Selective Amnesia

You don’t have to abandon your principles to cut a deal. You just have to acknowledge that there are other people in the world and even a president doesn’t get to stamp his foot and have his way…They believe nonliberals are blackmailers or hostage-takers or the concentrated repositories of human evil, so, of course, they see coalition-building as collaboration. They are also convinced that Democrats should never start a negotiation because they will always end up losing in the end. – David Brooks

This is what drives me crazy. Why is it that if Dems stick to their guns they are called immature or irrational but when the wing-nuts do it is a principled stand or a policy difference? Let me clear this up for you Mr. Brooks when you hold up 98% of Americans tax relief for the benefit of the wealthiest 2% by borrowing money from foreign countries and mortgaging our future that is not a difference in policy and that is not negotiating. It is blackmail pure and simple. So my question is how do you build coalitions with people who are willing to block all legislation until they get their way? Sounds to me like they are stomping their feet or holding their breath, but I am no student of politics like you.

Here in a nutshell is why Dems can never maintain the majorities like they did following WWII, they have lost the art of politics. It has only been two short years since one of the worst President’s in the history of America left office and they were given majorities in both Houses and the White House and now they are on the outside looking in. This is the same President who stomped his feet and invaded another country under false pretenses, who passed two tax-cut bills for the wealthy, and presided over the collapse of our economy. Remember how the wing-nuts were on the verge of regionalism and extinction as a major political party? What happened? Most Dems think that the power of their arguments and the strength of their ideas will carry the day. If we just educate the public to what we are trying to accomplish of course they will side with us. No, they won’t. You are bringing a knife to a bazooka fight and you are getting killed.

People on Madison Avenue make a boatload of money figuring out how to sell crap to a bunch of people who don’t need it. I mean really do you need a 500.00 cell phone? The wing-nuts have brought those same tactics to politics and the media. They have used branding to not make the country completely conservative, just more conservative than it was 30 years ago. So now the center is no longer the center. You now have Dems espousing former wing-nut positions as if they were now mainstream and rational.

The Dems refuse to call what the wing-nuts are doing for what it really is, immoral. During the healthcare debate it was never couched in terms of its immorality to allow the insurance companies to continue doing what they were doing to people. Is it immoral to have people dying, going broke, or be uninsurable because they happen to have gotten sick in America? No, it became an economic issue. The same thing is happening today concerning the tax-cuts. It isn’t about morality and fairness it is about economics. As long as Dems continue to allow the wing-nuts to frame their positions in purely economic terms they will continue to be defensible. We are just having a difference of opinion about economic policy so the rational thing to do is to split the difference. As if connecting Social Security, unemployment insurance, tuition support, and earned income tax credits with tax breaks for the rich is morally equivalent. And as long as we continue to allow the wing-nuts and their talking heads to get away with creating this false moral equivalency argument we will continue to lose.

What is going on in America today is not about economics, it is about strategically weakening and eventually removing our safety nets and our middle-class. Think about it what better time to set this in motion than when we were are in the midst of the “great recession” and everyone is fearful and trying to hang on to what little they have. This is no time to increase taxes, this is no time to increase infrastructure spending, this is no time to think about the environment. Basically this is no time to do anything but continue to provide the wealthiest more assistance because we know that if they drink enough champagne eventually some will trickle down on us. Of course it may be a little warm and discolored. This is about shared sacrifice and not about class warfare as the wing-nuts and wealthy apologists continue to claim. If I am receiving most of the benefits isn’t it only fair that in times of crisis I be willing to give back more than those who are not. This isn’t about economics it is about the so-called “Christian values” these folks are so proud to espouse and criticize liberals for not having until it actually requires having to live up to them. I am a Christian unless that means I have to stand up for the poor and sick against those who fund my campaigns, or my reality shows, or my library additions.

You did get one thing right Mr. Brooks we do believe that “these” Dems should never enter into negotiations because as the record plainly demonstrates they have a tendency to capitulate before any punches are thrown. This isn’t about purist versus non-purists it is about basic fairness or have you lost sight of that concept. After the way the teabaggers purified the last election how anyone could accuse the Dems as purist is beyond me. Again, it is how the media covers the traits of the two parties. Wing-nut intransigence and obstructionism is doing the people’s will, but you Dems are just being a bunch of crybabies and whiners. Buck up. The wing-nuts are forcing the Dems to take all of the tough votes so that no matter how it plays out they win. If you allow the tax-cuts to expire you raised taxes, if you put in the tax-cuts you have increased the deficit, and if the economy doesn’t turn around then it was your wasteful spending. Call me crazy but if you are going to get it no matter what, then you might as well do the right thing.

The main problem I have with all of this is that we are about to put more money into tax-cuts than we did in the original stimulus bill. Since when did cutting taxes become a Democratic solution to anything? No, Mr. Brooks it isn’t coalition building when you take on the policies of your adversaries. Would it have been negotiation with al-Qaeda if we had agreed to no longer recognize Israel in exchange for anything? If you begin to change your policies to match the opposition to get their approval that isn’t coalition building or collaboration, it is capitulation and that Mr. Brooks is what has so many angry. There was a time when we knew what the Dems stood for. Today the more I read and hear the less I know what they stand for.

If the administration wants cooperation, it will have to begin to move in our direction. - Mitch McConnell
The Disputed Truth