It seems to have escaped MSM attention, but congressional dithering about the depressed housing market and the home foreclosure epidemic could be a sleeper issue with voters. As TDS Co-Editor Ruy Teixeira observes in his latest ‘Public Opinion Snapshot’ at the Center for American Progress web pages:

…In a new CBS/New York Times poll, 53 percent say the federal government should be helping people who are having trouble paying their mortgages compared to 40 percent who disagree.
And a solid plurality (45 percent) say the government should be doing more to help the housing market improve compared to just 16 percent who think the government should be doing less and 30 percent who believe the government is currently doing the right amount.

As Teixeira concludes, “The sorry state of the housing market may be off the current congressional agenda. But it remains very much alive among the many who feel its effects everyday.”

At TNR today, Jonathan Chait asks an important and very basic question: in doing things like supporting radical cuts in federal transportation spending, are Republicans actually expressing their vision of what the federal government should or shouldn’t do?

Do they think we’re overinvested in infrastructure? That if we reduce government involvement, the private sector will step in? Or that the economic benefits of maintaining our physical infrastructure — or, more realistically, falling behind at a slower pace — are simply smaller than the economic benefits of keeping taxes low?

There is, I suspect, no one answer. Some conservatives have very radical ideas about legitimate areas of, or levels for, federal involvement in this or domestic function. Others don’t. But particularly when the president is a Democrat, and they don’t have genuine control of Congress, they feel no particular compunction to vote in a way that reflects any honest plan for the country. Domestic spending is too high, so votes to cut it, however nonsensical when it comes to an coherent view of federal responsibility, are always the right thing to do.
The same pattern is even more apparent on issues like health care. Do Republicans all share the view that health care isn’t enumerated as a federal responsibility in the Constitution and therefore any federal health care program is illegitimate? No, and the ones who do are unlikely to talk about it in public. Do all the others reject the idea that universal access to health care is a worthy and legitimate public goal? That’s harder to say, though it was certainly fashionable pretty recently for Republicans to claim they had plans to achieve something like universal coverage, even if the details made the claim highly questionable.
But what all Republicans can agree on is that Democratic efforts to achieve universal health coverage, even if they are based on plans embraced by Republicans in the not-too-distant past, are terrible and need to be repealed immediately. As noted in my previous post, Republicans seem to feel little if any responsibility to outline what they’d do the day after ObamaCare is discarded.
Finally, there’s the Big Bertha of domestic policy disputes, the demand by conservatives for radical changes to Medicare, Medicaid and (more muted, at the moment at least) Social Security. Again, some conservatives clearly think the whole New Deal/Great Society legacy was fundamentally misbegotten and unconstitutional. Others (viz. Mitch Daniels) won’t say that, but will say these programs are inappropriate and unaffordable going forward. And still others claim that initiatives to radically reduce “entitlement” benefits (via a Medicaid block grant, Medicare vouchers, or Social Security privatization) are the only way to “save” these programs. Still, conservatives are more than willing to come together in support of proposals like Paul Ryan’s budget that get them part of the way or all the way towards their ultimate objectives.
So the question remains: does it really matter what conservatives really want in the way of ideal policies? Yes and no. Where conservatives are, as in the case of politicians like Michele Bachmann and Jim DeMint, among others, demonstrably in the grip of radical ideologies that are designed to produce a country characterized by theocracy, contempt for people in need, unfettered corporate power, and rampant militarism, then of course, progressives should make that clear. And where conservatives are demonstrably dishonest about their intentions, as with many “right-to-life” activists who weep crocodile tears for the “victims” of late-term abortions in the service of an agenda aimed at a total repeal of reproductive rights, including the use of many forms of contraception–progressives should expose the charade early and often. It’s also important to reveal what’s happening when Republican pols, whether or not they believe much of anything at all, choose to embrace the policies (or accept the litmus tests) of radicals strictly in order to achieve political power.
Beyond that, it’s probably a waste of time to worry too much about what conservatives actually want. It’s better to focus on showing what their polices would actually produce in real-world consequences. That’s bad enough.

