Are the Dems destroying their brand?

Such as it is, I mean.  But sheesh, if the Democratic Party isn't going to have a hair-on-fire moment about 10% unemployment, exactly what is the point of having a Democratic Party?

Krugman, this morning:

[T]his isn’t a recovery, in any sense that matters. And policy makers should be doing everything they can to change that fact.

The small sliver of truth in claims of continuing recovery is the fact that G.D.P. is still rising: we’re not in a classic recession, in which everything goes down. But so what?

The important question is whether growth is fast enough to bring down sky-high unemployment. We need about 2.5 percent growth just to keep unemployment from rising, and much faster growth to bring it significantly down. Yet growth is currently running somewhere between 1 and 2 percent, with a good chance that it will slow even further in the months ahead. Will the economy actually enter a double dip, with G.D.P. shrinking? Who cares? If unemployment rises for the rest of this year, which seems likely, it won’t matter whether the G.D.P. numbers are slightly positive or slightly negative.

All of this is obvious. Yet policy makers are in denial.

After its last monetary policy meeting, the Fed released a statement declaring that it “anticipates a gradual return to higher levels of resource utilization” — Fedspeak for falling unemployment. Nothing in the data supports that kind of optimism. Meanwhile, Tim Geithner, the Treasury secretary, says that “we’re on the road to recovery.” No, we aren’t.

As Cassandra Krugman points out, there isn't a whole lot the Dems can do in the way of legislation right now, but there are some limited actions that the Administration can take independently.  As Krugman says, "It can revamp its deeply unsuccessful attempt to aid troubled homeowners. It can use Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored lenders, to engineer mortgage refinancing that puts money in the hands of American families."  And the Administration can and should lean on the Fed to do everything it can, regardless of prospects for success.

Finally, the very least that the Dems can do is pound at the GOP legislative roadblock 24/7 between now and the election.  If the Dems don't propose anything, then the GOP doesn't have to block anything, and both sides look exactly the same to the typical low-information voter.  Every Dem worth his or her salt should be deeply angry about the fact that the GOP refuses to let them help ordinary Americans, and should be expressing that anger every time they have a TV camera on them or a microphone in front of them.

And they need to craft legislation - big legislation, dammit, no pussyfooting around - that would get money into people's pockets, and put people back to work. Let's have aid to states, food stamps, further unemployment aid extensions, and every unsexy infrastructure investment we're going to have do do sometime anyway: legislation that would repair or replace every last aging, crumbling water or sewer system in this country, that would rebuild a few thousand of our most dangerous crumbling highway bridges, and that would remove some of the major bottlenecks in our freight rail system (e.g. Chicago, Baltimore) and build freight lines on major transportation corridors where existing freight lines are either inadequate (e.g. I-95 in the Southeast) or nonexistent (I-81).

We're gonna have to do this stuff anyway.  So it's insane not to do it now, and put people to work at a time when far too many people simply can't find a job.  And that's what every Democrat in Congress, or running for Congress, ought to be saying right now.  Over and over again, loudly, at the top of their lungs.  On every damned Sunday talk show, every damned week.  And making the GOP block debate on such legislation, over and over again.

Finally, they ought to promise that if they're still in control of Congress in January, they'll end the filibuster so that they can pass this legislation whether the Republicans like it or not.

And it wouldn't hurt if, on top of this, Obama shut down the silly (and potentially dangerous) Catfood Commission.  If there was ever a time to talk about cutting Social Security benefits or raising the retirement age, it certainly isn't now.  Obama should say so, clearly and unambiguously, and send them home.

Let's at least give people something to vote for, okay?  Because if the Dems keep treating this moment like it was no big deal - the GOP's blocking everything, there's nothing we can do, so we're just not going to treat unemployment as an issue - then the Dems will lose control of at least one house of Congress, maybe both, this November, no matter how terrible the GOP is.

Sure, people like us will support the Dems, no matter what.  But think on this: during his 1956 presidential campaign, a woman called out to Adlai E Stevenson 'Senator, you have the vote of every thinking person!'  Stevenson called back 'That's not enough, madam, we need a majority!'  We, too, need a majority.  And we're damned sure not going to get one unless we are visibly fighting for that majority.  If the Dems aren't fighting for those who are hurting from our continuing economic troubles, then the people who should be voting Democratic probably won't vote Republican, but they may well just give up, drift off, and conclude that neither side is worth voting for, so why bother?

It's hard to blame them.  And that's the danger here.

