Just got round to Richard Wolff’s Friday column at Guardian.com, and he paints a macrocosmic view of why the US is in such deep trouble — and why it matters in a two party system when (a) both parties draw from essentially similar financial bases of support, and (b) one of those two parties decides to crash the ability of government to govern.
Here are a couple of excerpts:
…At the same time, the housing market remains deeply depressed as 1.5-2m home foreclosures are scheduled for 2011, separating more millions from their homes. After a short upturn, housing prices nationally have resumed their fall: one of those feared “double dips” downward is thus already under way in the economically vital housing market.
The combination of high unemployment and high home foreclosures assures a deeply depressed economy. The mass of US citizens cannot work more hours – the US already is No 1 in the world in the average number of hours of paid labour done per year per worker. The mass of US citizens cannot borrow much more because of debt levels already teetering on the edge of unsustainability for most consumers. Real wages are going nowhere because of high unemployment enabling employers everywhere to refuse significant wage increases. Job-related benefits (pensions, medical insurance, holidays, etc) are being pared back.
There is thus no discernible basis for a substantial recovery for the mass of Americans.
Wolff actually says nothing that will seem new to this blog’s readers. But still, the juxtaposition of economic and political futility in one relatively brief essay makes the message potent:
Republicans are now celebrating “American exceptionalism”, the unique greatness of living conditions in the US. Yet again, their politics stress vanishing social conditions whose disappearance frightens Americans who counted on them. In reality, the US is fast becoming more and more like so many countries where a rich, cosmopolitan elite occupies major cities with a vast hinterland of people struggling to make ends meet. The vaunted US “middle class” – so celebrated after the second world war even as it slowly shrank – is now fast evaporating, as the economic crisis and the government’s “austerity” response both favour the top 10% of the population at the expense of everyone else….
I disagree with Wolff’s claim in the piece that Democrats are trying to deal with deficits in company with the GOPers by slamming Medicare and Social Security — that bit reads more to me like easy across-the-water equivalence-mongering. More generally Wolff’s politics seem to make it hard for him to distinguish any meaningful distance between the two parties…which, as we have bitter cause to know, is not actually true.
Still, go read the whole thing. Wolff ends on a utopian note, but the hard core of the piece paints a picture of an economy in long term stasis that is unlikely to shift as long as our politics remain so bollixed by corporate influence and GOP delusions.
Oh…and have a great weekend!
Update: Paul Krugman takes a victory lap (bemusedly) on the fate of his year-ago fears of prolonged economic troubles. Did I happen to mention WASF?
Image: Georges Emile Lebacq, Ruins at Reninghe (Flanders), 1917
Alex S.
Nice. Although, now that he was already there he might as well have said: ‘Companies refuse to hire to keep wages down and prefer to exploit their workers and keep them in complete dependence.’
gypsy howell
Pretty radical conclusion: workers must seize the means of production. Hmmmm… yeah I like it. How can we make that happen?
azlib
We can only hope enough middle class folks figure out they are being screwed by the Republicans obstruction to get reasonable people elected Unfortunately, that is not likely to happen any time soon, based on past history. It is remarkable the number of people willing to vote against their own economic interests.
Judas Escargot
@Alex S.:
True and succinct.
The “Bloodless Civil War Underway” meme is already considered trite in some circles.
But when one would-be power group (ie Corporations and the Galtians who run them) openly attacks the legitimate power group (the government) by multiple means… WTF other framing is appropriate?
Alan in SF
Two busses are headed over Suicide Cliff. In one, the driver is a crazy, incompetent maniac. The other has a good driver at the wheel.
All aboard!
jwb
I really don’t see how you get to his solution to the overarching problem. If the political will existed to radically change the system in the direction he wants, the political will would exist to make the existing system equitable. And how are we supposed to have this debate he calls for when the very monied interests he complains about control a large percentage of the media outlets that would allow such a debate to take place? What we need are strategies for an effective politics, not more diagnoses of the fatal condition.
jwb
@Alan in SF: Actually, if this is how people think about American politics, it might explain some of the voting patterns: under this scenario, you go with crazy, incompetent because s/he might accidentally miss the cliff, whereas you know the competent driver will take you smoothly over the cliff.
RossInDetroit
Technically true but effectively nonsense. The Republicans can’t wait to get rid of the social safety net. The Democrats are committed to using the parts of it that work best and expanding health care.
This is a big difference that’s ignored when he says “Republicans and Democrats plan”.
burnspbesq
Yap yap yap. This is the real reason why we’re fucked. And if you don’t believe me, ask your wingnut neighbor
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/8545038/Sesame-Street-and-Friends-pumping-out-left-wing-messages.html
Mike in NC
Yes, but if the Republicans succeed in busting unions and eliminating the minimum wage, the mass of US citizens can slave away for even less than they’re getting now!
Mr Stagger Lee
@azlib: In the south as well as the rural Midwest and the rural West, follow the three G’s
God Guns and Gays, and like the old soldiers saying, “when you got’em by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow”, you can promise and deliver economic prosperity to the those people, but if they think you are going to take away their God, and their guns, and teach the children that the LGBT community(as well as people of color)are people too.
They would vote for slavery, starvation and privation. Until this mindset dies, this country will never prosper. I think many of us will be dust and bones by that time.
Poopyman
@Alan in SF: You forgot to mention that the buses are inextricably chained together.
Have a nice trip!
MikeBoyScout
Yep, that’s always been true.
And I expect to see far more self destruction sooner than I see an understanding for dramatic change.
In the meantime, hand over your Medicare.
alwhite
every time I read one of the pieces that lay out the obvious so clearly I thing that maybe, just maybe, this will be the straw that breaks the camels back & the ignorant and ill informed pundit class will finally have to admit what has been done to us. The a couple of weeks go by, the piece is forgotten and some fresh hell is visited upon us by the master of the universe.
.
Maybe the next piece will be the one that makes a difference.
MikeJ
@burnspbesq: I think instead of yap yap yap you meant yip yip yip.
Also too, did you note that the virgin Ben is alerting us to the secret anti-war message of MASH? And that Hollywood is cramming left wing messages down our throats with twenty and thirty year old sitcoms?
Republicans are as good at cultural criticism as they are at economics.
