Photo Credit: Collage by Adam Johnson
Here are three telling quotes about this year's election:
"In
theory, there are a lot of things to like about [Sanders'] ideas. But
in theory isn't enough. A president has to deal in reality. I am not
interested in ideas that sound good on paper but will never make it in
real life." —Hillary Clinton, Jan. 21, 2016
"The
point is that while idealism is fine and essential -- you have to dream
of a better world -- it's not a virtue unless it goes along with
hardheaded realism about the means that might achieve your ends. ...
Sorry, but there's nothing noble about seeing your values defeated
because you preferred happy dreams to hard thinking about means and
ends. Don't let idealism veer into destructive self-indulgence. —Paul Krugman, NYT, Jan. 22, 2016
"In
the United States, our findings indicate, the majority does not rule—at
least not in the causal sense of actually determining policy
outcomes..... [We] believe that if policymaking is dominated by powerful
business organizations and a small number of affluent Americans, then
America's claims to being a democratic society are seriously
threatened." —Gilens and Page
Team
Hillary (which includes economist/columnist Paul Krugman) is worried
about major defeats in Iowa and New Hampshire. Their counter-attack is
clear—Bernie is all pie in the sky, he isn't facing up to the realities
of Washington. And as Krugman puts it, Sanders and his supporters are
letting "idealism veer into destructive self-indulgence."
But
these demeaning attacks say much more about Clinton than they do about
Sanders. In effect Clinton is admitting (as is Krugman) that we have to
accept American plutocracy as a given that, at best, can be modified
around the edges. Neither Clinton nor Krugman believe a progressive
populist uprising (that Sanders is calling for and counting on) could
possibly modify our elite-driven system. After all, if such a movement
is possible, Hillary is likely to lose. Therefore it must be declared
impossible, off the table, unrealistic and so on.
Clearly Clinton and Krugman accept that elite rule not only shapes our current sense of reality, it is our permanent reality.
Krugman
should know that what remains of our democracy needs to be pressured
from below. His Princeton colleague, Martin Gilens, along with Benjamin
Page of Northwestern University, have co-authored a study that shows
that the average American currently has no independent impact on public
policy. They reviewed 1,779 congressional bills over the last decade and
found that, "When the preferences of economic elites and the stands of
organized interest groups are controlled for, the preferences of the
average American appear to have only a minuscule, near-zero,
statistically non-significant impact upon public policy."
Therefore,
unless you already are an economic elite, you have no ("near zero")
influence over government policy, which is the textbook definition of a
plutocracy.
How do we influence such a system?
By banging
away from the outside; by forming mass movements with mass
demonstrations and insurgency campaigns like the one Sanders is running.
He is absolutely correct to assert that we need a "political
revolution" to modify and end rule by the "billionaire class."
In
fact, there is no other way. All the careful policy crafting and
intellectual arguments are no match for dominance of the super-rich over
politics. The ties that bind Washington, Wall Street and corporate
elites will not break, let alone bend, unless faced with a severe
popular uprising. Occupy Wall Street did more to put runaway inequality
on the political map than did either Clinton or Obama.
Hillary,
however, is betting that she can win over voters by claiming she's the
practical one, not the ineffectual dreamer—that she can get things
done. But she, along with the median voter, has no chance of
influencing policy unless we are mobilized to pressure the political
system from the outside as well. She's been an insider for so long she
would rather talk quietly with her many elite contacts than threaten
them with a mass mobilization. And let's face it: she is one of them.
Yes, more liberal, t still a part of those elite structures.
For
example, it's nearly impossible to imagine Hillary calling for a
million people to march on Washington or Wall Street to demand the
breakup of big banks and a financial speculation tax to pay for free
higher education. This would be the case even if she had not taken $2
million in speaking fees from Wall Street firms. In short, she is asking
us to let her be our representative among the plutocrats where she can
make things happen "in real life."
Krugman knows better than to
argue that great politicians are the key to great changes. But sometimes
economists can be a little tone-deaf to social history. It was the
massive labor upheaval of the 1930s coupled with countless mobilizations
of the unemployed that created the space for the New Deal. It was a
decades-long militant civil rights movement combined with strong labor
support that pushed LBJ into his civil rights stands. It was the
upheavals of the 1960s that led to passage of environmental, consumer
and health and safety legislation. And it will indeed take a
Sanders-inspired political revolution to budge our entrenched
plutocrats.
Clinton (and Krugman) are also making an enormous
tactical error. The more they stress pragmatism and acceptance of elite
political control, the more they clear the field for Bernie Sanders.
People already sense what Gilens and Page have so carefully
researched—that America's basic political and economic structures are
rigged against them. They want to send a message: We are tired of our
crummy wages, our porous benefits, our lousy infrastructure, our
crumbling schools and runaway inequality. Sanders expresses what they
already feel to be true.
Moreover, it's factually incorrect to say
that Sanders appeals to our hearts while Clinton appeals to our heads.
Sanders' supporters are using their heads. The only way to change the
system is to challenge it. Nothing short of a political revolution
stands any chance of success. That's "hardheaded realism" of the first
order.
If Sanders continues to gain support it's precisely because
voters understand that the choice is clear—accept the reality of
plutocracy and beg for crumbs, or fight to tear it down.
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