Thursday, April 14, 2016

History confirms you get big change when you aim high, not when you settle for incrementalism


Big ideas vs a small pragmatic approach


TIme and again we hear people say I like Bernie, but I don’t think he can get his ideas through congress. That idea didn’t accidentally end up in people’s thinking, it was put there by the Clinton campaign and the mainstream media. On the surface it sounds like a reasonable position. But is the small pragmatic approach of Clinton really the best way forward with an obstructionist congress?


In its current make up neither candidate is going to get their agenda through this congress. I think we know this from what we have seen with the Obama agenda. But Obama’s approach has been a slow pragmatic one and about the only things getting done after the first two years when he had a democratic majority in both houses of congress have been done almost exclusively with temporary executive orders. A tool that will be available to both Clinton and Sanders if they need to push through obstruction. But who will fight harder when they bring it back to the people and push again later? On record its clear that Sanders has been the one with the tenacity to fight for whats right even when its not popular and be ahead of public opinion.


So back to the incremental pragmatic approach, The question begs that if slow incremental is getting nothing through this congress how will bold ideas get through? This answer is actually that the bold approach will get more done and for two big reasons. 1) The excitement generated by real change will drive the kind of voter turnout that will flip the congress into a more progressive one. 2) A bold popular leader can go back to the American people, better define the reasons for the problems they face and get them to stand up to their elected officials holding them accountable for their votes or promising to vote them out next election cycle. 

Congress presently is corrupted and broken. Big ideas or small ideas will both be blocked by this corporatist congress who represent their donors not their constituents. By the same token either will get their ideas passed by a progressive populist congress.. If that’s the case if either can get their ideas through a more progressive congress, then wouldn’t it be better to aim higher and get things that really make a difference? FDR had huge ideas that nobody thought he could ever get done coming out of the great depression… but first he flipped the congress and then he reshaped our country for the better for generations with his huge ideas of regulating banking, taking care of the American workers, creating social safety nets, access to healthcare and free education, building the nation’s infrastructure, etc… ideas that created a strong vibrant middle class, a much higher quality of life and economic stability.


So that brings us to Bernie vs Hillary.


Bernie has the big bold ideas and Hillary has the small what she calls pragmatic ideas. Now we need to ask, which one of them can flip the congress. As was touched on briefly earlier, the one who can energize and expand the base... bring in more people, more voices. The democrats win when there is a large voter turnout and they lose when there is a small voter turnout.


Who can drive the biggest base of voters?


Bernie has been bringing out new voters, voters that have previously disengaged from voting, independent voters and even some disgruntled republican voters. When you add those to the dependable establishment democratic voters that's when you win. By contrast exit polling confirms everytime that Hillary is only getting the establishment votes and all new voters are lined up behind and deeply enthusiastic about Bernie and his vision. Even the establishment democrats who lined up early benind her because of familiarity or the idea that she is more likely to win have been more and more taking a closer look at Bernie and liking what they see. Its a safe bet the establishment voters will show up to vote against the GOP with either of them, but the young and independent voters who dont have a great record of showing up have been clear they wont show up for her. So if the establishment only is for her, that will result in a small turnout, which puts both the white house and down ballot congressional and state races at risk of going republican. Bernie alone seems to be the one who can drive the excitement of the young and independent voters to show up and combine with the establishment democrats for a larger voter base that gives the Democrats the big turnout they need to win more down ballot races and flip both houses of congress and races on the state level. RIght now polling shows

This assertion bears out as it shows Bernie beating Trump by as much as 20%. Statisticians will tell you that if he wins by that much, his coat tails will be long enough to indeed flip both houses of congress to the progressive one he can work with… if not in the first two years, likely within an election cycle or two if he keeps the revolution alive. We saw this play out with Obama flipping a bunch of down ballot seats when he drove the big turnout, but then losing them when he failed to bring his base back out in mid term elections… he also had shorter coat tails as his wins were 7% over McCain and 4% over Romney, nowhere near the double digit leads Sanders shows over both Trump and Cruz. Hillary by contrast shows much smaller margins against Trump and loses to Cruz and Kasich in some polling. That difference is explained entirely by the expansion of the electorate under Sanders and the shrinking demographics under Clinton.


Keeping the electorate engaged


It’s the populist candidates who not only expand but also engage the electorate. Again we saw this with Obama. In 08, he kinda ran a combination populist/ mainstream corporatist strategy. He got people engaged and took huge money from corporate interests and overwhelmed everyone with money and charisma. But how this played out when he got in is he was accountable to both. He had promised to bring change on a number of issues, but he was accountable to both the people and the corporate masters and needed to find a balance between the two. What this meant is that he would push for change, but not big bold change, only small incremental change that would give the people something of what they wanted, but not so much that it upset the corporate masters who had spent the previous 30 years buying our government and rigging the system. On issue after issue it seemed the people got something, but not enough to make a big difference in their lives. And this was with a democratic majority in both houses of congress.


