November 11, 2012

In Science and the Modern World, Alfred North Whitehead praised the Seventeenth Century as "the one century which consistently, and throughout the whole range of human activities, provided intellectual genius adequate for the greatness of its occasions." His focus was on science, but he mentioned two men of letters, Shakespeare and Cervantes. He might have added another, John Donne who, in 1624, wrote these familiar lines:

No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were; any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

Donne’s insight is a lesson we need to relearn. Conservatives, especially in their libertarian form, are wedded to the notion that everyone should be able to go his own way, keep what he has, take what he can, and ignore everyone else. (The contemporary formula for that is YOYO: you’re on your own). Contrary to Donne, they believe that the loss of a mere clod is unimportant: they will take notice only if a promontory, one of their manors, is lost. We’ve just had a presidential election in which that philosophy came to the fore and was personified in the Republican candidates. They lost, but no transformation should be expected.

One excuse for that philosophy is that we can’t afford the welfare state, that transfer payments lie at the heart of our budgetary problems. Another is that welfare (including Social Security) creates laziness and dependency. Both were offered up today by the reliably reactionary Robert Samuelson of the frequently reactionary Washington Post.⁸⁶

Our society is increasingly divided, increasingly controlled by great wealth, unwilling or unable to solve or even recognize urgent problems, prone to treat social programs, even disaster relief, as if they were gifts to the unworthy rather than a mark of an advanced and stable culture. We need inspiration but, unlike the Seventeenth Century, the present one is not blessed with thinkers adequate to the occasion. We must resort to those in the past, which ought to appeal to conservatives.

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86. "It’s the Welfare State, Stupid," http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/robert-samuelson-its-the-welfare-state-stupid/2012/11/11/e392868a-2ab0-11e2-bab2-eda299503684_story.html?hpid=z2   

November 4, 2012

In two recent columns, Charles M. Blow described Mitt Romney’s relationship to the truth. In the first, he said: "This election may go down in history as the moment when truth and lies lost their honor and stigma, respectively. Mitt Romney has demonstrated an uncanny, unflinching willingness to say anything and everything to win this election." He referred to Romney as "the unprincipled prince of untruths."⁸³ In the later column, he added: "Evidence continues to emerge that Romney is one of the most dishonest, duplicitous candidates to ever seek the presidency."⁸⁴ Moreover, Romney has managed to combine a disregard for the truth with a lack of substance; his vagueness would embarrass Reagan and his deviousness would embarrass Nixon. In other words, he is a deceitful empty suit.

This is not to say that Barack Obama is a candidate to inspire confidence or enthusiasm. Whether from conviction, strategy or timidity, he has not staked out a progressive position with any consistency or tenacity, and at times he seems to lack imagination. I wish that we had a strong liberal on the Democratic ticket.

That reaction is common on the left and has led some to rebel. Chris Hedges recently declared that he will vote for the Green Party.⁸⁵ His basic argument is that "major correctives to American democracy have come through movements . . . that have operated outside the mainstream," and that the right course is to support those efforts by voting for their proponents. That conclusion is familiar, abstractly cogent and foolish. I can offer the last opinion without undue smugness, as one who strayed from the fold under similar circumstances: in 1980, I abandoned Jimmy Carter as insufficiently liberal and voted for the third-party candidate John Anderson. Mr. Hedges sees such a desertion as a statement of principle and a critique of the system. It is, instead, an exercise in pique, a self-centered and unrealistic demand that the world go one’s way.

A vote for a third party or write-in candidate is a vote not merely thrown away, but thrown to the opposition. Is Hedges sufficiently unaware to think that the choice of Romney or Obama makes no difference? Is he complacent about a Romney win? Apparently so: "The November election is not a battle between Republicans and Democrats. It is not a battle between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney. It is a battle between the corporate state and us." Hedges lists some entirely valid criticisms of Mr. Obama, and praises the Green Party leader, but neglects to evaluate Romney, who is the real alternative. He somehow sees the barrage of advertising by Republicans and Democrats, attacking each other, as a single corporate campaign to convince us not to vote for a third party. He is talking nonsense, both in his apocalyptic picture of the corporate menace and in the implied notion that the two candidates are equally committed to "the corporate state."

