The Krugman Speaks

Slowly - we're startin' to get it.

Here's Paul Krugman on the Budget:

Since the beginning, the Obama administration has seemed eager to gain the approval of the grownups — the sensible people who will reward efforts to be Serious, and eventually turn on those nasty, intransigent Republicans as long as Obama and co. don’t cater too much to the hippies.This is the latest, biggest version of that strategy. Unfortunately, it will almost surely fail. Why? Because there are no grownups — only people who try to sound like grownups, but are actually every bit as childish as anyone else.

After all, if whoever it is that Obama is trying to appeal to here — I guess it’s the Washington Post editorial page and various other self-proclaimed “centrist” pundits — were willing to admit the fundamental asymmetry in our political debate, willing to admit that if DC is broken, it’s because of GOP radicalism, they would have done it long ago. It’s not as if this reality was hard to see.

But the truth is that the “centrists” aren’t sincere. Calls for centrism and bipartisanship aren’t actual demands for specific policies — they’re an act, a posture these people take to make themselves seem noble and superior. And that posture requires blaming both parties equally, no matter what they do or propose. Obama’s budget will garner faint praise at best, quickly followed by denunciations of the president for not supplying the Leadership (TM) to make Republicans compromise — which means that he’s just as much at fault as they are, see?

The Beltway Bubble has become nearly impervious even though once in a very great while there's some evidence of a thin spot in the outer membrane. Joe Manchin's teary-eyed performance yesterday while responding to reporters after he met with Newtown parents is a pretty good example - but mostly, our glorious representatives are all too busy talking to each other or to the Press Poodles or to their Pollsters or to Lobbyists or to Wall Streeters and Fund-Raisers and Big Contributers; or whatever - they're just too busy to be bothered to talk directly to real people.

Maybe on those rare occasions they do talk to real people, they're reminded of why they're supposed to be there and that's what makes a Joe Manchin cry.  But I don't think those are tears of sadness or even of shame so much as they're the tears you cry when you really start feeling the stress.  Manchin has to put on a good show, promising people he'll do something about their issue, and then he has to go into a committee meeting and basically fuck 'em over while making it look like he fought the good fight for them.  That makes for an awful lotta stress.  Let's hope I'm being overly skeptical.  Maybe Manchin was crying tears of relief; grateful that he can say "the people made me do it", but let's not count on that one, OK?

With very few exceptions, it doesn't much matter what the "issue" is.  Guns, Abortion, Immigration, Gay Marriage, Jobs, The Budget - none of that matters because it's not  about the 2nd Amendment or Privacy or E-Verify or Equal Rights or Taxes vs Spending.  The issues don't get resolved because politicians need those issues to get the money, and they need the money to get the votes.  Which I think is the main contributing factor in why so many people believe the centrist baloney of Both Sides Do It / They're All The Same.  For one thing, if you buy into it, then you don't have to take a real stand on anything, which means you don't have to defend your position if it comes up in conversation, which means you don't have to do the real work of a citizen participating in a democracy.  Cuz hey - ain't nobody got time fuh dat.

Cutting to the chase - solve the problem of Coin-Operated Politics, enabled - if not driven outright - by a Corporatized Media (which has far more interest in keeping the fight going than they have in the outcome of the fight), and a lot of these horribly complex and nettlesome problems start to disappear as if by magic.

In the meantime, remember that while there's plenty that's seriously wrong with our system, there's something way more seriously wrong with a radicalized GOP right now - which could easily be the main reason why there's something so seriously wrong with our system.