[This article also appears on Huffingtonpost.com. You can access it from my author page here.]
David Brooks's New York Times column on Monday created quite a stir, getting major play on cable television news and online (at least between Casey Anthony reports).
Most of the discussion turned on Brooks' assertion that "the Republican Party may no longer be a normal party. Over the past few years, it has been infected by a faction that is more of a psychological protest than a practical, governing alternative."
The idea that the current Tea Party-dominated GOP is single-mindedly focused on its far-right ideology at the expense of what is best for the country is not news to anyone who has been paying attention for the last two-and-a-half years. I suppose the fact the statement came from Brooks, a conservative, is what caused the column to get so much attention.
But I am way more interested in Brooks's premise than his conclusion. His declaration that the Republican Party has been "infected" is based on the fact that the Democrats are offering the GOP a great deal on the budget, but the Republicans are holding out for complete victory. Brooks's second paragraph reads:
"Republican leaders have also proved to be effective negotiators. They have been tough and inflexible and forced the Democrats to come to them. The Democrats have agreed to tie budget cuts to the debt ceiling bill. They have agreed not to raise tax rates. They have agreed to a roughly 3-to-1 rate of spending cuts to revenue increases, an astonishing concession."
This infuriates me. Not that I disagree with Brooks's premise. He is, of course, correct. What angers me so is how easily the Democrats have rolled over to the Republicans, both because it's bad for the country and bad, strategically, for the Democrats' electoral chances in 2012.
With unemployment still high despite corporations rolling in profits (Think Progress recently relayed a Northeastern University study that showed that 88 percent of the growth in national income for the last 18 months has gone to massive corporate profits while only 1 percent has gone to wages, and the New York Times recently reported that top executives enjoyed a 23 percent pay increase in 2010), it is patently illogical, immoral and bad for the country to fund cuts in government spending with tax cuts for the wealthy.
But by using the debt ceiling issue to extort cuts in government spending, Republicans, who control only one of the three segments of federal lawmaking, the House of Representatives, are dictating to the Democrats, who control the other two entities (the Senate and the presidency), the terms of negotiation.
So why have the Democrats caved into the Republican assumption that cuts have to be made to raise the debt ceiling? The decision is especially vexing when you consider that the Democrats have not even tried to point out the two big lies at the heart of Republican claims.
First, Republicans talk about runaway spending, but a recent study revealed that when you control for population growth and inflation, 2011 federal spending is roughly equal to that in 2001 (Clinton's last budget), but in 2001, that spending level resulted in a surplus. Why? The Bush tax cuts. In other words, it's not spending that has gotten out of control, but a deficit has erupted due to tax cuts for the wealthy (plus the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq).
Second, the Republicans talk a lot about the federal deficit, but, in practice, they don't care at all about the deficit. If they did, they would put tax cuts for the wealthy, which could be used to balance the budget, on the table. Instead, they are resolutely protecting the wealthiest Americans, to the detriment of the rest of us. The party's priority is to effectively do away with safety net programs they have despised from their inception (like Paul Ryan's plan to destroy Medicare) and to cut taxes, regardless of the impact on the deficit.
The most troubling part of the Democrats' surrender to the GOP, though, is that the president has offered Medicare cuts as part of the deal to raise the debt ceiling.
For starters, raising the debt ceiling isn't (and never was) a controversial action. Bush approved the move seven times during his presidency, and the ultra conservative U.S. Chamber of Commerce, an Obama-bashing right-wing-loyal business group, has come out strongly in favor of raising the ceiling.
So why are the Democrats surrendering on this issue? And why offer Medicare cuts?
Politics can be hard to predict sometimes. President Obama and the Democrats won in a landslide in 2008, only for the Republicans to make gains in 2010. But there has been one constant in recent elections and polling that could not be clearer: Americans don't want Medicare cuts, nor do they want massive cuts that affect the middle class to fund tax cuts for millionaires. (In a Gallup poll, 59 percent said they supported the end of the Bush tax cuts for those making more than $250,00 per year.)
Part of the Republican victories in 2010 can be attributed to opposition to the health care reform legislation, and much of that anger was stoked by right wing media lies, the biggest one of which was that the law would make massive cuts to Medicare benefits and result in rationing and death panels that would keep senior citizens from getting needed care. (I am in the beginning stages of a research project looking at how Fox News and MSNBC discussed health care reform in August 2009, and my preliminary findings show that Fox News prime-time programming hammered home claims that seniors would be denied care under the health care reform proposal being considered in Congress at the time.)
