Working In These Times
Grassroots Pressure—And New Polls—Show New Path for Dems
I have to admit that I felt a chill of fear run down my spine when I caught the wicked simplicity of an enormous Republican billboard on a heavily-traveled stretch of Wisconsin freeway: "Huge deficits=higher spending+lost jobs."
Is another right-wing surge about to explode at the polls in November? Could we be facing another 1994-style Republican avalanche that would block any sensible spending programs designed to create jobs and end the recession?
The answer is "Yes"—but only if the Democrats continue to respond to fundamental economic and social crises with halfway measures further watered down by the Wall Street. And "Yes" again—if the Democrats try telling people, as they did in 1994, that "You're better off than you think you are," as progressive political operative Steve Cobble astutely summed it up.
The Democrats will need to come up with a far bolder economic strategy than has emerged thus far from the Wall Street-minded economic strategists who have set the tone of the Obama Administration. They will also need a much more appealing political message than, "Things would be worse with the Republicans."
It's obvious by now that essentially, Republicans are trying to re-cycle the 1994 anti-spending game plan they used so successfully to unseat long-standing Democratic majorities in both houses. Under the script perfected by pollster Frank Luntz, the Republicans evade the question of exactly which programs should be cut and keep the focus on government spending in general.
It turns out that Republican strategists understand that almost all domestic government programs for education, health, housing, and relief for the poor—as long as they are not specifically labeled and stigmatized as "welfare"—have majority support. (Too bad so many centrist and right-wing Democrats fail to recognize this reality, as repeatedly backed up in numerous polls, as described in detail by progressive author Paul Street and in Noam Chomsky's Failed States.)
So, for example, on "Meet the Press" Sunday, arch-right-winger Rep. Mike Pence (R-Indiana) tenaciously resisted every attempt by host David Gregory to specify which programs the Republicans would cut in the wake of their attacks on government spending.
The Republicans, however, overplayed their hand on extended unemployment benefits, insisting that they be offset by reductions in other domestic spending while the extension of Bush tax cuts for the wealthy be exempted from such a requirement. Their fundamental class loyalties were thereby exposed.
But are Democrats read to seize the chance to show where the two parties really stand in terms of fundamental loyalties? That question remains to be answered, but Democrats should feel emboldened by most recent USA Today/Gallup Poll that shows a solid majority in favor of more government spending to stimulate job growth, in line with the longer-term public support cited above toward what Chomsky calls "social-democratic" policies that too many Democrats in Congress won't touch.
As Joe Conason points out, the new survey reported 60 percent support "additional government spending to create jobs and stimulate the economy," with fewer than 40 percent opposed. Conason argues that the survey expresses the need for a stronger Democratic stance on job creation:
For Democrats hoping to stem their expected midterm losses in November, that poll contained an important message. Fully 83 percent of Democratic voters and 52 percent of independents said that they support a second round of stimulus spending — while 61 percent of Republicans were opposed.
But Conason very helpfully notes that the lesson is particularly important among white working-class males who have increasingly drifted into the Republican fold:
The Republicans who favor more spending, nearly 40 percent, are most likely to be white working-class males who have lost their jobs or fear losing them. Why are Democrats in Congress and the White House missing the opportunity to motivate their own base, while appealing to independents and disaffected Republican workers?
In case the Democrats keep trying to blot out the potential for public support for job creation and an end to imperial adventures abroad and mass incarceration at home, a national march set for Oct. 2 will make them feel grass-roots pressure from the Left which has been largely lacking thus far in the Obama era.
DEMANDING 'THE CHANGE THEY VOTED FOR'
In case the Democrats fail to acknowledge the potential for public support, the AFL-CIO will be supporting mobilizing its members for the October 2 march on Washington to demand "jobs, economic security, comprehensive immigration reform, a safe and renewable energy policy and a reversal of national priorities from making wars to meeting human needs."
NAACP President Ben Jealous, in announcing the October 2 march, explainined that "marchers will demand the change they voted for when Barack Obama was elected," and emphasizing the urgent need to "create jobs and stop moving money out of education and into wars and prisons."
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Comments
Corporate profits and coffers at record levels and no additional jobs? That, in and of itself should be cause for concern. I do not think this “jobless recovery” is by accident, in fact I believe the jobless portion is orchestrated by the wealthy financiers and business owners in an attempt to discredit, frustrate and punish the current administration. I believe those who have at long last been identified to shoulder their fair share of our fiscal burden have decided in concert not to hire additional workers in a mean spirited attempt and last ditch effort to derail a movement of fair taxation. Our citizens should question out loud why corporate profits are currently 5.7% higher than they were in 2007Q4 while the number of jobs available are down 5.9% in comparison to the same period (as reported by the Economic Policy Institute, 7.14.2010)
This is how the privileged maintain control and leverage their power.
