The New Republic

"The big problem seems to be that opposition to government spending, at least as a general proposition, doesn’t really have much to do with the deficit. Rather, it reflects an overall lack of trust in government, one that’s lingered in the public consciousness ever since the 1960s and early 1970s, when issues like Vietnam, race, and Watergate made the public increasingly wary of what Washington was doing. " How true, but these attacks on the federal government was an attack in specific government policies by true liberals. Unfortunately, some leftist under the guise of "liberalism" used this as an excuse to attack government in general. This anarchist view was taken up by conservatives who used it to attack government in general. (The deliberate confusion reminds me of the deliberate confusion by enemies of Israel who deliberately confuse criticism of specific policies with criticism of the very existence of the State). Ronald Reagan popularized the rejection of government by claiming that government "was the problem." The supposedly liberal media and entertainment history picked up this theme and ran with it. They made tens of thousands of movies and shows where the enemy always turns out to be a government employee, usually an evil government worker. These are antecedents that give legitimacy to the Tea Party. Purposely confusing specific with genral criticism is their favorite tactic. Hence what began as legitimate liberal criticism of specific government policies ended up as ultra conservative rejection of government altogether. Obama isn’t right that liberals need to pay attention to the deficit because the deficit will eat up liberal programs. In a time of high unemployment and recession the priority should be getting the economy in shape. Obama seems to be forgetting that the reason he was investing in social programs is because he thought that such investment would help the economy. He didn’t invest enough and now that his strategy didn’t work and conservatives are blaming “liberal programs” for the continued unemployment/recession we are told that we need to reduce the deficit in order to continue “investing in the economy.” This isn’t going to counter the conservative belief in “smaller government” and most intelligent liberals will reject it also but for different reasons. What liberals need to do, it seems to me, is keep pointing out that the recession was caused by Republican policies and not by “big government.” Finally, liberalism doesn’t need to justify itself it need to play the game of politics more smartly and to pay attention on all levels to those who would confuse specific criticism with general criticism that delegitimizes the object they are criticizing.

- arnon

July 16, 2011 at 12:51am

"What liberals need to do, it seems to me, is keep pointing out that the recession was caused by Republican policies and not by “big government.” " I agree arnon. It would help tremendously if the nation's supposedly leading liberal, President Obama, had been hammering home this point since being elected. More generally, I'm not sure I follow Obama's argument. Gut many progressive programs now so that we can fund many progressive programs later? How would that work? What makes him think that the Republicans would stop hyping the supposedly deficit-inducing nature of such programs? Or that, at best, he'll claw back only part of what he sacrificed to begin with?

- Thunderroad

July 16, 2011 at 4:50am

The answer to the question in the title of this piece: No. Republicans will scream throw a fit about debts and deficits whenever a Democrat is in the White House regardless of any actual facts. Because that's what they do. And the media will dutifully give the GOP's totally predictable tantrum top billing 24/7. Because that's what *they* do.

- santoast

July 16, 2011 at 7:43am

The "crisis" of the day doesn't happen spontaneously; it's manufactured by opinion leaders, mostly opinion leaders in DC, then reinforced daily in the media. So it is with the deficit. [As Chait has reminded his readers many times, doing nothing solves the deficit "crisis".] Cohn and others are suggesting that Obama's strategy is to "solve" the deficit crisis in the public's mind so we can finally move on to real rather than manufactured crises. What some commenters are suggesting is that the right wing noise machine won't allow that to happen, and will continue with the same hysteria about the deficit "crisis". Maybe. It's true that the right has a much more disciplined, and therefore much more effective, propaganda apparatus, Fox News and talk radio, of course, but also politicians on the right who are better at following one script (message). And it's true that Obama, and the Democratws generally, have not been very good at framing (my word for the less appealing term messaging). But just the same, unless and until the deficit "crisis" is "solved", we will not move on. [What's frustrating about Obama's epiphany to "solve" the deficit crisis is that he could have done it last year by letting the Bush tax cuts lapse. Indeed, I and other commenters repeatedly advocated that strategy by a combination of "Obama tax cuts" (as opposed to Bush tax cuts) for the middle class (I favored a one to two year holiday for the entire payroll tax because that's the tax, not the income tax, that the middle class mostly pays) and lapse of the Bush tax cuts, the latter showing Obama's commitment to fix the deficit. Instead, Obama pursued a strategy that did little for the middle class, while doing much for the wealthy, all the while leaving the deficit "crisis" for the Republicans to exploit for maximum political advantage. Are Obama and his advisors dumb? No, I don't think so, it's just that they been unable to focus both on the very real crises they have faced and on the politics that are essential for a successful presidency (or in LBJ's terms, they can't fart and chew gum at the same time).]

