I’m writing to you today to announce the death of the Republican Party. It is no longer a living, vital, animate organization.
It died in 2016. RIP.
It has been replaced by warring tribes:
Evangelicals opposed to abortion, gay marriage, and science.
Libertarians opposed to any government constraint on private behavior.
Market fundamentalists convinced the “free market” can do no wrong.
Corporate and Wall Street titans seeking bailouts, subsidies, special tax loopholes, and other forms of crony capitalism.
Billionaires craving even more of the nation’s wealth than they already own.
And
white working-class Trumpoids who love Donald. and are becoming
convinced the greatest threats to their well-being are Muslims, blacks,
and Mexicans.
Each of these tribes has its own separate political
organization, its own distinct sources of campaign funding, its own
unique ideology – and its own candidate.
What’s left is a lifeless shell called the Republican Party. But the Grand Old Party inside the shell is no more.
I,
for one, regret its passing. Our nation needs political parties to
connect up different groups of Americans, sift through prospective
candidates, deliberate over priorities, identify common principles, and
forge a platform.
The Republican Party used to do these things.
Sometimes it did them easily, as when it came together behind William
McKinley and Teddy Roosevelt in 1900, Calvin Coolidge in 1924, and
Ronald Reagan in 1980.
Sometimes it did them with difficulty, as
when it strained to choose Abraham Lincoln in 1860, Barry Goldwater in
1964, and Mitt Romney in 2012.
But there was always enough of a
Republican Party to do these important tasks – to span the divides, give
force and expression to a set of core beliefs, and come up with a
candidate around whom Party regulars could enthusiastically rally.
No longer. And that’s a huge problem for the rest of us.
Without a Republican Party, nothing stands between us and a veritable Star Wars barroom of self-proclaimed wanna-be’s.
Without
a Party, anyone runs who’s able to raise (or already possesses) the
requisite money – even if he happens to be a pathological narcissist who
has never before held public office, even if he’s a knave detested by
all his Republican colleagues.
Without a Republican Party, it’s just us and them. And one of them could even become the next President of the United States.
The Clinton juggernaut is losing traction. Powered by the full weight
of the Democratic Establishment, it was designed to smoothly carry its
idol across America and into the White House. It still may get there.
But now it must traverse a far more treacherous and uncertain route than
Hillary and her entourage ever imagined. The course is lined with the
pundits, operatives and analysts who will cover the spectacle with their
usual attention to trivia and a faith in their own perspicacity
matching that of the heroine herself.
This was all predictable. For it conforms to the parochialism and
inbreeding that for so long has infirmed the Democratic Party's
leadership as well as the punditocracy. Fortunes could be made betting
against the "Washington consensus" whose singular talent for getting it
wrong extends from the country's endless skein of foreign misadventures
to electoral politics. They give the impression of all sipping out of
each other's double-lattes at Starbucks in Dupont Circle. The resulting
damage done to the party's traditional constituents, to the integrity of
national discourse and to America's interests in the world is
incalculable -- and may well be irreparable.
Still, it is worth recording the pathologies that this latest
bruising encounter with reality reveal. Most obvious is the disconnect
between political elites and the country they presume to know or aspire
to govern. The success of Bernie Sanders makes that transparently clear.
His greatest asset is simply that he ran as a "Democrat" -- that is, as
representative of the party as forged in the mid-20th century and whose
precepts conform to the socio-economic interests and philosophical
truths typically held by most Americans today. He is the first
Presidential candidate to do so since Walter Mondale in 1984. Mondale's
defeat convinced many pols that the future lay with the Reagan
smorgasbord of discredited nostrums and myths repackaged by skillful
political craftsmen as the new Revelation. Market fundamentalist
economic models, a cartoonish version of American individualism a la Ayn
Rand, financial libertinism, muscle-flexing abroad in the mantle of
democratic proselytizing, and anti-government demagoguery were fashioned
into an intoxicating cocktail. It worked to the extent that the cheap
high thereby produced tapped latent racism, jingoism, evangelical
Christian passions, and a new-found greedy selfishness which was the
mutant offspring of 1960's liberation.
Disoriented Democrats badly miscalculated the danger, and in the
process lost sight of who they were. Most damaging, many found a
comfortable niche in this new world of hallucination. Among them are the
careerists, the trendy intellectuals, and the ambitious politicians who
thought that they had discovered the one route to recouping power and
glory. Together, they reshaped the Democratic Party into a me-too
auxiliary to a waxing conservative movement. Today, it is radical
reactionary Republicans who sweep elections at state and local levels,
who hold an iron grip on the Congress, who have used their power to
ruthlessly transform the judiciary into an active ally.
True, Democrats have won the White House twice. Bill Clinton did thanks
to Ross Perot and then retained it against feeble opposition. In the
process, he moved progressively to the Right in policy and philosophy
("the era of Big Government is over"). Republican ascendancy followed.
Only the Bush era collapse into disaster abroad and at home made
possible Barack Obama - who presented himself not as the embodiment of
Democratic values but as a transcendent bipartisan healer- with just a
few vermilion strokes. A prophet without message or mission. Whatever
liberal ideas he had sounded were swiftly abandoned in what is surely
the most shameless bait-and-switch in American political history.
This was predictable. After all, he thrice cited Ronald Reagan as the man who most influenced his view of the Presidency.
His administrations arguably were oriented to the Right of Richard
Nixon -- on civil liberties as well as on economic and social programs.
Look it up. His White House actually took delight in maligning
"Progressives" -- as made manifest in Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel's
cursing out of their representatives personally within its walls. That
was the administration of which Hillary Clinton, the born-again
'progressive,' was a mainstay.
The cause already was abandoned in his first months in office when
the Democrats held majorities in both houses of Congress. Indeed,
Obama's embrace of the Wall Street barons was what allowed the Tea Party
to channel popular anger and fear into a well-financed anti-government,
know-nothing movement which nowadays dominates the political landscape.
Hence, Obama drove the final nails into the coffin of the old
Democratic Party.