In 2011, Paul Ryan's budget proposal, which included the essential destruction of Medicare (turning it from a single-payer system to one with vouchers that would have been inadequate for tens of millions of seniors to fund health insurance, leaving them without health care), was so unpopular, Americans rebelled. In May, voters in a historically Republican House district in New York turned out in unusually high numbers to hand the seat to seat to a Democrat in a special election, almost entirely due to outrage at the Ryan Medicare plan. (New York's 26th district had been in Republican hands for all but 16 years since 1857.)
It seems clear: If you propose Medicare cuts, the American people will vote against you.
Due to Republican over-reaching on spending cuts and tax reductions for the wealthy, buyer's remorse is sweeping the country, with recently elected Republican governors in New Jersey, Ohio, Michigan, Florida and Wisconsin facing plunging approval ratings. And a recent poll found President Obama ahead of every Republican presidential challenger (and even leading Rick Perry and Sarah Palin in Texas, one of the most conservative states in the country).
The American people may often be hard to read, but now is one time they are speaking loudly and clearly: Don't cut Medicare, and don't make drastic budget cuts without raising taxes on the wealthy.
So what are the Democrats doing? Not pushing hard enough for eliminating tax cuts for the wealthy, and putting Medicare cuts on the table. It's maddening. Bill Clinton came out and urged the president not to cave into the Republicans, arguing that there is no reason for the Democrats to agree to cuts without raising taxes on the wealthy.
To me, the take away from Brooks's column isn't that members of the Tea Party-captured Republican party "do not accept the legitimacy of scholars and intellectual authorities. A thousand impartial experts may tell them that a default on the debt would have calamitous effects, far worse than raising tax revenues a bit. But the members of this movement refuse to believe it." We knew that already.
No, the important part of Brooks's piece is the fact that the "Democrats have agreed to tie budget cuts to the debt ceiling bill."
It is easy to make the argument that the policies of the current, far-right GOP, with its goal of returning the country to the approach of the Hoover administration (and the wealth disparity and massive suffering that went with it, as well as the depression that followed), are bad for the American people. What is harder to understand is why the Democrats are so afraid to stand against these ruinous proposals, and why they have allowed the Republicans' false assumptions to be the accepted premise for the debate.
Brooks argues that if no compromise is reached and the debt ceiling isn't raised, independents will blame the Republicans for not acting reasonably. I'm not sure I agree. The American people have spoken, and they don't want cuts to Medicare. If the Democrats cave into the GOP and agree to Medicare cuts in exchange for the necessary and routine act of raising the debt ceiling, they will be every bit as responsible as the GOP for the pain the country experiences, and will get their share of the blame.
So if the Democrats don't stand firm, not only will the American people pay the price, the party will have missed out on a golden opportunity to win elections in 2012. The message from Americans is clear. The Democrats just have to listen.
Wednesday, July 6, 2011
Saturday, July 2, 2011
Independence Day, the Declaration of Independence and Understanding American History
[This article also appears on Huffingtonpost.com. You can access it from my author page here.]
When Tea Party darling Herman Cain announced his candidacy for president in May, he decided to cite words from the U.S. Constitution to underline his key points. Unfortunately for Cain, he got his documents wrong. The passage he chose was from the Declaration of Independence, not the Constitution.
Cain is not alone. There seems to be an epidemic of Tea Party Republicans botching historical accounts of the founding of the United States. Since Independence Day celebrates the adoption of the Declaration of Independence, and given the recent Tea Party problems with history, I thought it would be fitting to look a little closer at Cain's gaffe, as it has both symbolic and substantive importance regarding modern American politics.
Symbolically, Cain's problem with historical accuracy represents a major characteristic of the modern Tea Party-dominated Republican Party. Whether it is Sarah Palin's butchering of Paul Revere's role in the American Revolution, or Michele Bachmann's truly revisionist mangling of the facts to claim the founding fathers tried to abolish slavery (not to mention her belief that John Quincy Adams was a founding father, even though he was born in 1767), the Tea Party has shown a disdain for knowledge, facts and learning. History is not something set in stone, but rather something to be twisted and manipulated to support the immutable, ideological beliefs of the movement.
