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Faustian Bargain
Last time we heard talk of a Grand Bargain, it was President Obama’s idea of a solution to an actual problem. The crazy party, rebelling against Speaker John Boehner, held the entire nation hostage over raising the debt limit.
Let’s give Obama the benefit of the doubt and assume that he thought a Grand Bargain would solve that problem for that time and the future, and that cutting spending in the face of massive unemployment and a shaky economy was a good idea. After all, he was advised by the great geniuses of the day, Tim Geithner, Larry Summers, Jack Lew and other disciples of the leprous Robert Rubin.
It turned out that Speaker Boehner couldn’t deliver the votes from the crazy party, and Obama had to settle for Grand Bargain I, The Sequestration. It means cutting defense spending and domestic spending, but not Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid. And it means raising taxes. Good. Obama gets the tax hikes he wants. And he seems to think these spending cuts are a good idea. And if they aren’t, just change the law. So what’s the basis for bargaining?
Well, the Sequestration has morphed into the Ewok of Terror, the Fiscal Cliff, thanks to the fools in the Village, whose last contact with reality dissolved during the Clinton Administration. I’m not that fond of the Sequestration, but after the election, it looks pretty good. And with this crowd of generals in rut, it really looks even better.
So why is there a need to bargain? Why should Obama agree to cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid? Why do we need Grand Bargain II, Revenge on the Old? What’s in it for the people who just elected Obama and the Democrats? Nothing.
Let’s be clear here. Obama claims that his goal is to increase taxes on the richest Americans. He swears up and down that he will not waver in this crucial cause. So why is he trying to make a deal? Everyone, including Speaker John Boehner and his crazy party, knows that taxes will go up if nothing happens. Then the crazy party has to explain why it’s better for taxes to go up on everybody than just the hyper-rich. That won’t happen, and if it does, the crazy party will seal its doom, which should suit Democrats just fine.
So why does Obama think he has to offer anything to get the outcome that he says he wants? There is no need for what Obama calls “Shared Sacrifice”. Does Obama think it’s a sacrifice by the hyper-rich to pay more taxes? It isn’t. And if this were a morality play I’d point out that increasing taxes on the villains who caused the Lesser Depression would settle out a lot of bad Karma. But it isn’t that either. As an economic matter, those who can afford to pay are the best source of funds to pay down the deficit. Taxing the rich does the least damage.
But it’s worse than that. If he agrees to any reduction in Social Insurance programs, he will force younger people to save more than they already are. That’s bad for the overall economy right now. If he follows the Simpson-Bowles model, the average person will have to save $122.65 per month, according to my calculations. My calculation assumes that your savings earn 3% interest per year. That won’t happen for the next several years, so the number is low.
But wait, that isn’t all. The latest brilliant idea is to raise Medicare eligibility to 67. That means you have to pay for two additional years of private insurance at exorbitant prices (and massive increases in income for the private health insurance companies Obama loves so much). So you need either to keep working for an additional two years, or save enough to cover five digit premiums, not to mention the FICA and Medicare taxes you pay on any income you earn. Or you could just die in the street.
That’s what Obama means by shared sacrifice. You sacrifice. The rich continue share in the proceeds.
This isn’t a bargain. A bargain is when both sides benefit. Here, one group of Americans, the group that just handed Obama and the Democrats a huge victory, is screwed into the ground. The other, consisting of worthless politicians and plutocrats, gets a huge victory.
I don’t even understand why it counts as a victory for rich people. Are they really such jerks they think we should cut retirement benefits for old people because the hyper-rich have to pay more taxes? Well, they probably are. But it doesn’t have to be that way. It wouldn’t be that way if Obama and the Democrats didn’t agree that it should happen.
The reality is this. Obama can’t just make himself beat these bastards into the ground. He can’t force himself to be a real Democrat like Lyndon Johnson or FDR, and stomp on their faces when they are down. He wants to give them something in exchange for higher taxes. But he doesn’t have anything to give the rich or to the crazy party. So he’s going to give them your Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid.
55 Comments
It will be easy for him too because he was never on our side.
