POLITICS MARCH 17, 2012
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When progressives consider the future, two basic storylines emerge. One can be summed up, roughly, as “Occupy changed everything”: With a new awareness of economic inequality, and a protest movement that managed to get some media attention where others had not, at last some anger has been targeted toward the plutocrats, rather than toward government; a new progressive agenda of redistributive tax policy, public investment rather than budget cutting, financial regulation, and campaign finance reform can finally be built on that anger.
The other story is more narrowly focused on the coming election, and it goes like this: If the economy continues to recover, and the Republicans keep pandering to their base on social issues, President Obama is almost certain to win reelection and Democrats might even retain control of the Senate and gain some ground in the House.
Those two stories aren't incompatible, exactly. Both could be true, and some have even argued that the Occupy movement helped salvage the Obama presidency, encouraging him to talk more about inequality. But it's more likely that over the medium term—into 2013 and 2014—“Occupy changed everything” and “America is back” (the emerging Obama campaign theme) represent somewhat different paths for American politics, one of which will take primacy over the other. And increasingly it seems like it will be the latter: If the economic recovery is solid enough for the president to win reelection, it will be an indication that the white-hot fury over economic stress is passing, and political alignments have returned to the trend first set in the 1990s, in which better off suburban swing voters turn to Democrats; young people, unmarried women, and minorities make up an increasing share of the electorate; and the last remnants of the “culture wars” damage the right. In other words, it would be an atmosphere where the political tensions of recent years are finally on the wane.
When politics is not saturated by crisis, the months after a presidential election generally bring a cooler climate to Washington. We've been in a hot phase since about late 2005, when anger over the Iraq War peaked, and three massive change elections followed, in 2006, 2008, and 2010. Anger has been the prevailing tone of politics since the recession began, and the failure, before the arrival of the Occupy movement, of the President, Democratic politicians, and most progressive organizations to master the politics of anger has been central to the story of the last few years. But anger is a difficult force to sustain. Whether it's left-populist anger, right-populist anger, or the anger of bankers whose bonuses are smaller than expected, it burns bright and eventually burns out.
The early second terms of popular presidents are very often cool and productive periods. After Bill Clinton survived an anger wave in his first term, 1997 was a calm year in which legislation such as the State Children's Health Insurance Program was passed, and it also brought a surprising turn toward greater public trust in government. The same could be said of the two years after Ronald Reagan's reelection, which included enactment of the Tax Reform Act of 1986. George W. Bush, who gave up on his major second-term initiative, Social Security privatization, within a few months, is the notable exception to this rule.
In a second Obama term, the Republicans will still be as fiercely opposed to the president, but they also won't have the distinct target of bringing him down, unless they can find a way to try to bring him down with faux-scandal and impeachment. (It is a little-appreciated accomplishment of this administration that it has managed to give its many enemies so little to work with: The one non-scandal that briefly made waves, Solyndra, quickly faded.) Moreover, there is likely to be some rethinking and internal warfare in the Republican Party after another presidential loss (they would have lost the popular vote in five of six elections), and the executive branch staff will no longer be new on the job or frantically trying to deal with the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.
The best counter-example to such a return to the mean would be FDR’s second campaign, exemplified by the “I welcome their hatred” speech at Madison Square Garden, which fully captured the tone of an angry, still-suffering nation in an ever more direct way than he had in 1932. Roosevelt went on, in his second term, to govern even more ambitiously and aggressively than in the Hundred Days, including waging war on uncooperative members of his own party. This, of course, is the model that many liberals would encourage on Obama.
But even if the economy is flat, the circumstances Obama faces would be very different from Roosevelt's (unemployment averaged 16.6% in 1936), and it would be a tactical mistake to expect the Occupy movement to fill the gap, providing the energy and media focus for a left-populist mode of governing. Using the dubious method of counting “likes” on Facebook, which Micah Sifry of TechPresident.org touted last October as showing the movement doubling in size every eight days, it has essentially been flat, at about 3 million “likes,” since mid-December. Why that happened is a question for another article, but it's enough to say that it is unlikely that either the Occupy movement or the Tea Party will be major factors in the political world of 2013.
The challenge, then, is how to bring the issues raised by Occupy to life in a calmer, cooler political environment. The fact that the incomes of the top 0.01 percent rose by more than one fifth in 2010, while 90 percent of the country lost ground, is a deserving source of outrage. Facts such as these ought to spur some concerted effort to lift the conditions of the country’s non-privileged elite.
