There are times when I don’t know whether to laugh or to cry and reading Dana Milbank’s most recent column entitled “The Populists Capture the Democratic Party” was one of them:
It was another one of those rallies on Capitol Hill where lawmakers line up to take shots at the Obama administration. But this time the lawmakers were all Democrats.
A quartet of senators and a dozen members of the House took the stage in a park across from the Capitol midday Wednesday to join hundreds of steelworkers, union faithful and environmentalists in denouncing President Obama’s bid for fast-track approval of the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal.
First, not a single major Democratic Party figure was quoted in the piece. It was a group of second (or third) tier senators and Congressmen and a couple of union leaders.
If they aren’t the 1% they’re within spitting distance of it. Every single one of the people quoted in the piece has an annual income plus benefits package north of $200K a year. These are hardly Eugene Debses let alone Tom Joads.
Second, this is not the 1960s. Union members are just over 10% of the American people and activist environmentalists are even fewer than that. These are the elite, the vanguard of the proletariat, not the people.
In my opinion each and every one of those quoted would be horrified at a truly populist agenda in the United States. I agree that it would be opposed to the free trade position that has dominated both political parties for most of the last forty years. Here are some of the things that I think a truly populist platform would include:
- Reduce foreign trade. Impose tariffs.
- Cut foreign aid.
- Bring the boys (and now the girls) home.
- Cut the number of work visas, both H1-B and other.
- Make English the national language. No languages other than English in public schools (other than in foreign language classes) and proficiency in English required to gain citizenship. I have no idea of where most Americans stand on birthright citizenship but I suspect they don’t think much of “anchor babies”.
- Control the borders.
- Medicare for all!
- A higher minimum wage (how high?)
- Don’t bail out big banks—break ’em up.
As I have said repeatedly here I continue to believe that the default position for many if not most Americans is isolationism which explains a lot of that list. Free trade is popular among economists and Congressmen but I don’t think it’s a popular view. Neither is mass immigration.
Despite the horror that many Americans express about “socialized medicine”, Medicare remains popular. A lot has to do with marketing. If you ask people whether everybody should be covered by a program like Medicare, they say “Yes”. If you ask whether they support a single-payer system, they say “No”. If you ask whether they approve of the VA hospital system, they’ll probably say “Yes”. If you ask whether they would approve of a national health system like Britain’s, they’d say “No”.
The number of people who would support a guaranteed job policy seems to be growing, too. I suspect that’s a question that also depends on just how you phrase it.
What would be in a truly populist political platform? Put your suggestions in comments. Your proposals don’t need to be things you’d support. Goodness knows I don’t support everything in the list I wrote above (maybe not anything). I’m just looking for ideas that are popular.
Cut our debt with a combination of tax increases and spending cuts. The tax increases will come mostly from the wealthy.
Increase federal spending in our district. Cut it everywhere else.
Believe that climate change is real, but do nothing about it.
Term limits for every Congressperson, except for ours.
Cut spending on the arts and use that to pay off our debt.
Steve
I honestly don’t think most Americans are concerned about the debt. 11% say it’s their biggest concern. Even fewer are worried about income inequality.
This:
isn’t far from what I’ve said should be the view of every Illinois Congressman. Look at where Illinois stands some time on returns from federal taxes and where it is in unemployment, housing value, etc.
I’d be happy to send you our military bases & retirees. Hate to give ’em up, but I’ll send you the two space centers over at Cape Canaveral just to sweeten the pot. That ought to cover most of the gap.
Oh, and we will send you all our immigrants, too, and the spending that comes with it. That ought to fix you guys right up.
–Guaranteed basic income
–Draconian regulations forcing corporations to reinvest their profits in wages rather than executive compensation, share buybacks, dividends, and stock price upkeep
–Federal bailouts/assistance for mortgage debt, credit card holders, and student loans
–A guaranteed form of health insurance
Determine how many workers we need to secure our economic future. Permit breeders to have only those children needed net of the Latino workers available, already potty-trained and ready to work..
I think I must mean something different by “populist” than y’all do. I don’t just mean things that would be good for ordinary people. I mean things ordinary people think would be good for them and, consequently, are popular.
Just as an example I see no evidence that there’s popular support for a guaranteed income. There is evidence for popular support for a guaranteed job. Historically, Americans have not supported a guaranteed income. Is there evidence they do now?
Just as an example I see no evidence that there’s popular support for a guaranteed income. There is evidence for popular support for a guaranteed job. Historically, Americans have not supported a guaranteed income. Is there evidence they do now?
It’s a fair question but it also negates what your point, which was a good one. I don’t think there’s any evidence. But what does that mean except that it’s never been presented by a mainstream national party? Or even asked about by some polling agency? This is the same thinking, mind you, that says Elizabeth Warren is a populist.
The shocking thing about a guaranteed basic income is that pinko socialist as it sounds, it’s been supported by figures on the right. It should be part of the ‘Process’.
Granted, it’s easy to support something that has no choice of ever becoming a law.
Yep. I have a vague recollection of William F. Buckley supporting the idea back in the 60s. My point is that based on the available information a guaranteed job program is more likely to get traction than a guaranteed income one.
My larger point is that I see no signs of either party becoming more populist although I can practically guarantee that both parties will try to seem more populist.
My larger point is that I see no signs of either party becoming more populist although I can practically guarantee that both parties will try to seem more populist.
I think a more constructive exercise might be to list the ways that each party practices this. The Tea Party and Occupy movements represent two sides of the coin and you can bet that party operatives have been working on ways to coapt the sentiments of each without actually doing anything to change the structure that supports the 1%.
It’s not hard. Presently, there’s a lot of hand-wringing among Democrats about income inequality. Meanwhile they foster policies that increase income inequality like our present healthcare system and bank bailouts that left bank executives unscathed. When Democrats controlled Congress did they introduce any bills to increase taxes on the top income earners? Or did they reinstate FICA, in effect a large tax on the lower four income quintiles? In other words they increased income inequality. The odd thing about their fixation is that it’s a weak issue. Only about 2% of Americans think that income equality is the most important issue on our collective plate.
Republicans talk a lot about small government. That’s a populist issue. According to Gallup, more Americans think the federal government is the most significant problem the country has than any other single issue. How many government departments have they eliminated? What have they actually done to make the federal government smaller?
cut waste, fraud and abuse I think is more accurate than having specific cuts in mind (other than for’n aids)
I think deficit reduction has been a populist theme from time to time. Andrew Jackson (the only President to pay off the national debt), viewed deficits as a form of corruption. Why can’t the government balance its checkbook like every homeowner? Ross Perot was a populist with flow charts. The Tea Party is a populist anti-tax movement — their special interest is lowered taxes, the details are for someone else.
I’m not sure populism really exists in the country except at the fringes. We are too ideologically divided.
@Dave- yes, those are the types of things I had in mind. It’s harder to frame it the way you did in the post, I think, because populism resides on both the left and right but the forms it takes are different. I don’t think it’s very helpful to look at polling across the spectrum because left wing populism is anti-corporate and right wing is anti-government.
Here’s one that I would call populist (and would personally favor) but I don’t know that I’ve seen it defined that way- accountability of government. It’s become obvious that the federal bureaucracy is bloated, corrupt, and ineffective. I would support any candidate who ran on a platform (if at all credible) of cleaning up the mess.
Milton Friedmans negative income tax is the closest attempt at the most administratively efficient guaranteed income scheme I am aware of.