So if Palin or Bachmann plainly get American history wrong, the response isn't to admit it (after all, the statements are not debatable; Revere was not riding to warn the British, and slavery was enshrined as legitimate in the Constitution, notably through the three-fifths compromise). No, instead, their supporters tried to change history to match the statements of their leaders, which in 21st century practice means Palin supporters editing the Wikipedia entry on Paul Revere to reflect her mistakes, and Bachmann's followers doing the same for the page on John Quincy Adams.
The ignorance of Cain, Palin and Bachmann holds importance beyond a "gotcha" moment to demonstrate that these three individuals aren't up to the task of being president (similar to Mitt Romney's gaffe of telling an unemployed attendee at one of his events that he, too, was unemployed). More importantly, the lack of respect (or even caring about) facts, both by the candidates and their supporters, is indicative of the larger GOP approach to political positions. For example, Republicans support lower taxes for millionaires because that is what their core constituency and base ideology calls for, but they justify the position through unsustainable assertions that such tax cuts somehow create jobs, even though we know they don't (also here and here). Or, Republicans reject the existence of climate change to keep costs as low as possible for corporations regardless of the consequences, but justify their position by denying the existence of climate change, even though the overwhelming majority of scientists say it is real.
There are myriad issues for which Republicans rely on patently false assertions to back policy positions that may be otherwise unpalatable to the American public ("We're creating jobs" plays better than "Rich people shouldn't have to pay a lot in taxes"), but nowhere is this lack of respect for facts and history more prevalent than in the party's attacks on Barack Obama. Rather than oppose his policies on the merits, Republicans have engaged in a two-prong strategy of personal attacks meant to score political victories: First, they opposed every proposal made by the president, even if Obama called for the adoption of a policy once embraced by Republicans (i.e. becoming the Party of No, although I have argued they have evolved into the Party of F You).
Second, the right, including politicians and the right-wing, Fox News/Limbaugh propaganda echo chamber, has engaged in a coordinated assault to paint the president as being out of the American mainstream, regardless of the facts. They want you to think he is dangerous and un-American, that he was born in Kenya, and that his policy proposals are radical, and that he has no desire to keep Americans safe from terrorists with whom he actually sympathizes.
(Never mind that he has governed as a centrist and consistent with his campaign promises, which resulted in a hefty victory. For example, the stimulus package was smaller than many economists supported and included a ton of tax cuts; he didn't push for a single-payer system or even a public option as part of health care reform, instead getting behind a bill that pushed tens of millions of new customers into the hands of private insurance companies; and he stepped up the pursuit of Qaeda and Taliban targets, including drone attacks, taking out more terrorists than his predecessor, including Osama bin Laden.)
In right-wing rhetoric, the president is a threat to the American way of life, a socialist who wants to change traditional American values, even though there is no actual evidence to support these claims.
Why do these attacks matter? Well, that question segues nicely into the substantive problem with Cain's Constitution/Declaration gaffe, since the Tea Party regularly invokes an Obama attack on liberties, drawing on the Declaration of Independence (even if Cain thought he was citing the Constitution, not an insignificant error since the Constitution is the law of the land, providing a framework for our entire political system, while the Declaration is mainly historical in nature).
In his speech, Cain said:
"You know, those ideals that we live by, we believe in, your parents believe in, they instilled in you. When you get to the part about life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, don’t stop right there, keep reading. Cause that’s when it says that when any form of government becomes destructive of those ideals, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it. We’ve got some altering and some abolishing to do."
This kind of language should sound familiar, since it is the bread and butter of Tea Party ideology. And Cain is right about what the Declaration says (well, he got the wrong document, but he got the right sequence of passages). The second paragraph of the Declaration begins:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
And then the paragraph goes on to say:
"That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."
Warms the cockles of the Tea Party heart, right? Well, with a little more perspective and examination, not so much. First of all, I'm sure it's no coincidence Cain stopped where he did, since the next line of the Declaration is:
"Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes."
So yes, the Declaration supports "the Right of the People to alter or to abolish" the government when it becomes "destructive" to "unalienable Rights." But not for "light and transient causes." What did the founding fathers think were big enough threats to warrant revolution? The answer is right in the Declaration, a laundry list of grievances that make up the bulk of the document. It is a litany of charges that the King of England had impinged on American liberties by, among other things, engaging in the hindering and dissolution of of legislative bodies, ignoring laws, preventing the adoption of laws (including, much to the Tea Party's disdain, I'm sure, the "Naturalization of Foreigners"), interfering with the judiciary, quartering English soldiers, interfering with trade, and imposing taxes without consent.