Yes it will because his hero if you remember is ronnie-ray-gunn. 0 was never a demo and neither was big dog they’re all moderate repugs. As Glen Ford pointed 0 is the more effective evil so get ready, I know I have because all I have is SS and small pension that was able to pay my medical witch I’ll be dropping in the near future.
That is why you and other liberal democrats should have supported Jill Stein! This was predicable. This is a boring narrative by now. You keep supporting these sellouts as lesser evil, then act shocked they take advantage of you. Greens should rub their noses in it.
Obama is Nevil Chamberlain and we are Poland.
You mean we are Czechoslovakia :)
Chamberlain gets kicked around a lot my chickenhawks trying to prove their Manly Men(tm) bona fides but he did declare war on Germany when it invaded Poland.
It’s straightforward politics. If taxes go up automatically on the middle class throught the sunsetting of the Bush tax cuts, Obama wants the public to know clearly that it was because the GOP House let it happen. Same goes with the across-the-board 8% cuts, especially those on the military side of the budget.
Notice that for all the sturm und drang about the “grand bargain” for the past two years, there has been no bargain. And given the GOP posturing, I will be surprised if there is one unless they find a convincing hostage.
Politically this is after a win by the President, not after a huge Congressional defeat. (Look we are dealing with Village perceptions here, not reality.)
I would suggest that any interested third party organizations start recruiting 435 Congressional candidates for 2014. Because I don’t expect Democrats to, even when they might have an advantage.
Obama is the most pathetic of liars; he’s a liar who believes his own lies.
Obama believes, despite all evidence to the contrary, that he is being reasonable in behaving ‘as-if’ his republican opponents are reasonable people.
Obama considers acknowledging the fact that the republicans are, and have been behaving in an un-reasonable manner would be un-reasonable on his part, and because he, above all else believes himself to be a reasonable man, he cannot bring himself to admit that the republicans are bat-shit-crazy, unreasonable people.
In order to maintain his self-image as the most reasonable of men, Obama must lie to those who support him by insisting that obviously unreasonable and dis-honest people are in fact reasonable and honest partners in the task of governing our country, and finding solutions to our nations pressing problems.
It certainly does not help us that the more he lies to himself, and to us, the more he insures his future will be one of wealth and comfort, which is only reasonable.
The “balanced” approach never made any sense. Cuts to everyone to their SS! Medicare, Medicaid are not balanced by more taxes on the wealthy. The claim is just stupid. It’s incredible that Dems have been arguing for something this illogically incoherent and the media didn’t say it’s incoherent. That’s separate from the elites all falling for the phony deficit “crises” assumption, which has zero economic validity.
All last week, much of Washington wallowed in stories about the fact-free, self-inflicted delusions of the Mitt Romney campaign and pundits and media supporters. Everyone realized they were in their own delusional bubble, and the media ridiculed them for their self delusion when the real world facts were staring them in the face. How could anyone be that clueless, they asked.
But this unthinking acceptance by both parties, even many those supposedly liberal members, that we have a deficit crises, is equally unsupported and clueless and should be ridiculed at every opportunity. They’ve been sold economic snake oil, but can’t seem to understand that austerity medicine is choking much of Europe and slowed growth and employment here. And they refuse to listen to the economists who have been screaming, “Stop!”
It’s spectacularly irresponsible to remain as willfully ignorant as the White House, Congress, and media are doing on the phony deficit/debt “crises”. And yet, many in the business community, except the Fix the Deficit clowns who just want to avoid taxes for them and their corporations, and would cut safety net spending to cover for it, understand that slashing federal spending when we are still short of recovery, will hurt, not help the economy, worsen, not reduce unemployment (thus buying the Keynsian analysis) aren’t willing to tell the politicians they contrite to what they intuitively realize.
Our political and economic discourse is jibberish, as though it was directed by RomneyRyan’s advisors. Would someone please tell the Dems those clowns lost and they are just as clueless?
I stand corrected. :-)
All in the last week or so on the Grand Bargain (with help for sources from fairleft):
From the CEO of Goldman Sachs: “Broadening the personal income-tax base by closing loopholes will generate substantial additional revenue while minimizing increases in marginal rates that could stifle risk-taking and robust growth.”
