Month: February 2012

Republicans in disarray

by digby

Oh my:

That Mitt Romney finds himself so imperiled by Rick Santorum—Rick Santorum!—is just the latest in a series of jaw-dropping developments in what has been the most volatile, unpredictable, and just plain wackadoodle Republican-nomination contest ever. Part of the explanation lies in Romney’s lameness as a candidate, in Santorum’s strength, and in the sudden efflorescence of social issues in what was supposed to be an all-economy-all-the-time affair. But even more important have been the seismic changes within the Republican Party.

“Compared to 2008, all the candidates are way to the right of John McCain,” says longtime conservative activist Jeff Bell. “The fact that Romney is running with basically the same views as then but is seen as too moderate tells you that the base has moved rightward and doesn’t simply want a conservative candidate—it wants a very conservative one.”

The transfiguration of the GOP isn’t only about ideology, however. It is also about demography and temperament, as the party has grown whiter, less well schooled, more blue-collar, and more hair-curlingly populist. The result has been a party divided along the lines of culture and class: Establishment versus grassroots, secular versus religious, upscale versus downscale, highfalutin versus hoi polloi. And with those divisions have arisen the competing electoral coalitions—shirts versus skins, regulars versus red-hots—represented by Romney and Santorum, which are now increasingly likely to duke it out all spring.

That’s an excerpt of a fun John Heilman piece analyzing just how screwed the Republicans really are. Enjoy.

But I have to take issue with this idea that there’s any real distinction between the “red hots” and the “regulars.” They’re pretty much all red-hots now:

If it’s Santorum who is the standard-bearer and then he suffers an epic loss, a different analogy will be apt: Goldwater in 1964. (And, given the degree of the challenges Santorum would face in attracting female voters, epic it might well be.) As Kearns Goodwin points out, the rejection of the Arizona senator’s ideology and policies led the GOP to turn back in 1968 to Nixon, “a much more moderate figure, despite the incredible corruption of his time in office.” For Republicans after 2012, a similar repudiation of the populist, culture-warrior coalition that is fueling Santorum’s surge would open the door to the many talented party leaders—Daniels, Christie, Bush, Ryan, Bobby Jindal—waiting in the wings for 2016, each offering the possibility of refashioning the GOP into a serious and forward-thinking enterprise.

That’s not a list of “serious, and forward-thinking” leaders. It’s a list of right wing ideologues who will dance to the same tune that Romney and Santorum are dancing to in 2012. The Republican Party isn’t a normal political institution anymore, it’s a fully realized ideological movement that has even captured their top intellectual, legal and financial leadership. Yes, those people all want power and they all want to win, but they have no choice but to answer to the zealots. — after all, from the hardcore Randian Paul Ryan to John Roberts and Clarence Thomas to Foster Freiss and the Koch Brothers to the cultural leaders like Rush Limbaugh they are the red hots. Movement conservatism at this point is far more powerful to this faction of the American body politic than any identification with the institution of the Republican Party. It’s going to take more than failing to unseat Obama after his first term to change that. In fact, I’m not sure what will. After all, they manage to do very well in the opposition — in many ways, they prefer it. Since red hots are not going to be a real majority any time soon they will be content to fulfill their agenda through obstruction and destruction. They’re good at it.

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Missing The Point

By tristero

On the front page of the Times Book Review, Jennifer McDonald eviscerates Lifespan of a Fact with such humorless viciousness that it reads, unintentionally, as a hilarious parody of a bad review. Especially because she missed the main irony, which is that in telling the story of the story about the story, D’Agata apparently was accurate (you’ll have to read the review). That is, he chose to be factual when telling his own Iliad of Woe, rather than when reporting on another’s suicide. That paints D’Agata’s intentional lying in the original story in a very intriguing, and genuinely unflattering, light. D’Agata’s own values and behavior, in other words, are far more damning than anything Jennifer McDonald hurls at him.

But by writing so nastily, and with so little apparent awareness of the meta-issues D’Agata was playing with, Ms. McDonald actually made “Lifespan” sound like a very, very interesting and important book. Which was the last thing she wanted to do.

