A Fearful America Rises to Mediocrity

I believe Santorum blew his chance in the debate the other night. There was just too much, I voted for this or that in loyalty to the party or the president, but I wouldn't do it again. Ironically, he gave us too much honesty about the fact that governing is compromise. No one wants to see sausage being made and certainly no one on the right today even wants to hear about it. Somewhat shockingly he was booed repeatedly. The Conservative “Chickens Came Home to Roost” as Matt Taibi wrote. It is more than clear that for conservatives no candidate is pure enough for this year’s electorate of true believers.  

That being said, Santorum himself is sort of batsh** crazy, but I don’t  believe all who support him are. People are frightened, about the future of the country, genuinely so.

There are two reasons for this, one sort of easy to dismiss and the other more troubling. The first—the one easier to dismiss-- is the “Armageddon is Close” argument that’s out there, full of paranoia, lies, exaggerations, and visions of doom. Jon Stewart played a long litany of this fretful paranoia going back to the 2008 campaign a few nights ago. If it weren’t for the country’s long history of virulent political dialogue and the professional certainty of the Secret Service one would be tempted to worry about some guy with a screw loose and easy absurdly access to a weapon. Fear and Loathing rules. Conservatives portray this President as the worst that ever was, but that does not go far enough for many. They trade apocalyptic ends of days fear on every talk show and at every Conservative gathering.

Wayne LaPierre of the NRA says he’s coming after your guns, though Obama has not lifted a finger on the issue of control. Limbaugh wildly claims that the President is “seizing private sector property”, while Hannity claims that “It’s end time in America” if Obama is reelected. Santorum, whipping his contraception crusade like a jockey coming ‘round the bend ten lengths back, claims that Obama is “…Basically making the argument that Catholics had to, you know, maybe even had to go so far as to hire women priests to comply with employment discrimination issues”. He goes on to say, “This is a very hostile president to people of faith”.

Yet as is so often the case rhetoric camouflages action, Mother Jones reports  “Under Obama, Catholic religious charities alone received more than $650 million… (from) the US Department of Health and Human Services”. The United States Catholic Conference of Bishops “has seen its share of federal grants from HHS jump from $71.8 million in the last three years of the Bush administration to $81.2 million during the first three years of Obama”. Last year they received $31.4 million.

So yes, there is a lot of hysterical talk out there. Thus it has always been on the campaign trail. While I do think there is a racial element to at least some of the criticism, it’s worth remembering the broadsides that Clinton endured, not only Whitewater, Travelgate, and so forth, but also stories that we he was responsible for murder and other dark sins promulgated by billionaire Richard Scaife’s endless funding. Back in those innocent times a billionaire couldn’t just buy a candidate or an election like they can in today’s Citizen’s United circumstances, so they were left to push anything they could to damage the president’s agenda. And they did. Obama is seeing these same forces do the same thing to him.

But there is another element, this one not so easy to ignore. Not ALL of the conservatives and those planning to vote that way are  batsh**. Many are just scared. Republican hysteria is not the only thing driving fear in the land. For virtually the first time in America’s modern history and certainly the first since the depression and WW II, most American parents doubt whether their children will advance to a higher step on the ladder than they. College is harder and harder to pay for, and a lot of kids get out of college with debts they will owe for 20 years or more. By overwhelming majorities, Americans think the economic game is rigged in a way that they cannot master or even navigate.  There is paralysis on almost every subject of critical “kitchen table” urgency. This is whether one is talking about employment, or gas prices, or the cost of medical care.

Even on medical care where legislation was passed, most citizens don’t yet understand the benefits of ObamaCare, and even for those that do understand the legislation somewhat there is fear about the uncertainty of costs down the line. Concern about costs weighs at some level on almost everyone earning less than a king’s ransom, particularly in the senior years. While I do think there is much to praise in the legislation Obama got passed (speaking of sausage making), in the last couple of generations medical costs as a share of GDP have gone from less than 10 to 17%. I, for one, doubt the legislation contains enough meaningful cost constraints. Obama’s milk-toast plan, now under relentless assault and more conservative hysteria about death panels and so forth can be blamed for that.  Perhaps he got the best he could, but there is legitimate concern even among his supporters that it will be close to enough.

