Democrats Face 200 million Republican War Chest Without the Strong Allies They Should Have
It seems, that in the wake of the Supreme Court decision in Citizens United, which allowed uncontrolled corporate money into elections, that (surprise!) Republicans have a huge warchest from outside actors like the Chamber of Commerce:
On the left hand side of the chart is a list of ten Republican aligned institutions, ranging from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to the Family Research Council. Next to it is a column listing the amount of money each group has pledged to spend by Election Day. A third column on the right details what those groups actually spent in 2008 on federal elections.
The number at the bottom delivers the key message. If their pledges are fulfilled, these ten groups will unleash more than $200 million in election-focused spending — roughly $37 million more than every single independent group spent on the 2008 presidential campaign combined. This time around, almost every single penny will be going to Republican candidates or causes.
So, how did this happen?
First, Democrats didn’t make an all out effort to torpedo either Roberts, or more reasonably, Alito. With both on the Supreme Court, decisions like Citizens United were inevitable.
Second, when given a historic opportunity to break the power of the rich and corporations by not bailing them out, Democrats bailed them out. They did not make shareholders get wiped out (as they deserved, they took the profits from housing bubble fraud, after all) and they did not let the bondholders take their losses. Be very clear, this was never about saving the economy, the trillions of dollars used to bail out these corporations could have been loaned directly to consumers and businesses which needed loans. In fact, at this point, it is entirely likely that bailouts made things worse, not better.
Third, Democrats did not push hard for the Employee Free Choice Act, an act which would have made union organizing much easier. Union members vote for Democrats at much higher rates than non Union members (in particular, white male union members are pro-Democrat while as a group white males who aren’t union members vote Republican). Unions not only provide financial resources for Democrats, they put feet on the ground for Democrats. Where unions are strong, Democrats tend to win. Where unions aren’t strong, Democrats tend to lose.
Fourth, Democrats abandoned their constituencies economically in order to bail out the financial sector. They seem to have thought the financial sector would be loyal. Of course, it isn’t, it will give money to whoever it thinks can win and from whom it’ll get the best deal. Meanwhile unmarried women, Hispanics, African Americans and Youth, all core Demoratic groups, have high unemployment rates. That means they are not motivated to vote or volunteer, they cannot give as much money as they could if they were doing well. The money spent on bailing out banks and the rich, could have been used for a proper stimulus and proper loans which would have helped these groups.
Fifth, Democrats let ACORN be destroyed. ACORN was framed, but Democrats threw it under the bus. ACORN was a community organization which did huge voter drives which registered voters who were overwhelmingly likely to vote Democratic. Again, a key liberal organization was simply abandoned.
Democrats made a play for corporate money and in so doing, they sold out constituencies which were actually loyal to them, and could actually be counted on. Wall Street will never be reliably loyal to Democrats, neither will the very rich. At best they will play Democrats and Republicans off against each other, but realistically, they prefer Republicans whenever Republicans can win.
You reap what you sow. Sell out the interests of your core supporters, and they can’t help you as much as they could if you helped them. When will Democratic politicians learn this lesson?
Democrats should have much stronger allies in 2010. But they preferred to play footsie with Wall Street and abandon their own constituencies.
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“Meanwhile unmarried women, Hispanics, African Americans and Youth, all core Demoratic groups, have higher than average unemployment rates.”
Um, yes. This has always been the case.
But good post, of course. I wouldn’t say the individual Dem politicians are reaping what they sow, per se. They’ll be fine, win or lose. They played their role. It’s their pathetic enablers in the media and blogs who are the fools here.
Good point, changed the argument slightly.
So, the DLC democrats will go down to defeat just as “new” Labor did in the U.K.?
I wonder if the democrats lose badly enough, will it finally cause someone to announce a primary challenge to Obama? Or, will that have to wait until after Obama&Pelosi attempt to cut Social Security & Medicare during the lame-duck session? (And, speaking of lame-duck sessions, isn’t it time that lame-duck congresses can only pass legislation that only lasts until the end of the session, and must be ratified by the new congress after that?)
I hope the Ds collapse sooner rather than later. At least then we won’t hear “They’ve got no place else to go” anymore.
I mean, how does anyone unsell themselves out?
I’m sure that “progressive” D enables are busy concocting a new Liberal Totem figure (Grayson, now that Kucinich used himself up by prancing about the House floor whipping for HCR) but sensible people will pay no attention to this.
Democrats made a play for corporate money and in so doing, they sold out constituencies which were actually loyal to them, and could actually be counted on.
Yep. And they are going to pay for it, as they should.
ACORN is gone? That’s news to me. Last time I checked it had just changed its name.
Also, last time I checked Wall Street have given much more money to Democrats that Republicans. Why? Heck if I know.
Democrats have always made a play for corporate money. That is nothing new. Elections are won with money (unless you are in North Carolina Democratic Primary). “Grassroots” efforts are not free.
The political cycle in this country is similar to the business cycle. For close to a decade the Democrats were incompetent buffoons. They were masters of grabbing defeat from the jaws of victory. After Bill Clinton left office there was quite a gap in political talent. Gore and Kerry were so stiff you had to place a mirror under their noses to make sure they were still alive.
The problem now is that with the election of Obama they became too complacent. It had been so long since they were in the White House that they got cocky. They reminded me of the bully who beat up the physically and mentally disabled kid. Oh well, I guess we will have the Republicans back in office soon enough. All I want is some fiscal conservatism.
Joe Manatee
ACORN is extremely badly damaged, and will not be doing nearly as much as in the past. They lost huge amounts of money and were forced to break up into constituent parts.
Of course, Obama is still the only electoral wagon going. Anyone got another candidate or party ready? No? I see some people are going to turn their noses up at any “Liberal Totem”, because Favreau *sob*, that’s what…
…and in the meantime the result of disenchantment with the Democrats is at best case fewer Democrats, which means more Republicans. Because you’ve got no other place to go, do you now.
They assume, and rightly so, that no matter what they do all they need is to roll out a good media campaign and they can continue to rely on their core voters.
And they are right. You can screw over the American Public as much as you want and then just mention the latest American Idol winner and you’ll get votes. That’s why politics is such bullshit.
That is why the US is a Republic and not a Democracy. That is why initially only white male property owners could vote. That is why we have the electoral college system, which actually was not even tied to votes in the state, it was completely up to the discretion of the elector.
Jefferson and others warned about letting the banks and corporations have power. Plato also set out what would happen. I guess these guys were right in the end. They probably saw what is currently happening unfold in their times too, and in 300 years it’ll happen again, probably in China this time, if not earlier.
The political process in most countries is a sham, and the US is right up there with everyone else.
It’s not too much of a stretch into the domain of sarcastic hyperbole to say that the only thing anyone needs to know about American partisan politics is that both Republican and Democratic strategists are equally committed to the common goal of electing as many Republicans as possible.
There aren’t that many other explanations for why the only play on the Democratic book is to unload both barrels into their own feet at every opportunity.
Mandos, what do you mean nowhere “else” to go? Is that a joke?
Except, if your priority is representing the interests of ordinary citizens, that is even more susceptible to corruption. In fact, it may be corrupt by definition.
Nope, you can either choose not to vote and live with Republican inevitability, [Kodos and Kang]waste your vote[/Kodos and Kang] and vote for a third party, or vote for a Democrat. That’s because the Republicans really are worse. Certainly, if you disapprove of Citizens United, you also necessarily believe that Republicans are worse.
The problem is that there is a large portion of the population that is willing to vote for the worst Republicans. That is a dead weight on the political spectrum and probably outweighs any other Overton Window effect.
“Hey look, it’s a foot. Shoot it! Shoot it!”
If i cared about the Democratic Party’s electoral fortunes this would probably bother me, but as the Democratic Party cares nothing for my fortunes i see no reason to expend any energy worrying about its.
And, sorry, the “Republican are worse” argument holds no water with me. Really? How much worse? Not enough for me to go out of my way to help the Democrats, because less evil is still evil.
I’ll still be going to the polls: voting third party, writing in Huey Long, etc.. But after this trainwreck of an administration and Congress you can take it to the bank that i will never pull the lever for someone with a “D” in front of his/her name again. I don’t care if Jesus returns and runs for a Michigan Senate seat as a Democrat…fuck him. Not even the son of God could remain uncorrupted within that rotten organization.
Mandos,
You know that the point of that Simpsons sketch with Kane and Kodos was the guy threatening to vote for a third party, right?
It’s high time that people start throwing away their vote, since that’s what the legacy parties do with them as soon as they’re counted anyway.
Yes, but the joke is on Matt Groening. Kodos and Kang were right. As I said, a rational being can’t simultaneously believe that Citizens United was a bad ruling and that the Republicans aren’t noticeably worse than Democrats. Unless, of course, you believe that Citizens United made no difference (then why is it bad?).
Will you be calling them “legacy parties” in 20 years? I’d love to be proven wrong; no one has so far given a plausible story for how I am to be proven wrong.
Let me reiterate: you ignore culture at your peril. There is a large core Republican vote that places its cultural perspective over its economic interest, and economic progressives will have to make an unacceptable bargain to break this hold in a direct way. And the US system is specifically structured so that the competing party need only be a little bit better, and perhaps better even only in form (which should not be discounted!).
Poor mandos. As usual, the opportunity cost of engagement is simply too high.
What lex said. As I wrote elsewhere:
So, there’s no strategery. And?
Six years is a blink of an eye. It’s three elections at most—against processes that are 40 years old. This is all about impatience, then? Like “NOW NOW NOW”? And for that, we are to throw up our hands, let the worst case scenarios happen (and we are definitely not yet at the worst case), and “release energy from our hands”.