Comments

[MR Bill]

Polls keep showing a majority of people support allowing the Bush Tax cuts for the wealthiest to expire. But I keep reading that "Senior Democratic thinkers" are preparing to keep the cuts: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/26/AR2010082605951.html

WTF?

John Cole is very good on this...
It gets really hard to be a democrat. Because you can't be a liberal or progressive and support crap like this.
And it's suicidal.

[Joe]

The problem here is that the Democrats are caught in neoliberal/third way paradigm on economics. At some level, its hard to blame older Democrats. The international Left looked terrible after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Bill Clinton did have a conservative economic policy which appeared very successful in the 1990's. Politically, the GOP seems to only get stronger as it grows more orthodox as to laissez faire capitalism.

This is why you have Summers and Geithner essentially running the Democratic economic program, and why deficit reduction is seen as a key to economic success. It is sadly, why I don't see any hope of the Democratic Party combatting our economic problems any time in the near future.

[low-tech cyclist]

MR Bill - yeah, I saw that too. And had pretty much the same reaction.

And like you say, polls keep showing that a majority of Americans support killing the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy. It's not just us bloggy types. A majority of Americans also support infrastructure investment to put people back to work. That's not just us either.

And if the Dems want to kill the Bush tax cuts on the wealthy, they've got the upper hand in terms of negotiating position: if Congress does nothing, ALL the 2001 Bush tax cuts expire in four months.

Let 'em: the tax cuts that don't go to the over-$250K set, mostly go to people like my wife and me, who make less than $250K but still in six figures.

You know what? My wife and I can do just fine without the Bush tax cuts. If you're making $100K a year, and you need the Bush tax cuts to squeak by, then you're handling your money very badly. There may be exceptions to that, but not enough of them to build tax rates around.

[low-tech cyclist]

Via Atrios,
Struggling Cities Shut Firehouses in Budget Crisis.

Joining other recent state and local initiatives like turning off street lights, letting paved roads go back to gravel, going to a 4-day school week, and (a sign of our true national greatness!) requiring kids to bring in their own TP to school.

I wish I was making this up.

[low-tech cyclist]

Oh, and the second-quarter GDP growth was just marked down from 2.4% to 1.6%. You need upwards of 2.5% to get people back to work at all; you need to be well upwards of that to get them back to work fast.

And new and existing home sales are both in the crapper, and there's been a bunch of other bad indicators lately.

The Dems ought to be reacting to this recent spate of crappy economic news the way Bush ought to have responded to the infamous August 6, 2001 "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S." PDB.

Unfortunately, they're reacting to this economic news in roughly the same way Bush responded to the PDB. The results will probably be even more disastrous, just less spectacularly visible.

[oddjob]

Here's more on the costs neighboring municipalities are bearing as a consequence of Lawrence, MA closing half of its firehouses.

Last week there were a few other articles about this in the Boston Globe, too.

[oddjob]

From Talking Points Memo, back on 7/14/10:

Blame Games: Dems Give Up On Economy After Weeks Of GOP Obstruction

[Sir Charles]

It's all very discouraging.

Evidently Summers' portfolio sweeps very broadly throughout the administration and these policies seem to reflect his world view.

It's a really disastrous posture. I just don't understand why there is no reaction to changed circumstances. I could understand the argument six months ago that the recovery was taking off and all would soon be better. But it has been apparent for some time that the recovery is tepid at best and that longterm problems threaten to persist both in terms of unemployment and in the real estate market.

The president should be passionately calling for action on a daily basis.

[low-tech cyclist]

And even at that point, the Dems were only able to get the occasional scraps through Congress.

By now, (a) things are clearly going south fast in the real economy, and (b) it's clear that they've gotten what they can get out of the GOP.

The need is enormous, but there's no longer an argument for scaling back aspirations in the hopes of passing a bill. The Dems might as well go large, ask for everything that (a) economically makes sense and (b) they think would go over well with the public, and repeatedly force the GOP to filibuster that bill in the Senate. Maybe even keep Congress in session right up to Election Day to drive the point home.

I want a party with the courage of its convictions. Hell, I want a party that HAS some convictions.

[Calvin Jones and the 13th Apostle]

Sir Charles:
The president should be passionately calling for action on a daily basis.

I've been saying this for a while now. Fuck it. Go on TV every night if need be. His weekly address(that shows up on Saturday .. and which no one watches except junkies) is not enough. I am curious how bad it has to get before he dumps Geithner and Summers. And one last thing. I know a lot of people poo-poo this, but if we are still in this situation in two years, you might just see someone try to primary Obama. Especially if the U-3 is 10% or more. People aren't going to be patient any more like they were with FDR. Especially when they see little being done. Because depsite Beck and the rest of those rodeo clowns, people can see that not much is being done to fix stuff.