There’s a useful article by Jennifer Haberkorn up at Politico today about the sudden demise of congressional activity on the GOP’s supposed top priority of “repealing and replacing” the Affordable Care Act. And while there’s a lot of talk about the Democratic Senate representing an absolute bar to action on this topic, it’s also clear Republicans aren’t exactly united on either the “repeal” or “replace” agenda, as Michele Bachmann’s BFF Steve King makes plain:

Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), one of the House’s most ardent supporters of repealing or defunding the law at all costs, says it has become more difficult to get the attention of House leaders.
“I can’t get any traction,” he said of his effort to repeal or defund the law. “You can’t create something in this Congress unless leadership approves it.”
He questioned whether Republican leaders are willing to repeal the whole law if it means also repealing some of its popular provisions.
“There’s a little bit of an undercurrent that I pick up among well-positioned people in this Congress who think there could be some redeeming qualities of Obamacare,” pointing to statements Republican leadership have made in support of a handful of the law’s policies, such as banning insurers from denying patients because of preexisting conditions or allowing children to remain on their parents’ insurance through age 26.

This “undercurrent” is more obvious in the reluctance of Republicans to embrace any sort of coherent plan for dealing with the health care system generally. Yes, most of them support an agenda with common features, including medical malpractice “reform,” interstate sales of insurance policies, replacement of the deduction for employer-sponsored health care with an individual tax credit, and high-risk “pools” for the uninsured, all accompanied by some strategy for privatizing Medicare and dumping Medicaid on the states. But few Republicans want to come to grips with a clear commitment on federal, or indeed public, responsibility for affordable health care. That’s probably because the ascendant forces in the conservative movement frankly think of health care as a consumer service like any other, which the government has no real business (and the federal government has no constitutional authority) to be involved in.
So it’s tough to get intra-Republican agreement on a “replacement” system, and that in turn makes “repeal” a tough sell politically, and would so even if Republicans had the votes to pull it off.
And it’s easier, of course, to be all things to all voters, posing simultaneously as the defenders of the status quo on issues like Medicare benefits and physicians’ prerogatives, even as they plan radical steps to decimate Medicare and go back to a 1950s model of health care as primarily an individual responsibility to be paid for out-of-pocket, without insurance at all.
Democrats have a continuing responsibility to smoke them out on all these contradictions.

Mark Engler has a revealing post up at Dissent, “Boycott Power and the Fall of Glenn Beck,” which ought to open up a new era of political activism for those who are looking for ways around tiresome political gridlock. As Engler explains Beck’s demise as King of wingnut TV:

One can find a variety of explanations for his departure. Observers invariably note Beck’s declining ratings. (According to the New Republic, his viewership fell “from an average of 2.9 million in January 2010 to 1.8 million in January 2011.”) Some also cite political reasons for him and Fox splitting ways. Hendrik Hertzberg speculated at the New Yorker that Beck was bad for morale at the network because he became an embarrassment for those on staff who consider themselves “news professionals.” More recently, Leslie Savan argued at the Nation that Beck was expendable because “he’s served his purpose for Fox and its subsidiary, the Republican Party.” Once the backlash against Obama was well underway and more respectable faces of extreme conservatism were in power–folks like Paul Ryan and Scott Walker–Beck was no longer needed.
These things may have been part of the story. But, if we’re handing out credit, I think we need to take time to recognize the innovative and relentless boycott that set out to strip Glenn Beck of his sponsors. The boycott was amazingly effective at doing just that–ultimately convincing several hundred corporations (including major names such as Wal-Mart, GEICO, and Procter & Gamble) to agree not to advertise on his show.
The online advocacy group ColorOfChange.org first launched the boycott in August 2009, after Beck stated that President Obama was a racist with a “deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture.” Following this, the activists did a great job of documenting the crazy and offensive things that Beck would say, and then presenting advertisers with the evidence. They got 285,000 people to sign a petition to Beck’s sponsors, and they used online tools to transmit people’s concerns to the targeted corporations. Advertisers, generally averse to controversy, left in droves.