- rayward

July 16, 2011 at 8:25am

Obama has dug the grave of liberalism still deeper. Americans elected him - the first black man - to be president. And they hoped for progressive change. They got little of it and they continue to suffer GOP power. So the rich get richer... And millions live in anxious circumstances - or worse. How can we liberals and progressives win when our leader gives away the argument before the debate begins?

- hkaye

July 16, 2011 at 8:32am

- He said, "It would be very helpful for us to be able to say to the American people, our fiscal house is in order." He means, "I'll prove to voters the opposition isn't interested in debt or deficit and we can move on to issues that matter." Lindsey Graham admitted it: "Our problem is we made a big deal about this for three months," [] "We shouldn't have said that if we didn't mean it... We've got nobody to blame but ourselves,".

- michaelg

July 16, 2011 at 9:09am

The only thing that will revive liberalism is for Republican actions to become so egregious that the GOP suffers a catastrophic defeat at the polls, giving the country both a Democratic president and huge majorities in Congress. Until that happens, we'll have unending political warfare in Congress and the nation will continue sliding toward the abyss.

- DAVIDDREIER@EARTHLINK.NET-old

July 16, 2011 at 9:20am

Of the people listed above, Joan Walsh wrote what I find to be the most perceptive comment. Note that what DaveyD said is what happened in 2008. That is to say, Republican stewardship of the economy became so egregious that the GOP suffered a catastrophic defeat at the polls. In my opinion, that factor and McCain's cynically sadistic selection of Sarah Palin played a starring role in electing Barack Obama. In retrospect, it's pretty clear that if the Democrats eliminated the filibuster (as an emergency measure to deal with the crappy economy in January 2009), there were 51 Senators to approve most things that came out of Nancy Pelosi's House. If the people didn't like strong financial reform, a public option health care bill (or Medicare for all), or cap-and-trade, they would have the 2010 elections to elect new Congressmen. Congress would have operated much like Parliament, where you elect a government that is fitted with the ability to govern and if you don't like it, you can change government at the next election. What we got, in sober reality, was one of the worst possible outcomes, considering there were overwhelming House majorities and 59 Democratic Senators (with 51 of them generally always available to vote for liberal/progressive priorities). Because to Joe Low Info Voter, it looked as if the Democrats were strong-arming Congress and not getting much done besides. The opposition and thus the media began to decry big spending and big government no matter what was going on in Washington, and so began the summer of discontent. (It's my opinion that we could very much stand to profit if we got Joe Low Info Non-Voter to actually turn up on Election Day. Non-voters tend to line up more with Democratic priorities. That's for another article, though.) If you look back on the Lame Duckery of winter 2008, you can start to make out why Mitch McConnell said what he said. McConnell, if he is anything, is a cold-bloodedly canny politician. The Republicans in general play for keeps. If the world were reversed and they came to power in 2009 like the Democrats did, they would have suspended the filibuster and started to enact a whole host of Republican priorities. The fact that elite Republican priorities are well to the right of the wishes of self-identified Republicans doesn't matter. [This is not true for the Democratic Party, and it's one of the ways in which (a) the parties are not mirror images of each other and (b) the Republican Party, which represents way less than 50% of the citizens' priorities, cannot be regarded as a democratic party.] There was raw political opportunity on offer and they would have taken it. McConnell saw that, even if the Democrats bungled this (which, in his view, they certainly did), the victories that could be achieved between 2009 and 2011 could have constituted a death knell for the Republican Party that he knew and loved. And so today we have "a stimulus that failed", which is a statement ever on the lips of the Republican contenders even though Republican economists admit that it is an utter lie. When the historians look back and analyse the 111th Congress, they will grudgingly admit that over the short-term, the Republicans won it because they played almost a perfect defensive hand and took advantage of the Democrats' magnanimity (i.e., foolishness). This is why we at TNR look at the political world as it is--especially given the last two weeks of debt ceiling hostage-taking--and wonder how people can continue to elect Republicans. There are very many alternate universes where the Republicans rightfully continue to get taken to the cleaners for their economic malpractice and deceit. We just happen not to live in one, and to the extent that top Democrats chose this destiny over the last three years, it's our side's fault.

