Cafe de Mello

It goes without saying (so why am I saying it?) that no one on the right liked the content of President Obama’s 2010 State of the Union speech, and many on the left were less than impressed by what they considered a conservative turn in many of his proposals. Many liberal/progressive commentators (e.g. Rachel Maddow and Kieth Olbermann, both of whom are usually very insightful) interpreted Obama’s proposals as attempts to ingratiate himself with the Republicans in congress who, these commentators correctly note, will continue to game any movement toward bipartisanship.

President Obama, however, was not reaching out to Republicans in congress, they are—despite Scott Brown’s win in Massachusetts—largely irrelevant. They have taken themselves out of the game and can do little more than heckle the players from the bench.

Instead President Obama was reaching out to the seething angry mob of populists, represented by the tea-party crowd. The Democrats, not the corporatist/oligarchist Republicans, are the natural allies of today’s populist movement, and President Obama was attempting to take the lead in pulling the populists into the Democratic camp.

We should have seen this from the beginning, from last summer when the Tea-Party protestors were disrupting Democratic Senator’s town halls. Rather than pushing back against the protestors, the Senator’s should have jumped right in and joined them. I would go so far as to say that when the protestors demanded that President Obama present his birth certificate, Democratic Senators should have jumped right in with them and demanded to see a copy. It might be embarrassing, but surely President Obama could get a copy, like the one he has on line, and pass it around to any senator who wanted to see it.

“I’ve seen the document and my staff has verified its authenticity with the governor (or whoever) of Hawaii, and I can testify that the certificate is genuine. Obama is a US citizen,” any beleaguered senator could say. Doubtless this would not satisfy a hardcore birther, but it would satisfy many others, and it would put the senator on the side of the crowd.

“Death Panels, you say!” a senator could respond. “Its an appalling idea, I will look into that personally and I can assure you that I will let no death panel stand in the legislation. And no government bureaucrat will come between you and your doctor while I’m in the Senate.” With a little finesse, Democrats could have co-opted and educated a substantial fraction of the crowd. (And elections are all about accumulating fractions.)

“OK,” you say, “I think your ideas are questionable, but even if they are valid, they are a just another example of 20/20 hindsight. Maybe you should pull your head out of your hindsight and look forward.” But in this case, hindsight does point the way forward (and Democratic politicians have shown a real talent for leading butt first.)

For support, I would refer you to the sharpest analysis of the conjunction of the far right and the more diffusely angry populists from which the tea-party organizations draw, “State Of The Union: A Status Report On The Far Right,” by Sara Robinson.

Ms. Robinson distinguishes between the perennial 10% of American who from natural inclination embrace the perpetual anger and paranoia that defines the far right (like my acquaintance Ronny Republican Rambo who responded to Obama’s election by purchasing several more cases of ammunition for his assault weapons and by stringing concertina wire along his front yard and across his driveway—he now scratches the hell out of himself moving it when he wants to park), and a “Second slice of the American populace—about the same size as the first one, or slightly bigger—who are conservative by temperament, but don't live full-time in that same overwrought, hyper-vigilant, paranoid space that the ultra-right wing authoritarian 10 percent do. This group . . . usually hews closer to the political center-right.” In times of extreme social or economic stress (and America currently has enough of both for any two countries) this second group tends to move toward the far right, who offer certainty, someone to blame, and easy answers.

The tea-party movement is a manifestation of this conjunction of groups that “congealed due to significant funding from GOP lobbyists, with a huge assist from Roger Ailes at Fox.” This coalition however is not insoluble. According to Ms. Robinson, second group which has recently turned more to the right have a stronger connection to mainstream America the does the habitual far-right 10% does, and that strains caused by that connection may result in the two groups separating again in time.

For a more detailed discussion of the strains that may tend to pull these two groups apart I refer you to Ms. Robinson’s wonderful article, but what is most important to us here is her conclusion that the Democratic Party, because of its natural affinity for the populist anger in the movement, can drive a wedge between the new far-right and the perpetual right-wing nuts.

Ms. Robinson points out that many Democrats see, “any kind of populism as a dangerous (and avoidable) impulse. ‘Responsible’ consultants are cautioning Democrats not to get out front of that wave and ride it. In 20 years, historians will record this as a mistake on the same magnitude as the one they made in 1972 when they started backing away from the unions.” And this is a mistake progressives and liberals can ill afford in 2010. If we want to beat ‘em, we have to join ‘em.

Obama’s State of the Union speech pointed the way. The Democratic Congress must fashion legislation that catches the populism of the moment. The house must pass that legislation and the Senate must attempt to pass it. If the Senate Republicans continue obstructing such legislation, then the Democrats can use that obstruction in the 2010 campaign. They can show that, on the issues that matter most to the suffering people of the United States, the Republicans neither led nor followed and refused to get out of the way!”