Get On The Donkey
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The Republicans are not going to win the Presidential Election in 2012 or 2016. Think of anyone realistically likely to win the nomination, and that is just as well. President Palin, anyone? President Beck? Their likelihood of taking back control of Congress is also barely worth considering.
But a party is not a country or a church. Just find another one. In the United States, that is easy to do. All you have to do is change your registration. If you live in deep red Congressional District within a state where the Republican primary is closed, then register as a Republican. It would be crazy not to. But anywhere else, why not register as a Democrat? Isn’t it just as crazy not to do that? If not, why not?
You would find, and make, yourselves part of a new coalition. But leave aside universal healthcare for the time being. Do paleocons have any problem with fair trade agreements? With the repeal of much of the USA PATRIOT Act? With a complete end to the neocon war agenda? With strict campaign finance reform? With a crackdown on corporate influence generally, and on corporate welfare in particular? With tax cuts for the poor? Even living wage laws, and the right of all workers to organize into labor unions and engage in collective bargaining, could be lived with in principle. Couldn’t they? Again, if not, why not? Okay, so there would be abortion, and the legalization of same-sex marriage. But the Democrats are split on that anyway (increasingly so on abortion, in fact), with Obama himself in favor of traditional marriage. Are all Republicans sound these issues, either? Hardly! You could and should be in there arguing for the prioritization of tax cuts for the poor, and huge savings from the ending of wars and from the slashing of corporate welfare, over direct increases in federal welfare spending, though also for the involvement of charities and churches in welfare provision, a proposal which would appeal to many existing black and other Democrats. And wouldn’t higher taxes on the very rich (who are often social liberals), like labor rights, depend on the specific proposals and circumstances? Not for the first time I ask, if not, why not?
Many believers in measures such as these have never been happy about same-sex marriage, or about, if not all abortion (and there are of course Democrats of that mind), then at least very late abortions, or social abortions, or eugenic abortions, or the sheer number of abortions, not least in black communities, and especially against the black male, who is now the victim of a triple genocide in the womb, on the streets and on the battlefield. They would leap at the chance of an alliance, not with rich liberals who often (not always, but often) display scant regard for the poor or for those on middle incomes, and who are frequently pro-war, but with you.
Filed under: Uncategorized
After partially reading this unthoughtful, unresearched, unsophisticated, uncannily naive post (that’s enough uns for one morning), my sympathy extends to those souls who repetitively stress the insidious effects of journalists who study journalism to the exclusion of other topics.
After partially reading this unthoughtful, unresearched, unsophisticated, uncannily naive post (that’s enough uns for one morning), my sympathy extends to those souls who repetitively stress the insidious effects of journalists who study journalism to the exclusion of other topics.
I predict the Democrats, absent ACORN voter fraud, will be trounced in 2012.
“I predict the Democrats, absent ACORN voter fraud, will be trounced in 2012.”
By whom?
Why are you so attached to the Republican Party? As I said, a party is not a country or a church. And what has the GOP ever done for you, at least in anything like the recent past? Never mind what it will ever do for you in the future, now that it is as it is.
This is you chance. Line up with people in favor of fair trade agreements, repeal of much of the USA PATRIOT Act, a complete end to the neocon war agenda, strict campaign finance reform, a crackdown on corporate influence generally and on corporate welfare in particular, and tax cuts for the poor.
Tell them that you want to prioritize those tax cuts for the poor, and huge savings from the ending of wars and from the slashing of corporate welfare, over direct increases in federal welfare spending, with a further insistence on the involvement of charities and churches in welfare provision. A lot of them would go for that anyway, especially the very many with deep roots in the black church.
And make it clear that their living wage laws, their right of all workers to organize into labor unions and engage in collective bargaining, and their higher taxes on the very rich, would depend on the specific proposals and circumstances, and on your approach to welfare (tax cuts, charity and church involvement), on foreign policy realism (which they are already right behind), and on at least a good dose of moral and social conservatism (which many of them broadly, and not a few of them strongly, share).
