"I'm Talking to You" - The Maps
Resorting once again to late 1970s Boston nostalgia. Another great local song from back in the day when there was such a thing.
We live in pretty strange and uncertain times. Tomorrow we are sure to be flooded with a ridiculous amount of coverage commemorating the tenth anniversary of 9/11, but my sense is that in the longer run this will not be the event that defines our times. I suspect that historians will focus instead on two phenomena that threaten to signal the end of post World War II America as we have known it -- first, the devolution of the Republican Party into a kind of nihilistic right-wing cult, impervious to empiricism and indifferent, if not hostile, to the fates of a large swath of its countrymen. As I have argued often here, it is a mass political party unlike any that has ever existed on American soil -- disciplined, cynical, deeply ideological, yet extremely unprincipled, remarkably vicious, and interested in power at any cost -- even to the point of trying to disenfranchise Americans and destroy the faith of the citizenry in their government.
The scary thing is that it seems to be working. From day one they have set out to thwart Obama at every turn and, in the process, convince the American people that there is no way for government action to make a meaningful difference in their lives. As Steve Benen, among others, has pointed out, Republicans want the economy to remain in the toilet -- they see no reason to cooperate in any policies aimed at improving it. For their efforts, the GOP was rewarded with an enormous landslide in 2010 and they could possibly emerge from the 2012 election with control of the White House and both houses of Congress -- due to the frustrations of the electorate with the continued economic doldrums. It is difficult to overstate what a disaster this would be.
At the same time, it seems increasingly obvious that something epochal is happening in the American economy. The presumption that we will continue to live in a country characterized by a large and vibrant middle class -- a place where upward mobility is an essential and defining aspect of the society -- is looking increasingly unlikely. Everything about this recession suggests something bigger and more ominous than the reaction to a real estate bubble and attendant deleveraging. All signs increasingly point to a very different kind of America emerging from the wreckage of this moment. A place that is increasingly defined by economic and political inequality and where effective political action aimed at making the economy work for the masses of people will be increasingly difficult.
I am trying to grapple with what this world looks like and what approaches -- in terms of politics and policy -- can reverse these trends. It seems worth a few posts, although I am not sure in the end I have anything to say beyond describing what many of us see.
Please join the fray.