That’s not just asinine, that’s repugnant.
“With both [Roberts and Alito] on the Supreme Court, decisions like Citizens United were inevitable.”
Bollocks. A decision like CU was inevitable because the courts are the wrong place to fix conceptually flawed legislation and obiter dictum judicial accidentactivism such as
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Clara_County_v._Southern_Pacific_Railroad
It is the hallmark of undemocratic thinking to hope that the judiciary – an institution designed to be conservative, literally minded, and bound the legal status quo – can make up for legislative deficiencies. In its wrongheadedness, this line of thinking is only rivaled by the “hope” for meaningful and lasting “change” by decree from a unitary executive. This battle has to be fought in the legislature, and the legistlature is the primary institution where the deficiencies, inabilities and disinterest of the people are to express themselves. If “The People” had their act together, Roberts and Alito would have very little opportunity to exploit gaping holes for their own overreaching purposes.
Ceterum censeo: with both Bush and the Democrat ‘stablishment elected, appointments like Roberts and Alito were invevitable.
Bingo. There is no Constitutional obstacle to electing a legislature, and heck, an executive that will do all the things that need to be done. If The People wanted to do so, they could fill the legislature with an army of Ralph Nader clones. The Senate would take six years, but the House only one election.
Mandos,
Ditto again what Lex said. I mean, when you wrote “Kodos and Kang”, did you realize that you’re Homer Simpson sitting on the couch as the world goes to hell under President Kang saying “don’t blame me, I voted for Kodos” ?
If the Democrats had any redeeming virtues, it might be different. They have none, not even that of being winners. As such, supporting Democrats is 100% guaranteed to empower Republicans (think back to Gore as Speaker shutting out members of his own party from making an issue about the stolen 2000 election). In other words, to my thinking, even if you grant that 1) Democrats are slightly less evil than Republicans and 2) it’s smart to vote for a slightly less evil party; it still makes no sense to support the Democrats.
Sorry for the double post, but Mandos, I think you’re making a mistake thinking the problem is regular people in places like Texas. What do you have against them anyway, you don’t even know them? Meanwhile, you’re missing the obvious, Rahm today telling Wall Street they should support Democrats based on their actions, not their words. There’s your problem, not in the South where some schmucks are voting “against their class interests” (aka, just like all of us who voted for Obama).
Who said anything about “regular people in places like Texas”? Who talked about Texas? If they’re in Texas, so be it, and if they’re in Pittsburgh or Schenectady (love the name) or Los Angeles, so be it. Wherever they are, whoever they are, they provide the vote that puts the political baseline where it is. I have nothing “against” them in some existential sense, it’s their right to vote for whomever they want; but the solidarity of this vote in the face of the real crises provides the pretext for the Democrats to present themselves as the lesser evil, and only that.
The only reason why Rahm Emanuel is even there is that he was elected to the House from Illinois at one point. That’s a key part of his career. I mean, that’s a case in point. The people could always vote for whomever they want to. And they wanted and got Rahm; and now he works for Obama.
The alternative is, well, “learned helplessness.” You ain’t got no one to vote for, so you go home and grow tomatoes and pretend that you’re a big old DFH?
white southerners will never vote Democratic/black again in anyone’s lifetime. the Republican/White vote will stay that way. to think otherwise is naivete, and why we have BP running the Government’s oil policy.
there is no difference in D and R in the Congress. so blabber all you want. i hope the D’s lose big time this election. get the collapse over with, no more playing lipservice to fantasies about the “common/little folks.’
the southern white has always hated Government since the Civil War. being from the South, i know.
what amazes me is how southern whites always and i mean ALWAYS vote against their own self interest, they are so easily led.
the con job on America is so complete. it is so sad and predictable, though. the only good will come the fall is complete.
voting Democratic will only delay the inevitable. to think otherwise is a “faith Based reality,” like the Republicans.
i hope the Democrats who think there is a difference will wise up, but i won’t hold my breath.
stupid is as stupid does. and god how i hate that line, but for the white Southerner it is so so VERY TRUE!!!
Ya know what’s repugnant to me? No work, no health care, the house in constant jeopardy. Wiping off the spooge from prolix and overly credentialled wannabe strategerists is just a minor annoyance after all that.
Interestingly, some of the people at Zero Hedge are letting go, too. I recommend it.
Er, I grow squash, too, besides tomatoes. You know why? Because I want to guarantee I’ll be able to eat in the winter. And I should have a couple of months canned, in case GS manipulates the fuel prices again. Some people call that a “hobby.” Then again, they would.
How exactly do you define the “political baseline”, and what’s the evidence for it? If you’re talking about core Republican voters, those were nearly extinct, remember, before Obama and the Democrats resurrected them with their general awfulness. If you’re talking about people who voted for McCain, well, I don’t think any Obama voter has a right to criticize that vote (they were right, he’s a celebrity who lacks experience, and a machine pol). The only evidence for any kind of “baseline” is people like you, who say they will vote for their tribe no matter what, because the other tribe in intrinsically evil (“socialist”). No one supports either party on their own merits, but rather on the other party’s demerits, which is why your support of the Democrats empowers Republicans.
I think the “lesser of two evils” is to try and withdraw support in small “practical” ways (still evil because it’s my/our tax dollars that guarantee the degrading, maiming and killing people all over the world into the foreseeable future).
Blizzard writes:
Actually, it wasn’t just the Ds awfulness that rebuilt the R brand — it was a deliberate policy. There’s no other way, operationally, to interpret The Big O’s* constant calls for bipartisanship than that the Rs were worth listening to, had some good ideas, yadda yadda yadda.
So today’s “progressive” yammering about “Look! Over there! Sarah Palin!” leaves me a bit cold, since they were the ones who did so much to help Obama resurrect the R brand in the first place.
NOTE Canadians, note Montreal reference.
The people could always vote for whomever they want to.
Well, technically true, but for all practical purposes, people can only vote for who is on the ballot. Who determines who gets to be on the ballot? And please don’t tell me whoever turns in the signature petition.
Kang and Kodos are only “right” because most people don’t want to “throw away” their vote.
I know a lot of very conservative people, and for every GOP, right or wrong type there is at least one other who’s conservative but just plain pissed that the GOP really isn’t…that it doesn’t represent them. Basically all the same things that progs/libs/Dems complain about.
Everybody’s working under the “well this is slightly better than that” voting procedure.
It would only take one cycle to really shake things up, and all it would take is for everyone who’s pissed off (from both sides of the proverbial aisle) to “throw away their vote”. Returns would prove that if lots of people throw away their vote then the individual votes aren’t thrown away. And it is the only thing capable of putting the fear of god into the current political set.
Lex, this is why it’s important to go to the ballot box and affirmatively spoil your ballot, either by writing in “None of the above” or doing whatever else is necessary in your jurisdiction to get your vote counted as not supporting the legacy parties. (Third parties are fine, too).
Just staying home just means another “voter apathy” story. Bo
NOTE As for “the Rs really are worse than the Ds” argument — Just what part of “targeted assassinations of US citizens” is not getting through? It’s not a question of worse, it’s a question of how much worse. Right now, both parties are driving in the same direction, one at 89mph and the other at 98mph. So why not just take the hit (as Bernard says) and get it over with. Let the Ds go. Let go.
lambert,
For sure. I consider voting to be a responsibility. (And i’m pretty well convinced that if everyone eligible voted in every election we’d have far fewer problems with our politicians.)
I wish that there was always a NOTA option, but i’m good with voting third party or writing in a candidate. I prefer to vote that way and generally do so. The difference for me now is that i’m done with voting against the GOP. (which ends up being a vote for the Dems)
One good thing about the current Democrats losing power is that they will have lost power. That’s a problem for politicians. Neither corporations nor big lobbying groups are likely to waste a lot of time and money on politicians who can’t hold onto power.
Voting the Democrats out will have consequences for Democrats. The only question is whether those consequences are severe enough to persuade the leaders of the Democratic Party to change.
Voting the Democrats out will have consequences for Democrats. The only question is whether those consequences are severe enough to persuade the leaders of the Democratic Party to change.
If the past 30 years history is any guide, then I doubt it. It took three presidential election losses by three candidates that I think we can safely say were more liberal/progressive than Obama (namely, Carter, Mondale, and Dukakis) to bring about the emergence of the DLC and Clinton, with their move to the “third way” (republican-lite). If Clinton had lost in ’92, the democrats might still be putting up liberal/progressive candidates as their standard bearer. Clinton won twice and Obama lied his way to a win with a pretty substantial majority. The Democrats look at that record and reasonably ask liberals/progressives, “What have you got?”
Moral: Defeats don’t change parties’ directions (even three in a row). Wins do.
It will take a primary challenge and a win against a sitting president (remember, President Johnson dropped out) to convince the democrats that the country’s population wants them to enact liberal/progressive solutions. There are lots of poll results that say the population wants this, but elections will need to be won.