Meanwhile, Congress in a state of near paralysis, speaks much, but does little. The Republicans in the House pass legislation with no chance in the Senate. Much of what they do pass—Jobs bills which would eviscerate the EPA-- have little chance of accomplishing goals they claim to meet. They fire up the base, but have little other practical effect. Even if God forbid, the Republicans retake Senate control in 2012, their majority will be narrow enough that this will remain so as a result of filibuster rules. The Senate passes virtually nothing of consequence, especially on fiscal matters except through temporary appropriations. Republicans on the trail note repeatedly that no budget has been passed in three years, but of course with the filibuster and narrowly divided chamber, no budget could be passed. There is a standard of brinksmanship that truly frightens people. As a liberal I certainly don’t want to see the Democrats crumble in the face of Republican refusal to consider any tax increases for the wealthiest Americans, even as they try to raise costs or eliminate programs for the poor and middle class almost across the board.  But in quiet moments we know this means gridlock and no path to accommodation or progress seems clear.

Americans disapprove of the job Congress is doing by a ratio of 9 to 1, but through gerrymandering, political accommodation at the state level, and wildly out of control campaign finance regulations, there is near certainty that somewhere about 90% of incumbents that run will be re-elected. Americans may not know that or believe it, but they have every reason to expect that not much will change in Washington after the election in terms of this paralysis on the congressional stage. And really if polled I have a pretty strong impression that most people doubt that much will change in their lives regardless of who the new president is. This has not been a campaign of Hope and Promise, and Reagan’s Shining City on the Hill (I always disliked that phrase) is a smoldering ruin at the moment. In the end America gets the Congress and the leadership they elect, and to some extent that they deserve. In fairness though, big money has soiled and distorted everything, so it is all not all the fault of a frightened and battered electorate. For all of the heat generated in this election cycle any talk about throwing-the- bums-out, or taking-back-our-country is just that.  It is hollow and phony and false. Progressives know this better than anyone. Obamas talk of Hope and Change has been reduced to hunkering down in the bunker fighting off catastrophe.

Meanwhile, at some level Americans know that much of what they hear from the Republican candidates sounds an awful lot like hard for a lot people. 20 million have been foreclosed, but the Republicans—across the board--propose eliminating any government efforts to prevent more. Let the Free Market act they say. Repeal ObamaCare is a mantra on the right and it will no doubt fire up millions to vote this fall. Even the provisions requiring portability and allowing for kids to be covered on parent policies until 26, which has already resulted in millions of insured kids for families at all income levels, will go. Let the Free Markets work, they say.

Romney and the rest continue to tell Detroit that rather saving jobs, America should have turned its back, or as they say allowed for a Managed Bankruptcy. That this would have required private financing which was not available in 2008 is not mentioned. Gingrich notes fairly that auto makers beyond the Big Three the US were doing Ok, but he neglects to point out the industry wide requests back in 2008 for auto bailouts. Why no mention you may ask? Because without government money the three would have likely perished, and if that would have happened the supplier network supporting both the Big Three as well as the US operations of Toyota and Honda and BMW would have been decimated. The choice was devastation or recovery. Obama chose recovery. Bush did too, and reiterated that in the last few weeks, but let’s not talk about that now. Let the Free Markets work they say.

Wealth has concentrated in a smaller and smaller group of hands with the much spoken of 1% controlling 35% of the nation’s wealth. The robber barons of the late 19^th and early 20^th century were pikers compared to this crowd. The Republicans will tell you that too is a result of the Free Markets, not tax Policy which taxes Romney’s $25 million at 13%, but a family of four at an income of $100,000, over 20%. Even some Conservatives get the inequality of the equation, and I think back therein the recesses know that there’s no chance they will ever see that. Still, they play the lottery (a total legitimate form of tax I guess), and if they hit they want to get that deal themselves.  At night, after their working day, with money stretched tight, and gas, food, and medical bills on the rise, though fear slips down the walls and envelops the chair where they catch a few minutes of the news from Spring Training on ESPN.

