The fundamental progressive failure

In the wake of the agreement that prevented the federal government, the Obama Administration has planned an address this week to lay out fundamental entitlement reform.  Progressives have been loudly disappointed by the deal that prevented the shutdown, particularly the appearance of President Obama cheering the historic cuts the deal involved.  Thus there is little enthusiasm for Obama's speech among core progressives, even if he calls for the "grand bargain" which would raise taxes on the wealthiest Americans to shore up Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security.  (Whether that "bargain" is necessary is a whole other   subject).

But no matter what the immediate causes and reactions to these events are,  they represent a fundamental failure of progressives.  The most important economic issue being debated is not jobs, or income inequality,   or even basic societal fairness, but rather the federal deficit.  The most urgent issue for the future is not climate change, whose effects are approaching the point at which they will be irreversible, but the federal debt, which is reversible by a growing economy and some policy adjustments.

Essentially, the progressive view of the world which prioritizes a growing economy, greater economic opportunity for more people, and a future where we aren't faced by catastrophic climate effects, has been trumped by a worry about government debt.  And what is the real worry about the government debt?  That we won't we will have to have radical cuts in the social safety net because of that debt.  And what's the solution to that problem?  Radical cuts in the social safety net.

Are there structural impediments to making our case?  Yes.  But right now, even progressives tend to buy the frame around which these arguments take place. And that's a failure of persuasion.

We figure out a way to get people who don't already agree with us to listen to and believe in our arguments.

Three takes on the events in Tucson

I want to highlight three items that usefully analyze the events in Tucson.

James Fallows at The Atlantic, "The Cloudy Logic of Political Shootings"

We don't know why the Tucson killer did what he did. If he is like [Sirhan] Sirhan, we'll never "understand." But we know that it has been a time of extreme, implicitly violent political rhetoric and imagery, including SarahPac's famous bulls-eye map of 20 Congressional targets to be removed -- including Rep. Giffords. It is legitimate to discuss whether there is a connection between that tone and actual outbursts of violence, whatever the motivations of this killer turn out to be. At a minimum, it will be harder for anyone to talk -- on rallies, on cable TV, in ads -- about "eliminating" opponents, or to bring rifles to political meetings, or to say "don't retreat, reload.

George Packer at The New Yorker, "It Doesn't Matter Why He Did It"

This relentlessly hostile rhetoric has become standard issue on the right. (On the left it appears in anonymous comment threads, not congressional speeches and national T.V. programs.) And it has gone almost entirely uncriticized by Republican leaders. Partisan media encourages it, while the mainstream media finds it titillating and airs it, often without comment, so that the gradual effect is to desensitize even people to whom the rhetoric is repellent. We’ve all grown so used to it over the past couple of years that it took the shock of an assassination attempt to show us the ugliness to which our politics has sunk.

Peter Daou, "Gabrielle Giffords and the rightwing hate machine (on the bogus equivalence between right/left extremism)"

The deeply-etched themes that run through American politics reflect the right’s successful framing: Democrats and liberals are wimps, Republicans and conservatives are gun-toting patriots; Democrats and liberals despise their country, Republicans and conservatives are the only ones willing to protect it; Democrats and liberals want to intrude on your freedom, tax you and bankrupt the nation, Republicans and conservatives want to give you freedom, liberty and wealth. The current of eliminationism infusing the right’s worldview is an inevitable outcome of such contorted impressions – it’s a natural impulse to want to destroy that which is (supposedly) destroying you.

Those who foist the false right/left equivalency ignore this reality. Their definition of extremism is necessarily warped, since they have to stretch logic to fabricate a sense of balance. If you want single-payer health care, you’re a liberal extremist, but if you deny global warming, you’re simply a conservative skeptic. As the national discourse moves further and further right, only the most unhinged rightwingers are tagged as extreme, while all it takes for a liberal to be labeled an extremist is to espouse a policy position that is out of the mainstream. That is not to say there are not violent individuals and extremists on the left, but that it is absurd to argue that left and right are comparable in the language of violence and incitement.

When center becomes right and right becomes far right, conservatives can get away with wilder and weirder behavior. Exhortations from radio blatherers to bash liberals are dismissed as “entertainment.” Glenn Beck’s bizarre rantings barely get a yawn.

Five Things That Were True Before The Shootings In Tucson

Since the horrific shooting in Tucson that wounded Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and killed 6 others, a number of conversations have commenced about the extreme rhetoric that has emerged in the current political culture. Many on the right are angry that they are being blamed for the creating the context under which the shootings took place, especially since its become clear that shooter was an unstable, but not politically active, individual. Understand that, let me point to five facts that are true, whether or not the shooting ever took place.

Fact #1: In August of 2009, a protestor at a Giffords event dropped a gun that he had carried to it.

Fact #2: The day that the health care reform bill passed, Giffords' congressional office had a window either shot out or broken out.

Fact #3: Gabby Giffords' 2010 opponent held a campaign event shooting an automatic M-16, saying "Get on Target for Victory. Help remove Gabrielle Gifford from office."

So, to be clear, there were multiple instances of threats and violent rhetoric in Arizona's 8th Congressional District over the past two years. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords had mentioned her concern over these incidents. So when a violent shooting incident nearly takes her life, it is incumbent upon those who don't think this history is relevant to tell us why, not on those of us who think this rhetoric creates a climate where attacks like this can occur.