Are there any liberal/progressive governors out there that anyone wants to put forward to challenge Obama? (The country has shown that it prefers to elect governors to the presidency over any other office holder. Obama is the first senator since Kennedy, and his opponent was also a senator, so the country didn’t have a choice but to elect a senator.)
to think the Democrats would give up their share of the Elite’s/Wall St. money for the “little people” is such “ignorance is bliss” stupidity, i wonder what it takes for some people to see beyond their own bias. the money that bought the Government makes sure there are no challengers outside their approved WAY.
with Gov Dean, the DLC/moneyed Democrats felt threatened and helped Republicans squash Dean asap. threats to the status quo are not permitted, why a 3rd party is not possible. the money keeps the “leaders” of both parties on their knees, doing the moneyed line. the corruption is too deep and pervasive for any resistance.
now that the system is so broken and holding up on its’ own inertia, there is no hope for saving it from further predations.
what i am curious about is how soon will it be before the system gets taken down. if Weimar is any clue, the opportunists will further subvert and divert what they can while they can.
that we have so many idiot Americans who still believe the rant about Government being the problem, i think we will see further degradation of the civilian state that our parents created after the Depression. the willing American idiots bought the “Faith Based” lies enough to be accomplices of their own destruction. they still don’t want to see they need to pay for firemen, teachers, highways, bridges…. Society, in other words. Vote Republican : Free lunch
the “i”ve got mine and you can go F yourself” free lunch sold by the Republicans is what they like. that they live in a fantasy world is beginning to come home to roost. Once the Democrats validated the Republican lies, the whole societal structure was more easily undermined and the rot became endemic.
it is just a matter of time before the rot is thorough enough for the pieces of our society to collapse on themselves.
the piece by piece theft the Republicans fostered has made the whole American Society unsustainable. and yet this “free lunch of St. Ronnie” is what the big Obama highlighted in his Contract on America speech on election night. OUCH!!!
i could see the screws being tightened when i heard St. Ronnie’s name held up as “bipartisanship” by the big O.
learning how to steal from American society is what the St. Ronnie agenda is/was all about. These people, Republicans and Democrats now, are stripping bare all the pieces that made American society function. now we will see how that “Rugged Individual,” so glamorized by the Right wing, will do without any roads, schools, bridges, teachers, unions and the rest of “society” that helped make society work.
Society is an aberration in Republican thinking, a “gift” from the Elite. now the Elite wants that “gift” back.
Pay for things, lol. not in a Republican world! Vote Republican and No more Taxes. for the rich, yes, for the “little People,” lol, get real!!!
going Galt indeed. the Republicans were/are selling a “Lord of the Flies” Society. Stop the “other” and other fear based lies worked so well. oh so well. the idiot Americans wanted to believe this scam, and the Republicans granted them their wish. Republican morals with a side order of Democratic for bipartisanship. that is what “bipartisanship” means, lol.
the big O, Obama, was the master PR salesman the Republicans trotted out to finish us off with. how much time does America have left? hmm Social Security is going NOW!! the Thieves are coming to your wallet once again!
It really is amazing how few Americans actually support either party –
So, basically, a majority of Americans aren’t all that happy with either party and almost 40% would welcome a third party even if it meant the winning candidate disagrees with them. That sounds like a pretty decent segment of the population is pissed at both the GOP and Dems to me.
I think this also undermines Mandos’ point that abandoning Democrats means the Rs will always win because of a core group of voters will always support them. There seem to be an awful lot of Americans willing to abandon BOTH parties. The problem is that ballot access, media, money, etc., makes that hard to do effectively. But hard is not the same thing as impossible.
I would also note the significant social change has almost never come about simply by voting and it’s that model that’s failing us. Politicians do what the public wants when they’re scared of the public. Part of that is voting (and volunteering and donating), but a lot of that is other kinds of civil disobedience. Large protests may be a thing of the past in this country, thanks to a lot of reasons, including the increasing personal risks, but there are still ways large groups of people can inflict pain if they choose to (like organized moves of money, etc.). The issue is how to organize such movements. That requires, IMO, to a large degree removing the issue of D v. R to get around tribal loyalties and focus on the real issues.
This, btw, is why “right-wing” activists are so much more effective at pressuring Rs than left-wing activists are pressuring Ds. The Chamber of Commerce and NRA are happy to have Rs who don’t agree with them lose. They couldn’t care less. They care only about their issues. You’d never have the NRA do what abortion rights group did and go along with a healthcare plan because it’s generally “good” even though it screws them on their one issue. Which is why Congress is scared shitless of the NRA and couldn’t care less about NARAL.
BDBlue writes:
This, btw, is why “right-wing” activists are so much more effective at pressuring Rs than left-wing activists are pressuring Ds. The Chamber of Commerce and NRA are happy to have Rs who don’t agree with them lose. They couldn’t care less. They care only about their issues. You’d never have the NRA do what abortion rights group did and go along with a healthcare plan because it’s generally “good” even though it screws them on their one issue. Which is why Congress is scared shitless of the NRA and couldn’t care less about NARAL.
Shorter: LW activists are D enablers. RW activists are not R enablers. And it’s better to be feared than loved.
Bernard:
Do feel free to propagate “The Big O” — I’m envisaging a parody of the Obama campaign’s now-shopworn branding. Possibly the business end of an oil pipe with crude bubbling out of it. Airbrushed, and with Gotham type, of course.
NOTE Canadians will recognize the reference to Montreal’s Olympic stadium, which, for those of us in The Great Republic To The South, was a boondoggle of the first order, fabulously expensive (“The Big Owe”) and — bonus points! — ended up carpeted with famously bad AstroTurf (hat tip, David Axelrod).
I’m not sure where the uniquely engineered retractable roof fits into the metaphor; that’s the roof that, during high winds, led to rain delays in a covered stadium. Maybe that’s the “hope and change” part?
In the end, the R’s and D’s support each other. The True R’s will lean on the disgruntled using the same argument that True D’s use on their disgruntled. “Don’t throw away your vote, because it will enable the evil Other to gain power.” Lambert has discussed the ratchet effect in greater detail at Corrente; i think the reliance on each other goes beyond policy. That it’s systemic and fundamental to the American system (as it stands).
Break one party and the other will follow, contrary to popular memeography, which holds that it will enable one party rule.
Like US foreign policy after the Soviets forfeited, the “victorious” party will find itself without the definable enemy it requires for motivation.
anon2525 writes:
Nonsense. Failure brings change. Wins confirm that things are going well. The Democrats kept the White House, so they tell themselves, by being like the DLC. When they were out of power, they let Howard Dean fix things, then tossed him out. Repeated or prolonged failure will eventually make them change their minds, but it could take a while.
The one sure thing is that keeping these Democrats in power will only continue the present course. Until they are out of power, there’s no chance of change, because that power allows them to keep it from happening.
Good luck with that primary thing. The only thing standing between you and the successful completion of this plan is finding someone courageous, savvy, charismatic, and yet progressive enough to take on the head of his party, and $100 million or so to get him started.
Even with the help of unions, Bill Halter couldn’t win against Blanche Lincoln in Arkansas. That link should demonstrate just how arrogant and out of touch his opponents were, and he had as much financing as he could use. He still lost.
Nonsense. Failure brings change. Wins confirm that things are going well.
…
Repeated or prolonged failure will eventually make them change their minds, but it could take a while.
I don’t think defeat will do that. Defeats didn’t change the New Deal democrats. They died or were out-elected by DLC democrats (although I wish it hadn’t happened). Defeat didn’t change rumsfeld&cheney. They were the same guys in 2000 that they were 30 years before in the Nixon administration. Pete Peterson is another Nixon alumni. He hated social security then and he hates it today, 40 years later. The DLC democrats had the election stolen (they “lost”) in 2000, but that didn’t change them from being corporatists. Obama won’t change; he can only be defeated or “termed-out.”
Don’t expect people to change what they believe. (Has defeat changed what you believe about how medical services should be paid for or what reforms are needed in the “financial industry?”). Instead, expect to need to replace them. In the past, we thought that we needed to replace republicans (did you expect defeat to change them?) with democrats. Now we know that we need to replace democrats and republicans with better officeholders.
Good luck with that primary thing. The only thing standing between you and the successful completion of this plan is finding someone courageous, savvy, charismatic, and yet progressive enough to take on the head of his party, and $100 million or so to get him started.
I’m skeptical that there is such a person in the entire country, whether she or he is a current officeholder or not, because if that person existed we ought to have heard from him by now. He or she should be out making public statements criticizing Obama&company now, not waiting until the primary period. If such a person emerges only near primary season, I’ll doubt that she or he is genuine because someone who is genuinely progressive should be speaking out now against all that is going on.
To give one example, Obama should have responded to the recent court ruling that Ian Welsh wrote about concerning the illegality of working with organizations that have been designated as terrorist groups by the state dept. He should have come out and proposed a change in the law, but he did not. Where is the politician in this country who did come out and propose that the law be changed?
A well-written and thoughtful (non-trollish) rejoinder to the idea that “anything has to be better”.
Strawman argument. I’m talking about organizations, not people. The thought that also applies to individuals is that they will only change when things are bad for them. Politicians with power are harder to fight than politicians who don’t have power. The fact that Rumsfeld is still an asshole doesn’t change any of that.
What does this have to do with anything? There were definitely people lefter than many of the candidates at all levels for several primary and general elections. Guess what: they didn’t get elected. But they were on the ballot. This applies as much to Massachusetts as it does to Utah.
From anon2525:
Yes! Give the anonymous entity a prize! Almost no one sitting in office is there because he/she/it has to be there. Even without the Retroactive Implicit Bribe that is so prevalent these days, there’s still a lot more lucrative things most of them could have been doing. All this talk of defeats, extracting prices, political withdrawal etc. from the Dimestore Marxists and destructive political nihilists leads away from what actually motivates politicians: how to make it feasible to stay in their positions and/or advance.
Now just after the very first election, the political constituency most in need of a strateg(er)y to sustain political careers is evidently about to jump ship (we’ll see soon enough how much of it is empty blather), being unable to hold it together even for a full presidential term. NOW NOW NOW? And people expect…what…to rise from the ashes? Other than tomatoes and squash… I mean, we still care about things other than tomatoes and squash, I’m assuming.
