I don't care if Obama loses in 2012

America's most powerful conservative

Against my better judgment, I’ve been commenting on stories on Huffington Post lately. Usually my comments are about how Barack Obama has failed both as a president and a liberal. There is little that distinguishes him from George W. Bush, save for some progressive rhetoric that is ultimately unaccompanied by action. Any honest and politically literate progressive knows this. The only supposed liberals who seem to really believe in Obama can be found on MSNBC or on the Washington Post editorial page—centrists posing as liberals, because they have allowed themselves to be dragged rightward by the craven corporate whores in the modern Democratic Party.

Even the liberal commenters on Huffington Post and Daily Kos have given up defending Obama with any degree of fervency. Most of them, anyway. A few die-hards remain, but their minds are impervious to reality, a la that infamous 30% of the population that was still approving of George W. Bush’s performance at the tail end of his second term.

Despite this widespread disappointment, I am frequently criticized for my Election Day 2012 plans, which do not include a trip to the polls, except perhaps to cast a Green for president and maybe a vote for my congressman. I voted for Barack Obama in 2008. I will not vote for him again. That much is certain. Even if I lived in a swing state like Ohio or Pennsylvania, I still would not vote for Obama. And it is here, for many liberals, where my need for “ideological purity” comes under fire. Whether it’s on the threads of HuffPost or when I’m having drinks with liberal friends, the specter of a Rick Perry/Michele Bachmann/Mitt Romney is always raised, as if failing to vote for Obama next year—despite my disappointment with him on almost every major issue—will haunt me until my dying breath.

Liberals insist that liberals must vote for Barack Obama because if we don’t, who knows what whackadoodle could be our next president, as if that outcome would be anyone’s fault but Barack Obama’s.

I for one am not going to allow myself to be scared into the voting booth at the mere mention of Rick Perry, Mitt Romney or anyone else. No doubt, however, that millions of other liberals certainly will. And that’s a problem. It sends a message to the Establishment-oriented Obama, and all other Democrats present and future, that to secure the “base” of the party, one need only frighten those in it with the prospect of a theocratic supply-side dystopia if Republican candidate X wins the election.

And maybe that’s true. Maybe that’s what we need in this country. Apparently, Bush didn’t make things bad enough in order for endless war, permanent tax cuts, and the trampling of the Bill of Rights to be deemed bad ideas by either party. After all, these buffooneries have continued apace into this so-called liberal administration, which has doled out trillions to the financial sector while destroying the savings of the general population, which eagerly awaits a jobs plan that they will no doubt be terribly disappointed by.

If Obama manages to win reelection, it would be a disaster for liberalism rather than a boost. Since Obama is not an actual liberal, his reelection would demonstrate that, electorally, core New Deal Democratic values don’t really matter on a substantive level, only at a very superficial rhetorical one. It would vindicate former press secretary Robert Gibbs’ dismissive assertion that only the “professional left” is disaffected with the president, meaning anyone who gives a shit about protecting America’s working class from corporate marauders, several of which populate the administration itself.

If Obama is defeated in 2012, the pundit class will proffer every explanation possible for the outcome, except for the correct one—that Obama is a centrist whose shamelessly pro-corporate policies failed to effect positive change in the lives of ordinary Americans during the worst financial crisis in 80 years.

- Max

Paul Ryan's proposes neoliberal junta budget

“We’re gonna get ridda your Medicare and you’re gonna like it. Capisce?”

I just finished perusing the Republican budget proposal for fiscal year 2012. It was unveiled at a news conference today by Wall Street bailer-outer Paul Ryan and about fifteen House Republicans; and with the exception of one woman, all were white men over the age of 40.

The GOP proposal is like something you’d find being advanced by a 1980s Latin American military junta hoping to win favor with the IMF and World Bank in order to obtain loans. The budget plan calls for $6.2 trillion in cuts over the next ten years, but still wouldn’t lead to a balanced budget until the late 2030s. Part of the reason is its insane call for huge permanent tax cuts for individuals and corporations, including drastically lowering both the top individual and corporate tax rates to 25% from 35%. The proposal would eliminate the 2010 health care reform law. Naturally, the Pentagon’s budget is barely touched, and the GOP proposal has essentially deferred to Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ budgetary recommendations. Most of egregious of all, however, is that the GOP plan eliminates Medicare. Of course, that’s not the word Republicans are using. They’re saying they’re saving Medicare by reforming it, but Republicans want to save Medicare in the same sense that Lieutenant Calley saved My Lai village by ordering it destroyed.

Here’s the crux of the GOP’s plan to eliminate Medicare:

Starting in 2022, new Medicare beneficiaries will be enrolled in the same kind of health care program that members of Congress enjoy. Future Medicare recipients will be able to choose from a list of guaranteed coverage options, and they will be given the ability to choose a plan that works best for them. This is not a voucher program, but rather a premium-support model. A Medicare premium-support payment would be paid, by Medicare, to the plan chosen by the beneficiary, subsidizing its cost.

The premium-support model would operate similar to the way the Medicare prescription-drug benefit program works today. The Medicare premium-support payment would be adjusted so that wealthier beneficiaries would receive a lower subsidy, the sick would receive a higher payment if their conditions worsened, and lower-income seniors would receive additional assistance to cover out-of-pocket costs.

This is interesting considering how similar it is to what Republicans call Obamacare. In the same budget proposal, Republicans are advocating the repeal of the president’s health care law with its sliding scale government subsidies allocated based on personal income levels, while simultaneously calling for the implementation of the same general plan for people who turn 65 after 2021. Even though this is the kind of idea that Republicans find worthy of the “socialist” epithet, they’re pushing this approach because it is much less socialistic than the current single-payer Medicare system.