This evolution of American politics in effect disenfranchised
something like 25% of the electorate. They are Bernie Sanders'
constituency. It's as simple as that. Personalities do play a role, but
it is a secondary one. Sanders as a person stands out for his integrity,
his earnestness, for his truth-telling, for his transparent decency. It
is the message, though, that counts above all. An old Brooklyn Jew who
advertises himself as a "Socialist" is not a compelling figure on the
political stage. Intelligent and well-informed on domestic matters, he
is not a phrase-maker, not verbally nimble, an incurably respectful
gentleman, and largely disengaged from foreign policy where Hillary was
custodian of ACT II in the pageant of American failure and fiasco in the
Middle East. In addition, he feels inhibited about attacking the
misdeeds of the Obama years out of a concern for estranging black
voters, and turning the President from Hillary's tacit ally into an
active ally. Yet, he has made history with unprecedented accomplishments
in the teeth of implacable opposition from the entire political and
media establishment.
Clinton's shortcomings and failures are aggravated by the widespread
distrust that she engenders. That was evident a year ago. She has had
higher "negatives" in polls that any serious candidate ever.
So why was
she coronated even before the contest began? Why did no other candidates
present themselves? Why did Democratic bigwigs feel so complacent at
the prospect of another electoral setback?
One common answer is that there was nobody else. Decimated at the
state level, and lacking fresh blood in the Senate, they have a very
thin squad. For the better part of a decade, Harry Reid has been the
face of the Democratic Party outside of the White House - and during
Obama's romantic non-partisanship phases, its face country-wide. Still,
someone like Martin O'Malley could have been promoted as a credible
candidate had the party bigwigs the will to do so. Compare him to George
W. Bush in 2000. The Republicans molded that non-entity into a winner
with relative ease. Democrats had much more to work with in O'Malley.
Or, they could have rallied behind Elizabeth Warren. Admittedly, she
wasn't interested. Just think, though, of what could have happened had
she been persuaded to run. For one thing, she quickly would have
eclipsed Hillary as the front runner. Razor sharp, personable, with a
blue steel edge to her words, and resolute -- she likely would have
delivered the Last Rites to Clinton by Super Tuesday.
And then imagine
her against any of the Republicans hopefuls whose only chance of winning
turns on Clinton's negatives. A Warren -- Republican X contest,
moreover, would have raised the prospect of a Democratic comeback across
the board that it utterly beyond Clinton's capabilities.
The principal reason the Democratic Establishment lined up behind
Hillary in lockstep is their lack of conviction and a political timidity
that arises from 1) capture by the big donors, and 2) past failures
that have sapped self-confidence. Their uniform commitment to a flaccid
orthodoxy has been evident for all to see these past few weeks as
Hillary's supporters hit the panic button. It has not been a pretty
performance. From the editors of The New York Times and Paul Krugman
(who now sees Hillary as the heir to Obama whom he biographically
refers to as "one of the most consequential and successful President in
American history") to the feminist brigade headed by Gloria Steinem and
Madeleine Albright, Democratic stalwarts have embarrassed themselves by
their contrived and specious arguments for Hillary. This is not to say
that there isn't a reasonable and logical case to be made for voting for
her. It is the falsity of the presentation by those eminences that
reveals the hollowness at the party's core. Its leaders never miss an
opportunity to display their political obtuseness and fearfulness about
leaving their very narrow, personal comfort zone.
The blunt truth is that the Democratic leadership has been meek and
fearful for decades. They can't stand the sight of blood - especially
if it's their opponents. It took Newt Gingrich in 2012 to make an issue
of predatory hedge funds and private equity. Reluctantly picked up by
Obama, it resonated well - so well that a gaggle of Wall Street
operatives led by Steven Ratner called the White House to express
vehemently their displeasure. Obama pulled the ads. (Jane Meyer Dark
Money).
Now it is Donald Trump who boldly steps forth to declare that
the intervention in Iraq was based on lies, and that it is the source of
our current troubles in the region. No Democrat, including Sanders, is
ready to make that case with equal force. None has since 2008. One can
go on and on. It's a loser's mentality.
In the end, Hillary Clinton in all likelihood will be the nominee.
Equally true, she will arrive at the convention in Boston D.O.A. That is
to say, D.O.A. if the Republicans somehow free themselves from their
adrenaline soaked tantrum to nominate a sensible candidate. For the
Democrats' one hope is that the opposition continue on its suicidal
track that runs parallel to their own. Such is the state of American
politics.
Walking dick joke Donald Trump sailed easily to victory in the New Hampshire primary last night in the wake of a bizarro rally where he called
Ted Cruz a "pussy." Yeah, yeah, it doesn't matter that he was repeating
what a woman in the audience yelled. He chose to say it, he smirked and
practically jacked off while he said it, and so, yeah, he called Cruz a
"pussy."
Truth be told, Ted Cruz is more of a cunt and a prick and a huge
asshole, but let's be clear as to why Trump degraded Cruz. It was
because Cruz was iffy on whether or not he'd allow the torture of
prisoners through waterboarding. To Trump, this was an outrage because,
as he says so often while karate chopping the air with his stubby hands,
ISIS beheads people - Christians, damnit. So the crowds cheer when
Trump says he's going to allow waterboarding "and worse" (although he
won't define what "worse" is because he doesn't want to tip his hand to
the enemy). That's what makes you a "pussy" in Trumpworld: The barest
desire to not be a savage animal. Even Ted "Carpet Bomb" Cruz doesn't
make the cut.
The results of the New Hampshire primary were fucking frightening because
47% of the GOP voters chose the crazy candidates: Trump and Cruz.
That's more than the next four establishment candidates combined. In
Iowa, Trump and Cruz together got nearly 52% of the voters, which,
obviously, is more than all the rest. Right now, polls in South Carolina have Trump and Cruz taking the votes of 55-56% of Republicans.
So the only question to those voters is simple: "How fucking dumb are
you?" And the simple answer is: "We're really fucking dumb, man."
Look, it's easy to see the appeal of Trump to angry white people who
have been stripped of power and, rather than blame other white people,
want to blame immigrants and Muslims and that Negro in the White House.
