MANY REGULAR READERS OF THIS COLUMN may be surprised to learn that I started out my voting life as a reliably avid Republican.
Liberalism seemed tired by the late 1970s. The brimming optimism and cultural energy of the New Deal and Great Society eras seemed to have gone off the rails, and the American political left was still badly divided in the aftermath of the Vietnam war. The buoyant economic boom of the 1960s had been replaced by stagnation and stubborn inflation.
By 1980 the nation was given a choice between President Jimmy Carter, a good man but not, shall we say, the most inspiring figure to ever hold the office; and Ronald Reagan, a gifted orator and guy who seemed to be overflowing with confidence and ideas for making America better.
This in mind, I voted for Reagan in 1980, a little more than a month after I turned 18, and supported his re-election in 1984, casting an absentee ballot from my Army base in Hawaii. I then voted for Bush the elder in 1988 and 1992.
So, what changed? Why did Clinton and the Democrats get my vote in 1996, and thereafter?
In the mid-1990s, I looked at the results of 12 years of Republican dominance and began to ask why the only people benefitting from Republican policies — and here I am referring to what they actually do when they gain power, not what they make pious noise about — seemed to be those at the top of the economic ladder.
I began to ask, what is Republicans’ agenda?
Now, your understanding might be slightly different than mine, but I bet our lists of GOP priorities would be broadly similar. In fact, I would wager a fair amount that politically engaged people across the spectrum would come up with something like this:
1. Privatize Social Security and Medicare.
2. Expand military spending.
3. Enact a flat tax.
4. Restrict government action to national defense and police powers — things like contract enforcement and so on.
5. Do away with the Departments of Education, Energy, HUD and others.
6. End most federal non-crisis-related welfare relief.
7. Do away with the EPA and most other government regulation of business.
8. Repeal the Wagner Act and most other pro-union legislation.
Now, looking at the list above, let’s ask the question people have been asking since the days of antiquity: Cui bono? Who benefits?
1. Lessens the tax burden on rich people and adds retirement account business for Wall Street and health insurance industry business. Cui bono? Mostly the rich.
2. Enriches defense contractors and results in the military enforcing the interests of the rich and powerful. Cui bono? Mostly the rich.
3. Reduces the income tax burden on wealthy individuals, resulting in more money concentrating at the top of the income scale. Cui bono? Mostly the rich.
4. Reduces or eliminates regulatory costs for businesses, especially big businesses. Cui bono? Mostly the rich.
Need we go on? Do you see a pattern emerging here?
Republicans’ agenda is determined by the group in our society whose interests they work for: rich people. Republican policies are designed to enhance the wealth of rich people through things like cuts in the top marginal income tax rates and capital gains taxes, and to enhance the relative power of rich people by weakening labor, both through anti-union policies and by eliminating, wherever possible, labor protections.
The modern Republican Party is all about rich people. They openly, unfailingly and very effectively serve the interests of those folks.
The thing is, rich people are a very small part of the voting population. So it seems to me that an opposing party with a rhetorical and policy focus on the rest of us, the non-rich, has a significant opportunity.
What would a cui bono list look like if the Democrats realigned themselves to take advantage of this opportunity? Just off the top of my head, here are four agenda items that would have more or less immediate and salutary effects.
1. Raise the minimum wage to $12.50 per hour, and tie future increases to the rate of aggregate productivity growth in the economy. Cui bono? The working poor.
2. Pass the Employee Free Choice Act, strengthening the hand of labor when it sits down at the negotiating table and bargains with capital for a bigger slice of the benefits of its work. Cui bono? Workers in unionized shops, and workers in non-union shops whose employers must compete with union-scale wages.
3. Pass a comprehensive fiscal stimulus recovery program, including significant investments in infrastructure, green energy and repair of crumbling bridges and overpasses. Cui bono? The people who are currently among the roughly 15 percent of workers who are unemployed, under-employed or have entirely given up hope of finding a job.
4. Pass European-style single-payer health care, paid for by a progressive tax that applies to all income from whatever source, with exemptions at the lowest income levels. Cui bono? Everyone, because the threat of one’s life savings being wiped out by a big, expensive illness will be gone.
It is time for the Democratic Party, or more likely a reform faction within it, to stand up to the plutocrats and corporations that finance both parties’ campaigns. It is past time for someone to explain to those privileged few that nations where a few rich people have everything, while the great mass of people live economic lives that run a narrow spectrum between desperate poverty and economic insecurity, tend to be places we hear about on the news associated with phrases like “armed revolution.”