What is surprising about the GOP’s proposed abolition of Medicare as we know it, is the brazen manner in which it’s being presented. Medicare is a very popular government program, even more so than private health insurance, which is remarkable considering that its only customers are people over 65—a demographic that can sometimes be difficult to please. Furthermore, everyone who is under the age of fifty-five right now would be affected by this change, which will have the surely anticipated effect of increasing out-of-pocket expenses. This is because there is nothing to prevent private health insurance premiums from continuing to rise at a rate that outpaces wage growth or inflation. Will the GOP’s premium-support model contain provisions for adjusting subsidies based on premium increases or will it be subject to a cost of living adjustment scheme that lags behind these hikes? Most likely the latter, since the whole point of “reforming” Medicare is for the government to spend less on it, and for the citizens to spend more. Even if this reality does not explicitly enter the minds of Americans under 55, they are still going to have some serious questions about gutting a program that has done well by their parents and other elderly loved ones. Frankly, I anticipate that the GOP’s Medicare proposal will be rebuked by the electorate with extreme prejudice.

On a related note, Ryan’s budget also contains a long-sought wet dream of the American right, federal tort reform. In this case, tort reform means placing a cap on damages rewarded by juries in medical malpractice lawsuits. By implementing a ceiling on damages, so the argument goes, malpractice insurers won’t have to pay out as much money in lawsuits, meaning the insurers could lower the premiums they charge doctors and hospitals, meaning the doctors and hospitals could lower what they charge to HMOs for providing those HMOs’ customers with care, meaning the HMOs could lower premiums for their customers, i.e., the American people. Notice that the American people are last in this wondrous chain of trickle down tort reform. Of all the entities in this relationship, patients are likely to benefit the least simply by virtue of being the furthest removed from where the reform is being initiated. That is, of course, unless you’ve been the victim of medical malpractice, in which case you’d be right in the thick of it, as you’d be unable to reap the kinds of damages you would have been under various state laws, which brings me to my next point.

Not a day goes by when some prominent Republican doesn’t decry increasing encroachments by the federal government on states’ rights and individual liberty. And yet one of the key proposals in Republican health care reform has been the enactment of a federal tort reform law that would supersede state laws pertaining to medical malpractice. I’m not quite sure how conservatives square that one.

As if these proposals weren’t bad enough, we come to Ryan’s not-so surprising take on the Pentagon’s budget, which defers to the Obama administration’s insistence that the decades-long boondoggle for military contractors is maintained:

Reflects $178 billion in savings identified by Defense Secretary Robert Gates, reinvesting $100 billion in higher military priorities and dedicating the rest to deficit reduction.

Nice try, but that’s not $178 billion in savings. It’s $78 billion in savings. Spending $100 billion on weapons programs X, Y and Z instead of A, B and C because you deemed the latter projects wasteful doesn’t mean you saved $100 billion; it just means you spent that money, but more wisely (you think). Of course, this is the Pentagon we’re talking about, which has seen it appropriate to spend more than the GDP of Australia to build thousands of F-35 fighter jets to fight al Qaeda’s nonexistent air force.

Obviously the Republicans don’t expect all or even most of their ideas to make it into whatever FY 2012 budget finally gets passed. Nonetheless, they are hoping to frame and control the nature of the budget debate. By putting Medicare essentially on the chopping block in their budget, the GOP wants this proposal germinate into something that they hope will soon become “mainstream,” or at least be seen as a viable policy prescription.

As far as the Obama administration’s response to this plan goes, anything short of derisive laughter, mockery, and criticism will not do. When it comes to Medicare and Social Security, the electorate is on the side of the Democrats, who historically have enacted and protected these programs. Whenever the Republicans win an election, they always seem to overreach. Whether it was George W. Bush after the 2004 election proposing the privatization of Social Security, the unpopular gutting of labor unions in Wisconsin, or the proposed elimination of Medicare, Republican economic policy is starkly at odds with what Americans want. Sure, the GOP can cite polls saying people want them to crackdown on wasteful spending or some other vague idea that virtually everyone can get on board with, but once you get into the specifics, once you start asking people if they want their Medicare or Social Security or unemployment benefits messed with, that’s when the GOP hits serious resistance. This budget proposal is no different and is pure folly, and if there is a shutdown of the government, Obama will be able to point to the GOP Medicare proposal and tell Americans that the Republicans are after their Medicare and soon their Social Security.

That’s assuming Obama doesn’t cave once again, but at this point who the hell knows?

- Max

Allen West's sadly ironic take on progressivism

Newly minted Teabag Florida Congressman Allen West delivered a well-received harangue this weekend at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference, which featured more red meat than a slaughterhouse. His oratory contained the usual talking points required for any successful speech to a conservative audience: limited government, American Exceptionalism, and the evils of liberalism. As a bonus, West tossed in a completely ancillary quote from the Book of Isaiah. West’s speech was emblematic of the entire weekend hoedown there in Washington, where conservatives lied to themselves about wanting smaller government and more freedom. And anyone who thinks my cynicism on this front is unwarranted may examine other CPAC moments, such as the enthusiastic reception that Constitution-stepper-onner Dick Cheney received, as well as the hearty approbation heaped upon Ann Coulter when she insisted that more journalists should be in prison. Remember, the majority of self-described conservatives in this country are statists of the military/national security variety, and they don’t give a roaring rip about the Bill of Rights.

West, an African-American, had by far the most ironic remark of the weekend. As speaker number 4,318 to denounce the left at the conference, it wasn’t so much what he said, but the overall context in which his comments occurred:

The liberal progressive agenda offers no viable solutions for our republic…

Liberal progressivism evolved after our Constitution. It has been tried. It has repeatedly failed all over the world. So why would we think it can be successful here in our United States of America.