From John Boehner on what the Republican party wants: “increased revenue … as the byproduct of a growing economy, energized by a simpler, cleaner, fairer tax code, with fewer loopholes, and lower rates for all.”
The recent “Budget Overview” from the White House: “Calls for individual tax reform that. . . simplifies the tax code, lowers tax rates, and protects progressivity; eliminates inefficient and unfair tax breaks for millionaires . . .”
We may draw our own conclusions. I suspect surrender is not part of the equation.
The Owners do not make their money on earned income. Most US citizens do, and therefore seem unable to entertain other realities, which is why the con of closing loopholes is employed.
The cuts proposed by corporations/Boehner/Obama/et al that will decrease the quality of life for the vast majority of US citizens will be traded for next to nothing. This is not an attempt to reduce the deficit but to move wealth upward. The Dems, Reps and the wealthiest Americans are in agreement on this. It will be called a tough compromise and a great victory by Dems–and there will be much rejoicing. The Obama budget calls this plan “AMERICAN VALUES: EVERYONE PAYS THEIR FAIR SHARE.” http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/overview
For how many years did we hear from Dems that Reps vote against their own interests?
And for my own errors, I used to say by way of comparison that the difference between Dems and Reps was exactly the same difference as existed between Pepsi and Coke. In the wake of Obama’s two presidential terms, I was wrong. The difference is the same as between Pepsi One and Diet Pepsi, if that. It is a difference of spelling and the color of the label.
“Are they really such jerks they think we should cut retirement benefits for old people because the hyper-rich have to pay more taxes?”
It is not nearly so much about money as it is about power and the maintenance of wealth disparity.
Excellent discussion of the phoniness of the deficit “crisis” meme, yesterday on C-SPAN.
http://www.c-span.org/Events/Economists-Look-For-Ways-to-Avoid-the-Fiscal-Cliff/10737435786-1/
Chamberlain was in a powerless position trying to avoid another world war. What, the BEF was going to march into Germany while France stayed behind the Maginot Line? US citizens may be Poland, but Obama is surely a different historical actor. Stalin?
It’s all propaganda and kabuki theatre in the wealthiest Country in the world. People will die from starvation, neglect, overexposure to the elements or lack of medical treatment from the unnecessary Grand Bargain.
Keep your Green New Deal bumper stickers handy for the second Great Depression.
It’s hardly a surrender when it’s what you sought to begin with. I prefer to think of it as the final triumph of neoliberalism in the US.
“Let’s give Obama the benefit of the doubt…”
You lost me right there. If I gave Obama the benefit of the doubt after what he has actually done and not tried to do, I would be an idiot.
No way I’ll give that Fascist son of a bitch the benefit of the doubt.
The article is a series of questions, all of them pointing toward the Mystery That Is Obama.
Why has Obama behaved as he has? I offer my theory–Obama is a neocon posing as a centrist Democrat–as the best possible explanation. In fact, I think you’ll find it answers virtually all questions about the tenure of this most peculiar and vexing President.
Most of the confusion about Obama comes from the false belief that he is in any way a Democrat or lefty, or that he has a single progressive bone in his body.
http://youtu.be/apkuXiUf9YE
Most perceptive on your part, ottogrendel!
And why should not American old age be a brutal, humiliating struggle for survival, if it satisfies O’s desire for ‘order’?
When does the “real work” begin, Jane?
Crap. Chamberlain and Daladier together, if they had stood firm, could have crushed Hitler before he could have ever invaded Poland. Hell, the French could have done that all by themselves for several years.
1.7 MILLION French people died in World War I. Over 4% of their total population. Dead. After a totally pointless war. And we Americans have the hubris to sit in judgment over them a century later and call the French of the 1930′s cowards for not being willing to sacrifice more people for a war they thought they might, just might, be able to avoid?
At the time?
Yes, the French could have stopped Hitler early on. They didn’t. But, as I recall, the Americans weren’t exactly eager to jump into a war themselves at the time. It’s important to remember that, unlike the TH’s on Fox News.