In short, the founding fathers bristled at being ruled by a dictatorial monarch. It is easy to see how in the over-hyped, rabid and, most importantly, false and historically inaccurate rhetoric of the Tea Party, such a connection would be apparent, from the tyranny of a King to a president looking to institute a socialist/Nazi/Islamist dictatorship in the United States.
Only, much like Bachmann's and Palin's lack of knowledge of our history, Cain (and it's not like he is the only Republican who talks about Obama's assault on our liberties) completely misunderstands and misapplies the content and context of the Declaration's call for revolution. Republicans can't seem to understand that if the president disagrees with them on how to address the country's roster of problems, it doesn't make him a tyrant. It's doubtful the founding father would look kindly on anyone trying to argue that the Obama presidency was comparable to the reign of King George III.
The language of the Declaration of Independence doesn't provide the support the Tea Party thinks it does.
(As an aside, the core charges of the Tea Party against Obama are all false: They complain about taxes, but Americans are experiencing their lowest tax burden since 1958, with taxes lower than they were under Reagan. They charge Obama with wanting to take away their guns, but the president hasn't signed a single piece of gun control legislation, nor did he veto bills with pro-gun provisions attached. I could go on and on.)
Cain (and Bachmann and Palin) getting history wrong isn't just about a funny media story. Rather, the Tea Party's ambivalence about facts and history is a necessary component of the GOP political strategy, as the party seeks to continue its drive since the 2010 elections to return the country to the 1920s (attacking social safety net programs like Medicare and Social Security, busting unions, cutting education, catering to corporate special interests and prioritizing eliminating abortion, all while further increasing the historically massive divide between the very wealthiest Americans and the rest of us). As Think Progress tweeted last week: "REMINDER: Current deficit + economy product of crisis created by deregulation + huge tax cuts. Solution isn't deregulation + huge tax cuts." (Just look at Tim Pawlenty's tax cut proposal, for example.)
Republicans, to win in 2012, are relying on Americans to forget history, not remember it.
So on this Independence Day, which commemorates the adoption of the Declaration of Independence, let's take the opportunity to read the document and better understand what it did (and did not) say, and, more importantly, against what the founding fathers were actually rebelling.
And let's try and stick to facts and accurate history when debating the issues. I know cognitive dissonance can be troubling for an ideologue, but here is a tip: If you find yourself literally trying to rewrite history, you're probably on the wrong side of a debate.
When Tea Party darling Herman Cain announced his candidacy for president in May, he decided to cite words from the U.S. Constitution to underline his key points. Unfortunately for Cain, he got his documents wrong. The passage he chose was from the Declaration of Independence, not the Constitution.
Cain is not alone. There seems to be an epidemic of Tea Party Republicans botching historical accounts of the founding of the United States. Since Independence Day celebrates the adoption of the Declaration of Independence, and given the recent Tea Party problems with history, I thought it would be fitting to look a little closer at Cain's gaffe, as it has both symbolic and substantive importance regarding modern American politics.
Symbolically, Cain's problem with historical accuracy represents a major characteristic of the modern Tea Party-dominated Republican Party. Whether it is Sarah Palin's butchering of Paul Revere's role in the American Revolution, or Michele Bachmann's truly revisionist mangling of the facts to claim the founding fathers tried to abolish slavery (not to mention her belief that John Quincy Adams was a founding father, even though he was born in 1767), the Tea Party has shown a disdain for knowledge, facts and learning. History is not something set in stone, but rather something to be twisted and manipulated to support the immutable, ideological beliefs of the movement.
So if Palin or Bachmann plainly get American history wrong, the response isn't to admit it (after all, the statements are not debatable; Revere was not riding to warn the British, and slavery was enshrined as legitimate in the Constitution, notably through the three-fifths compromise). No, instead, their supporters tried to change history to match the statements of their leaders, which in 21st century practice means Palin supporters editing the Wikipedia entry on Paul Revere to reflect her mistakes, and Bachmann's followers doing the same for the page on John Quincy Adams.
