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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsSomething for Dems to Think About
Just had a conversation with a hard-working young woman who seems to have gotten what little she knows from all the wrong sources. She's under the impression that Obama and Dems have done little to nothing to help lower middle class people like her. Rather, she believes they've taken actions that tend to reduce jobs (apparently, the "job-creator" father of her child has suggested to her that he has less money to give her because Obamacare is forcing him to spend more on health insurance for employees).
She is literally under the impression that Dems' actions have been such as to reduce jobs, in an effort to help the impoverished. And it's not that she wants to hurt those worse off than her; it's just that people like her and others in the struggling middle class are under such financial stress already, that she can't get on board with helping those who are even worse off. She thinks our goal should be more jobs, and that what the Dems have been doing has hurt that goal.
So HERE's the problem: I can't point to much that Obama and the Dems have done, or actually tried to do, to help increase jobs. It seems they've been too busy negotiating against themselves in the light of what they say is "realistic."
If they'd tried to pass a WPA-style program, even if the effort were futile, and put Repubs on the spot for blocking it, we'd at least have something we could point to. But Dems didn't do that (or a lot of other things I'd have liked them to do). Trillions in stimulus and other actions have helped the very rich -- but we've spent very little to directly help the 99%.
Of course, no matter what Dems do for the rich, the rich aren't going to create jobs so long as there's no demand (which won't happen so long as gov only helps the rich); and of course the rich (and the media they own, which is 95% of traditional media) will call Dems evil socialists no matter what Dems do.
Meanwhile, I and my young friend have grown substantially poorer during the last 6 years, and she has no clue that Obama might have wanted to help her, if he hadn't been too busy being "realistic." And I don't have much I can point to to refute her impression.
The Repubs certainly seem to find some value in "futile" gestures, given the number of times they've tried to repeal Obamacare.
So my comment is, I would like to see Obama and the Dems engage in a lot more "futile" efforts to help the 99%. They don't have to try to pass the same legislation 37 times, or whatever no. Repub efforts have reached. Just once or twice would be a big improvement.
In fact, I find it hard to understand why they haven't been doing this, even if it were only as window-dressing. Because at least it would help establish that concepts such as the public option aren't REALLY all that far outside the conception of all rational beings.
In fact, one has to wonder if that's why the Dems haven't allowed themselves to engage in such window-dressing -- because their corporate masters would get mad at them, because it might actually tend to shift the public vision of what's rationally possible back toward some kind of real center.
Scuba
(53,475 posts)... be exposed for not doing so.
upaloopa
(11,417 posts)The executive branch? No of course not.
1/2 of Congress is run by Repubs and the other half gets everything blocked by Repubs.
Obama can use executive orders and that is all.
So tell her to take a few civics classes and turn off Fox "News"
snot
(10,540 posts)Among others I meant to make: that Dem pols including Obama aren't even giving us progressives enough window-dressing to make a serious counter-argument to Fox.
Say Obama and other Dem pols are completely impotent to pass anything at all. They could still help the rest of us out by visibly trying to do what's right, and actually making some arguments for it.
woo me with science
(32,139 posts)I think you nailed it right there.
"because it might...shift the public vision of what's rationally possible"
The ONLY way that corporatists in both parties can keep pretending that policies that would actually help people are too "fringe" and unrealistic for the electorate is by keeping them out of the conversation. That is why the propaganda is so heavily focused on marginalizing and smearing ANY politician who starts to speak about them seriously. They are terrified of a nation catching fire to the realization that all these predatory policies are a CHOICE.
Ideas are never considered viable until people begin talking about them in a serious way. Corporatist politicians know that. That is why the propaganda is all about limiting the conversation, trashing real liberals, and spreading passivity, defeatism, and "lesser of evils" comparisons to Republicans rather than to what is possible for the people.
"The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum - even encourage the more critical and dissident views. That gives people the sense that there's free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate."
Noam Chomsky
snot
(10,540 posts)Laelth
(32,017 posts)-Laelth
RobertEarl
(13,685 posts)Maybe you would like it if the Democrats threatened to shut down the government until a work program gets passed?