Let me tell you this: what people say on policy polls really doesn’t translate to behaviour at the voting booth in any direct way. I knew out-and-out leftists (by stated views) that voted Tory in Canada out of habit, back in the Mulroney days. It’s not that different in the USA. It’s a marketing thing. It will take some attempt to understand the wishy-washy sorts of “values” and indecisions and private fears and loyalties that people hold.
Whoever manages to do that will be the most likely progressive candidate to be elected to office.
Actually put that candidate up and see whether this is anything but empty talk. Do you seriously believe that a Tea Party voter would be willing to vote for Carol Mosely-Braun if she had a chance at winning? People have always whined about status quo politicians but rarely has it translated into anything other than Ross Perot.
Well, you know, show me the money. Make that “legacy party” moniker count. I haven’t seen a strateg(er)y to do this from a certain vocal segment of Obama’s critics.
No disagreement here. However, it’s not the same as saying that voting doesn’t matter. It’s not likely that a mass movement is going to emerge from voting alone, for anyone. It doesn’t follow that abandoning the (D) party with not even a hint of a strateg(er)y to replace it is going to lead to some kind of salutary effect. And that really does matter.
What does this have to do with anything?
You brought it up.
There were definitely people lefter than many of the candidates at all levels for several primary and general elections. Guess what: they didn’t get elected
Of those, how many did the D party establishment support? How many did the D party establishment actively oppose?
Of those, how many did the establishment media openly mock? Ignore?
How many did the savvy leftish bloggers denigrate? You can’t vote for him, he doesn’t stand a chance! It’s a wasted vote. Etc.
It will take some attempt to understand the wishy-washy sorts of “values” and indecisions and private fears and loyalties that people hold.
Whoever manages to do that will be the most likely progressive candidate to be elected to office.
Or, it could be a completely non-progressive candidate who has mastered all of that, but who lies to peoples’ faces in order to get elected. Exhibit A: B. Obama
Mandos – just for grins, is there _anything_ the Ds could do that would cause you to stop voting and advocating for them?
It certainly isn’t targeted assassinations of U.S. citizens, false imprisonment and maltreatment and/or torture, cutting social security, medicare, unemployment benefits, education and much more, funneling vast amounts of public money to various big businesses, punishing whistleblowers, telling big lies, doing the opposite of what’s promised, (at least) soft censorship, etc. and so forth.
Anything?
They’d have to be worse than the Republicans.
So, for example, if Republicans wanted to build a death star and destroy all life on the planet, and Democrats only wanted a limited nuclear exchange which would kill a couple billion people, Mandos would vote Democratic. But if the Democrats were behind the Death Star, why then, Mandos would vote Republican.
Ian – it certainly comes across that way. Maybe he’ll tell us.
Of course, for any level of bad, there’s always worse, so this is very easy to game.
I wonder if Mandos is representative of the comfortable “creative class” voters who like to pretend they care about others but in fact are just trying to preserve their piece of the pie.
What I find particularly galling is that the Ds are implementing the Rs agenda in a way and to an extent the Rs couldn’t. So, in fact, they aren’t even different, in substance at least, though they do add an extra thick layer of deception.
I realize it’s probably futile, but I’m trying to get my head around how a non-troll could knowingly support that which they vehemently insist they oppose, simply by whipping out the well-worn boogeyman device. It does not compute, so to speak.
Mandos is right about one thing: it’s unlikely that a new party/movement will arise in the near term that’s capable of displacing either major party. That’s simply because they have a stranglehold on the system. It’s because a good candidate with good ideas needs not only tens of millions of dollars but also blessings from the party poobahs.
E.g., the “progressive” challenge launched against Stupak during the health care fiasco dropped out of the race months ago, basically because the DNC wouldn’t give her enough money. Or, the party system is not going to be changed from the inside through either wins or losses…because the party system is not about instituting policy but simply about gaining and keeping power.
Bill Clinton didn’t win by anything but default, and the Dems’ numbers in Congress eroded throughout his two terms. The DLC playbook is still in effect, even though it’s managed to “win” only since 2006 which has been as much about people voting against the GOP as for the Dems.
But it all comes down to a simple question that voters can ask themselves: “Does Party A represent me? Will it work to achieve the things i believe to be important?” If the answer is “no” to either question, then there’s no reason to vote for Party A.
And i’d say that the progs/libs who keep voting for the Dems are no more enlightened than the “social conservatives” who keep voting for the GOP. Both are being used by the parties in their never-ending quest for power. Same stupidity, different direction…same outcome.
As for the famous tomatoes and squash that Mandos hates so much: Not only are they good to eat, not only does eating real vegetables help recapture the sense of taste and weaken the corporate food chain, and not only is growing one’s own food a very reasonable skill to learn these days, but the gift relationships they enable have made my local network much more solid. Of course, I could have used the money to buy an Obama commemorative plate. I guess I must not understand politics.
* * *
I don’t know who Mandos is. But I know what Mandos is.
Mandos is the kind of person who, when a blogger who depends on contributions for readers holds a fundraiser to pay his bills and his property taxes, advises others not to donate, because he disagrees with that blogger’s views.
Mandos couldn’t remain silent, in live and let live fashion. Oh no. If others had followed Mandos’s advice — as I think it’s becoming obvious that they should never, ever do — that blogger would have lost their house. Mandos’s good deed for the day!
And that’s what Mandos’s “progressivism” — and the D party’s generally — comes down to: Vicious hypocrisy kicking downward.
That’s a good parable for why the legacy parties should be destroyed. Mandos manifests precisely the set of attitudes that culminates in the Cat Food Commission, permanently higher unemployment, and all of that.
Vicious hypocrisy kicking downward.
Glad to see that Mandos is all ticked off over “legacy parties.” It must mean that the term is getting traction.
Hell, I’m not a strategerist. I’m just a citizen and a voter. So, no, I don’t have a blueprint for replacing the legacy parties with a political system that is actually responsive to the electorate. Using Ian’s frame that there are three broadly possible outcomes — revolution, reform, and collapse — the third door seems the most likely to me, and so I’m preparing for it as best I can.
Now, maybe I’m too pessimistic. Maybe, on the margins, there’s a reform movement that’s been seeded and is going to start to grow and scale to what we need. (Or maybe the sustainability/resilience communities are that movement. I doubt that, since, for examples, at the university I know, the adjunct professors and the staff, who are in terms of income exactly the same, haven’t united around these ideas, although clearly, in terms of heating and food, their interests are identical.) We can be sure that the press would never cover such a movement, so, if it exists, we’re not going to encounter it except on the ground, locally.
Meanwhile, and again, one thing we can all do is deny the rentiers as much rent as we can. Move our money to a local bank or a credit union, support slow money, support local establishments and not chains, get rid of cable, get rid of interest, et cetera. And any dollar that we might send to the Ds is better used for purposes that more directly assure our survival.
Morally and intellectually bankrupt Ds:
With unemployment at 10%, according to the faked official figures, as far as the eye can see. Look! Over there! Sarah Palin!
Why do anything for the Ds when they don’t do anything for you? Or when what they do actually hurts you? (See under, “Cat Food Commission).
Morally and intellectually bankrupt Ds:
Look! Over there! Sarah Palin!
Oh, and why is Biden talking about Great Depression II as if it’s in the past?
I highly appreciate the “legacy party” moniker, in fact. It’s like a kind of written and signed cheque. It now needs to be cashed but I’ve not seen evidence that there’s enough to cover it in the bank account. Wonder what the returned cheque processing fee is like.
I don’t dislike Mandos. But I do disagree with him.
The lesser evil argument is a strong one, and it has to be dealt with.
Precisely WHAT Legacy is being spoken of? The legacy does no longer exist, the land has been raped, the seas poisoned and raped as well – fish-stocks only 20% (or less) intact, only monopolists controlling all economic markets and Social Security held bonds remain. The monopolists will collapse with their markets, their great accumulated wealth not worth more than the paper it is printed on. The tidal wave form their collapse will carry what remains before it away. There is no legacy boys, it got spent on lead soldiers and drums and beer-soaked celebrations; we the legators being of “sound” minds have chosen the comforts of illusion, the eases of delusion, the companies of belief eschewing the hardships of understanding, of fact, of history, of science, of intellect. The legacy that is expected does not exist.
It really matters not whether ones choices lead, power and those who exercise power are corrupted, the edifices from which power was projected are corrupted to their foundations, unsound and unable to weather the slightest storm. Seek shelter there if you will, their illusion of shelter will be as protective as being in the elements with none, none shall profit by staying and many will be caught in their collapse, there are no insurances issued for what the future holds. The survivors will be those who can bend with the winds of adversity, can adopt, can learn, can extend their horizons and can remember their humanity. For those who cannot adopt or are as mighty oaks will be swept away, the quick remains soon to envy the dead.
Or Formerly T-Bear could be right.
As far as checks being cashed, I’d say the Ds wrote a big fat check to the voters in 2008, and it bounced right over the moon (see the above two quotes on unemployment).
It shouldn’t be surprising, then, that people are thinking twice about taking the D check again. So let’s extend the check riff as a rich metaphor:
When you’ve done work for somebody or performed a service for them, and they’ve bounced a check on you, you’ve got at least two options: (a) cash it again and hope it clears, or (b) write the check off, and assume it will never be honored. In case (a), the check writer made a mistake, has RL issues, charity should be extended, and so on. In case (b), you’re dealing with a deadbeat. In case (a), the good outcome is that the check will ultimately cover the needs for which you had dedicated it (food, shelter, fuel, and so forth) — with some friction as you can’t buy enough food, or you don’t have hot water for a few days, and so forth. In case (b), there is no good outcome. The needs the check was to meet must be postponed or abandoned, and one doesn’t do business with the deadbeat again. One also raises the alarm about the deadbeat, so they don’t prey on others.
