for a candidate who won a decisive election, and that in the the last month Obama has polled as little as 32% of white men.
I'm proud to be a part of that 32%, but I am saddened by the implications of the numbers, since they confirm my pessimistic gut instincts. White men are fiercely guarding their privilege, and despite his outright lies, constant flip-flopping, and lack of any specific policy plan, Romney is still one of their own, and Obama is not. I can only hope that that enough of what Harvey Milk called "the us people" show up to the polls to counteract the aggressive defense of whiteness.
One thing we're not hearing much, however, is that the erosion of the "gender gap" might be greatly explained by the growth of the "race gap." In Florida, for example, Romney leads by 30 percentage points among white without college degrees, despite Romney's support for policies totally antithetical to the economic interests of the working classes. This matches the numbers across the South, where in 2008 Barack Obama won 98% of the black vote and 11% of the white vote in Mississippi. The gap is getting bigger, and as Chauncey DeVega at WARN has pointed out, Romney is gaining among white voters even after losing two debates! There seems to be an implicit, lizard-brain notion among many white people that Romney is inherently more worthy of being president because he is white like them. Charles Blow's recent blog backs up that interpretation with poll numbers that show a significant chunk of (white) voters who think Obama is more trustworthy than Romney, but will be voting for Romney anyway. That, my friends, is white privilege at its most fearsome.
Occasionally some public figures just come right out and say what they're really thinking in regards to the fact that Romney is white like them. Take for instance Thomas Friedman, that oracle for suburban businessmen who are too busy to actually formulate real thoughts about the global economy. He recently commented that many (white) voters decided for Obama in 2008 out of the novelty of having a black president, and are now willing to try "something new," as if Romney is in any way "new." The subtext was clear: "it was an interesting novelty to have a black president, but now let's give the White House back to the type of person who really belongs there." Sarah Palin's "shuck and jive" nonsense came out of a more overt dehumanization of the president via his race.
I'd long known that voting for Obama put me in a minority as far as white males were concerned. Obama won only 41% of white male votes, and this was considered a "strong" performance. It now looks like Romney is leading among white women as well, and, as I have mentioned, is getting a lot of support from the white working class. When you think about the numbers, it's a little crazy that only 41% of white men voted for a candidate who won a decisive election, and that in the the last month Obama has polled as little as 32% of white men.
I'm proud to be a part of that 32%, but I am saddened by the implications of the numbers, since they confirm my pessimistic gut instincts. White men are fiercely guarding their privilege, and despite his outright lies, constant flip-flopping, and lack of any specific policy plan, Romney is still one of their own, and Obama is not. I can only hope that that enough of what Harvey Milk called "the us people" show up to the polls to counteract the aggressive defense of whiteness.
Thursday, October 18, 2012
The Important Thing We Learned From the Debate That No One Will Talk About
Predictably, discussion of Tuesday's presidential debate has hinged around the boxing scorecard (Obama by TKO, in my opinion) and the usual array of sound-bite spin wars. Many on my side of things are rightfully making hay with Romney's "binders full of women" remarks and the utter cluelessness that they revealed, and the Teabagger crowd is still trying to say that the president did not immediately call the attack on the Benghazi consulate an "act of terror."
These are significant issues, but I am amazed at how little people are discussing the concrete policy ideas of the two candidates, and the degree to which they represented them faithfully. For instance, Mitt Romney, who supports the Pell Grant-slashing budget of his dead-eyed granny killer running mate, said he supported Pell Grants just as soon as the debate began.
While that kind of lying and getting away with it disturbs me plenty, I'd like to take things from an angle that is sorely lacking in the mainstream media and the blogosphere. On a couple of very important issues for this country, both candidates appeared to support policies that are extremely destructive, and cowardly in their deference to special interests. I am referring to gun control and energy.
On the latter issue, Romney bizarrely tried to force Obama into a "yes or no" question on whether his administration has reduced the number of oil leases on federal lands. While the president did a good job of defending himself, he did not once mention the Deepwater Horizon disaster, or the need to protect our nation's common land from environmental devastation. On the subject of coal, Romney proclaimed his love of that Dickensian throwback. Obama's did not dare discuss the negative environmental effects of coal, instead he just pointed out that Romney had flip-flopped from his position when he ran for governor of Massachusetts. We have now apparently reached a point in our national politics where supporting environmental protection is a non-starter for presidential candidates. This at a time when global climate change threatens the well-being of billions of people around the world. I think it's clear we can never expect any real action on that coming catastrophe from our political class.
The same goes for gun control. After a summer of several harrowing mass shootings at the hands of psychopaths and white supremacist terrorists, the president still would not advocate for additional gun control laws. He turned the question into a discussion of education, while Romney did him one better and spoke about the need for two-parent households. Thousands of people die needlessly in this country every year because of our gun laws, but no one who wishes to occupy the top office in the land can even acknowledge that fact.
So yes, we did learn that the president has his fight back, and we saw him defeat Romney in an impressive fashion. (My wife and I jumped up and hugged each other with joy when it was over.) We saw yet more evidence of Romney's arrogant douchebaggery and lack of empathy with people who aren't wealthy white men. However, we also witnessed how our current political system, governed by money and special interests, is completely paralyzed when it comes to dealing with crucial life or death issues. Perhaps we as a nation ought to talk about that for once.
These are significant issues, but I am amazed at how little people are discussing the concrete policy ideas of the two candidates, and the degree to which they represented them faithfully. For instance, Mitt Romney, who supports the Pell Grant-slashing budget of his dead-eyed granny killer running mate, said he supported Pell Grants just as soon as the debate began.
While that kind of lying and getting away with it disturbs me plenty, I'd like to take things from an angle that is sorely lacking in the mainstream media and the blogosphere. On a couple of very important issues for this country, both candidates appeared to support policies that are extremely destructive, and cowardly in their deference to special interests. I am referring to gun control and energy.