Doug Harlan J
Sometimes I think “trouble” is relative. At least we have one party here with some power that isn’t buying completely into all that austerity bullshit.
theBejaysus
@burnspbesq:
Cmon teaching children to count, the basis for math, is a full on pinko conspiracy
El Cid
We keep pretending that there haven’t been decades and decades of political, sociological, anthropological, economic and etc. research on how our political system is dominated by upper class power, and if you want to separate the terms, both the super-duper wealthy (those with 10’s but especially 100s of millions and billions of dollars, and as political involvement directly or through proxies increases) and the corporate community and their proxies (Chamber of Commerce, Business Roundtable, etc) which include the major and medium sized news media of our nation.
Partly that’s because when discussing it, people become stupid and interpret this as unsophisticated conspiracy theory.
First because they require that ‘domination’ (or whatever term) must imply absolute control and success each time. I.e., if you can find examples where this domination doesn’t win, there you go — a pluralist system in which cultural explanations of the leadership are what matters.
Or if the amount of money in a political campaign for one candidate doesn’t result in that candidate’s victory, then, bang, money doesn’t really matter.
So results which are extremely successful and beneficial exclusively or overwhelmingly to the uppermost classes and which occur over decades is really more explained by these or those changes in our society, etc.
Or that it must ignore the possibilities that voting and candidates can potentially (and occasionally have) change laws and institutions and enforcement.
Whereas of course it’s the exact opposite — the upper classes and corporate power bases spend so much time and money on influence precisely because of that undesired possibility.
Or that a lot of times what seems to be a clear defeat of the monied interests isn’t really so — for example, the widespread but not uniform support by monied and conglomerate interests in a government pension program, which resulted in Social Security.
We seem to be okay with off-hand generalization of the power of the wealthy and the corporations (proxies, think tanks, etc) and with particular examples.
We’re just very uncomfortable, at the level of public and political discussion and policy, if not flat-out dismissive of and hostile to, the notion that we could possibly have such domination of our entire power system by the wealthiest people and institutions, because that would be really simplistic and conspiracy-flavored and would be completely and easily seen.
Ruckus
@alwhite:
Ahhh a true optimist.
Used to be one myself. Used to think the next rainbow will be here not over the next hill. And sometimes the rainbow ends right at your feet and there is still no pot of gold. I like how our political system used to do just enough just often enough to keep me an optimist. Now I like how the political and major business fractions have joined at the hip to keep making our world darker and darker, making me see the glass as getting emptier and emptier. The only real advancement I can remember in the last 20 years is ACA.
@jwb:
I keep asking the question, what’s next? Just like me no one seems to have any idea other than elect better democrats. Who are these better democrats? How will we know? Who do we listen to when they tell us who they are? And how do we afford to pay for them to run when getting food and shelter are about the most many can do right now?
Lots of questions, are there any answers?
Mark S.
@burnspbesq:
If you need an “insider” to tell you that obvious piece of information, maybe your analytical skills are a tad wanting.
Also, too, an “insider” in the publishing industry once told me that Catch-22 has an anti-war message.
Danny
I’d rather focus on another bus that’s heading off a cliff right now, and seemingly just as surely. I’m talking about the frequency of these types of sentiments on the left, so common during the last congress and just as common during this congress. They depress enthusiasm on the left. The predictable outcome will be low turnout on the left in the upcoming ’12 election, just as the doom and gloom depressed left turnout in ’10.
This is part of the republican playbook. Right-wing obstruction plays out on the left not in the form of anger – which would drive left-wing voters to the polling booth – but as cynicism and helplessness. That’s of course a win-win for republicans. It’s in fact an incentive for them to continue to sabotage any form of government as long as they’re out of power.
And progressive voices are playing right into their hands. If one would want to punish their obstructionist ways and minimize their future tendency to keep at this game, one would have to focus anger only at the republicans and their tendency to want to destroy the country to gain power.
Unfortunately that kind of productive focus is not a part of the left wing DNA, and that’s the cause of our tendency to lose, and why the republicans keep this shit up.
MikeBoyScout
@19 Ruckus:
You asked “Lots of questions, are there any answers?”
There certainly are some leads.
Revolt On Goose Island: The Chicago Factory Takeover, and What it Says About the Economic Crisis
MikeBoyScout
Steve Benen this morning offers us this:
Steve’s post is worth the read, as usual.
Linnaeus
@Ruckus:
I’m not sure there any answers in the final sense right now. More likely, there are potential paths the liberal-left could take that might go somewhere, but the end result of which we can’t be sure. So, I might offer a couple of suggestions:
1. Infrastructure. What this means is building up institutions (and invigorating existing ones) that disseminate ideas, plan (and execute) actions, and generally get the liberal-left more “out there”. A key characteristic, IMHO, is that these institutions should be structurally independent of the Democratic Party. This would allow them to have a little more freedom of action that politicians in the Democratic Party currently don’t have in this political climate and help create an idea and personnel “bench” that can then get more involved in the party when necessary.
2. Scale of action. It may be necessary to focus more on local and state politics, because it is then easier to mobilize people on a scale necessary for progressive change. You then set up successful policies with a real record which can then be (possibly) scaled up to the next level, probably with some modifications, of course, but the core ideals and policy would be the same as they were on the “lower” level.
3. (A degree of) patience. This is all going to take time. A lot of time. This means there will be fits and starts, setbacks, etc. And it’s easy to get disheartened in the face of all that. So it’s important to keep an eye on the long game. That said, I qualified this point with the phrase “a degree of” because there are points at which it will be necessary to push harder, demand more, and assess accountability for those who don’t deliver. Finding those points is the hard part.
I realize that I’m not saying anything new here, but it doesn’t hurt to reiterate it.
aisce
@Danny:
i’ve heard enough of this enthusiasm whining. you’re part of the 0.001% of the country that posts in political comment sections, exactly how powerful do you really think online “enthusiasm dampening” capabilities are? this goes for everyone. activists, firebaggers, naderites, obots, antiwars, anybody who thinks momentum is won or lost online. it isn’t. there are almost 150 million potential voters out there, and you think blog comments and foreign op-eds are what stops them from voting the way they should every time? you are not the cosmos.
Gus diZerega
James Madison diagnosed the problem and its solution 200 years ago, only he thought the US of the time was the solution. Democracies, he wrote, destroy themselves through factional violence and the most important is that between rich and poor. The solution was to make it difficult for factions to combine by having such a large society that there would be many factions and difficulty in their organizing (there were no political parties when he wrote). When two parties arose (because of our election laws) most of the time they did not became foci of deeply divided factions. The country was too diverse. Except over slavery, and we know where that ended up.