So, no same-sex “marriage”. No federal funding of abortion. You know the sort of thing. Plenty of blacks, in addition to holding the sorts of moral beliefs preached in the black church, would strongly support tighter immigration controls and making English the only official language. Just so long as fellow-Democrats made the proposals.
Politics is about compromise, unless you want to become an irrelevant little sect. And what is the alternative? Will the GOP ever now deliver fair trade agreements, repeal of much of the USA PATRIOT Act, a complete end to the neocon war agenda, strict campaign finance reform, a crackdown on corporate influence generally and on corporate welfare in particular, or tax cuts for the poor? Has it any remaining trace of foreign policy realism, or of anything more than a purely rhetorical conservatism on moral and social issues? Perhaps because it has practically no black base, it even supports amnesties for illegal immigrants and it bows the knee to those who would make America bilingual (and then trilingual, and then…).
Oh, and I have never done a journalism course in my life.
“Tax cuts for the poor”? What taxes do poor people pay?
Oh, not that one, George Hawley! You really will have to do better than that. Someone has to make up the shortfall from corporate welfare, especially with all these wars. Guess who.
Here in Britain, meanwhile, we have long had a situation in which the poor not only pay a higher proportion of their incomes in tax than do the rich, but also give a higher proportion of their incomes to charity than do the rich. Yet the debate is controlled completely by practically tax-exempt people complaining about having to pay even whatever tiny percentage of their enormous incomes can be prized out of them. You may well recognize the type.
Having said that, America was of course founded by hugely rich people who were practically tax-exempt, but who objected to having to pay even whatever tiny percentage of their enormous incomes could be prized out of them. No wonder that this mentality still plays so much better with the descendants of one of Jefferson’s families than with the descendants of the other.
But those duskier Jefforsons, like poor and middle-income whites, are now a serious case of taxation without representation. Whereas the very rich are a serious case of representation without taxation. Not a peculiarly American problem, let me assure you. But a problem to which America’s founding ‘mythoi’ (historically accurate or not) ought to offer a particularly effective solution. When will they? When will you?
As they say, go where the action is. The politicians negotiating over health care are Tory Dems, not Republicans. They rather shout from the sidelines than do anything constructive.
I actually appreciate George Hawley’s instincts, from the little I’ve read.
But he is just plain wrong about the poor and tax. It’s the people against whom paleocons traditionaly take up their pitchfoks who don’t pay tax much, if at all.
Do you want fair trade agreements, repeal of much of the USA PATRIOT Act, a complete end to the neocon war agenda, strict campaign finance reform, and a crackdown on corporate influence generally and on corporate welfare in particular, or not? Do you want foreign policy realism, or not? Do you want to be able to make other things conditional on the sort of moral and social conservatism that in any case plays well in (among other places) the black church, or not?
If so, then leave the elephant’s corpse to rot.
And get on the donkey.
You are tackling too many issues at once. I would suggest defining “Fair Trade,” to start.
Also, you seem rather focused on black churches. Is there a particular reason for this? Truth be told, it is just one of your many, seemingly inexplicable, idiosyncrasies.
You are sounding desperate, William P.
I don’t think too many people on a paleocon site have too much difficulty understanding what fair trade is. Or, rather, isn’t.
The black church is a major force in the Democratic Party. It is also a major force for moral conservatism, such as in recent years on same-sex “marriage”. And, a legacy of Civil Rights, it is taken seriously at the highest levels of that party in the way that (not without cause, alas) the white Evangelical churches are not really taken seriously at the highest levels of the Republican Party, where the Catholic Church has always been regarded as rather foreign anyway.
The trick will be to make the black church talk as much, within the Democratic Party rather than just in general, about family values as about social justice, not least because it will know that it has as wide a Democratic audience for either as for the other. One among many tricks that paleocons could certainly pull off, to spectacular effect, if you got on the donkey. What would influencing the GOP achieve any more, even if you were influencing it, which you are not?