Dumb people believe that blatant shows of power are the only way power
exists. So if we're not sending soldiers to kill the fuck out of
foreigners, then we must be a bunch of, well, shit, pussies. Dumb people
like to try to connect themselves with successful people, like the
lickspittles who try to get into the popular kids' circle at prep
school. Dumb people do this even if the successful person is a raging
hemorrhoid of a human being. And dumb people don't care if they are lied
to, repeatedly, if the lies confirm their irrational and unshakable
biases and hatreds. That's the secret to the right-wing media and it's
the secret to Trump.
Look at his victory
speech last night, said to a room of slobbering cattle who would bend
over and drop their pants if Trump said he wanted to brand their asses
with a giant "T." Trump just makes shit up as he goes. "We're going to
rebuild our military. It's going to be so big, so strong, so powerful.
Nobody is going to mess with us, believe me, nobody. Nobody," he said.
Do you, Trump voter, really believe that terrorists are going to be
intimidated by a big military? Yeah, sure, some ISIS member is gonna
think, through the haze religious fervor and amphetamines,
"Well, I'm supposed to shoot up that mall for Allah, but I don't know.
President Trump has sure made the military huge." You probably do
believe that because you are dumb.
Or when Trump said, "I am going to be the greatest jobs president that
God ever created." What the fuck does that even mean? And then he just
went completely shit-tossing crazy: "Don't believe those phony numbers
when you hear 4.9 and 5 percent unemployment. The number's probably 28,
29, as high as 35. In fact, I even heard recently 42 percent." At the
height of the Great Depression, the unemployment rate was 25%. He's just
pulling numbers from various reports, like he clicked through a few
links after googling "real unemployment rate." If 42% of workers were
unemployed, we'd've already lined up people like Trump to shoot dead and
turn into a terrible stew.
And then there was shit that represents a fundamental stupidity about
how the world of politics is different from the world of business. Trump
said, "We're going to beat China, Japan. We're going to beat Mexico at
trade. We're going to beat all of these countries that are taking so
much of our money away from us on a daily basis," he said. Motherfucker,
those are some of our biggest trade partners. Are you gonna levy
tariffs? They'll tariff the shit out of our goods and wreck the economy.
These aren't policy disagreements. These aren't ideological differences
over the level of taxes on the wealthy, for instance. These are just
layers of bullshit on top of layers of bullshit to create a parfait of
bullshit.
But none of this matters to Trump voters. Because they're that dumb. And
Trump's rise is a hilarious failure for a Republican Party that wanted
to make its voters dumb enough to vote against their interests. Well,
those motherfuckin' chickens are home to motherfuckin' roost.
The GOP is so lacking in anything like a legitimate moral center that
the most immoral asshole in the room is going to be your standard
bearer. Congratulations on nearly eight years of delegitimizing the
presidency and several decades of saying that government itself is bad.
You've finally gotten your perfect candidate.
The supreme court justice Antonin Scalia has died. He was 79.
Texas governor Greg Abbott issued a statement confirming the news and paying
tribute to Scalia, a noted and staunch conservative.
The San Antonio
Express News reported that Scalia was found dead on Saturday at a ranch in
the Big Bend region of Texas, south of Marfa, and said he had been staying at a
ranch, for a private party, and was discovered to have died after not attending
a breakfast.
“Justice Antonin Scalia was a man of God, a patriot, and an unswerving
defender of the written constitution and the rule of law,” Abbott said.
“He was a solid rock who turned away so many attempts to depart from and
distort the Constitution.
His fierce loyalty to the Constitution set an
unmatched example, not just for judges and lawyers, but for all Americans.”
Abbott’s statement concluded: “We mourn his passing, and we pray that his
successor on the supreme court will take his place as a champion for the written
Constitution and the rule of law.
“Cecilia and I extend our deepest condolences to his family, and we keep them
in our thoughts and prayers.”
Related Stories
Triumph visits the Democratic Debate in Charleston, SC as part of
Triumph's Election Special 2016 premiering February 8, only on Hulu. The
special follows Triumph through Iowa, New Hampshire, and South
Carolina, chasing the likes of Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, Chris Christie
and many more.
First
Read: “Bernie Sanders bested Clinton by 22 points (!!!) in a state she
carried in the 2008 presidential contest. And the exit poll numbers seem even
worse, even among the groups Clinton is supposedly strong with: Sanders beat her
among women by 11 points (55%-44%), Democrats (52%-48%), and moderates
(58%-39%).
He crushed her among his core groups, winning young voters (83%-16%),
independents (72%-25), and liberals (60%-39%). And then there are these terrible
numbers: Clinton lost among Democrats caring the most about honest and
trustworthiness by 86 points (91%-5%), and she even lost among the Dems who want
their candidate to care about people like them by 65 points (82%-17%).”
“Warning sign: Caring about people like them is the Bill Clinton brand,
folks!!! The silver lining for Hillary: The map is about to get a lot better for
her (see below). But as we wrote yesterday, it will get worse first — Sanders is
going to continue to out raise her, the Nevada caucuses (on Feb. 23) are going to
be closer than anyone thought, and the outside forces are set to be unbearable
(Bloomberg! Biden! Shakeup!).”
Wonk
Wire: Bernie’s brand is the future of the Democratic party.
John Kasich speaks at a town hall on Jan. 23 in Nashua, New Hampshire.
Darren McCollester/Getty Images
In the run up to Tuesday’s Republican primary, John Kasich conceded that a
poor performance in New Hampshire would mean an end to his campaign. “If we get
smoked here,” the
Ohio governor told reporters last week, “I’m going home.” But after finishing
second place in the Granite State—ahead of Marco Rubio and his two other
party-approved rivals—it’s clear Kasich isn’t going home. He’s going on to South
Carolina.
The problem for the Republican Party, though, is that Kasich is unlikely to
go much further than that. In the meantime, he’ll siphon off momentum, media
attention, and money from his fellow party-approved rivals who are actually in a
position to capitalize on a post-primary bump. Kasich’s surprise showing
actually turns the GOP’s Trump-themed headache into a migraine.
There were always going to be two narratives coming out of New Hampshire: the
major one about Donald Trump, who has been leading in state polls for
months, and the minor one about whichever of the establishment-friendly foursome
came out on top in the contest within a contest between Rubio, Jeb Bush, Chris
Christie, and Kasich.