On the latter issue, Romney bizarrely tried to force Obama into a "yes or no" question on whether his administration has reduced the number of oil leases on federal lands. While the president did a good job of defending himself, he did not once mention the Deepwater Horizon disaster, or the need to protect our nation's common land from environmental devastation. On the subject of coal, Romney proclaimed his love of that Dickensian throwback. Obama's did not dare discuss the negative environmental effects of coal, instead he just pointed out that Romney had flip-flopped from his position when he ran for governor of Massachusetts. We have now apparently reached a point in our national politics where supporting environmental protection is a non-starter for presidential candidates. This at a time when global climate change threatens the well-being of billions of people around the world. I think it's clear we can never expect any real action on that coming catastrophe from our political class.
The same goes for gun control. After a summer of several harrowing mass shootings at the hands of psychopaths and white supremacist terrorists, the president still would not advocate for additional gun control laws. He turned the question into a discussion of education, while Romney did him one better and spoke about the need for two-parent households. Thousands of people die needlessly in this country every year because of our gun laws, but no one who wishes to occupy the top office in the land can even acknowledge that fact.
So yes, we did learn that the president has his fight back, and we saw him defeat Romney in an impressive fashion. (My wife and I jumped up and hugged each other with joy when it was over.) We saw yet more evidence of Romney's arrogant douchebaggery and lack of empathy with people who aren't wealthy white men. However, we also witnessed how our current political system, governed by money and special interests, is completely paralyzed when it comes to dealing with crucial life or death issues. Perhaps we as a nation ought to talk about that for once.
Friday, October 12, 2012
Things We've Learned in the Last Month of the Election
The past month has been one of the craziest periods in an election that I can remember. It started with Mitt Romney looking sunk, only to be followed by his campaign's improbable resurgence. All of the craziness has revealed quite a bit. Here's what I've seen revealed, in bullet point form:
- With the blatant politicization of the attack on the Libyan embassy by Republicans, we now have an inkling of what it would have been like had Al Gore, and not George W. Bush, been president on 9/11.
- Despite the fact that Romney's willingness to use the events in Benghazi to go after the president before the dust had even settled made him look completely opportunistic and unfit to be a leader, only a month later, he is making this issue the centerpiece of his campaign, as if he previous, damning actions had never taken place. The fact that the media is letting him get away with it is just more proof that our public discourse is built on amnesia.
- The fact that the post-debate coverage has centered on facial expressions rather than substance, or on the lies being told repeatedly by Romney and Ryan, is just more proof that our political process is a media circus taking place in a post-factual world.
- The fact that conservatives were calling the vice-presidential debate a "draw" (rather than a Ryan win) and are already desperately trying to change the subject to Libya is proof that Ryan clearly lost the debate.
- The re-release of then Senator Obama's 2007 comments at Hampton University are part of a blatant attempt to stir up white racial resentment by the right-wing press. Such resentment is now clearly and openly a part of the conservative political mainstream.
- Romney has not and will not be punished for his strategy of lying his ass off at every turn.
- The fact that Romney and Ryan still have a chance at winning the White House despite their taped comments showing a complete contempt for half the country's population is just another example of how in a democracy, the people get the government that they deserve, and they get it with a vengeance.
Thursday, September 6, 2012
My Uneasy Embrace of the Democratic Party
I have been spending a surprising amount of time watching the Democratic National Convention over the last couple of days, and during Bill Clinton's speech last night, I thought about how my identification with the Democratic Party has been a rather recent development.
As a child, I considered myself a Republican because my parents were Republicans, and so I assumed I was one too. At the age of sixteen I had a political awakening, where I realized that most of the things I believed in were in fact not what the Republican party believed in. In fact, I learned that my views were actually to the left of the Democrats! Nevertheless, I put a lot of hope into Bill Clinton back in 1992, and felt betrayed by a president responsible for signing the Defense of Marriage Act, voting to deregulate banks, "reform" welfare, and generally supporting a less rapacious version of Reagan's neo-liberal economic policy. By the 1996 election, I considered both major parties to be corrupt institutions only looking out for their own interests, and much less different from each other than their partisans claimed.
Consequently, I voted for third party presidential candidates in 1996 and 2000, feeling a moral obligation to cast a vote for the candidate who best represented my views. (In the first case I lived in Nebraska, in the second Illinois, neither one a swing state.) While I typically voted for Democrats, I would never have considered myself one, and registered as an independent.
Things changed after the 2000 election. During that campaign, I scoffed at Al Gore's timidity and unwillingness to take strong liberal stances on the issues, although I developed a strong dislike of George W. Bush, who appeared to me to be, in technical terms, a goddamned moron born with a silver spoon in his mouth. Once it became obvious how extreme the Republicans had become during the Bush administration, I realized that maintaining my moral purity by sitting on the sidelines and refusing to throw in my lot with the Democrats emboldened conservative radicals to run riot.
Essentially, I chose to be a Democrat out of fear of the alternative, not the strongest reason in the world, but one that has stuck. The GOP has gone from being a center-right, broad-based party to the front organization for an extremist, ideologically-driven political movement seeking to impose Christianism, Dickensian laissez-faire capitalism, and an essentially racist, homophobic, and misogynistic definition of "America." As much as I think the Democrats are hapless, weak-willed, compromised by their own corporate corruption, and lacking in vision, the alternative is unthinkable.
I've chortled a few times watching speakers at the DNC making promises they can't keep an wrapping themselves in the flag. However, I have also nodded, smiled, and shouted a few "hell yeah!"s when folks like Lilly Ledbetter, Deval Patrick, Julian Castro, Elizabeth Warren, and Cory Booker have taken the podium. By contrast, what little I could stomach of the RNC struck me as ridiculous, narrow-minded, and delusional. Clint Eastwood's performance art piece pretty much summed it up: the Republicans live in an imaginary world of their own making, ruled by a bogeyman president who bears little resemblance to the real person. I can only hope that more people like myself in the "reality based community" who are still undecided realize that the Republican Party is not a moderate alternative to an incumbent that are disappointed in.