Impressive, and it gets better. As Engler notes “ColorOfChange.org crunched some numbers and estimated that the boycott was costing Fox News more than $500,000 per week.” The boycott was shrewdly targeted, as Engler observes:

There are some lessons here about what makes a good boycott. The ColorOfChange.org drive wasn’t about getting the average American not to watch the show. It was different from the endless array of lefty boycotts that tell people not to shop at this store or buy that product, campaigns that–beyond those commandments–have no real plan for winning their demands or even for quantifying the impact they’ve made. The Beck boycott was far more strategic. Its organizers identified wary advertisers as their point of leverage, targeted specific corporations that were buying ads, and used the announcement of each new company that agreed to withdraw as a way to build momentum. By March 2011 the New York Daily News reported that “the number of advertisers currently boycotting Beck’s program is now closing in at 400.”

Engler notes that MSM explanations for Beck’s demise credit myriad factors and tended to diss the boycott. But Engler makes a strong case, and activists looking for new avenues to battle the right wing obstructionists should give his piece a read.
MLK once said advocates of social justice should do two things in every campaign: register voters and conduct boycotts. In recent years progressives have done some voter registration (not enough) but very little boycotting. Apparently the time is right to pick up the slack.

In an earlier post today, J.P. Green noted that one of the Beltway’s most durable curse-on-both-houses “centrist” pundits, WaPo’s Richard Cohen, has gotten volubly fed up with today’s Republican Party. More remarkably, the New York Times‘ David Brooks, who has actually been something of a cheerleader for the GOP throughout his journalistic career, went around the bend today and denounced the negotiating posture of congressional Republicans on the debt limit as reflecting a party that “may no longer be a normal party.”

Over the past few years, it has been infected by a faction that is more of a psychological protest than a practical, governing alternative.
The members of this movement do not accept the logic of compromise, no matter how sweet the terms. If you ask them to raise taxes by an inch in order to cut government by a foot, they will say no. If you ask them to raise taxes by an inch to cut government by a yard, they will still say no.
The members of this movement do not accept the legitimacy of scholars and intellectual authorities. A thousand impartial experts may tell them that a default on the debt would have calamitous effects, far worse than raising tax revenues a bit. But the members of this movement refuse to believe it….
If the debt ceiling talks fail, independents voters will see that Democrats were willing to compromise but Republicans were not. If responsible Republicans don’t take control, independents will conclude that Republican fanaticism caused this default. They will conclude that Republicans are not fit to govern.
And they will be right.

This is really something, coming from Brooks, who often soars above the partisan fray like an eagle, but then eventually finds his way back to the tactical positions of the GOP like a homing pigeon. Now he’s basically saying the inmates have taken over the asylum, and predictably, he’s getting pounded by the conservative commentariat for his pains.
Brooks could be the proverbial mine canary in terms of MSM perceptions of who is and who isn’t being “reasonable” in Washington right now. That won’t directly affect the actual struggle for power, but it would be nice for a change to see that the ability of the Right to shift the “center” simply by escalating its demands is not infinite.

Once upon a time the Republican Party included a few widely-respected leaders who valued reason and flexibility — names like Eisenhower, Javitz, Weicker and a few others come to mind. Hell, Nixon was a paragon of sanity compared to some of the loons running the GOP asylum now. if this sounds overstated, read Richard Cohen’s Sunday WaPo column “A Grand Old Cult,” in which he explains:

To become a Republican, one has to take a pledge. It is not enough to support the party or mouth banalities about Ronald Reagan; one has to promise not to give the government another nickel. This is called the “Taxpayer Protection Pledge,” issued by Americans for Tax Reform, an organization headed by the chirpy Grover Norquist. He once labeled the argument that an estate tax would affect only the very rich “the morality of the Holocaust.” Anyone can see how singling out the filthy rich and the immensely powerful and asking them to ante up is pretty much the same as Auschwitz and that sort of thing.
…Almost all the GOP’s presidential candidates have taken this oath, swearing before God and Grover Norquist to cease thinking on their own, never to exercise independent judgment and, if necessary, to destroy the credit of the United States, raise the cost of borrowing and put the government deeper into the hole.