Today the conditions Madison diagnosed as necessary for relatively secure political freedom have withered. We are not diverse in the way Madison wanted and we are in the midst of class war.
While we have long had two parties, they were what we political scientists call “weak” parties, with no ability to discipline renegades who kept their base of support, and with most representatives looking to their states for success. Today we have national funding and, if the party is strongly ideological, real means for punishing the disobedient. The Republicans are more like a European parliamentary party but without parliamentary means of keeping such organizations under control, such as votes of no confidence. The recall is the best we have, and while not bad, does not apply nationally. So we have he worst of a parliamentary party, and authoritarian imperialistic corporatist one with a powerful theocratic base, operating in a system unable to tame it.
In addition, for most of our history national government took second place to the states domestically. Since FDR we have also had the pressures of the Cold War to override domestic discord until relatively recently. That may be why Reagan was a far more moderate politician than the Republican sociopaths of today. It is since the end of the Cold War the right wing has gotten increasingly antidemocratic and antipatriotic rather than being simply bigoted and intolerant, so that now they deliberately threaten the well being of the country in order to get their way.
Here is where it gets really scary. Both parties depend disproportionately in the same interests for funding and those interests, as Wolff rightly notes, are antagonistic in many ways to those of the average American. They also own and control the major traditional media. An element of the rich, particularly the corporate element, has been waging explicit and successful class war for some time. And they control one political team and dominate the other. So no matter who is in power we get corporatism and an aggressive foreign policy. One is by ‘rational’ managers – Obama and Clinton for example – and the other by the most sociopathic of the crowd, the Blankenships and other parasites. As evidence, consider that polls have consistently shown a majority, often a big one, of Americans would prefer defense cuts in the budget to cutting Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid. But Defense is the only area that has not been threatened. Democracy? The public cannot win under such circumstances, but at least we can take some relief in that the Democrats are not sadistic.
All the long-term solutions to this dilemma are pretty drastic. Bringing corporations under control is the most important long term goal. In between either using primaries to retake the Democratic Party or using initiatives in the states where they are legal to adopt majority elections, and at least give third parties a chance of becoming viable opponents, is the short term need. Until then, Madison’s diagnosis bodes very ill for the future of this country.
Mark S.
Also, “Happy Days had an anti-Vietnam War subtext”? I never saw many episodes of it, but I don’t remember much political context to the show. It’s kind of like saying Saved By The Bell had an anti-Gulf War I subtext.
Danny
@aisce:
I’d have much more sympathy for your argument if it didnt amount to one big case of “I don’t matter anyway, might as well indulge in more counterproductive behavior”.
Well let’s carry that sentiment to it’s logical conclusion.
How much difference does one single vote make in a country of hundreds of millions? Not much. Might as well stay home then.
How much difference does it make if I convince five of my friends to sit this one out? Not very much. Might as well do it then. Big corporations rule the game anyway.
And on, and on. Yeah those stupid, silly teabaggers getting so worked up. Like they could ever make a difference.
Elie
@jwb:
This..a thousand times. I have to say that unfortunately, the need for conflict and buzz to get hits or readership reinforce highlighting the problem, not the fix. We have always had the means to fix things — if we wanted to. We seem to want the sensation. All the while more and more regular folks become more and more alienated from the political system — actually despising it as the means for any change… very very dangerous and catastrophic state for us to be in.
We have cancer and are more afraid and freaked out about the chemotherapy to treat it than the cancer itself – as though we can blissfully avoid a bad outcome by nobly avoiding that “horrible” treatment. Truly, that happens because the treatment (our politics), is seen as more negative and disempowering than the disease. And in both cases, being scared of the treatment makes sure that you die — you didn’t avoid anything being afraid of the treatment — you just avoid any possibility of cure.
Lee Hartmann
Once more with feeling: the isue is not the DFHs like me who are unhappy with, you know, Obama and the Dems often not even trying to do the right thing, given their source of funding as per Wolff. There aren’t enough of us. The issue is how independents vote. If the economy sucks then the voters keep throwing out the incumbents who were “in charge” of things. This may work to the D’s benefit next time. Rather than engage in more circular firing squad activity, it would behoove the party to at least articulate what should be done, what needs to be done to rescue our economy and put people back to work, rather than lots of rhetoric about the deficit. This would have the incidental effect of increasing enthusiasm among people like me. But that’s not the reason to do it; the reason to do it is to provide the voters that count with clear reasons to vote the bums out.
PIGL
@Linnaeus: If only time were no object and there were no exogenous drivers.
But time is short. Climate change, emerging foreign competition both economic and military, a limit to other’s willingness to finance America’s insane clown show, and the already existing and all-permeating paramilitary structure of elite control means that your excellently devious plan may not work.
This will take a few centuries of disaster to resolve itself, and the present USA will not emerge in one piece.
Danny
@Lee Hartmann:
Yes you DFHs are indeed a big part of the problem if you:
1) Are too many.
and
2) Your bar for feelings of betrayal is set so low that no party or candidate you could plausibly find yourself having the opportunity to vote for will ever fail to qualify.
Gus diZerega
@Elie: Yes, a thousand times yes. IF it is true that the Democratic establishment cannot ultimately be the solution, the obvious conclusion is to change the establishment OR create a new party. If the latter, that requires changes in electoral rules so third parties will not be flashes in the pan built around a personality. With the web it should be possible to organize viable third party challenges reasonably quickly once the election laws guarantee that my vote for a third party does not actually help the Republicans (Obama and Clinton’s strategy is to rely on this because where can we go?)
Ideas like this may be right or wrong, but they rarely get responses. It’s easier to kvetch.
Danny
True, but it should be said: mostly on the left. There’s some of these sentiments on the right at the moment, but historically very little. This is a left-wing disease.
Linnaeus
@PIGL:
You may very well be right, and I know I oversimplified “the plan” somewhat in the interest of brevity. I don’t harbor any delusions about the difficulty of doing what needs to be done or about the possibility that it may not work.
Danny
@Linnaeus:
This. Right on the money. This is exactly how movement conservatism got their clout. It works and it’s proven to work in the real world.
A fundamental weakness of progressive thought for a long time has been this expectation that our most exposed figureheads – e.g. Presidents and other politicians who have to run for office and finance it – should also do the job that Rush Limbaugh, the National Review and FoxNews do on the right wing. That’s completely unrealistic. They cant do that kind of advocacy work because they’d just fall on a sword and lose elections over and over, discrediting the message in the process.