As a child, I considered myself a Republican because my parents were Republicans, and so I assumed I was one too. At the age of sixteen I had a political awakening, where I realized that most of the things I believed in were in fact not what the Republican party believed in. In fact, I learned that my views were actually to the left of the Democrats! Nevertheless, I put a lot of hope into Bill Clinton back in 1992, and felt betrayed by a president responsible for signing the Defense of Marriage Act, voting to deregulate banks, "reform" welfare, and generally supporting a less rapacious version of Reagan's neo-liberal economic policy. By the 1996 election, I considered both major parties to be corrupt institutions only looking out for their own interests, and much less different from each other than their partisans claimed.
Consequently, I voted for third party presidential candidates in 1996 and 2000, feeling a moral obligation to cast a vote for the candidate who best represented my views. (In the first case I lived in Nebraska, in the second Illinois, neither one a swing state.) While I typically voted for Democrats, I would never have considered myself one, and registered as an independent.
Things changed after the 2000 election. During that campaign, I scoffed at Al Gore's timidity and unwillingness to take strong liberal stances on the issues, although I developed a strong dislike of George W. Bush, who appeared to me to be, in technical terms, a goddamned moron born with a silver spoon in his mouth. Once it became obvious how extreme the Republicans had become during the Bush administration, I realized that maintaining my moral purity by sitting on the sidelines and refusing to throw in my lot with the Democrats emboldened conservative radicals to run riot.
Essentially, I chose to be a Democrat out of fear of the alternative, not the strongest reason in the world, but one that has stuck. The GOP has gone from being a center-right, broad-based party to the front organization for an extremist, ideologically-driven political movement seeking to impose Christianism, Dickensian laissez-faire capitalism, and an essentially racist, homophobic, and misogynistic definition of "America." As much as I think the Democrats are hapless, weak-willed, compromised by their own corporate corruption, and lacking in vision, the alternative is unthinkable.
I've chortled a few times watching speakers at the DNC making promises they can't keep an wrapping themselves in the flag. However, I have also nodded, smiled, and shouted a few "hell yeah!"s when folks like Lilly Ledbetter, Deval Patrick, Julian Castro, Elizabeth Warren, and Cory Booker have taken the podium. By contrast, what little I could stomach of the RNC struck me as ridiculous, narrow-minded, and delusional. Clint Eastwood's performance art piece pretty much summed it up: the Republicans live in an imaginary world of their own making, ruled by a bogeyman president who bears little resemblance to the real person. I can only hope that more people like myself in the "reality based community" who are still undecided realize that the Republican Party is not a moderate alternative to an incumbent that are disappointed in.
Wednesday, August 22, 2012
The GOP's Devil's Bargain with the Tea Party
The recent Todd "legitimate rape" Akin debacle is just another episode in the continuing saga of the Tea Party getting its candidates nominations for important races, only to have them embarrass the Republican Party. In 2010 there was Sharon "pay for health care with a chicken" Angle, Christine "I am not a witch" McDonnell, and Carl Paladino (who was so ridiculous that I can't use a singe phrase to define him.) This year we have Akin and Ted "the UN wants your golf course" Cruz with Senate nominations, and Rick "man on dog" Santorum took second place in the presidential primaries. Many of the Tea Party candidates who did win, like Florida governor Rick Scott and Wisconsin governor Scott Walker, have alienated their constituencies with their radical conservative policies.
As much as this stuff hurts the Republican brand, there's no going back with their pact with the Tea Party. The party establishment needs the support of enthusiastic foot soldiers, and in return must tolerate their extremity and nuttiness. The Republicans might lose a couple of races they should have won due to the likes of Akin, but they will have die-hard conservatives in other positions that may have been held by moderate Republicans. In a narrowly divided electorate such as ours, it is smart strategy to abandon appeals to the middle in favor of turning out one's base to the polls, especially if you can use the law to limit the turnout of your opponents.
Without the Tea Party, the Republicans would be in some seriously deep shit right now. The Bush administration was such a complete catastrophe that even Republicans could not deny it. After the election of 2008, the Democrats controlled the House and Senate by wide margins, and put the first real liberal since LBJ into the White House by a comfortable margin. The old party leadership looked completely lost and rudderless. Instead of trying to work within this situation, conservatives obstructed every Democratic initiative that they could and whipped their masses into a frenzy. Aided by a cruddy economy and a young president who had not yet learned how to fight fire with fire, they stormed back into power and managed to pass extreme measures at the state level that they could not have dreamed of accomplishing even in the Bush years.
So far the alliance with the Tea Party has not sunk the GOP because most independent voters still view it as a center-right party and legitimate alternative. In 2010 many voters in the middle went to the polls and told themselves "the economy's still bad, let's see if the Republicans can do better." The Tea Party-GOP pact might ultimately destroy the Republicans if voters no longer see the party as a center-right alternative, but a faction of crazed wingnut wackos who hate homosexuals, want to control women, impose evangelical Christianity, and rip the social safety net to shreds in the process of redistributing money upwards to the wealthy. A look at the Republican Party platform would go a long way to confirm this view, and it would behoove Democrats to point that out.
Like all such gambling strategies, the GOP's embrace of the Tea Party will lead to either political glory or political disaster. In the glorious scenario, the conservative base will come out to vote in droves and will squeak Romney into the White House while securing both houses of Congress and several state houses. The House and Senate will be full of conservative ideologues willing to push the right-wing agenda forward at all costs. On the flip side, the extremity of the Tea Party could mean a further hemhorraging of the votes of women, people of color, and independents to the point where the Republicans only hold power in what they call "Real America." I can only hope that the latter scenario comes about.
As much as this stuff hurts the Republican brand, there's no going back with their pact with the Tea Party. The party establishment needs the support of enthusiastic foot soldiers, and in return must tolerate their extremity and nuttiness. The Republicans might lose a couple of races they should have won due to the likes of Akin, but they will have die-hard conservatives in other positions that may have been held by moderate Republicans. In a narrowly divided electorate such as ours, it is smart strategy to abandon appeals to the middle in favor of turning out one's base to the polls, especially if you can use the law to limit the turnout of your opponents.