So, what about the recommendation that I invest time, energy, or money with the D[eadbeat]s in 2010, and assume that they’ll honor their check this time? I guess that depends on how I assess the risk, right? Think about Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.
If I’ve got food and shelter covered, and I’m into self-actualization, at the top of the pyramid, and if I invest with the Ds, and they bounce their check again, all I’ve lost is a little ego.
But if I don’t have food and shelter covered, and I invest with the Ds, and they bounce their check again, then the opportunity cost is whatever I could do that would have guaranteed food and shelter.
That’s very risky, at least for some. To me, it makes more sense to invest in learning survival skills, like growing my own food. Certainly that was useful to many in Great Depression I, as well as during the collapse of the Soviet Union.
* * *
The “lesser evil” argument assumes the Ds and the Rs are two entities, between whom we choose. In fact, they are a single entity, and so there is no “lesser evil” at all. There are issues of timing, personnel, and policy detail — not to mention tribal markers — but the nature and scope of the evil is the same no matter what the supposed choice may be. (I mean, whoever thought that a D would normalize torture? Would normalize the assassination of US citizens? Would set up the Cat Food Commission? Would normalize 10% unemployment? And on and on and on.)
I freely grant that I don’t know what a post-D/R system would look like. Then again, I don’t imagine that anybody knew what a post-Whig system would look like, either.
Realist:
Subsequently, Ian:
I hope y’all realize that this argument can be used against any political compromise in a representative democracy. I mean, not only did the dropping-a-nuclear-bomb train leave the station in the 40s, but really any government economic policy is likely to hurt someone, somewhere, and possibly quite seriously.
The anarchist answer—with which I agree with in principle—is to say that the problem is the state itself. But traditionally anarchists have completed this thought by articulating programs and strategies to supplant the present order, not to loudly proclaim “localist quietism” and retreat to the rutabagas. Left-wing anarchism obviously does not intend to descend into a Mad Maxian future; there must still be an articulated structure.
I have no personal problem with gardening or even localism as part of one’s political toolbox. If I had been living these past years in an apartment with a balcony and actual sunlight, I would likely have chili peppers and basil on it. But until you have both halves of a political critique—that is, at least a hint of a concept of a hypothesis about political strategy—it’s simply reprehensible to go around spitting daily in the eye of people who do, however flawed it may have been.
But to answer the original question, sure there’s a point at which I’d advocate not voting for the Democrats. That’s when another party exists that has a chance of winning the balance of power in Congress, or there was some kind of credible reason why the authorities would fear the power of the nonvote (haven’t seen it). Or the Democrats advocate blowing up the world. But merely for continuing on the existing, longstanding political trajectory? Few things change for the better NOW NOW NOW.
Uhm…Democrats bounced a check in 2000 when they did not go to the mat for Gore…Democrats bounced a check in the spool-up to the Iraq Invasion…Democrats bounced a check in 2006 [list is too long to be specific]…Democrats bounced a check in 2008 [list is too long to be specific].
Democrats bouncing checks is a definable pattern since 1995.
The best alternative I see is to put the party on the street en mass until they go back to FDR, LBJ, IKE, JFK policies.
I tossed IKE in there, because he successfully governed as a FDR Democrat
Democrats didn’t bounce any cheques: they got elected. I mean, so much effort in some quarters goes into lecturing the rest of the liberal/progressive blogosphere about the fact that Obama’s tendencies were knowable before the election. If there’s even a smidgen of truth about that, then the cheque has been redeemed in full.
But let’s talk about tribalism here. It’s always been very fashionable on the American left to view the D/R split and all the other splits as merely a smokescreen that, once lifted, would make everyone’s *economic* class interests suddenly apparent. That is, the “tribal” issues are not “real” issues, and the Tea Partiers can be brought on board simply by appealing to their economic interests, and neglecting the “tribal” baggage.
This is a nice fantasy, but the cultural loyalties are no less “real” to many than their lived economic reality. If it weren’t so, we’d already be in utopia.
Mandos eloquently evinces learned helplessness:
If we had some ham, we could have some ham and eggs, if we had some eggs.
In other words, by continuing to recommend one legacy party as an option, he reinforces the legacy party system that prevents new alternatives from developing.
The first step is to walk away. Other steps must follow, but that’s the first one.
“Either-or” or “both-and,” now. “Live and let live”?
But really, this is the crux of the problem with Lambert’s entire argument. You have to believe with all your heart that there is no difference between D and R—even when there really actually is—to justify the “walk away and devil-take-the-consequence” approach he advocates. That’s what’s reprehensible about it.
I mean, if he had a strateg(er)y, and at least a smidgen of an argument to defend it—if he had some kind of political theory of what might follow—you could make some kind of case, I guess, that the increased suffering (above existing suffering) would be worth it. But he flatly refuses to do even that, and then he points fingers at others for “learned helplessness”, a term that loses a little more of its meaning every time it departs from his keyboard.
anon2525,
This is wrong:
“I’m skeptical that there is such a person in the entire country, whether she or he is a current officeholder or not, because if that person existed we ought to have heard from him by now. He or she should be out making public statements criticizing Obama& company now, not waiting until the primary period. If such a person emerges only near primary season, I’ll doubt that she or he is genuine because someone who is genuinely progressive should be speaking out now against all that is going on.”
Because it looks at what people say, NOT what they do.
Obama claims to have spoken out against the Iraq Invasion 2002 and yet nobody heard “the speech” until he recorded “the speech” in a studio 5 years later using an “audience soundtrack” for the 2008 election.
Whether “the speech”Obama “gave” was fraud, farce or fact matters not, because Obama supported every war funding vote as a Senator, his 4 escalations of the AF-Pak to impose the Karsi government should come as no surprise, because words are just that…words.
Democrats are Republicans who candy coat the corporate poison, before shoving it down our throats, while Republicans just shove it down our throat. This is the “better than” Mandos talks about, Dems are gentle murders, Republicans are not.
That is why Mandos advice is drivel, it’s far easier to stop the obvious murderer than the devious murderer.
Democrats are the devious murderer of the USA as we once knew it. People who support Democrats at this point are complicit, whether they do it out of a sense of whoredom, or venality matters little, whether commit the murder with panache, or vulgarity matters little. Mandos whole argument comes down to: “Democrats are far more stylish murders”.
Yeah, great argument, now lets talk about how many angel can dance on a pin’s head.
Ho hum, mandos.
Wake me when when the banksters and rentiers aren’t running the country.
Wake me when 10% nominal unemployment isn’t the new normal.
Wake me when the administration isn’t making covering the oil spill a felony.
Wake me when the administration isn’t targeting US citizens for assassination.
Wake me when the administration isn’t proposing to cut Social Security.
Wake me when the administration isn’t proposing to cut Medicare.
Wake me when the war in Iraq is over and all our troops are out.
Wake me when the war in Afghanistan is over and all our troops are out.
Wake when when the Bush program of warrantless surveillance is shut down.
Wake me when all the lawbreaking justice department officials are prosecuted.
Wake me when the two too to fail banks are broken up.
Wake me in 2014, assuming I’m not one of the 45,000 who will die per year without health care in the interim.
And on and on and on.
The Ds and the Rs are one entity. There is no “lesser evil.”
* * *
Obviously, again, mandos knows nothing about what’s “reprehensible” — unless, of course, he does, and chooses it. Just like the Ds, in fact.
Mandos – your answer was, in effect, no. I’m not shocked, or surprised. You speak of not having alternatives, but you come across as satisfied with the Ds – as if they protect your interests with more of a cultural affinity than the Rs (their policies are substantively the same.)
You say you have nothing against gardening and yet you mocked it earlier in this thread, along with trotting out the Marxist bugaboo. You _are_ a slippery character. Just like the Ds you shill for/are part of. What a surprise. (BTW, can you confirm lambert strether’s allegation that you tried to discourage others from contributing to him?)
Ian, you say the “lesser evil” has to be dealt with. That was true a few years ago. Today it seems that, if anything, the Ds may be worse because when they are in power there is no opposition to R policies. I’m not saying that things in the country couldn’t be worse. In fact, they could be, and in the current trajectory probably will be, _much_ worse. It’s just that Rs in power with Ds in (putative) opposition may be that “lesser evil” (which I don’t support either). There remain cultural and institutional impediments to depraved politicians acting with complete abandon (though they are slowly being removed.)
The risk of letting the Ds go and creating a fertile ground for a replacement is minimal, while the upside is huge (including peaceful change). On the other hand, continuing the current two party two-step has huge risk with minimal upside.
Ooops, sorry. I fell into the trollish trap, and invested time in engaging the unengageable. At this point, the burden is on mandos to show:
1. That the Ds and the Rs are two entities, and not one; and
2. How, exactly, one of the two entities is, in fact, less evil than the other.
So I invite him to do so.
And please, if it comes down to the Supreme Court… Well, we’re way beyond that, I would say.
While I was always disgusted at the DINO’s, I too thought they were/are the lesser of two evils. However, this “I’ll show them” type attitude is only as good for as long as you’re in the voting booth. And a GOP take-over of the House and/or Senate, and/or a Romney-Barbour victory in 2012 scares the crap out of me. It’s like choosing between dirt and poison.