The Obama administration missed some opportunities by failing to respond appropriately to the tone of politics in the hot period. But now there's a danger that, over-learning the mistakes of the recent past, we won't quite adapt to the next political era. On balance, there's a lot more potential to make real change in a calmer political environment, especially with a president who is well adapted for it. But we have to remember what people were angry about in the first place.
Mark Schmitt is a senior fellow at the Roosevelt Institute and former editor of The American Prospect.
13 comments
"Why 2012 May Mark the End of an Era of Political Anger" Mark Schmitt From your mouth to god's ear, Mark.
- arnon1
March 17, 2012 at 12:09am
The Tea Party and Occupy movements may end up just being ideas that have some influence on our politics in the future, but no great impact. Neither movement was organized enough for sustainability.
- magboy47.
March 17, 2012 at 1:03am
Interesting that Mark Schmitt doesn't provide any coverage of the planning for Occupy II: the Summer Sequel. It's definitely happening and could either spoil the Obama administration's touting the (still skewed) recovery or spike the ball as Republicans retreat from Scott Walker, the Tea Party desperately caucuses for Romney (ultimately showing itself to be a Republican plant), and a progressive wave culminates in a call-to-arms voter registration drive.
- chaitless
March 17, 2012 at 1:06am
Tea partiers and occupiers are angry about the same thing, they just direct their ire at different targets. That's the comment I've made here maybe a dozen times, and I think it's what underlies Schmitt's essay. Too many progressives waste their time arguing about who has the correct target, the tea partiers' target or the occupiers' target, when instead they should work to bridge the divide between the two; in fact, neither target bears 100% of the blame for our current predicament. Since we (I mean progressives) can only control our own conduct and not that of the other side, I will once again focus on us. For the past 30 years working class income has been eroding, both absolutely and relatively, while the overall tax burden in America has been shifting downward. As to the former, there are many factors, the growth of the global economy being a major one. As to the latter, we have only ourselves to blame. As income tax rates have been cut over this period, payroll taxes (the working class taxes) have gone up, and gone up significantly. Not only have the payroll tax rates gone up, but so have the earnings subject to payroll taxes (the "wage base"), and by a lot. But that's only half the story, for the other half is maybe more significant. The other half? I’d say the better half, women. As wives have joined the workforce, their earnings are subject to payroll taxes; and it's not the same overall amount of taxes spread between husband and wife, but rather twice the taxes (because both incomes are run up the wage base). Americans seem prone to addictions, and in the case of taxes, they are addicted to payroll taxes. Unfortunately, the politics of this addiction work against progressives and in favor of Republicans, because many working Americans are angry that they are working harder and harder, only to experience a cut in take-home pay, a cut in large part as the result of increases in payroll taxes, taxes many of them assume are used to provide public benefits to the growing underclass. There's a good reason why Republicans object to Obama's payroll tax holiday: payroll tax increases, not cuts, work to the political advantage of Republicans. And the increases over the past 30 years have been silent increases, passed 30 years ago (by Democrats and Republicans) and phased in gradually, so Republicans have the political advantage of the increases without having to go on record as supporting them. Which brings us to this week. For those paying attention, the latest Republican condition for a budget deal is to put social security and Medicare on a firm footing. And what does that mean? It means increases in payroll taxes. Good grief, here we go again! How Obama and progressive handle this conflict will determine whether we can bridge the divide between tea partiers and occupiers. I expect Romney and the Republicans will dictate the terms of the debate about taxes this fall, because I also expect Romney to propose tax reform along the lines of Bowles-Simpson (cut the rates, broaden the base). What's left unspoken about such proposals is that they subsume an increase in other taxes to address funding for entitlements, the other taxes being payroll taxes (with income tax rates cut to the low twenties, there is no room for funding entitlements for an aging population). For working Americans, this would be terrible tax policy; and for progressives, this would be terrible politics. I have argued that we should put an end to the fiction that payroll taxes only fund entitlements, and integrate payroll taxes and income taxes, but that's about as likely as snow in Florida in August. Progressives much smarter than I have argued for replacing payroll taxes with carbon taxes. Unless we come up with an alternative, however, the divide between tea partiers and occupiers will grow, and Republicans, not progressives, will benefit as a result.
- rayward
March 17, 2012 at 8:49am
"Why 2012 Marks the End of an Era of Political Anger" has about the same probability as "Why Mitt Romney if elected will become a second teddy Roosevelt" or "Why BHO if re-elected will accomplish Progressive policies". Nothing is impossible, but I'm happy to take the money of those who like like to bet on any of the above occurring.
