December 21, 2016--Obama's Political Legacy

There's lot of talk about Barack Obama's legacy. There's much that is positive to take note of and important things that will complicate the way he is remembered.

In regard to the latter there is the rupture in our relationship with Russia and chaos everywhere in the Middle East for which he is at least partially responsible.

The positive side of the ledger includes the impressive though imperfect Obamacare, the drawdown of troops from Afghanistan and Iraq, the stimulus and economic recovery, and Wall Street reform.

Of a different sort is his political legacy. How many Democrats of high caliber did he inspire to seek high office and how did they in general fare?

By any measure, not very well--

Between 2009 and now there are 12 fewer Democratic governors, 900+ fewer Democratic state legislature seats, 69 fewer Democratic House members, and 13 fewer senators.

And, yes, one less Democratic president--Donald Trump, not Hillary Clinton will be inaugurated next month.

This is not the meaning of life, but to progressives who care about the future of the Democratic Party the data require that we search for why this political tsunami swept so many away, wiping out a host of next-generation candidates.

The focus naturally has been on the results of the presidential election. If Democrats engaged in the forensics continue to cling to the notion that Clinton lost because of FBI director Jim Comey's letters and Putin's and Russian hacking, the numbers of elected officials will continue to slide further right.

For one, it's essential to acknowledge that Hillary was a terrible candidate who didn't have a convincing story about why she wanted to be president. Saying it was to make history by electing a woman or because it was her turn, ignored what elections are about--not the candidates, but the people they seek to represent.

For all his craziness, Trump did a much better job of presenting himself. How could a billionaire who lives in an actual gilded penthouse represent himself successfully as a friend of working people? How could someone with an orange face, three wives, and a lifetime of overt sexism gain the votes of 53 percent of white women?

We need to find answers to these questions. And very soon.

I've suggested here that a good analysis of the problems can be found in Thomas Frank's Listen, Liberal.

The fact that Democratic Party leaders continue to be stuck on Comey and Putin prompts me to assign it as required reading.

December 5, 2016--Breakfast With FDR

After a half-hour attempting to talk about the results of the recent election, our friend slammed her fists on the table and, starting to get up, said, "We can't talk about this anymore. Ever."

I said, as calmly as I could, "If it's come to that, for the sake of our friendship, we need to try to keep talking, because, if we don't, it's possible that we'll never again speak with each other."

She had been saying, hotter and hotter, that I was being naive insisting it is too soon to be drawing conclusions about what kind of president Donald Trump will be. "All he's been doing thus far," she quoted me as saying, is appoint people. He hasn't at yet actually done anything."

"But," she had been insisting, "all his appointments are either rightwing racist ideologues like Senator Jeff Sessions to be attorney general, a bunch of hawkish has-been generals or," much worse to her, "Goldman Sachs billionaires with no governmental experience. Talk about draining the swamp. And what about that white-supremacist Bannon?"

"Who do you expect him to appoint? While campaigning he said these are the kind of people he'd select. Successful people and people not tainted by government experience. His criticism included claiming that the messes we find ourselves in are largely because we've been governed by professional politicians and government workers who are incompetent."

"That's quite an overstatement, don't you think?" she pressed, "I know some government officials and they're hardworking and pretty good considering the problems we face."

"So you expected Trump to appoint Bernie Sanders secretary of the treasury? As Obama said, elections have consequences. But, again, I am not drawing any conclusions. Not for a few months after he's inaugurated. To see what he and his people do. Could be a disaster, who knows, but they could shake things up in a few good ways."

She banged the table again but sat back down. So I pushed on, "I know your favorite president is Franklin Roosevelt, FDR." Sullenly, she nodded. "One of mine too, but I found while reading Listen, Liberal, that many of his major appointments were quite unconventional. Not right out of the elite leaders most presidents then and now draw upon."

"There you go again with that book," she muttered.

"It just so happens that I have the book with me. Let me read a bit to you, here on page 39, about some of FDR's appointments--

Look back to the days when government actually worked and you will notice an astonishing thing. Unlike the Obama administration's roster of well-graduated mugwumps, the talented people surrounding Franklin Roosevelt stood very definitely outside the era's main academic currents. Harry Hopkins, Roosevelt's closest confident, was a social worker from Iowa. Robert Jackson, the U.S. Attorney General whom Roosevelt appointed to the Supreme Court, was a lawyer who had no law degree. Jessie Jones, who ran Roosevelt's bailout program, was a businessman from Texas with no qualms about putting the nation's most prominent financial institutions into receivership. Marriner Eccles, the visionary whom Roosevelt appointed to run the Federal Reserve, was a small-town banker from Utah with no advanced degree. Henry Wallace, who was probably the nation's greatest agriculture secretary, studied at Iowa State and came to government after running a magazine for farmers. Harry Truman, FDR's last Vice President, had been a successful U.S. senator but had no college degree at all. 

