Democrats Are More Powerful Than Ever. How Will They Justify Doing Nothing?
The defection of Pennsylvania’s Arlen Specter and the imminent certification of Al Franken as the winner of Minnesota’s election recount has handed Democrats what they always said they lacked in order to pass a progressive agenda: a filibuster-proof majority in the U.S. Senate. Now they face the awful problem of coming up with new excuses for not doing anything.
How will Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and other fake liberals weasel out of making good on their promises for real action on healthcare, the economy and the war? It won’t be easy. They control both houses of Congress and the White House. Obama is about to fill a new vacancy on the Supreme Court. The Times of London writes that “Mr. Obama, by some assessments, has more political leverage than any president since Franklin Roosevelt in 1937″—at the peak of the New Deal, just before he overreached by trying to pack the Supreme Court.
The Republican Party, on the other hand, is suffering a crisis of faith—too much God-cheering and not enough adherence to core values like small government, fiscal conservatism, isolationism and protectionist trade policy. A mere 21 percent of Americans still call themselves Republicans, the lowest number since 1983. Similarly, reports the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll, “just 21 percent say they’re confident in the Republicans in Congress ‘to make the right decisions for the country’s future,’ compared with 60 percent who express that confidence in Obama.”
Democrats have never been as powerful. Republicans are weak. Obama won with a decisive, sweeping rejection of the Republican status quo. Harry and Louise, call your agents—socialized medicine is on the way! Not.
Be careful what you wish for—what you say you wish for, anyway. “The left is going to push Obama—now that he’s got a veto-proof majority—to drive an agenda that a smart president would realize is a long-term political disaster,” GOP pollster Rick Wilson tells ABC. “Long-term political disaster” is mainstream media code for “stuff that corporations hate.”
Well, yes. What passes for the left in this country (center-right everywhere else, because they read) now has some not-unreasonable questions for Barack Obama. Such as:
Pretty please, can we now live in a country where people don’t have to spend $800 a month to health insurance companies that deny their customers’ claims?
Why are we still in Iraq?
How about some help for the victims of Katrina, many of whom never collected one red cent after losing everything?
Why are we paying billions to banks and still letting them gouge us with 25 interest credit card rates? Speaking of which:
How about doing something that might actually help people who live in the economy, rather than just capital markets?
These queries seem all the more relevant coming, as they do, from the liberal base of the Democratic party—the people who got Obama elected.
The trouble for our cute, charming prez is that he has no intention whatsoever of introducing a true national healthcare plan: one that covers everybody for free. He wants to expand the war in Afghanistan and drag out the one against Iraq. He will not punish Bush or his torturers, rescue homeowners in foreclosure, or nail scumbag banks to the wall. These changes would cost trillions of dollars to multinational insurance companies, defense contractors and other huge financial concerns who donate generously to candidates of both political parties and have a history of using their clout to manipulate elections in favor of their favorite candidates. A classic example is oil companies, who push down gas prices before elections in order to help Republicans.
The most that Democratic voters can expect from Democratic politicians is incremental, symbolic change that doesn’t cost their corporate sponsors any serious coin. The New York Times marked Obama’s 100th day in office with an editorial that approvingly encapsulated his accomplishments to date: “He is trying to rebuild this country’s shattered reputation with his pledge to shut down the prison camp in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, his offer to talk with Iran and Syria, and, yes, that handshake with Venezuela’s blow-hard president, Hugo Chávez…The government is promoting women’s reproductive rights. It is restoring regulations to keep water clean and food safe. The White House has promised to tackle immigration reform this year.”
Trying. Promoting. Has promised.
Guantánamo isn’t being closed; it’s being moved. Gitmo’s detainees will be transferred to a new harsher gulag under construction in Afghanistan. Thawed relations with Iran and Syria would create new business opportunities for big oil. Defending the right to an abortion is popular and doesn’t cost Bank of America a dime. Immigration reform is code for legalizing illegal immigrants, not closing the border. Safety regulations reassure consumers and pump up the economy. Closing the border would raise wages. Corporations won’t allow that.
Unfortunately for Obama’s Democrats, small-bore initiatives only go so far, especially with the economy in meltdown. When people are desperate and angry they don’t care as much about flag-burning or creationism or a handshake with Hugo Chávez. They want action—real action.
How will the Democrats avoid genuine change now that they enjoy the ability to enact it? Will they blame obstructionist Republicans? Will Democrats cross the aisle to vote with the Republicans? A new war, perhaps?
If nothing else, whatever dog-ate-my-homework excuse they come up with for sitting on their butts is bound to be amusing. If nothing else.
COPYRIGHT 2009 TED RALL
13 Comments.
I think this is an interesting way to look at things. Ted, have you ever Read Andrew Szasz's book "Ecopopulism"? He has a concept in that book called 'routine regulatory failure,' and discusses how the US Federal Government has a set of ritualized 'actions' that give the appearance of concern and proactive behavior in response to environmental crises, foodborne illness outbreaks, corruption, etc.. but actually the purpose is a smokescreen to hide the fact that nothing gets done. The media quickly moves to the next topic, and each issue just gets blown over. The only people who remember it are the actual individuals who were harmed in some way.
This process includes congressional hearings, executive orders, speeches on TV, proposed legislation, etc…none of which remotely addresses the root of the problem. Of course, those whose interests are truly being represented by our government get what they want, always. The two parties have become teams in an endless rivalry, the Yankees and the Red Sox, that facilitate in no meaningful action taking place. There is one party in this country, the Business Party, and it always wins.