- drofnats1
March 17, 2012 at 5:31pm
To maintain their ratings, and therefore their cash flow, Fox news will supply an endless supply of anger and sneering. It is to delude oneself not to imagine this will continue to be so no matter what.
- blackton
March 17, 2012 at 8:04pm
And one should not delude oneself that it is limited to Fox News--- or that being nice and compromising with intractable opposition helps the problem. Rather, it is viewed as weakness and makes the problem worse.
- drofnats1
March 17, 2012 at 10:49pm
While political passions might be reduced to smoldering embers from time to time, the accelerants of the internet and cable television will continue to inflame those who think a president can govern with the consent of Congress, that individual Congresspersons can govern without compromising, and higher or lower taxes on the rich are the only thing you need to do to solve everything. Cronkite, Huntley, Brinkley, and the great urban newspapers were the sieve throughout which news passed, and in the stone age of mass media helped build national consensus. News outlets have become like prayerbooks: people usually do not view one written for a religion not their own.
- SFergessen
March 18, 2012 at 10:56am
We should live so long. Have you seen the latest anti-Obama bumper sticker? This culture has deep, deep issues with race, with gender, and with people who aren't "Christian." A nation of immigrants has forgotten where they came from and is full of hate for people who want to immigrate. The corporate, white, rich, male power structure is hanging on for dear life to the degree that they're willing to sexually and emotionally torment women, punish the poor over our perfectly legal rights to reproductive health care - and punish all of us including our struggling environment while they get richer and richer and richer.
- Sophia
March 18, 2012 at 12:25pm
The Tea Party can point to concrete legislative successes while Occupy cannot. The Debt Ceiling debacle made spending cuts a reality, which many Democrats did not like (but they did like the defense budget getting a trim so we don't plunge ourselves into wars that are dubious in their aims). Also, various Tea Party governors did what the Tea Party wanted in gutting spending on "failures,"--public employees, programs that try to lift people out from under our collapsing wages and ever higher costs of living--etc. They have also essentially ground Obama's aims to a halt in tax reform, education reform, greenhouse gas accounting regimes (for their eventual limitation), infrastructure projects, transportation alternatives to the automobile, etc. The Tea Party is winning, too, because taxes on the rich have remained so low, and Obama cannot do a thing about it. Occupy can only point to some Obama speeches where he mentions income inequality, but there is still nothing that has been done to bridge the gynormous gap in incomes. And, quite frankly, Clinton-era rates may do a lot for the budget deficit, but i think income inequality--mostly related to spatial inequalities (place matters most)--won't be solved, perhaps ever.
- RedState
March 18, 2012 at 3:15pm
We can't dismiss Occupy until an even-year election has come and gone. At the same point in the history of the Tea Party we had seen only two major things: the August town halls and the election of Chris Christie and Bob McDonnell. That's basically it. If Occupy is able to put its weight behind the 2012 election in a realist un-1968 way, then it may help effect as much change as the Tea Party did in the lower turnout 2010 midterms. There are a lot of state houses to take back, you know.
- chaitless
March 18, 2012 at 8:44pm
Would be nice, but right now i just want to concentrate on getting Obama re-elected. If re-elected, my greatest fear is that he will take his eye of the the economic ball and become intrigued with fancy schemes to re-make Social Security or Medicare by reducing benefits and certainty. The people need jobs, and the country's infrastructure needs re-buliding; if we put those two together and declare a Decade of Economic Renewal, we will create enough new, good jobs that political passions will then cool down enough to do some other things. But not before. By the way, unemployment was down to about 12% by the time FDR was inaugurated for his second term in 1937-- thus having cut unemployment almost in half from inauguration day, 1933. Using the "average" rate for 1936 leaves the wrong impression of the country's condition at the time of the 1936 election or when FDR's second term began. And don't forget FDR took his eye off the ball in '37-- causing all sorts of misery, both economic and political.
- CABChi
March 19, 2012 at 2:30pm
Occupy with it's waves of anti- Semitism fit Obama to a T. So, that is what Occupy was doing? Campaigning for Obama all of this time? Who financed this "movement?" Inquiri9ng minds want to know before any election commission gets a whiff of it. I for one will vote for anyone running to defeat anti- Semite Obama even if it will make me sick to my stomach. Obama the apprentice sorcerer has played too long with the Middle East leaving it "Occupied" those Obama used to call moderates, The Muslim Brotherhood, Erdogan "the friend and ally of the USA." Don't forget "The reformer" Assad i still in power killing Syrians while Obama cares only about his future.
- Poupic
March 19, 2012 at 5:02pm