There are fine legitimate points on both sides. Both sides!
It’s not so much a Civil War problem:
Votes like this were always explained in terms of expediency, i.e., what was necessary to conquer the middle and win elections. On war issues especially, it was like Bill Clinton said: Scared people would “rather have someone strong and wrong than weak and right.” If Dems wanted to get back in power, they had to shelve conscience, at least temporarily, and embrace pragmatism.
But Iraq turned out to be a disaster, morally and politically. The party would have been better off listening to its voters. Party support of the invasion was based on fictitious pragmatic concerns, as were many positions it would take in defiance of constituents.
What actual people are against importing cheap Canadian generic pharmaceuticals? Where’s the group of people intent on protecting our thousand-headed hydra of insurers, so that doctors and hospitals can waste time and money on paperwork? What individual human being is out there who just can’t stand the thought of allowing Medicare to negotiate lower bulk prices?
For that matter, where’s that sexy vote-rich crowd of people who are hell-bent on making sure banks have easier stress tests, and don’t have to increase their capital reserves? Where’s the mob that really wants to preserve the payroll-tax cutoff for high-income earners? That wants desperately to remove Malaysia from a list of human traffickers so it can join a free-trade pact?
There are no such people. These are not human positions. These are the positions of health insurers, pharmaceutical companies, job-exporting manufacturers, defense contractors and other high-dollar donors.
Nobody sits around the dinner table demanding that we keep derivative exchanges opaque, or retain the carried-interest tax break. You’re not winning independents with those positions. You’re just stroking a few lobbyists and their clients.
This is what we’re really talking about, when we talk about the “center” in America. The interests behind these positions are only the “center” in the sense that they’re a numerically tiny group of fat cats sitting between two increasingly enormous populations of pissed-off human voters.
That’s…interesting. I only know of Frank Bruni because, as the former food critic for the Times, he shows up on some of the cooking/food shows.
So either I’m a fatcat or Matt Taibi is a lying sack of shit like he has been his whole career… I wonder which one is more likely… 🤔🤔🤔
With regards to the Russian story, Taibi has gone off the rails. But here his point is valid.
This, ultimately is the message: In order to win, Democrats need to pull a fake-out by pushing squeaky-clean ex-vets without political histories, and hope that right-leaning voters will project their backwards-ass dreams onto these walking blank canvases.
The notion that Democrats need to look and act more like Republicans to win elections has been practically a religious tenet in Washington for more than 30 years.
As someone who’s followed politics since a teenager in the 80’s, that is absolutely true. How many current Democrats take a stand against excessive military spending? I don’t think it’s even a handful - and that’s a result of Republican browbeating for decades about “liberals being soft of defense.” Or weak on crime. Or “tax and spend liberals.” Or now with Democrats wanting “open borders.” It never ends. And the one act of bipartisanship during the trump regime was a number of Democrats voting with Republicans to weaken Dodd-Frank.
Since the 90s government has acted almost exclusively for the donor class. That’s not really open for debate.
What actual people are against importing cheap Canadian generic pharmaceuticals? Where’s the group of people intent on protecting our thousand-headed hydra of insurers, so that doctors and hospitals can waste time and money on paperwork? What individual human being is out there who just can’t stand the thought of allowing Medicare to negotiate lower bulk prices?
For that matter, where’s that sexy vote-rich crowd of people who are hell-bent on making sure banks have easier stress tests, and don’t have to increase their capital reserves? Where’s the mob that really wants to preserve the payroll-tax cutoff for high-income earners? That wants desperately to remove Malaysia from a list of human traffickers so it can join a free-trade pact?
Here is the thing, I can make the case for each and every item on Matt’s list. Now, I can’t make a great case for all of them partly cause I’m far from an expert on any of them, and partly because I’m not sure which side I’m on on some of them.
Won’t I can’t do is make the case for any of them in 140 characters. There is nothing in modern life that can be fully explained in 140 characters and practically nothing that can be fully explained in 2,000 adjective-rich word column by a talented writer like Matt Taibbi.
I don’t care if you are talking: growing crops, banking, developing new drugs, making a computer game, patching potholes or even running an internet forum, there is a hell of lot complexities that at an outside person has no idea of all that is involved. Virtually every aspect of government from providing for the common defense, to regulating commerce, providing social services, is unbelievable complex with competing interests. It is obvious to me that even after pages of discussion on P&R we are only scratching the surface. When you start layering the cultural and economic interest of foreign country you really are playing N-Dimensional chess.
Thank god, the founding founders were wise enough to make our government a representative democracy, where we pay folks who have time and intelligence to sort through the competing interests. (I know it seems impossible to believe at times, but the average IQ in Congress is well above 100 and they mostly higher smart staffers also.)
MrGrumpy
Since the (17)90s government has acted almost exclusively for the donor class. That’s not really open for debate.