But I think we’re getting ahead of ourselves. In order to change Washington, you need to change minds. And after what the Republican mantra of “less government”, “lower taxes” and “deregulation” (which Dems went along with) did to the country (see Wall St., see health care, see coal mines, see the Gulf of Mexico), you’d think the Democrats would finally – finally! – scream from the rooftops, telling the country just how how wrong the right had been. And capitalize from it.
But Obama and the Dems didn’t do that. Quite the contrary, in fact. While the GOP went further right, Obama and the Dems tagged along. Opportunity lost.
Democrats aren’t going to change unless, and until, they begin to stand up for themselves, realize their in a street fight with a nasty, nasty conservative movement and begin to prove them wrong. But good luck with that when the Dems pass a health care bill that’s “market-based,” and gives more power and throws more money at private industry.
The right has done an excellent job at propagandizing their incessant fear of liberals when there is no liberal movement in the country. It would be like Rush Limbaugh conning someone in Miami to fear snow. We’ve moved so far right — and keep moving right despite the “Democrats” winning in 2006 and 2008 — that there is no left anymore. Whatever left there is, even Democrats like Obama and Rahn Emmanual roll their eyes at it. There’s your problem right there.
In order to get anywhere, we have to re-build the left, stop the insane sprint to the right, turn around and head left. But good luck trying to convince Obama and the DINO’s that. And, again, THAT’S the problem.
Realist, I supplied the link for the “allegation” above.
* * *
Why do you think the Ds can be brought to realize they’re in a “street fight” with the Rs? Do you think the “bad cop” and “good cop” are in a street fight? Let alone the “bad cop” and the “just as bad, though maybe in a different way cop?”
In order to get anywhere, we have to re-build the left, stop the insane sprint to the right, turn around and head left. But good luck trying to convince Obama and the DINO’s that.
This is (one of?) the debate(s), above. It is my contention that Obama&DINOs cannot be convinced that they are wrong by defeating democrats (leaving republicans in their place). In order to have change, they and any office holder can only be replaced with someone who thinks differently (yes, there are exceptions). Only winning seats changes minds because it exchanges people for people who think differently. People, by and large, do not change. Don’t base any political strategy on changing their minds. (Are you prepared to change your mind and join the Young (or Old) republicans?)
From recent political history:
– Democrats lose executive branch in Virginia and New Jersey (Nov. 2009)
– Democrats lose Kennedy’s former seat in the senate (Jan. 2010)
Did losing those offices make the democrats think “Hmm…we lost to right-wing politicians…maybe the population wants us to move toward left/liberal/progessive solutions and policies?” The (very) day that the democrats lost Kennedy’s former seat, Obama announces that he’s establishing a commission to “study” the federal deficit. In the weeks following, he changes nothing in his legislation to protect the medical services industry. In the months following, he and his minions (lackeys?) prevent any legislation from reforming the “financial services industry.”
The most optimistic result I am able to come up with for 2010, given the restrictions of the two-party system, ballot restrictions, and so on, is that all republican incumbents up for election are defeated and an identical number of democrats are defeated. This would bring in new democrats and new republicans. Only new people are potentially going to change the direction that the gov’t. is going. The current office holders have shown that they cannot and will not change it.
Steve writes:
This ‘this “I’ll show them” type attitude’ idea, while no doubt a comforting one for people who aren’t willing to consider something other than voting Democratic, is also a strawman. I’m not planning on voting “non-Democratic” to “show them” anything. I’m not recommending what I am because I want to “send a message”, either, which is another pissanty mis-characterization of what I, and most of the folks who advocate not voting Democratic this time, are trying to do. If I really thought that voting Democratic would be a better thing for the future, I’d do it, even though they’re worthless assholes. I’m doing it to take the power away from them so that they won’t be a factor anymore.
Passing this off as some sort of childish desire to get back at the Democrats for what they did to us is nothing more than a dishonest attempt to justify something that otherwise has no justification. Either way, Republican government or Democratic, things are going to get worse. At this point, the only question is, what are we going to do about it?
You’re afraid of the Republicans for what they might do? I’m afraid of Democrats for what they have done, and what they’ve said they’ll do. And frankly, the two sound remarkably the same to me.
When someone comes up with a workable plan that doesn’t involve taking power away from these Democrats, then I’m all ears. I haven’t heard one yet, though, and I’ve now read every comment in this column.
Cujo writes:
Ding!
How many unsupported banalities & platitudes that support voting Democratic can you put in one post? Let’s look at one recent post:
1] are the lesser of two evils. [where’s the evidence for this]
2] “I’ll show them…in the voting booth” type attitude [what are you suggesting here, shitty people should keep their jobs?]
3] GOP take-over…scares…me. [TARP/FISA/IRAQ/Afghanistan/Bailouts for the rich/Gutting SSI et al under Republicans is soooo scary, but harmless under Democrats]
4] choosing between dirt [harmless Democrats] and poison [deadly Republicans]. [hurrah team!!!]
5] …to change Washington, you need to change minds. [there’s a plan of action]
6] you’d think the Democrats would…[actually Steve, if you had been following the discussion…]
7] …telling the country just how how wrong the right had been [earth to Steve, Democrats have been supporting TARP/FISA/IRAQ/Afghanistan/Bailouts for the rich/Gutting SSI et al]
8] But Obama and the Dems didn’t do that. [they] went further right. [the lesser of two evils?]
9] Democrats aren’t going to change unless, and until, they begin to stand up for themselves [there’s another plan of action]
10] Dems pass a health care bill that..throws more money at private insurance. [the lesser of two evils?]
11] We keep moving right despite the “Democrats” winning. [the lesser of two evils?]
12] Obama and Rahn Emmanuel roll their eyes…There’s your problem. [the lesser of two evils?]
13] In order to get anywhere, we have to re-build the left, stop the insane sprint to the right, turn around and head left. [there’s another plan of action]
14] convince Obama and the DINO’s , THAT’S the problem
The problem Steve, is we are powerless to “convince, re-build, stop, change minds”, with mental gymnastics. However, we can “show them…in the voting booth” forcing as many Democrats as possible to get lobbing jobs all at a time when the call for Democratic lobbyist will be at low ebb. And we can repeat this until the Democratic brand is destroyed which will allow oxygen and sunlight into our feces laden political waters. One corporate party is enough, we don’t need two.
Frankly, I don’t see why I should let Lambert move the goalposts: “Supreme Court” is a complete answer given the American political system.
But we’ll let him get away with it for the sake of argument:
I mean, this is just silliness. They run candidates against one another. You even have a say in which candidates they run against one another. Isn’t that the point?
Of course, it could be some enormous coordinated conspiracy in which everything is consciously rigged from top to bottom. That 50% of all candidates are throwing the election to the other candidate. The political nihilist/crypto-PUMA component of the American left as represented by Lambert practically depends on this being the case, as it’s really the only way you could seriously call them one entity.
But if you believe that, we are simply in different factual universes.
How many examples do you want? My own favorite is the very fact that there was a health care bill; but obviously I don’t expect this to fly with this crowd, having argued it before. What about the deepwater drilling moratorium that a judge just blocked? With Jindal firmly against such things, do you think that a Republican administration would even have tried?
Let’s see where the goalposts are now.
I’m coming from the same place as Cujo in regards to my voting future. If this is the way that the Democrats want to “govern”, then they simply will not get any support from me.
Ideally, there are plenty of people on the right side of the spectrum thinking the same way…people who will carry through with it. So i’ll flip Mandos’ plan on its head (the way it should be): i’ll vote third party until the Dems show me something worth voting for, something concrete. If they want my vote, they can earn it.
Further, snicker at the silly idealism of gardeners, but know that such behavior has saved populations during other collapses. The sneered at “local quietism” is actually the way that a political movement can be built; at least it’s a far more effective manner than hoping that some billionaires that own media conglomerates get on the bandwagon and promote a movement.
And, Mandos, a pot of basil and one of chili peppers is not “gardening” in any significant sense of the word. It’s work, real work…with the beauty of a tangible product to show for your labors.
I have to stop here before i go off on a House that Peterbilt rant and the horrible treatment that at least two decades of Democrats have given to the working class that might do things like, oh say, garden for a living…or, you know, actual work.
I think that Mandos is being too cute and too Democratic by half here…giving away what the real problem with the Dems is: that attitude. I may be working class (by choice), but i’m plenty well enough educated, read and traveled to not be in the least intimidated or awed by that bullshit. It does, however, sum up why the Dems aren’t worth my time.
There’s a long history to all of these references that may give you that impression.
The “Marxist bugaboo” wasn’t about Marxism as such, it was about what Sir Charles calls “Dimestore Marxism”: http://www.cogitamusblog.com/2009/12/more-vitriol-toward-my-fellow-lefties.html
The mockery of gardening is a reference not to gardening as such, but Lambert’s alleged “quietist and localist” ideological alternative he uses as an alibi to spit on the rest of the liberal blogosphere as Traitors To The People, because he has no constructive alternative.
I was wracking my brain to figure out what Lambert was referring to (I mean, he’s one to talk about “vicious hypocrisy,” does he really want to go there?), but I think he’s talking about this, which I dug out after some searching. Ian promoted one of Lambert’s blegs, and I suggested that the money be spent better elsewhere, as did Carolyn Kay, a former Corrente regular who got purged from the site (full disclosure, as did I, here).
Lambert, you must remember, constructed his current “brand” by whining piteously about the awful treatment he got from the dKos troikas—and in the service of his brand—essentially did the same thing in one way or another to some of Corrente’s Senior Fellows. There’s lots of people with mortgages and some of us don’t even have the privilege of a mortgage…and better things for people to do with their money than to support Lambert’s “brand”.
Realist again:
See, this is the beginning of an argument I could get behind—or at least sympathize with, a little bit—if it were fleshed out further.