Besides, Obama’s not playing Stalin, just a better looking and more eloquent Mussolini.
good to read your posts as always masaccio
would like to add one thing, or rather, suggest a correction;
that’s not the way we win this debate, this is;
“Does Obama think it’s a sacrifice by the hyper-rich to pay at least as much in taxes as everyone else?”
because that’s the real purpose of raising progressive taxes, to equalize the incredible disparity regressive taxes have
Masaccio, did you see this post by David? Obama supposedly does have his proposal out–$1.6 trillion in new taxes, on the rich, and no proposals for cuts to the social safety net save for some in Medicare and Medicaid, and those being to providers, not to beneficiaries.
Now, there are downsides to Obama’s proposal, as David and others have mentioned. But I was rather surprised myself that it was as positive as it was, focusing on closing the gap by cutting the deficit/debt by taxes on the wealthy with very little “shared sacrifice” imposed on everyone else. In fact, I was kind of shocked, I was expecting a pre-compromise compromise which of course would be bargained down to something gut-wrenchingly awful (like the agreement that almost happened in 2011 was). After all, that had been the results of the first four years.
It may be that President Bipartisanship will once again trade away any cards he holds (by fault of his personal makeup, or by deliberate design to feign helplessness). The mean nasty Repubs may hold the debt ceiling hostage in February 2013 and once again provide an excuse for him to capitulate. But at least it’s not all bad.
-stewartm
I listened to this press conference on the the raddidio and our fearless leader saves his rage for Sens. McCain and ” Malcolm in the Middle ” Graham? Well, the grand bargain/fiscal cliff sure has been taken off the table while O fiddles around with these dickheads over who gets to be the advance person for The Empire in conquering Syria and Iran. Hell, yeah! Meanwhile, domestic tranquility and starvation are even in the latest post election polling as America’s No.1 issue. Will Petreaus’s wife let him go on Dancing With The Stars after the Congressional investigation? That’s what I want to know.
no…not true, he does not
HOPE you are right but don’t see the CHANGE in Obama. He helped big pharma and insurance companies before and they still are some of his biggest donors so to expect him to step to the plate to protect beneficiaries wouldn’t be the way to bet. Lobbyists will win over voters in D.C. until money isn’t speech and freedom is free.
I tried that in the 90s. The truth is that there will never be a third party in government, and establishing a third party does not begin with the presidency. You need to get in Congress first, or get a high-profile mayor position–anything that gets you the attention you require to be seen as an effective option by the rest of the country; i.e. Bernie Sanders.
Congress is not a Parliament. Voting green does not grant automatic seats based on voter turnout. It DOES steal votes away from the DNC and as much as I hate Obama I hate the GOP 1000 times more.
Face it; a third party is never going to come into power unless 1 of the 2 major parties dies (i.e. the Whig Party) and I really don’t see that happening.
Want hope and change for real? If you don’t have a degree, get one. Once you got that, pack up your bags and become an expat. Move to the UK, Central America, Japan, Northern Europe … there are a thousand and one places better than America. “The System” will never change, campaign finance reform will never happen, Corporations will always be people, and this country is ultimately a “Dead Man Walking”.
Sorry, but it’s true … and everybody in the world is perfectly aware of it except us.
True enough, but:
a) The Allies believed Hitler’s hype about his war machine having a prowess it did not have;
b) They also believed that the next war would be a bloody, protracted, stalemate like the first, and the French (having lost a whole generation) did not feel that they were capable of doing that without British support.
c) The British on their part believed the mistruth that had promulgated after WWI that Germany had been treated terribly at Versailles and that Versailles was a draconian peace (which it hadn’t, and Versailles wasn’t, especially considering what the Germans had wanted to impose on everyone else if they had won; Versailles was nowhere near as draconian as Brest-Litovsk had been). Moreover, Brits of conservative ilk saw Hitler and Mussolini as useful ‘bulwarks against communism’.
As it turned out, it took Hitler’s treachery after Munich in tearing up the agreement and dismantling the Czech state after promising the Allies he wouldn’t, to stiffen British resolve to not compromise again.
And we can only hope that there is an analogy in all that with the Dems and the Republicans over the upcoming talks. Especially about all those promises by Cantor and Boehner and company about things like not holding the debt ceiling hostage, or McConnell scaling back use of the filibuster.