There are tens of millions who will never turn out for Obama. Yes, some of them are frightened by the apocalyptic rhetoric, and some are true believers like my Friend Tony but some are just frightened by the reality of their lives. Many voted for the President back in ‘08, voted for Change with a capital “C” and all that. But what they got was the worst gridlock imaginable. Unemployment is high, and whatever the rhetoric, the 8% number does not begin to touch the millions of additional workers underemployed and stuck in jobs that provide little future or mobility. I remember making this case to friends in the early 80’s when Reagan was touting incremental improvements in unemployment after his tax-cut recession initially stalled. The economy still sucks.  The country has no fiscal plan, educational reform agenda. Most Americans also know that gridlock has led to a non-existent energy and environmental policy that still does not invest enough in infrastructure and a clean energy future. The Chinese are investing trillions in both infrastructure and green energy. Those investments will be the reason twenty or thirty years from now the Chinese economy will still have vibrancy, even after low wage jobs have moved to less restrictive environments.

Sure as sh** the Republicans have no answers, or what they can offer are narrowly defined, previously disproved ideological ones—tax policy for example—but what is the Democratic response? Hunkering down in the bunker to fight off a catastrophe is not a policy and it will not address the rampant anxiety in the electorate.

Entitlements will have to be reformed. Benefits, especially the retirement age itself will need to be adjusted over time to fit the new demographics for our slow growth population. Taxes will have to be raised on those most in a position to pay. Some, even in the upper middle (starting at $200 to $250K or so) will need to pay more.

Energy policy will have to balance greater production with greater measures of conservation and substantial investments in alternatives. Bill Gates, a thoughtful guy and no fan of pie-in-the-sky solutions, has made some legitimate criticisms of current investments in energy research, especially those made for political rather than scientific reasons. Everyone needs to focus more on the practical rather than the political. Personally, I don’t support additional investments in nuclear. I do believe the plants are safer, but everyone who knows anything about the nuclear industry knows the real issue is the tons and gallons of waste, some with half-life counted in tens of thousands of years.  But I am not an across the board, believer in restrictions on domestic drilling.  BP has shown that the companies can’t be trusted but more drilling can help and practical political trade-offs are required. Permits which attach 100% responsibility to the companies for clean-up, and assign the government the primary role in directing those efforts when they are required seems a fair trade-off. However, no one should mistake domestic drilling for a real solution to an 80 billion barrel a day world-wide demand and an 84 billion barrel a day capacity. And the other side needs to stop lying and obfuscating on the real issue of Global Climate Change. When I saw Santorum the other night talk about the politization of the Climate Change science, I nearly coughed up my dinner.  Conservative principles on energy and the environment are not remotely serious, but that does not negate the need for a balanced approach.

There are middle ground solutions to all the issues we face, including education where the Chinese are also making great strides, but none of them are possible without campaign finance reform. Count me among those who are scared of the awesome power of SuperPACs, but Obama was wrong to pursue that cash. I question Obama’s statement that he needed the money to get his message out. He raised a billion dollars in 2008 and he has the bully pulpit. A fearless leader would have announced with much hoopla and fanfare that he would forgo the billionaire hyper cash, capable as he was to settle for the semi-hyper millionaire cash, and then relentlessly pushed an agenda of reform, but Obama let fear guide his reasoning . Nothing changes so long as a few dozen billionaires control the political dialogue and that is true for both parties.

These are tough times in America. The Republican nominating process has been a carnival orgy of half- truths and fear mongering, but that does not release the President of his responsibility to lead. Those of us on the left who see so much wrong with the other side would be wise to see the truth about ours, and to call for more problem solving leadership. Fear and excuse making is not a policy for either party and speaking personally there is way too much out there already.