Cohen notes the role of revisionist history and denial in the Republicans’ increasingly unhinged worldview:

…The hallmark of a cult is to replace reason with feverish belief. This the GOP has done when it comes to the government’s ability to stimulate the economy. History proves this works — it’s how the Great Depression ended — but Republicans will not acknowledge it.
The Depression in fact deepened in 1937 when Franklin D. Roosevelt tried to balance the budget and was ended entirely by World War II, which, besides being a noble cause, was also a huge stimulus program. Here, though, is Sen. Richard Shelby mouthing GOP dogma: Stimulus programs “did not bring us out of the Depression,” he recently told ABC’s Christiane Amanpour, but “the war did.” In other words, a really huge stimulus program hugely worked. Might not a more modest one succeed modestly? Shelby ought to follow his own logic.

‘Logic’ may not be the best word to describe GOP thinking in the second decade of the 21st century. Cohen notes a similar pattern of denial with respect to Republican policies on abortion and global warning, and adds,

…Independent thinkers, stop right here! If you believe in global warming, revenue enhancement, stimulus programs, the occasional need for abortion or even the fabulist theories of the late Charles Darwin, then either stay home — or lie.
This intellectual rigidity has produced a GOP presidential field that’s a virtual political Jonestown. The Grand Old Party, so named when it really did evoke America, has so narrowed its base that it has become a political cult. It is a redoubt of certainty over reason and in itself significantly responsible for the government deficit that matters most: leadership. That we can’t borrow from China.

The problem for Democrats is that, when Republicans become irrational proponents of discredited ideas and failed polices, there is not much incentive for Dems to up their game. Dems are not being challenged to respond to good arguments so much as tantrums by intellectually-constipated ideologues. The public gets cheated out of an enlightening debate and everybody loses.
What puzzles is why all of the Republicans have guzzled the Koolaid. Why hasn’t it dawned on the party’s brighter bulbs, perhaps Senator Lugar or, maybe Scott Brown or Huntsman that “Hmm, I could really separate myself from the pack of idjits by taking things to a more rational level”? All indications are that the public would like to see a little more flexibility from Republicans.
There may well come a point when the Republicans’ impressive party discipline starts to look like pointless obstructionism to swing voters. The public can see that, so far only one party is compromising. If sanity prevails, the Republicans’ unspoken meme that “we’re 100 percent right, and they’re 100 percent wrong, so we won’t give an inch” can’t play much longer without diminishing returns.

This item is cross-posted from The New Republic.
Michele Bachmann really wants you to know she’s a “constitutional conservative.” The term is featured prominently on her web ads. She mentioned it three times in her announcement speech. It’s in the first sentence of her official bio. But what exactly does it mean? While the term can signify different things to different people, it turns out it’s especially important to Bachmann. As a candidate who doesn’t want to get confined to a social conservative ghetto in an election year that is revolving around fiscal and economic issues–and as someone with a well-earned reputation for extremism–her strong “constitutional conservative” stance indicates, but only to those who are trained to listen, a decidedly radical agenda that is at least as congenial to rabid social conservatives as it is to property-rights absolutists or anti-tax zealots. In short, it enables her to run as a middle-of-the-road conservative who just wants to get rid of ObamaCare and balance the budget, even as she lets the initiated know she has other, more ambitious, plans for the country.
Despite the growing ubiquity of the “constitutional conservative” identifier in the Tea Party movement and the right-wing blogosphere, there’s no authorized definition of the term and some who proudly wear the label doubtless disagree about its meaning. Adam J. White of the Weekly Standard attributes its recent emergence to an influential 2009 essay in the Wall Street Journal by the Hoover Institution’s Peter Berkowitz. The Berkowitz formulation did indeed focus on the need for Republicans to return to first principles, with “the constitutional order” providing the key optic. But he also called “moderation” in the pursuit of liberty an essential constitutional concept, which is not a term one would normally associate with Michele Bachmann or Constitution-brandishing Tea Party activists.
Among this crowd, it more commonly connotes an allegiance to a set of fixed–eternally fixed, for the more religiously inclined–ideas of how government should operate in every field. Constitutional conservatives want to distinguish themselves from the more tradition-bound type of conservatives who adapt to changing social and economic needs and, for that matter, to the perceived wants and needs of the populace. They rarely come right out and denounce democracy, of course, but it’s clear they think their liberties are endangered by people who, say, would like government-guaranteed access to affordable health care.
Conservative polemicist and radio host Mark Levin offered an exceptionally clear explanation of the connection between this kind of affinity for the Constitution as the sum of political wisdom and a degree of hostility to democracy:

[F]or the Founding Fathers, individual liberty was not possible without private property rights. For the Founding Fathers, the only legitimate government was not only one that was instituted with the consent of the people, but one that would preserve and protect the individual’s right to property. Jefferson talked about it, talked about ‘tyranny of the legislature.’ So the consent of the governed is only part of it.

Levin’s words are an appropriate reminder that constitutional conservatives think of America as a sort of ruined paradise, bestowed a perfect form of government by its wise Founders but gradually imperiled by the looting impulses of voters and politicians. In their backwards-looking vision, constitutional conservatives like to talk about the inalienable rights conferred by the Founders–not specifically in the Constitution, as a matter of fact, but in the Declaration of Independence, which is frequently and intentionally conflated with the Constitution as the part of the Founders’ design. It’s from the Declaration, for instance, that today’s conservatives derive their belief that “natural rights” (often interpreted to include quasi-absolute property rights or the prerogatives of the traditional family), as well as the “rights of the unborn,” were fundamental to the American political experiment and made immutable by their divine origin.
This Restorationist character of constitutional conservatism was nicely captured by The Economist‘s pseudonymous American reporter w.w. in a commentary on Bachmann’s Iowa launch event:

[I]f one bothers to really think about it, constitutional conservativism, as construed by Ms Bachmann and her boosters, might be better labeled “constitutional restorationism”, which I think more clearly conveys the idea of a return to the system of government laid out in the constitution, interpreted as the authors intended. But this idea, if taken really seriously, is staggeringly radical.

No kidding. But that’s where the dog whistle aspect of calling yourself a constitutional conservative comes into play. The obvious utility of the label is that it hints at a far more radical agenda than meets the untrained eye, all the while elevating the proud bearer above the factional disputes of the conservative movement’s economic and cultural factions.

Read more…

I’ve celebrated quite a few Independence Days, but this is the first where I have a palpable sense that a political faction is making a powerful claim to own the holiday and the Declaration of Independence at everyone else’s expense. Perhaps it should have been plain from the very beginning of the Tea Party movement that it involved a lot of fairly privileged people who thought others were trying to ruin “their” country by advocating “un-American” idea like universal access to private health insurance. But this July 4, the idea that the Founders would all be out there today campaigning avidly for right-wing causes and candidates seems to be an article of faith for many conservatives. For a good example of the interpretation of the Declaration that holds the unique purpose of this country is to let individuals accumulate vast personal wealth and then stockpile shooting irons to protect it, you can read the latest essay of Victor Davis Hanson, a writer who is often wrong but never, ever in doubt.
E.J. Dionne responds to this line of argument for those that conservatives would exclude from the national holiday:

We need to recognize the deep flaws in this vision of our present and our past. A reading of the Declaration of Independence makes clear that our forebears were not revolting against taxes as such — and most certainly not against government as such.
In the long list of “abuses and usurpations” the Declaration documents, taxes don’t come up until the 17th item, and that item is neither a complaint about tax rates nor an objection to the idea of taxation. Our Founders remonstrated against the British crown “for imposing taxes on us without our consent.” They were concerned about “consent,” i.e. popular rule, not taxes.
The very first item on their list condemned the king because he “refused his assent to laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.” Note that the signers wanted to pass laws, not repeal them, and they began by speaking of “the public good,” not about individuals or “the private sector.” They knew that it takes public action — including effective and responsive government — to secure “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

It’s fine to have this sort of perennial debate over the ultimate meaning of documents like the Declaration of Independence. But you can’t have a debate when one side is convinced it not only represents the sole correct point of view, but the only people who can be considered true Americans who love their country. You’d think, in fact, that the growing, angry disdain conservatives have for roughly half the population of the United States would make them feel a bit more doubt about their own patriotism towards America as it actually is. Truth is rarely as self-evident as the self-righteous often believe.