Dear Justice 22:
You’ve really nailed a critical piece of the economic crisis as a combination of
1) Economic sabotage orchestrated by the Republicans where the have resisted every bit of economic stimulus, pretending that they don’t comprehend that the crucial problem is a collapse of consumer demand due to high unemployment, widespread wage cutting, and weakened unions;
2) An unwillingness of the banks to extend more than a tiny fraction of the government-provided capital with which they were bailed out.
(See Nomi Prins’ excellent piece on the defective Wall Street regulations at http://www.demos-usa.org/press.cfm?currentarticleID=405741CD-3FF4-6C82-5CB90C2FBC6E6054 and John Talbott’s article http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-r-talbott/the-real-reason-geithner_b_650403.htmlon why Timothy Geithner is opposing Elizabeth Warren as the new director of Consumer Protection)
3) The US job shortage is showing signs of becoming a long-term problem. Every decade since 1940 produced US job gains of 22% to 38%—except for the last decade when job growth was under 1%.
This was of course a decade when Corporate America under PResident George W. Bush was reaping the benefits of “free trade” agreements that were supposed to generate export jobs, huge tax breaks that were sold as incentives for “job creation,” and continued deregulation of Wall Street and corporations like BP.
Corporate America received everything on its wish list, yet it has kept on relocating jobs outside the US to low-wage, high-repression nations like Mexico and China.
Unfortunately, we need to fully turn up the heat on the Obama administration to respond aggressively to each element of conservative/corporate strategy that undermines US jobs and wages.
Obama and the Democrats need to consistently point out the Republicans’ efforts at economic sabotage, and label it for what it is.
Second, Obama and Co. must raise pressure on the banks to stop merely keeping federal funds in the freezer rather than lending out the capital to stimulate the economy.
Third, the president needs to challenge the morality of corporations destroying and relocating US jobs after profiting from generations of Americans’ hard work and decades of tax breaks. The Obama administration also must feel the full extent of labor’s fury over his recent reversal of his campaign position against NAFTA-style “free trade” deals that eliminate US jobs and create a global race to the bottom on wages, worker rights, and environmental standards.
Justice22, I’m very glad you brought up this crucial point. Best, Roger Bybee
And what are the chances that our centrist president, influenced by his Wall Street-groomed economic advisors, will respond in such a bold way or to the calls for stronger action by labor unions and progressives?
Dear Art:
1) CLUELESS Your question raises a critical point that you documented well in recent blog posts: The Obama Administration has often seemed clueless about the seriousness and structural nature of the current economic crisis (e.g., the jobless recovery strategy pursued by corporate America, the continued unwillingness of mega-banks to re-start the economy by actually loaning out money, and the refusal of banks to participate in programs to halt the foreclosure epidemic.)
2) SKITTISH Certainly, the Administration has shown itself skittish in the face of the slightest pressure from the Right (e.g., the latest example being the shameful firing of Shirley Sherrod on the basis of videotape distorted by a right-wing blogger and Fox News, falling for exactly the same strategy used to destroy ACORN).
3) IMPERVIOUS TO PROGRESSIVES Meanwhile, it has been virtually impervious to pressure from the Left on meaningful healthcare reform (as opposed to the nearly-$500 billion subsidy program for insurers that was passed), Wall Street reform, the auto “bailouts” that closed US plants while increasing GM and Chrysler production n China and Mexico, and the gutless support for off-shore oil drilling just weeks before the BP disaster, to name just a few instances.
4) FIGHTING ON THE WRONG FRONT But thus far, groups on the broadly-defined Left like the AFL-CIO, environmental movement, and various populist coalitions have tended to use their strength primarily as lobbying forces in Washington, DC rather than to systematically mobilize at the grass-roots level. Progressives cannot hope to compete against the massive campaign contributions of corporate CEOs and the vast armies of lobbyists they have the resources to hire.
5) USING LOCAL POWER STRATEGY I think a much better bet for labor and progressives is to devote most of our resources to local campaigns in factory towns—where the remnants of labor are concentrated—to struggle against every job (unionized or not) relocation off-shore, fight every foreclosure, and direct political heat against BP’s political enablers with demonstrations and sit-ins at the local congressional offices of pro-drilling congresspeople.
As for the chances of this succeeding, Art, we don’t know. Certainly the pervasive sense of powerlessness dampens the spirit of resistance to the most outrageous examples of corporate-government collaboration against working Americans.
But unless the top levels of labor and other progressives help their members by inspiring, supporting,and focusing effective action, nothing is possible. Thanks for the provocative q
Concerning GM, if we need this industrial monster? And why we have the increase in production of space parts in Eurpoe instead of being produced in USA. Abama and his Cabinet should have stuck to his promises.
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