Someone like Marco, or even Jeb, was well positioned to
use the second-place spotlight to finally begin consolidating
establishment-minded voters, which remains the best and perhaps only path left
for any of them to pass Trump and Iowa-winner Ted Cruz later this year. Kasich,
though, is almost comically ill equipped to travel that difficult path.
For starters, there’s the very real problem that his bank account is running
low. He raised only $3.2 million in the final three months of last year and
began 2016 with
only $2.5 million on hand—about a fourth of what Rubio had in the bank and a
third of what Bush did. Yes, Kasich’s performance in New Hampshire will likely
come with an uptick in fundraising, but the odds are that he’s still going to
have significantly less than Rubio and Bush, not to mention Trump and Cruz. Much
of the money he does bring in this week, meanwhile, will be canceled out by the
millions Rubio and Bush will now spend via their super PACs to torpedo Kasich’s
campaign.
Kasich’s bigger problem is just how out of line his (relatively!) moderate
worldview appears to be with that of the Republican voters he’ll need to unite.
He doesn’t just have a history of going against the conservative line—he has a
history of unapologetic
conservative apostasy, often seeming to take great joy in telling
conservative voters that they’re wrong. In a world where a former reality TV
star can win New Hampshire, anything is possible. But in a world where Donald J.
Trump does win New Hampshire, it’s hard to imagine a critical mass of Republican
voters will be excited about Kasich’s positions on hot-button topics like immigration,
Common
Core, Medicaid
expansion, and marriage
equality.
The Ohio Republican’s already difficult job will get that much more so now
that the race is leaving New Hampshire, a state where the candidate he’s most
often compared with, Jon Huntsman, won roughly the same share of the GOP vote
four years ago as Kasich did on Tuesday. (Huntsman, you probably won’t remember,
dropped out shortly after.)
Next comes South Carolina and then Nevada, neither
of which will be anywhere near as friendly to Kasich’s particular brand of
politics. If he is still standing come March, he’ll then need to survive a Super
Tuesday dominated by delegate-rich southern states like Texas, Georgia, and
Alabama. In other words, Kasich will leave New Hampshire as a winner—but a
winner the race will soon forget. Additional Slate coverage of the New Hampshire
primary:
Cenk Uygur defends Sen. Bernie Sanders' (I-VT) record on Feb. 9, 2016. (YouTube)
After defending Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (I-VT) record against the Washington Post last month,Young Turks host Cenk Uygur ripped the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday. for its criticism of the Democratic presidential candidate.
“They cry their crocodile tears: ‘Sanders is actually gonna fix the
system. How dare he, class warrior?'” Uygur said. “No, you committed
class warfare on the rest of us. You stole our government, then you
redirected trillions of money into your pockets.”
The op-ed by Bret Stephens
accused Sanders of trying to paint everyone working on Wall Street as a
criminal because of his campaign’s focus on economic and campaign
finance reforms.
“No political or social penalties attach, in today’s America, to the
wholesale indictment of this entire industry and the people who work in
it,” Stephens complained. “Had another presidential candidate made a
similarly damning remark about some other profession—public-school
teachers, say, or oil-rig workers—there would have been the usual outcry
about false stereotypes, the decline of civility and so on. When Bernie
says it about Wall Street there’s a collective shrug, if not nodding
agreement.”
“That’s not what he did,” Uygur responded. “You’re lying about that.
‘Cause you don’t want him to fix [the Glass-Steagall Banking Act] ’cause
that’s how you guys get rich — by gambling with our money.”
Stephens also said that one reason Sanders has connected well with
younger voters is because his idea of wisdom is “to hold fast to the
angry convictions of his adolescence.”
“Isn’t it kind of juvenile to go around calling a presidential
candidate childish?” Uygur asked, adding that younger voters are often
more informed than their elders.
“The older voters who watch TV get broad general comments about the
candidates,” the host said. “They never dig into the issues. The younger
voters, who get their news online, have access to all their positions
on all their issues. They’re far more educated than the older
knucklehead voters you guys have been brainwashing all these years.”
A small group of billionaires is trying very hard to buy the
presidency. They want to buy the White House from it’s rightful owners –
you and me.
A recent analysis of campaign finance data by Politico
has found that the top 100 donors to the presidential race have spent
$195 million on their preferred candidates — that’s compared to the $155
million spent by the smallest 2 million donors. In other words, 100
rich people have more purchasing power than 2 million non-rich people
combined. As The New York Times found last year, just 158 mega-donors paid for half of all early campaign donations.
While these sobering figures are hardly cause for celebration, there
is one silver lining: Judging from where the billionaires are putting
their money, it’s not likely to get them much. The top recipient of
billionaire bucks was none other than Jeb Bush, who is currently leading
the field only in the race for last place. Jeb’s flailing campaign was
the recipient of $49 million from donors on Politico’s list. They appear
to be getting zilch in return.
In case you think this is a only a Republican problem, GOP candidates
aren’t the only ones taking money from the rich: Hillary Clinton was
the second largest beneficiary of billionaire bucks.
Clinton’s super PAC allies are assiduously courting wealthy liberals
as they gird for a potentially protracted fight for the Democratic
nomination against the unexpectedly vigorous insurgent campaign of
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who has decried super PACs and has relatively little support
from them. While super PACs supporting Clinton in 2015 raised $55
million ― $38 million of which came from top donors on POLITICO’s list,
including $8 million from the fifth biggest donor, New York financier George Soros ― they have struggled to win support from other top Democratic donors.
And who are these billionaires who are trying to purchase our next
president? It will probably come as no surprise that they are
overwhelmingly white and male. The top donors, Dan Wilks and his brother Farris,
made a fortune in hydraulic fracking, $15 million of which they donated
to Ted Cruz. Cruz also took huge amounts from New York hedge fund
tycoon Bob Mercer (No. 2 on Politico’s list), Texas energy man Toby Neugebauer (No. 4) and Illinois manufacturers Dick and Liz Uihlein (No. 6).
Oddly, the notorious Koch brothers were nowhere on Politico’s list. Although they reportedly plan to spend nearly $900 million on the presidential race
— more than either the Republican or Democratic parties — the Kochs
have yet to endorse a candidate for the primary. And should Donald Trump
win the primary, that $900 million could go unspent: While the Kochs
might not love any of the candidates, there is one they clearly loathe.