[Joe]

The problem is that Summers' worldview (or more appropriately, the people like Summers, the neoliberals/Blue Dogs) is that: (1) this kind of hardship is necessary for a highly functioning market (remember, these are the people who advocated cutting social programs everywhere after the Asian and Mexican financial crises); and (2) the policies which would actually stimulate demand would hurt the business classes (by devaluing financial stocks, raising the price of labor, higher taxes to redistribute and thus stimulate demand etc.). If you want these things to happen, you need a fight within the Democratic Party to achieve dominance over the Third Wayers/Neolibs.

[low-tech cyclist]

If you want these things to happen, you need a fight within the Democratic Party to achieve dominance over the Third Wayers/Neolibs.

I agree. But I think you don't get the fight unless first you get some sort of progressive party-within-a-party (PWAP) inside the Democratic Party that's willing to play hardball at primary time.

Not sure, but I think Citizens United may have opened the door to an organization such as this being able to fund primary races. It still wouldn't be able to directly give much money to primary candidates, but people like us would be able to give as much money as we wanted to the PWAP, and it would be able to run unlimited ads supporting its favored candidates and attacking the DLC/Third Way lackeys of the business class.

[JMG]

The Democratic party would way rather lose than fight. There's no point in voting for it in any election except to block Republicans, and the Democrats are lousy at that, too.

[Hal (GT)]

I don't think Krugman really offers anything better. Keynesian economics are dooming us. What they need to do is get out of the way and stop regulating business to death.

[Joe]

How are Keynesian economics dooming us ? And to the extent business is being regulated "to death", well some businesses deserve to die.

[Sir Charles]

Hal,

You're fucking kidding us, right? Businesses being regulated to death! You think that's the cause of our current woes.

Jaysus. Talk about misunderstanding basic facts.

[big bad wolf]

mock him now, but when the world collapses Hal(GT) is going to have lots of delicious and nutritious. plus metals are shiny and shiny things are cool

[big bad wolf]

delicious and nutritious metals. damn, i'm going in so many directions at once i can't even get snark out straight

[Corvus9]

At this point, with the democrats I have moved through all the stages of grief and on to acceptance. Ok, Americans are going to vote the Republicans back into power in Congress. Well, that will give the American people, that hive of fools and idiots, one last time to see just how evil those people are. There will be no working with them, so Obama will have to finally ditch his gameplan as it has been so far. With the republicans controlling both houses of Congress, and showing zilch interest in working with him, he will either fail, or start trying to burn them down. There is no other option. We might be seeing the limits of what he can actually do.

Maybe electing a Black Guy wasn't the beginning of our move away from the nightmare of the last forty years. Maybe it was the last gasp of air before drowning ourselves in our own filth.

[oddjob]

I see that Hal(GT) hasn't grasped that it was the removal of regulation (engineered in the 1990's by that Republican Congress) that made it possible for Wall Street and the big mortgage lenders to fuck us all royally, leading directly to the bubbles and mess we are in now.

Our grandparents knew from firsthand experience that laissez faire economics led to such disasters. That's why they relentlessly voted for Democrats, for Franklin Roosevelt, and for Roosevelt's Keynesian economics!

[Sir Charles]

Let's hail the rands! -- Kruger, Ayn, and Paul.

[big bad wolf]

corvus, don't fall for the media and internet meme of deciding the thing and its aftermath before the thing occurs. that we all have too much information and computer-induced ADD doesn't erase real time; it just obscures it. i'm not wildly optimistic about november, but it may not be so bad. always remember at this point in august, president dukakis was way ahead.

[Eric Wilde]

The Democratic party would way rather lose than fight.

Defeatocrats. It is an appropriate term. JMG is exactly right. The only reason to vote for a Dem is to not vote for a Republican. Sometimes I wonder if its worthwhile to even vote to keep out the Repugs. Then I remember the last ten years and Reagan and I realize that it is worth voting just to keep out the Repugs.

[Joe]

A good number of the Dems turn out to be all right-- Sanders, Durbin, Frank, Pelosi, Franken, Boxer. They just won't call out the conservadems. For 2010, I'm just lucky I don't have to choke on my bile and vote for a conservadem.

