The consensus narrative of 2010 has thus far been: Americans of every political persuasion are unimpressed with the first two years of Obama's administration. Progressives feel that the President has failed to deliver on the promises of his campaign. Conservatives are convinced that the country is on the bullet-train to Soviet hell. Moderates have, by all appearances, vanished from the political landscape. The consequence of the left's disillusionment and the right's white-hot ire (and it is very white) is that the Republicans will reclaim control of the House and, perhaps, the Senate.Of course, as history suggests, this familiar tune may have a surprise coda. The past couple of weeks have produced more "October Surprises" than a pumpkin patch laden with landmines. NPR arguably served conservatives their own Shirley Sherrod when they fired Juan Williams. Alaska Tea Partier Joe Miller is quickly slipping off the ballot, either due to his security detail's brownshirt-style bullying or his apparent inability to grow a proper beard. Meanwhile, Gawker's muckraking exposé on Christine O'Donnell's hypocritical pecadillos has both infuriated the right and disgusted the left, with little time allowed to gauge which way the fallout will gust.
The true terror is that the American left is caught between Scylla - a Republican Congress that will attempt to roll back over a century of social progress - and Charybdis - armed revolt by reactionaries who confuse an electoral setback with tyranny. Beyond any American election in the modern era, right-wing violence has move beyond the rhetorical to the literal, including voter intimidation and physical assaults upon journalists and private citizens. Several Republican candidates have even advocated armed insurrection against the federal government if the election does not tilt in their favour. This more than anything should motivate moderates and progressives alike to pursue their primary legal protection against subjugation: to vote.
Democracy is nothing if not imperfect, as it swaps more stratified forms of tyranny with that of the majority. The fundamental mistake the Democratic Party has made is to believe that they can control a two-party system by compromising with their opponents instead of winning their active support. Obviously, not everyone will be satisfied with a single party's platform, but the Republican's success stems from their talent at convincing people whose lives Republicans are actively destroying that the Grand Ol' Party represents their interests. So what is their secret?
Allow me to introduce you to Malcolm Tucker, Director of Communications in the BBC sitcom The Thick of It. As the Prime Minister's enforcer, Tucker is a parliamentary Svengali of such partisan drive and profane thuggery that he makes Rahm Emanuel look like Mr. Rogers. If there's anyone - fictional or otherwise - with the sang froid and killer instinct to produce a desired political effect, it's Tucker. So heed what he said during the British electoral campaign earlier this year:Frankly, I think you're getting the wrong advice on the debates... Most people are not going to see these Bestivals of bore. After all, with the 478 debate rules in place they're going to have all the drama of three middle-aged guys fencing with limp dicks. The only ones watching are going to be the pointless bastards who already know what they think.Now, substitute a few proper nouns in the above paragraph - swap "the Thameslink" for "Pennsylvania Turnpike", "Thatcher" for "Nixon", and "the NHS" for "Social Security" - and the same is absolutely, unequivocally true for America. Electoral success stands on the shoulders of envious, ill-informed, bored morons who've scarcely been outside their own zip-code, who can't find the next county on a map, who can't distinguish between opinion and fact, and who prefer scapegoats to solutions.
We need to get to the people who only hear the rumours. Bottom feeders who get their views via the quotes from the models in the Daily Star. Van drivers who guard their vast ignorance with concealed Stanley knives. Businessmen who like to expose their self-aggrandising cynicism to schoolgirls on the Thameslink. These dumb motherfuckers are the battlefield. Shitheels. Dunderheads. People who when you talk to them it's like shouting through six pieces of double glazing. Potheads, cider drinkers, kids who don't know who Thatcher was and think the NHS grew on a big fucking NHS tree. Wankers. People who count to 11 using their 10 fingers and their head and still get it wrong. This is who we have to get to via the debates. So we are going to have to shout extremely fucking loud.
Stupid people aren't a political hazard to be mitigated. These dumb motherfuckers are the battlefield.
The brilliant sleight-of-hand that the Republicans have performed is that they've courted a fearful middle class & a devastated working class with snappy slogans, straw-man whipping boys, and provincial snobbery. It's not that the Democrats are short on examples of how Republicans fuck over every American making under a quarter-million per year, but that the Democrats refuse the political potential of angry voters. Ironically, it's the Democrats - not Republicans - who have ignored the real political effects of class resentment, and thus have ceded the power of America's underclass to the worst colporteurs of xenophobia, superstition, paranoia, and hysteria.
The Democratic Party failed to understand that it's better to have knee-jerking mobs shouting with you rather than against you, and they are shouting extremely fucking loud. If the Democrats lose this coming Tuesday, they'll only have themselves to blame for it.
