The magical thinking election

A few last thoughts as we head into what might be a historic election.

In Arizona, the state's largest newspaper wrote an especially tortured endorsement for Gov. Jan Brewer. The "reasoning" of the Arizona Republic is that Brewer is best positioned to help the state's ailing economy (!). And that she can work with dominant Republicans in the Legislature (!).  Of course the latter is true because she will go along with the Kooks. The former is insanity, for Brewer doesn't understand the first thing about economic development. If sunshine, low taxes and "light regulation" were the keys to prosperity, then Arizona would be Hong Kong. So she promises more of the same, especially failure to understand the housing boom isn't coming back. This endorsement is all about appeasing the white-right advertisers and readers in the suburbs, especially the East Valley. Brewer is an idiot, and the stories are legion (e.g., being the first governor in memory to skip out after a very brief appearance at Governor's Arts Awards dinner). A more cogent endorsement came for Terry Goddard from the Arizona Daily Star.

It's said that statewide elections are decided in Pima County. Not this time, alas. If Raul Grijalva is in trouble, then the Arizona Democratic Party is kaput. As with the nation, the red states will become redder; so much for angry Tea Partiers and theocrats voting to "throw out the bums" who caused the disaster. They are the stooges, the useful idiots, of the corporate elite pulling the strings for a "permanent Republican majority."

After January, you can kiss goodbye to Amtrak and the chance to build any — any! — high-speed rail in our lifetimes, falling even further behind our competitors. So with other infrastructure that would create desperately-needed jobs and scientific research that would keep America ahead in the knowledge economy. Retrofitting suburbia for a high-cost energy future (not to mention the possibility of a more livable, civilized future). Forget it. President Obama will be even more timid, even more Jimmy Carter. As the United States faces monumental challenges, the gridlock ahead will make the last two years look like the New Deal.

There's much magical thinking about how this could be a blessing in disguise for Mr. Obama, that he "can do a Clinton," as in Bill's triumphant triangulation and "winning" the government shutdown standoff. What, exactly, did Mr. Clinton win? The elimination of the old welfare system, an accomplishment that is now heaping more cruelty on millions of Americans. Deregulation of industries, costing millions of jobs. The entry of a recalcitrant China into the World Trade Organization, helping to destroy countless American industries. The repeal of Glass-Steagall, which set us up for the greatest economic collapse since the Great Depression. All Republican goals. Oh, and impeachment, a wonderful show that distracted us from the likes of Osama bin Laden. I can't wait. Social Security privatization, maybe? But Mr. Obama will be deprived of even these "successes." The Republicans can learn, even if the Democrats don't. And they own a major television network and almost all talk radio.

Behind all this are some realities: The ongoing pain from the swindles and collapse left over by the Bush (and Clinton) policies, as well as the average schmuck's desire to live in a 4,000-square-foot house in the exurbs, paid for with debt he can't handle. America's dependence on foreign oil, with all its destabilizing, dangerous consequences — and, postponed a bit by the Great Recession, the even more rocky future of world peak oil. Climate change: It's happening now and the costs are growing; ahead, we face huge national security, economic and health dangers from our inaction. We can't afford our soft empire and endless wars, even as the ascendant Republicans might push Mr. Obama into a new conflict with Iran (is the ancient Persian state the graveyard of weak Democratic presidents?). We've lost our small-D democracy in a quiet coup of moneyed interests. None of this is sustainable. If only we were as afraid of these big threats as of a few thousand disorganized terrorists.

Yet no one will tell the people these hard truths, and the steps we must take to correct them. Certainly not the president. Nor, apparently, can the political system correct itself. We no longer have an American-style two party system. We have one party, the new Republicans, who are more like a European-style (and proto-fascist) entity, with Bolshevik-like ideological discipline. The other party is a dying, American-style mass political party, where its many wings are its weakness. This is unprecedented since the Civil War. The corporate control behind it, of course, has its echoes in the Gilded Age. But then America was an industrial behemoth, making its debut as the China of the 19th century, with the remnants of the frontier to work off national tensions. Now...what? "God hates fags" and cheap gadgets from China will only get you so far.