Even on his biggest boldest accomplishment (Obamacare), we got a recycled republican plan with a few tweeks. We didn’t get universal healthcare wanted by most progressives, we didn’t even get the compromise of the public option.The health insurance industry was kept in charge of our healthcare and with their hands in the till. Even the drug companies got a sweetheart deal of disallowing negotiation on drug prices. All of the real bold change we voted for wasn’t blocked by the republicans yet, it was taken off the table and watered down by the corporatists democrats who were protecting their big money donors. Obama, Pelosi and Reid took the bold ideas off the table before negotiations even began. Then after two years of getting little done on big issues and Obamacare the closest thing they got to bold change not implemented yet the Obama coalition unplugged and the republicans took the House and state houses all over the country.


So pragmatism in effect got less done and the young voters, independent voters and progressive voters who had been won with big vision unplugged and handed control off from the corporately owned democrats to the corporately owned republicans. The biggest difference between them was social issues, but in the areas of a rigged economy, deregulation of both the economy and environmental protection and taxation inequality they were on the same page. They called it pragmatism or incremental change, but what we really had was two parties owned by the same interests on those issues who didn’t try for more, because they both wanted the same things.


So with young, independent and progressive voters who had so much hope of change now disengaged we saw the destructive forces of the other side rear its ugly head on social issues. Woman’s issues, gay issues, criminal and social justice issues were under attack. Voting rights were threatened and unions/ worker rights came under attack. And this didn’t happen because Obama over reached, it happened because he aimed low and lost his coalition, his revolution if you will.


FDR got it right


FDR came in right after the great depression. Congress was corrupt and obstructionist. Corporations had become too powerful and had crushed both entrepreneurialism and workers rights/ income. The country reeled as the rich got richer and nobody else had any money to spend. Sound familiar?


FDR didn’t come in pushing for incremental change. He pushed for bold action.He led the United states during a time of worldwide economic depression and war. His program for relief, recovery and reform known as the New Deal, involved great expansion of the role of the federal government in economy. He pushed for and got Massive regulation on banking and wall street (Glass Steagall, Securities Act of 1933 and FDIC). He pushed for social safety nets that would uplift and support the poor, unemployed, sick and elderly. He emboldened the socialist labor union movement and together and got a minimum wage as well as 40 hour work week. During a time of massive unemployment and underemployment he created jobs building the nation’s infrastructure that held for generations as the envy of the world. He created programs to aid family farmers and migrant workers. He provided free education up to high school to sustain the economy with an educated workforce. Together not only did his policies lift us out of the great depression, but also created policies that kept our economy safe for generations and built a big vibrant middle class and a protected working class.


Bernie Sanders plan borrows directly from the FDR playbook


Let me repeat that, Bernie Sanders big bold change borrows directly from the FDR playbook… It create jobs with infrastructure repair. Expands education from free public schooling through high school to through public college to keep up with the newer high tech economies. He is supporting labor unions and pushing for a living wage with a $15 minimum wage which would naturally drive wage increases many rungs up the ladder. He wants to bring back Glass Steagall and other wall street and banking regulations to unrig the economy. Ask the wealthy and corporations who have stopped paying their fair share of taxes to start paying them again by closing down tax loopholes, tax havens and subsidies the wealthy have used to hide income from taxation. He has plans to not only protect social security and other social safety nets, but to expand them in times of need. He wants to guarantee health care to all Americans the way most of the industrialized world has already done for their citizens and in so doing bring down the cost of healthcare and its drag not only on the family budgets but on the economy as a whole.


History supports big bold change


His plans are bold but also realistic. Everyone told FDR he was over reaching and would never get his plans implemented. But as he did, the people rallied behind him and his revolution saw him re elected 4 times while sweeping in a progressive congress and judiciary behind him. It changed our country for the better for generations. Throughout history we see virtually all real change coming from people with a big vision who aim high.


So on the question of small pragmatic incremental change vs big bold vision I think history has been clear with FDR, Martin Luther King, the Labor Union movement, JFK and LBJ that when you push for big change that’s when you get it. When you aim low, you open the door for the other side to take it all away.

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2 comments:

  1. Guy with the wig for 2016! Or 2017! Whenever the thingie is!

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  2. If you aim for the moon at the very least you will end up amongst the stars. If you do not take aim you will surely fail, and as you seek to justify your failure you may even cause yourself physical illness. http://www.mordocrosswords.com/2016/07/something-to-aim-for.html

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