It’s true when you suggest that when D politicians are in power, it’s harder for the left to oppose when D politicians do R-type things. The problem is that this is true no matter whom the left puts in power. Is it therefore a reason not to try to put someone in power, because they will pull to the right at that point?
When the (R) party is in power, it may or may not get its way as often, but it pushes the Overton Window of the discourse further to the right. There hasn’t so far been a case that I can think of in recent history where at the end of an (R) presidency, the following (D) presidency started with an American polity further to the left. The American left was strongest in recent times at the end of the Clinton era.
anon2525 puts her/his/its/entity’s finger on it when it/he/she/entity notes that wins matter more than defeats.
It’s hard to tell if Mandos is ignorant, or a liar take:
“The American left was strongest in recent times at the end of the Clinton era.”
As I recall, the Democrats won back congress in 2006, not because of any positive actions on their part, but because they promised to end the war…which they made no attempt to do once they were seated. The American left was completely muzzled in 2000 while the media’s “left” columnists tore Gore a new A-hole. In 2003 “the new left”…say….Josh Marshall, Kevin Drum, Matt Y, Ezra K etc… made very sophisticated arguments for invading Iraq and supporting Bush’s foreign policies. Being idiotically mainstream worked out well for them personally, but wreaked havoc and got over million people killed.
I’m afraid not Mandos, whether you’re a liar, or a useful idiot “The American left was weakest…at the end of the Clinton era.” as “left” bloggers supporting war crimes will attest.
I don’t know what left you’re talking about. What I remember was a burgeoning of movements outside of the Democratic Party, particularly the anti-globalization movement and the Green Party. All of that was swept away after 9/11, and in particular, by the presence of Bush in the right place at the right time.
There was nothing like that at the beginning of the Clinton era. I don’t even understand what you mean by the Gore reference. By the standard of the time, Gore was a fairly right-wing candidate.
I mean, we’ve been through all this before. Back then, people talked about the (D) and (R) as mirror images of each other, and wondered whether the (D) party could get any worse (how innocent we were!). It was all over the forumverse that preceded the blogosphere. I’m afraid you’re the one who is ignorant and/or forgetful.
I’m going to have to separate the Mandos hurlage into two steaming piles. In the first pile, I’ll deal with his analysis, such as it is. In the second, I’ll deal with the personalia. That the first pile is so pitifully small, and the second so ever-growing, is an interesting data point, eh?
* * *
Analysis
First, on whether there’s any significant difference between the two parties, I said “show me” on policy, and listed 12 substantive areas where the Ds, er, might as well be the Bush adminstration, except without the competence. (And I don’t know what other outcome anybody expected, given that bipartisanship has been one of Obama’s few explicitly stated goals from the very beginning of his resistable rise).
Hilariously, Mandos starts out by asking “How many examples do you want?” to which the obvious rejoinder would be “More than one!” since 1 (count ’em, one) is all he could come up with! Unable to defend his “very own favorite,” HCR — for Mandos, apparently, it’s enough that there be a program, not that it actually help anyone, typical “progressive” — Mandos falls back on a rhetorical question: What about the deepwater drilling moratorium that a judge just blocked? Well, what about it? This is the big example that’s supposed to show how different the Ds are from the Rs? I’d rest my case, except it’s so much fun watching a D apologist try to defend itself.
So much for policy. Now we turn to the systems. With irony that sits in the stomach like lead, Mandos writes: “I mean, this is just silliness. They run candidates against one another. You even have a say in which candidates they run against one another.” What a blow was there given! (At this point, allow me to recommend that analysts read this relatively optimistic view of the legacy party system from SMBIV: The ratchet effect.) First, one word: “kabuki.” Second, we’re talking a system here. That the two parties give every evidence of hating each other (except when they’re giving each other reacharounds on K Street) is no evidence at all that they don’t function as a single entity. A dysfunctional family that fights all the time is still a single entity, for example. Finally, as to charge of “conspiracy theory,” who said actors in a system had to consciously communicate in order for systemic effects to be created? Well, mandos seems to think that, but that’s only because he’s setting up a CT straw man. (See, for example, the notion of emergent conspiracy.)
Next, the Supreme Court, which Mandos regards as “a complete answer given the American political system.” Really? If that’s true, than Mandos believes it always makes sense to vote for any D, because at some point in the future the Ds might nominate better judges — for some unexplained definition of “better.” Of course, both Roberts and Alito were confirmed with D votes, and above all with no filibusters, so if the Court is the “complete answer,” it apparently became so only recently. More importantly, the Court is only “the complete answer” when the rule of law functions, which at the national level it simply does not (see examples in list above).
Finally, Mandos seems to have some sort of problem with “localist quietism” — as opposed to being a trans-national troll, I suppose. You can read the post he’s reacting to here. Mandos — and I know this will surprise you — has distorted the post in his quotation. I wrote “This post may strike some [and seems to have struck Mandos] as quietist, pessimistic, or even defeatist,” and you, readers, may judge that for yourselves. From 30,000 feet: The starting point is a post by Ian that points to the dominance of the rentiers and rent-seeking behavior. (Mandos’s “very own favorite,” HCR, is a fine example of this dominance, since the Ds ended up reinforcing the centrality of the health insurance companies, which are nothing but rent-seekers.) What kind of outcomes can we expect from such a system? Ian posits three: Revolution, reform, and collapse (a la Jared Diamond). If Mandos thinks that revolution is in the cards, I invite him to make the case; what seems clear to me is that reform isn’t in the cards either. (If it were, surely Mandos, as Lion Of The Ds, would be able to come up with a better best example of D goodness than a drilling moratorium that got struck down in court?!) That leaves collapse. (And those of us on the economic margins are probably more sensitive to that possibility than those who are not.)
Well, if collapse is the likely outcome, then it makes absolutely no sense to invest anything with the (unreformable) Ds. The only thing that does make sense is to plan for your and your neighbors’s survival — even an environment of permanently higher unemployment is going to be rough, and things could get rougher than that. That, to me, means growing your own food, establishing a strong local network (“when the trucks stop”), doing as much as possible to reduce one’s carbon footprint, and in general taking actions that come under the heading of sustainability and resilience. It also means denying the rentiers, our parasites, the rents they bleed from us. The opportunity cost of investing time and/or money with the Ds could be some part of what it takes to survive. Is the cost worth it? Perhaps to some. Not to me.
And let’s suppose that I’m too pessimistic. Let’s suppose that enough us walking away inflicts enough pain on the Ds — as Atrios has said, that’s the only thing that politicians understand, besides money — so that Mandos and his buddies manage to reform their party. (A jobs guarantee would be a good start, but it’s unlikely. See the iron law of institutions.) All the steps I’m advocating seem like a pretty good life, to me. Better food, tighter neighborhoods, less oil, less corporate crapola in general. Very far from being an “alibi,” as Mandos would have it.
Finally, we do indeed need to listen for the emergence of a third pole in American politics. That’s another of the many reasons why it’s important to walk away from the Ds, lest the yammering of Mandos and all the other D apologists says drown out what we need to listen for.
Personalia
Given the time Mandos allocates to smear artistry, that’s what really floats his little boat. Perhaps he should set up his own hate site! Kidding!
First, I’ll try to address the issues that pertain to my small role in the primary wars of 2008, to make sure the record is straight; then, I’ll address the issue of moderation policy at Corrente; and finally, I’ll address Mandos’s vicious hypocrisy.
Primary wars
…by whining piteously about the awful treatment he got from the dKos troikas …. I think that anybody who was down in the trenches of The Obama 527 Known As Daily Kos during the 2008 primaries knows what the truth is here. Suffice to say that I wasn’t the only one.
… crypto-PUMA component of the American left as represented by Lambert… Ah yes, the PUMA hate. I must be the only PUMA in the world to have been moderated at the Confluence! (Two years later, I think Violet has the best summing up of the PUMA phenomenon.)
… branding… I don’t know what Mandos is on about here. I suppose that an online persona could be considered a brand, with a broad definition. If so, anybody with an online persona has one, including Mandos. And so what? Apparently, I only got around to creating my brand in 2008. If so, I was remarkably slow about it, since I’ve been blogging, pretty much 24/7, since 2003. Ah yes, 2003. When we actually thought Bush was the enemy. Happy, innocent days.
Moderation policies
Corrente’s moderation policies are here. In part, they evolved exactly because of the diffculties of moderating during the primaries.
1. Mandos was banned from Corrente for being a troll. This should surprise nobody who’s reading this thread, nor should it have surprised Mandos, since he’s been banned elsewhere.
2. Kay was banned from Corrente because she persisted in dumping the same aggregation that she dumped elsewhere, without regard for whether the aggregate was appropriate for Corrente or not (for example, whether it had already been covered or not. During the primaries, there were also some anti-Obama talking points that I didn’t want used, since they came from the Rs, and that was a feature of PUMA discourse that concerned me. Naive though that was! See the link to Violet above for the history.) After repeated requests, nothing changed. If somebody wants me to edit their work, they can write me a check.
Vicious hypocrisy
As for what Mandos helpfully calls blegging, let me spell it out:
1. I held a fundraiser to pay my bills and property taxes. (That Mandos thinks a mortgage was involved shows — and I know this will surprise you — he hasn’t done his reading.) Corrente is, amazingly enough, one of my main sources of income, and it comes from reader contributions solely. (That’s why it’s especially nice that I don’t depend on the access bloggers for hits!)
2. If the fundraiser had failed, it would have been very hard for me to pay my property taxes. My personal economy is quite marginal. “Hand to mouth” describes my situation well. (Of course, I know that others have worse situations, but this one is the one I have to deal with.)