What's the road ahead? I don't know yet. But not for nothing do we have all these zombie movies and the television show The Walking Dead. On the other hand, beyond the red-red states, the nation remains closely divided. Does that portend hope or violent reaction when reality can no longer be denied?

Comments

[Don McArthur]

I'm in agreement with your doom and gloom view of the future, I'm just not sure that it matters any more. After all, Mencken is a hero to me:

"Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard."
- H. L. Mencken (1880-1956)

I'm focusing on the upside - since the Golden Age of the American Middle Class is destined to become nothing more than a vaguely recalled historical oddity, maybe we can finally admit that an existence focused on some mindless aggregation of 'shiny, pretty' was an empty and soul-destroying non-life, anyhow. I mean, it was all just crap we were collecting. An ephemeral jolt of aquisitional stimulus/response, and then emptiness.

I suspect we can do better than that.

[Rate Crimes]

No magic. Behind all the noise there is just cold, hard reality...

http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2010/nov/01/mccain-thinking-yucca-visit/

[Pete]

Jon. Why anyone in their right mind would vote for Jan Brewer. Take out their stands on the issues and it comes down to a few things. Terry Goddard seems like an intellectual having attended Harvard and also has a law degree. There are rumors that Brewer didn't even finish high school. Wouldn't that reason alone convince the majority of Arizonans to vote for Terry Goddard?

[soleri]

"The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter." - Winston Churchill

We're about to lose an election, which is something that happens from time to time. What's new is that the winners are sociopathic fantasists so mindbogglingly idiotic that any other advanced nation would have laughed them into oblivion without a second thought. Obviously, timing was important here, as was corporate cash and the GOP's breathtaking propensity to lie about virtually every national interest except AIPAC's. And this much is also true: Democrats suck at messaging - except the kind that winces acquiesence to media trolls and loudmouths. Will Democrats fight for you? They won't even fight for themselves.

There's really no way out of this trap. We're going to spend a decade or so debating whether Obama was Jimmy Carter with Hitler's mustache or Josef Stalin with Jason Kidd's jump shot.

2008 is the election you WANTED TO LOSE because 2010, as luck would have it, is becoming the pivotal election in our lifetime. Congress is about to be captured by nihilists. Health-care reform will be effectively defunded. Deficit supernovae explode as tax cuts become the all-purpose fiscal panacea. Spending cuts, mostly symbolic, target alternative energy, the EPA (forget about regulating greenhousee gases) NPR and the NEA. And the zealots might well decide to vote against raising the deficit ceiling, which in turn creates an international economic crisis.

This isn't simply an unpleasant interlude. This is the ball game.

[CDT]

I think reality, while it will suck, can be denied for a good deal longer. Look at Arizona!

[Jacob]

I'm looking forward to the delicious amounts of cognitive dissonance on the right. I'm looking forward to the remote possibility that conservatives might actually spend time in deep reflection when they realize that the new guys they elected are no better than the "bums" they threw out on the street. I'm looking forward to Vietnam-levels of anger from all points along the political spectrum. I'm looking forward to oil spikes and houses selling at 1996 prices and 12% unemployment and deflation and a volatile stock market. In sum, I'm looking forward to the destruction of the corporate-owned, two-party system.

[eclecticdog]

Bring on the full Kook! Only then will the morons realize what they've done.

[Kevin]

I am extremely disappointed that a transportation bill was not passed before this election.

I suspect the next 2 years to be similar to AZ under Napolitano - with Obama acting as a check on kook power.

Nothing meaningful will be done. There will be no compromises - with a stalemate standoff consuming all of 2011. Then, 2012 brings on what Obama calls "the silly season" where every bill brought to the floor will be about election soundbites.

The folks over at the Oildrum.com have for years now spoke about the "terrible tens" decade we have just begun. It looks more likely that they'll be proven right.

[koreyel]

Holy Stupid Batman...

Want to sense the true depth of AZ kookiness?

In CD 8 in Jesse Kelly is running against the seated Democrat Gabrielle Giffords. Teabagger Kelly is actually promising voters NOT to bring home the bacon to his district.