- chaitless

July 16, 2011 at 10:00am

Of the people listed above, Joan Walsh wrote what I find to be the most perceptive comment. Note that what DaveyD said is what happened in 2008. That is to say, Republican stewardship of the economy became so egregious that the GOP suffered a catastrophic defeat at the polls. In my opinion, that factor and McCain's cynically sadistic selection of Sarah Palin played a starring role in electing Barack Obama. In retrospect, it's pretty clear that if the Democrats eliminated the filibuster (as an emergency measure to deal with the crappy economy in January 2009), there were 51 Senators to approve most things that came out of Nancy Pelosi's House. If the people didn't like strong financial reform, a public option health care bill (or Medicare for all), or cap-and-trade, they would have the 2010 elections to elect new Congressmen. Congress would have operated much like Parliament, where you elect a government that is fitted with the ability to govern and if you don't like it, you can change government at the next election. What we got, in sober reality, was one of the worst possible outcomes, considering there were overwhelming House majorities and 59 Democratic Senators (with 51 of them generally always available to vote for liberal/progressive priorities). Because to Joe Low Info Voter, it looked as if the Democrats were strong-arming Congress and not getting much done besides. The opposition and thus the media began to decry big spending and big government no matter what was going on in Washington, and so began the summer of discontent. (It's my opinion that we could very much stand to profit if we got Joe Low Info Non-Voter to actually turn up on Election Day. Non-voters tend to line up more with Democratic priorities. That's for another article, though.) If you look back on the Lame Duckery of winter 2008, you can start to make out why Mitch McConnell said what he said. McConnell, if he is anything, is a cold-bloodedly canny politician. The Republicans in general play for keeps. If the world were reversed and they came to power in 2009 like the Democrats did, they would have suspended the filibuster and started to enact a whole host of Republican priorities. The fact that elite Republican priorities are well to the right of the wishes of self-identified Republicans doesn't matter. [This is not true for the Democratic Party, and it's one of the ways in which (a) the parties are not mirror images of each other and (b) the Republican Party, which represents way less than 50% of the citizens' priorities, cannot be regarded as a democratic party.] There was raw political opportunity on offer and they would have taken it. McConnell saw that, even if the Democrats bungled this (which, in his view, they certainly did), the victories that could be achieved between 2009 and 2011 could have constituted a death knell for the Republican Party that he knew and loved. And so today we have "a stimulus that failed", which is a statement ever on the lips of the Republican contenders even though Republican economists admit that it is an utter lie. When the historians look back and analyse the 111th Congress, they will grudgingly admit that over the short-term, the Republicans won it because they played almost a perfect defensive hand and took advantage of the Democrats' magnanimity (i.e., foolishness). This is why we at TNR look at the political world as it is--especially given the last two weeks of debt ceiling hostage-taking--and wonder how people can continue to elect Republicans. There are very many alternate universes where the Republicans rightfully continue to get taken to the cleaners for their economic malpractice and deceit. We just happen not to live in one, and to the extent that top Democrats chose this destiny over the last three years, it's our side's fault.

