For those of you who may not be aware of the reference made in the title above:
"It's the economy, stupid" is a slight variation of the phrase "The economy, stupid" which James Carville had coined as a campaign strategist of Bill Clinton's successful 1992 presidential campaign against sitting president George H. W. Bush.
Source: Wikipedia
I argue that this time around, it is again about the economy.
But more specifically this election is about the two economies.
The economy for those who are doing well, very well, or extremely well.
And the economy for everyone else.
Who are not doing not so great, pretty bad, or just plain terrible.
That makes this election about economics.
Because economics explains how our economy has been reconfigured (or rigged, if you prefer) to create those two economies. A bifurcated system that benefits the few at the expense of the many. The phrases we’re hearing in the analysis of this situation are “income inequality” and “economic uncertainty”.
But those phrases are crafted to sound academic and impartial.
Let’s get into what those phrases really mean.
INCOME INEQUALITY = CLASS WARFARE
In the words of Warren Buffet:
“There’s class warfare, all right,” Mr. Buffett said, “but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.”
Source: New York Times
The rich have gotten much much much richer.
While everyone else has at best held their own.
Many have been impoverished. They’ve lost their jobs and their homes.
Some have lost everything. Because poverty is too often fatal.
INCOME INEQUALITY KILLS.
No, that’s not an overstatement. It is the literal truth. Poor people die younger. Much younger.
Far too often poor people die as children.
Let’s just gird ourselves and go there:
FAR TOO OFTEN IN OUR NATION POOR PEOPLE DIE AS INFANTS.
Income inequality has swelled the ranks of the poor. Driven a larger portion of our population into poverty. Because our income inequality has been created by a massive transfer of wealth. From the labor class upstairs to the owner class. Pushing middle class people into the lower class. And pushing lower class people into their graves.
The wealth transfer didn’t just happen all by itself:
- They marginalized the unions.
- They pilfered our pension funds (Bernie Madoff being the extreme example).
- They bought deregulation of Wall Street and turned the housing market into a craps table.
- They wrote trade agreements that sent our jobs overseas.
- They rewrote the tax code in their favor.
Anything and everything that could be done to grab a bigger share of the pie—they did it. Basically they stole back everything we wrestled away from them at the end of the Robber Baron era. And then stole a few more things just for good measure.
That’s the massive transfer of wealth that Bernie Sanders keeps talking about. He talks about it so much that he’s being attacked as a single issue candidate. But as Senator Sanders repeatedly points out, because the rich are so much richer, they have also become far more powerful.
Which is why:
INCOME INEQUALITY BROKE OUR DEMOCRACY.
Again. Because that’s exactly what happened the last time around. When the Robber Barons were the ones with the giant stacks of cash. (Although the democracy they broke back then was not as democratic as the one we’re losing now. But that’s another story. And this isn’t a history lesson. We’re trying to stay focused on economics. Because economics explains this mess we’re in.)
The rich use their enormous power to dictate the agenda:
- We can’t have a clean environment because the oil and coal and gas industries don’t want us to.
- We can’t stop Wall Street using our economy as a casino because they don’t want us to.
- We can’t have universal health care because big pharma and the health care insurance companies don’t want us to.
- We can’t change our militaristic foreign policy because the defense industry doesn’t want us to.
- We can’t get prison reform because the for profit prison industry doesn’t want us to.
The list goes on and on and on.
We should never forget:
MONEY = POWER
The owner class definitely never forgets this. They put it into action each and every day.
So that’s what income inequality is all about.
Now what does that other phrase I mentioned above really mean?
Here’s one thing that it means:
ECONOMIC UNCERTAINTY = FEAR OF FUTURE POVERTY
That’s the hard truth many Americans are facing right now. And many of them didn’t start out in those circumstances. They were born into and grew up in the middle class. But through no fault of their own, they find that a middle class life has become at best difficult to hold onto, and all too often no longer even possible.
And I’m going to beat this drum again: poor people die younger.
ECONOMIC UNCERTAINTY = FEAR OF AN EARLIER GRAVE
When your economic well-being is in decline, your death is also coming at you faster.
Let’s return to that quote I paraphrased for my title and get into a little more Clinton history.
Here we are back in 1992 with another look at the first Clinton family presidential campaign:
In order to keep the campaign on message, Carville hung a sign in Bill Clinton's Little Rock campaign headquarters that read:
- Change vs. more of the same
- The economy, stupid
- Don't forget health care.[2]
Source: Wikipedia
All these years later and health care is still a problem. Yes, we’ve made progress. But the fundamental problem has not been fixed. No one is saying that the Affordable Care Act is the end result that we want to see.
But it’s not #3 I’d like to bring to your attention.
It’s #1. Like the election in 1992, we are again looking at:
CHANGE VS. MORE OF THE SAME
But I don’t think we agree on what that phrase means right now.
Clinton has embraced Obama’s legacy. To her supporters that represents continued change in the right direction. The incremental approach. They believe it works and they’re proud of what has been accomplished.
To Sanders supporters, continuing on the same path means more of the same. And they don’t want any more of that, thank you very much. Because over the last eight years, while Obama has been in office, for many Americans (and I suspect for most Americans), things have either not improved or have grown worse. In too many cases much worse. They’re struggling and they’re scared.
Shorter Clinton: we’re on the right path and need to continue forward.
Shorter Sanders: we’re on the wrong path and headed for disaster.
That’s why feelings are running so strong. Because our viewpoints are so divergent.
And our divergent views are shaped by our divergent situations and experiences.
Yes, I am well aware that these are broad generalizations. But I believe they explain much of why this primary season we are so at odds with each other.
IN CONCLUSION:
I’ve tried to be fair in what I’ve written here.
But I think it’s clear where I stand.
So I’ll just leave you with this:
THE WEALTH TRANSFER CONTINUES.
THEY’RE STILL RIPPING US OFF.
SO THEY’RE STILL GETTING RICHER.
AND WE’RE STILL GETTING POORER.
WHICH MEANS THEY’RE STILL GETTING STRONGER.
WHILE WE’RE STILL GETTING WEAKER.
SO IT’S ONLY GOING TO GET HARDER TO STOP THEM.
THE TIME FOR THE POLITICAL REVOLUTION IS NOW.
TOMORROW IT WILL ONLY BE EVEN MORE DIFFICULT.