CT Blue

The Republicans have passed their tax bill, designed from top to bottom to shift money from the bottom 99.9% to the top .1%, with those of us in the top 20% being robbed the least, while those in the bottom are being robbed the most. It is class warfare on an unprecedented scale, and given past Republican attacks in the class war, that’s saying a lot.

Despite the best efforts of the Fox propagandists, and the sometimes ludicrous both siderism of the mainstream press (Dean Baker points out here that the Washington Post claims that the bill had working class roots), the bill, if the pollsters are to be believed, is the most unpopular piece of major legislation in the history of polling.

This presents a challenge to Democrats: How, in the face of Donald Trump’s unpopularity and the unpopularity of this, the Republicans only major legislative accomplishment, are they going to manage to blow it in 2018? I, for one, think they’re up to the challenge.

But lets, for the moment, assume that the Democrats wanted to take maximum advantage of these gifts? How would they do it, with respect to this tax deform bill?

As I pointed out above, the bill amounts to class warfare. Normally there are two sides in a war, and I would strongly suggest that the Democrats throw in their lot with the folks the Republicans are attacking. That means accepting the fact that this is class war and being unabashedly on the side that’s being attacked.

We have a funny tradition in this country. The Republicans stage an attack in this war and when the Democrats feebly protest, it is the Democrats who are accused of being class warriors while the Republicans get a pass. They get it because the Democrats meekly back down. Despite the fact that it is Republicans who are the aggressors in this war, it is the Democrats that consistently take the blame for the war itself.

Once again, what’s needed is a consistent Democratic message. My modest proposal here is that part of that message consist of commercials contrasting the effects of this tax bill on ordinary Americans with the benefits conferred on specifically identified Americans, such as the Koch Brothers and various members of the Trump Crime Syndicate, including Trump. A variant: there are rich people out there who are perfectly willing to say that they don’t need or want this gift. Find them, and put them on such a commercial, contrasting the benefits they are getting that they don’t need, with the human costs being inflicted on the rest of us, particularly on people living on the margins. Add in, by the way, some clips of people like Marco Rubio admitting that the tax bill represents the opening wedge in the achievement of the Republican Holy Grail: the final destruction of Medicare and Social Security. It really shouldn’t be difficult to put together some truly effective spots driving these messages home, and, unlike the Republicans, we wouldn’t even have to lie.

Of course the Democrats will be attacked once again for engaging in class warfare. And here I have a stunning suggestion: ignore the attacks and keep fighting. It is class warfare. They’ve got the money but we’ve got the numbers (apologies to Jim Morrison and the Doors for that one). We can win if our side gets out and votes; but that’s not going to happen if the Democrats assume their typical defensive crouch.

A few days ago I wrote about my fear that the Democrats would adopt a zero tolerance position regarding allegation of sexual impropriety. Not surprisingly, some have:

As calls for Senator Franken’s resignation rose yesterday, there was talk about the need for zero tolerance of sexual misconduct. For example, Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND) tweeted: “We must commit to zero tolerance—which is where I believe we as a country and Congress should be—and that means Senator Franken should step down.”

This sort of extreme view seems to have become almost settled wisdom among Democrats in DC, but if my own observations are any guide, it is not so widely shared outside the DC bubble. Opinions were almost unanimous, and most strongly voiced by some of the women at our recent Drinking Liberally group, that Franken should not have resigned.

It does appear that people not totally immersed in the bubble are beginning to see that a bit of nuance, and, at times, cold political calculation, are necessary, particularly in the political clime in which we now find ourselves. Nancy LeTourneau, the blogger whose post I linked to above, went on to make an observation similar to that I made in my post:

The arena in which I am most familiar with the use of zero tolerance is schools. It began as a slogan over 20 years ago to suggest that schools should draw a clear line about what was unacceptable behavior and administer harsh consequences to any student who crossed it. The entire effort was a huge failure that became the feeder for the school-to-prison pipeline. Here is an ABC News report on zero tolerance that aired back in 2003.

…

At this point, a lot of people (especially politicians) are trying to position themselves as “tough” on this issue by gravitating to simplistic responses like zero tolerance. Those of us who are actually interested in real change need to speak up on behalf of responses that help all of us grapple with a difficult issue and set the stage for some common understanding of a complex problem. We shouldn’t settle for anything less.

It should be noted here that already Republicans are taking advantage of the Democratic zero tolerance push. The Republican governor of Michigan has put off a special election to fill John Conyers position, thus depriving his consitituents (mostly black, so who cares, right?) of representation for almost a year, while, the Democratic governor of Minnesota has done what all Democrats seem to do:

Now Gov. Mark Dayton is throwing a wrench in the works by evidently appointing a caretaker on the condition she not seek to keep the seat, which opens the seat up to the real possibility of Republican capture in 2018 (maybe by Norm Coleman, the Republican Franken defeated in 2008). I wonder how many Senate Democrats calling for Franken’s head would have thought twice if they’d known Dayton was going to pull that boneheaded move, instead of appointing a younger star like state Attorney General Lori Swanson who could build a real Senate career.

As the post above goes on to point out, there’s something not quite right about demands that people resign without any form of due process. Democrats were unwilling to let the ethics process play out, and, if Heitkamp’s statement is any guide, will be unwilling to do so in the future. So, someone like Franken, who acknowledges wrongdoing, the seriousness of which is not yet really known, must go, while politicians who simply deny, deny, deny, get to stay. This, of course, yet again favors the Republicans.

The national Democrats act as if they have Senate seats to spare, and can easily throw a few away in service to a zero tolerance policy that make no real sense. I suspect with good cause that their constituents don’t see it in such black and white terms, but the beltway bubble is a real cultural phenomenon. A lot of us are more concerned about the fact that by throwing Franken under the bus, the Democrats may have destroyed any chance we have to prevent a Trumpian takeover of the Supreme Court. Our always marginal chances of taking over the Senate have not been enhanced by this move and that’s the point most of the Liberal Drinkers, male and female alike, were ranting about at our recent gathering. The future of the planet is at risk. We really have to think twice about imposing purity tests on our own, when we have no capacity to impose like standards on the Nazis who currently control our government.