-stewartm
I did see it. But I also listened to the press conference and it’s really clear that everything is on the table for this guy.
I kind of feel like we’re going to see another version of kill the public option.
I was in NO way disparaging the French. Cowards?! At least elements of their army had the resolve to mutiny. Shit, the British just wrote poems in protest and the US showed up at the end and told themselves they won (/s). Indeed, I was suggesting that their decision to build the Maginot Line was not inappropriate in the context of the 1920s and 30s.
I was talking about the actual ability of Britain and France to effectively pressure Germany. “If only Chamberlain had stood up . . .” goes the counter-factual, fake-alpha-male, Big-Man-theory-of-history myth.
“Chamberlain and Daladier together, if they had stood firm . . .”
Exactly: “if.” Precisely because of WWI the national political will was not there, neither was the actual physical force, hence my reference to the BEF, which was an army of less than 100,000 at the time. Unless we imagine that either Chamberlain or Daladier can act independently of the nations that they represent?
“Hell, the French could have done that all by themselves for several years.”
Of course they could have. The issue is why they did not. What would have been the odds that any French political leader could have ordered French troops into Germany in the 1930s? At best he would have been laughed at. And Britain? WWI broke their empire. What muscle could Chamberlain have mustered against a land army on the continent?
“Besides, Obama’s not playing Stalin, just a better looking and more eloquent Mussolini.”
Quite possibly. Stalin was only speculation on my part–assuming the Reps are Hitler and have pretended to be non-aggressive so that both dictators can devour their mutual conquest.
Actually I had felt that way until today, because Obama had not explicitly mentioned the top *rates* going up since Election day. Jared Bernstein said that this had heartened conservatives into believing they could talk him down to their Romneyesque plan of closing loopholes. (Which always manage to come back after rates are lowered, which is why we should first insist on rates).
But Obama didn’t do that today. In fact, he expressedly said he wouldn’t bargain on that, that there wasn’t any way to raise enough money from closing loopholes (which there isn’t, at least on the rich alone, without wiping out what deductions are available to the poor and middle class–Robert Reich has been blogging on this).
That being said–I don’t trust Obama either to do the right thing, nor the Dems, and in fact had forwarded the awful 2011 agreement that he initially signed off on to some Obamacrat friends telling them “Something like this we’re probably going to get”. But lo and behold, at least in the opening salvo, this is far better than I expected from him.
(And I agree with you in principle: the notion of “shared sacrifice” is so much BS. In practice it means that rich people spend a couple fewer days in the $50,000 hotel room or yacht, middle class families send their kid to community college, and poor people give up, say, *eating*.
It’s nonsensical to believe that those who can’t afford to give up another dime should be asked to “sacrifice” anything).
-stewart
You are correct, I put my point very badly.
I believe Obama thinks it reasonable that a man in his position would lie, but of course we already know he thinks it’s reasonable to murder US citizens with no due process, so there’s no truth in him at all.
You are correct he cares as much for the truth as Karl Rove or Dick Cheney.
I think what is hardest for many citizens to get their minds around, especially in such an authoritarian society as the US, is that the “leaders” do not only not represent the citizens, but also they don’t give a fuck if they live or die except as it serves their master’s interests. The idea that no benevolent expert or father figure is looking out for us is a hard reality to come to terms with.
“But, as I recall, the Americans weren’t exactly eager to jump into a war themselves at the time. It’s important to remember that, unlike the TH’s on Fox News.”
Indeed. The Chamberlain-Churchill myth is all so much right wing propaganda. The narrative succeeds via the logical error of suggesting that the leaders in Western “democracies” knew in the 1930s the outcome of a NAZI Germany. “And we all know what happened next, don’t we . . .” intone the propagandists as they call Chamberlain a coward. Sure we do. But no one then did–or if they did have an inkling, they were powerless to do anyting about it. And that is what matters.
They will. The debt ceiling will need to be raised again in February. I have NO doubt that the Republicans will take it hostage again.