Here’s a black man, talking to a predominantly white audience, some of which no doubt have some sort of homage-to-the-confederacy bumper sticker on their Ford F-150s, and whose psychological constitution produces a conservative mindset—one that necessarily wishes to keep the status quo in principle, or return the society to an earlier and more idyllic epoch in American history. In either case, the conservatives throughout American history have been content to stand pat on a myriad of issues, while the liberal progressives against whom West is railing have sought to move the country forward politically, socially and economically. This is not to stay that conservatism has no merits, or that liberalism always fosters positive advancements, but for West to say that progressivism has failed “everywhere,” is to ignore that it was the progressives who had to drag his ideological predecessors, kicking and screaming, into ending slavery, desegregating public schools, and passing major pieces of civil rights legislation in the big bad federal government. “Liberal progressivism” has also done much more, such as enfranchising women, overhauling workplace standards for safety and wages, and providing social safety nets that most Americans will benefit from at some point in their lives, but I thought the achievements of progressivism vis-à-vis black rights might be particularly salient to West.

Or perhaps not. If we could send West back in time to a gathering of prominent conservatives in 1960, perhaps he would be glad to lecture that audience on the pernicious liberal progressivism of Martin Luther King Jr. and the burgeoning liberal judicial activism that has been ruling that states may not engage in racial discrimination. Perhaps West would also decry the Civil Rights Act of 1957 as an undue liberal progressive-inspired federal encroachment on states’ rights.

Or maybe we could send West further back in time to a gathering of conservatives in 1860. There he could slam the abolitionists and the liberal progressivism of Frederick Douglass and the threat represented by a candidate for president named Abraham Lincoln, whose sympathies clearly do not lie with the country’s well-established slaveholding gentry. West could cite the Tenth Amendment and the preachments of John Calhoun in justifying state nullification of federal law, despite that annoying little Supremacy Clause in Article VI in the Constitution.

Conservatives are free to cite Lincoln (as West did in his speech) and other patron saints of American politics, but this does not change the fact that many right-wingers—given their mindset that leads them to conservatism—surely would have hated Lincoln, MLK, and others who possessed untried ideas such as emancipation and equal rights for all. Indeed, both men were killed for this reason by people who preferred the status quo. Allen West insists that liberal progressivism has failed everywhere and that’s wrong. In a way, he represents how far we have come as a nation in the realm of race relations. I have no doubt that West has achieved what he has based on his own merits, but for him to assert that the same progressivism that knocked down the unjust racial barriers that stood in the way of him and his forbears, is a detriment and a failure, is sad and absurd.

- Max

max.canning@gmail.com

Congress is full of cowards and the Tea Party is full of shit

In a miscalculation yesterday, House Speaker John Boehner expedited a vote on three expiring provisions of the horrendous USA Patriot Act. Under the move, the renewals required a two-thirds vote (290 votes) to pass. They got 277. It will pass eventually because most of our congresspersons are gutless cowards who have no qualms about sacrificing liberty for merely the illusion of security. The Republican Party—supposedly the faction of “small government”—was the worst offender today, with 210 of them voting to grant Barack Obama’s wish of continued overreaching executive power.

Meanwhile, where the fuck is the Tea Party on this one? All we hear from those people is how government under the Obama administration is taking away our freedom, but they’re nowhere to be found on this issue. Show me a Tea Party rally against the Patriot Act, or the Afghan War, or the military-industrial complex. You can’t because there are none. And the reason there is none is because 90% of self-described Tea Partiers are statists. They’re the same people who rushed to line up behind Dubya and his military adventurism and Bill of Rights curtailments. They’re the same people who virulently trashed, as traitors, opponents of Bush’s “big government” policies. And they’re the same people, who right now, are doing jack shit while the Obama administration is about to be handed extensions on roving wiretaps, expansive surveillance powers, and warrants issued by secret courts. Why? Because they are authoritarians who simply don’t like the current Dear Leader in power. Sure, they’ll protest a health care plan or whatever, but anything that contributes to the security and glory of the State and it’s thank you sir, may they have another? One day, the Tea Party may very well get its dream president: a white man or woman who will return the Fatherland to the days of the Cold War and the nuclear family. And if the president has to start World War III to get there, so be it.

*****

Does Ron Paul ever not nail it when it comes to civil liberties? Guy’s like a one-man police state wrecking crew. Here he is before the vote to extend the three sunset provisions.

- Max max.canning@gmail.com

Sarah Palin's justifiably unjustified egomania

In nearly two years of posting and over 200 posts, I have written two pieces in which Sarah Palin was the primary focus. And one of those was a rather terse mocking of her reality show. Beyond these, I haven’t given Palin much thought because I assumed she would gradually fade from the spotlight. After all, resigning midway through one’s term as governor of one of the least populous states is hardly the move of a person who wishes to be considered a serious figure in American politics.

Alas, my optimism has been misplaced. Nearly two and half years after she was desperately thrust onto the national scene in a Hail Mary tossed by the tired arm of political journeyman John McCain, Palin somehow remains aloft. Much of this is her own doing, of course. She has written two books, has her own television show, is a Fox News contributor, and gives innumerable speeches to anyone willing to cough up a $100,000 speaking fee plus airfare. For that price, Palin will lecture an audience for 45 minutes about the honest and industrious nature of Real Americans, the virtues of American Exceptionalism, and the necessity of lowering corporate tax rates. She will manage to talk about these subjects and more, while managing to say hardly anything at all.

Then there is the media—both liberal and conservative—which tells us on a regular basis just how important Sarah Palin truly is. Fox News cannot get enough of their darling political dynamo, and neither can MSNBC and the Huffington Post for different reasons altogether. Truth be told, the latter outlets and their ilk have done more to keep Palin in the limelight than anyone else. Her critics are so numerous that an entire industry has been built around her ridiculousness, which provides an ample supply of malapropisms and other buffooneries to fuel its forever-burning furnaces. The thing about Palin-bashing is that it is so easy even a politically aloof person with barely a shred of common sense can partake. If I had the stomach for it, I could update this site daily using only Palin’s Facebook page and Twitter feeds as my inspiration. But there wouldn’t be much fun in that.

