The 2008 Presidential Campaign was a referendum on the Bush years, and in spite of the fact that the country is still in a Conservative frame of mind, the outcome was clear. But then there was something else – the financial crisis. It appeared on the doorstep of most Americans in September 2008, though its roots were far deeper and older [Jan 20, 1981]. Neither the country nor the campaign were focused on that topic. Recall that until July 2008, the co-chairman of McCain’s campaign was Phil Gramm, a major architect in the coming Financial Crisis. We didn’t enter the voting booth to pick a captain to lead us through what has become the front running issues of the day – money. We picked someone to give us change, hope, honesty. At the time of the election, most of us didn’t know what housing bubble, CDS, CDO, Derivatives, stuff like that really even meant.
Thus, a real mess. The Liberal/Progressive set was all ready to fight the good fight to regain some sanity after the Bush years. Instead of that, we find ourselves embroiled in another kind of crazy. The Right opportunized on the mess they had themselves created and focused the anti-government furor on the Obama Administration. So we have a nation of angry people – angry Liberals, angry Conservatives, and angry everyone else. And the government, [any version] is taking the hit for all of it. The rich are being consumed by greed. The left is disillusioned. Moderates are disgusted. It’s ironic that much of the furor is pointed at TARP – a Bush era solution.
To me, the most absurd part is the National Debt. Obama is taking a huge hit on that topic. Yet the graph couldn’t be clearer about who ran up the debt:
And how it happened [tax cuts]:
What’s being said right now is grossly irrational. That’s why it’s so disheartening. The country is "leveraged." One can only do that so long, then the house of cards falls down. We’ve talked a lot about economic bubbles, but what we have right now is a bubble for an economy – valued at more than it’s worth.
While I have been banging my head against the economic impossibility of these times, my friend
ShrinkRap has followed a more philosophical path. After reading the
Ideological Divide in the recent New York Review of Books,
he wrote:
…But here is what gave it a new sense of clarity: It goes on to say that clarity has such an advantage over nuance, "just as emotion so often beats reason, and the varsity fullback will most likely deck the captain of the debate team in a fistfight." Yes, it’s true, we knew all that – and Drew Westen has been trying to drive that message home for years.
Liberals are at a disadvantage because politics, at its essence, is about self-interest, an idea that at first glance seems more closely aligned with conservatism. To make their more complex case, liberals must convince a nation of individualists that enlightened self-interest requires mutual interest, and that the liberal project is better constructed for the demands of an increasingly interdependent world.
So we have the Republicans who know how to exploit this self-interest and the sense that big brother government is going to take it away from you and give it to the undeserving poor – when in fact the government they want to vote in would take it from them, even more, and give it to the wealthy and the corporations…
While I personally believe that "enlightened self-interest requires mutual interest" and that the "liberal project is better constructed for the demands of an increasingly interdependent world," I don’t think that "liberals must convince a nation of individualists…" is right, or even possible. It sounds like finger pointing [and it is]. You don’t win friends saying, "You’re being selfish!" I think one might do better saying "They are being selfish and taking your stuff!" – and prove it. I don’t think you get mileage from saying, "Help others." I think you get mileage from saying, "Here’s how I’m going to help you." And I think you have to counter the back story of the whole Republican meme ["welfare mothers" and "lazy deadbeats"] with the fact that the current drain on the rest of us are the "filthy rich" [mostly financial services people] who are the modern equivalent of the "welfare mothers." If outsourcing jobs is our problem, stop outsourcing jobs. If immigration is our problem, stop immigration. If those are not our problems – prove it. We know that the real problem right now is "Big Money" rather than "Big Brother." So if the greedy rich are our problem [which they are], go after them with a vengeance and put them in jail. It worked with Al Capone…
I actually agree with you, MIckey. The quote I took from the NYR diagnoses the problem and pegs what needs to happen, but it’s solution can’t be the simplistic “stop being selfish.”
How about portraying the fat cats as: “They took all the money out of the bank and left you homeless and jobless, and now they’re trying to take your vote as well by pretending they’re going to fix things for you. They won’t. They’re only in it for themselves. But stick with the team that is really trying to do the hard job of fixing the mess they created. It’s really Obama and the Democrats who will help you get that job and that home back.”