But for now, Jeb! Bush is clearly in the lead for mega-dollar donors.
And when Bush drops out of the race – which he will – all that money
will get refocused somewhere. Rubio? Cruz? Who knows?
What is clear is that in the race for the biggest donors, there are
about 300 million other Americans who will pay the price: each and every
one of us.
Photo Credit: Shutterstock, Copyright (c) Monkey Business Images
As Ta-Nehisi Coates and Steve Phillips become the latest in a lineage of black scholar/activists
who have worked to push the boundaries of policy discourse about the
feasibility of reparations for African Americans, it is important that
we not lose sight of existing policies that affect the bottom line of
black households.
Social
Security is one such policy that has tremendous economic consequences
for vulnerable families and provides a good litmus test for where the
2016 presidential candidates stand on the issue of black economic
security.
It’s
no secret that more than 150 years after the end of slavery, black
people — along with Native Americans, Latinos and certain subgroups of
Asian Americans — remain at the bottom of
the economic ladder in America.
African Americans and Latinos own only 6
and 7 cents respectively for every dollar of wealth owned by whites and
earn only 67 cents for every dollar of income earned by whites
(national data is not available for Native Americans and Asian American
subgroups).
These deep disparities in wealth and income are a legacy of
discriminatory government policies and business practices that have benefited white households over households of color. It even marred
Social Security’s beginning, which by barring coverage for agricultural
and domestic workers effectively excluded approximately 65 percent of
all black workers when the bill was signed into law in 1935.
This
legacy of social and economic racial discrimination makes African
Americans especially reliant on the program today. Social Security
provides social insurance coverage to eligible individuals in the event
of retirement, disability or the death of a worker with surviving
dependents. It also has a progressive benefit structure that replaces a
greater percentage of lower earners’ pre-Social Security wages compared
to higher earners.
So,
while we know African Americans are economically vulnerable, we also
know that many could not make it through retirement, a disability or the
death of a loved one, without Social Security. For example, 46 percent
of African-American seniors ages 65 and over rely on Social Security for
at least 90 percent of their income, compared to 35 percent of whites.
Although
the formula for determining benefit levels is seemingly neutral with
respect to race and ethnicity, the program does in fact affect racial
and ethnic groups in different ways
because of variances in demographic factors such as life expectancy,
health status, years of work, level of earnings, number of dependents,
and marital status. As a result, the distributional impact of the
program and proposed changes to it can be estimated by variables such as
race, ethnicity, gender, class, and marital status.
We know that African Americans are disadvantaged by the structure of Social Security’s retirement program because of shorter life spans.
We also know that African Americans and other people of color
disproportionately benefit from the disability and survivor portions of
the programs, because of higher morbidity and mortality rates. The data
shows that when all three parts of Social Security are taken as a whole,
African Americans receive a slightly higher rate of return from the program compared to what they contribute in wages.
However,
when taken alone, the retirement portion of the program is regressive
for African Americans, since those who have shorter life expectancy
effectively subsidize the retirement of those with longer life expectancy. Proposals to raise the retirement age, therefore, are not beneficial for
African Americans since they would result in reduced benefit amounts,
and depending on the specifics of the proposal, could make the benefit
of Social Security to African Americans less valuable overall.
Enter
the 2016 elections. While Senator Bernie Sanders’ dismissive response
to the questioner who asked him about reparations at the Black and Brown
debate in Iowa was both regretful and instructive about the
intellectual boundaries of mainstream contemporary populism,
he has taken a stand against all benefit cuts — including increasing
the retirement age. He has also put forward a plan to expand benefits
that has been estimated by the Social Security Administration’s Chief
Actuary to increase benefits
and extend the solvency of Social Security through the year 2074. By
placing the burden of expansion on the wealthy, who would pay more by
raising the earnings cap on Social Security payroll contributions, his
plan would save middle, moderate and low-income Americans from
economically harmful benefit cuts. This would be good for African
Americans.
Although
she has not yet put forward a detailed plan for expanding Social
Security, Secretary Hillary Clinton has expressed support for expanding
benefits for vulnerable groups, which would be good for African
Americans. However, she has not ruled out instituting benefit cuts as a
means for extending Social Security’s solvency and has said she is open
to considering raising the retirement age “for
people whose jobs allow them to work later in life.” This approach
presumably targets higher income, white-collar workers but it represents
little guarantee of protection for African Americans who experience
life-threatening health disparities across the income spectrum.
On
the Republican side of the race, businessman and presidential contender
Donald Trump has shunned traditional conservative approaches to Social
Security reform by ruling out raising the retirement age. His decision taps into a wealth of polling data that shows widespread, bipartisan support for Social Security. Both senators Ted Cruz
and Marco Rubio, on the other hand, have said they would increase the
retirement age. Ted Cruz would seek to destabilize the program
altogether by diverting Social Security funds into private accounts
exposed to Wall Street, which brings a host of additional vulnerabilites for African Americans.
In
sum, Social Security is not a replacement for a policy that compensates
African Americans for lost wages, discrimination, dehumanization, and
pain and suffering they experienced as result of slavery, Jim Crow and a
host of additional discriminatory policies and practices that have
undermined their socioeconomic standing. Given that precedent has been established
for reparative policies for other wronged groups in the U.S., there
should be no reason to exclude African Americans from policy
considerations that have been afforded to others.
Nevertheless, Social Security remains an important pillar of progress that is essential for many black households to survive and thrive. For that reason alone, it too is worth fighting for.
Democratic
presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton and Democratic presidential
candidate, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt, shake hands as they greet the
audience before the audience before a Democratic presidential primary
debate hosted by MSNBC at the University of New Hampshire Thursday, Feb.
4, 2016, in Durham, N.H. (AP Photo/David Goldman) (Credit: Associated Press)
It
would be hard to overstate what Bernie Sanders has already achieved in
his campaign for president, or the obstacles he’s had to surmount in
order to achieve it. Not only has he turned a planned Hillary Clinton
coronation into an exercise in grass-roots democracy, he’s reset the
terms of the debate. We are edging closer to the national conversation
we so desperately need to have. If we get there, all credit goes to
Bernie.