3. If I had not been able to pay my property taxes, I would have lost the house (one of those basic, Maslow’s hierarchy-of-needs things that the Ds suck so badly at delivering).
4. Ian Welsh helped me with a link. At that point, Mandos could simply have remained silent. Nobody asked him personally to help, and I didn’t expect it. What amazed me then — not now, of course — was that he’d actually recommend that nobody else help.
5. The fundraiser was successful — people, or at least enough people, know better than to listen to Mandos — and on the very last day before I needed to give the town the check, I did so. If I’d come up a few hundred dollars short, or miscalculated between the bills and the taxes, I might well have lost the house.
6. The bottom line is that self-styled leftist Mandos — though doubtless supporting help on housing for poor people in the abstract — is perfectly capable of taking positive action to cause an actual poor person to lose their house, and all (I’m guessing) because he suffered ego damage from being banned.
It’s one thing not to rescue a drowning person. It’s quite another to try to shove them under the water, which is what Mandos did. I call that vicious hypocrisy, and it’s a problem that the D brand has, besides Mandos personally. One of those “as above, so below” things. I’d have let it go, except that Mandos has, with this little episode, encapsulated to beautifully what the Ds have become.
* * *
I apologize for the length, but the steaming piles were so large! No doubt there are more by now. The advantage a troll has is that they can just keep flinging…
Lambert’s ballet of reversals is a thing to behold. I never brought up the personalia; it was he who decided to mention the episode about the fundraiser, and refer back to it more than once! Mea culpa for taking his bait on anything but politics, but Realist wanted to know the story so I obliged. Needless to say, I’m still not crying Lambert any rivers.
As for politics, I said a very long time ago, and in the comments to this blog, and repeatedly enough that Lambert well knows it: that when there is no plan for a replacement—certainly none that Lambert is willing to give us—marginal differences matter. As Big Noam said in 2004:
http://www.chomsky.info/articles/20041029.htm
He remains correct now as then.
The point is, how much faith you have in the spontaneous ignition of mass movements towards political progress because of people checking out of status quo politics. For me, it’s a case of once-bitten twice-shy. I firmly believe that the solution lies outside of status quo, mainstream politics, but also that the reform angle cannot be simply abandoned, and furthermore needs to be given at least half as long as the deterioration took. In this, political rhetoric matters—independent of actual policy.
That’s the crux of the political disagreement.
Like any troll, when mandos has no response, he simply drops the arguments he makes, and starts a new thread. “Any stick to beat a dog.”
Remember how this thread started? With a whole bunch of hoopla about how different the Ds were from the Rs?
Well, I asked mandos for examples.
And his best one? In fact, his only one?
An offshore drilling moratorium that a judge overturned. That’s it, readers. That’s it.
Weak, and vicious. Typical D apologist.
Yes, indeed, Lambert couldn’t resist moving the goalposts again. He wanted an example of a difference in policy; I gave him one. Here’s another. Lambert the serial hypocrite used to accuse me speciously of giving him homework.
I never said the difference were big; they’re merely enough.
Or, letting him move the goalposts further, the Lily Ledbetter Act. I mean, he has the audacity to accuse me of everything for which he is himself guilty; but that’s OK, I know his position is held by a majority of readers here.
For everyone else, by the way, for a reasonable discussion of the pros and cons of HCR—and why it’s a difference with the Republicans in the Democratic party’s favour and yet another answer to Lambert’s question—there’s this and both pages of its comments, but of course it’s a bill that a Republican would have passed in the federal Congress with no differences whatsoever nope…
Thanks Lambert, for the update on Mandos.
As I said, I didn’t know if Mandos flawed and factually challenged arguments stemmed from venality, or whoredom. It’s pretty clear from what you said about Mandos where on the scale from venality to whoredom Mandos lies.
On Mandos’s offshore drilling shtick, it was Obama and Saladbar who personally intervened to green light the BP spill.
So saying Obama decided his policy of doing favors for one of his biggest campaign contributor [BP] was a little embarrassing and decided to punish the other innocent oil companies with his client [BP] is typical of Mandos’s idea of justice.
The “other innocent oil companies”??? Are you kidding me?
In case anyone was wondering, I’m not even a member of the Democratic party nor have I ever received any money from any political source, nor have I any professional connection to politics or lobbying or economics. “Whoredom”/”venality” my foot. You want to back up that kind of claim, S Brennan?
Against my better judgement: But I have to hand it to Lambert for his pirouetting skills, and for successfully making a political disagreement into a personal one and detracting from the argument. His original bleg (one in a series) was mostly a PBS-like “support our site” ad. For this I am now Daddy Warbucks ready to repo his house and kick him out on the street. But the people who take him seriously are the people who usually do so, so we’re all OK.
I asked for some clarification in an attempt to deal with my cognitive dissonance re. Mandos behavior and I got much more than I bargained for. Problem solved. Thanks.
From reading past postings by Mandos I expected a little sophistication (yeah, I know.) What I got was a defense of the HCR bill written by a recent Wellpoint VP, negotiated in secret in the White House (cash for a clunker – of course, we got the clunker) that funnels massive amounts of our cash to an industry that is as corrupt as Big Finance. It is so transparently bad that I’m not going to bother religitating it (anyone interested would do well to follow PNHP.) It says a lot that Mandos even brought it up, albeit somewhat sheepishly. Hint, hint, Mandos, this isn’t the only place where people know the score – far from it.
Then we get BP. Wow. Poor Obama – he really wanted the moratorium he had recently lifted but the big bad R judges wouldn’t give it to him. Never mind the numerous exemptions handed out starting the day after it was reimposed. Check out a recent posting at Emptywheel about the poor quality of advocacy in the big O’s appellate filing. It’s almost as if he wanted to lose. Imagine that, more chicanery from the supposedly lesser evil.
Enough said. So much more than enough!
I’m not surprised about your opinion re HCR. We extensively litigated the issue here with myself being very nearly the lone voice in favour of passing it. Suffice it to say that I don’t agree with PHNPs take on it or the politics of it. Discussed extensively on previous threads since Ian covered it very thorougly. I incorrectly linked my last link to Cogitamus. Sorry for the digression into past flamewars with Lambert and that you got more than you bargained for.
I’ve never claimed that Obama is a spectacular improvement. It merely needs to be the case that he’s any improvement, even a rhetorical one.
Let’s keep the personal insults/ad-homs down folks. I’d rather not have to close the thread.
Mandos – so even a rhetorical “improvement” will suffice. It sounds like you’re now endorsing deception outright (unless you are prepared to argue that the rhetoric was sincere and the opposite action unintentional.)
Ian – setting aside my own possible contribution to the flames (if you consider it that) and FWIW, I have found the personal aspects of this exchange quite different from the run of the mill flame wars in that there was much supporting argumentation rather than empty name calling and vitriol. It came across to me as more of heated exchange and I found it instructive. YMMV, obviously.
Obama only has to be a -rhetorical- improvement to be worthy of support? What the hell? Some good that’ll do!
So he may pass a pro-industry health care bill that no other developed country would dream of inflicting themselves with, and forks over peoples’ money plus the government’s subsidy to the parasitic, useless health insurance industry exempt from antitrust laws that has screwed everything up and will going forward. But at least when it doesn’t work, people will be able to think fondly of his tough rhetoric against the insurance industry!
On the issue of the 2% less evil Ds, Mandos now has 2 (two) examples how the Ds are, in some essential way, different from the Rs (that is, two entities, rather than one). The first, and presumably best, example was a drilling moratorium that a court struck down. Alrighty then. Now he’s come up with the Lily Ledbetter act. Sure, that’s a good small thing. Relative to the mountain of Bush-like policies that the Ds have implemented, it’s trivial.
Please, can we just let the D party fail as an institution NOW, as it has in fact?
* * *
“He has the audacity to accuse me…” Oh, the humanity!
Actually, no. I built a case, not an accusation, with evidence, reasoning, and links. Not at the same as tu quoque at all, eh?
I’ve gone over this in past threads on this blog, but I’ll go over it again briefly. It turns out that political culture actually matters, assuming you have a political time horizon longer than six years. And the right wing does. Many people cite Nixon as being a Republican president with a more liberal policy record than what has happened since then, but who on the American liberal left would praise his legacy when it comes to the overall direction of the country?
The narrative had been for a long time that Democrats cannot get any health care legislation through Congress. And in general, over every Republican presidency, the political culture of the USA slipped further rightward. In that sense any movement on health care is better than no movement. The next Republican president will be dealing with a world in which some amount of federal health care apparatus exists that did not previously. They’ll be dealing with a world in a world of at least slightly higher expectations than they would have otherwise. They’ll be dealing with a world in which the “Democrats can’t pass health care” meme is gone.
I would never defend the HCR bill that passed as a huge improvement. It’s probably all that it’s critics said it would be, in terms of actual policy. But anyone who thought that sacrificing it on the altar of an HR 676 that could never have passed would be worth it and would lead to a better outcome was smoking something. It’s an American liberal fantasy that good, economically beneficial policy necessarily leads to more votes and bad policy leads to fewer. There’s an enormous amount of psychology between policy and voting (which is incidentally why I dislike PHNP’s take on things particularly their take on Celinda Lake’s focus group thing).
No, you’re right, it was not a tu quoque. It was a complex morass of other fallacies such as poisoning the well, burden of proof. composition, and so on and so forth. Basically, it’s standard Lambert S.O.P.: take a personal animosity, construct a political theory to justify it, slap a cutesy label, and generalize it to some larger disliked group. “Access blogger”, for example.