[Corvus9]

Yeah, bbw, it's just that I feel like the Dems have all but given up at this point. Maybe they're just catching their breath before their attack, but they don't seem to really be able to do anything any more. And the polling just looks awful, and has for a long time. Something has to shift, like, paradigm shift, in order for the election to not be a total bloodletting. And really, after the recent polling on the "mosque" controversy, I just don't have enough faith in my fellow Americans to think they will do the right thing in November.

[low-tech cyclist]

The Democratic party would way rather lose than fight.

I've been reading Battle Cry of Freedom, running several chapters behind TNC's online discussion group. In mid-1862, a delegation of politicians approached Lincoln, wanting him to dump that drunkard Grant. He replied something to the effect of, "I can't spare this man. He fights."

Lincoln spent most of the Civil War looking for generals who would fight. I feel like I've spent the past 20 years looking for Democrats who would fight.

I wonder if what it's going to take, ultimately, is for people who've grown up politically in the Daily Kos community and elsewhere in the lefty blogosphere to start running in Democratic primaries themselves.

[Joe]

There really may have to be an ecological catastrophe akin to the Dust Bowl before we see a real paradigm shift. Apparently, the Great Recession is not changing people's minds. Although, the "swing voters" (middle and upper middle class White independents) aren't people who are going to be changed as much as replaced.

[Sir Charles]

Corvus,

I find myself stuck in the anger phase. Really, really angry.

[big bad wolf]

i don't have much faith in them (democrats or my fellow citizens) either, corvus, but we gotta go on and make do. if we're going be stuck in a phase, SC, i think it should be anger: let fury have the hour/anger can be power, as some old band said. course we have to get out of the office first.

[Sir Charles]

I'm taking my aggressions out on my opponent having just written these phrases in the last five minutes -- "this is sophistry on a breathtaking level" and "[blank's] argument is as audacious as it is unpersuasive."

Litigation and a bad mood sometime go together like a horse and carriage.

[Corvus9]

The problem with Anger is that I spent almost the entirety of the Bush years in at state of blind apoplectic rage. Even towards the end I was just outraged out. I just don't have it in me anymore.

Although, I will say this: I don't think there is anything lost in having from rage, and having a place to vent. I have been thinking, lately about The Continuing Adventures of ED Kain in the Land Of Balloons, and the hot water he got into when he complained about the commenters at his home base. What ED doesn't really get, and what maybe John Cole doesn't get, is that a place like Balloon Juice is a place where people go to vent. It's a communal exorcism, across the internet, of bad vibes. And you don't really want the enemy in your sweat lodge. So maybe it's not so bad, when some rightwinger shows up and starts swearing shit all over the walls with his deregulation talk, to just tell him to fuck himself. Yeah, he will go off and bitch about how closeminded liberals are, but fuck him. We weren't going to change his mind, and he wasn't going to change ours. Fuck it. There are more important things in life then being polite all the time. Like still having your spleen.

"Maybe, maybe not. Maybe fuck yourself."

[Sir Charles]

Corvus,

I do think there is something to be said for the communal rage venting role.

I have found my anger lately to be much more debilitating that exhilirating. It's not helping with my writing. (Of course part of that is that I have been writing non-stop at work for the last two weeks -- sometimes for 12, 13, 14 hours a day.) When I'm done with that I have nothing left -- and then my rage at all things political leads me total immobility.

[Corvus9]

Yeah, I feel like my moments of rage of late have been quickly followed by moments of "Forget it, Jake. It's Chinatown." You know?

[big bad wolf]

don't let it still your writing or drinking hands, SC.

yeah, it is chinatown, but everything changes some over time. easier for me to say here than to believe in the day to day, but things do change and mostly improve over time. the day to day is hard, though

[Eric Wilde]

And now I simply must go listen to "Rage Against the Machine."

[low-tech cyclist]

I keep going back to my old line about how we're not expecting the Dems to save us; that we're working through the Democratic party to try to save the country.

The problem is, we blogospheric types still haven't developed sufficiently independent means to move the Democrats towards saving the country at moments like this when a significant chunk of elected Dems are caught in indecision between the alternatives of running away or curling up in fetal position. We're still almost totally dependent on the Dems' deciding on their own whether to try to take a stand or not.

I can only hope to live to see a moment when the Dem base routinely fields a wide-ranging set of primary challenges to the Congressional Dems who seem to undercut the party's message, year in and year out.

[oddjob]

And for that you need a passionate set of voters large enough to have clout. That set of voters came out for the '08 election, but doesn't appear likely to come out for November's.

