A COMPREHENSIVE PROGRESSIVE "GAME PLAN."
Here's the situation -- once again, in case you've missed it.
1. Dubya almost certainly stole the election.
2. Whether he did or not, Dubya received entirely too many votes, proving . . .
3. Huge swaths of the American electorate have their heads stuck straight up their ass.
Don't believe huge numbers of Americans are delusional? Consider the polling evidence on election eve. A majority of Americans polled believed the country was on "the wrong track." A majority of Americans polled believed the invasion of Iraq was a mistake. A majority of Americans polled favored some sort of universal health care. A majority of Americans polled favored Kerry on education, jobs, the economy, healthcare, taxes, the deficit and pretty much every other issue except "the war on terra."
With respect to the alleged "war on terra" -- the one the blue states are paying for -- Dubya played this card to the hilt. He sent Dick Cheney out to scare the shit out of people, telling them to "get their mind around" casualties in the hundreds of thousands. Two days after the election, John Aschcroft resigned announcing that the nation's security was well in hand. That same day -- two days after the election -- the alert level in New York and DC was reduced to "yellow." I'll bet if you asked your average "middle of the road" Bush voter, he doesn't know that.
Lets look a few other goodies proposed by George W. Bush within days of his putative re-election:
Social secuirty privatization. Never mentioned in his re-election campaign, and opposed by the majority of Americans. [The alleged "crisis" turns out to be bogus, too. See Krugman's column on this.]
A national sales tax on the order of 23%. Who spends every dime of their income as they receive it buying things? Wage earners. Who doesn't? The Wealthy. Did Dubya mention this one in his re-election campaign? Oh hell no.
The above is part of Grover Norquist's goal of "no tax on capital." Get it? Taxes are for the peons, not our wealthy lords. Has your average Bush voter ever even heard of Norquist, the "field marshall" for Republican strategy? Oh hell no.
What is Dubya going to do about outsourcing? Nothing.
What is Dubya going to do about restoring our manufacturing base? Nothing.
What is Dubya going to do about the deficits his tax cuts created? Nothing -- if we're lucky. Most likely, he'll make them worse.
Will Dubya's tax cuts create a booming "full employment" economy. Nope, sure won't. But if the dollar slide continues, they might give us a currency crisis, a budget crisis, and an economic meltdown.
Does your average middle-of-the-road Bush voter understand any of this? Nope. They don't get it. They don't know what a "cheap labor conservative" is, and they don't perceive just how reactionary and destructive the policies of this administration really are, even though the evidence is right in front of their face.
That is the sum and substance of the problem faced by progressives. Progressives have oceans of facts to back up their position. Those facts fall on deaf ears. Indeed, a criticism of John Kerry's campaign, was his abject failure to capitalize on the facts right in front of people's faces. Meanwhile, the corporate right's headlong charge into corporate feudalism proceeds apace. The next stop on the "cheap-labor express" is Argentina -- unless we figure how to stop them.
It can be done. But not before progressives figure how to do something pretty basic in the business of politics. As I said, the facts are right there under everybody's nose. No one is taking those facts and making a case out of them. That isn't the people's fault. It's our fault. As it stands, progressives are barely organized. Sure, we have plenty of numbers, but very little coherence. Our tactics are largely ineffective -- as evidenced by the c
Posted by Hannah at December 31, 2004 05:15 AM