Many
of those obstacles were put in place by Democratic national party chair
and Clinton apparatchik Deborah Wasserman Schultz. Without pretense of
due process, Schultz slashed the number of 2016 debates to six, down
from 26 in 2008, and scheduled as many as she could on weekends when she
figured no one would be watching. To deprive would-be challengers of
free exposure, Schultz robbed voters of free and open debate and ceded
the spotlight to the dark vaudeville of the Republicans. That Sanders
got this far in spite of her is a miracle in itself.
Sanders got
bagged again in Iowa, this time by a state party chair, one Andrea
McGuire. Like Schultz, McGuire’s specialty is high-dollar fundraising,
and like Schultz she was deeply involved in Clinton’s 2008 campaign.
Under the esoteric rules of the Iowa Democratic caucuses, and after a
string of lucky coin tosses, Clinton eked out a 700.52 to 696.86 margin,
not in votes cast but in a mysterious commodity known as “delegate
equivalents.”
We’re electing a president, not the senior warden of
a Mason’s lodge. All evidence indicates Sanders won the popular vote.
It isn’t a minor point. If the public knew he won the only vote anybody
understands or cares about, Clinton wouldn’t be “breathing a sigh of
relief,” she’d be hyperventilating. McGuire refuses to release vote
totals. She says keeping them a secret is an Iowa tradition. So what if
it is? As with debates, the stakes transcend the candidates’ interests.
In an editorial headlined “Something Smells in the Democratic Party,”
the Des Moines Register, which endorsed Clinton prior to the caucuses,
wrote:
What happened Monday
night at the Democratic caucuses was a debacle, period… the refusal to
undergo scrutiny or allow for an appeal reeks of autocracy.
Given
that this entire election is a mass insurrection against a rigged
system, one would think the national political press would share the
Register’s concern, but it moved on to the next race with barely a
backward glance. Throughout the campaign the press has been nearly as
big an obstacle for Sanders as the party. Even jaded political junkies
were startled when the Tyndall Report exposed the media blackout of
Sanders. In 2015, ABC News devoted 261 minutes to the 2016 campaign.
Donald Trump got 81 minutes. Bernie Sanders got 20 seconds. Nearly as
harmful is the dismissive tone of the cable commentariat, and I don’t
mean just Fox News.
CNN has larded up “the best political team on
television” with partisans, including Bush acolyte Ana Navarro and Trump
minion Jeffrey Lord. On the Democratic side, Paul Begala advises a
Clinton super PAC; David Axelrod was Obama’s guru; Donna Brazile a DNC
chair; Van Jones an Obama staffer; David Gergen a Clinton adviser. All
are bright, honorable people, but it’s hard to report on a peasant
revolt from inside the castle. (The network just added Sanders
sympathizer Bill Press to the mix, but it’s far too little and too
late.)
Things aren’t all that different over at MSNBC though to
its credit it lets reporters do more of its analysis. One might expect
its younger on-air personalities to be in sync with Sanders but our
younger political journalists aren’t like our younger voters, being more
attuned to the centrist politics of Clinton and Obama than to the
reformist zeal now reshaping and re-energizing the Democrat left.
The
whole press corps still treats politics as theater or sport. No one ever
explains policy on a post-debate show. Must all talk be of the horse
race? It’s a democracy, not an off-track betting parlor. We must all
think less like political consultants and more like citizens, and
journalists should lead the way.
That they don’t is a gift to
Clinton. Sanders wants to talk about the fallen state of our politics,
the fallen state of our middle class, and how the first fall caused the
second. Clinton can’t have that discussion. Exposing her differences
with Sanders on such topics would sink her. So she says she and he are
alike in every way except she’s practical and electable—”a progressive
who likes to get things done”–and he’s a hopeless dreamer. It’s the kind
of argument political reporters were born to buy, and despite being
full of holes, it works even among some non-journalists.
The
electability argument is all about money and polls, ground games and
firewalls, though you hear less about money lately. Clinton’s campaign
muddied the message of its launch by leaking a plan to raise $300
million for an “independent” super PAC. This was to be the year of the
super PAC but it’s proving instead that even in politics, money isn’t
everything. Among Republicans, Jeb Bush raised the most money, Trump the
least. Trump rides high. Bush is on a respirator. As you may have
heard, Bernie doesn’t have a super PAC. Backed by a record breaking 1.3
million small donors, he slashed 40 points off Clinton’s lead and
rewrote the rules of presidential politics.
You hear even less
about polls; or general election polls at least. What makes the media
blackout of Sanders an even greater travesty is that it was imposed over
a period of many months in which he led all 21 other candidates in both
parties in nearly every general election poll. When a self-described
socialist leads every poll, something historic is happening. Even
horse-race reporters should have seen that a story so big, so
confounding of conventional wisdom, demanded in depth coverage, but
unless you read Salon or Rolling Stone, such coverage was hard to find.
In Thursday’s
MSNBC debate, Rachel Maddow, having raised the specters of George
McGovern and Barry Goldwater, briefly acknowledged Sanders’ general
election lead (“I know you have good head to head polling numbers… right
now”) before asking, “but do you have a general election strategy?”
Sanders might have referred all Goldwater questions to Hillary, who
after all worked on Barry’s famed ’64 race, or asked Maddow why the guy
leading every general election poll would need a new general election
strategy, but he did neither.
There is no Clinton firewall. At most, 10 states
are out of Sanders’ reach and public opinion is never static. Nor does
she have a better “ground game.” Real grass-roots organizations like the
Working Families Party, MoveOn.org and Democracy for America let
members guide endorsements. (Sanders’ support in each of those groups
was at or above 85 percent) Such groups are building the movement
Sanders speaks of in every speech. Building a movement is like wiring a
house for electricity. You can buy the most expensive lamps in the store
but with no electricity, when you hit the switch the lights don’t go
on. It takes real conviction to fuel grass-roots politics. In Iowa,
Sanders ran 5 points ahead of late polls. It won’t be the last time it
happens.
*
If you strip away all the nonsense about polls,
money, firewalls and ground games, Clinton’s left with two arguments,
neither one pretty. One is that Sanders is too far left. Pundits dismiss
his polls by repeating her “wait till the Republicans get ahold of him”
line. And they’ll say what? That he’s old? Jewish? A socialist?