I looked up to see her reaction.

"He also had the famous Brain Trust with plenty of people from Harvard and Columbia."

"Your point?"

"That he also turned to well educated and experienced people to help guide his thinking and legislative agenda."

"True, including appointing the richest man in America, Wall Street insider, Joseph Kennedy, to serve as first head of the SEC, saying he was the best choice because he knew how the system was rigged and where the skeletons were hidden. To drain the swamp you need people who know the swamp. Which brings me to my final point."

"Thankfully," my friend said under her breath.

"Then there was small-town lawyer Cordell Hull, his Secretary of State, who did not always get FDR to do the right thing. For example, he pressed Roosevelt to authorize during the Second World War the internment of Japanese Americans. More than 120,000 of them."

She looked away. "A lot of people, you included, are worried that Trump will do a version of the same thing to Muslims in this country. That banning them selectively from entering this country is not that far a stretch from internment. Whatever Trump might be thinking about that--and I doubt it will come to that--unlike FDR he hasn't made any moves to do so whereas the progressive Democrat Roosevelt did what he did. And further, because of his anti-Semitism, or minimally indifference to the plight of European Jews, with pressure from key members of the State Department, including Hull, how many Jews did he relegate to horrific deaths in Germany's concentration camps? How many could Roosevelt have saved?"

"I have no idea," she said, still not looking at me.

"My point--how presidents act is not always predictable. And before condemning them I continue to contend we have to wait until they act. Becoming president history shows can change candidates and president-elects. Until they get those extra-top-secret briefings and have time to contemplate the world situation and the immensity of their power, all bets are off."

She said nothing and began to slip into her coat.

"My real point is that things are usually more nuanced and complicated than they seem. Thus, the comparison to Franklin Roosevelt. We both think very highly of him, but . . ."

With that, my friend left.

That was two weeks ago. I haven't heard from her since. This is very unusual when we're in town.

November 28, 2016--Listen Liberals

Thomas Frank's Listen, Liberal is a must read for progressives who are confused, frustrated, or just plain furious about why our preferred candidate is not the president-elect, ensconced up in Chappaqua, assembling her cabinet.

He is the author, recall, of What's the Matter With Kansas? which exposed the truth about how the conservative establishment backed by big-buck contributors such as the Koch Brothers figured out how to hoodwink Kansans among others by promising to make their lives great again--they would deliver on all the social issues that at the time were tormenting traditional-minded voters, from abortion and gay rights to prayer in school but not evolution in school.

If elected, the Republican Party promised it would end affirmative action and the voters would in return agree to tax cuts to benefit only the top five percent.

What of course happened was that the wealthy got their loopholes but average Americans did not have their social issues addressed.

Gays now can marry in all 50 states, evolution is still being taught in most schools, women still have the right to seek an abortion (often sadly having to run the gauntlet to secure one), and prayer in schools continues to be unconstitutional.

So now Frank turns his attention to the collapsed liberal majority. His subtitle says it well--What Ever Happened to the Party of the People?

If you haven't done so, read it and weep.

With a wealth of data and other forms of evidence, sardonically, he lays out how the old Democratic coalition of constituents has slipped further and further behind while progressive leaders offer lip service explanations and support policies that do not even chip away at inequality. In fact, they have voted for policies like the Bush tax cuts that have made things worse while at the same time for the liberal professional elites things have actually gone quite well.

Among liberals, Frank demonstrates, a kind of political ju jitsu is taking place that is spookingly similar to that practiced by Republican conservatives in the heartland of Kansas and the rest of red-county America.

In his words, "A form of corporate and cultural elitism has largely eclipsed the party's old middle-class commitment. For certain favored groups in a handful of cities, this has meant prosperity. But for the nation as a whole, it is a one-way ticket into the abyss of inequality."

And Frank does a good job of vividly describing that abyss--

There was a time when average Americans knew whether we were going up or going down--because when the country prospered, the people prospered, too. But these days things are different. From the middle of the Great Depression [of the 1930s] up to 1980, the lower 90 percent of the population, a group we might call the "American people," took home some 70 percent of the growth in the country's income. 

Look at the same numbers beginning in 1997--from the beginning of the New Economy boom to the present--and you find that this same group, the American people, pocketed none of America's income growth. Their share of the good times was zero. The gains they harvested after all their hard work were nil. The upper 10 percent of the population--the country's financiers, managers, and professionals--ate the whole thing. The privileged are doing better than at any time since economic records began.

The last chapter of Listen, Liberal, rather than the current, "Liberal Gilt," could easily have been, "Why Donald Trump Won the Election." And the chapter after that should be, "It's Time, Liberals, to Fess Up, Organize, and Fight Back."