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5 comments:
it doesn't help that Obama's become a black version of Bush either.
leftists from everywhere are pretty cynical too:
http://pink-scare.blogspot.com/2010/10/on-politics-of-enthusiasm.html
http://www.distantocean.com/
Okay, when you say "Obama's become a black version of Bush," do you mean that members of his own party are disowning him like they were Jefferson and he was Sally Hemmings? Because I'll agree with that, along with the fact that both Bush & Obama (and every other president since Wilson) helm(ed) one of the most rapacious & abusive empires the world has ever seen.
But if you mean something else, then I'm not sure what you're getting at, nor do I think I'd agree.
I meant the latter. It's probably due to his supporters being lazy about activism too. Feingold's the last good guy we got right now.
A thoughtful and well-written post.
I've pretty much given up on American politics. The country has marched steadily to the right over the last twelve years, really starting with Clinton. He made all the right noises at the beginning of his first term. But when he faced his mid-term set back in congress, he was on the defensive for the next six years, and, public popularity notwithstanding, pretty much ceased to govern the last 18-months of his administration because of the Lewinsky mess.
The stolen election of 2000 followed by the 9/11 attacks and the subsequent Global War On Terror nonsense have made the country a rather dour place. And with FOX News functioning as the GOP propaganda wing it makes it impossible for too many poorly educated and/or disinterested Americans to figure out what's going on.
Interestingly, for this election, to quote Slick Willie circa 1991, "It's (again) the economy stupids." Understandable, except that Obama and the many of the Dems in congress today weren't responsible for destroying it. In fact, much of what was cobbled together in the waning weeks of Shrub's second term and in the first few months after Obama took over, has been working. It always takes longer to get out of a recession than it does reaching the bottom of one. Though, had Krugman's advice been heeded and a larger stimulus approved, things would have turned months sooner.
The other thing people seem to gloss over for this election is that Obama did not win a mandate of any sort. 2008 was not a sea change election. In fact, I believe that if John McCain wasn't one of the stupidest people in American politics, and therefore had not picked Sarah Palin as his running mate, that he would have won and we wouldn't have seen any policies dramatically different from those of the Bush administration meaning the recession would actually have been worse.
But when you've got Teabaggers holding signs saying "Keep your hands off my SS and Medicare" and then complaining about how health care reform is "the bullet-train to Soviet hell," one's hope for a third way is doomed.
As a liberal, I am one of Obama's disillusioned supporters. While he may not have had an electoral mandate, he was riding a wave of resentment against the GOP and had sufficient majorities in both houses that should have netted more dramatic legislation in the first two years. But as the health care and financial "reform" legislation have shown, both parties are now more than ever beholden to their largest corporate donors. Where's Lyndon Johnson when you need him?
So, between a clueless and politically lazy electorate and completely compromised political parties, I believe that not only is the glass half empty, but it's dirty and has a crack in it as well. Rather than the "Emerging Democratic Majority" of the book title, we may actually find that Obama's first two years the last gasp of liberalism in America and it isn't even all that liberal.
A thoughtful and well-written post.
I've pretty much given up on American politics. The country has marched steadily to the right over the last twelve years, really starting with Clinton. He made all the right noises at the beginning of his first term. But when he faced his mid-term set back in congress, he was on the defensive for the next six years, and, public popularity notwithstanding, pretty much ceased to govern the last 18-months of his administration because of the Lewinsky mess.
The 9/11 attacks and the subsequent Global War On Terror nonsense have made the country a rather dour place. And with FOX News functioning as the GOP propaganda wing it makes it impossible for too many poorly educated and/or disinterested Americans to figure out what's going on.
Interestingly, for this election, to quote Slick Willie circa 1991, "It's (again) the economy stupid." Understandable, except that Obama and the Dems weren't responsible for destroying it. In fact, much of what was cobbled together in the waning weeks of Shrub's second term and in the first few months after Obama took over, has been working. It always takes longer to get out of a recession than it does reaching the bottom of one. Though, had Krugman's advice been heeded and a larger stimulus approved, things would have turned months sooner.
The other thing people seem to gloss over for this election is that Obama did not win a mandate of any sort. This was not a sea change election by any stretch. In fact, I believe that if John McCain wasn't one of the stupidest people in American politics, and therefore had not picked Sarah Palin as his running mate, that he would have won and we wouldn't have seen any policies dramatically different from those of the Bush administration meaning the recession would actually have been worse.
When you've got Teabaggers holding signs saying about "Keep your hands off my SS and Medicare" and then complaining about how health care reform is "the bullet-train to Soviet hell," one's hope for a third way is doomed.
As a liberal, I am one of Obama's disillusioned supporters. He may not have had an electoral mandate, but he was riding a wave of resentment and had sufficient majorities in both houses that should have netted more dramatic legislation in the first two year. But as the health care and financial "reform" legislation have shown, both parties are now more than ever beholden to their largest corporate donors.
So, between a clueless and politically lazy electorate and completely compromised political parties, I believe that not only is the glass half empty, but it's dirty and has a crack in it as well.
Rather than the "Emerging Democratic Majority," we may actually find that Obama's first two years as the last gasp of liberalism in America.
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