You wouldn’t get everrything you wanted, and you would have to put up with some things you didn’t want. That is politics. But what an improvement that it would still be on getting nothing that you wanted and everything that you didn’t.
The U.S. is in a cycle of mutual political pathology between the two Parties. The Republicans will win in 2016 (or maybe 2012) simply because it will be their turn again to wreck the country.
Desperate, no.
If I could look up “fair trade” somewhere, I could maybe understand it. Unfortunately, “fair trade” comes down to the individual who determines the agreements. That is, as ambassador, I say who can do what and when. It’s interventionism, and always arbitrary. Completing the tragicomedy that is interventionism, is the fact that it never accomplishes its stated purposes, all while creating new problems. –See “What is Seen and What is Not Seen” by Bastiat
I am not going to lump “black churches” into a giant, amorphous mass. I would remind you, however, that Obama came from a black “church.” Being Catholic, I would never consider the rantings of Wright remotely holy, moral… even constructive or interesting (at least no more interesting than studying any other pathology). Yes, of course, America should be proud of the civil rights movement and celebrate the fact that it originated in black churches. But your near obsession with black churches as a political force is very strange to this American. I prefer to leave race out of my politics, and out of my thinking generally. I’m not sure whether your Britishness (you are, I assume, British, no?) is confusing you on the issues of race in America, but honestly we are pretty good with race relations. …were certainly better under Bush than Obama, but I digress. Racism is a type of hatred, and it’s addressed not in politics (which, through the criminal justice system, is reactive) but in one’s own soul and by influence of one’s social circles.
I have a short day and little stomach to continue my deconstruction of your untutored political rantings. Enjoy your weekend.
I am as opposed to corporate welfare and neocon warmongering as anyone, but the notion that the government is robbing the poor and handing money out to the rich is simply factually incorrect. Most of the poorest Americans pay no income tax at all:
http://www.urban.org/UploadedPDF/1001289_who_pays.pdf
Who pays for new corporate welfare and wars? Right now, apparently no one. Hence the insane deficits. Now, you could argue that future inflation due to current deficits is a regressive tax (i.e., the poor will suffer more than the rich), but that does not appear to be what you are saying.
Furthermore, while corporate welfare and pointless wars are expensive, they do not account for the majority of the federal budget. Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and unemployment benefits/welfare make up a far larger percentage of the budget — and all of those programs exist to help the poor.
pointless wars are expensive, they do not account for the majority of the federal budget
Note that you’ve left out the defense budget–19% by Google–and included two programs, Medicare (14% by Google) and Social Security (20% by Google), that are not restricted at all by income. Medicaid + Unemployment + Welfare looks to be about 23%. Those appear to be 2007 numbers. Here’s the link. I can’t claim to know the numbers are right, but they square with my recollection.
Thanks David, I now I know what natives of Borneo feel when coming across clueless anthropological descriptions of themselves. You really have no idea what we get up to in our huts do you?
As many here have tried to explain, the poor pay no income tax in the USA. You find this hard to believe but it is a fact. The poor are coddled in my country to a point that you clearly don’t understand. Neither are they the sturdy workers who awaiting for the call to one nation conservatism. Our underclass resembles the alien Muslims of France. They are parasitic, ignorant and dangerous.
You write, “The black church is a major force in the Democratic Party. It is also a major force for moral conservatism,…). I suppose they they may look that way from the UK, but we who deal with them, know them to as a class political hipsters and thieves. They support the Democratic Party in precisely the same manner as the tapeworm “supports” its host. Many ghetto reverends are also Democratic party operatives. If you knew my country, you would know this.
We have been edging closer and closer to “Strict campaign finance reform.” for a good while now. With each step our system become less free and more corrupt. Americans used to support whom they chose with their own money. Not so anymore, thanks to such campaign finance reform as we have. More “reform”? No thanks.
I was initially interested in your idiosyncratic writing, but it’s clear now that you are writing frivolous nonsense about a country you don’t know. Perhaps the Canadians could use your advice? Please git it a try.
