September 30, 2010
The New York Times recently ran a story about Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s efforts to support the campaigns of centrist Republicans out of concern that the election of “Tea Party” – backed candidates was pushing the Republican Party to the extreme right. The article by Michael Barbaro began this way:
In an election year when anger and mistrust have upended races across the country, toppling moderates and elevating white-hot partisans, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg is trying to pull politics back to the middle, injecting himself into marquee contests and helping candidates fend off the Tea Party.
Although it’s nice to see Mayor Bloomberg take a stand in support of centrism, I believe he is going about it the wrong way. There are almost as many different motives driving people to the Tea Party movement as there are attendees at any given Tea Party event. Although the movement is usually described as a far-right-wing fringe phenomenon, reporters who have attended the rallies and talked to the people found a more diverse group. Consider the observations made by True Slant’s David Masciotra, who attended a Tea Party rally in Valparaiso, Indiana back on April 14:
The populist anger of the Northwest Indiana tea partiers could be moved to a left-wing protest rally without much discernible difference.
As much as the NWI Patriots seemed to hate Obama and health care reform, they also hate large corporations and the favorable treatment they are given by Washington.
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They have largely legitimate concerns and grievances about the quality of their lives and future of their children’s lives that are not being addressed in Washington by either party. Their wages have stagnated, while the cost of raising a family has crushingly increased.
My pet theory is that the rise of the Tea Party movement is just the first signal indicating the demise of the so-called “two-party system”. I expect this to happen as voters begin to face up to the fact that the differences between Democratic and Republican policies are subtle when compared to the parties’ united front with lobbyists and corporations in trampling the interests of individual citizens. On July 26, I wrote a piece entitled, “The War On YOU”, discussing the battle waged by “our one-party system, controlled by the Republi-cratic Corporatist Party”. On August 30, I made note of a recent essay at the Zero Hedge website, written by Michael Krieger of KAM LP. One of Krieger’s points, which resonated with me, was the idea that whether you have a Democratic administration or a Republican administration, both parties are beholden to the financial elites, so there’s not much room for any “change you can believe in”:
. . . the election of Obama has proven to everyone watching with an unbiased eye that no matter who the President is they continue to prop up an elite at the top that has been running things into the ground for years. The appointment of Larry Summers and Tiny Turbo-Tax Timmy Geithner provided the most obvious sign that something was seriously not kosher. Then there was the reappointment of Ben Bernanke. While the Republicans like to simplify him as merely a socialist he represents something far worse.
Barry Ritholtz, publisher of The Big Picture website, recently wrote a piece focused on how the old Left vs. Right paradigm has become obsolete. He explained that the current power struggle taking place in Washington (and everywhere else) is the battle of corporations against individuals:
We now live in an era defined by increasing Corporate influence and authority over the individual. These two “interest groups” – I can barely suppress snorting derisively over that phrase – have been on a headlong collision course for decades, which came to a head with the financial collapse and bailouts. Where there are massive concentrations of wealth and influence, there will be abuse of power. The Individual has been supplanted in the political process nearly entirely by corporate money, legislative influence, campaign contributions, even free speech rights.
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For those of you who are stuck in the old Left/Right debate, you are missing the bigger picture. Consider this about the Bailouts: It was a right-winger who bailed out all of the big banks, Fannie Mae, and AIG in the first place; then his left winger successor continued to pour more money into the fire pit.
What difference did the Left/Right dynamic make? Almost none whatsoever.
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There is some pushback already taking place against the concentration of corporate power: Mainstream corporate media has been increasingly replaced with user created content – YouTube and Blogs are increasingly important to news consumers (especially younger users). Independent voters are an increasingly larger share of the US electorate. And I suspect that much of the pushback against the Elizabeth Warren’s concept of a Financial Consumer Protection Agency plays directly into this Corporate vs. Individual fight.
But the battle lines between the two groups have barely been drawn. I expect this fight will define American politics over the next decade.
Keynes vs Hayek? Friedman vs Krugman? Those are the wrong intellectual debates. It’s you vs. Tony Hayward, BP CEO, You vs. Lloyd Blankfein, Goldman Sachs CEO. And you are losing . . .
Barry Ritholtz concluded with the statement:
If you see the world in terms of Left & Right, you really aren’t seeing the world at all . . .
I couldn’t agree more. Beyond that, I believe that politicians who continue to champion the old Left vs. Right war will find themselves in the dust as those leaders representing the interests of human citizens rather than corporate interests win the support and enthusiasm of the electorate. Similarly, those news and commentary outlets failing to adapt to this changing milieu will no longer have a significant following. It will be interesting to see who adjusts.
Party Out Of Bounds
October 4, 2010
It’s refreshing to witness the expansion in the number of people looking forward to the demise of our two-party political system. Tom Friedman of The New York Times recently gushed with enthusiasm about the idea of “a serious third party”, capable of rising to the challenge of enacting important, urgently-needed legislation without offending the far left, the far right or “coal state Democrats”. Friedman is only half-right. We need a third, a fourth, a fifth and a sixth party, as well. Placing all of one’s hope in THE Third Party is a formula for more disappointment.
I frequently complain that we no longer have two distinct political parties running America. We are currently stuck under the regime of the Republi-cratic Corporatist Party. The widely-expressed disappointment resulting from President Obama’s failure to keep his campaign promises was discussed in my previous four postings.
Salena Zito of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review wrote a great article about her year of traveling 6,609 miles to interview 432 people identifying themselves as Democrats. Here’s what she learned:
Ms. Zito reached the conclusion that the man elected President by these voters was really no improvement from the 2004 candidate, John Kerry:
Throughout the current election cycle, the Democratic establishment has avoided the sort of challenge experienced by the Republican establishment in the form of the Tea Party movement. That will change after November 2, at which point disgruntled Democrats will feel more comfortable jumping ship. It took consecutive humiliations at the polls in 2006 and 2008 before the Tea Partiers were motivated to break ranks with the Republican powers that be and undertake campaigns to challenge Republican incumbents. Their efforts paid off so well, many Tea Partiers have become enthused about having a distinct party from the Republican organization. After the 2010 elections are concluded, we can expect to see splinter groups breaking away from the Democratic Party.
Back on April 22, Mark Willen, Senior Political Editor of The Kiplinger Letter, wrote an interesting piece, lamenting the disadvantage experienced by moderate candidates because the political primary process facilitates victory for the choices of extremist voters as a result of the enthusiasm gap. (Extremists are more motivated to vote in primaries than moderate voters, who don’t consider themselves crusaders for a particular agenda.) Willen sees the two parties being pushed to ideological extremes, despite the fact that most Americans consider themselves to be in the center of the political spectrum. Another important point from that piece concerns the fact that info-tainment programs presenting extremist views get better ratings than programs featuring commentary that really is “fair and balanced”. As a result, cable television audiences are regularly exposed to a bombardment of caustic rhetoric.
The 2012 elections could bring us a significant increase in the number of “independent” candidates, as well as nominees from new political parties. A change of that nature could close future mid-term enthusiasm gaps, occurring in the November elections (such as the one expected for this year). The prospects for a larger, more diverse group of political parties are looking better with each passing day.