The same can be said for her speeches, though I imagine she bears little if any personal responsibility for their content, however superficial it may be. A case in point: this recent video is both a defense of her vague use of gun-related rhetoric and symbols, and an attack on those who suggest a relationship between that and the recent mass shooting in Arizona. Ever the victim of the “lamestream media” which she loathes but nonetheless profits handsomely by, Palin accused her accusers of engaging in a “blood libel” against her. Few contexts would provide a more inappropriate and might I add, bizarre venue for this term, which refers to the belief held by some medieval Christians that Jews murder gentiles in order to use the blood of their victims in ritual sacrifice.

Palin has encountered some harsh criticism for her use of the term, and she ought to have. But personally I doubt she even knew what the term meant, and it was probably written into her speech by someone who is paid to write her speeches. We may even see Palin eventually admit that she was not actually the one to author that line so as to deflect some of the blame.

Of course, people should not be as surprised by her “blood libel” remark as they actually are. Since bursting onto the scene Palin has been a wellspring of imaginative metaphor and dramatic rhetoric. For her, such an oratorical approach is necessary to obscure the obvious reality that there is very little substantive thought going on in her mind. This works to her advantage since, were it not for gems like, “blood libel,” “mama grizzlies,” “death panels,” “refudiate,” etc., there would hardly be any reason to pay her much attention. But every colorful new term she utters has the surely anticipated effect of keeping her in the spotlight for another week more. And if the publicity takes the form of a castigation from Keith Olbermann or Rachel Maddow, that’s just as well, because the Real Americans Palin appeases figure that if the liberals be against her, how could god-fearing people like themselves not be with her?

The natural consequence of all this is a Palin-Mainstream Media dynamic that is continuously reinforcing itself. Palin provides the gaffes. The media reports them, with the liberals doing so derisively. And in turn Palin wears these lashings like a badge of honor to show her fans how they persecute her so. It is not entirely clear whether Palin actually suffers from the sort of persecution complex suggested by her rhetoric or not. Either way, she has become very adept at portraying herself as the target of an unceasing medley of malicious mockery. She is partly right. The liberals in the media do mock her, but the mere act of doing this—especially on a such a constant basis—is an implicit declaration that she actually matters. There is one problem with this, however.

She doesn’t.

- Max

max.canning@gmail.com

The problem with media mudfights

Has anyone noticed how much time and effort cable news pundits and bloggers put into ridiculing, fact-checking, and demonizing the pundits and bloggers on the other side of the political spectrum? Rather than act as watchdogs of the power elite, Fox News and MSNBC personalities, for example, often seem more interested in engaging in the following kind of shtick: “You won’t believe what [FILL IN TALK-SHOW PERSONALITY’S NAME HERE] said today!” And off they go with a ten minute segment about how crazy that person is. I don’t think I need to provide any examples because this is a well-known phenomenon. If you’ve watched Glenn Beck, The O’Reilly Factor, Hannity, Hardball, The Ed Show, Countdown, Rachel Maddow, or the Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell, you know exactly what I’m talking about. This is not to say that some of these shows don’t present new and insightful information and perspectives on the important issues in politics, but Left/Right mudslinging matches have become a significant part of all these media programs.

In 1987 Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman put forth their “propaganda model” to paint a picture of how the American media operates in their classic book, Manufacturing Consent. In it, they argued that although the US technically has a free press that is not officially constrained by the government, it is nonetheless self-censoring and serves to protect and reinforce the status quo. Their propaganda model has five key features, or “filters” as they call them, through which information must pass before being published or put on the airwaves, lest news that is damaging to the Establishment be consumed by the masses. Anyone interested in a full explication of the model can read about it here, but in this post I would like to concentrate on their fourth filter, which is “flak.”

Chomsky and Herman note,

“Flak” refers to negative responses to a media statement or program. It may take the form of letters, telegrams, phone calls, petitions, lawsuits, speeches and bills before Congress, and other modes of complaint, threat, and punitive action. It may be organized centrally or locally, or it may consist of the entirely independent actions of individuals.

The authors here are discussing flak that it is heaped upon the media by non-media types, such as the government, media watchdogs such as the Media Institute, Center for Media and Public Affairs, and Accuracy in Media, and other groups or individuals who write or telephone their complaints. When Chomsky and Herman were writing, the media news landscape was quite different, with no internet, no Fox News, and no MSNBC. In the late 1980s, the primary sources of news were print media and the half-hour nightly network newscasts (ABC, CBS, and NBC) and one twenty-four cable news channel (CNN).

Among conservatives, there has always a feeling that these news organizations have a liberal bias (despite the fact that they are all giant corporations that rely on other giant corporations for funding through advertisements). As an endnote (pg. 28, no. 110) in Manufacturing Consent observes,

George Skelton, White House correspondent for the Los Angeles Times, noted that in reference to [President Ronald] Reagan’s errors of fact, “You write the stories once, twice, and you get a lot of mail saying, ‘You’re picking on the guy, you guys in the press make mistakes too.’ And editors respond to that so after a while the stories don’t run anymore. We’re intimidated.”

This sort of flak continues to this day, obviously, and I imagine there is way more of it coming these days because of the ease of email correspondence.