Fact #4: Sarah Palin had a map of 20 Democrats who voted for health care reform targeted for defeat. Their districts, including Rep. Giffords, were placed under crosshairs. Palin later referred to them as "bullseyes."

Fact #5: On March 25, 2010, appearing on MSNBC, Rep. Giffords mentioned the crosshairs ad, saying," ...for example, we're on Sarah Palin's targeted list, but the thing is that the way that she has it depicted has the crosshairs of a gun sight over our district, and when people do that, they've gotta realize there are consequences to that action."

White Flight From The Democrats

Ron Brownstein, writing in National Journal has a profoundly interesting, detailed, and, for Democrats, ominous piece about exit polling numbers illustrating that Democrats are at a historical nadir among white votes. In the column, we get a number of explanations for why white voters have rejected Democrats.

Dick Wadhams, the head of the Colorado GOP, says that white voters reject Obama's view of government. "The voters who went with Obama in 2008 did not know what they were going to get with that vote. Now that they’ve seen the health care bill, the stimulus bill, the bailout, the cap-and-trade proposal—issue after issue, they don’t like what they see." Democratic pollster Mark Mellman echoes this type of argument, saying, "People felt government did a lot of big things that were inappropriate. They felt government took care of the big guys—and not me." Presidential advisor David Axelrod says that these are the voters who have born the brunt of the recession, so its understandable that they have moved away from Democrat. Jeff Bell, a conservative strategist argues that these voters have become part of a larger, permanent conservative coalition.

So, what's missing from this analysis? Well, in the over 4000 words of the column, the following words do not appear together "first," "black," and "president." In an article about white flight from the Democratic party.

To be clear, Brownstein has written an insightful piece that I recommend. But it does illustrate a fundamental failure of the dialogue in our political culture - that even in an article about racial voting patterns, race is a secondary issue.

On reading the Constitution

So, the newly sworn-in House of Representatives provided for a reading of the Constitution today. This was an interesting civic ritual, and I'm disappointed that it was the damn Republicans that came up with this.

Why?

Because the Constitution is not a document wholly owned by 21st century conservatives. But the tea partiers and the right-wingers who run the Republican party have appropriated the Constitution symbolically as their exclusive provenance. Just like they've done with 9/11.

Here's the thing. The Constitution, the American Revolution, World War II, 9/11, etc. are shared American experiences. Liberals and conservatives shared them and continue to share them. Allowing them to be appropriated for by only one set of partisans is un-American.

We on the left can not allow this to happen. We should embrace the ritual and fight to take back ownership of the symbolism.

Republicans whine about Pelosi talking about accomplishments

In the ongoing quest to deny Democrats legitimacy, a bunch of whining, sniveling House Republicans are angry about Nancy Pelosi's speech on the opening day of the new Congress. Apparently, Pelosi had the temerity to offend the sensitive ears of Republican House members by....touting Democratic accomplishments in the last Congress.

Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) said that Pelosi's speech, “trying to convince her own caucus of what great things they had done. Had it been me, I would have given a shorter speech." No, what Ros- Lehtinen probably would not have touted her most recent accomplishment - killing a bill to stop children from being forced into marriage.

Rep. Tom Price (R-GA) griped that Pelosi's speech "crystallized" why voters opposed Democrats in the recent elections. Yes, this is the same Tom Price who claimed that forcing BP to pay for its share of the cleanup of the Gulf caused by its oil spill a "shakedown."

Rep. Billy Long, a freshman from Missouri. thought the speech ungracious, saying, "I think it’s rather apparent. I’d have handled it differently." Well, Billy Long would handle a lot of things differently - like electing Senators. Long supports repealing the 17th amendment to the Constitution which provides for direct election of Senators.

So to these fine Republicans whining because Nancy Pelosi decided to speak about how she helped make lives better for Americans, I say, with my best Jersey accent, from the bottom of my heart...

Fuck You!

Our opponents don't think we have the right to make decisions

In a piece about a dubious interpretation that that filibuster is unconstitutional that he's received emails from conservatives that

convince me that the perception that the Obama administration isn't just liberal, but is unconstitutional in a way that's actively dangerous, has more traction on the right than I'd realized.

This is actually a fairly critical insight that I don't think get pointed out enough in liberal political circles. What Ezra is writing is that he is hearing from conservatives who don't just disagree with Obama and liberals and Democrats, but think that they don't have a right to be a position to make decisions for the country.

Fundamentally, we are illegitimate, and therefore nothing is off-limits in the effort to stop us.

Seen through this prism, Two-Time Car Thief Darrel Issa's attack the Obama administration as "corrupt" because of government spending on TARP, the stimulus, and health care reform, makes sense. The policies that the Democrats and Obama support are inherently corrupt because the people who hold those position are allowed to be in a position to act on them. Its a clever maneuver because it both makes compromise impossible, while insulating those Republicans who suddenly find themselves opposing the exact positions they supported before the Democrats took over from the charges of hypocrisy.

Understanding this is the first step to understanding how to change the way we fight them. When we try and fight these attacks on the basis of assuming our opponents goodwill, we inevitably lose. We need to understand that when the other side doesn't grant you standing to even be involved in an argument, you can't grant them an assumption good faith. We need to understand the contempt in which they hold us - and react accordingly.