I frequently see the same complaint by leftists here and elsewhere: The GOP is great at reducing their issues to sound bites (death panels, etc.), while Dems are terrible at it, nattering on about nuance, putting out ponderous position papers and getting lost in lumbering laundry lists.
But I think I have a pretty good sound bite to sum up the stakes of November's election. It's short, it cuts through the clutter and it takes the form of a question:
Should the Middle Class Exist?
Do we think it's worth it, having a middle class in the U.S.? Has the great social transformation of our country -- waged by labor and, yes, BIG government -- been worthwhile? Or should we just embrace the collapse of this novel economic category and resume the more typical historical duality of aristocrats and peasants?
Because if the "conservative" movement in this country stands for anything, it's the end of the middle class and the resumption of the feudal formula: a few mega-rich, ultra-powerful people controlling ALL wealth, and the rest of us living off scraps, sleeping in the streets and begging for alms. Goodbye not only to the social safety net, but to worker safety, child-labor laws and all the other institutional protections we once considered sacrosanct. It's all being prepped for history's ash-pile, if that's what we want.
If that's what we vote for.
You see, "we" can't afford that stuff anymore, if you listen to right-wing think-tankers, Tea Party candidates, very serious Fox News commentators and conservadox columnists. The implicit "we," the royal "we," is the extremely, obscenely wealthy. The 1% who control most of our wealth. The same "we" that can afford pretty much ANYTHING. That used to pay regular taxes until Dubya and now considers its unfettered right to generate monstrous sums without paying a dime to be a Divine Right. You've probably seen the recent diaries on the subject, including rec-list pieces about Bernie Sanders' spot-on critique and jamess' profoundly disturbing "Middle Class Is Still Losing Ground", among others.
Standing up for the middle class does not mean abandoning the poor or the working class. It means creating a space of opportunity for everyone who isn't wealthy. Because the odds of becoming crazy rich are infinitesimal, but the chance (in the sane, humane economic order we seek to rebuild) to join the middle class is at least realistic.
We've been trying to have an argument about this, on DKos, on MSNBC, on The Daily Show and NPR. But we keep getting distracted by the latest crazy diatribe by Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh, the newest offensive screed by Michele Bachmann, Sharron Angle or Rand Paul. We will not have the core argument unless we remember that, however creepy and awful these champions of ultraconservatism may be, they're not the ones with real power. They work for the ones who hold it, like Rupert Murdoch, Halliburton, BP and the Wal-Mart families. They are mere handmaidens of the powerful. They are rodeo clowns, leaping out to divert the bronco so the real rider is protected.
I might add that "conservative" voters who are not wealthy are every bit as victimized by these policies as we are, and intended, like us, to run around screaming about what Glenn said and Rush said and Obama said. By being at one another's throats we do the bidding of the rider.
I believe the one question that must be posed at every juncture in the remaining few months before midterms 2010 is this one: Should we have a middle class? And if so, how do we make sure we'll still have one tomorrow, considering how it's slipping away? And if your answer is, give tax breaks to that 1% because they might create jobs someday, your real answer is no, we should not have a middle class. If your answer is that we can't afford social spending or stimulus programs, your answer is no, let the middle class disappear; let all who are not rich forage in dumpsters for opportunity. If you would rather talk about border fences or reverse-racism or the sanctity of marriage or your imperiled gun rights, you are a rodeo clown in the employ of the rider, the one-percenter, the insatiable, gluttonous aristocracy.
Class war, they'll scream. To which the only sensible reply is, It's the class war you started and are waging. If you win it, the middle class dies. If we win it, the middle class lives. Let America decide.
A candidate who stands up unapologetically for the middle class wins. Whether challenger or incumbent, the candidate who steers the narrative back to this issue over and over again will prevail. This is the frame and the meme and the power and the glory, hosannah, so take it and light it up and hoist it high. Stay on message. Lather, rinse and repeat.
Ignore the rodeo clowns for a while; let's focus on the rider.