But since the arrival of Fox News, MSNBC, and the internet, another form of flak has taken shape, one that has seemingly surpassed the older form in importance if not volume. And that’s the media-on-media flak I alluded to in the opening. Watch one of the big opinion shows on cable news and see how long it takes the host to discuss the latest dimwitted remarks from one of their ideological adversaries. I think in the last two years, Glenn Beck has been the target of more media-originated flak than anyone. I’m not saying he doesn’t deserve it, but at some point the MSNBC crowd and the liberal blogs have to give it a rest. “Oh my god! Glenn Beck said the craziest thing today!”

No shit. That’s his job—to be an insane, ranting, schmuck who exploits conservatives’ absurd sense of victimhood by pulling back the curtain on a gallery of phantom socialist menaces: Barack Obama, Van Jones, Paul Krugman, and paradoxically, billionaire hedge fund manager George Soros. Though Beck is a nut (or at least plays one on television), he is a symptom, not a cause of 21^st century (mis)information overload. The ideological lines have been drawn for a while and very few will ever think beyond this narrow paradigm—a completely natural consequence of a media culture that has trained the rabble to think of its problems as being caused by “the other side.” Meanwhile, the elites who run the country go largely unscathed and continue to exploit and pillage the bickering serfs below.

- Max

max.canning@gmail.com

Salon news editor attacks media's false narrative on tax cut compromise and replaces it with one of his own

Standard vanilla beltway hack

Salon’s news editor, Steve Kornacki, has published a truly remarkable exercise in establishment liberal-centrist sophistry concerning Barack Obama’s tax cut compromise. To this point, the preferred media narrative about this is that by agreeing in principle to a temporary extension of all the Bush tax cuts, Obama has alienated his “liberal base.” The problem with that assessment, as I pointed out the other day, is that it completely ignores the fact that according to a CBS poll, a majority of Americans wanted the cuts to be extended only for those making less than $250,000 a year, and that 67% do not want the cuts extended for those making more than that. Since that post, Bloomberg—obviously a news organization that caters to wealthier readers—confirmed these results with a poll of its own which “shows that only a third of Americans support keeping the lower rates for the highest earners.”

Ignoring this data, Kornacki wrote a bizarrely titled apologia for the Obama administration, “Obama’s Silent Majority,” in which he attacks the media’s portrayal of the deal as a sellout of his liberal base. According to Kornacki, it turns out that not only did Obama not sell out the base, Obama didn’t really sell out anybody! Apparently, the only ones who are feeling left out in the cold after this compromise are “[l]iberal commentators and activists and interest group leaders.”

How does he know this? Because, “their rage has not trickled down to the Democratic voters (and, in particular, the Democratic voters who identify themselves as liberals), even though they’ve been venting their grief for the better part of two years.”

Kornacki then goes out to note how Obama’s approval rating among Democrats has remained static throughout 2010 before concluding:

Obama, in other words, seems to have developed his own silent majority. Rank-and-file liberal Democrats may not agree with everything he has done, but they do not share the sense of abandonment and betrayal that has defined liberal commentary throughout so much of his presidency. The party’s liberal base still very much likes him; it’s the elites who have turned on him.

The only poll numbers Kornacki cites are the president’s approval ratings among Democrats. He says nothing of the polls which demonstrate that a two-thirds majority of Americans—not just Democrats—do not want the tax cuts to be extended for those making over $250,000 a year. Given this fact, where exactly is Kornacki finding this silent majority? Or do two-thirds of Americans comprise those elites he was talking about?

Citing polls showing how Democrats have continued to support Obama even after he’s wussed out on a myriad of occasions—including closing Gitmo, caving on the public option, and extending the Bush tax cuts for the rich, among other capitulations and failed promises—does not impress me in the least. Democrats overwhelmingly favor closing Gitmo, favored the public option, and want the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy to expire. On these latter two issues, Democratic opinion is in step with a majority of Americans in general. That Obama’s approval rating has remained steady among liberals suggests that either liberals aren’t paying enough attention to see the gap that exists between their ideas and the president’s policies, or, what is a more likely explanation, that liberals see no viable alternative. As such, they are often disappointed by Obama, but in the context of the American left/right paradigm, he looks good by comparison. At a time when the right is led by the likes of wackdoos Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck, it’s easy for Obama to seem like the last, best hope for American liberalism. He is after all, the president. But looking like a liberal compared to say, Mitch McConnell, is a hardly a noteworthy achievement. So Kornacki can point to Obama’s approval ratings among his “base,” but it doesn’t change the fact that more often than not, on major issues Obama has gone against them. Apparently, for Kornacki this is not relevant. What’s relevant is that Democrats endure one disappointment after another, only to keep coming back to Obama like an emotionally scarred woman who always goes back to her abusive husband because she’s convinced that he’s the only one who could possibly love her.

- Max Canning

max.canning@gmail.com

Obama capitulates on tax cuts and the media creates a predictably false narrative about it

Apparently, support of 67% of the American public doesn’t get you what it used to.

Today I watched Barack Obama’s quasi-impromptu press conference where he made a few canned remarks about his compromise in principle with Republicans on extending the Bush tax cuts for everyone for two years. Before I get into the media’s reaction, I want to highlight a CBS poll conducted a week ago. A whopping 67% of Americans say that the Bush tax cuts should either be allowed to expire for everyone, or expire just for those making more than $250,000 a year. Below is the exact breakdown. I have added the data in the bottom row which shows what percentage of Republicans, Democrats, and independents want (at the very least) the tax cuts for the $250,000-plus crowd to expire. This is done simply by adding rows three and four:

CBS Poll conducted 11/29-12/01	All	REPS	DEMS	INDS
Continue for all	26%	46	10	25
Continue for households <$250K	53	41	70	47
Expire for all	14	11	14	17
Expire for >$250K (at very least)	67	52	84	64

Most amazing of all, notice how a majority (52%) of self-identified Republicans think the tax cuts for those making over $250,000 should expire.