This means that either all this is a charade by Obama and crew to dupe progressives into thinking he’s really (sorta) on our side, and that once the mean nasty Republicans take the debt ceiling hostage, he’ll cry and say to us “they made me enact Paul Ryan’s proposal” OR he has to have a strategy to stand the Republicans down. We don’t know what is the case now.
One thing that is important and could signal how determined (nor not) the Dems and the White House may be is how any filibuster reform goes. Right now, it’s iffy and Reid’s proposal is milquetoast compared to what could be done (and that’s considering the proposals I’ve heard offered up that leave some form of the filibuster in-place (my personal favorite is to make ‘em talk and also to require 40 votes present to *maintain* a filibuster and remove the onus or keeping it going from the majority to the minority–after all these are old guys who have to visit the bathroom every so often). No real filibuster reform could be a signal that the Dems aren’t serious.
-stewartm
It’s not surrender; it’s his agenda. He’s told us as much on many occasions, with a more recent one being the 2nd or 3rd debate, when he agreed with Romney on Social Security.
I have a question. On the off, off, off chance that Obama doesn’t gladly seize this opportunity to do the Republicans’ work for them, or the slightly less unlikely case that Boehner again fails to get his caucus to back whatever pitiful face-saving scraps Obama requires in exchange for said sell-out:
When does the current federal debt ceiling get reached? Because that does have a legitimate “fiscal cliff” aspect (leaving aside for a moment the $10 trillion coin), and it will be yet another swing of the bat for the whole plutocrat, shock-doctrine agenda.
My recollection from last time is that while they raised the ceiling enough to get past the election, it wasn’t much more than that, so I think the bastards have that whole thing in reserve.
It’ll be a lot easier to beat the Rs on the debt ceiling if he crushes them on the tax/fiscal cliff issue.
If the Medicare eligibility age is raised to 67, what is the over and under on the number of additional people who are forced into bankruptcy by uncovered medical expenses?
Secession shouldn’t just be for right-wingers.
No argument there whatsoever.
I was just wondering when that debt ceiling pressure will kick in. Like I said, I don’t think it’s all that far off, and I think the general silence on the subject is no accident.
He doesn’t have to. He wants to. He has wanted since before his inauguration.
Literally speaking, forcing the Democrats to go along with cutting the safety net is his “vision.” It will be his legacy.
His dream is to be remembered as the biracial President who forced Republicans to accept taxes and Democrats to accept cuts to Social Security – a figure transcending parties. I believe he thinks that if he can accomplish that, he will be enshrined alongside Reagan in the Pantheon (More than just a President and so much more than the leader of one party!), and that everything that’s dysfunctional about US politics will be on its way to being fixed. It is at once a remarkably shallow vision of political life, and also because the vision can only be purchased at the price of massive and sustained suffering, it is a personal ambition of bottomless cynicism and selfishness. Far from being a foreigner, an interloper from Kenya or Indonesia as his Republican enemies like to say, Barack Obama is truly American – all too American.
Hi John, Notice Stephanie Kelton’s MMT-based presentation on the first panel. Slides are here. A clip of Stephanie’s presentation, alone is here.
Um, no.
Obama was advised by the people he chose. It was no secret how Tim Geithner, a registered Republican before Obama chose him and head of the NY Fed, was going to advise him. Geither had agreed with Paulson down the line. Oh, and did I mention that he was a registered Republican before Obama chose him.
Goolsbee was right out of the DLC, aka Turd Way. You may remember the DLC because it’s first successful Presidential candidate, Bill Clinton, told Congress that he wanted repeal of Glass Steagall on his desk for his signature pronto.
You remember Glass Steagall? That was the New Deal law that would have prevented the economic collapse of 2008.
And Obama knew who Summers, et al., were because they were all Clinton hangers on.
Finally, Obama was talking about “entitlement reform” before he was sworn in.
I’d give Obama the benefit of the doubt if there were any doubt. There isn’t.
Oh, and did I mention that Obama is a grown man? He can both hire the economists who will tell him what he wants to hear (and he did) and “just say no” when they tell him something he doesn’t believe.
I am so sick of making excuses for this guy. And of other people making excuses for him.
But, it is beyond him now. Just say no to another Turd Way President.
I wish.
But you can’t even get people to vote third party. How are you going to get them to vote secession?