There needs to be a strong, viable independent infrastructure willing to act the part of shrills for progressive causes and progressive politicians.
MikeJ
@Danny:
And look at how well it worked for them with Sharon Angle and in NY26.
PIGL
@Linnaeus: I want to believe that are right, and that a generation of commitment from a popular progressive movement could undo what two generations of bipartisan economic fcukery have accomplished, and reconcile the 1/3 or your population apparently still convinced that the Confederacy is on the point of winning the civil war. But I just can’t see it.
What really stomps my grapes is that Republican operatives have created a new political entity in Canada called the Conservative Party, and have bankrolled decades of propaganda mills to create de novo support for it’s frankly alien doctrine with the net effect that our country will be in destroyed as well. Unlike the US, Canada cannot be made ungovernable by a dedicated 5th collumn of sabatoeurs.
Danny
@PIGL:
Defining the problem in such stark terms that solving it is intractable, thereby in fact minimizing the chance that progress will be made. I’m not disputing that some problams – specifically AGW – may be huge, but you’re arguing maximalism or nothing, to the detriment of incrementalism and pragmatism. Very poor track record in general, and in the US in particular.
JPL
Three reasons why our nation will continue on it’s path to destruction.
1. Gerrymandering
2. Liberal Media
3. Citizens United
In the south because of gerrymandering some crazy reps have been elected but the Citizens United ruling now allows them to be openly bought by the highest bidder. The lack of democratic members on Sunday talk shows is scary.
Danny
@MikeJ:
Yes, we’re at a moment in time when conservatives independent institutions risk growing so powerful that they *may* hijack their movement and *may* cause it’s downfall. After 40 years of increasing policy clout thanks to those institutions. In fact the very right-wing corporate influence and nat sec hawk-ism that we’re all bitching and moaning about being a direct consequence of their unrivaled success.
I guess we could decide on conceding the battle right now because of the potential of our movement being afflicted with such pathologies 40 years down the road if we ever become too successful. Or, we could worry about it when the day comes…
boss bitch
boots onna ground
stop preaching to the choir
stop talking down to the American people
patience
compromise
discipline
long term strategies
and a whole lot less whining about Obama and the Democrats not loving/listening to/stroking you enough – talking to you “DFH” out there.
wmd
@aisce:
When you have real life interactions do you try to engage people and talk about how better policy could make better outcomes for people?
Doing so can be a lot of fun. You do risk an occasional punch in the junk, but for the most part people can be reached with appeals to hope rather than fear and nihilism.
The two bus imagery is good snark. Not sure that it does much beyond gratifying yourself as a wordsmith and validating your angst.
Eric U.
the thing that has really surprised me since Obama got elected is how easily discouraged so many of those of us who follow blogs were. It was obvious that Obama was not going to be able to change the status quo much. He had the House, but the Senate was totally screwed up, and that much was obvious since the Gulf War run up.
I was also surprised by how badly the Dems from marginal districts misinterpreted their best course of action to stay in office, but I never had a really high opinion of those people in the first place.
Linnaeus
@MikeJ:
Those are definitely a couple of the right’s more spectacular recent failures, but even if the right isn’t batting 1.000, they’ve had enough success in the broad sense over the past 40 years such that studying closely what they did might provide some worthwhile lessons for the American left.
@PIGL:
It’s definitely hard to see right now, and things are more likely to get worse before they will get better. That could produce several kinds of result, some of which will be quite bad. On the other hand, I don’t know what else there is to do. Even if there’s a relatively narrow chance of undoing the damage, that’s better than a zero chance.
Danny
@wmd:
This. Optimism and real, constructive work – the only cure for what ails us.
Elie
@Gus diZerega:
I just fundamentally disagree with the whole notion of a third party as working within the current system. A third party candidate in our current system just insures that either the republican or democratic standardbearer loses.
We are not a parliamentary system and that puts a third party process in a spoiler rather than builder role in my opinion. I would rather that we change the Democratic party from the grassroots up to more reflect our values and principles. That, of course, is not easy but must be done. Right now the Democrats are pretty hard to break into locally and that whole bureacracy and way of thinking has to be changed to bring out new leaders. Folks have to show up en masse at meetings and scream and take over through persistence. That has to follow at every level up the chain so its a big job. Thus, I can see the lure in trying to avoid that effort by getting a nice new third party. Unfortunately, I don’t think that works for the solution in the end. I am thoroughly willing to be convinced otherwise, but I just don’t see the math working without setting up the risk for getting some really bad unintended consequences into office. Can we risk that? And after all that risk, will the third party actually fix things?
Elie
@wmd:
I agree with your comment and applaud the role of optimism and hard work. Hearts and minds, hearts and minds build…you can’t build with anger and negativism — only destroy…Martin Luther King said something like that and he was absolutely right. Lets affirm and build…
Elie
@boss bitch:
abolutely agree with your “recipe” :-)
Bill Murray
@MikeJ:
They have pulled the parties so far to the right they can afford to lose a few and only get the slow motion train wreck, instead of the full speed one they will get in the future.
aisce
@Danny:
can’t you just be honest about what it is you want here? this has nothing to do with progress. this has to do with you being too stupid and egotistical to move your finger a whole millimeter and a half on your mousewheel.
just. ignore. them. they don’t matter.
@wmd:
good heavens! someone was being unproductive on the internet, perhaps! where oh where is my fainting couch? the vapours, they overwhelm! shame on you random anonymous poster who brought up runaway buses. shame, shame, shame!
these endless “state of the left/state of the blogosphere” discussions are always just so delightful. i look forward to the four of you who have come together to ready yourselves as the vanguard of progress holding firm and not come back this same time next week on this same website saying the exact same things over and over again. because you would never do that, right?
there’s a difference between doing and talking. 99% of the internet is all talk. that goes for everyone. live with it.
Com.Darkness
House prices are NOT depressed. Holy shit these analysts are still idiots about real estate. Prices are normalizing. It’s not supposed to bankrupt families to own a house. Soon it won’t do so again. We haven’t returned to the long-term average yet, let alone dropped blow it. Jesus, someone please slap this idiot around for me.
High real estate prices/rising real estate prices are an economic disaster that destroys the middle class.