Watching the news, you would never know that two-thirds of Americans are in favor of not extending the tax cuts for these wealthier Americans. Meanwhile, a straight 53% say the tax cuts should be extended just for those making under $250,000. And you wouldn’t know this because every media outlet I have seen report on this tax cut compromise—whether CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and so on—has presented this as an instance of Obama defying his “liberal base” and nothing more. See for yourself:

But it’s just the newest chapter of an old fight, and despite the liberal base’s fury, it’s evidence that Obama is trying to re-center himself before the 2012 elections.

CNN

He made clear he was willing to alienate his liberal base in the interest of compromise, more interested in crafting measures that can pass to the benefit of the middle class than waging battle to the end over principle.

New York Times

Even as liberals complain, White House officials believe independent voters will reward him if he’s seen as leading Washington to results.

Wall Street Journal

By cutting the deal they have, the White House has likely concluded that it is more important to cozy up to the middle than it is to keep it’s left-leaning base happy, probably believing that it has no where else to go and will, therefore, stick with Obama through 2012.

US News & World Report

As we just saw in the CBS poll, which merely confirmed similar results in previous polling on this issue (see here and here), two-thirds of Americans do not want tax cuts extended for anyone making over $250,000. And yet the American media would have us believe that in striking this deal, Obama dealt a cold serving of mainstream political reality to his überliberal critics. Except that unless Obama’s “liberal base” is that aforementioned two-thirds of the American population who are against extending the tax cuts for the wealthy, this analysis makes no sense whatsoever.

What this sorry episode shows is that our media is incapable of or unwilling to present serious political and economic issues in a way that goes beyond a convenient, narrow, and usually false left-right dichotomy. This narrative reminds me of the health care debate—based on the media coverage of which, you’d never know that 60% of Americans wanted a government health insurance option to compete with private coverage. Now once again, we are being told that the political realities being what they are, there’s just no possible way to extend tax cuts for the middle class while allowing them to lapse for the wealthy because only a majority of the American population favors it.

Perhaps this really does mean that a majority of Americans are in that “liberal base” the media keeps talking about.

- Max Canning

Long Overdue, Semi-Coherent, Profane-Laden Rant About How Fucked Up Our Politics Are Right Now

Get it off me!

Nowhere is insanity on fuller display than in the debate on whether to extend the Bush tax cuts passed in 2001 and 2003 and set to expire on December 31. On one side is the Republicans, who come January, will control one out of the three institutions (House, Senate, White House) needed to pass any extensions. They have indicated that they will not vote for any tax cut extensions that do not include cuts for those making over $250,000 a year—a group that accounts for two percent of the fucking population! Excuse me, but where in the holy fuck do the Republicans get off saying they won’t compromise on tax cuts? With what leverage are they making these crazy statements? Memo to John Boehner: you can’t do shit without the Senate and White House, neither of which you control. The tax cuts can expire with our without your regressive-ass governing philosophy. On the other side is the Democrats, and I will get to those fuckers momentarily.

If the GOP is so serious about reining in our massive budget deficits, why the fuck do they want the government to eat $700 billion over the next ten years, which is what extending the tax cuts for the upper 2% would cost? Standard bullshit answer: Because that 2% does the investing and job creating. Well suck my ass. I don’t know if any of these GOP empty suits have noticed, but America is having a bit of a capital flight problem at the moment. I know we don’t want to admit it, but the dollar is getting royally crushed on the Forex and our exports are still getting their asses kicked. The Fed’s second round of quantitative easing is underway and, woops, bond yields are rising. That’s ok though, at least those struggling bankers at Goldman Sachs are front-running on these asset purchases and selling the taxpayers bonds whose prices are unnecessarily jacked up. Way to monetize the debt you fucking FOMC assholes.

But back to these Republican douchebags. They don’t give a flaming fuck about deficits or the national debt. If anything, they want our situation to be even more fucked than it is so they can eliminate every social program there is, and spend all tax dollars on corporate subsidies, military Keynesianism, and expanding the police/surveillance state, which are the cornerstones of what passes for American conservatism these days. So they want to give back $700 billion to a bunch of people making over $250K and therefore by definition, don’t really need the money. And don’t tell me they’re going to invest their tax cuts in America or some such horseshit. Those rich people don’t earn that much money because they’re fucking stupid, and because they’re not fucking stupid that money is going to go overseas and in precious metals and commodities. The dollar is dead. Paper money is fucking dead. Might as well buy some hard assets with your worthless fiat toilet paper. Either that or equities so we can blow another bubble and watch it pop. That would be truly awesome.

While Europe undergoes austerity, we here in the US cling to the belief that no matter how indebted we are, we can never be expected to lower our standard of living or rein in our global empire whose costs are at unspeakably obscene levels. Thank god the Republicans have retaken the House so we can start cutting costs, downsize the military and slash pentagon spending, and implement sensible tax policy.

Wait, what’s that? The Republicans want to do none of these things? What’s that? Their recipe for fiscal responsibility in a nation with a $14 trillion debt and a $14.5 trillion GDP is lots of tax cuts with a sprinkle of fucking earmark reform? Is this for serious? Who voted for these buffoons? Way to go teabaggers, fuck you very much.

As for the Democrats, holy fucking shit do you guys suck buffalo cock. What a clusterfuck your reign has been. Nice fucking health care bill that will necessitate a massive transferal of wealth from taxpayers to the criminialistic, anti-trust exempt, premium-jacking, coverage-denying, cocksucking HMOs for the indefinite future. Nice non-legislation allowing the government to negotiate bulk prices of pharmaceuticals under Medicare. Nice non-legislation allowing the reimportation of said pharmaceuticals. Nice fucking mandate that makes Americans purchase health coverage from private tyrannies.