[Joe]

I guess we have to hope that "it's darkest before the dawn." There's great theoretical and philosophical work going on outside the U.S. on how to reconstruct a left leaning economics different from communism (Amartya Sen, Roberto Unger). The Obama Campaign showed us how to harness the power of social networking. Younger people in this country are not nearly as enamoured of economic and social conservatism. There just hasn't been a sustained movement yet for reform of our environmental policies and greater reform of our economic policies.

[Sir Charles]

Joe,

I am finally finishing up Tony Judt's Ill Fares the Land and the end of the book really deals with the need to formulate a new language and new modes of thinking to press for a non-Marxist vision of the left, one that differs from the technocratic, middle of the road or third way liberalism that Clinton and Blair pioneered and which Obama seems to be falling into.

I think this is really the vital project of the next several years if we are going to have anything approaching a left wing politics in this country.

[Corvus9]

I am eternally optimistic on the ultimate leftward movement of our political culture, if only because I know it is right and once a truth is known is cannot be unknown. We will win by a tiny little steps.

However, that doesn't mean that we will win any time in the immediate future. And in order to do so, we will need to formulate a vision of leftist policies, that can be realistically implemented from the present social climb, and of leftist values that are in no way incoherent within the larger cultural movment of Western liberal humanism (that is, values that show a proper respect for liberty and equality, and thus doesn't try to rely on authoritaianism and the existence of elite party members in order to accomplish it's goal).

[Joe]

One of the authors who most influenced me over the years is Roberto Unger. I studied his work intensively in law school. He was a Harvard professor who returned to Brazil and is currently the Minister of Strategic Affairs in the Lula government in Brazil. After leaving law school, he published several books which I have been intending to get to reading (I listened to Podcasts by Unger on the books): The Future of American Progressivism; What the Left Should Propose; and The Left Alternative. Unger is, to my mind, one of the most insightful political writers out there today. He has been working on reinvigorating left leaning pragmatism and the idea of restructuring markets from a left perspective. In this way, I feel he provides a helpful way of looking at the insights of people like Ronald Coase, Richard Thaler, Richard Posner, and Cass Sunstein-- but from the values of the global Left (most importantly, egalitariansim).

[Sir Charles]

Corvus,

I think that the left will prevail in a cultural sense, which is to say that things like gay marriage will ultimately cease to be viable points of contention.

However, "rights oriented" liberalism can actually erode the support for more solidarity based policies designed to promote economic equality. Someone like Andrew Sullivan can fit in fairly comfortably with people on the left on the former issues, but be utterly unmoved by the pull of leftist economics.

There is a real need for the kind of leftist critique of economic power to which Joe is alluding -- and I don't think we are in that good of a position on this score. I think our culture in this respect is far less promising than it was forty or fifty years ago.

Joe,

See above. I have to read Unger. I don't think I have ever knowingly done so.

[Eric Wilde]

Corvus,

I wish I could share your enthusiasm; but, Rome also degenerated and ultimately fell.

[Eric Wilde]

Sorry, make that 'optimism' not 'enthusiasm.'

[Corvus9]

Sir Charles, I think when I am talking about " leftist values that are in no way incoherent within the larger cultural movment of Western liberal humanism" I am not talking about the same thing that you are when you talk about "rights oriented" liberalism. I definitely I am not in any way referencing the values of Andrew Sullivan, whose basic political worldview is as self-centered and childish, and ultimately less in tune with the cultural current of the West than leftism is. I don't see "solidarity based policies designed to promote economic equality" as necessarily in opposition to Western liberal humanism. I am merely saying that the left has to come up with a new model that contains no elements of authoritarianism and coercion, as all forms of leftism derived from the Russian Revolution, even Trotskyism, are.

Really, I think we are on the same page here. This is just a miscommunication stemming from the haziness of terminology.

[Corvus9]

Eric,

Don't confuse my enthusiasm for a for a leftist future with a belief it will necessarily be America that leads us there. I think it is very possible that America's global power and prestige will collapse, and America will become second fiddle to Europe. In fact, I almost hope it happens. It might have to happen. But what I ultimately see is the Left triumphing in the West, not that America will lead the way (though I hope we do, because I think we might be needed as an edit on the morass it seems like Europe is in the at the moment.)

So, where I see the Rome analogy not working here is that the Fall of Rome is what set the West up on the trajectory towards (something like) liberal democratic socialism, which is a project we are a part of. Ultimately, we are not an Empire. We are part of a movement.

[Sir Charles]

Corvus,

See my post above. I think we are on the same page.

[Corvus9]

Oh, good.