FlipYrWhig
@Eric U.:
Do you remember the two terms of Clinton? It was the same thing then: progressives at the time were outraged by NAFTA, outraged by “triangulation,” irked that the health care effort didn’t go far enough, irked that no one was dealing with climate change, irked that gays were being strung along, etc. Real grievances. I personally was so demoralized that I voted for Nader in 1996. This is how we get. Democrats who get elected president are less liberal than the Democrats who passionately follow and participate in alt-media, and on top of that, they constantly have to shore up the right flank of the Democrats in Congress.
What We Need ™ is to break the consultant-class conventional wisdom that the way to be a “moderate” Democrat is to be “pro-business” like Blanche Lincoln and Ben Nelson. IMHO the reason that holds such appeal is that the people who remember well the ’60s and ’70s are leery of liberals, and the Clinton strategies did well to keep liberal stereotypes at bay, so, the thinking goes, why not copy Clinton strategies? Some of those candidates (and strategists, like Bob Shrum and Mark Penn) are no longer in favor, but until they’re almost all gone, their cohort is going to keep giving that same advice.
Democratic _populists_ need to win more elections. And, it’s going to be frustrating, but some of them will be not all that liberal across the board (think of Bob Casey or Jim Webb). I think the Democrats need to be more of a populist-liberal coalition than a corporate-liberal coalition. But there’s a strong headwind against that, and a whole lot of money.
PIGL
@Danny:
I frankly admit that I have despaired. I hope you will not think I am being snarky or condescending when I say that I am truly glad to see that you and others have not.
My personal sense of futility comes from having spent the last twenty (20) years trying to use good science and models to influence development in the North to improve environmental outcomes to even the smallest degree, and having failed utterly.
I no longer believe that the machine can be stopped, deflected, or even improved in any way. “The machine” is a totalising economic system called capitalism, and it will more or less destroy us all, with most of us loudly cheering.
wmd
@Elie:
Third parties in the early part of the 20th century developed many of the ideas that went into the new deal. They had some electoral success in the states, and put things like recall elections and popular referenda into state Constitutions.
I’ve been involved in third party elections personally, both as a candidate for state legislature and as an organizer of a slate of candidates at a municipal level. While I would have liked to have been elected and possibly be in a position to get votes on policies I campaigned on in exchange for support for Democratic caucus legislation, I’m happy that some ideas got into public discourse. At the municipal level the campaigns also failed to elect people. Some of the campaign issues did turn into city policy.
Ultimately we just need to work. Independent non-partisan work, third party work, Democratic party work, even Republican party work – someone needs to be ready to reform the Republicans into the party of Eisenhower and Lincoln.
Danny
Typing a long blurb of many words on the hope of seeing you respond is in fact a lot of work for my lazy ass. Maybe stupid, sure. Less deserving of hipster-cred than a measured snark, with a complimentary dose of “whatever”. Sue me.
But they matter. To me.
James E. Powell
@Elie:
Well, I want to destroy the corporate ruling class. So I seem to be on the right path.
Seriously though. Nothing is going to improve unless and until the ruling class is disconnected from policy-making.
We don’t have issues, we don’t have a problems. We have systems that have been designed to produce the exact outcomes that we are living with. This isn’t conspiracy-mongering. It’s right out there in the public domain.
Consider Don Blankenship, Massey Energy & the Upper Big Branch Mine disaster. Any chance that will lead to any change in mine safety? Not if the mining companies don’t want it. It is far from the first or only incident like this.
Oh yeah, and the Real Americans of WVa will continue to vote for the very people that make regulating mines for workers’ safety impossible. But I’m not supposed to say anything bad about them or they will vote the way they vote anyway.
So, anyway, back to the original point. A great deal needs to be destroyed before any lasting improvement comes.
wmd
@aisce:
I like pie.
fasteddie9318
@aisce:
Whoa, whoa, what are you saying here? That the people who complain about the people complaining about the Democratic Party are, themselves, basically just complainers? You’re blowing my mind here.
Danny
@PIGL:
Yes I concede that the case for despair can’t be rejected out of hand. Not for a U.S. liberal having lived through the era of movement conservatism. But if we stop for a moment and look outside our borders we find that this is in fact the american condition – it’s neither universal, nor unavoidable. Environmentalism and accepting AGW is more or less middle of the road in Western europe and in fact most of the western world.
IMHO, what separates the U.S. from our neighbours is exactly the effectiveness and clout of the conservative movement, and the cluelessness and failed strategies of the New Left / DFHs. Quite tellingly, progressives and progressive values ran the show from the 1930s until the 1970s. What happened? The bigots defected to the republican party and the New Left drove the democratic party into the ground with their various shenanigans.
There’s a way back, but it requires letting go of some historical garbage…
aisce
@FlipYrWhig:
this is so crazy. it’s like saying “please mr. con artist, please stop selling me those magic beans! you know i can’t help buying them!”
just stop buying the magic beans. it’s that simple. slick willie was a terrible president. he wasted all that job growth and all that technological and economic progress to sell this country out financially to such an extent that within ten years trillions of dollars were lost worldwide. but he was also the best option available at the time. al gore would have made a fine president. but he could only fulfill a politician’s private role, and not its public one. you have to do both. that’s the thorny issue at the heart of democracy. you have to make compromises to both worlds. you have to square that circle.
being a progressive means we have to be hardened. it just does. not cynical, but not soft. clear eyed. you have to be willing to call a shit sandwich a shit sandwich, and then eat it anyway or else you starve.
stop listening to the siren call of the revolutionaries, who dream of toppling corporations and humbling capitalism. they’re sirens for a reason. shut them out, stop complaining that they exist and move on. instead of asking them to stop making you despair, just stop despairing.
Villago Delenda Est
OT, but sort of related. If this outrage doesn’t move you, you may have been absorbed into the Randroid collective.
Chuck Butcher
It seems the criticism of the left boils down to “you guys are critical, stop it.” Apparently the direction of the Democratic Party is just swell and assertions contrary are just destructive. Its corrolary is that the other guys are so bad that whatever we get up to is defacto good or acceptable.
The response to OH, WI, FL, and etc. will be to … run to the right of the last (D) candidates? Since right nuts won last time the answer will be to split the difference with them? “Don’t be nuts, just be stupid?”