To be fair, consider that with George W. Bush in office for 8 years, and the country paralyzed by fear of terrorism, the extreme right failed to actually get what they wanted; bans on gay marriage and the overturning of Roe v. Wade.
So neither side gets what they want, they blame the other side, and we barrel toward the abyss aggressively insulting each other for the level of "evidence" and "facts" we either provide or don't provide in our arguments.
It's all extremely silly.
The right did get what they wanted and did not have to spend. It would be better if those topics were gone then they would have trouble or come up with another wedge in their endless strawman red-herring crap
The same media that did not criticize Bush, criticizes Obama on non-issues.
One ray of hope for me is that people may not being paying attention corporate media outlets. For example, the March 21, 2009, Hollywood Peace March in front of CNN HQ was far larger than any Tea Bagging Party held on April 15th.
One had no corporate coverage, while the other was promoted and discussed, day in and day out, for over a month.
Photos, check out the usual police response to a peace rally.
There is still a war without an end in sight going on.
It will be funny when they start staging protests in Europe over Obama's and congress' lack of initiative.
Ted, I'm surprised you are believing the hype about a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate. To think that Specter is going to vote with the Dems on every bill is foolish, and with other not-quite-so-Democrat Senators (hello Sen. Baucus) carrying the flag, you've fallen into the trap that the Dems can do whatever they want now. Being a Democrat in Montana is not the same thing as being a Democrat in New Hampshire.
Great, truthful analysis, Aggie Dude.
The media quickly moves to the next topic, and each issue just gets blown over. The only people who remember it are the actual individuals who were harmed in some way.Those of us vaguely paying attention know this is absolutely correct.
I remember when I was younger I would be extremely frustrated that the media never did follow-ups on stories that were so "urgent" when they were in the news cycle. I found, time after time, that if you did your own follow-up research, the real story would turn out to bear no resemblance to the tripe that the mainstream media had been so shrilly serving.
I think it was Emerson who said that you shouldn't read anything less than a year old. And it's true if you really want to understand the "truth" behind any given event or issue…
I have a friend who only watches the History Channel on TV, and says eventually whatever the real news is, it'll show up on the History Channel and hopefully they will have gotten the story right by then.
Real in depth analysis of each and every issue takes months of investigation, and then another few months to publish. Unfortunately our world moves too quickly for that, and this is why we're totally screwed.
The myth of Pandora is never told correctly in America. It wasn't hope that was the last thing to escape from the box – It was false hope.
Rest assured regardless of whoever wins the next election, as apparent now with the last election, the following will still hold true:
1. There will always be budgetary problems for anything that has any human value. Education, health care, poverty relief will always be hobbled. It will always be because "there is no money" or some other such excuse.
2. There will always be plenty of money for war. Plenty of money to bail out failed banks and rich individuals. There will always be some sort of tax dodge for the rich. And a rich person or corporation will always have more political clout than the rest of the population.
Things remain this way because oddly we expect a person or a political party to come along and save us.
Yet, there is only one party in the U.S., though it masquerades as two. And both sides of that coin have really no sincere interest in helping anyone but the top two to ten percent of the income bracket. They will feed us on a constant diet of political theater, excuses and rationalizations until we starve to death. The real nourishment, of course, will be reserved for their true constituents.
But I'm probably just over-reacting. I'm taking all of this way too personally. Just lost my health insurance last month. Just had to pay nearly five times the previous price for the medication I need to take to control my blood pressure. My work is down by a half of what it was last year, and that is a conservative estimate.
The other day I spoke with a woman who in her seventies was living with cancer on the street in San Francisco (I mentioned this in a previous post). More and more businesses are closing and more of us are losing our homes and jobs. Yet the "good" news is gas prices are again on the rise and this somehow signals an economic recovery…
There is a way out of this. We could all hit the streets at once and demand that they give us what we need. We could shut the whole damn country down. There would be true change and it would be because we took the risk and did the work to bring it about.
Or, and more likely, we'll just sit down and hope that our "betters" will someday hand it to us out of the goodness of their hearts. And we'll hold fast to that false hope. We'll hold on for dear life. We'll hold to it because in a very short time it will become the only thing we have left.
Ted asked :"How will they justify
doing nothing?"
By contiuously distracting the people by minor and trivial stuff
and wedge issues, and if the need does arise, may be with a big stuff like "imminent" war or "credible" terrorist threat!!
"Real in depth analysis of each and every issue takes months of investigation, and then another few months to publish. Unfortunately our world moves too quickly for that, and this is why we're totally screwed."Good point. But what is stopping the news from sounding like the following?:
"Right now the administration is gunning for war in Iraq. Neocons cite WMD, but anyone who actually studies this stuff has dispelled this as bullshit(example)(example). Recall the gulf of Tonkin *incident?…" etc. etc.
There is a way out of this. We could all hit the streets at once and demand that they give us what we need.See that's the problem with you Statists. You think you are owed something. Quit acting like a petulant little screaming baby and get out and earn what you need/want.
Truth be told, in the real gulag there was also forced labour, besides torture.
"Truth be told, in the real gulag there was also forced labour, besides torture."In domestic prisons, prisoners manufacture office furniture for pennies a day. If the detainees get their way, they will get to do the same.
I wonder how many people have been tortured, slave-driven and killed in Soviet gulags in the past 20 years…actually, I wonder if non-soviet Russia has done much better.