FIFY
Yes, it is and this isn’t a bad thing. Cause frankly I don’t want live under a government where 10 million mom’s who are convinced that their Billy started hitting his young brother Bob, after playing GTA, demand we ban GTA without the other side being consulted. I don’t know how the other side can make their case without hiring lobbyist. There are 10 million votes on one side and no matter what the data says, and how irrational their fears and superficial their understanding lots of times the mob is going to get their way. That’s democracy and it is imperfect. But lord forbids that people who do something professionally actually get consulted by the legislators instead of taking a journalist word after studying an issue for a month.
I agree with you that we should have a real debate on military spending. But before we do that both parties really need to have a consensus on what the role of the US Military. The Samantha Powers, John Kerry wing of the Democratic party who believe that US military can and should use to prevent genocide and save innocent lives needs to hash it with the rest of the party, who thinks that any intervention is doomed to failure.
Perhaps they Democratic doves can together with isolationistic, xenophobic wing of the Trumpian party. While us Neocon who believe that US military should be used in situations where the US national, economic AND humanitarian reason can hook up with Amb. Powers
If we decide the world is safe enough that no cops are needed, or we are content to let China take over the job, by all means, let’s slash the defense budget to what we need to deter attacks on the country. Probably no more than 1/2 of what we spend. Right now the only folks in Congress who seem to have consistent positions are John McCain, who thinks we should spend more and do more, and Rand Paul who thinks we should spend less and do less.
Wait, isn’t it the GOP and the Christian Right all about banning GTA and Dungeons and Dragons and trying to limit people’s rights? Like voting rights, to start with.
Sorry, the rest of what you wrote seems like somebody who benefits from the system and so can’t understand why it should by changed because the system works for you.
It seems to me like the donor class has, since the 1970s, turned into the plundering class, and eventually things will either change, or we have riots on the street. Sadly, with surge of gated community and privatization, we are just going to see the rich retreat into isolation, while the poor and middle class fend for themselves, like some sort of 1980s dystopian future.
The US Congress hasn’t passed any new air or water regulations since the '90s despite rapid advances in science and technology. The EPA under Bush/trump has been sued for not doing its job, and EPA has lost those suits. The situation in Flint is partially a result of negligence due to the EPA (under Obama.) No one is clamoring that coal companies in WV be allowed to dump ash in water. No one benefits from cutting emission or efficiency standards. No one but the corporate class and the short-term profits (and it’s not like they’re not already profitable.) That’s just one example. There are a myriad of others. Hourly wage jobs, even at a supervisory level have been stagnant for 30 years, despite gains in productivity (although admittedly some maybe much of that is due to automation, I don’t know.) The average person doesn’t benefit from a cut in capital gains or the carried interest loophole. Etc. The government, even when held by Democrats by and large doesn’t work for the benefit of the majority of its citizens.
As far as defense spending, you seem to think it’s a choice between isolationism and neo-con interventionism. There’s a middle ground there somewhere I think, and the US population at large would surely benefit from diverting some of that treasury for domestic purposes.
I’m arguing against mob or populist rule by both the left or the right. I’ll be the first to admit the kleptocracy that Trump’s folks seem put in place (Pruitt being a great example) is even worse. But Matt in particular pretty much seem hell bent on destroying American business.
Arguably the first special interest in American government was Hamilton’s national bank in 1791. The populist opposition to it by first Jefferson and then Andrew Jackson was mostly farmer, who argued that it would enrich bankers. They were right it helped bankers a lot, but in both in the long and short-run one of the big beneficiary of the American banking/financial system is the farmer. Everything from future contracts, to all the USDA loan programs, to crop insurance, and the Import/Export bank have been a huge boon to the American farmer So helping out the special interest bankers was actually the right thing to do for society a whole.
I’m extraordinarily skeptical that most of the new EPA rule rollback are anything but crony capitalism at is worse. The one exception is the emission standard for power plants. I’ve not double checked this number and they maybe pure BS, but IRRC it was going to $500 million to install the new scrubbers. After a lot of fighting Republican have gotten the EPA to start doing a cost benefit analysis. The government is suppose to consider that saving a life is worth ~$10 million, so those scrubbers needed to save 50 lives over some period and they couldn’t show that. Now $500 million is what a $1/year per family for the next 5 years if the utility passed it on to consumers, it is probably worth it for piece of mind for many folks. $500 million isn’t even that much to the utility industry, but it is certainly worth spending some effort to lobby that EPA should follow their own rules and prevent spending money with minimal benefits.
We shouldn’t be making laws on what will help the average person or not. We need to figure what will provide the most benefit to society as a whole. The average American doesn’t benefit from fair housing laws that prevent discrimination against blacks and other minorities cause the average American is still white. In fact there is a cost for compliance etc. However, the benefit for African American to have legal protection to live where they want far out weigh the small cost on the rest of us.