- chaitless

July 16, 2011 at 10:00am

The 2008 GOP defeat was decisive but not catastrophic. The Republicans still had enough seats in the Senate to thwart most of Obama's agenda, and the Democratic ranks contained a fair number of conservative Senators (Blanche Lincoln, Ben Nelson) and Blue Dog members of the House, all of whom behaved more like Republicans than Democrats. What's required for a resurgence of liberalism is for the Democrats to score such a huge victory that the conservative Dems in both the Senate and House can be ignored. The kind of majority that's required in the Senate would allow for half a dozen Democrats to vote with the Republicans and for the progressive Dems to still have a filibuster-proof majority. In the House, the worthless Blue Dogs (hopefully reduced in numbers along with the Republicans) would be overwhelmed by their progressive colleagues.

- DAVIDDREIER@EARTHLINK.NET-old

July 16, 2011 at 10:16am

Apologies for the double post. (Re: DaveyD, that's why it was necessary to get rid of the filibuster on day one of the 111th Congress. A filibuster-proof majority is not necessary if Republicans can't halt Obama's agenda because of an anti-democratic procedural trick that keeps the Senate from voting on the actual bill. The vote on the actual bill should be what counts, and only a simple majority is needed to pass most bills.) Apologies also for this extra post that is more germane to Cohn's essay. I don't buy Obama's argument. This is for three reasons: (a) the economy is a mess right now, with gobs of unemployed people that the halls of Washington have chosen to ignore for at least the last year. Emergency unemployment spending, most non-discretionary spending, SS, and Medicare/-caid actually keep this barely-not-a-recession from spiralling out of control into a depression. (If they weren't in effect in 2008-9, a depression was very likely, as opposed to 1/3 likely). These categories comprise most of the federal budget. Most of the rest is defense (which Republicans are even less likely to try to cut) and interest payments. If we make significant cuts right now, as Obama seems not to absolutely refute, then we will slip into another recession on the spot and he might as well start polishing his memoirs or third bestseller. (b) the deficit and debt are a hot mess. Even before the financial crisis, we were regularly running $400+ billion deficits. You know what's also about $400 billion, right? The Bush tax cuts. Remove them and we could have been not adding much of that debt to our books. Unless Obama is sticking to Chait's master script of letting all the Bush tax cuts expire on his watch, we will be completely incapable of slaying the deficit monster. If the deficit still exists, then by his reasoning, we won't be able to deal with the public investments that he theoretically favours. More to the point, let us travel to the magic world where the Bush tax cuts have disappeared and we are actually in an economic expansion. For the sake of argument, let's say that this was magically in effect, starting this morning. You still have a federal debt of $14.3 trillion. No matter how subtly you argue, once you propose spending with our debt at that point (even if we're paying it off!) you will face trenchant Republican opposition, as well as deep scepticism from average voters, even those who aren't predisposed to distrust government spending. "We're already 14 trillion in the hole and you want to spend money actually ensuring that every citizen gets the same basic level of health care and education?! Are you crazy? We have to pay off our debt!" The magic of smother/starve the beast (in its own manure of debt) is that manure takes a long time to compost. It also stinks, keeping the beast smelling of the debt that it's trying to wash off. The Republicans have won a significant double victory: (1) rich people got the tax windfall, don't have to pay it back, and likely won't be taxed any more than they used to be anyway; and (2) much of the debt we have to pay back was originally Keynesian in nature (as it is deficit spending) but met no pressing priority that a sane economist would prescribe Keynesian stimulus for (giving back money to rich people, going to war in Iraq, and subsidizing drug companies are not on most Americans' lists of pressing public investments). If you put (1) and (2) together, you'll notice that, without filibuster-proofed Democratic majorities, Washington wants regular, non-rich people--the kind that haven't seen real wage increases in many, many years--to pay down debts that they wouldn't have approved if given the choice and that, in the aggregate, did not benefit them. (Reversing the Bush tax cuts doesn't eliminate the deficit, it only stops the budgetary bleeding. You pay the debt back by taxing higher than the Bush tax cuts, and even for the richest Americans, this is just not on the table.) (c) the Tea Party has asserted itself and in the current media environment (Fox News, talk radio, Internet social networking) the extremist wing of the Republican Party, who are completely uninterested in appeasement, won't take whatever Obama does lying down. If you commit yourself to stop spending, they will attempt to see you through to that and this in itself will change the debate to "my cuts are bigger than your cuts". What the Republican leadership has joined together no one man can put asunder. By far, our likeliest salvation from the right's madness is going to come from someone like Romney or Huntsman calling them out and saying "it ends here". Unfortunately for us, Romney and Huntsman are flawed vessels. It has to be someone with the claims to speak for the Republican Party that Gingrich used to have ("right-wing social engineering", anyone?) but who currently has gravitas on the right. Unless that ends, Obama is going to have to hope the 2012 election produces the 2009 Congress if he believes we can make judicious cuts and then turn around and spend to make investments with our debt as high as it is.