Leave aside his exaggeration and lack of focus. Third parties or non-party movements have, as Hedges argues, put forth important progressive ideas, but they haven’t implemented them for the simple reason that they never win national elections. The agenda is set by the party which does. Hedges will, in a tiny way, directly help the Republicans; to the extent that his argument has influence, he will have a slightly larger impact; others independently of the same disposition will push the result further in that direction. They need to recall that the most important potential impact of any third party which is at all successful is demonstrated by Florida, Ralph Nader, and the outcome of the 2000 election.

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83. http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/01/liberty-to-lie/
84. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/03/opinion/blow-is-romney-unraveling.html
85. http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/why_im_voting_green_20121029/

October 31, 2012

From time to time I receive campaign mail which seems to assume that I am a Republican. I’ve sometimes attributed that to my address, which has been in Republican districts. However, it must be more than that; now I am "one of America’s most notable Republicans." I know that because a letter from Mitt Romney tells me so. Now, one of us is confused, and I think I can say without much chance of error that it’s Mitt.

Mitt tells me in this letter that he’s running for President. I suppose there are people unaware of that, despite his years-long campaign, but would a notable Republican not know? Never mind; Mitt also wants to tell me why he’s running. Here it is: "I believe in America." As a reason for wanting to be POTUS, that’s a little vague, but there’s more: "I am sick and tired of BIG GOVERNMENT." Mitt isn’t sick of run-of-the-mill big government; he’s sick of the capitalized form, so maybe ordinary big government would survive: you know, like a massive military. Mitt is running "to bring true and lasting fiscal discipline to Washington." Fiscal discipline would seem to preclude cutting taxes and spending more on the military, but perhaps "true" discipline somehow gets around that.

The bottom line is that Mitt wants me to join "Romney Victory" a group "100% committed to defeating President Obama . . . ." That does seem to be the entire platform.

Mitt advises me that the "first $5,000" of my donation will go directly to Romney for President, and that the maximum contribution is $75,800, which is useful information because, as a notable Republican, I might have been tempted to give more. If I pony up $5,000, I will be offered exclusive updates and will be connected to a dedicated Romney Victory staff member who will stand ready to assist me with up-to-the-minute election information. I wonder if that would include explaining what, after all the flip-flops, Mitt really stands for, if anything.

October 2, 2012

The Seattle Times, in its house editorial on Sunday, came out for Barack Obama and summed up the election rather well. It isn’t enthusiastic about Obama and its opinion on some issues would seem to line up with the affluent, so the fact that it supports the President for reelection is a dire prediction for the Romney candidacy.

It led with this: "In 2008, Barack Obama was The Seattle Times’ choice for president. Four years later, we endorse him again, with less enthusiasm. But he is a better choice than Mitt Romney, and could still go down in history as a good president." Faint but apt praise and the only sensible conclusion. Here are the details, using the Times’ categories:

Foreign affairs. The Times thinks that Obama has been too slow in getting out of Afghanistan, certainly a reasonable argument. However, it praises his restraint regarding Iran and the uprisings in Libya and Syria. "On these matters, Republican nominee Mitt Romney is at his worst, parading his eagerness to use force. Romney has no experience in foreign affairs, and it shows." It does indeed, but Romney supporters apparently want him to go after Obama on foreign policy, a ploy which would require some nerve after Romney’s embarrassing trip abroad and the reaction to his grandstanding about the assault on the embassy in Bengazi.

Monday’s Washington Post web page included links to two blogs by Romney fan Jennifer Rubin. (I don’t understand why the Post gives her any space, let alone the multiple links she often enjoys, but that’s another matter). She wants Romney to be more assertive, criticizing his recent Wall Street Journal foreign policy op-ed as too general. According to Ms. Rubin, "we are in an urgent situation in which the president refuses to see the flames lapping around us." She wants to intervene in Syria and join Israel in threatening Iran. As to the latter, "a forceful set of policies" would "make a military threat credible by obtaining authorization from Congress for use of force . . . ." The last time we did that it certainly worked out well.