Without the Tea Party, the Republicans would be in some seriously deep shit right now. The Bush administration was such a complete catastrophe that even Republicans could not deny it. After the election of 2008, the Democrats controlled the House and Senate by wide margins, and put the first real liberal since LBJ into the White House by a comfortable margin. The old party leadership looked completely lost and rudderless. Instead of trying to work within this situation, conservatives obstructed every Democratic initiative that they could and whipped their masses into a frenzy. Aided by a cruddy economy and a young president who had not yet learned how to fight fire with fire, they stormed back into power and managed to pass extreme measures at the state level that they could not have dreamed of accomplishing even in the Bush years.
So far the alliance with the Tea Party has not sunk the GOP because most independent voters still view it as a center-right party and legitimate alternative. In 2010 many voters in the middle went to the polls and told themselves "the economy's still bad, let's see if the Republicans can do better." The Tea Party-GOP pact might ultimately destroy the Republicans if voters no longer see the party as a center-right alternative, but a faction of crazed wingnut wackos who hate homosexuals, want to control women, impose evangelical Christianity, and rip the social safety net to shreds in the process of redistributing money upwards to the wealthy. A look at the Republican Party platform would go a long way to confirm this view, and it would behoove Democrats to point that out.
Like all such gambling strategies, the GOP's embrace of the Tea Party will lead to either political glory or political disaster. In the glorious scenario, the conservative base will come out to vote in droves and will squeak Romney into the White House while securing both houses of Congress and several state houses. The House and Senate will be full of conservative ideologues willing to push the right-wing agenda forward at all costs. On the flip side, the extremity of the Tea Party could mean a further hemhorraging of the votes of women, people of color, and independents to the point where the Republicans only hold power in what they call "Real America." I can only hope that the latter scenario comes about.
Wednesday, August 15, 2012
The Party of Bad Ideas
Since Paul Ryan has entered the race as Mitt Romney's running mate, I've had to hear two long-standing tropes that just annoy the hell out of me. The first casts Mr. Ryan as some kind of "thinker," "intellectual," and "ideas man." The second posits that unlike the Democrats, the Republicans are the "party of ideas." The first is pretty easy to refute: since when did espousing the half-baked economic theories of a third-rate hack novelist beloved by teenage boys make anyone an intellectual?
The oft-repeated line about the GOP being the party of ideas demands more in-depth consideration, mostly because it contains a great deal of truth. Republican policies and initiatives are more likely to be idea-driven, it's just that those ideas are really, really bad. Don't believe me? For your consideration I present the following examples from the great minds at the Republican lab:
Supply Side Economics
If more money is given to the wealthy ("job creators") via tax cuts that they will then take this money and invest it into the economy, creating growth. According to the Laffer Curve, the resulting growth will generate more tax revenues than before. You can cut taxes and get more tax revenue, it's magic!
Of course, we all know that this isn't true at all, and we've had the deficits since the Reagan era to prove it.
Privatization
Anything the government does is by nature shoddy and inefficient, unlike the omnipotent market. Why not just give over public functions to the private sector, and let these wizards of industry sort it all out? The incentives of the market will unleash all kinds of innovation!
Not exactly. Not only does privatization allow politically-connected people to make huge profits off of infrastructure built by tax dollars, it allows those who profit to ignore the public good for their own bottom line. Look no further than the for-profit college industry, which has benefited from cutbacks in community colleges and gets almost all of its money from federal student loans, and often gives their students a useless, cut-rate education. If that doesn't convince you, take a look at the abuses and corner cutting in New Jersey's privatization of halfway houses.
Neo-conservative Foreign Policy
People in the Middle East will understand democracy when we invade their countries and give liberty to them at the point of a bayonet. They will welcome us as liberators!
Oh, wait, how did that work out again?
2nd Amendment Solutions
Hey, if we let people carry concealed weapons, we will have all kinds of citizen heroes to stop anyone who attempts a shooting spree!
Recently in states with open conceal and carry laws like Wisconsin and Colorado (and elsewhere), it hasn't quite worked out like that.
Laissez-faire
As Adam Smith and von Hayek proved to us, regulation of the free market will put us on the road to serfdom. We must free up the laws of supply and demand instead of shackling the economy to the authority of bureaucrats. Rules for of the financial industry like Glass-Steagall harm innovations and hurts economic growth! Once we allow our banks the freedom we need, prosperity for all will follow!
As hard as it is to believe, the clowns on the Right are getting their knickers in a twist over the Dodd-Frank Act, a fairly piddly response to the complete meltdown of our economy caused by shady financial dealings. Deregulation gave us the 2008 collapse and the S&L debacle after decades of financial stability in the wake of New Deal regulation. It's an epic fail on the scale of Mitt's trip to London, but people out there still push it with a straight face.
***
What have we learned here? Perhaps that conservatives these days tend to turn their ideas into a rigid ideology that blinds them to reality, no matter how many times their theories fail. (Back in the old days conservatives always used to level that charge at the left.) As a proud member of what one of their number derisively called the "reality based community," I think common sense is a better guide to our politics than the flights of fancy being pushed by pseudo-"intellectuals" like Paul Ryan.
The oft-repeated line about the GOP being the party of ideas demands more in-depth consideration, mostly because it contains a great deal of truth. Republican policies and initiatives are more likely to be idea-driven, it's just that those ideas are really, really bad. Don't believe me? For your consideration I present the following examples from the great minds at the Republican lab:
Supply Side Economics
If more money is given to the wealthy ("job creators") via tax cuts that they will then take this money and invest it into the economy, creating growth. According to the Laffer Curve, the resulting growth will generate more tax revenues than before. You can cut taxes and get more tax revenue, it's magic!
Of course, we all know that this isn't true at all, and we've had the deficits since the Reagan era to prove it.
Privatization
Anything the government does is by nature shoddy and inefficient, unlike the omnipotent market. Why not just give over public functions to the private sector, and let these wizards of industry sort it all out? The incentives of the market will unleash all kinds of innovation!
Not exactly. Not only does privatization allow politically-connected people to make huge profits off of infrastructure built by tax dollars, it allows those who profit to ignore the public good for their own bottom line. Look no further than the for-profit college industry, which has benefited from cutbacks in community colleges and gets almost all of its money from federal student loans, and often gives their students a useless, cut-rate education. If that doesn't convince you, take a look at the abuses and corner cutting in New Jersey's privatization of halfway houses.
