Debt Ceiling Navel Gazing

Kevin Drum decides that the awful spending bill that Republicans extorted through Congress is liberals' fault. The premise of the article is kind of correct:

I think this is roughly correct. Public opinion is everything. Ronald Reagan was successful because public opinion supported him: he wanted to cut taxes and raise defense spending and so did big chunks of the public. He was leading in a direction that they already wanted to go.

But no matter how many times we try to kid ourselves with one poll result or another, liberals just don't have that advantage. The public is mostly in favor of raising taxes on the rich — though I suspect its support is pretty soft — but on the bigger issues they mostly aren't on our side. They think deficits are bad, they don't trust Keynesian economics, they don't want a higher IRS bill (who does, after all?), and they believe the federal government is spending too much on stuff they don't really understand. Conservatives have just flat out won this debate in recent decades, and until that changes we're not going to be able to make much progress.

When I say partially true, I mean that the things that Washington liberals talk about is not what local liberals talk about. Washington liberals talk about macroecomic Keynsian spending. Local level liberals talk about jobs programs, food bank supply levels, and schools.

Conservatives have a more shallow profile of issues, allowing for broader organizational reach and the ability to mobilize public support efficiently. The Tea party (originally stanidng for Taxed Enough Already), is a relatively simple organization. Despite apparent differences in goals among groups (social versus fiscal, anarchist versus corporatist), organizers have been able to convince them all that they suffer from the same ailment of high taxes.

Democrats, progressives, and liberals have been playing defense since 2010, and it's taken a huge toll on their ability to mobilize support. Labor stands alone as the one force that has been able to out-organize the Republicans this year, despite some decent mobilizations targeting Republican congerssional offices during the debt-ceiling hostage crisis.

Progressives need a broad statement of their current political direction. If Republicans can all unite behind 'taxed enough already,' Democrats can unite behind another raison d'etre. What united grassroots Democrats against Bush was the obvious failures of the administration to govern in an enlightened statesman tradition. From the invasion of Iraq based on poor intelligence and false pretense to the abandonment of New Orleans to the failure to address any real problems like climate change, health care reform, or preventing the Bush recession, the common strand was a feeling that Americans are 'under-served by government.'

Taxed Enough Already has a certain ring of truth to it. Everybody grumbles about their taxes. Everybody also grumbles about the inevitability of bad service at the DMV or opaqueness in dealing with Social Security benefits, or treatment at VA hospitals. Americans are under-served by their government.

This line of argument is uncomfortable for a progressive. Modern liberalism uses political tools to address the problems of inequality of opportunity. Yet this line of argument attacks the efficacy of government to deliver on its promises. This tension is a fiction, however. Just because Republicans attack the legitimacy of government action doesn't mean that progressives must defend government. Liberals are broadly interested in leveling the playing field and removing systemic inequality. Much of that inequality results from market failures, for which government is a solution. Much of that inequality results from the historical (or modern) political process. Government is simply an institutional arrangement of political power.

If that political power was vested with either the intent or incident of creating barriers to equal opportunity, liberals should not be afraid to call out that undemocratic arrangement of power. While democratic, progressive, and liberal activists focus on increasing public goods, they would do well if they were more pragmatic with where they begin. When liberals argue for a single-payer health care system or an adjustment of capital gains taxes, they leave the public behind. The public agrees with the premise that Americans are under-served by government, roughly treated by the market, and ignored by the powerful. Let's start the conversation there.

The public supported Regan's wish to lower taxes and spend on defense, (arguable), but they didn't necessarily agree with his push to lower the top marginal tax rate or his Star Wars boondoggle. Democrats can get the same broad support from the public if they can articulate a common cause that unites their various policy solutions:

We are under-served by government and abused by some bad corporations. Creating a single payer health care system will help government serve us better and prevent that abuse. We are under-served by government. It doesn't have the resources to stremline the VA system to better serve our veterans; we should raise the funds for this by taxing capital gains taxes an extra half percent.

The laundry list appraoch to politics doesn't work. Having 20 agenda points coming into office is a terrible way to hold a coalition together. Progressives need a unifying theme to bring them together if they're going to have any real impact on mass politics.

Liberal Anger in Action

This week, David Weigel called for liberal organizations to provide an outpouring of disgust and anger over Ryan's Folly, the Republican plan to end Medicare in order to pay for tax cuts for the wealthy, similar in scope to the Tea Party organized in the summer in 2009. I was skeptical that the media is capable of portraying the liberal anger against Ryan's Folly in a neutral light, probably defaulting to Republican talking points about 'liberal radicals' to describe citizens asking for basic fairness. Weigel got a little bit of what he asked for as at (ironically named) Daniel Webster's disastrous, angry, no-good, very bad town hall meeting:

Tuesday at the Orange County Agricultural Extension office in Orlando, boos and shouts of "liar" were mixed with angry accusations that Ryan's plan to change Medicare would leave those now younger than 55 without health insurance in their retirement. There also were calls to eliminate the tax cuts first put in place by then-President George W. Bush and to raise corporate taxes rather than cut entitlement programs.

It's a very dismissive portrayal of people upset that their congressman wants to change their Medicare coverage into a yearly check that won't cover the cost of basic health care.

I'd like to say that I'm right, that the anti-anger sentiment is a negative, and the dismissive portrayal of Webster's consituents proves my point. But thinking back to the original 'Summer of Rage,' the coverage started the same.

GOP starting to look more like Democrats

At least in the traditional sense that Democrats can't keep a consistent message to save their lives win an election, the Republican party is starting to adopt their maladaptive tendencies. Tea Party action figure Michelle Bachmann will deliver a rogue response to the President's State of the Union address next Tuesday in addition to the actual Republican leader that the party has asked to deliver a response. The Republican response to the State of the Union Address will be Paul Ryan, the House Republican budget czar.

The Tea Party Express, a national umbrella group funded by Koch Bros Inc., will be live streaming her response. It is unclear whether her response will directly conflict with Representative Ryan's response.

Either way, there is no way this can be good for the Republican party.

Party Leadership

Progressives feel they have been sold up the river in the tax cut deal, and the net roots are attempting to stop Obama's tax cut deal with Republicans. The deal is certainly not optimal, especially if this is how we can expect Obama to deal withRepublican thuggishness over the next two years. The DailyKos demand that Congressional Democrats refuse the Preisdent's "compromise" deserves some thought, especially considering that the primary Republican goal this year is Obama's failure.

Should progressive legislators buck Obama's leadership? The answer depends on what we think of the role of a legislator. Legislators' responsibilities are split in at least three important ways: to the interests of their constituents, to the national interest, and to their party. Each of these obligations suggests different immediate goals, and there are multiple strategies to achieve the disparate goals. The primary strategic motivation of a legislator is to be reelected, as a legislator who is not reelected loses the power to pursue any of the three sets of goals implied by his or her obligations. The strategic necessity of election complicates motivations. While the simplest assumption is that the needs of reelection dovetails with the obligation to constituents, reelection is also contingent on the strength of the party and the ability to attract ideological support from across the country.

This is only a dilemma for legislators that don't support the kleptocracy of giving money for social services away to the wealthy when social services are most needed. I'm not talking about Blue Dogs; I'm talking about Democrats and Progressives who may be able to stop the tax cut deal by filibustering in the Senate. Dick Durbin thinks there are some senators in this position, and Barney Frank seems to be leading the charge. I am not in a position to guess how many Democrats will view this "deal" as enough good and not too much bad and which will view it as politically valuable as compromise for the sake of compromise. So what should a Progressive Democrat do?