Trade. The Times worried that Obama would propose dumping NAFTA; he didn’t, so all is well, at least as the editors see it. "Now it is Romney who rashly promises to pick a trade fight with China."

Spending and debt. "What’s needed here is steady, long-term reduction in the nation’s debt. Obama hasn’t done it, and it may be his greatest failure." No, on the economy his error was in proposing too small a stimulus and then letting deficit worries prevent further efforts. "Romney promises to rein in entitlement spending, but to protect military spending." The editors didn’t comment on that; certainly it would be the wrong policy.

The financial system. "Obama should have pushed for a separation of investment banking from commercial banking in a new version of the Glass-Steagall Act, which safeguarded the financial system from 1933 to 1999. He should have broken up the top four or five big banks, ending ‘too big to fail,’ and he should have moved more aggressively to make complex securities transparent . . . . Romney will not do these things, but Obama still could." All true.

The Main Street economy. "Romney knows leveraged buyouts, but he has little understanding of the needs of employers on Main Street America." More to the point, he has even less understanding of the needs of non-employers. "Obama’s proposal to raise taxes on the $250,000 bracket, and to set the death-tax rate at 45 percent, shows that he also is out of touch." Out of touch with the Blethen agenda, they mean: low taxes protect the inheritance of the Blethen family. "He promised an active antitrust policy but mostly has not delivered. Romney would probably not, either." That apparently refers to the next topic, also a Blethen priority.

Media control. "In 2008, Obama promised to use the Federal Communications Commission to block the consolidation of the news media into a handful of giant corporations that threaten the functioning of our democracy. He has not done it. Romney is not going to do it — but Obama still could." The Times has opposed cross-ownership of media for years, partly out of principle but, at least prior to the demise of the P-I, out of concern for survival.

Education. "Obama deserves credit for defending charter schools and other education reforms within the Democratic Party." I’m not convinced that charter schools are a good idea, and the second point sounds like union-bashing.

Health care. "During a year of economic crisis, when that should have been his focus, Obama instead spent his political capital on the Affordable Care Act — “Obamacare” — and did it on a party-line vote. It has little cost control in it. It need not be repealed, but it will have to be fixed." If Obama truly had focused on spurring the economy, the Times would not have liked it, as it would have meant more spending and a larger deficit. The health care act has more cost control than usually acknowledged; Obama has received hypocritical criticism rather than praise for the 716 billion lopped off provider payments.

Romney doesn’t even appear under this topic and the previous one nor, strangely, under the next.

Partisanship. "Obama promised to bring a less partisan style, but he has been aloof, with few friendships across the aisle. If in the past two years, the House Republicans have cooperated little with him, he has also cooperated little with them." That is an absurd, if not unique, conclusion.

"Bottom line: Obama’s presidency has been disappointing, but he still has promise. Romney would be too much of a gamble." The Obama term has been disappointing but, for many of us, in different ways than the editorial states. Evaluating Romney as a gamble is generous.

________

Update: a third Rubin link appeared on the Post’s main page around 2:30 PDT, in which she reassured the faithful that the polls don’t really show an Obama lead.

September 13, 2012

One of the passages in Clinton’s speech to the Democratic convention didn’t sound right to me.

"Of course, we need a lot more new jobs. But there are already more than three million jobs open and unfilled in America, mostly because the people who apply for them don’t yet have the required skills to do them." Are there many jobs begging, whatever the exact number, for lack of adequately educated or trained applicants? Is that the root cause of unemployment? Will retraining bring the unemployment number down? I didn’t know the answer to the first question, but, on checking found his estimate of open jobs to be correct, even an understatement. Why there are that many unfilled positions is a mystery to me; statistics show that the number of people becoming employed and the number leaving jobs are about even.⁸⁰

However, it seemed that the answer to the other two questions must be negative. The economic slump and the consequent rise in unemployment are the result of insufficient demand; businesses without customers do not need additional employees. Retraining and other educational initiatives are important, but they take too long to have any impact in the short run. A technical study confirms my guess.

