A Red Tide Swamps the US Political Landscape

The polls had it right.  Last night, Republicans swept to control in the Senate, picked up governor seats in blue states, and increased their control of the House of Representatives.  The Democrats' get-out-the-vote effort failed to overcome the dark money, the voter suppression laws, and their own inadequate and defensive explanations of their policies.  Republicans controlled the political debate much as they have since Obama took office: "Everything bad is Obama's fault.  Everything good he had nothing to do with."  For their part, Democrats, from Obama on down, failed to energize their base. The nation will need to live with the result: the most extreme right-wing Congress we have ever had.

Jeff Schweitzer, blogging at the Huffington Post, has one of the best analyses of the election that I've seen.  In his post, "The Price of Failure and Rise of Extremism: How Democrats Blew It", he writes: "the depth, intensity, and institutionalized hypocrisy of the political right has taken our country on a new course; conservatives are writing a new chapter...on cynicism, deceit and delusion. As we contemplate our world dominated by Republicans controlling the House and Senate, we must therefore consider life in the face of deep hypocrisy. Mitch McConnell, with a straight face and no apparent appreciation for irony, said that voters should install a Republican majority in the Senate because his party would 'be able to bring the current legislative gridlock to a merciful end.'...This story highlights the major failure of the left. Democrats have not defined the agenda or narrated the story. This capitulation creates a void of reason such that absurdities like McConnell's claim can take hold without everybody doubling over in laughter. Like frightened children Democrats run from Obama's record, as defined by the right, rather than championing his amazing successes as defined by fact."

One thing is certain.  Before the members of the 114th Congress take their seats in January, Senate Democrats need to push through as many of the 156 pending Federal judicial and executive branch nominations as they can.  Failure to do so will ensure Republican control of the judiciary and make Obama's last two years even more difficult and unproductive than the past four have been.  Hey Mitch, this may be a good place to start showing how intent you are to end gridlock.

What do we have to look forward to from this extremist Congress and a ham-strung moderate President in the next two years?

Some things are clear.

There will be cuts to domestic programs, increases in military spending, tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations, and, if Obama and Congressional Democrats don't go along with their radical agenda, a government shutdown or two.   Any progress on the environmental front will need to come from executive action. The War Powers Act as applied to the Middle East will not be changed and there will be no debate on the current bombing campaign.  Obama will not be able to get any progressive or even moderate appointments to the Federal judiciary through Congress.  One "good news" item: Social Security will not be privatized anytime soon.

Some things are not as clear.

Will Obama have the votes to resist neo-con-inspired congressional actions, such as increasing sanctions on Iran and funding for sectarian wars? Will he have the courage to pursue justice for the Palestinians and the courage to achieve a just Palestinian-Israeli peace?   Will he be able to close Guantanamo, that continuing insult to America's self-proclaimed adherence to the rule of law?

What changes will be made to the Affordable Care Act? Democrats should retain at least 45 Senate seats and Obama still has the veto.  So total repeal will be impossible.  However, Congressional Republicans can certainly reduce the number of people covered by the ACA - by removing the employer requirements and redefining full-time employees, by removing the penalty for non-coverage, and by reducing or ending subsidies for those earning too much to qualify under the Medicaid expansion.

Will Obama take executive action to progress immigration reform?  Will the Republicans threaten impeachment if he does so?  Will any action at all be proposed by Congress other than increased militarization of the US-Mexico border?  Republicans did not need the Latino vote to win these midterms and Obama's deportation policies were not something that would energize Latino voters.

How extensive will changes to Medicare be?  Along with Social Security and the Affordable Care Act, it remains one of the prime examples of what a Democratic Congress and President can accomplish.  That makes it a target for the extremists who now control the Republican Party - no matter how successful and well-liked it is.

Perhaps the best comment I heard during my GOTV calls in the weeks before the election was from a Kentucky voter.  He could not understand how anyone but "the 1%" could ever vote Republican, how people could continually vote against their own economic interests.  He mentioned that Kentuckians were hearing almost nothing about McConnell's opponent, Alison Lundergan Grimes, and a lot about Obama.  That strategy played very well in the South.  Later in my calls that evening, I spoke to another Kentuckian - an older woman, who was going to vote for McConnell because she was "tired of the handouts."  I thought of asking her which handouts in particular she opposed but realizing how thoroughly Republican myths have taken hold, I refrained.

This is the richest nation the world has ever seen.  We have one of the lowest tax rates, one of the highest levels of income inequality, and one of the least generous social safety net programs in the developed world.  To say we cannot afford to meet the basic needs of the most vulnerable in our society or to provide medical care for all is a lie.  But it is a lie that has become deeply ingrained in the political dialogue of the nation over the past three decades - a lie that has no place for "the common good" and promises more and more to those that have the most.

Featured Posts

Democracy: The What's Left of It Edition
(July, 2013)

Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons

Why Republicans Aren't Worried

The attempted destruction of Obamacare has been halted. The government shutdown and the phony debt ceiling crisis are over for now and Democrats are feeling pretty good about themselves.  As the self-inflicted spending and debt crisis unfolded over the past weeks, I've received emails from progressive organizations saying how vulnerable the Republicans will be in the 2014 elections because of their shutdown.  The most optimistic of these groups speak of 30 vulnerable House seats. 

The logic seems sound.  Republican Party approval rates are its lowest in history.  The damage from the shutdown is real and continuing.  The financial ratings agency Standard & Poor estimates that the shutdown has taken at least $24 billion out of the economy.  The "shutdown caused it to cut its forecast of gross domestic product growth in the fourth quarter by at least 0.6 percentage point. The agency lowered its estimate for GDP growth to close to 2 percent from 3 percent." [Huffington Post, October 16]  Viewing the larger picture of the crisis-driven government that we've had since the Republican victories in the 2010 mid-term elections, the research firm Macronomic Advisers estimates that "the resulting fiscal policy uncertainty has directly harmed the American economy by increasing the unemployment rate by 0.6 percent, or the equivalent of 900,000 jobs."  The report also notes that that the "fiscal drag, in combination with heightened fiscal uncertainty, has slowed the annualized rate of growth in the nation's gross domestic product by as much as 1 percentage point since 2010." [CNBC]

Unfortunately, history leads to another conclusion.   In just 3 of the past 21 mid-term elections has the President's party gained seats in the House. The most seats ever gained by the President's party in these twenty one mid-term elections is 9. That was in 1934, in the early years of FDR's administration, in the midst of the Great Depression.   As for other government shutdowns, the 1996 presidential elections came less than a year after one of the more memorable (Gingrich vs. Clinton). Democrats picked up just 2 seats in the House. Add to this historical background the well-financed Republican campaign to pass voter suppression laws - laws aimed specifically at restricting the vote of Democratic Party constituents, their successful redistricting to maximize the number of safe Republican seats, and the Citizens United decision ... well you get the picture.

 

So, much as I'd like to believe the rosy predictions of progressives about the coming demise of the Republicans, I really don't think Republicans are too worried about the 2014 elections.  Memories are short and those affected the worst were probably going to vote Democratic anyway.  There are plenty of wedge issues that can be used to divide the country and Republicans are the proven masters of this.  The continuing resolution will only take us through January or February.  There will be plenty of time before the elections if the lunatics and extremists that control the Republican party want to shutdown the government and threaten another debt ceiling crisis.  I hope I'm wrong but this may not be the last we see of crisis-driven government or attempts to destroy "Obamacare."