Let me start with this: Hunter is perhaps my favorite political writer out there and is one reason I read Daily Kos regularly. He approaches his topics with a clear-eyed realism, incisive, well-crafted writing and righteous outrage. So I was dismayed to read his defeatist, uncharacteristically naïve screed this morning, railing against the fact that a fantasy congress that has never existed before in the history of America has failed to materialize yet again.
To be sure, a personal mandate to buy individual insurance policies, especially with no Public Option, is an awful, terrible idea and a naked give-away to insurance companies. But in the name of all that is good and holy, if the Republicans can unleash their flying monkeys over fake death panels, and get benign end-of-life legislation ripped out in a few weeks, surely we on the left can stir up enough public outrage to kill this particular monument to stupidity. Insofar as said diary is a call to arms in this effort, I support it.
But threatening to take ones ball and go home because some Democrats suck?
Yes, there are influential Democrats in the Senate beholden to corporate interests. That is true today, that was true yesterday, and will be true tomorrow. It was thus when Social Security was passed, it was thus when Medicare passed, it was thus when all of our labor laws passed.
So if the corporate cronies win this one, you’re done. Really? To do what? Join the Green Party? How did that work out in 2000? Bush and Gore, pretty much the same person, right?
The key is not to hope for a magic happy land, where all the Blue Dogs have been purged from congress and replaced with compliant bunny rabbits. We need to shift the balance of power away from them. It is already happening, albeit slowly. For one, conservative Democrats derive their power by partnering with like-minded Republicans. The number of Republicans that can even fake a veneer of being honest brokers has dropped precipitously, while the number of the off-the-rails crazy ones that even most conservative Democrats can’t risk being photographed with has increased exponentially. Result? The corporate wing of congress (aka "the center") is shrinking. Two, progressive Democrats are actually flexing a little muscle. How about we support them? How about we spend less time bad-mouthing their colleagues, who maybe cannot be persuaded to vote for a good bill, perhaps can be arm-twisted into getting out of the way.
And for those so aghast watching our politics in action, with the lobbyists, the corporate shills, the sell-outs, that it must already be too late, Obama/Baucus/Reid/whoever is losing this for us, the writing is on the wall, America is a wholly owned corporate subsidiary, game over, blah blah blah – shall we compare the political climate of today to the 1930s?
From the Wikipedia article on the New Deal, my italics:
The New Deal faced some vocal conservative opposition. The first organized opposition in 1934 came from the American Liberty League led by Democrats such as 1924 and 1928 presidential candidates John W. Davis and Al Smith. There was also a large but loosely affiliated group of New Deal opponents, who are commonly called the Old Right. This group included politicians, intellectuals, writers, and newspaper editors of various philosophical persuasions including classical liberals, and conservatives, both Democrats and Republicans.
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The Economy Act, drafted by Budget Director Lewis Williams Douglas, was passed on March 14, 1933. The act proposed to balance the "regular" (non-emergency) federal budget by cutting the salaries of government employees and cutting pensions to veterans by fifteen percent. It saved $500 million per year and reassured deficit hawks such as Douglas that the new President was fiscally conservative. Roosevelt argued there were two budgets: the "regular" federal budget, which he balanced, and the "emergency budget," which was needed to defeat the depression; it was imbalanced on a temporary basis.
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Historians on the left have denounced the New Deal as a conservative phenomenon that let slip the opportunity to radically reform capitalism. Since the 1960s, "New Left" historians have been among the New Deal's harsh critics.[67] Barton J. Bernstein, in a 1968 essay, compiled a chronicle of missed opportunities and inadequate responses to problems. The New Deal may have saved capitalism from itself, Bernstein charged, but it had failed to help—and in many cases actually harmed—those groups most in need of assistance.
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Former President Herbert Hoover, known for his support of "rugged individualism," argued that some (but not all) New Deal programs were "fascist," and that there was a presidential dictatorship. [Memoirs 3:420]
I am not a historian, or an economist, but I can read a graph. The New Deal became the bedrock upon which a strong middle class rose over the next 40 years. Its dismantlement, starting in the seventies, coincides with the massive upward wealth shift that has occurred over the last 30. Democrats and Republicans are not the same. I am a Democrat not because support all of our elected Democratic officials or even like very many of them, but because the Democratic Party has done far more measurable good for regular people in the past 80 years than the Republican Party. I will continue to be a proud Democrat until that ceases to be the case.
We have a real crisis in healthcare, and we need solutions now. Our system of government ensures that any fix will be far from perfect and will be contentious and controversial. Nevertheless, we cannot give up. We are so close to something significant, I can taste it. The stars are aligned like never before. We can do this, but even if we don’t by the end of this year, WE CAN’T GIVE UP. We have to come back next year, next congress, until we get it done. It is far too important.
In memoriam:
The great adventures which our opponents offer is a voyage into the past. Progress is our heritage, not theirs. What is right for us as Democrats is also the right way for Democrats to win.
Ted Kennedy, 1980 Address to Democratic Convention