Also, good job on reconfirming Ben Bernanke Fed Chair. Whereas sane societies would see him, Greenspan, Blankfein, Dimon, Cassano, and thousands of others in jail or motherfucking decapitated, the Democratic President and Congress bring him on board for another four years even though he couldn’t see a giant fucking real estate bubble stuck right in his goddamned beard. Homer Simpson once said that people with facial hair have something to hide, well, what the fuck is Bernanke hiding?

By the way Dems, what a bunch of legislative pussies you are. How many times is Obama going to cave? I think Obama—far from being a progressive—is actually a fucking Caucasian Reaganite supply-sider in blackface. How else do you explain an “extended period” ZIRP and multiple rounds of QE? Obama doesn’t fight for anything. He says he wants one thing and then settles for far less, and by the time its over the legislation looks like something that GHW Bush or Ford would’ve signed into law. Why the fuck are you letting Orangeman Bohner and Turtle McConnell lead you around by your balls? This isn’t fucking change I can believe in.

Oh well, Obama. At least you can always bomb Iran to boost your popularity with the warmongering faction of the American populace. Lindsey Graham, David Broder, and others inside the beltway are already calling for it, and as things continue to be shitty at home, the American people will need a distraction because American Idol and Biggest Loser can only keep the rabble amused for only so fucking long. I’ve already got the fucking name ready for the next bullshit American military intervention: Operation Persian Carpet Bombing. That oughta keep those ignorant American serfs busy for a few months. “Oh, you’re unemployed? Well at least the fucking mullahs won’t be slitting your throat as you sleep! We’re over there so we don’t have to fight them over here. Now sit down, shut up, and be scared shitless!”

Yes, it’s quite a fucking operation we’ve got going over here. The sane need not apply because the fucking nutbags are already running the asylum.

- Max

A Midterm Election Autopsy

Ever since election day, grossly overpaid media pundits who contribute little to intelligent discussion have been offering all kinds of reasons for why the Democrats got their asses kicked. The theories range from, “The Obama Democratic agenda is just too far Left” to “The Obama Democratic agenda is just too moderate,” and everything in between. But they all have the same theme: Democrats have done X, but the American people wanted Y. So Democrats were defeated on Tuesday because they spent the last two years doing one thing, while the American people wanted them to do another, and perhaps in a different way.

One great thing about these kinds of analyses, for pundits anyway, is that they lend themselves to endless possibilities in argumentation which amount to little more than quasi-educated spit-balling. The postmortem of the 2010 midterm elections, like all others, is a vague and subjective hazarding of guesses and proffering of pseudo-insight. It relies on this ambiguity in rendering a seemingly plausible but ultimately untestable and therefore useless explanation as to why one party won more seats than the other. Such analyses require amalgamating millions of voters from across the country into a singular entity with a coherent political ideology, or at least giving the American people a mathematically mean ideology which can be placed on somewhere on the Left/Right political spectrum. But this assumes that The American People have a coherent political philosophy, and care enough about it to vote their ideology regardless of whether they think the country is on the right track. This assumption is wrong. Salon’s Glenn Greenwald puts it well:

[W]hat voters care about are not cable-news labels, but results. Democrats didn’t lose because voters think they’re too “liberal.” If that were true, how would one explain massive Democratic wins in 2006 and 2008, including by liberals in conservative districts (such as Alan Grayson); were American voters liberal in 2006 and 2008 only to manically switch to being conservative this year? Was Wisconsin super-liberal for the last 18 years when it thrice elected Russ Feingold to the Senate, and then suddenly turned hostile to liberals this year? Such an explanation is absurd.

The answer is that voters make choices based on their assessment of the outcomes from the political class. They revolted against the Republican Party in the prior two elections because they hated the Iraq War and GOP corruption (not because they thought the GOP was “too conservative”), and they revolted against Democrats this year because they have no jobs, are having their homes foreclosed by the millions, are suffering severe economic anxiety, and see no plan or promise for that to change (not because they think Democrats are “too liberal”).

To Greenwald’s assessment, I would add that because we only have two parties that really matter, election results often furnish us with a skewed version of reality. In 2006, Republicans were voted out because their war in Iraq had turned sour. In 2008 Republicans were voted out because the economy was in the tank. In 2010 Democrats were voted out because the economy is still in the tank and they were replaced by the Republicans who were just recently thoroughly repudiated in the previous two elections. Notice that Americans don’t vote parties in; they vote parties out. Republicans took control of the House and made gains in the Senate last week not because Americans think they’ll do a good job, but because they’re still nervous about the economy and they don’t have any legitimate choices left at the ballot box.

- Max

What Newt Gingrich Really Meant By "Kenyan, Anti-Colonial Behavior"

Don’t be fooled. Gingrich is a master rhetorican.

For the past week or so, the American media has been discussing some seemingly strange remarks Newt Gingrich recently made about President Obama to the conservative National Review:

“What if [Obama] is so outside our comprehension, that only if you understand Kenyan, anti-colonial behavior, can you begin to piece together [his actions]?” Gingrich asks. “That is the most accurate, predictive model for his behavior.”

A thorough parsing of these words is in order, not because they ring true, but rather because of the insight we can gain into how conservative rhetoric and message framing often work.

Before proceeding, recall that in 1996 Gingrich wrote what is now an infamous memorandum for GOPAC titled, “Language: A Key Mechanism of Control.” In that memo, the then Speaker of the House listed one set of emotionally charged words that Republicans could associate with themselves (“Optimistic Positive Governing Words”) and another set they could associate with their opponents (“Contrasting Words”). Here Gingrich acknowledged an unfortunate fact about the American people: they are far too responsive to rhetoric and are less concerned with substantive policy matters. Ironically, Gingrich features “cynicism” in his list of words to heap upon one’s opponents. After all, few things are more cynical than preparing a list of buzzwords to which you think your compatriots would respond in knee-jerk fashion. As far as Newt is concerned, Americans are not people; they are Pavlovian dogs to be conditioned.