The ignorance of Cain, Palin and Bachmann holds importance beyond a "gotcha" moment to demonstrate that these three individuals aren't up to the task of being president (similar to Mitt Romney's gaffe of telling an unemployed attendee at one of his events that he, too, was unemployed). More importantly, the lack of respect (or even caring about) facts, both by the candidates and their supporters, is indicative of the larger GOP approach to political positions. For example, Republicans support lower taxes for millionaires because that is what their core constituency and base ideology calls for, but they justify the position through unsustainable assertions that such tax cuts somehow create jobs, even though we know they don't (also here and here). Or, Republicans reject the existence of climate change to keep costs as low as possible for corporations regardless of the consequences, but justify their position by denying the existence of climate change, even though the overwhelming majority of scientists say it is real.
There are myriad issues for which Republicans rely on patently false assertions to back policy positions that may be otherwise unpalatable to the American public ("We're creating jobs" plays better than "Rich people shouldn't have to pay a lot in taxes"), but nowhere is this lack of respect for facts and history more prevalent than in the party's attacks on Barack Obama. Rather than oppose his policies on the merits, Republicans have engaged in a two-prong strategy of personal attacks meant to score political victories: First, they opposed every proposal made by the president, even if Obama called for the adoption of a policy once embraced by Republicans (i.e. becoming the Party of No, although I have argued they have evolved into the Party of F You).
Second, the right, including politicians and the right-wing, Fox News/Limbaugh propaganda echo chamber, has engaged in a coordinated assault to paint the president as being out of the American mainstream, regardless of the facts. They want you to think he is dangerous and un-American, that he was born in Kenya, and that his policy proposals are radical, and that he has no desire to keep Americans safe from terrorists with whom he actually sympathizes.
(Never mind that he has governed as a centrist and consistent with his campaign promises, which resulted in a hefty victory. For example, the stimulus package was smaller than many economists supported and included a ton of tax cuts; he didn't push for a single-payer system or even a public option as part of health care reform, instead getting behind a bill that pushed tens of millions of new customers into the hands of private insurance companies; and he stepped up the pursuit of Qaeda and Taliban targets, including drone attacks, taking out more terrorists than his predecessor, including Osama bin Laden.)
In right-wing rhetoric, the president is a threat to the American way of life, a socialist who wants to change traditional American values, even though there is no actual evidence to support these claims.
Why do these attacks matter? Well, that question segues nicely into the substantive problem with Cain's Constitution/Declaration gaffe, since the Tea Party regularly invokes an Obama attack on liberties, drawing on the Declaration of Independence (even if Cain thought he was citing the Constitution, not an insignificant error since the Constitution is the law of the land, providing a framework for our entire political system, while the Declaration is mainly historical in nature).
In his speech, Cain said:
"You know, those ideals that we live by, we believe in, your parents believe in, they instilled in you. When you get to the part about life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, don’t stop right there, keep reading. Cause that’s when it says that when any form of government becomes destructive of those ideals, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it. We’ve got some altering and some abolishing to do."
This kind of language should sound familiar, since it is the bread and butter of Tea Party ideology. And Cain is right about what the Declaration says (well, he got the wrong document, but he got the right sequence of passages). The second paragraph of the Declaration begins:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
And then the paragraph goes on to say:
"That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."
Warms the cockles of the Tea Party heart, right? Well, with a little more perspective and examination, not so much. First of all, I'm sure it's no coincidence Cain stopped where he did, since the next line of the Declaration is:
"Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes."
So yes, the Declaration supports "the Right of the People to alter or to abolish" the government when it becomes "destructive" to "unalienable Rights." But not for "light and transient causes." What did the founding fathers think were big enough threats to warrant revolution? The answer is right in the Declaration, a laundry list of grievances that make up the bulk of the document. It is a litany of charges that the King of England had impinged on American liberties by, among other things, engaging in the hindering and dissolution of of legislative bodies, ignoring laws, preventing the adoption of laws (including, much to the Tea Party's disdain, I'm sure, the "Naturalization of Foreigners"), interfering with the judiciary, quartering English soldiers, interfering with trade, and imposing taxes without consent.
In short, the founding fathers bristled at being ruled by a dictatorial monarch. It is easy to see how in the over-hyped, rabid and, most importantly, false and historically inaccurate rhetoric of the Tea Party, such a connection would be apparent, from the tyranny of a King to a president looking to institute a socialist/Nazi/Islamist dictatorship in the United States.
Only, much like Bachmann's and Palin's lack of knowledge of our history, Cain (and it's not like he is the only Republican who talks about Obama's assault on our liberties) completely misunderstands and misapplies the content and context of the Declaration's call for revolution. Republicans can't seem to understand that if the president disagrees with them on how to address the country's roster of problems, it doesn't make him a tyrant. It's doubtful the founding father would look kindly on anyone trying to argue that the Obama presidency was comparable to the reign of King George III.
