Seeing the Elephant: William Rivers Pitt on Why He Doesn’t Expect the GOP to Take Control of Either House
A very brief comment from me follows the piece.
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Seeing the Elephant
by William Rivers Pitt
truthout, 15 July 2010
The 2010 midterm elections are still four months away, but the drama has already kicked into high gear. The seemingly settled conventional wisdom would have us believe the Democrats are running for their lives, a perception that is reinforced by any number of polls indicating there are enough seats in play for the GOP to potentially retake majority control in the House. The Senate appears safe for the Democrats, according to these polls, but four months is a long time.
The idea that the GOP could take back the House was underscored on Sunday by White House press secretary Robert Gibbs, who went on “Meet The Press” and said, yeah, it could happen. House Democrats rose up in high dudgeon after Gibbs’ remarks, not so much to say he was wrong but to say, hey guy, you’re really not helping.
Before getting into how ridiculous it is that the Democrats could be in position to lose the House, it needs to be said that I don’t believe it is going to happen. The Republican Party has become a preposterous farce, dominated by the likes of Sarah Palin and Michael Steele. The Tea Party movement is basically nothing more than a Trojan Horse filled with hard-core GOP base members whose views on everything from religion to the constitution to freedom of choice is not shared by roughly 75% of the general population.
They are the Taliban of American Christianity, and the only reason they have gotten so much ink is because the national press corps likes to take the easy way out whenever possible. Add to this the fact that the Tea Party has shot the GOP in the foot several times already by running off electable Republicans and nominating the cast from One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest.
I genuinely believe the House and Senate are safe for the Democrats, if only marginally so, but I’ve been wrong before, and if the loss of majority control does indeed come to pass, it will stand in my mind as one of the grander indictments against the American voter to come down the pike in a long, long while. Is it that easy to forget what it was like when these yahoos were running the show? It wasn’t so long ago, and it was so unbelievably bad that you’d think the memory would linger.
If people need a reminder, one is readily available. We are, of course, in the middle of a gut-twisting recession that a lot of smart people believe is about to get worse again. The response of the GOP and the far right, of course, is to offer up a repackaged version of trickle-down Reaganomics that would, if enacted, char the economy to cinders. Not to worry, because the very rich would get theirs, but the rest of us would wind up standing in soup lines and selling apples to stay alive.
If people need a specific reminder, they can look to the obnoxious drama that has been unfolding in congress over the last several weeks. Democrats in the Senate have been trying to extend unemployment benefits to millions of Americans who desperately need help. Senate Republicans have filibustered the extension of these benefits at every turn, insisting that these benefits be paid for by either tax hikes or spending cuts. This view is shared by virtually every Republican in the Senate.
But wait, there’s a solution right in front of them: the bloated, unaffordable Bush-era tax cuts for rich people are about to expire, and the GOP is in a tizzy. Democrats want to keep those tax cuts in place only for people making up to $200,000-$250,000 a year, and dump the tax cuts for anyone making more. This would generate billions in revenue that could pay for, among other things, extending unemployment benefits for Americans who have been screwed out of their jobs and homes by Bush-era economic policies.
But no, says the GOP, we have to keep those tax cuts as they are. Their desire to make sure unemployment benefits are paid for does not extend to making sure these Bushian tax cuts are paid for. If Senate Republicans get their way, the unemployed will get screwed and the super-wealthy will keep getting pornographically huge slices of revenue we absolutely cannot afford to give them. As it stands, the GOP’s filibuster of these benefits is already screwing the people, and if the Republicans were in the majority, well, we’ve read this script before.
It is an often-heard lament from the Left and a lot of Independents that “Both parties are the same!” In too many instances, the sentiment is all too accurate. Quite often, however, that complaint is a shortcut around actual thinking, and this situation makes that self-evident. One party wants to extend unemployment benefits and the other wants to thwart them. One wants to tax the rich and the other wants to give away the store, again.
I’m no Kool-Aid-drinking Democrat booster, but this couldn’t be more clear. If the American people allow the GOP back into power despite all the evidence of how dangerous and dumb they are, I’m going to have to think seriously about giving up on politics. If the beyond-terrible GOP option seems valid to a majority of people after everything we’ve been through, if voters who know better can’t find the motivation to pull the lever and keep the worst from happening, well, then Mencken was right: we get what we deserve.
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There’s one vital ingredient that Pitt is leaving out of his calculus: the lack of a powerful Democratic voice to make sure the public sees what the GOP represents. In the absence of that, what one has, competing for the public mind, is a powerful –if totally dishonest– message from the right going up against mere memory (combined with what’s silently sitting right before our eyes). Today’s loud voice is more than a match, for most people, over the echoes of memory and the silent testimony of reality.
So I find GOP success quite credible, unless the soft-pedaled message from the Democrats gets amped up.
July 20th, 2010 at 4:47 pm
I agree with Andy. Moreover my view on Obama and the Bush tax plan is this: President Obama could have scotched this early on in his administration, but he refused to do so.
This for me was the first indication that he was in tight with the very wealthy crew and their GOP. Knew something was wrong from the git-go. Confirmations followed, admittedly with some good progressive work as well.
Of course it is still several months and Obama might get to ‘politickin’ and show the country the wretched reality of the right. Remains to be seen.