Neo-conservative Foreign Policy
People in the Middle East will understand democracy when we invade their countries and give liberty to them at the point of a bayonet. They will welcome us as liberators!
Oh, wait, how did that work out again?
2nd Amendment Solutions
Hey, if we let people carry concealed weapons, we will have all kinds of citizen heroes to stop anyone who attempts a shooting spree!
Recently in states with open conceal and carry laws like Wisconsin and Colorado (and elsewhere), it hasn't quite worked out like that.
Laissez-faire
As Adam Smith and von Hayek proved to us, regulation of the free market will put us on the road to serfdom. We must free up the laws of supply and demand instead of shackling the economy to the authority of bureaucrats. Rules for of the financial industry like Glass-Steagall harm innovations and hurts economic growth! Once we allow our banks the freedom we need, prosperity for all will follow!
As hard as it is to believe, the clowns on the Right are getting their knickers in a twist over the Dodd-Frank Act, a fairly piddly response to the complete meltdown of our economy caused by shady financial dealings. Deregulation gave us the 2008 collapse and the S&L debacle after decades of financial stability in the wake of New Deal regulation. It's an epic fail on the scale of Mitt's trip to London, but people out there still push it with a straight face.
***
What have we learned here? Perhaps that conservatives these days tend to turn their ideas into a rigid ideology that blinds them to reality, no matter how many times their theories fail. (Back in the old days conservatives always used to level that charge at the left.) As a proud member of what one of their number derisively called the "reality based community," I think common sense is a better guide to our politics than the flights of fancy being pushed by pseudo-"intellectuals" like Paul Ryan.
Monday, July 30, 2012
What If...Barack Obama Acted Like Mitt Romney on a Foreign Trip?
Introduction: Mitt Romney is currently traveling abroad, and has so far managed to offend his British hosts with his comments on the London Olympics, and soon after arriving in Israel, insulted Palestinians for good measure, too. Three other aspects of his trip are getting less press but are notable: he has been engaging in major fund raisers while traveling abroad, he has essentially said that if he were president he would subsume American foreign policy to Israeli wishes, and he has praised Israel's health care system as superior to that of the United States. I think that the lack of broad comment on these things puzzling, since the president is being accused of being "anti-American" by his opponents, but here you have his adversary dissing the United States while in a foreign location, and openly begging for money from people who do not live in the United States. I get the feeling that there would be a quite a firestorm if Barack Obama did these same things. Since counterfactuals are always fun, I've envisioned here what the reaction would be like.
*WHOOSHING OVERDRAMATIC MUSIC*
Hannity: Welcome back to Hannity, ladies and gentlemen. As you may have heard, Barack Obama's hatred for America reared its head yet again this week during his foreign trip. While visiting Europe, he held multiple fundraisers with people who are technically American citizens, but who have not been living in this country for years. As if that's not enough, while he was in France, Obama praised its socialized healthcare system during one of these fundraisers. To talk about this, we have Jerome Corsi, Rush Limbaugh, and Bill O'Reilly here with us tonight. Hello gentlemen.
Corsi, Limbaugh, and O'Reilly: Hello Sean
Hannity: What do you make of these actions by the president?
Limbaugh: For years the liberals have been whining, as they always do, that when we call Obama "anti-American" that's racism, since you know to liberals you can never criticize a black person without being a racist. Well now it's obvious that this man hates America, something he learned from his Kenyan father. We have the best healthcare system in the world, and yet he goes to France and tells them they're better than us. This just goes to show that we are a nation under occupation by a foreign power. He's also taking money from foreign sources. I don't care if the contributors are American, I'm sure that's just a front so all of his socialist buddies in Europe can funnel money to him.
Hannity: Yes, I wonder where the FEC is in all of this.
O'Reilly: The Romney campaign has been sounding the alarm on Obama's anti-Americanism, I think they've been vindicated. By going to a foreign nation and running down the United States, Obama is giving aid and comfort to our terrorist enemies. Congress should draft articles of impeachment, and anyone who doesn't think so is willing to let a man who loves his foreign friends more than his own people. I will apologize for being an idiot if he is not impeached.
Hannity: I can't think of another American political figure who has betrayed the nation like this, yet his allies on the left will just sit by and watch it happen.
Corsi: If I may cut in, I think Obama's actions reflect a foreign attitude and the inability to understand what it means to be an America. It's high time we took another look at his birth certificate, since this seems to be the work of a foreign agent, not the president of the United States. He is trying so hard to cover up his secret identity, but I think in his comments in France, which he thought would be private, Obama has let the mask drop a little bit.
Limbaugh: And if you can believe it, Obama's biggest contributor is a man who made his money from casinos in China. I think we could be seeing a backdoor way for Red China to control the United States and turn it into something else.
Hannity: Well it looks like the president will be in a lot of hot water for so flagrantly disrespecting the country he is supposed to lead. Next up on Hannity, we'll take a look at the president's gambling kingpin moneyman, and talk to Mike Huckabee about the connection between Obama's lack of values and support by those who profit from immoral activity like gambling.
Saturday, July 28, 2012
Mitt Romney's Desperate Appeal to White Identity Politics
I've always hated the term "identity politics," since it's usually employed by conservatives to deride the efforts of any group of people who are not white or straight in their quest for rights and respect. There are some true instances of identity politics, however, and we are seeing one right now in the case of Willard Mitt Romney, and it comes from desperation.
His now infamous warbling of songs like "America, the Beautiful" during the campaign are part of a noxious attempt to paint himself as "American" and the president as "un-American." The worst of the insinuations have come from mouthpieces like John Sununu, who had the audacity to say "I wish this president would learn how to be an American." Romney himself has claimed fealty to "Americanism" and has implied that his opponent does not. Romney's campaign has recently tried to step this up a notch with claims that the president does not understand the "Anglo-Saxon" ties between the United States and Great Britain because of his heritage. At base, this tactic is trying to president Obama into the Other, in large part due to his race and background. The implicit message in these statements is not to say that Romney would be a better president, but that he is white (and therefore "American"), and Barack Obama is not.
