The Sky Is Falling in Massachusetts!
CHRIS MAISANO
Today my email inbox has been bombarded with hysterical messages from various liberal groups trying to convince me that today’s special Senate election in Massachusetts is a matter of life or death that puts “President Obama’s agenda” and especially “health care” at risk. Also, let’s not forget that Teddy Kennedy’s seat needs to stay blue!
I’m sorry, but I won’t be shedding any tears if Martha Coakley loses the election and the Democrats lose their 60 seat majority in the Senate. Over the last year we’ve seen time and time again that it doesn’t matter whether or not the Democrats control the White House and hold supermajorities in both houses of Congress. If Coakley does indeed win, does anyone really think that this will allow the Democrats to “fix” the terrible health insurance bill we’re likely to see? Or that the Democrats will attempt to pass anything more than a toothless, symbolic version of the Employee Free Choice Act (if they even take it up at all)? Or that the Democrats will pursue the enactment of serious financial reform that significantly reduces the power of the banks and the hedge funds? Or that the Democrats will stop escalating U.S. military involvement in the Middle East or put serious pressure on Israel to stop settlement construction and territorial expansion? The answer to all of these questions (and a host of others that I won’t even ask) is no, and that should be clear to any progressive who hasn’t been deluding him or herself over the last year. Besides, if the Democrats have proved so incapable of putting their majorities to good use that they are having trouble keeping their Senate seats in what should be their safest state, they deserve to lose.
This fixation on the supposed world-historical importance of the Massachusetts Senate race is all too symptomatic of the kind of wishful thinking that permeates far too many sectors of the broad progressive movement. If we just keep electing more Democrats, this mindset holds, the road to reform would be wide open and all we’d have to do is buckle up and go along for the ride. I wish that was the case, but it’s not, as it’s based on the assumption that most Democrats want to pursue a progressive agenda when in fact the only thing all but a very few care about is cashing in campaign contributions and getting reelected.
In the absence of a militant left outside of the political system that has the ability to make serious demands and threaten political trouble if they are not met, it doesn’t matter whether or not the Democrats have a 60 seat majority or a 600 seat majority. We’ll just keep getting a steady diet of bullshit shoved down our throats by Democratic pols who know that the votes of so-called “progressives” can be taken for granted as they do the bidding of the business interests that own the political system. The sad thing is that I get the feeling that way too many of us have come to enjoy the taste.
The counterargument — which I’m not saying I buy — is that without a Democratic majority we won’t get a militant (or radical) left. The Battle of Seattle did happen under Clinton, not Bush Sr. or Jr., after all.
I actually have the feeling that the idea that the President could get a House majority and sixty votes in the Senate has tended to paralyze progressives — who think if they cool it, they’ll get what they want in a Congressional vote.
I’m certainly aware of the counterargument Jason and I think that there is some merit to it, but I’m really frustrated that we can’t seem to break out of the kind of cycle we’ve seen over the last 20 years or so – horrible Republican followed by a still horrible but less obviously cretinous Democrat followed by horrible Republican, rinse and repeat. We have to figure out a way to get out of this trap. I don’t really know how – suggestions welcome!
At least the idea of reforms and additions to the social safety net and mobilizing unions to campaign for things, rather than to protect things like social security is in the vernacular. It may just seem that much rosier, because the politics of the Bush years were especially reactionary and defensive.
Of course what we really need is a refounded independent left, which isn’t around the corner anytime soon.
It wasn’t so much a matter of “It will be good if Coakley wins,” as “we’ll be REALLY fucked if she doesn’t”. Well it’s all over, now, so we’ll have to see if there are any silver linings. I kinda doubt it. Anyway, I was figuring we’d get fucked in November, anyway. I just didn’t expect it to happen so soon.
B – When did the unions campaign for anything? They chose not to mobilize their members around a legislative agenda because they thought that since the Dems were in power all they would need is some expert lobbying to line up a few senators, in the words of Leo Gerard of the Steelworkers.
And will we really be fucked now that Coakley has lost? Honestly, how different will the political situation be now that the Dems don’t have a filibuster-proof majority, especially when they were unwilling to actually make use of that majority when they had it? Let’s face it, the Democratic party as any kind of vehicle for social change is dead (and has been for a while), and the labor movement as it currently exists is probably completely short-sighted, outmoded and doomed to die unless it dramatically changes the way it does things. It seems to me that we should be focusing basically all of our energy on coming up with new ideas and strategies for an independent left and a new labor movement rather than getting caught up in election cycles that in the big picture turn out to be basically meaningless.
There’s been a lot of vulture theory of socialism theories going round too:
http://www.gaysagainstobama.org/2010/01/why-left-should-celebrate-chris-browns.html
You know, on the specific issue of health care, I keep thinking about these posts from the Washington Post’s health wonk, Ezra Klein:
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2010/01/the_constitutionality_of_the_i.html
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2010/01/single-payer_by_attrition.html
Like most liberals, Klein usually argues that while the health care bill sucks, it’s still vitally important to pass it because otherwise we won’t have a shot at any kind of reform for a long time if ever. But the post above implies something quite different: that the unsustainable cost trajectory and adverse-selection problems in the current system make some kind of national healthcare inevitable, probably sooner than later. This in turn suggests that the death of the current proposal, based on individual mandates and subsidies to prop up a zombie private insurance industry, wouldn’t be such a disaster after all.
I can see two objections to this. One is that in the interim period while the private insurance industry is collapsing, the un- and under-insured will continue to suffer from untreated illness, medical bankruptcy, and so on. Is that morally tolerable? How much of that is worth it for the promise of something better down the line? Secondly, the dysfunctionality and Califorinification of national politics raises the possibility that, rather than solving the health care crisis (which is also a fiscal crisis of the state), the political system will just stand by while the U.S. degenerates into a bankrupt mess.
I’m not yet fully convinced by those objections, however.
Suffering from untreated illness, medical bankruptcy, and all of the other ills of the American health system will still take place if a bill is passed. Sure, some people will be better off but other people would be worse off under the kind of bill that would probably pass. If it dies, it would probably be a good thing. I think the bill would ultimately make it harder to undermine the insurance companies, who would be strengthened by what’s been proposed in Congress.
And I think that in the absent some serious structural reforms in the legislative process, the government won’t be able to do much to solve health care or the other major problems facing us anyway. I think we’re starting to reach the point where not even small reforms are possible unless a whole lot besides changes too. Which is really bad because the left is in no position to make those changes happen.
This article is one of the best comments on this subject that I have seen printed.
The Democratic Party while consisting of a number people we “think” are going to do a good are hopeless.
Even if they had a 90 – 10 majority in the senate they will stilled bungle it up. I just wish that someday in my life when the Democratic Party gets majority power that they govern more like the Republican Party in respect to telling the other to shut up and deal.
someday….
The best articles I’ve found for understanding the DP are here:
http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/townsend240807p.html
http://www.newpol.org/node/199