The Democratic Party must once again become primarily “the party of the common man,” as Harry S Truman put it, so that it can credibly call out Republicans for being the elitists they are and get back to doing what it did so well in that long-ago New Deal and Great Society era. Democrats must once again be the Party of the Ordinary Joe and Jane.
Matt Talbot is a writer and poet, as well as an old Benicia hand. He works for a tech start-up in San Francisco.
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Well put. Let the haters hate, and the doofuses derp, and the Repugs poutrage, but this is the truth.
From the above article:
1. Raise the minimum wage to $12.50 per hour, and tie future increases to the rate of aggregate productivity growth in the economy. Cui bono? The working poor.
From the article below, by Ralph Nader addressed to President Obama for the community to consider…
Ever since your ringing announcement that you favor lifting the federal minimum wage from its frozen $7.25 per hour to $9.00 in your State of the Union Address on February 12, 2013, there has been little effort from the White House to push for this important measure. To be sure, going down to $9.00 compares unfavorably with your 2008 campaign platform which favored $9.50 by 2011. Yet, with thirty million workers in our country making less today than workers made in 1968, inflation adjusted, it is a shameful situation. The 1968 inflation adjusted minimum wage would now be $10.70. Is catching up to 1968 too ambitious a White House position?
http://nader.org/2013/07/10/july-2013-letter-to-president-obama-on-the-minimum-wage/
From the above article:
“The Democratic Party must once again become primarily “the party of the common man,” as Harry S Truman put it, so that it can credibly call out Republicans for being the elitists they are and get back to doing what it did so well in that long-ago New Deal and Great Society era….”
Good luck!
Below an article by professor Jack Rasmus from St. Mary’s College, for the community to consider about our present economic situation.
“It is ironic somewhat that what we are about to witness with the GDP revisions is a recognition that the economic recovery since 2009 has been a recovery for corporate profits and capital incomes, stock and bond markets, derivatives and other forms of income from financial speculation—all now at record levels—while weekly earnings for the rest continue to decline for the past four years. What the GDP revisions
reflect is an attempt to adjust upward GDP to reflect in various ways the gains on financial side of the economy, the gains in income for the few and their corporations.”
“When you can’t get the economy going otherwise, just change the definitions and how you calculate it all. Manipulate the statistics—just as Clinton did before and Reagan even before that.”
http://www.zcommunications.org/economic-recovery-by-statistical-manipulation-by-jack-rasmus
From the above article:
“Now, your understanding might be slightly different than mine, but I bet our lists of GOP priorities would be broadly similar. In fact, I would wager a fair amount that politically engaged people across the spectrum would come up with something like this:”
1. “Privatize Social Security and Medicare.” Or;
“It is time for the Democratic Party, or more likely a reform faction within it, to stand up to the plutocrats and corporations that finance both parties’ campaigns.”
More on the politics of deception and truth for the community to consider….
http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/04/12/obamas-cat-food-social-security-reform/
From the above article:
“Democrats must once again be the Party of the Ordinary Joe and Jane.”
The article below gives a different picture or interpretation for the community to consider…
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/08/01-2
From the above article:
“Democrats must once again be the Party of the Ordinary Joe and Jane.”
The article below gives a different picture or interpretation for the community to consider…
http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2013/03/penny-pritzker-obamas-likely-commerce.html
It’s all pretty pathetic…Next election I may vote for a Border Collie:
Peter Bray, Home Handyman P.O. Box 234 Benicia, CA 94510 Cell: (707) 246-8082 Light home repair, Special Projects – Please see our websites below: http://www.handymanservicespeterbray.com http://www.peterbray.org/pedro
Benicia Herald column, “A Cappella Handyman,” every Friday. New Blog: http://www.simpletonspath.wordpress.com
Way to go, Matt…Everything I wanted to hear and believe–keep repeating this and send it everywhere…The Repubs lead to nowhere and the Democrats don’t have the courage or the will to voice much of anything…Stand up, stay strong, I applaud what you represent…I too thought Reagan had something to say way back when, that thought lasted 15 minutes–Peter Bray, Benicia, CA
Matt,
This is a very interesting and well thought through analysis, even though it oversimplifies both the liberal and the conservative issues. I look forward to the responses of other (and hopefully objective) readers. Thank you for providing a very useful roadmap.
From the column:get back to doing what it did so well in that long-ago New Deal and Great Society era.