Romney is doing this less to appeal to undecided voters, but to get Republicans to the polls. Mitt is disliked by his own base, who tried out the loony likes of Herman Cain and Michele Bachmann before they realized that Mitt was the only Republican presidential candidate with a chance of appealing to the broader electorate. Without enthusiasm among the base, Mitt can't get the vote out, and will thus lose. Because of his moderate record in Massachusetts and his passage of a health care plan very similar to Obama's, Romney can't run on his past accomplishments, since this will inflame the anger of his base against him. Instead, he must harness the deep and scary reservoirs of paranoid hatred against the president lurking in right wing circles, much of it motivated by the mere fact that a black man is the president of the United States.
Outside of his base, Romney's still got a lot of problems. Unlike the president, who is tremendously charismatic, Romney lacks the common touch, and when he opens his mouth in informal situations, usually makes a complete ass out of himself. The examples are legion, but here are just the highlights: his tendency to guess the age of people he's just met, his casual discussions of ten thousand dollar bets and his wife's Cadillacs, his admission that he knows NASCAR owners rather than fans, and finally, his rude and ill chosen remarks about the London Olympics. To my ears he comes across like every insensitive, authoritarian, jerkward boss I've ever worked for. Voters aren't exactly excited about having their asshole boss as their president.
Many uncharismatic candidates in the past have run on their credentials and abilities, but Romney can't do that, either. His time as a governor is off limits for aforementioned reasons, and his record at Bain has been a millstone around his neck because of its rapacious business practices. Romney is in a situation where he has absolutely nothing to run on, only the president to run against. The poor economy makes the president weak, but that's not enough for Romney to run on, since he has not really offered many specifics about what he would do to fix it. To draw a contrast between himself and the president, he is stooping to reminding voters that he is the "white" candidate, and his opponent isn't. The sad fact is that our modern elections are won less by making broad appeals to voters than by turning out one's respective base. (For example, back in 2004 the GOP put anti-gay marriage initiatives on several state ballots in order to drive up turnout among evangelicals.) That's why Republican state governments are suppressing potential Democratic voters, and why Republicans are calling the president "un-American." Even if it doesn't work, the consequences for the body politic will be dire.
Tuesday, July 24, 2012
How the "I Side With" Quiz Might Reveal Big Trouble for Republicans
There's a pretty good online quiz at a site called "I Side With" that determines how much one's political beliefs match those of the various candidates for president. I've always liked these quizzes, since they often reveal things that the people who don't take them don't realize. For instance, I know someone who considered herself to be a moderate rather than liberal, but when she took one of these quizzes in 2008, the candidate she most resembled was Dennis Kucinich. (For the record, when I took the quiz, the Green candidate Jill Stein barely edged out president Obama in terms of their resemblance to me on the issues.)
One thing I really like about the I Side With site is that you can see how each individual state's aggregate of responses matched the candidates. One thing that really struck me was that reliably "blue" states very easily fit with president Obama's stances, but the "red" states of the South and West consistently did not have Mitt Romney as their best match, but Gary Johnson, the candidate for the Libertarian Party. In many cases Romney is in third place, after Johnson and Ron Paul.
To me, it looks like we are seeing evidence that the GOP's uneasy combination of libertarians, neo-con foreign policy hawks, and religious conservatives might be too volatile to hold together. Ever since 1980, when Jerry Falwell and others mobilized the evangelical vote for Ronald Reagan, the Christian Right has played a huge role in the Republican Party's success. However, as times are changing. Fewer and fewer people are against gay marriage, weekly church-goers, or supportive of the war on drugs. The youth are significantly more liberal on social issues than their elders, and a Republican party that supports positions that look increasingly out of touch and regressive will need to either adapt or suffer the consequences.
Furthermore, with the isolationist sentiments long powerful in American history seeing a revival after the failure of the Bush administration's adventures abroad, the hawkishness of Mitt and the Republican establishment actually isn't representative of the direction the voters are headed. Before the Cold War, conservatives tended to isolationist, and they started moving in that direction again in the 1990s once the USSR fell. Lest we forget, before he made a name for himself through invasions of tenuous legality, George W. Bush campaigned with a promise not to engage in "nation building" abroad.
Of course, this data is all very unscientific and self-selecting, and probably skews young. However, it does point to a Republican party that looks like a circus performer balancing spinning plates hoping to keep them from crashing to the ground. The party has become so doctrinaire that it won't nominate a candidate for president that does not simultaneously support laissez-faire capitalism, sustained American commitment abroad, and conforms to the religious Right on issues like homosexuality and abortion. This is why the president's people are wise to start waging the culture wars from the liberal side, since it will peel away economic conservatives who do not agree with the dominionist theology of many in the GOP. In the near future the Republicans must decide whether they will benefit more by keeping religious conservatives happy and simultaneously alienate libertarians, or jettison "values voters" for economic conservatives in the political middle.
One thing I really like about the I Side With site is that you can see how each individual state's aggregate of responses matched the candidates. One thing that really struck me was that reliably "blue" states very easily fit with president Obama's stances, but the "red" states of the South and West consistently did not have Mitt Romney as their best match, but Gary Johnson, the candidate for the Libertarian Party. In many cases Romney is in third place, after Johnson and Ron Paul.
To me, it looks like we are seeing evidence that the GOP's uneasy combination of libertarians, neo-con foreign policy hawks, and religious conservatives might be too volatile to hold together. Ever since 1980, when Jerry Falwell and others mobilized the evangelical vote for Ronald Reagan, the Christian Right has played a huge role in the Republican Party's success. However, as times are changing. Fewer and fewer people are against gay marriage, weekly church-goers, or supportive of the war on drugs. The youth are significantly more liberal on social issues than their elders, and a Republican party that supports positions that look increasingly out of touch and regressive will need to either adapt or suffer the consequences.