Facts are facts, no doubt. But they are slippery critters indeed in the hands of the untalented or clueless – not to mention the malicious. And that fact, which McDonald simply can’t grasp, is one we ignore regularly, and to our peril

Stephen Colbert Has Giant…Crackers

by David Atkins

This may be the most hilarious product placement skit of all time:

As a market researcher who has done way too many branding research exercises in my day, I can tell you these corporate suits are really serious about this stuff. Every major brand has an entire carefully crafted persona, complete with clothes it wears, music it listens to, cars it drives, the whole deal. What’s amazing is that if you put eight demographically similar people into a room to discuss the personality of any given major brand, you’ll get generally consistent answers. I’ve done it many times, and been appalled at the uncanny accuracy with which random people “know” these brands as if they were their neighbor and will describe their hypothetical personalities and appearances with frightening unanimity.

So when the hacks behind this cracker brand–which I refuse to give publicity by stating in writing here–gave Colbert this memo, I promise you they were absolutely in earnest, and had crafted this image of their brand through a meticulous self-reinforcing cycle of research and advertising repetition. And Colbert did exactly the right thing by skewering the hell out of them while taking every dime of their money. It will be interesting if any other company decides they want to play with fire by having Colbert do a major product placement for them.

Either way, ad agencies like to take corporate personhood a lot farther than anyone truly realizes, and even beyond Antonin Scalia’s wildest imagination. Naomi Klein barely scratched the surface.

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Free the Fatcat Five!

Problem? What problem?

by digby

Via Brad DeLong:

Middle Class Political Economist: Basics: Length of Unemployment is Historically Unprecedented: As everyone knows, long-term unemployment has been a big problem in the current crisis. But “knowing” isn’t the same as having perspective. For that, we need a comparison. It turns out that the average duration of unemployment over the last few months is almost exactly twice as high as the previous peak in 1983 in the aftermath of the Reagan recession. The current average of over 40 weeks is completely unprecedented historically…. Unemployment duration has increased steadily even since the end of the official recession, and may finally have topped out at 40.9 weeks in November 2011. Let’s hope we’re finally seeing a reduction.

In case you were wondering why this matters:

When people are out of work for a year or more, their skills often decline. Their professional networks shrink. Companies hesitate to hire them. The problem feeds on itself.

“It’s a serious threat,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics. “A growing proportion of the labor force is becoming disenfranchised.”

Those who have been out of work for many months describe troubling experiences.

Linda Evans, 59, a home health care worker in Washington, has struggled to find work since her last employer left the area three years ago. She applies for openings online and attends job fairs. But she’s found it difficult even to get interviews.

“I don’t know if it’s my age or what,” she said. “I never expected to be in this situation. And I’m scared.”

Long-term unemployment affects the economy in key ways:

— It lowers skill levels, making it harder to match the unemployed with available jobs. Harry Holzer, a Georgetown University economist, said that once hiring picks up, employers tend to complain that they can’t find people with the new skills they need. Companies are already having trouble filling advanced manufacturing jobs, Holzer said.

— More people rely on government benefits. Unemployment benefits were extended during the recession to a record 99 weeks in states with the highest unemployment rates. The number of people receiving food stamps topped 45 million in May. That’s another record. Older workers unable to find jobs often draw their Social Security benefits earlier. Many also have health problems and end up on government disability programs.

— The long-term unemployed who do find jobs again will probably do so at lower pay. A study by the Congressional Budget Office found that the long-term unemployed earn, on average, 20 percent less when they finally find work.

Still, it’s hard to predict the economic outcome because no one has seen such levels of long-term unemployment before, said Steven Davis, an economist at the University of Chicago.

“We’re in uncharted territory,” he said. “Those people are going to have inferior outcomes in earnings and employment well beyond the current weakness in the labor market.”

Sure, it may be devastating to the futures of millions of American workers, but it works like a charm to lower their expectations … and everyone’s wages.

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What Going Galt Meant to Homer

by David Atkins

I’d like to muse with your permission this Friday afternoon on the nature of “going Galt.” Due to the pernicious influence of Ayn Rand and her Objectivist acolytes, it has become a trope among mainline conservatives to proclaim that the “producers” in society are under assault from the “parasites,” who conspire to steal the profits that the deserving Masters of the Universe have supposedly rightfully earned.

These same Objectivists claim to carry the mantle of defenders of Western Civilization, of traditional values and the heritage bequeathed to us by our Greco-Roman cultural forbears. It seems fitting, then, that we should examine how Homer, arguably the first and foremost author of literature in the “Western” tradition (if indeed there was such a single person), treated the idea of producers, parasites, profits and “going Galt.”