“Shut up and just get on board,” is a great theme for generating enthusiasm and cooperation. I’m no advocate of taking your ball and going home; but I’m also no fan of “we’re not as bad as them,” as a theme. That worked really well last time. That might mean defining something as an agenda…
Danny
@aisce:
You may want to ponder the fact that most of the really shitty thing that ever went down in history was preceded by common folks ceding the battleground to those of superior motivation. “Just ignore them” doesnt work.
General Stuck
@fasteddie9318:
Concern troll using mind fu to give blog peace a chance. There can be no peace, as long as idiots make my teeth hurt with endless concern trolling. or existential mumbo jumbo that none of it matters anyways. Fuck em daily and let FSM sort it out. If it’s wasted effort, send me a bill.
liberal
@Elie:
That has nothing to do with it—Britain has a parliamentary system and has exactly the same problem we do: no proportional representation, and first-past-the-post voting.
General Stuck
If you can’t take criticism of your criticism without whining about how meany Obots are ruining your day, that are a severe minority on the blogs, then what you say is probably crock of shit anyways.
Seems to me.
Danny
@Chuck Butcher:
It’s not THE left its the self styled tru left, a.k.a. the same DFHs thats always been up to this very same shit.
MikeJ
@liberal:
And they turned down a chance to get rid of FPTP because the libdems have actually managed to get close to power and nobody ever wants to see that happen again.
Elie
@wmd:
Key word: work. Work hard. Be tough but forgiving of ourselves, our mistakes. Never.Give.Up.
El Cid
@FlipYrWhig: The NAFTA example is a bit odd if it was to apply to shoring up the right flank of the party. The notion of shoring up one flank is the maintaining the strength of some other flank.
On that legislation in particular, it was passed over and against the great majority of Democrats in both houses, specifically aiming for a huge Republican voting majority and a minority of conservative Democrats.
wmd
@Elie:
Also make sure to have fun. Work doesn’t have to mean no fun.
As the CEO of a former employer of mine put it: Kick butt and have fun.
cermet
@Danny: WTF are you talking about by saying “New Left drove the democratic party into the ground”? No one on the left ever really controlled the government at any time so your statement makes no sense
Ruckus
Thanks to those that answered my questions. This continuous loop of he said she said, look at that dummy, while sometimes entertaining, does nothing to move forward.
We are in a hole here. And as much as I was asking the question of what to do I am also asking how do we get more people to do it? We seem to be energized when there is a big vote in the near future with obviously bad choices, but we lack enthusiasm most other times.
The what to do is simple, be engaged in the political process, on all levels, local/state/national. Not simply comment about it. The getting more of us to find the time/money to do so seems to me to be the issue.
J Ross
WASF isn’t in the BJ lexicon. What does it mean?
Danny
@cermet:
I’m referring to stuff like the Dem convention of ’68, the McGovern presidential run of ’72, the WU and left-wing violence of the 1970s, the Teddy insurgency of ’80 and so on and so forth…
IOW, the New Left running amok within and without the democratic party discrediting mainstream progressive policies for a generation in the process.
It was no accident that GWHB could so easily kick the ass of Mike Dukakis by painting him as soft on defence, soft on crime, a card carrying member of the ACLU etc. That would never have happened so easily in the era of FDR, HT, JFK and LBJ.
Ruckus
@Gus diZerega:
Madison’s diagnosis bodes very ill for the future of this country.
This is why I have lost so much optimism. I see halting, baby steps to try and slow/correct the fall I see, but the fall is gaining momentum. I like the bus analogy but think it goes like this:
One driver is a half blind drunk with a half empty bottle who can’t feel that his throttle foot is buried in the firewall. The second driver is an accomplished race car driver on his first bus trip. Both buses are filled with 4yr old school children. They are both heading down a steep grade with many tight turns and the brakes are overheating. The first driver will crash, badly, it’s only a matter of time. The second driver may actually make it. The chances are small but possible even though he has a lot of screaming distractions.
Chuck Butcher
@Ruckus:
Putting forward a clear agenda and the desired ends of that agenda sure helps. Putting that in language that is simple and can appeal to a broad base helps a lot.
When policy is polled stripped down to the undlying concept Americans look considerably more “progressive” than the political results. What that polling seems to show is that once politics are stripped out Americans are kinder and fairer than outcomes suggest. That disconnect needs to be addressed.
Ruckus
@Chuck Butcher:
I agree.
I see the right wing machine as a noisy magic act. Full of distractions and misdirection and no truth whatsoever. It works to get votes as long as people are eating and keeping dry, because most people are too busy or just don’t care enough.
I think we need an old fashioned letter writing campaign. Not form letters, all of us need to overwhelm congress with personal letters. Someone is going to read them and the busier they are doing that the better. As well we might get through the noise machine. And those on our side will have more ammunition with which to present it. We may not be richer or stronger than the big corporations and bigwigs but there are more of us.
Gus diZerega
@Elie:
You did not read me very carefully. I said we needed to push for initiatives for majority elections THEN for third party candidates. I agree with yo that absent electoral changes in state election rules, they are almost always a big mistake. But if you are unwilling to support changes in election laws through initiatives in states which allow them, the only other alternatives are primary challenges.
Gus diZerega
@Ruckus:
My argument is that the bus driver in which you have hope is part of the problem. And we are not screaming children. He will NOT make it in terms of our country’s values, though we could become a corporatist empire. The ONLY way we might make it is to challenge corporate control in any and every way it is exercised, and that includes corporatist Democrats.
Danny
It’s funny how changing things often serves to remind people that if they had the choice they’d like things changed even more. Take the Finance Reg bill. It’s the only re-regulation legislation of any industry since Thatcher and Reagan rose in the late 70s to push the paradigm of deregulation.
The only such bill in 35 years.
Still the reward for delivering the first such bill in 35 years is parts of the base endlessly harping on about how you’re corporatist lackeys on account of the bill having “flaws”. More “lackeys” than all the democrats in all those 35 years who delivered nothing. Who in fact often helped pass deregulation bills.
The problem with us is we never celebrate our victories – in fact winning makes us bitch even more than losing.
I reject the conventional knowledge that present day democrats are being owned by corporate interests anymore than was the case at any point in the last 50 years.
It’s just that seeing just a bit of sticking it to big business – like dems did with Finance Reg, PPACA, Deepwater Horizon etc, gives people the idea that it can actually be done, and if it could be done then what was in fact done couldnt possibly have been enough.
Put another way: what congress was tougher on big business in recent history than the 111th?
slightly_peeved
Almost every other western country does have a powerful voice for the left, that isn’t entirely connected (depending on the country) to the ruling political party. That voice is Labor unions.
