During his presidential campaign running against Bill Clinton, H.W. Bush famously responded to a goal related question: “oh, the vision thing”. Quoting Wikipedia: “The oft-cited quote became a shorthand for the charge that Bush failed to frame his positions on individual issues in a compelling and unified manner.” Let’s see, how did that election turn out???
Anyone can tell you what the Republicans think is wrong with the country: too much taxes and too much regulation make it hard for us to compete. It’s easy to understand at a gut level, and one can find examples that seemingly demonstrate this, at least at a macro level.
What’s the Democratic vision? ...
What’s the Democratic vision? Well, damned if I know. We don’t really want to hurt old and poor people too much. We think it was bad that people committed tortured and lied to start wars and became outrageously wealthy by committing fraud which destroyed our economy, but that’s OK, we don’t really want to hold anyone accountable or remove them from their positions of power. The Republicans want to get rid of the most popular government programs (Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid), which majorities of every political segment tell pollsters they are willing to pay more taxes to retain as is… so hey, guess we’ll go along with cutting them.
We seem to be all about nibbling at the edges, rather than boldly stating that things are rotten at the core, and why. We don’t have the courage of our convictions, because we don’t seem to have any convictions. If we can’t state the underlying causes of what ails the country, at minimum, why would anyone entrust us to fix it?
When there’s only one clear vision of what’s wrong, then that vision (and the corollary ideas to correct the perceived problem) becomes established as the only “serious” approach. Of course the corporate media won’t be our friend in communicating an alternative view, but first you have to have one.
Back in the mid 2000’s, polls showed that people didn’t like G.W. Bush’s policies, but they still supported him. A big part of that was that Bush at least seemed to stand for something. The economic crash was overwhelming evidence that the conservative vision was wrong, but we are not offering a counter vision so theirs seems to prevail.
I’m in the process of reading Robert Reich’s “Aftershock: The Next Economy and America’s Future”, and I think focusing on economics makes sense because that’s what people actually vote on. So, borrowing what I think are Reich’s key ideas, here’s my problem vision:
- Wealthy people don’t spend as large a proportion of their income on goods and services as the less wealthy
- The wealthy have dramatically increased their share of the nation’s income since the late 70’s, while middle class incomes remain static
- The resulting drop in demand (relative to what our economy is capable of producing) has resulted in a reduced need for employees
- The excessive money in the hands of the wealthy has led to irrational speculation (tech and housing bubbles)
- So basically, increased income inequality is a key problem we need to address
Yes, I’m mostly talking about “problem visions”, which is kind of negative. But a problem vision provides a framework to evaluate ideas. Bush tax cuts on the wealthiest? Bad. Cutting social programs that help keep the old and sick participating in the economy? Bad. Ryan’s budget? Exactly the wrong direction to go. And hey, one can think of positive ideas, too, and problem vision gives one a framework to use to evaluate and justify them.