Paul Krugman nails an essential element of our ongoing political debate in his NYT column today “Plutocrats against Democracy.” It is a concise illustration, with some comparative global examples, of one way of understanding U.S. history: a continuous struggle, from the time of religious theocracy and slavery through the Gilded Age — and the Great Depression and New Deal that followed — between the many and the few.
It’s always good when leaders tell the truth, especially if that wasn’t their intention. So we should be grateful to Leung Chun-ying, the Beijing-backed leader of Hong Kong, for blurting out the real reason pro-democracy demonstrators can’t get what they want: With open voting, “You would be talking to half of the people in Hong Kong who earn less than $1,800 a month. Then you would end up with that kind of politics and policies” — policies, presumably, that would make the rich less rich and provide more aid to those with lower incomes.
So Mr. Leung is worried about the 50 percent of Hong Kong’s population that, he believes, would vote for bad policies because they don’t make enough money. This may sound like the 47 percent of Americans who Mitt Romney said would vote against him because they don’t pay income taxes and, therefore, don’t take responsibility for themselves, or the 60 percent that Representative Paul Ryan argued pose a danger because they are “takers,” getting more from the government than they pay in. Indeed, these are all basically the same thing.
Read the whole thing here. Look no further if you want to understand why economic warrior Charlie Baker is making his case at a local country club in the final key weeks of the campaign.
Greed lies, in large part, at the base of this Republican argument, which feeds on ignorance. Societies with relatively generous social welfare policies, where economic power is comparatively widely distributed and popular interests are well represented, like democracies from western Europe to the developed states of Asia, are in general more prosperous and freer than those in which financial resources are concentrated and the people are weak, like totalitarian countries from Russia, China and North Korea, to the Middle East and Africa. We should move toward the former, as we did more or less from the Depression until the election of a Republican Congress and Ronald Reagan, and away from the latter. Republicans preach the opposite: their goal, as befits conservatives, is to take us back to the past. As Obama observed of Romney two years ago: “Governor, when it comes to your foreign policy, you seem to want to import the foreign policies of the 1980s, just like the social policies of the 1950s and the economic policies of the 1920s.” Charlie Baker has learned how to sugar-coat his message, but subscribes to the same regressive ideology.
Thus the importance of teachers, the essential task of door-to-door canvassers, in the last critical weeks before the election. We should make progress, not go back. Go Coakley!
SomervilleTom says
I love Mr. Krugman’s column, it’s right on the money (pun intended). I love your title, and nearly all of your diary is well-aimed.
Except for you closing paragraph.
Excuse me, but please show me the evidence that Ms. Coakley will do or even wants to do ANYTHING about the problem here in MA. I understand that Mr. Baker wants to perpetuate the class warfare, I expect that because of his declared party affiliation. Are we supposed to believe that supporting indexing the gas tax, a gradual increase in the minimum wage from one sub-poverty level to another, or even equal pay for equal work will make even the slightest dent in the income and wealth disparity of this state? Of course we should do all three. None of them have any relevance to Mr. Krugman’s column.
I reject your premise that voting for Martha Coakley will accomplish anything at all in regards to the topic of your diary. She has NOT advocated an increase in the capital gains tax. She has NOT advocated an increase in the estate/gift tax. She has NOT advocated increasing the state income tax rate and simultaneously raising exemptions to protect the 99%. She IS beholden big-money influencers just like any other politician, and she demonstrates far less eagerness to change that.
She says she sort-of supports a graduated income tax — something that will take YEARS to happen, if it ever does. She has also promised to work with the lege on any tax changes (meaning no increases at all on the very wealthy).
Yes, we should make progress in addressing the issue raised by Mr. Krugman. Voting for or electing Martha Coakley is, in my view, independent from that. Frankly, the time for stirring editorial pieces like this was early in the primary, when one of the candidates WAS advocating tax changes that matter.
Soliciting votes for Martha Coakley today is too little too late.
Bob Neer says
Given the practical choices. I don’t think we should let the perfect be the enemy of the good, and I do think there is a difference between Coakley and Baker, not least in how they have spent their lives. But I agree that Coakley’s relatively tepid positions are an important reason for why she is doing poorly against Baker relative to candidates like Governor Patrick and Senator Warren.
dasox1 says
Her tepid approach and equivocation are exactly the reason why she is not doing well. Moreover, her tepid positions are either (A) positions she holds dearly (which is down right depressing), or (B) political calculations to appeal to moderates (which is just plain wrong). Kennedy (E.M.), Warren, and Patrick are all unabashed progressives whose blend of liberal, working-class, populism won a few statewide elections. You know where they stand because they say so. This is Coakley’s problem. Whether it’s A, or B, above, she comes across as not having core convictions in line with deeply held progressive values in this state. And that does not motivate the base, it is the reason she lost in 2010 and, if she doesn’t pull this out, it will be the reason she looses to Baker. And, with respect to the moderates who she thinks that she’s appealing to with her middle of the road approach, she’s wrong. Because the moderates think that she’s probably a liberal who is afraid to say that she’s a liberal because she’s chasing their vote. To them, that makes her inauthentic. And, there’s nothing worse to voters than a candidate who is inauthentic. I hope she wins, I will continue to waive the flag for her, but she is a terrible candidate and she’s killing herself with her approach to this campaign.
petr says
… they stand next to Martha Coakley… Literally.
You can’t really call upon the progressive bona fides of Warren and Patrick to bolster your argument when Warren and Patrick not only stand right with Martha Coakley but say, outright, that she shares in those same progressive bona fides. Or, put another way, if you believe them, why don’t you believe them?
dasox1 says
I’m standing with her too. She’s not a good candidate and that’s why she’s struggling. She doesn’t deliver the message well, even when it’s the same message as other liberal Dems. You can’t tell me she’s a good candidate. Well, you can, but I won’t believe you.
petr says
From where I sit, you barely deign to be in the same room with her.
