The Debacle

‘Let’s stop the giveaways and get jobs going’. –Massachusetts voter Marlene Connolly, a lifelong Democrat quoted in the New York Times after voting for a Republican to replace the late Teddy Kennedy

The tragedy of the loss of Kennedy’s Massachusetts Senate seat to the teabaggers is not the loss itself but the irony of allowing the populist revolt against corporate abuse to be snatched away by the party of big business.

A mere year after Barack Obama inspired us with his promise to do things differently and his manifest personal differentness, his instincts have turned out to be technocratic and naïve. The soaring post-racial rhetoric about all of us being in this together, etc., etc., which sounded nice enough on the campaign, suggested a refusal to contemplate the huge vested interests arrayed against any attempt at reorganizing society for the people’s benefit. Now we see the results.

The legacy of Reaganism—stacking the decks in favor of the rich while convincing the poor that you’re on their side—lives on, and the White House has played into the hands of its practitioners by relying on guys like Emanuel, Geithner and Sommers who look seedy, shady and ready to cut secret deals with the powerful. And then do.

But behind the dubious doings of these operators, behind the giveaway to AIG, the faux outrage over banker greed, the continuity of Bush-ite war policies in Afghanistan and Guantánamo, is the profound lack of vision emanating from the boss.

We worked and voted for someone who would dare to start from different premises, and had these actions failed, we would lament it. But it is far more exasperating to lose while giving in.

This is Clintonism redux, to move inexorably toward some vague center and strip yourself and your party from standing for anything identifiable except yourself. To cling to no real core principles and to horse-trade everything in the hope of emerging with a deal even while the opposition attacks like wolverines. To look cerebral, a bit supercilious, amused at the viciousness of it all, and in the end, lame.

Our society is descending into a nasty pit, and the reactionary forces do not believe in cooperation, compromise or cohabitation. They are a war movement and enjoy crushing the enemy and shouting down the weak. They will kick the chessboard over before admitting they have lost a match, and they could give two shits about democracy itself.

These people are dangerous, and to pretend that they’re not just won’t do. If the Obama administration and the top guy himself aren’t willing to accept the polarization that has been thrust upon them, they will continue to preside over defeat and pave the way for who knows what horrible next chapter.