The problems with US politics now – few voices for the working class, a lack of an independent voice pushing for leftist policies, the left being represented in part by people who don’t understand solidarity or compromise – all of these would be redressed with strong unions. That’s why Republicans have spent so long demonizing them.
If you want to make positive change for your country, then join and work for a union. They were designed to combat corporate power, and in the rest of the world they still perform this role.
Danny
@slightly_peeved:
Agreed, stronger unions are part of the solution.
General Stuck
@Danny:
I agree. And believe that we have by and large some very good and dedicated dems in congress and now in the WH. We do have a few conservative dems in the Senate with the filibuster to contend with, and an electoral system that demands every politician lend more of an ear to those who provide the mothers milk of getting and staying elected, corporate and wealthy interests. And yet we have gotten progressive legislation, and a lot of it the past two years. Imperfect legislation, but clear and good progress, toward unwinding 30 years of conservative governance provided knowingly by the voters.
This is how dems win, plugging away at making things a little better, when the votes are there that allow the best possible outcome for any given initiative. We can never win a straight up bullshitting contest with the wingers, nor change the fact they represent the white majority party in a still racially anxious country. That gives them the leg up on everything.
And for the thousandth time, the dispute with the so called “left” comprising of internet bloggers, that might represent 5 percent of the dem base on a good day, is not over policy, it is over the art of practicing politics within our system. Always room for improvement, but on the whole, I for one am proud of our dem elected officials, and how they have done things the past two years. That for dems, by nature, is always never smoothly.
edit – and while the country is most for liberal policies, especially social services, there is a limit to how far that extends on a policy level.
Ruckus
@Gus diZerega:
That’s where I think you are off a little.
I never said the race driver(competence) was on our side, only that he stands a better chance of getting some where without crashing. The road is of course the corporations/masters of the universe.
And we are not screaming 4 year olds? OK 12yrs. Sure not all of us, but many of us on the left are and for sure right now at least 99% of the right. “I want single payer and my pony and I’m going to hold my breath till then.” That’s not 12? And on the other side, “You can’t say vagina! That’s just nasty.” “I don’t want to pay for all the things I want.” That’s not 12? Or less. The MSM? What would you say the average maturity age is there? 8?
Danny
@General Stuck:
Exactly.
Yes. And the only way to make progress in that area is long term strategies for changing voter sentiment to enable electing less conservative politicians from those states. It’s funny how there are people rather making up elaborate conspiracy theories to explain why the PO couldnt get to 60 in the senate than just accept the sad fact that accusations of “socialism” are potent in parts of the country.
The second thing is continuing pushing campaign finance reform, and get corporate money out of the political process; at present Dems just have to accept corporate money or cede the battlefield. There’s been a few setbacks in that area, which SHOULD illustrate the importance of having a democrat in the white house – given that a Gore win in 2000 would have reversed the Citizen United majority without Roberts and Alito, and a McCain win in 2008 would have the corporatist majority at 7-2 by now, instead of 5-4. If Obama wins reelecion we may still get to see it overturned by a new majority.
wmd
@General Stuck:
You can’t out bullshit a winger? :-) Hell I can out BS a winger without even bringing up moonbats.
Republicans are a majority party among older whites, not all whites. The electorate is headed for a plurality with whites being the largest demographic but not majority. That fact is part of the anxiety.
The Raven
Wolff has deficit disease. Far as I ‘m concerned that blows his economic credibility for me. The public debt is not a major problem for the USA at this time, and I am astonished to see, of all people, an actual socialist writing as though it is.
Other than that, he has the basics correct. The current governing coalition of the USA is conservative Democrats and country-club Republicans, and neither of them are going change course. The Democrats are, as we saw in the period 2008-10, dominated by their conservative faction. If the Dems were to fall out of power, the balance would shift to the right, with a new coalition of Tea Party and country club Republicans forming.
More likely, though, the conservative coalition will stay in power. As I wrote a month and a half ago, “Now…will this coalition address unemployment? Nope? The housing crisis? Only on technical issues. The banking disaster? Nope. …and global climate change and other international environmental issues?”
So far as I can see, we’re in for 10 years of this, and matters will only change as demographics change.
As you say Tom, WASF.
There are a few under-the-radar things we can do. Voting reform is a good one. The US electoral system is so majority-oriented. So, here’s the instant-runoff people; here’s the range-voting people. Voter registration work and fighting anti-voting laws is also worth the trouble. If voting didn’t matter, the authoritarians wouldn’t be fighting to stop it, so let’s keep fighting for it.
Protecting labor unions: that’s another good one.
I think there’s something else that can be done, some sort of internal reform to party politics, but the idea has yet to gel in my mind.
As always, infighting on the left is a waste of energy.
General Stuck
@wmd:
Well, so can I. But dems in general are to nice and not blustery assholes.
And no, the GOP doesn’t represent all white people, but enough to where dems start out with having to prove themselves in ways wingnuts don’t. And can’t get away with compulsive lying like they can. But that is a good thing for the long term, imo. Though frustrating as hell in the short term. As a party, we have to be somewhat honest and trustworthy, all that boring dudley doright shit that doesn’t make for exciting entertainment on the teevee. But Somebody has to remain sane.
The Good guys better finish first at the end, or stick a fork in us.
bago
I cannot believe how relevant the subtle left-wing messages ensconced in a television show about a war in the 50’s is in 2011. I guess I was distracted by the Google, with my Kinect, on my iPhone. I should blog about it and make a snarky tweet after I update my facebook status.
Elie
@Gus diZerega:
I hear you
Sharl
@J Ross:
Couldn’t place it myself, so searched. I think the Urban Dictionary has the relevant answer:
WASF = We Are So F*cked
Alan in SF
Let me just throw this out there for the hell of it. Elected members of the Democratic Party repeatedly threatened not just to vote against, but to refuse to allow a majority decision, on key portions of the Democratic Party’s agenda, and yet (and I’m now going to break into wingnut-like all caps WTF screaming for my first time ever) THEY ARE STILL FUCKING ALLOWED TO BE IN THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY.
That’s all I have to say.