- chaitless

July 16, 2011 at 11:11am

As for the question posed in this article, I find it a little much that it suggests the way to revived Liberalism is the partial sacrifice of 70 years worth of popular liberal programs which are proven winners both as policy and in terms of public opinion. Now:saying this is close to a tautology, but if the Democrats are going to have any sort of sustained success (which, for practical purposes is the same as a sustained success for Liberalism), they're going to have to figure out how to build a coalition that returns majorities with reasonable frequency without overly compromising Liberal ideals. A majority is necessary because the GOP can be relied on for total opposition when out of power. I suspect that the road to such majorities lies in communicating with regular voters over pocket-book issues that they care about, while being perceived as standing up for the common man's rights--which the party is no longer perceived as doing, partly thanks to right-wing propaganda, but also thanks to, say, coddling the banks. I.e. the road forward is probably through fighting on behalf of Medicare, rather than reducing benefits through changing the age of elegebility.

- Curran1

July 16, 2011 at 12:32pm

When Bush-II came in, our fiscal house WAS in order. We were running surpluses, we had a mere no-fly zone in Iraq, we were not running active wars anywhere in the world. It wasn't liberals and progressives who changed that situation. This is yet more of the "starve the beast" strategy of the Republicans, and it's amazing that Obama of all people is falling for it. Sure, Progressives should be for balancing the budget, that's why liberals and progressives passed a tax increase in 1992 which ultimately DID balance the budget, and why the Gore Vice Presidency was all about "stream-lining Government". It's Bush-II, and the rubber-stamp Republican Congress, that undid all that in a mere decade. This is not "intrinsic" to the system, and the "intrinsic" fixes tried before were simply ignored when the Republicans regained power. The good news -- if they undid it in a mere decade, then it can be fixed in a similar time. But NOT with Republican tax-cutting.

- AllanL5

July 16, 2011 at 12:38pm

Glad y'all are comin' round. I posted over two years ago that job 1 for BHO and the Dems was eloimniate the filibuster. Could have been done more easily then than now. Then BHO and the Dems could have passed an adequate stimulus bill, real health care reform, elimated Bush tax cuts-- and would have a stongly recovering economy and even firmer control of the House and Senate. But all that takes strong Presidential leadership and commitments to Progressive policies. BHO has neither. That is by now obvious to all but the most blind Obamaphiles (the Dem center-right equivalents of the Repubs far-right Reaganphiles). The only hope??- Pray for a failure in the debt limit negotiation and an economic crisis now-- rather than 6-12 months from now. Now there is time in an economic crisus for voter to "throw all the bums out", including BHO.

- drofnats1

July 16, 2011 at 4:43pm

Re: drofnats The Democrats have to renominate Obama. At this point, Obama is doing better than Carter and Bush I did, and with a worse economy. To subject him to a semi-serious primary challenge just so that you end up with Obama again is embarrassing and counter-productive. Just as a matter of course, who is the last person who lost such a challenge? It took me a while to check Wikipedia: it was Chester Arthur in 1884. James Blaine, who defeated him, went on to lose the election to Grover Cleveland. So much for changing horses midstream, especially when Obama is the most popular federal politician in the country and enjoys 70%+ favorability with the Democratic base. Just as it is easier to get a Republican to pass through the eye of a needle than to vote to raise taxes on rich people, it is easier and more convenient to get Obama to change his strategy than to nominate a completely different person while keeping the Democratic Party intact. (Think through the optics and pocketbook politics of what deposing the first black president while he is still in office would look like. It would be the ugliest political spectacle this side of 1968.)