The inflation tax is going to hit the poor particularly hard in the next few years. The poor still pay FICA/Social security/state/sales/property taxes. Even Warren Buffet was honest enough to admit he pays less in taxes than his secretary.
Jeremiah Whitmoore, the poor can’t avoid paying all taxes. They, like everyone else pay sales tax for instance. But people who do not work, or who work only long enough each year to qualify for unemployment compensation, are little effected by FICA. And for what they do pay, they get a social security pension. The poor rent or squat in public housing so they are the beneficiaries of, not the payers of property taxes.
I’m sure Warren Buffet’s secretary is paid handsomely. But the bigger point about the rich not paying via various tax schemes is true. That’s a good argument for the flat tax.
What David doesn’t understand is that in our country, it’s the middle class who are most put upon by our system.
Thomas,
No disagreement here, What I should have clarified was the working poor, particularly the working poor without children, or working but married with children.
As for the welfare types your talking about, they are indeed leeches.
I’m more concerned about the working class, who actually break their backs just to wind up slightly less well off then the welfare types.
Jeremiah, yes. Perhaps our very elastic definition of “Middle Class” in this country causes confusion. I think a great many of the working class/working poor thought of themselves as middle class. But for sure, once you start playing by the rules and working for a living, the government has you in its sights.
Working class people in America are constantly being set back by government mandates. The days when you could get a jalopy and keep it on the road are gone. Clean air car inspection mandates you know. Want to put a dormer on your house. Think again. Building codes and zoning busybodies make it cost prohibitive. and the list goes on. We are actually making it hard for actual working people to afford families.
I found this very interesting blog just a couple days ago and am reading old posts.
I must say, however, there is a lot of naivete in this entry, even if some of the comments can be easily dismissed as silly GOP partisanism.
It is good to support conservative Democrats, who are usually more small-c true conservative than what the imperial demagogues that pass on the other side. However, there are some major problems with what you attribute to Democratic policies.
1. The Democratic Party is not run democratically. As is the case for the GOP, the views of its popular base are better than those of its ruling elite. Thus you can have decent Democrats at a local level, at a state level, sometimes in the House, but rarely in the Senate or White House.
2. This has a lot to do with the fact that the Democratic Party relies for its funding on institutions of finance capital, and to a lesser extent from lawyers and socially liberal bourgeoisie.
3. Black Democrats might be half pro-life and heavily against gay marriage (in fact, they defeated it in CA, not the white moderates who voted largely for it), but their political leadership is entired co-opted and rarely ever votes conservatively on anything. In order to make an alliance here, you would have to get the preachers to diss the politicos, but Blacks have high political solidarity and this hardly happens even in the case of serious corruption.
4. Socially conservative labour Democrats have some Midwestern House seats but can never get anyone into the Senate, much less influence the White House.
5. More generally, you fail to notice that the electoral trends are still relatively in the direction of working class economic populists > GOP; yuppie moderate libertarians > Democrats. The groups with which you wish to ally are an ever increasing % of the GOP base, but of course they are even LESS represented there as there is perhaps not a single working class Republican congressman.
6. So the Democrats at a national level might pass an occasional minimum wage increase or review this or that labour regulation, but overall they are rabidly pro-free trade (Clinton was worse than Bush in this regard), pro-war, pro-private bankers and Fed Reserve, pro-cap and trade, pro-gay (but not to the degree of sacrificing elections), pro-free abortion, and pro-PATRIOT ACT and wiretapping.
7. Even if these social conservatives had the will to take power for themselves within the Democratic ranks and oppose these political realities, they would get no funding for their campaigns. This is why Conley’s result in SC was actually quite good, considering he was abandoned by the whole party elite. You never see a social conservative run in the presidential Democratic primary! Not since who, FL Gov. Askew in 1984?
I do not wholly oppose the idea of registering Democrat. It simply is not as rosy an opportunity as presented, and really depends more on one’s local/state circumstances, I should think. I am and will remain an Independent.