I can think of 58,286 people for whom that Great Society era did not work out too well.
Two things to consider. S/S was never meant to be your full retirement nor was Medicare meant to make healthcare free. Both were meant to be used as a means to help your financial burdens in your retirement years. Not fully take care of both. Both are payroll deductions and start when you became a wage earner. Both are now and can be a burden on wage earners because there is no graduated rates in place. Income tax has a graduated rate so why not these two. Resolve this issue and it will take care of many burdens that low earners now have. Simple, put more money in their pocket and there will be no need to increase minimum wages at such a dramatic rate. This will partly take care of it for minimum and low wage earners. No s/s and Medicare payroll till a decided upon beginning wage. Lets say for every wage earner it is $30,000 for individuals. Employer contributions remain the same. You now give these wage earners an at once income bonus of over 7%. You now move this shorfall to higher wage earners with no caps and graduated rates. That way you protect all wage earners and it gives incentives for low wage earners to save and but more money into the economy. Sound simple, it is. These two issues are the biggest burden at present and in the future and must be fixed. This is just an idea or start to protect both the wage earner and both systems. This is just one idea of many. That is from my conservative view point. The future burdens can be shared and shifted to higher wage earners just like the income tax is. I believe you will find that no Republuican will have a problem with this idea. We like to share and contribute to the well being of all Americans.
I’m a 2%-er on my way to the 1%, and I and many of the other people in the top income tiers are very liberal, by today’s standards. Personally, we’ve done very, very well with the rightward swing of our nation, but we’ve been very, very disturbed by the increasing wealth inequality, the decreasing opportunity for those who start out poor (like I did), and the repeated attempts to limit rights for individuals (except gun rights) and increase rights for corporations. It isn’t all about self-interest. Some people whose bank balances have benefited from the policies of the right know that these policies are ultimately bad for a civil society, as well as being distastefully unfair and irresponsible toward our fellow citizens. Mr. Talbot is correct about the policies, though. Simply put, these policies are about stacking the deck in favor of the people who already have money. They consolidate and protect wealth. As a result of the policies of the right (which have somehow become center) we have moved away from the tenets of our democracy. Democracy is ultimately about equality of voice and opportunity, and these have been decreasing steadily since Reagan took office.
It is a nice try Matt. It does not matter what you or anyone says about the Republicans. As America moves forward with complete energy independence the whole issue changes. Low unemployment, more taxes coming in and more funds in a controlled manor to needed issues. All controlled by the Republican House and Senate with a Democtrat possibly in the WH that is not willing to work toward a better life for all Americans. Obsamacare reworked, social programs that mean something, s/s and medicare under control and a reworked tax code. No more WH scandals just possibly a great deal of obstruction coming from a Democrat in the WH in 2016 with very little say unless willing to work with Senate and the House. Agenda driven WH days are coming to an end and the country is about to take it self back. 2014 will be the start. just watch and learn.
There’s never been anything deep about these political relativities. When I was 8 years old, my parents in the front seat and I in back with Dad’s parents, driving home to Pomona from a day in Hollywood, I must have said or asked something childishly ignorant. Right then, my grandparents vehemently explained to me, Republicans are for the rich and Democrats are for the common folks. Q.E.D. It has been no different for four generations. All my grandparents parents were Democrats, though Teddy Roosevelt was popular. Back in Lincoln’s day, Republican and Democratic Parties were critters of a different description entirely.
I agree, Bob, that’s all I’ve seen for the past 70 years. My grandparents immigrated from Denmark in 1923 with my mother, Karen Larsen (Bray) who was 2 and her two older brothers. Adolf drove a milk truck for Hagstrom’s Foods for 30 years saving their money until they could buy the 35-acre small dairy farm of his dreams in northern California. In the 1950’s I learned the names Adlai Stevenson and Estes Kefauver and Ike Eisenhower from my grandmother’s listening to her radio in the kitchen…Secretary of Agriculture, Ezra Taft Benson was “no good for the little farmer,” according to my grandmother, Karen Marie Larsen who listened intently to political news on her radio…she and my grandfather earned their citizenship the hard way, they had to pass a citizenship test! – pb
Matt stated: End most federal non-crisis-related welfare relief
Matt, can you site a source, such as a Bill introduced or a platform plank so stating, that the Republican Party wants to eliminate all forms of ‘non-crisis’ welfare?
I will look forward to your response.
Matt,
Meaning no disrespect here, but your statement quoted in my question above is simply false. I well understand you lack of response.