In other words: He is bragging that he is a dog that don't hunt. And attacking Giffords for actually getting "earmarks" for her constituents(!).

What kind of new age political stupid is this? Boasting that you aren't going to work for those that vote you in? It's like shooting yourself in the foot and manning-up that you can limp along just fine without any help...

I heard of stupid is as stupid does...
But this New Age Political Stupid is really colossally obtuse. I mean really: "We'll pay our federal taxes but I promise not to bring home any of that money." That's an applause line in Arizona today?

[soleri]

koreyel, it works for Jeff Flake. And it's worked for John McCain since 1983. Notice, too, that their idea of pork doesn't include military-industrial complex booty, border "security", or new roads. Essentially, "pork" is anything too complex to sum up with a bumper sticker.

Arizona is a net taker state in that it gets more back from the feds than it sends to them in taxes. But it's not a guilty conscience that prompts birdbrains like Jesse Kelly. It's just the chronic dishonesty of Republican rhetoric.

[Rate Crimes]

It's all about energy . . .

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/alternate-energy-holdings-inc-ceo-don-gillispie-predicts-resurgence-for-nuclear-power-following-national-election-2010-11-02

[phxSUNSfan]

Ugh, the insanity! Despite Goddard and Rotellini saying that Democrats showed up at the polls, I beg to differ. I think the kooks (tea party) were the people with the passion in this election unfortunately. Let's see how awful a job these kooks do and work for the people of AZ and the U.S. to wake up and realize their mistake. Our job now is to limit the carnage voters just created.

[azrebel]

I live in a state that elected Ben Quayle.
I live in a state that elected Ben Quayle.
I live in a state that elected Ben Quayle.

That pencil neck, dipstick whose mother still dresses him before he goes out to play is a U.S. congressman.

Lord, give me the strength.

[Emil Pulsifer]

Soleri quoted:

"The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter." - Winston Churchill

The best argument for it is the absence of a viable alternative.

Dictators/cliques can be just as stupid, just as dogmatic, just as uninformed, and/or just as unscrupulous and selfish. They cannot, however, be voted out, and governing bodies beyond the reach of popular recall are notoriously difficult to influence.

[phxSUNSfan]

Amen, Emil! And I do love the Churchill quote but it seems only when those I don't like are voted in; go figure. So, I wonder if AZ voters will reject Brewer and the other neo-Cons when they fail us?

If I only had a short-term memory I would think voters are suffering from schizophrenia but I seem to remember mid-term elections being reliably "unstable"; as in 2012 will be the year for Democrats again? We shall see if the pattern persists. Ugh!

[phxSUNSfan]

AZreb, thank God my district voted in Ed Pastor! Not that it is of much comfort to you or overall after this election aftermath...

[phxSUNSfan]

I can't believe how close some of the contests have been even in Washington State!!! WTF!

[Pete]

Ed Pastor should run to unseat John Kyl in 2012. Pastor is someone who can get the hispanic base to register and turn out to vote at the same level the old retirees do. Also, he's a popular congressman never getting below 60% in his district. He also has experience having been in congress for nearly 20 years.

[soleri]

"Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time." - Winston Churchill

I don't want to upset this site's literalists by posting contradictory aphorisms, but it's a good idea to entertain opposite ideas anyway since poetic truth is never black or white. The populism of today's Tea Party is mostly toxic and malign. Take out Dick Armey and the Koch brothers, and it's as democratic as any lynch mob.

The distinction for an old Tory would be the necessity of buffers and institutions that keep the mob from the substituting its passion for considered judgment. Of course, this is usually guess-work but I tend to trust the guesses of the educated and seasoned more than those of the passionate and ignorant.

[ZoomZoomZoom]

To put the cherry on top of the sundae, Russell Pearce was elected Senate President today. All we need is Jack Harper as Speaker of the House and the "full kook" is complete.

[azrebel]

Enough politics. Time for happy thoughts. Soon I will own "South Phoenix Rules" adding to my collection of Jon's great series of books. Along with my collection of all of Tony Hillerman's books, that makes me a happy camper. Like ZoomZoomZoom says above, sometimes life is like a sundae with a cherry on top.