PanurgeATL
@Danny:
Well, if you can get us to Pepperland eventually, then OK. But if this is just “shut up”, unh-unhh–hold on there. How are DFHs to blame for what happened in Chicago? What about (as Rick Perlstein recently mentioned) Hubert Humphrey’s refusal to condemn what happened? What about the AFL-CIO’s support for the Vietnam War (among other things)? There’s enough blame for both sides, TYVM. I’m willing to accept the critique, but I’m not willing to see the DFHs take all the blame.
Danny
@PanurgeATL:
You just gotta imagine..
My intent was not to lay blame for everything that went down at the Dem convention on DFHs. My proposition, though, was that the overall track record of the New Left in achieving progressive policy victories is very poor.
Pigasus and getting involved in street battles with the police was in the end shown to be counterproductive. Neither Bobby nor Hubert nor Eugene was elected president – Nixon was. McGovern wasn’t elected president either – Nixon won again.
And it’s not that surprising since the New Left was to such an extent about being against the Vietnam war, above all other considerations – and that was an issue that had great traction with young people who were subject to the draft, but not necessarily the population at large. The New Left was arguably the bastard child of Johnsons poor judgement.
It’s not about assigning blame, but about recognizing what works and what doesnt work in order to move forward. Expecting full out pacifism to be the platform of one of two political parties available in the worlds premier super power is not realistic. Revolution by rioting in the streets scares people. Suspicousness and skepticism as the default stance toward leaders and government – even when it’s our own leaders and government closer to our principles – is counterproductive to achieving progress, because the very essence of progressivism is belief in the power of representative government to improve society and the world we live in.
Of course, it’s not surprising that trust in leaders and government was badly damaged for young people being sent by their government to die in a jungle to prop up a set of hypothetical dominoes. But Vietnam was 40 years ago and it continues to infest our attitudes towards leaders and government.
The record is fairly clear, imho: 1968 was a turning point. We should get back to how we ran things before Vietnam, because back then we were successful.
jayackroyd
Over the last four or five years, I’ve been having discussions with Stuart Zechman. These conversations started on TIME’s Swampland blog, but moved IRL as well. They’re now a mostly regular event at Virtually Speaking, Thursdays at 8pm. (Culture of Truth is subbing for me this week.)
Stuart’s central claim is that there are three ideologies in DC.
1) Liberals, call them New Deal Liberals or Movement Liberals, who believe in the social safety net developed for the middle class, over a period of time beginning with FDR and ending with LBJ (or, arguably, Nixon). This social safety includes regulation of private entities, such as banks under Glass-Steagel or general industry under the EPA. Liberals are not socialists; they accept, and support market competition as the primary force of American capitalism and democracy. But they see concentration of wealth in oligopoly or a small number of citizens as a threat to the well-being of the middle class, and see government’s role as protecting the competitive economy from what Adam Smith, among others, recognized as the threat of monopoly. At the same time, they see the rule of law, and the interests of the private sector serving to protect the citizenry from the government–distrust of the government is a core Liberal value, shared with the Founders
2) Conservatives, who see the role of government as facilitating the growth of private enterprise in an environment as unregulated as possible. The view here is that the driving force in the American economy is capital, and that growth can be maximized by freeing the accumulation of capital from government fetters. Attempts to construct social safety nets that benefit the middle class dramatically slows growth, ultimately doing more harm than good to that very middle class.
3) Centrists, who believe that these two points of view create needless, counter-productive conflict. They believe in a public/private partnership, where the experts on public policy work together to create a bipartisan commitment to economic growth by taking the best of both worlds. For instance, when I asked Brad DeLong about this approach, he referred to cap and trade. The PPACA is another example, where the government uses a regulated market approach to delivering services. These approaches, to a centrist, contrast with the liberal, who would prefer a command and control environmental policy and a single payer federal health care program and the conservative, who would prefer no government role at all.
Stuart’s point, one which I’ve come to agree with, is that this 3rd view, centrism, is itself an ideology, one committed to the wisdom of a technocratic meritocracy that operates, as much as possible, outside of the strictures of representative government. Moreover, he believes, and I also have to come to agree, that the Beltway media shares this view–that democracy interferes with Grand Bargains, and so these deals have to be completed in the dark, and then courageously implemented in a bipartisan manner–where “courageous” means “in opposition to the popular will.”
Hence you get stupid, unpopular forever wars and bankster bailouts. And, FTM, Medicare Part D.
Stuart put it his way, some time ago.
http://bit.ly/lWumzG
But, more importantly, centrists are NOT committed to the New Deal agenda. As in the Clinton administration, they believe in the dismantling of the middle class social insurance programs. In my opinion, of course, @Danny.
Clinton, for instance, was working for SS “reform” when Lewinsky hit.
http://bit.ly/iyMrK4
And here’s Erskine Bowles, with the SS goes broke in 2037 Zombie lie:
http://bit.ly/mrOpFL
Pongo
@azlib: That’s the truly stunning part of all of this–the number of people being directly screwed by Republican policies, yet who loudly proclaim blind allegiance to them at every opportunity. The recent town hall meeting where a Republican told an old lady to ‘take care of herself’ instead of relying on Medicare was met with actual cheers by many in the crowd. Does it not occur to these dolts that having paid into Medicare for your entire adult working life IS ‘taking care’ of yurselve and that GOP designs on Medicare funds are simply a way to rob them of what they already paid for?
I think Congresspeople supporting the Ryan plan should be forced to actually procure the coverage they insist exists for elderly people with pre-existing conditions (and that will adequately cover medications, co-pays and all denied expenses based on pre-existing conditions) for $8000 a year. Until they have satisfactorily managed to find coverage for the elderly in their home districts, they should be ineligible for the taxpayer-funded insurance they currently enjoy. It’s time they had a little skin in the game if they are going to cavalierly mess with the lives of others.
The Raven
@jayackroyd: Hi, Jay!
Generally, I identify Zechman’s “Centrists” with my governing coalition of country-club Republicans and conservative Democrats. They are in fact conservatives. The group he identifies as “conservatives” is radical-right.
I think Orwell’s essay, “Second Thoughts on James Burnham,” identifies what Zechman calls centrism very well indeed. Burnham was author of a book, The Managerial Revolution, and very much an ideological ancestor of Zechman’s “centrists.”
Joe Buck
Wolff is American (emeritus professor at U. Mass Amherst) so he’s not engaging in “across-the-water equivalence-mongering”. The neoliberal contingent of the Democrats does seem to be trying to cut benefits even as we focus attention on the Republicans (see recent statements by Hoyer and Durbin in particular, and these are people who are in the party leadership).