Everybody already knows and anyone who’d even think of voting Democratic
is already down with it or soon could be. The “socialist” tag needs
explaining, but so do “corrupt” and “fascist.” Both parties’ front runners carry baggage. For my money, Bernie’s is the lightest. As
for the notion that voters can’t see that paying $1,000 in taxes beats
paying $5,000 in health insurance premiums, it is an insult to the
American people.
The core of Clinton’s realpolitik brief pertains
not to electability but to governance. Her point is that Sanders is
naïve. She says none of his proposals can get though a Republican
Congress. She strongly implies that he’d roll back Obamacare, a charge
that is false, cynical and so nonsensical she’ll have to stop making it
soon. She says she has a plan to get to universal health care—she
doesn’t—and that she’ll do it by working “in partnership” with the
insurance and pharmaceutical industries.
Who’s being naive here? A
Republican Congress won’t pass any of her ideas either. The only way to
get real change is to elect Democrats to Congress and have a
grass-roots movement strong enough to keep the heat on them. Nor will
insurers cough up a dime of profit without a fight. Vowing to spare us a
“contentious debate” over single-payer care she ignores the admonition
of Frederick Douglass; “Power concedes nothing without demand. It never
did and it never will.” There has been a lot of talk lately about what a
progressive is. Here’s a hint: if you think Douglass is wrong, you
might not be one.
Clinton’s last argument concerns
loyalty. Throughout 2015 she sniped at Obama from the right while
relegating Bill to the sidelines. Last month, seeing her lead slip away,
she wrapped herself in political and family connections, as if hoping
to gain the White House as a legacy admission. Analysts say Sanders
drove her to the left. It’s partly but only superficially true. Lately
he has driven her to the status quo, a bad place to be in 2016.
Democrats
are deeply loyal to Barack Obama and Bill Clinton who didn’t so much
reconcile their party’s conflicts as engross them within their protean
personalities. Hillary accuses Sanders of disloyalty to them and to the
modern party they held together. When Sanders suggested that some
progressive groups might be part of the establishment, she ripped into
him, denying there even is such a thing. There is, of course. Its main
components were once grass-roots movements that traded independence for
access and are now Washington lobbies with grass-roots mailing lists.
They were better off when they played harder to get.
The absence
of an independent, progressive movement left a vacuum that groups like
The Working Families Party and MoveOn.org have begun to fill not a
moment too soon. Clinton seeks to cast Sanders as the “other” by calling
into question his loyalty to the establishment. It gets her nothing.
Democrats will always be loyal to Bill and Barack, but know in their
hearts it’s time to move on. The debate now is over what comes next.
It’s
not a debate Hillary wants. She’s a superb debater, whip smart, well
prepared and a world-class verbal gymnast. I’m guessing Sanders goes a
little lighter on debate prep, making him less concrete and specific. I
wish he engaged more directly. But his quiet dignity serves him, and us,
well. He’s the anti-Trump, doing nearly as much to elevate public
discourse as Trump does to debase it.
One way to sum up the case
he’s trying to make might be as follows. In the 1990s a near bipartisan
consensus celebrated a new age of globalization and information
technology in which technology and trade spur growth that in turn
fosters a broad and inclusive prosperity. Government’s job is to
deregulate finance and trade and work with business in ‘public private
partnerships’ for progress.
Twenty years on, Hillary still sees
the world through the rose-colored glasses of that ’90s consensus. Not
Bernie. He sees that in 2016 rising tides don’t even lift most boats,
that growth comes at a steep price when it comes at all, and that new
technology cost more jobs than it creates. He understands that when jobs
flow to countries with weak governments and low wages, the American
middle class can’t get a raise. He sees that public-private partnership
meant pay-to-play politics, and that the whole system runs not on
innovation but corruption. My guess is the middle class sees what he
sees and wants what he wants: a revolution. If he can continue to drive
the debate, they may get one.
Bill Curry was White House counselor to President
Clinton and a two-time Democratic nominee for governor of Connecticut.
He is at work on a book on President Obama and the politics of populism.
Peyton Manning just had one of the nights of his life Sunday.
Potentially in the top five, somewhere in the mix of getting married,
the birth of his two kids, and presumably his previous Super Bowl win?
We’ll never know exactly where tonight’s performance ranks on the
Manning all-time list (unless he tells us), but we can make a few
inferences by his post-game celebration. In the immediate jubilant
aftermath of the game, Manning leaned in to kiss—Papa John? Yes, founder
and owner of the pizza chain, John Schnatter, was on the sideline.
Just to recap, here are Manning’s priorities as expressed through post-game kiss preference:
The Clinton campaign is collapsing. Built for an outdated
presidential race from the past two decades, it underestimated the
changing times, a unique opponent, and increasingly savvy voters.
The campaign's first mistake was to take the traditional approach of sitting on a lead. Certainly, it would have seemeda
safe bet. The party's elected politicians would rally to her as the
presumptive nominee—and they did. Donors were lined up for a big
haul—and they gave. The media would willingly marginalize Sanders—and
they tried. And the voters could be quickly frightened with specters of
Republicans into sticking with the establishment candidate—but they weren't.
Despite every institutional advantage and a made-to-order GOP horror
show, voters could not be scared away from Sanders. The more intently
the machine insisted upon Clinton, the more suspect Clinton became. And
now her campaign is out of options.
There are no more endorsements left to get. She's squandered her
financial advantage by outspending Sanders by many times in Iowa, only
to tie. Her big donors must be maxing out in direct contributions,
leaving Super PAC's as the only vehicle through which she can make up the
losses (less than ideal optics). And the media has already stooped so
low in its dismissal of Sanders that there is no credible room left to
expand that endeavor. At this point, Chris Matthews would literally have
to beg viewers to vote Clinton in order to outdo his current advocacy.
On unfamiliar territory and feeling desperate, the inflexible
campaign made the second mistake of doubling down on its voter
containment strategy, completely giving up on converting any new voters.