Homer’s first great work, the Iliad, tells the story of part of the final year of the Trojan War. While it’s not contained explicitly within the work, Homer’s readers would have been familiar with the lead-up: a Trojan prince named Paris absconds with the beautiful young wife of Spartan king Menelaos and sails back with her to Troy. Menelaos seeks help from his brother, Mycenaean king Agamemnon, who proceeds to round up allegiance from kings and troops all around the Greek world to go to war with Troy.

After nine long years of fighting, the story picks up with a Trojan priest named Chryses offering Agamemnon ransom for his captured daughter, who has been taken as Agamemnon’s prized slave. As lead chieftain of the Greek armies, Agamemnon is entitled to the lion’s share of the booty and profits of war, and Chryses’ daughter was no exception. Although 99% of the Greeks were in favor of granting the priest’s request, Agamemnon arrogantly refuses, insisting that what he took (even if others did most of the the fighting for him) was his and his alone, and no entreaty or offer of ransom could dissuade him from taking full “enjoyment” of Chryses’ daughter.

Bad move. Chryses happens to be a priest of sun god Apollo, and asks Apollo to wreak vengeance upon the Greeks. Apollo punishes Agamemnon for his hubris, but punishes not only Agamemnon himself but all the Greek armies by sending a plague among them. The Greeks know that they have offended the gods in some way, but only wise old Nestor truly understands the nature of their sin. But before daring to speak against Agamemnon, he requests the protection in council of swift-footed Achilles, by far the mightiest warrior among the Greeks. After securing Achilles’ promise of protection, wise Nestor suggests in council that Agamemnon might just be to blame, and helpfully suggests that Agamemnon return the girl to her father in order to secure the support of his troops and end the plague.

Agamemnon at first refuses. But then he says that if he must give up his prize, then the prize of another man from among the Greeks must be redistributed upward to him in recompense.

Achilles, most powerful hero of the Greeks upon whom the burden of fighting has thus far fallen, objects to Lord Agamemnon, pointing out that spoils have already been handed out. Furious, Agamemnon demands to take Achilles’ captured slave girl Bryseis to punish him for his insolence–despite the fact that the Greeks would have little in the way of victory or spoils without him.

It is at this point that Achilles says the following, one of my favorite quotes in all of Homer:

‘O wrapped in shamelessness, with your mind forever on profit,
how shall any one of the Achaians readily obey you
either to go on a journey or to fight men strongly in battle?

For, you see, a man who sought only profit above honor, who cared little for his people even so as to refuse to give up even a slight portion of his already copious bounty on behalf of the well-being of his troops, was no man and no leader at all.

But after a near duel between the two men, it is Achilles who is forced to relent. Bryseis is taken to join Agamemnon in his chambers in exchange for Chryses’ daughter. Agamemnon maintains his privileged authority and profit, and the curse is lifted.

But not so fast. Because Achilles now goes Galt. He refuses to assist Agamemnon or the Greeks in any way thereafter, promising to sail back to his homeland at first opportunity. And for the next six chapters (books) thereafter, the Greeks are pushed farther and farther back from the walls of Troy, even back to the beach in a last ditch effort to prevent their ships from being put to the flame. Agamemnon begs Achilles for his help, but Achilles remains steadfast in his refusal. It is only when Achilles’ close “friend” Patroklos joins the fighting and is killed that Achilles, in his rage and grief, rejoins the battle to avenge him–but not for Agamemnon’s sake.

For the Greeks, there was a moral lesson here: just because a chief is legally entitled to his profits, doesn’t mean that he deserves them or necessarily gets to keep them. The rich man’s duty is to his people and to honor itself (as enforced by the gods) more than to himself. When the people upon whom the rich man’s wealth depend object, the rich man isn’t supposed to demand even more of their wealth for himself, or he can expect them to go on strike. Of course, Achilles was also too stubborn to relent after the rich man offered him 100 times the value of what was taken, but that’s another lesson and another story.

That’s what “going Galt” meant to Homer, founder of Western literature. A man who is mindful of nothing but profit is not to be celebrated but condemned, followed by a labor strike of the actual workers upon whom he depends. And all this in a blatantly aristocratic society no less (“aristocracy” is Greek for “rule by the noblest/best.”)

Modern Republicans do not defend the Western tradition. They reject it. They do not support democracy, but reject it, in favor of a more stratified hierarchy than even existed in Dark Age Greece. Modern-day Republicans would have offered Agamemnon a tax cut, before bringing in his troops to break Achilles’ strike and force him back to work.

They’re cloaked in shamelessness, mindful of nothing but profit. And they are truly unfit to lead.

