Cross posted from Pruning Shears.
Paul Krugman writes that he has a unicorn problem: Both Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders are promising things that won't get passed by Congress, but he believes Clinton's are backed up by realistic numbers and Sanders' aren't. So Hillary is promising unicorns and Bernie is promising magical unicorns, and that's a problem for those like him who don't believe in magic.
He arrives at this conclusion by only referencing those who agree with him, then conflates that with most liberal policy wonks. (He later writes that it's based on the opinions of "I and most of my wonk friends." Much better!) He apparently doesn't think the analysis of economists who disagree with him are worth dignifying with a response. Nor does he address some more prosaic items - that, for instance, a sketched out proposal on the campaign trail is not a finalized document ready to be signed into law, or that single payer systems do actually exist in the world. The very idea that America could have it, under any circumstances, is something Krugman treats like another unicorn. (He's smart enough to not come right out and say that though.)
In his words, "nothing like that is going to happen in America any time soon." TINA - There Is No Alternative. But if something like that is going to happen, ever, how will it? The US has had a center-right paradigm for decades, which means the status quo provides, at best, highly complex technocratic modifications to the existing system. But what if, say, a presidential candidate made Medicare for all a central plank of his platform? Not just an endorsement of the idea somewhere deep in a policy paper but who highlighted it in stump speeches over and over?
And what if that candidate got a huge popular endorsement of the idea, won primaries based on the message and was even competitive for a major party nomination based on it? In that scenario it starts to become an alternative. In Krugman's fatalistic view our current governing philosophy is preserved in amber for all time. Of course single payer is not realistic right now. A Sanders victory would be a big contributor to getting it there, though.1
As someone who leans Sanders, Krugman's analysis falls flat. We already have a single payer system, other countries have universal single payer systems, this stuff can be worked out. And the process of doing so - even just having an extended discussion of it - helps change the discourse from hostility to the idea to consideration of it. I don't see how that's a bad thing, nor do I see how else he proposes to get to there from here.
Now, maybe he is only interested in preaching to the choir and doesn't care about persuading anyone. Fair enough. But I have to say, anyone who wants to offer a sobering critique of Sanders from the left might want to look at something else: Sanders' approach to politics. If there are things he does - and there are - that would work against the kind of changes he advocates, it would give pause to even his most ardent supporters. If he's unwilling to share credit, doesn't want to campaign with or otherwise boost candidates who embrace his vision, if he insists on getting 100% of his way and is a terrible negotiator - these things could sabotage a far less ambitious agenda.
It would also help Krugman's case if he didn't give Clinton a pass on everything. To take just one example from this week, she proposed a $2 billion program to address the school-to-prison pipeline. Which sounds great on its face, but then it turns out the key component involves flooding schools with social workers - presumably with the message "here's how to stay out of trouble, kids." In other words, a kinder and gentler version of bringing super predators to heel.
Her proposal essentially treats the root cause as pathology and not institutional racism. Might that money better be spent on criminal justice reform, de-militarizing police forces or ending ridiculously punitive teaching methods? The fact that Krugman is comfortable blandly asserting Clinton's proposals are fine and good while giving unreasonable levels of scrutiny to Sanders' makes it hard to view him as some kind of objective arbiter.
But anyway, Clinton's proposal is in the end just another illusion, right? Krugman's rather cynical subtext is that nothing can change so you may as well make peace with the way things are. Unicorns are everywhere, none of it is real, the best you can do is settle for the candidate offering the least outlandish lies. Here's the thing though. Every last goddamn decent and humane thing America has ever done started out as a unicorn. And then enough people noticed it was really a horse with a papier-mâché horn.
NOTES
1. Funny enough, Trump winning the nomination would contribute to it as well. This election season, more than any other in recent memory, is running not on the liberal/conservative axis but the insider/outsider one. In the former, social issues that Democrats and Republicans disagree on dominate. In the latter, economic policy that they largely agree on (in Washington anyway) but are broadly disliked elsewhere come front and center. Trump's defense of Social Security and Medicare, his criticisms of trade deals, and so on are all heretical for Beltway Republicans - but it isn't hurting him with voters. The GOP base is not as rigidly opposed to economic populism as many on the left suppose. If Republicans in Congress start hearing from constituents demanding they pass a Medicare expansion, they'll pay attention. As the saying goes, Democrats hate their base, but Republicans fear theirs.
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