Thats not what you posted above, in reply to Bob_Neer. You posited a heap of conjecture about her motives and her sincerity to which you applied an extra large dose of archeology about the motivations of the base with a side of epidemiology regarding CommonWealth moderates. You, in fact, said nothing about her candidacy other than what you think others might think about it… I don’t blame you for being dizzy after all that gyration but I do not blame Martha Coakley for the whirl of your dervish
dasox1 says
But, I’m voting for her and I desperately want her to win. She’ll be much better than Baker. We do have the right to criticize political candidates whom we support, and I’ll do just that.
petr says
… that the right to criticize political candidates whom we support does not extend to impugning their character, their motives or their sincerity… else the support we profess for them comes to seem suspect.
You now have an opportunity to walk back the incondign ‘criticisms’ you’ve proffered.
dasox1 says
If you don’t think that I support her, that’s your problem. I supported Wolf and then Berwick because they were unabashedly progressive. I don’t think that she’s a good candidate, and I don’t think that she’s run a good campaign. I think that she equivocates, and I think that she has run a campaign that’s designed intentionally to appeal to moderates that may well backfire on her if she is unable to generate high turnout among progressives. I don’t see any of that as impugning her character. I believe that’s partly a political calculation that she made. I do think that when voters perceive that a candidate is being guided by political calculus it can come across as inauthentic. This was Gore’s issue in 2000 (and he’s one of my all-time favorites). But, he made political calculations in that campaign that didn’t work out well, at all. For example, he didn’t want to run as an environmentalist. Everyone knew he was an environmentalist, so his avoidance of that issue came across as inauthentic. He wanted to distance himself from the Clintons despite the fact that he was forever tied to the administration. I see some similarities here. She’s politically timid, and her rhetoric isn’t at all strong enough for my taste. Maybe it’s stylistic—but style matters in politics. I hope she wins and I’m voting for her.
Al says
I know there are others on the ballot, but they are reserved for message or pie in the sky votes. If you think Coakley is too tepid in her support for progressive positions, how is Baker an alternative if progressivism is your desire?
SomervilleTom says
I haven’t claimed that Baker is an alternative.
The alternative is to blank that office on the ballot and start working towards changing the party dynamics for the next campaign. Just as one speculation — it might be easier to replace Mr. DeLeo with a true progressive in 2016 with “Governor Baker” in office.
When good progressive leaders like Deval Patrick and Elizabeth Warren stand next to candidates like Ms. Coakley, they only hurt themselves and the brand. In my view, the Massachusetts Democratic Party has lost its heart and soul.
I am tired of working and voting for candidates who ignore me and my values year after year.
Trickle up says
while this soul warfare is going on, who gets to be governor?
Don’t blame me, I don’t like it either.
Al says
Staying home in a snit of spite because the candidate you really want is not on the ballot only empowers the opposition who would surely act in a manner far removed from what you want. Like it, or not, the race to fill the office is between those candidates who led their party’s primary selection process. That’s who we have to choose from. Fail to vote, and the choice will be made for you by others who may pick a far worse candidate. Once the election is over, and you have chosen the best candidate, or the least offensive, from the slate, then you can begin working diligently to get a better candidate the next time around.
SomervilleTom says
The right wing nominated Barry Goldwater for president in 1964. Their nominee was destroyed in the general election. The right wing DID NOT worry about who gets to be president in 1968, or 1972, or 1976. They instead used that long period to spread their roots and build an immensely powerful political coalition. I despise the right wing, I despise the values they espouse, and I despise the results their ascendancy has brought. I have nothing but respect for their political chops.
The supporters of Barry Goldwater did NOT stay home in a “snit” because there was no conservative on the ballot in 1968 (Richard Nixon was certainly no conservative). I suggest that the race of 1968 barely caught the attention of the true right wing — they were too busy building for the future.
This meme that the opposition will surely act in a manner far removed from what I/we want is both false and tiresome. Some of us have lived through Republican ownership of the corner office. My own experience is that Deval Patrick has been singularly UNSUCCESSFUL at actually changing the behavior of state government.
We still have rampant corruption, woefully incompetent agencies, dangerous, expensive, inconvenient, and unreliable public transportation, children and patients dying from institutional abuse, thousands of defendants convicted on fraudulent lab reports, and on and on and on.
I think it is perhaps time for us to focus less on party and more on performance.
ykozlov says
Just curious, why blank the office rather than vote for one of the other candidates? Not to be coy, of course I mean Falchuk.
SomervilleTom says
I blank the office because, in my view, none of the candidates are suitable for the job.
I wonder how the various polls would change (specifically those marked “undecided”) if respondents could answer “None of the above”.
jconway says
One can argue Coakley is insufficiently progressive without arguing that Baker is somehow progressive. Just as I think Obama being a tremendous disappointment and Hillary being no better does not suddenly mark me as a tea party convert. They think he’s a bad President because he is too black, too liberal, and too weak willed. I think he has been a worse President than advertised because he has not been black or liberal enough, though I will concede that they are correct he is weak willed. Similarly, the type who is inclined to vote against Coakley perceived her to be too female, too liberal, and too weak against Beacon Hill while I say she isn’t liberal enough and concede she is weak against Beacon Hill.
But, dad said it best this morning during our phone call “I’ll never trust another Republican after Romney”.
Christopher says
…regarding whether “Red” China is still truly Communist. If they were, their handpicked candidate would not be talking this way.
Andrei Radulescu-Banu says
Chinese communism has long lost any pretense that it stands for the rights of the poor people.
merrimackguy says
so much in common.