Furthermore, with the isolationist sentiments long powerful in American history seeing a revival after the failure of the Bush administration's adventures abroad, the hawkishness of Mitt and the Republican establishment actually isn't representative of the direction the voters are headed. Before the Cold War, conservatives tended to isolationist, and they started moving in that direction again in the 1990s once the USSR fell. Lest we forget, before he made a name for himself through invasions of tenuous legality, George W. Bush campaigned with a promise not to engage in "nation building" abroad.
Of course, this data is all very unscientific and self-selecting, and probably skews young. However, it does point to a Republican party that looks like a circus performer balancing spinning plates hoping to keep them from crashing to the ground. The party has become so doctrinaire that it won't nominate a candidate for president that does not simultaneously support laissez-faire capitalism, sustained American commitment abroad, and conforms to the religious Right on issues like homosexuality and abortion. This is why the president's people are wise to start waging the culture wars from the liberal side, since it will peel away economic conservatives who do not agree with the dominionist theology of many in the GOP. In the near future the Republicans must decide whether they will benefit more by keeping religious conservatives happy and simultaneously alienate libertarians, or jettison "values voters" for economic conservatives in the political middle.
Sunday, July 15, 2012
How The Dems Learned from Their Mistakes and Turned Mitt Romney Into John Kerry
In one of my favorite posts on my old blog, I once accused the Democratic Party of consistently bringing a knife to a gun fight. Their performance in 2010, when the Republicans unleashed the Tea Party and the Democrats were always playing defense, is but the most recent example. However, with the release of the new "Firms" ad by the Obama campaign, which explicitly lays down the gauntlet of criticizing Romney's record at Bain just a day after he demanded an apology for such attacks, it looks like the Democrats have finally learned how to incorporate the tactics Republicans have used successfully for years.
In many ways, this presidential election is a bizarro version of the 2004 contest, when a sitting president of tenuous popularity during an uncertain time faced off against a wealthy charisma-challenged Massachusetts politician. Despite the fact that the war in Iraq had not gone as planned, despite president Bush's atrocious performance in the first debate, and despite the fact that he had not won a majority of the popular vote the first time around, Dubya managed to win reelection.
He managed to do it for a variety of reasons, not least his campaign's successful efforts to define their opponent early in the race. Disregarding the fact that Shrub had come from as elite a background as they come, his campaign very deftly painted Kerry as a privileged, out of touch career politician with a penchant for flip flopping. Kerry spent the whole campaign dealing with "issues" like his windsurfing hobby, preventing him from launching effective attacks of his own.
More sinisterly, ads paid for by The Swift Boat Veterans for Truth took Kerry's biggest selling point and destroyed it. The War in Iraq dominated the 2004 election, just as the economy takes up most of the attention now. Kerry had first achieved fame through his protests against the Vietnam War after returning from combat. In those fevered nationalistic days of paranoia after 9/11 his courageous stand against an immoral war would interpreted as "anti-American" or undermining the United States, something that would be political poison at the height of war abroad. Kerry decided to avoid this kryptonite by playing up his sterling record as a war hero. He effectively dodged his political past by playing up an aspect of his personal past, or so he thought. The Swift Boat attacks were full of lies, but some of those lies hit their mark, and with Kerry's main claim to being a wartime president sullied, his chances of winning were severely handicapped.
Much the same is happening to Mitt Romney right now, and he is at an even greater disadvantage because, unlike the Swift Boat ads, the accusations that Romney profited from outsourcing and has money stashed in offshore bank accounts happen to be true. Like Kerry, Romney finds himself in a luckless position because he has to run away from his inconvenient political past. As of yet he has not staked his appeal to voters on his record as the governor of Massachusetts because he passed a health care law there almost identical to the "Obamacare" so detested by his political base. This has forced Romney to put all his eggs in one basket and run on his record at Bain Capital, and to make vague statements that his time as a businessman gives him the right understanding of how to run the economy. (Much the same as how John Kerry tried to use his military experience to show that this would make him a more ideal wartime president.) Now the Obama campaign is very successfully going after Romney's record at Bain and his predilection for Swiss bank accounts and offshore tax shelters in the Cayman Islands, taking Romney's purported strength as an experienced businessman and turning it into a major liability. In order to survive the accusations in the "Firms" ad, Romney will have to give a fuller accounting of his business and financial record, and the revelations contained behind his curtain of secrecy may very well end up being more damning than what we already know.
However, before we celebrate the apparent recent success of the Obama campaign too much, we have to remember that every attack brings about a counter-attack. As the aforementioned Swift Boat attacks and infamous Willie Horton ad illustrate, the conservatives have all kinds of unprincipled allies with lots of cash to spread the most scurrilous lies. They have been more than willing to appeal to the ugliest impulses in this country, from white racial resentment to homophobia, if it means that they can win an election. Hunker down folks, because the response to "Firms" and related attacks on Romney's record at Bain will be a doozy.
Sunday, April 15, 2012
My Favorite Reality Show Is Over: Why I'll Miss the Republican Primaries
I tend not to like reality television, mostly because it's exploitative, stupid, and full of moronic fame whores. That said, I finally found a reality program full of the worst kind of fame-mongering jerks the world has to offer that I could watch: the Republican presidential primary. Each day I would eat in the faculty lounge with one of my fellow teachers, and gab about what was happening in our favorite show. We were sad to see Bachmann, Perry, and Cain voted off the island, but ecstatic once it was apparent just how crazy Frothy McSweatervest would act just to get attention. I especially enjoyed how the primary let the conservative id run loose, perhaps forever letting the public see conservatism's true colors. Guys like Reagan and Shrub had managed to wrap legalized torture and cold hearted supply side economics in the warm trappings of folksiness and charisma. For years conservatives did an impressive job of finding likable men to front rather unlikable ideas, but their luck seems to have run out.
The warmest candidate in the bunch was Herman Cain, a former lobbyist and fast food pizza executive who demanded not to be taken seriously until his penchant for sexually harassing co-workers went public. Their second folksiest candidate in this race is Ron Paul, a man whose ideas normally require a tinfoil hat accessory. Apart from those two they had a crazy church lady (Bachmann), a fatuous know it all forced to leave office in disgrace (Gingrich), a lame-brain Texas governor who accomplished the impossible feat of making George W. Bush look smart (Perry), a snarly-lipped modern day Savnorola with even less of a sense of humor named after anal leakage (Santorum), and a pandering robot who reminds most Americans of their clueless boss (Romney.) Watching these clowns in action falling all over themselves to say the most outrageous things to curry favor with the bitter clingy crowd made me wonder if I had stepped into an Evelyn Waugh novel. I will miss the show.
