DEMOCRATS - January 31, 2008

There is a peculiar symmetry between certain aspects of the Democratic and Cheney parties. The GOP is supported by many people who wish that there were laws constraining things like abortion, same-sex marriage, & fornication, while allowing the quiet establishment of the forms of worship they themselves favour. GOP are said to retain the allegiance of these voters by displaying their own fealty to the same views, even while doing almost 0 to promote those ends. At least that is the burden of books like What’s the Matter with Kansas? On the other side of the aisle sit the Democrats, who allege they are deeply concerned with the welfare of US working people, but who do nothing, even when they are in the majority, to restore the protections of the New Deal. All that seems to be required in wooing their votes is a few words addressed to the generalized support for these principles. This last week the crisis in the economy moved the Congress to try to energize the market for consumer goods by putting $150 b or so into the hands of the working poor, people who would pretty certainly spend it about a fast as it came in. But W said that he wanted a big slice of it for corporations, & almost none for people who are poor enough not to pay income taxes. And so the Democrats, who are satisfied to take half a loaf or even less, caved in again and did as W said. They are very good at that, having had lots of practice. But at root perhaps is the fact that the divorce between the Democrats and the working class engineered by over 70 years of propaganda in the kept press of the plutocrats has borne fruit, so that even the unions, who are ostensibly the voice of that class, do not receive the support of that party, except lip service. And they do not even seem to mind, rather like the conservatives of Kansas on the other side. And they whimper and advertise their supposed discontent, but they also are supported by the plutocrats and don’t really mind. So a lot of the relief for the slow consumer market will go not to those who would spend it, but to people who already have more money than they can spend to buy true satisfaction.