July 20th, 2010 at 5:01 pm
What a ‘downer’ to read!
I only know low to middle class Republicans, and none of the rich.
But to me it seems they are totally set in their mind and have always been.
‘We are Republicans!’ (it’s their Identity)
They do not care to know anything specific and they have their ears plugged up. The worse the news potentially are, the less they want to know.
It just doesn’t matter bacause the Democrats will take away any last freedom they have, and “I” will go down further paying for lazy people and homosexuals.
(Black folks seem to be tolerated!)
July 20th, 2010 at 5:03 pm
PS: I must say, though, that they all work awfully hard and have no mindset of ‘taking’, but rather independece.
July 20th, 2010 at 6:27 pm
That’s not my interpretation, Richard. I lean toward the interpretation that he’s cautious. Perhaps even timid. As it is, the Wall Street money is abandoning him for the Republicans. If he was going to lose them, he might as well have acting boldly– that’s my thought.
July 20th, 2010 at 8:18 pm
I do not think he is generally that timid, though I have said a great deal about his unwillingness to take of the right. I believe rather his problem is ideological, and a little perhaps self-interested. Two of his closest advisors are Wall Street denizens and in fairness he inherited a huge problem demanding action. However I believe he is pre-disposed through lack of experience to over -value the role of the market and under-value the role of effective leadership. He should read Roosevelt
rather than the Chicago School.
July 20th, 2010 at 8:52 pm
THis fact is also not self-interpreting. You could be right, Richard, that Obama took on Geithner and Summers because of some “ideological predisposition.” But there are other possible interpretations: for example, feeling unsure of the magnitude of the strength he might wield –perhaps from not having been brought up, like FDR, as a prince in Hyde Park– he might have felt that it was more important to reassure Wall Street of his friendliness and good will toward them than to take them on. It seems to me that he has shied away from battles generally, trying to accomplish important and necessary good things but to do so without going head-to-head against any major locus of power.
At first, having been so impressed by all he accomplished in becoming president, I thought that this might be a smart strategy. I still recognize the possibility that it was smart. But I’ve come to believe, as regular readers here by now know well, that he gave away power that was within his grasp to wield.
And that perception –about which I feel pretty certain– goes a long way for me to make the “ideological predisposition” argument you put forward seem, Occam’s-razor-wise, unncessary and implausible.
July 20th, 2010 at 9:56 pm
Perhaps we should ask him.
July 21st, 2010 at 11:31 am
What Obama does regarding Social Security (obviously a target of the deficit commission) and the Bush tax cuts will affect how enthusiastic Democratic voters are come november. Even if hard and fast decisions on these two matters are delayed till after the Nov. elections, the possibility of a double cross by Obama could doom the midterm D’s as well as Obama himself.
July 21st, 2010 at 8:15 pm
Andy, my position may be wrong, but I don’t think it is implausible. In my former career to call one a coward was a most extraordinary act. However, Given the speed with which the White HOuse and Tom Vilsack at USDA sacked the lied about worke, Shirley Sherrrod-showing these people actually took as true, a peice of racist nonsense from Fox news, and having never even asked the lady’s side of sthe story shows how poorly grounded some of these people are, how willing they are to wreck the lives of employees to appear better to the country, does smack of both incompetence and cowardice. You might be right.
I agree with Jim Z., that what Obama-if he leads or refuses to-does about Social Security and the Bush tax cuts will probably tell us a great deal. I have already mentioned above what I thought about the tax cuts. We should watch what he says about bi-partisanship, but it should be recalled that a decision reached by a bi-partisan route can still be wrong.
July 22nd, 2010 at 9:10 pm
The (Peter G. Peterson) Deficit Commission is only glancingly, windowdressingly bipartisan. The overwhelming majority of the members have long been on record to lay the nation’s deficits on the Social Security system, which is by far the most fiscally sound part of the US government (and has been propping up the actual deficit-ridden General Fund for 27 years). Only a single economist (Alice Rivlin) on it, a shocking lack of balanced understanding of the program’s role in our nation’s economy, society and human impact. Embarressingly ridden with plutocrats, given Obama’s campaign of hope on behalf of the American people.
The commission’s product will be the latest in an almost unrelenting onslaught to gut social security and send Americans back to the dark ages. This is a sad charade, the biggest in a long line of big lies. Oh, where is the non-stenographic journalism that we once had?
July 24th, 2010 at 7:51 pm
t seems to me that he has shied away from battles generally, trying to accomplish important and necessary good things but to do so without going head-to-head against any major locus of power.
This is characteristic of his generation — it’s us Boomers who want confrontation.
but I fear you may be right, Andy, that the media are going to scuttle every chance we have by only giving Americans the view from the Right.
Everyone: if you have trouble remembering all the good stuff Obama has accomplished, go to Politifact.com and look at the Obameter again:
http://politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/
It seems to me that Obama has done lots and lots of good things — but his successes have been mostly the items that didn’t catch the eyes of the media. On all the ones the media has picked up on, the Right plays its obstructionist game so that to the public it looks like he hasn’t gotten anything done.
We must re-take the media!!!!! Or we will lose our country to the Plutocrats even more than we have and we will all end up slaves.
July 24th, 2010 at 7:52 pm
Oh, let me add that if Obama had gone head to head, he’d probably have been dead — like the Kennedys.