The language of the Declaration of Independence doesn't provide the support the Tea Party thinks it does.
(As an aside, the core charges of the Tea Party against Obama are all false: They complain about taxes, but Americans are experiencing their lowest tax burden since 1958, with taxes lower than they were under Reagan. They charge Obama with wanting to take away their guns, but the president hasn't signed a single piece of gun control legislation, nor did he veto bills with pro-gun provisions attached. I could go on and on.)
Cain (and Bachmann and Palin) getting history wrong isn't just about a funny media story. Rather, the Tea Party's ambivalence about facts and history is a necessary component of the GOP political strategy, as the party seeks to continue its drive since the 2010 elections to return the country to the 1920s (attacking social safety net programs like Medicare and Social Security, busting unions, cutting education, catering to corporate special interests and prioritizing eliminating abortion, all while further increasing the historically massive divide between the very wealthiest Americans and the rest of us). As Think Progress tweeted last week: "REMINDER: Current deficit + economy product of crisis created by deregulation + huge tax cuts. Solution isn't deregulation + huge tax cuts." (Just look at Tim Pawlenty's tax cut proposal, for example.)
Republicans, to win in 2012, are relying on Americans to forget history, not remember it.
So on this Independence Day, which commemorates the adoption of the Declaration of Independence, let's take the opportunity to read the document and better understand what it did (and did not) say, and, more importantly, against what the founding fathers were actually rebelling.
And let's try and stick to facts and accurate history when debating the issues. I know cognitive dissonance can be troubling for an ideologue, but here is a tip: If you find yourself literally trying to rewrite history, you're probably on the wrong side of a debate.
Sunday, June 12, 2011
Weiner's Hubris Means There Is One Fewer Democrat to Fight Bad GOP Policies
[This article also appears on Huffingtonpost.com. You can access it from my author page here.]
I was speaking to a friend of mine who lives in Anthony Weiner's district, and we both had the same reaction to the congressman's Twitter scandal. Oddly, though, the element of Weinergate we both zeroed in on has been largely unrepresented in the news media's coverage.
Specifically, we were upset that one of the few Democrats in Congress with the nerve to consistently speak out against bad Republican proposals--and, more importantly, for traditional Democratic ones--had done something so colossally foolish, reckless and arrogant that he had undercut his position as a champion for good policy. The importance of the role that Weiner played in the political battles of the last several years seems to have been lost in a sea of stories on the more prurient and strategic aspects of the brouhaha.
To me, in the wake of Weiner's foolishness, the big question is: How will the Democrats proceed without one of their most steadfast and articulate spokesmen in Washington?
There is so much at stake in the next 17 months leading to the 2012 elections. The Tea Party-dominated, increasingly ideological Republican party is in the middle of a crusade to turn the clock back to the 1920s, a time when corporations could operate unfettered by protections for individuals, workers had few rights, there was no social safety net, and the wealth disparity between the wealthy and the rest of the citizenry was huge (as it has become again after the Bush years).
Since the Republicans won the House and many governors' mansions and state legislatures across the country in 2010, they have moved in concert to attack a woman's right to choose, unions and the social safety net, using fears about deficits to drive spending cuts, all while refusing to consider any revenue-related solutions, including scaling back the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy (even as the Bush tax cuts exploded the deficit and did nothing to help the economy, as Republicans claim).
Even though Democrats control the Senate and the White House, they have often been reluctant to fight back. They backed down when Republicans threatened to shut down the government if the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy weren't extended, and they've allowed the Republicans to set the agenda on spending, deficits and other issues, especially since January.
But not all Democrats capitulated to GOP demands, and Anthony Weiner stood out front of that small group. Weiner was a staunch advocate for traditional Democratic principals. He was an articulate and passionate proponent of health care reform, championing his proposal of Medicare for all without fear. He also was out front in opposing the extension of the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy. He displayed strength and steadfastness in the face of Republican pressure.
Who will stand up for Democratic idals now?
I'm not writing to defend Weiner's behavior. My advice to his wife would be to hire a good divorce attorney. But his private failings have nothing to do with his service as a member of Congress. He didn't break any laws, and he probably didn't even violate any House rules. It's been hard to watch Republicans call for his resignation, even though the GOP said nothing when David Vitter essentially admitted to using the services of a Washington madam.