Finally, let’s talk about carried interest. I was at startup conference today and one companies that I’ve invested was there. The guy has invented an inexpensive blood analyzer that if every ambulance in the country had one would save tens of thousand lives, and even if just every clinic had one would save of thousand of lives. I invested $20K and smarter, and richer folks have invested another $250K. In order to get this product past FDA approval and on to the market he is going to need $3-6 million, which is more money than he can get from Angel investor. He is going to need venture capital or even better private equity focused on medical devices. The later benefits from carried interest. It is entirely possible that when private equity run the number the difference between marginally good or bad investment will be carried interest. (My investment was way more about “making the world a better place” than making more money). So yes carried interest benefits the super-rich, but also could mean getting life saving products on the market. It is again a tradeoff and not the simple black white universe of Matt T.
I think it was William Greider (in Who Will Tell the People, I think) who first made me understand that representative democracy could not effectively deal with very complex issues. The problem is that the ordinary person basically lacks the expertise to understand a complex issue, and ends up relying on the advice of an expert. And, members of Congress and Senators are no different. And, experts are for hire to the highest bidder. So even honest politicians are at the mercy of experts who lie for money. Thus cigarettes don’t cause cancer, and there’s no relationship between carbon dioxide and global climate, and of course the tax cuts will pay for themselves. When you add to that the fact that so many politicians aren’t actually looking for the honest answer anyway - they’re looking for campaign bucks or their post-retirement bonus - then of course you’re going to get one bad policy solution after another. And the ordinary person can’t even tell what has gone wrong.
Ok, I agree with these sentiments. But if you haven’t guessed, I’m virulently anti-corporate. That’s why having a sane Republican party is important, to push back against impulses like mine. That said, the pendulum has swung so far in the other direction that since Reagan at least, and on tax policy alone, the monied interests have benefited and often at the expense of everyone else.
Thanks for your insights on this. Few things I think are black and white. We really should re-do our entire tax code (not the sham passed by this regime.)
The people who make private equity investments are rich people. If they want to help people, they have the money to help people whether they benefit from the carried interest tax treatment or not. I suspect that a lot of investors - though not you, I hasten to say - aren’t doing it to help people, they’re doing it to make a bigger profit because of the carried interest treatment. Otherwise they could just buy mutual funds or an apartment building.
If what we want is to have rich people’s money to help people, there’s a far simpler way to do that than the Rube Goldberg contraption of favorable tax treatment, which is at best only marginally effective at producing philanthropy. We could tax more of their earnings, rather than less of fhem, and direct it at helping people.
I’m reminded of the lord of the manor who defends his wealth by saying “if I didn’t have it, who would give the peasants their share of the grain they grow?”
This is a bad thing because of who ends up lobbying. Ok take pharmaceuticals. You’ve got hospitals who’re probably just gonna lobby the Congressman that Medicare needs to cover service X. There’s some nice doctors that will say that too because they’ve been paid by same company. They lobby for their own interests. AARP lobbies for more spending too. WTF do they care, they’re retired. Their stuff is paid for by working people. Sure, you say this is normal. But who’s lobbying for the good of everyone? Nobody. And absolutely nobody with any power is lobbying for the weakest, the ones who do not have power and money and representation. There are flaws with this system. Maybe I am naive for looking at it like a sim game that i can just pull levers for.
Yes there are definitely flaws to the system and on many issues special interest have too much power. I’m skeptical that it is worse today than it was 20, 50, 100, or 150 years ago. We had a discussion a few years ago about was getting rid of earmark (which are the ultimate special interest process) a good or bad thing. The consensus across the political spectrum was that while it sounded like a good idea, it turns out earmarks are the grease of the government that lets the wheels spin and get shit down. On balance, I suspect that both carried interest and most anti-environmental lobbies do more harm than good.
There are a fair number of lobbyist for wide non-corporate interest, like the Sierra Club, or Center for Public Integrity. I’d agree that poor have a pretty shitty lobby. One of the biggest are journalists, I’m generally pretty pro-corporation, but I’m typically ready to lynch the CEO of whatever company 60 Minutes gets in their spotlight (even though I know that 60 Minutes has cherry-picked some facts). Populist politicians are the second big group, bumper sticker slogans are a great way of getting elected. It doesn’t matter if a corporation gives you millions if 70% of your electorate strongly oppose something, you risk losing your job if you don’t also.
It wasn’t good science or good public policy that got California to pass a law treating “violent” video games like porn, it was populism. Luckily the courts raised those pesky 1st Amendment issues.
In theory lobbies are a way for regular schmucks like us to get our Congresscritters to know where we stand. Band together so our voices are heard and all that.
Of course most of the time they’re just ATMs for big corporate donations that want us and our voices out of the loop.
Looks like the President is declaring civil unrest is a given if the GOP lose the midterms
At some point, if this shit has to go down, so be it. If a bunch of old fat white losers want to pick a fight, let’s just get it over with.
Jesus, he’s bad at this job.
It’d be like if I started working the counter at McDonald’s and just started throwing french fries in everyone’s faces.
Taking bets now! An army of /r/beholdthemasterrace submissions vs an army of lean, young, antifa folks.
If there’s violence, it will be from the Trumpistas who think their leader got a bum deal from the deep state/elite/boogeyman.