In the post above Ed points to Victor Hanson Davis’ identification of “the American way” with the right to make money without restriction.
At another point in the same article, Hanson says the following:

“Race, tribe or religion often defines a nation’s character, either through loose confederations of ethnic or religious blocs … or by equating a citizenry with a shared appearance as reflected in the German word “volk” or the Spanish “raza.” And while the United States was originally crafted largely by white males who improved upon Anglo-Saxon customs and the European Enlightenment, the Founders set in place an “all men are created equal” system that quite logically evolved into the racially blind society of today.
This year a minority of babies born in the United States will resemble the look of the Founding Fathers. Yet America will continue as it was envisioned, as long as those of various races and colors are committed to the country’s original ideals.”

At the same time, a New York Times editorial today notes the following:

“The [new immigration laws] laws vary in their details but share a common strategy: to make it impossible for people without papers to live without fear.
They give new powers to local police untrained in immigration law. They force businesses to purge work forces and schools to check students’ immigration status. And they greatly increase the danger of unreasonable searches, false arrests, racial profiling and other abuses, not just against immigrants, but anyone who may look like some officer’s idea of an illegal immigrant.
The laws empower local police officers to demand the documents of people they meet, and to detain those they suspect are here illegally. That means they can make warrantless arrests for assumed civil immigration violations, a stunning abuse of power.”

Concern is certainly justified about our nation’s continuing “committment to the country’s original ideals, but the committment of people of “various races and colors” (other than white males) is not necessarily the place to begin.

In yesterday’s edition of Daily Kos, Chris Bowers had a pitch and a good point to make — and it’s still cross-post worthy:

Today is the last day of the second fundraising quarter in 2011. Hundreds of federal candidates are racing to fill their campaign coffers so that they can boast as large a total as possible in their next FEC disclosure report. The idea is that the larger their fundraising total, the more seriously they will be taken by party higher-ups, the better coverage they will receive from political reporters, and the more fear they will put into electoral challengers both real and potential.
Due to the political ramifications of these fundraising totals, today’s frenzied quest for donations is undeniably an important event. However, it’s also very abstract and insidery. Candidate fundraising totals are completely disconnected from the reality of the lives of the voters who will, eventually, determine the fate of the political careers of these candidates. No swing voter is out there thinking, “Well, I haven’t gotten a raise in three years, but I’m voting for the guy who had a huge Q2 FEC haul.”
Contributing to the Wisconsin recall elections is very different. For one thing, the recall elections are happening this summer, rather than in 2012. Further, there is nothing abstract about it. The Republican budget went into effect yesterday, causing tens of thousands of Wisconsinites to lose their collective bargaining rights. Teachers are already being laid off too, including several hundred just in Milwaukee.
Right now, fundraising in Wisconsin is not a contest over favorable coverage from beltway rags, scaring candidates out of campaigns, or other insider positioning for 2012. Instead, contributions to Democratic recall candidates in Wisconsin will go directly into what is already the end-stage of biggest electoral fight–and arguably political fight–of the year.
As I wrote yesterday, it’s a fight that can prove a determined, people-powered movement can defeat the wave of austerity conservative politicians are pushing at the behest of billionaires and big corporations.
You have probably been bombarded with fundraising requests today, but I humbly ask that you contribute $1 to each of the Democratic candidates in the recall elections on top of what you have already given. When you do, you will be joining with nearly 18,000 of your fellow Kossacks in one of the most remarkable grassroots fights this country has seen in a long while.
Please contribute $1 to each of the Democratic candidates in the Wisconsin recall elections. The FEC deadline is important, but right now what’s happening in Wisconsin is much more so.

Supporting the restoration of collective bargaining rights in a bellwether state — a great way to celebrate America’s patriotic holiday weekend.