But, of course, by engaging in such reckless, irresponsible and stupid behavior, Weiner has made it impossible (whether he resigns or not) to continue his influential and important advocacy for Democratic policies and opposition to damaging Republican proposals. And that's the true loss, on a national basis, to come from Weiner's idiocy.
The rush of major Democratic House figures like Nancy Pelosi to call for Weiner's resignation was disappointing but not surprising. Weiner often pushed them to show more backbone in battling Republicans and pushing for Democratic solutions to problems. Democratic leaders in Congress, from health care to stimulus to financial regulation to the extension of the Bush tax cuts, acted timidly (and seemingly out of fear), quick to capitulate to Republican demands. At the same time, Weiner was bold and steadfast. He exposed the weakness of leadership, and I'm sure they were none too happy about it. And I'm sure that history played a roll in the quick calls for Weiner to step down.
But if Democratic leaders get their wish (and, to a large extent, even if they do not), Weiner won't be there anymore to stand up to the Republicans as they try and remake the country, Tea Party style. That is, to me, the single most important consequence of the Weiner scandal.
The irony is that it's not really risky to stand up to the extreme right-wing policies Republicans have advanced since taking over the House and governors' mansions and state legislatures across the country. On a state level, when, after campaigning on jobs, Republican governors and legislators instead started paying back their corporate and religious-conservative benefactors with a virtual conservative wish list of policies (going after abortion and unions, mainly), the result has been massive buyer's remorse. The governors in Ohio, Michigan, Florida and Wisconsin saw plunging approval ratings, and in Wisconsin, six Republican senators already face recall elections (the efforts to recall three Democratic senators have not been certified by the state elections board due to apparent fraud).
On the federal level, when Paul Ryan proposed satisfying the decades-long conservative dream of ending Medicare, and Republicans in the House and Senate voted for it, voter backlash was strong and instantaneous, leading to a Democrat winning a special election for a House seat in a heavily Republican district in Western New York.
(And yes, I know Ryan's plan retains a program called Medicare, but his voucher-based approach would effectively kill what Medicare has been since its formation, leaving it Medicare in name only. Paul Krugman did a fantastic job laying out how Ryan's new Medicare would result in completely different--and inferior--medical coverage for seniors.)
So standing up for mainstream Democratic ideals (individuals over corporations and the wealthiest two percent) and opposing the far-right initiatives Republicans are pushing (like busting unions and killing Medicare, as well as prioritizing taking away a woman's right to choose over job creation) has turned out to be good politics (not just good for the country).
This is something Anthony Weiner not only understood, but reveled in. He didn't just speak out for Democratic solutions to problems (and against Republican proposals that were bad for the country), he did so confidently, strongly and happily.
Now, thanks to his Twitter activities, we've lost that voice. And sadly, there are few Democrats in Washington who have demonstrated Weiner's strength and resolve. That is the tragedy of the Weiner scandal, that it will be that much easier now for the Republicans to roll forward with a truly odious agenda, one that will be damaging for the country.
That is the story I take away from Weiner's downfall. It's less fun than the prurient stuff the news media latched onto, but I think the tabloid fodder should stay on the late night talk shows where it belongs.
I was speaking to a friend of mine who lives in Anthony Weiner's district, and we both had the same reaction to the congressman's Twitter scandal. Oddly, though, the element of Weinergate we both zeroed in on has been largely unrepresented in the news media's coverage.
Specifically, we were upset that one of the few Democrats in Congress with the nerve to consistently speak out against bad Republican proposals--and, more importantly, for traditional Democratic ones--had done something so colossally foolish, reckless and arrogant that he had undercut his position as a champion for good policy. The importance of the role that Weiner played in the political battles of the last several years seems to have been lost in a sea of stories on the more prurient and strategic aspects of the brouhaha.
To me, in the wake of Weiner's foolishness, the big question is: How will the Democrats proceed without one of their most steadfast and articulate spokesmen in Washington?
There is so much at stake in the next 17 months leading to the 2012 elections. The Tea Party-dominated, increasingly ideological Republican party is in the middle of a crusade to turn the clock back to the 1920s, a time when corporations could operate unfettered by protections for individuals, workers had few rights, there was no social safety net, and the wealth disparity between the wealthy and the rest of the citizenry was huge (as it has become again after the Bush years).