The Democratic Party has been completely co-opted by the DLC, Third Way, New Democrat, No Labels mentality. There is no more Democratic Party of FDR or Robert Kennedy.
We used to say that you can’t complain if you didn’t vote. Maybe, if you voted for Obama’s re-election, thereby validating his first term, you don’t really have the right to be complaining about him.
Obama is already caving, just as I expected he would. Boehner has said that he will only consider closing loopholes and eliminating or reducing deductions, but no rate hikes. Obama has said that he is flexible on how to raise taxes on the rich.
Some valid observations and interesting points…
If one accepts that the Rs and Ds agree about and on much more than they do not it is not difficult to frame this as being a Single Political Party with two wings which is closer to how it works in real terms. Something closer to the Communist Party in China and not like how politics are conducted in true multi-party governments where electoral percentages are actually reflected in how general assembly is constructed ( See England. See Israel.) The Rs and Ds really do control the gates,portals and hurdles that make starting,building or keeping up any 3rd or 4th American national political party a steep climb and slippery hold –
By design.
By concur.
By intention.
As we have seen here in 2012 the UniParty gave us Romney and Obama to pick from and in so many ways this was a beauty contest about charm and poise and being able to walk the catwalk and not trip while doing so.
Barack Obama had to struggle during so called 2012 TV WH Candidate “debates” to appear to be different or not the same politician and policy view holder as Romney. Obama actually is a good Republican and Romney lost to Obama largely because of this. UniParty politics in a nutshell — UniParty wins/won.
Who is going to change this? How can/will they change this?
Doubtful it can be done on the terms both Rs and Ds and the UniParty they are both wings of has set in place. Archaic relics like the Electoral College are used as bulwarks by the UniParty to maintain R and D UniParty control. The USA mainstream political media also is largely kept on/in a narrow R vs. D bandwidth. By and with money,access control and likely some very stiff national “security” protocols that go unseen and unknown. Why are the Pentagon and CIA such a taboo for any meaningful reveal,discussion or re-framing about what they are and do? Needed new 3rd and 4th political leaders and parties are going to come out of nowhere in ways that almost need to be not “legal” and “sanctioned” by the 50 state regimes and WashingtonDC regime or American political TV or based around online presence. UniParty otherwise will sabotage/stop it.
Is needed American political change and evolution going to be all nice,pleasant and tidy? Who knows — but it seems it almost by definition could not be/cannot be.
American Capitalism has been woven into what Americans think is American Democracy deep and wide. This is a real target that needs to be taken on. American Militarism has been woven into what passes for American Empire across the planet and it is given lots of polished propaganda and most often near unlimited funding. This being so makes American Militarism/Empire a target to take on.
Then there is American Corporatism which ties Capitalism and Militarism of USA together across a large spectrum best stated as being a matter of the Dollar Following The Sword and The Sword Following The Dollar. Obama and Romney did not talk about failures of American Capitalism,Militarism/Empire and Corporatism very often,in depth or in ways that could/would change accepted and/or current framing of them apart/together.
Who or what is going to topple this American UniParty regime?
Those who can and that which can.
American UniParty is well dug in as it is and will not topple easily. Maybe will survive its many shortfalls and failures for some time to come. It surely has all the cards it needs to do so. But it is rotted. Is rotting more. The rot is showing in ways that are readily viewable.Fact is most Americans do not live on Wall St.where so much post 2008 rescue and lifeboat money is now parked and held by Big Banks. Many Americans are in the throes of 2008 Aftermath and Depression,facing bleak prospects,days and days ahead and shaky retirements. Facing poor healthcare access and outcomes due to being poor or near poor in a AHIP sanctioned USA regime of Profits Come First. Facing a planet that is presenting real climate changes and human population expansions and exploitations. Obama and Romney did not want to talk about this being so. This is the rot of UniParty in full view.
Thank you massaccio…on target diary and comments thread…recommended
Although after winning the Grand Bargain I think neoliberalism might take a breather for awhile, I think that there are presently unimaginable victories still left on down the road. So, no, I don’t think it’s a final triumph.