Since the media focus moves so fast today, I'd like to remember some of my favorite moments from the campaign, since they are already vanishing into the ether. Please add your own in the comments if I've missed any.
The debate crowd yelling "let him die." So I guess the party preferred by the Army of God thinks Jesus was misquoted when he told his followers to heal the sick?
Every single time Bachman opened her mouth. Remember when this woman won the Iowa straw poll, and people were actually listening to what she had to say? I cannot think of any greater indictment of our entire political system.
Rick Perry can't remember what federal departments he wants to eliminate. As a former resident of Texas, I relished watching Governor Goodhair reveal to the world the true extent of his chuckleheadedness. This man was once the presumptive front runner!
Mitt Romney declares himself a "severely conservative" governor. He makes it sound like he had some kind of disease, like a severe case of the measles.
Herman Cain joking about killing immigrants. This man was a front-runner for a major party presidential nomination?
Mitt Romney generally acting like a rich plutocrat out of a comic book. He casually tried to make a ten thousand dollar bet, acted like his wife's two Cadillacs were something every family would own, and bonded with NASCAR fans by laughing at their cheap ponchos and letting them know he knew NASCAR owners.
Newt Gingrich claiming he was paid by Fannie Mae to be a historian. Yep, a historian who has never produced a single peer-reviewed publication.
Robo-Romney telling Michiganders "the trees are the right height" and awkwardly trying to guess facts about complete strangers since he seems incapable of actual human conversation.
Debate crowd cheers Perry's record number of executions. Perry himself appears pretty non-plussed about the possibility that he killed an innocent man to boot in this debate.
Santorum denigrates "blah people." There are too many hateful things to choose from, but this statement is the worst, and his lying attempt to walk it back the most deceitful.
Three degree holding Rick Santorum calling the president a snob for wanting more students to go to college. My God the resentment of these people is crazy.
Herman Cain quotes Pokemon to add gravity to his farewell speech. Words fail.
Pope Santorum attacks birth control. Oh yeah, he also supported the Blunt Amendment. And Republicans wonder why women prefer to vote for Obama by such a large margin.
Newt's moon colony. As Colbert says, Gingrich wasn't running for president, but trying out for Bond villain. Don't forget, he was once the front runner, too.
****
Let's be serious for a moment, folks. Look at the list of stupidity, hatred, and buffoonery I've laid out above, and tell me how the Republican party has not become an ideologically extreme movement that would be a sad joke if it did not hold so much power.
The warmest candidate in the bunch was Herman Cain, a former lobbyist and fast food pizza executive who demanded not to be taken seriously until his penchant for sexually harassing co-workers went public. Their second folksiest candidate in this race is Ron Paul, a man whose ideas normally require a tinfoil hat accessory. Apart from those two they had a crazy church lady (Bachmann), a fatuous know it all forced to leave office in disgrace (Gingrich), a lame-brain Texas governor who accomplished the impossible feat of making George W. Bush look smart (Perry), a snarly-lipped modern day Savnorola with even less of a sense of humor named after anal leakage (Santorum), and a pandering robot who reminds most Americans of their clueless boss (Romney.) Watching these clowns in action falling all over themselves to say the most outrageous things to curry favor with the bitter clingy crowd made me wonder if I had stepped into an Evelyn Waugh novel. I will miss the show.
Since the media focus moves so fast today, I'd like to remember some of my favorite moments from the campaign, since they are already vanishing into the ether. Please add your own in the comments if I've missed any.
The debate crowd yelling "let him die." So I guess the party preferred by the Army of God thinks Jesus was misquoted when he told his followers to heal the sick?
Every single time Bachman opened her mouth. Remember when this woman won the Iowa straw poll, and people were actually listening to what she had to say? I cannot think of any greater indictment of our entire political system.
Rick Perry can't remember what federal departments he wants to eliminate. As a former resident of Texas, I relished watching Governor Goodhair reveal to the world the true extent of his chuckleheadedness. This man was once the presumptive front runner!
Mitt Romney declares himself a "severely conservative" governor. He makes it sound like he had some kind of disease, like a severe case of the measles.
Herman Cain joking about killing immigrants. This man was a front-runner for a major party presidential nomination?
Mitt Romney generally acting like a rich plutocrat out of a comic book. He casually tried to make a ten thousand dollar bet, acted like his wife's two Cadillacs were something every family would own, and bonded with NASCAR fans by laughing at their cheap ponchos and letting them know he knew NASCAR owners.
Newt Gingrich claiming he was paid by Fannie Mae to be a historian. Yep, a historian who has never produced a single peer-reviewed publication.
Robo-Romney telling Michiganders "the trees are the right height" and awkwardly trying to guess facts about complete strangers since he seems incapable of actual human conversation.
Debate crowd cheers Perry's record number of executions. Perry himself appears pretty non-plussed about the possibility that he killed an innocent man to boot in this debate.
Santorum denigrates "blah people." There are too many hateful things to choose from, but this statement is the worst, and his lying attempt to walk it back the most deceitful.
Three degree holding Rick Santorum calling the president a snob for wanting more students to go to college. My God the resentment of these people is crazy.
Herman Cain quotes Pokemon to add gravity to his farewell speech. Words fail.
Pope Santorum attacks birth control. Oh yeah, he also supported the Blunt Amendment. And Republicans wonder why women prefer to vote for Obama by such a large margin.
Newt's moon colony. As Colbert says, Gingrich wasn't running for president, but trying out for Bond villain. Don't forget, he was once the front runner, too.
****
Let's be serious for a moment, folks. Look at the list of stupidity, hatred, and buffoonery I've laid out above, and tell me how the Republican party has not become an ideologically extreme movement that would be a sad joke if it did not hold so much power.
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