Grass Greener, etc. : Lawyers, Guns & Money
I just want to draw everyone’s attention to the comment thread of this post. The post itself isn’t particularly interesting, but the comment thread is fascinating in that it reads almost as a direct mirror image of dozens of comment threads that you’d find on progressives blogs decrying the latest “surrender” by Democratic office holders.
Wow, this is a stunning example of the unjustified equivalence. Farley would have us believe that the right-wing freakout over the passage of START is somehow equivalent to liberal angst over the the Boehner-Obama tax deal. That is, simply put, horseshit.
Look, I am a security expert. I know arms control issues pretty well. My first article on arms control issues was published back in 1991. I’d edited a book on proliferation. I am genuine expert on strategic arms.
START is essentially irrelevant. It has some minor useful provisions about on-site verification, and some even more minor technical language regarding encryption of various tests. But its effect on the strategic nuclear balance is non-existent. Its impact on missile defense is non-existent. It is a minor, routine agreement. Only a lunatic would see it as either essential or a threat to U.S. national security. It the international relations equivalent of a sit-com. Mildly interesting and immediately forgettable.
The tax deal, on the other hand, adds tens of billions to the debt. It continues to exacerbate the ever widening incoming inequality in the U.S. It is the first direct assault on the Social Security funding stream in decades. It is a dagger aimed at the heart of progressive politics.
Now DADT is a different issue. And I can understand why the right wingers would freak out over that. Much bigger issue, though again, I would argue that the moral equivalence implied in this post is horrifying. You want to compare concern over long-term economic stagnation and the collapse of the middle class with the right-wing desire to continue to institutionalize their idiotic bigotry? Please.
This…
“Farley would have us believe that the right-wing freakout over the passage of START is somehow equivalent to liberal angst over the the Boehner-Obama tax deal.”
and this…
“Much bigger issue, though again, I would argue that the moral equivalence implied in this post is horrifying.”
…is a rather severe misreading of my argument. I completely agree with you regarding the magnitude of the two issues, and of course likely agree with you regarding the substance of the issues. I don’t even disagree that conservatives are in some very meaningful and important way far more “nutty” than progressives. What I am interested in is the interpretation of the activities of Congress critters by both progressives and conservatives, and how these interpretations tend to mirror each other in important ways. In particular, I’m interested in how both progressives and movement conservatives step into a narrative of relentless, spineless failure on the part of their preferred Congressional representatives; virtually every failure (not just New START, DADT, tax deal, etc.) is described in almost identical terms.
I suspect that there are structural/psychological explanations for this, but this does not mean that I’m suggesting any kind of “horrifying” moral equivalence.
The equivalence is correct, for a simple reason. Political extremes will usually find their party’s elected officials lacking in the true faith.
For another perspective, from a comment at ThinkProgress website: “The far left wants things that are politically unrealistic, while the far right wants things that require a different reality.”
BTW, the worst thing about the third stimulus program is that it will cost much an do little. Tax cuts have a low multiplier. Temporary tax cuts have even lower multiplier. Estate tax cuts and capex tax breaks do even less.
Robert: No, I don’t think I misread your argument. You may, I guess, have mis-written it. But in trying to posit a generalizable political phenomenon, you have engaged in what Giovanni Sartori referred to as concept misformation. You’ve created an analytical container holding both liberal angst and conservative rage, and sought to find explain both in terms of general political dynamics. But the analysis breaks down immediately because the two things are simply not alike.
Look, I get that the “base” will never be satisfied by the compromises a politician needs to make. Sure, got it. But the substance of the compromises matters. There have been endless compromises/surrenders made by Obama. Card check, immigration, even Afghanistan. But when a Democratic president embraces the GOP talking points about tax cuts creating jobs, and agreeing to yet another round of ransom payments to the wealthy (on top of the failure to hold anyone accountable for the financial crisis), well, that is a pretty big deal. The reason a lot of us are really, really mad right now is that we recognize that Obama is not making a narrow set of pragmatic concessions, but is instead starting down a path that will be very difficult to reverse and will, inevitable, lead to a gutting of social programs and a worsening of income inequality.
We need the federal government to collect 21-23% of GDP in revenue to sustain current social programs. Obama is essentially institutionalizing this rate at 16%. Because only a damn fool thinks Obama will embrace tax increases in 2012, the reality is that Obama just made the Bush tax cuts permanent, creating a 5-7% structural deficit where it could have been closed to 1-3%. That is a big deal, and people are right to be surprised, angry, feel betrayed, etc.
Anyway, long story short, you have people angry about a decision that will have profound consequences for a generation compared to a bunch of yahoos braying about the implications of an arms control treaty they don’t even understand. In other words, liberals, whatever their structural position vis-a-vis their elected leaders have a real complaint. The right-wingers on START at least are just responding to a made up issue. Explaining both these things as examples of the same dynamic misses the point.