- chaitless

July 16, 2011 at 5:07pm

A primary challenge on Obama wouldn't do a bit of good. Even if we got Russ Feingold (for example) both nominated and elected to the White House, such a president would still have to put up with a party that has repeatedly chosen to ignore the institutional tools at its disposal within Congress - all while the GOP, on the other hand, as spared no expense at exercising its own tools. If the Democratic Party wanted to pass a progressive agenda, there would be no more filibuster, and we would have seen that agenda pass already.

- whyamihere

July 16, 2011 at 5:24pm

*all while the GOP, on the other hand, has spared...

- whyamihere

July 16, 2011 at 5:25pm

Something is really amiss today with the TNR web site. I just tried to post a comment on Pawlenty and could not. TNR should hire him for his "nitpicky attention to detail" as their web site manager. As far as the election, we are doomed.

- skahn

July 16, 2011 at 10:29pm

A good article on the economy in the NY Times: "We’re Spent" By DAVID LEONHARDT http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/17/sunday-review/17economic.html?_r=1

- arnon

July 17, 2011 at 12:08am

The problem with the Tea Party isn't that it's "all white," The problem is that they are indulging in fantasy and projecting their own economic fears others. To blame Washington for their own problems is like a patient blaming the doctor for the disease they acquired elsewhere.

- arnon

July 17, 2011 at 12:11am

A primary challenge would force Obama to engage the debate on the future of social welfare programs and Keynesian economics. In this respect it would be valuable even if it were unsuccessful. If liberals give Obama a total pass, what incentive does he or the next Democratic candidate have to ever come to the mountain? Tell me this, do you think Grover Norquist and the Club for Growth have ever troubled themselves over the fact that when they work against Republican incumbents who show the slightest interest in raising taxes, they increase the likelihood that Democrats will get elected? Of course not. For them ideology trumps party affiliation. But the long term upshot of such discipline is that their extreme ideology has become the de facto ideology of the Relublican Party. Meanwhile, "pragmatic" Democrats dispense with ideology altogether, and one begins to think that the only thing that matters to them is winning elections. What for?

- AaronW

July 17, 2011 at 1:18am

- One year ago (July '10) Obama's approval with Democrats was 81%, in January of this year it was 83% and most recently he's been at 80%. He also brought in a record $80 million for his campaign and the DNC (over half-a-million donors). A primary challenge only requires a person with plausible national approval numbers, money and an organization. That's the GOP's problem and it doesn't look like it's providing them a path for fielding a formidable pair. Let's not distract them...

- michaelg

July 17, 2011 at 9:46am

In response to another comment of mine in a similar vein to the one above, MOLLY SIMON wrote, "Today, Aaron, you are making me laugh. It's awfully sweet that you've reached the age you are and feel this way. It's especially surprising because you're usually such a pragmatist." I do consider myself a pragmatist. But choices that appear pragmatic in one light often turn out to be nothing of the sort. A lot depends on how long a view one takes. If we look no further than the next election then form of progressive political action that in any way undermines Obama's reelection chances is anti-pragmatic. I have not a shred of doubt that the next president will be either Barrack Obama or whoever the Republican nominee turns out to be, and of those the two choices I'd prefer Obama hands down. But taking a longer view I recognize that if the right wing maintains its discipline in withholding votes from the ideologically impure while the left freely if unenthusiastically gives its votes to any candidate who stands even one step closer to the center than his right wing opponent we will be doomed to suffer under a government made up of right wing zealots and their slightly less rabid opponents who on close inspection share many of the zealots' right wing views. It's kind of like bidding on the showcase showdown on The Price is Right. Suppose that I'm the last bidder. I think the showcase is worth about $5000, but somewhat surprisingly the highest bid so far is $700. So what should my bid be? $5000? No, of course not. My bid should be $701. In this analogy the Republican wingers are like the low bidders; they have wildly misjudged the values of a majority of Americans and have resolutely staked out a position far out on one arm of the bell curve. Democratic candidates are like the final bidder in the showdown; they may know that the "correct" answer is far out on the OTHER end of the bell curve, but being concerned chiefly with winning elections they stake out position just this side of the winger's and thereby subsume the bulk of the bell curve. Of course--and this is where we drop the Price is Right analogy--such a Democratic vote-capturing strategy can only work if candidates can count on always capturing the liberal base no mater how far into Republican right wing policy territory they push. I merely propose that we liberals withdraw that assurance. Somewhat might say, "Yes, but now is not the time." But if not now, when? When will we ever NOT be facing an unappetizing choice between a fiscally conservative Democrat and an even scarier Republican? There is never a good time for an alcoholic to give up the booze. If you're a drunk and your time horizon is limited to a single say, then the "pragmatic" decision is always to pour yourself an eye-opener. The DTs are no fun, and they make it hard to get anything done. But if you take the long view, getting sober is clearly the pragmatic solution. I'm saying liberal Democrats need to sober up and start making their votes mean something, and as painful as it might be there will never be a better time than now.