Since the Republicans won the House and many governors' mansions and state legislatures across the country in 2010, they have moved in concert to attack a woman's right to choose, unions and the social safety net, using fears about deficits to drive spending cuts, all while refusing to consider any revenue-related solutions, including scaling back the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy (even as the Bush tax cuts exploded the deficit and did nothing to help the economy, as Republicans claim).
Even though Democrats control the Senate and the White House, they have often been reluctant to fight back. They backed down when Republicans threatened to shut down the government if the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy weren't extended, and they've allowed the Republicans to set the agenda on spending, deficits and other issues, especially since January.
But not all Democrats capitulated to GOP demands, and Anthony Weiner stood out front of that small group. Weiner was a staunch advocate for traditional Democratic principals. He was an articulate and passionate proponent of health care reform, championing his proposal of Medicare for all without fear. He also was out front in opposing the extension of the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy. He displayed strength and steadfastness in the face of Republican pressure.
Who will stand up for Democratic idals now?
I'm not writing to defend Weiner's behavior. My advice to his wife would be to hire a good divorce attorney. But his private failings have nothing to do with his service as a member of Congress. He didn't break any laws, and he probably didn't even violate any House rules. It's been hard to watch Republicans call for his resignation, even though the GOP said nothing when David Vitter essentially admitted to using the services of a Washington madam.
But, of course, by engaging in such reckless, irresponsible and stupid behavior, Weiner has made it impossible (whether he resigns or not) to continue his influential and important advocacy for Democratic policies and opposition to damaging Republican proposals. And that's the true loss, on a national basis, to come from Weiner's idiocy.
The rush of major Democratic House figures like Nancy Pelosi to call for Weiner's resignation was disappointing but not surprising. Weiner often pushed them to show more backbone in battling Republicans and pushing for Democratic solutions to problems. Democratic leaders in Congress, from health care to stimulus to financial regulation to the extension of the Bush tax cuts, acted timidly (and seemingly out of fear), quick to capitulate to Republican demands. At the same time, Weiner was bold and steadfast. He exposed the weakness of leadership, and I'm sure they were none too happy about it. And I'm sure that history played a roll in the quick calls for Weiner to step down.
But if Democratic leaders get their wish (and, to a large extent, even if they do not), Weiner won't be there anymore to stand up to the Republicans as they try and remake the country, Tea Party style. That is, to me, the single most important consequence of the Weiner scandal.
The irony is that it's not really risky to stand up to the extreme right-wing policies Republicans have advanced since taking over the House and governors' mansions and state legislatures across the country. On a state level, when, after campaigning on jobs, Republican governors and legislators instead started paying back their corporate and religious-conservative benefactors with a virtual conservative wish list of policies (going after abortion and unions, mainly), the result has been massive buyer's remorse. The governors in Ohio, Michigan, Florida and Wisconsin saw plunging approval ratings, and in Wisconsin, six Republican senators already face recall elections (the efforts to recall three Democratic senators have not been certified by the state elections board due to apparent fraud).
On the federal level, when Paul Ryan proposed satisfying the decades-long conservative dream of ending Medicare, and Republicans in the House and Senate voted for it, voter backlash was strong and instantaneous, leading to a Democrat winning a special election for a House seat in a heavily Republican district in Western New York.
(And yes, I know Ryan's plan retains a program called Medicare, but his voucher-based approach would effectively kill what Medicare has been since its formation, leaving it Medicare in name only. Paul Krugman did a fantastic job laying out how Ryan's new Medicare would result in completely different--and inferior--medical coverage for seniors.)
So standing up for mainstream Democratic ideals (individuals over corporations and the wealthiest two percent) and opposing the far-right initiatives Republicans are pushing (like busting unions and killing Medicare, as well as prioritizing taking away a woman's right to choose over job creation) has turned out to be good politics (not just good for the country).
This is something Anthony Weiner not only understood, but reveled in. He didn't just speak out for Democratic solutions to problems (and against Republican proposals that were bad for the country), he did so confidently, strongly and happily.
Now, thanks to his Twitter activities, we've lost that voice. And sadly, there are few Democrats in Washington who have demonstrated Weiner's strength and resolve. That is the tragedy of the Weiner scandal, that it will be that much easier now for the Republicans to roll forward with a truly odious agenda, one that will be damaging for the country.
That is the story I take away from Weiner's downfall. It's less fun than the prurient stuff the news media latched onto, but I think the tabloid fodder should stay on the late night talk shows where it belongs.
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