There is no obvious goal or governing principles coming out of her camp
at this point. No lines in the sand she's promising to draw as
President. All that's left is jeering smack-talk of Bernie-Bros,
pie-in-the-sky aspirations, and sexism—suggesting that anyone who still
likes Sanders has been cut from the target audience.
And it isn't working.
Why should it? People aren't idiots. Shirley Chisholm, Jan
Schakowsky, Barbara Lee, Sheila Jackson Lee, Elizabeth Warren and many
others have shown us that women can confront our sexist culture and
still refuse to submit to the male-dominated influences that have ruined
our economy and democracy. And consider politicians like Meg Whitman
and Carly Fiorina, who have also battled untold sexist barriers to
achieve their groundbreaking professional goals; only the most deluded
Democratic voter would consider handing them high office as compensation
for their troubles.
Essentially, the Clinton campaign is wrapping a sexist appeal
in the veneer of feminism: because she was a woman, Clinton couldn't
help but play ball with corporations, so give her a girl pass. What a
slap in the face to every woman who never sold out or gave up. It's one
thing to point out that a woman went through a mountain of man-shit to
obtain her rightful due, or blazed a path for future women, however
imperfectly; it's another thing, completely, to insist voters overlook
corruption because the candidate is a woman.
And as the campaign lashes out in a panic, other wheels are starting to come off the bus.
In the last debate, Sanders addressed race on three occasions: 1)
asked about the death penalty, he noted that innocent people of color
are more likely to find their way to death row; 2) asked about our
criminal justice system, he made sure to include in his answer the fact
that we incarcerate mostly people of color; and 3) when responding to
the Flint disaster, he asked a type of question rarely heard from a
Presidential candidate: what would have happened if Flint's population
was middle class and white?
Clinton said absolutely nothing about race. Well, almost nothing. At
the debate's conclusion, with the last question answered, Clinton
wondered aloud why there weren't opportunities to talk about race.
How must that have sounded to black viewers, who surely noticed not
only Sanders' pointed and appropriate injection of racial concerns into
his answers, but the absence of any equivalent from Clinton? I'm sure
she had good sound bytes at the ready; she just lacked the inter-sectional ability to weave them into a question that didn't parade
itself as race-focused.
Is it any surprise that public figures from the African American
community are beginning to withdraw their endorsements of Clinton and
line up behind Sanders?
It is as though the Clinton campaign was designed to last only so
long; slap-dash construction with a lifespan no longer than the short
time it would take to push Sanders out of the frame. When that didn't
happen, there was no Plan B. The public didn't care who Congress
endorsed, and they didn't care what the Chris Matthews of the world
said, and they aren't buying the argument that everyone troubled by
Clinton is somehow hoodwinked by Republican misogyny. They want actual
representation and appreciate a candidate who shoots straight.
And this is the nail in the Clinton coffin. The American people are
beginning to realize they have the ability to elect someone they're not
supposed to elect. Clinton represents everything "normal" about
elections that are now universally recognized as abnormal. She is a safe
bet only in a fictional world that is being dismantled. She is the
past, and the future has become viable.
Berine Sanders' support will continue to swell, as it should, and Democrats need the courage to call this a good thing—a great thing.
No longer can we permit our values and agendas to be boxed in by the
very influences that oppose them. Time is running out on our ecology,
our economy, and our social fabric, and nothing less than an out-and-out
champion for our future will do.
You probably already know this. It's probably why you are
voting for Sanders in your Democratic Primary. It looks like you'll have
plenty of company.
Barack Obama is the 44th President of the United States.
One of America’s greatest strengths right now is the fact that our young generation—the millennials—is also the biggest, most educated, most diverse and most digitally fluent generation in our history. And one thing my daughters have taught me about their generation is that they’re not going to wait for anyone else to build a better world; they’re just going to go ahead and create that world for themselves.
We can create the circumstances that give them every chance to do that, of course—to make sure they can grow up free from debt and free to make their own choices in a world that’s not beyond their capacity to repair. That’s why my administration has reduced student loan payments to 10% of a borrower’s income, so that young people who choose college aren’t punished for that choice. We’ve reformed our health-care system so that when young people change jobs, go back to school, chase that new idea or start a family of their own, they’ll still have coverage.
We led nearly 200 nations to the most ambitious agreement in history to combat climate change.
But my daughters’ generation knew long before Paris that protecting the one planet we’ve got isn’t something that’s up for debate. They knew long before the Supreme Court ruled for marriage equality last June that all love is created equal. They don’t see each of us first and foremost as black or white, Asian or Latino, gay or straight, immigrant or native-born. They view our diversity as a great gift.
In many ways, their generation is already pushing the rest of us toward change.
So for the sake of our future, one thing we have to do, maybe even above all others, is to make sure they grow up knowing that their voices matter, that they have agency in our democracy.
Those of us in positions of power have to set an example with the way we treat each other—not by viewing those who disagree with us as unpatriotic or motivated by malice, but with a willingness to compromise.
We have to listen to those with whom we don’t agree.We have to reduce the corrosive influence of money in our politics that makes people feel like the system is rigged. We have to make voting easier, not harder, and modernize it for the way we live now. And we have to encourage our young people to stay active in our public life so that it reflects the goodness and decency and fundamental optimism that they exhibit every day.
The world we want for our kids—one with opportunity and security for our families; one with rising standards of living and a sustainable, peaceful planet; one that’s innovative and inclusive, bold and big-hearted—it’s entirely within our reach. The only constraints on America’s future are the ones we impose on ourselves.
That’s always been the case with America—our destiny isn’t decided for us, but by us. And as long as we give our young people every tool and every chance to decide the future for themselves, I have incredible faith in the choices they’ll make.
Democratic
presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton and Democratic presidential
candidate, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt, shake hands as they greet the
audience before the audience before a Democratic presidential primary
debate hosted by MSNBC at the University of New Hampshire Thursday, Feb.
4, 2016, in Durham, N.H. (AP Photo/David Goldman) (Credit: Associated Press)
Democratic
presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton and Democratic presidential
candidate, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt, shake hands as they greet the
audience before the audience before a Democratic presidential primary
debate hosted by MSNBC at the University of New Hampshire Thursday, Feb.
4, 2016, in Durham, N.H. (AP Photo/David Goldman) (Credit: Associated Press)