- AaronW

July 17, 2011 at 9:53am

Hmm. I should say, the Republican Party used to be known for two things. It had a fanatic drive to win the presidency, as winning the Congress was hopeless for decades. Literally. Like they held the House for 6 years between 1930 and 1994, and they had no power at all in the Congress between 1954 and 1980. This is one of the reasons that Reagan is regarded as a saint. It commanded fierce, top-down party loyalty. You voted for the Republican no matter what happened and no matter who the nominee was. This is why no one speaks of John Anderson. (As I write this, I begin to realize that the Republicans honed these two qualities from being in the political desert for decades.) The Republicans entered into the land of milk and honey some time ago. They let themselves go, got fat and drunk with power, went on the bender to end all benders (and possibly bankrupt the US), and were forced to see the light by the Democrats. Sure, Republicans may act out their persecution complexes. Sure, there are some who still live by the siege mentality, as if they weren't the lords of the land just four years ago. You know as well as anyone that ultimately, what those people are building is a house on a foundation of sand. The Republican Party actually set its policy cause back by encouraging the Tea Party and co-opting those extremists. Whether they make it out alive is anyone's guess. A really canny politician would be able to cleave the Republicans in two and laugh heartlessly as he watched the torso and head squirm independently of each other. That's the kind of work that we could get if the left had a Karl Rove. Democrats, bless them, believe in actually building things together. So Obama, as he watches the Republicans come apart, offers to bring along those who want out of their mess. That's how he won in 2008 and it's how he'll win in 2012. Inevitably, that means moderating on his message and trying to placate the whole enchilada. If we get the same Congress in 2012 that we got in 2008, though, I think he learnt enough from 2009 to know that sometimes if you lead people where they don't want to go, they'll like you for doing it. (At least, that's what Nancy Pelosi will tell him as she whips him into line.)

- chaitless

July 17, 2011 at 2:37pm

"[The GOP] commanded fierce, top-down party loyalty. You voted for the Republican no matter what happened and no matter who the nominee was." Maybe so, but this is all too obviously no longer the case. The fierce loyalty on the right is now no longer to the Republican Party but to a fierce opposition to taxation and abortion. "You know as well as anyone that ultimately, what those people are building is a house on a foundation of sand." But is a house built with the assistance of Democrats on 80% sand foundation any less likely to fall than a house built on all-sand foundations by Republicans alone? Obama seems hellbent on joining in Republican fiscal folly. If, as I believe they will, Obama's proposed policies eventuate in an unemployment disaster, then he and the Democrats will share responsibility with the GOP. Seems to me the more "pragmatic" strategy would be to stand aside, speak what Democrats know to be the truth about progressive taxation and Keynesian economics and let the Republicans fall on their faces. Of course, that might mean accepting Republican control of the government for a period of time. It is, as I suggested above, a matter of how long you can stand to wait.

- AaronW

July 17, 2011 at 4:51pm