Turning again to the present, let us examine Gingrich’s remarks about President Obama to see what’s behind these prima facie idiotic comments.

“What if [Obama] is so outside our comprehension…”

Quick. Think of some things that are or are said to be “outside our comprehension.” Here’s what I came up with:

God

Satan

Demons

Ghosts

Aliens/UFOs

The common theme here is the unknown. And how do humans feel about that which is unknown to them? They fear it, whatever it happens to be. So really this first part of Gingrich’s question is constructed so as to suggest that Obama is unknowable, and therefore people ought to be frightened of him. While the saying, “People fear what they do not understand” is certainly cliché, it is very often true. Obama is particularly susceptible to this line of attack because he’s African-American, has a unique (and foreign) name, spent much time abroad as a child, and had a father born in Kenya, which is not a country typically associated with the melting pot of America. Hence the frequent suggestions by some conservatives that Obama is secretly a Muslim or at the very least sympathizes with Sharia Law, that Obama is an adherent of Black Liberation theology, or that he was born in Kenya and therefore should be disqualified from the Presidency. Newt’s message here is clear: Obama is unknowable and untrustworthy. Therefore he should be feared.

Continuing on,

“What if [Obama] is so outside our comprehension, that only if you understand Kenyan, anti-colonial behavior…”

This phrase about “Kenyan, anti-colonial behavior” seems to be everyone’s (Left and Right) favorite part. Here Gingrich is reinforcing the image of Obama as a foreign and unknowable entity, unless of course “you understand Kenyan, anti-colonial behavior.” And what American understands that? In fact, what do these words even mean?

For Gingrich, associating the word “Kenyan” with Obama while criticizing him is just another way of calling him an unknown, or a foreigner, or the Other, if you will. But insertion of the term “anti-colonial” really left me scratching my head. The extent of my knowledge about “Kenyan, anti-colonial” behavior is the Mau Mau Rebellion in 1950s, when native Kenyans fought an ongoing insurrection against British colonial soldiers who were occupying their land. If this story sounds familiar, that’s because it has played out many times literally the world over, including here in the 1770s when Americans took up arms against their British colonial oppressors, who were far nicer to the Americans than they were to the Kenyans. Furthermore, as an ideology, “colonialism” has a notoriously bad reputation and rightfully so. Conquering foreign peoples, pillaging their resources, and taking their land forcibly for one’s own use is frowned upon by virtually everyone across the political spectrum. It is one thing to advocate an interventionist foreign policy (à la George W. Bush), but it’s quite another to imply that being “anti-colonial” is somehow wrongheaded (à la King George III).

Of course, I haven’t heard anyone in the media besides AlterNet point this out—that not only should Barack Obama have an “anti-colonial” worldview, but so should everyone on the planet.

Continuing on,

“What if [Obama] is so outside our comprehension, that only if you understand Kenyan, anti-colonial behavior, can you begin to piece together [his actions]?”

Quick. What are things people “piece together”?

Puzzles

Crime scenes

IKEA furniture

Ouija board sessions

The common theme here is frustration. When one “pieces together” something such as one of the above, it can be a very rewarding experience. But like cracking a code the process of getting there can be a very painstaking experience fraught with aggravation and angst. Here Gingrich wishes to convey the message that Obama is a puzzle to be solved, but only by those few who understand “Kenyan, anti-colonial behavior.” Unfortunately, the vast majority of people never will, and thus Obama will remain “outside our comprehension.”

While it is true that Gingrich is not making an outright claim but rather asking a question about Obama, the mere musing is suggestive enough to accomplish the rhetorical goal of painting the President as an outsider who is hopelessly inaccessible to most Americans. Furthermore, in the very next sentence Gingrich immediately transforms his “question” into a “fact” by stating,

“That is the most accurate, predictive model for his behavior.”

Thus we see that Newt’s question was a rhetorical one, a statement of “fact” designed to strike upon the key themes of foreignness, mysteriousness, and uncertainty.

The phrase, “predictive model for his behavior” is not one that is heard in everyday conversation. If it is heard at all such a statement is most likely to be uttered by a naturalist studying an elusive species of animal, or perhaps by a psychologist attempting to understand the behavior of a manic depressive or a schizophrenic. Either way, the phrase “predictive model for his behavior” is crafted so as to dehumanize Obama, to make him into an object of study rather than a fellow human being or a fellow American. “Predictive modeling” is not something in which most people engage, and certainly not in regards to their fellow humans. Thus, Gingrich is again reinforcing the idea that Obama is unknowable, and also that attempts to understand him or indeed, connect with him as a human being, is sure to be a futile endeavor.

The above analysis of a mere two sentences is admittedly lengthy. However, these statements typify modern conservative rhetoric. It is a rhetoric that requires enemies to tear down. American conservatism today is bereft of any real ideas or actual solutions, and so it must constantly be attacking something in order to be effective. Conservatives have seemingly cornered the market on patriotism, not because they are truly great patriots, but because they are constantly railing against both real and imagined boogeymen who seek to do America harm. Hence the frequent use of the phrase “anti-American” by conservative pundits and politicians to describe everything from war protesters to secularism to a health care bill. Conservatives understand that the best defense is a good offense. If conservatives weren’t constantly on the offensive, they would have to spend more time articulating and defending their policy prescriptions, which are often quite unpalatable.

Key to political rhetoric—especially conservative political rhetoric—in contemporary America is the ability to convey deep emotional messages using a few hollow words. What came out of Newt Gingrich’s mouth recently was not an accident, and it would be a grave mistake for liberals to assume that his comments were merely off-the-cuff and said in an unthinking manner. Gingrich knows precisely what he is doing. He’s not alone.

- Max Canning