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Romneymania

Today in Michigan:

The Hill:

His speech was held at Detroit’s massive Ford Field, which holds tens of thousands of people, but only 1,000 or so attended. The campaign and the Detroit Economic Club, which hosted the event, sought to make the stadium look more full by putting the audience in one end zone of the football field and putting the cameras directly behind them.

But cameras showed empty chairs, and the Democratic National Committee blasted out photos that compared the crowd at Romney’s speech to the filled stadiums where then-candidate Barack Obama had campaign rallies in 2008.

The campaign didn’t bill the speech as a major rally and, according to reports, did not try to fill the stadium.

Romney even joked about the cavernous space.

“I want to thank Ford Field for making room for us,” he said to laughs from the crowd.
[…]
After an audience member asked Romney if he thought he’d have the best chance to beat Obama, Romney dismissed the other GOP candidates.

“I not only think I have the best chance, I think I have the only chance — maybe I’m overstating it a bit,” he said, chuckling awkwardly.

“That’s my family leading the applause,” he said quickly, although no one was clapping, then laughed again. No one appeared to laugh with him.

Yikes. The Village is turning on him.

In response to a UAW protest outside the “rally” he showed solidarity with the working folks by pointing out that his wife drives two Cadillacs (rumored to be one at their Massachusets estate and one at their California compound):

You just can’t make this stuff up.

Here’s a list of all the cars Mitt says he’s had and loved.

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Sometimes drama is called for

by digby

I can’t wait to read Noam Scheiber’s book The Escape Artists: How Obama’s Team Fumbled the Recovery. From what I’m gathering, it pretty much tracks with Ron Susskind’s book, but it isn’t garnering the vitriolic pushback. Perhaps that’s because it’s written by a New Republic writer, or maybe it’s just that the thesis is more obvious now that time has passed. (And there’s always the problem of being the first one to say something unpopular….)

Today’s dispatch from Gilead

by digby

Yes, these people really exist, they have power and they truly believe this tripe:

A bill passed by Republicans in the Utah House of Representatives would effectively ban comprehensive education about human sexuality, forcing schools to teach abstinence or nothing at all.

In all, 45 Republicans voted for state Rep. Bill Wright’s (R) HB363, with 11 Republicans joining the 17 Democrats who opposed it, according to The Salt Lake Tribune.

The bill forbids advocating for “the use of contraceptive methods or devices,” sex outside marriage or homosexuality. It also restricts teaching about sexual intercourse or erotic behavior.

Public and charter schools would have the option of developing an abstinence-only curriculum or skipping the discussion of sexuality altogether.

“We’ve been culturally watered down to think we have to teach about sex, about having sex and how to get away with it, which is intellectually dishonest,” Wright said in defense of the bill. “Why don’t we just be honest with them upfront that sex outside marriage is devastating?”

Yeah. It’s devastating.

Can someone explain to me how you teach Sex Ed without talking about intercourse and “erotic behavior?” Birds and bees?

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Bushian “Revisionistic Historicalism”

by digby

Greg Sargent has an interesting post up about Bush’s crony capitalism and why he’s anathema in a party which has moved significantly to the right just since his departure. He quotes him giving a recent speech:

“I didn’t want there to be 21 percent unemployment…I didn’t want to gamble. I didn’t want history to look back and say, ‘Bush could have done something but chose not to do it.’ And so I said, ‘no depression.’”…Bush told dealers he still believes in the free market. “If you make a bad decision in business, you ought to pay,” he said. “The problem is, sometimes circumstances get in the way of philosophy.”

The theory is that the GOP today wouldn’t have done that because they’ve moved so far to the right. I think that’s true. But I’m not sure I buy that the Republicans rejected Bush on that basis. Remember, his approval rating when he left office was dismal:

That trajectory had nothing to do with bailouts. He was way down there long before the economic crisis hit. His failure was Iraq, where he beat his chest and swaggered around the world carrying on about non-existent WMD and cost a whole lot of lives and treasure. Until the very end, the economy had been doing pretty well and there weren’t a lot of complaints.

Remember, conservatism can never fail, it can only be failed. It was inevitable that they would turn on Bush and call him a liberal. It’s what they do. But that’s not the real reason they rejected him. They rejected him for putting their “exceptionalist” worldview to the test and failing. Making America look weak and inept is simply unforgivable. In fact, it’s taboo, which is why they have to blame today for a different crime committed long after they had already written him off.

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