Oh, hell yeah. Following the Grand Backstab, we can see more fracking (energy independence!), permanent abolition of estate taxes (why “penalize” the wealthy for their “hard work”?), privatization of public schools (get the government out of education), lowering of the minimum wage (let’s let the young people have easier access to the job market), more wars (of course…murdering 6,000,000 Congolese already would be a waste if we quit now, right? Daddy needs that coltan!), and so much more fun to come.
In the excellent words of the exquisite Cordelia Chase, “there’s always more down.”
Well, people did vote to re-elect Nixon – McGovern was the patsy then, remember? Curious thing is, though, that he was no hero to them during Watergate revelations – nobody was Nixon-botting when what he had been doing started leaking out and impeachment was on the table. And this was a guy who didn’t mind playing dirty – Obama has to be doing similar stuff to keep everyone in line.
Never mind succession, let’s start talking impeachment.
“But at least it’s not all bad.”
That’s like saying “At least this shit stew doesn’t have any corn in it!”
And the attitude of waiting to see what Obama will do makes no sense to me. The man’s as predictable as an atomic clock.
Quite so. I once supposed that the Democratic Party, or some of its members at any rate, legitimatley represented the public intrest and the national interest. I learned just recently that Democrats represent fuck-all, except large corporations and sadistic rich people.
Yes, one of the take-aways is that the Dem party is as empty and tribalistic as the Reps. The Dems just did for Obama what the Reps did for George W. in 2004. And Obama’s reelection demonstrates that Dems are similarly authoritarian and just as motivated by fear as the Reps–the real and entirely fear-based campaign slogan for the Dems this year was, “Vote for the Lesser of Two Evils,” a position predicated on believing the same red meat rhetoric Romney employed to con his party faithful.
Have you ever read Wilhelm Reich’s “The Mass Psychology of Fascism”?
Looks like I came out with guns blazing when it was unnecessary. Sorry about that, and thanks for the clarification.
No matter which historical comparison one wants to use, however, the simple fact is that Obama and the Democratic leadership WANT to cut what is left of the New Deal and Great Society safety nets because they think that is in the interests of their class, which is the top 10% at most.
And they know that letting the Bush tax cuts expire for those who make over 250K a year really won’t hurt those people at all. At most, it would be an inconvenience to them. It also is tub to the whale for the Democratic base.
I’m so glad I did not vote for Obama.
Oh, no problem. Hopefully you will provide the same clarification for me when I come out with guns blazing unnecessarily. :)
One of the things that goes almost unremarked upon in the imagined contest between Dems and Reps is that our system in the US demands not just the extraction of excess profit, but also the constant increase in the extraction of excess profit. Politicians of both political parties, as representatives and managers of this system, have to work toward this goal. In a system where perpetual growth is a virtue in itself, new wealth–and the power that goes with it–has to come from somewhere. And partly because US citizens are already consuming as fast as they can (even to the point of going into debt to do it), Social Security is that new somewhere.
Having a Dem go after SS because of the cover they might provide is also one of those data points that suggests that the theory of Obama as the more efficient evil is valid. Not voting for the more efficient evil (or the lesser one, for that matter) is one of the ways we can counter what is not in the best interests of the majority of the citizenry.
Neither Pres. Rocky Anderson, or Pres. Jill Stein would be talking about raising the MediCare age to 67. In fact, neither would Pres. Roseanne Barr.
Meanwhile, one of the larger West Coast newspapers had a front page article about ho0w California has already got its health insurance exchange up and ready. So friggin’ what? I get incensed when I realize that NO NEWSPAPER out there talked about how Austerity was Obama’s running mate. Instead the media tries to distract us with talk about compliance to the ACA, the supposed wonderful achievement of socialist Barack Obama.
My household would pay some seventeen thousand dollars yearly for the two of us to have the so called “health insurance” it provides kick in one red cent. (We have to pay exorbitant premiums each month, a $ 2,500 deductible per person per year, and co pays.) Even more onerous is the fact that a person has to apply to a given number of health insurers and be rejected by them first before a person can even apply to the exchange. If you need help before that three to six months has gone by, you may be in the morgue before yhou ahve yourself the health insurance through the exchange.