Ezra Klein, in The Washington Post,⁸¹ pointed out the fallacy in Clinton’s analysis and cited a study recently released, "The United States Labor Market: Status Quo or A New Normal?" by Edward P. Lazear and James R. Spletzer.⁸² Their paper examines the opposing theories, that unemployment is "structural," i.e., the result of permanent changes in the economy, or is "cyclical," the result of the recession. If the problem is structural, if the economy has changed in such a way that there is a mismatch between skills and open jobs, then retraining would be critical. However, the authors reject the view of Clinton and many on the right that the cause is structural.

An analysis of labor market data suggests that there are no structural changes that can explain movements in unemployment rates over recent years. Neither industrial nor demographic shifts nor a mismatch of skills with job vacancies is behind the increased rates of unemployment. . . . The patterns observed are consistent with unemployment being caused by cyclic phenomena that are more pronounced during the current recession than in prior recessions.

Cyclical unemployment, the sort to be expected in a recession — although worse this time than usual — will respond to stimulus by the administration or the Fed. Conservatives oppose stimulus, and Clinton helped their cause.

Clinton also said "even as we get Americans more jobs, we have to prepare more Americans for the new jobs that are actually going to be created. The old economy is not coming back. We’ve got to build a new one and educate people to do those jobs." I’m not sure about that either. Does it mean that manufacturing is dead? If we don’t produce goods, how can we straighten out the balance of payments? Can that be done with services alone? I don’t know, but simply saying we have to plan for a different economy without specifying what that is, and how we create it, and whether it’s desirable doesn’t help much, and it gives comfort to the business lobby by turning attention away from repatriating jobs.

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80. http://www.bls.gov/news.release/jolts.nr0.htm
81. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/wp/2012/09/11/the-politicians-are-failing-theory-of-unemployment/ . Michael Lind offered similar comments; http://www.salon.com/2012/09/11/obamas_a_supply_sider_too/
82. http://www.kansascityfed.org/publicat/sympos/2012/el-js.pdf

September 8, 2012

I decided, in a moment of masochism, to read the Republican platform just adopted. I was interested to see whether any of the candidates’ vague promises regarding economic growth or deficit reduction were given more substance. They weren’t. As to growth, "Republicans will pursue free market policies" and rein in government spending; the latter proposal encapsulates their inability to learn from experience. As to the deficit, "Republicans will make hard choices and set priorities;" the Stockman magic asterisk lives.

One could be forgiven for concluding that the Party has run out of ideas. That impression is reenforced by the fact that the platform is a treasure trove of myths, clichés, euphemisms and buzz-words. Even the title and section headings are clichés: "We Believe in America," "Restoring the American Dream," "We the People," "Renewing American Values," and "American Exceptionalism."

I’ll spare you the Preamble. Its relentless banality could turn the strongest stomach. I’ll limit disclosure to this: "Providence has put us at the fork in the road, and we must answer the question: If not us, who? If not now, when?" Even assuming that it was Providence and not Republican policies which put us where we are, the answers are: anyone else; for you folks, never.

"Restoring the American Dream" (the economy)

Among the myths are that Obama’s policies have "destroyed jobs," "created a culture of dependancy," and led to a bloated government. The stimulus plan was a waste of billions "with no payoff in jobs."

The Republicans somewhat grudgingly acknowledge that the Constitution authorizes the government to take care of those who cannot care for themselves, but denounces the "use of taxation to redistribute income." The distinction escapes me; the quoted phrase is just another verbal knee-jerk.

As to the tax system, the principal delusion is "the beneficial budgetary impact of lower tax rates." Taxes should be "fairer," by which is meant easy on the wealthy. Specifically they should be flatter (as if they were really graduated now), marginal tax rates should be reduced 20% across the board, the Bush tax cuts should be made permanent, and there should be no increase in the tax rate on dividends and interest. The "death tax" should be repealed; fairness to heirs, you know.

We are told that "American businesses now face the world’s highest corporate tax rate." Obviously that is true only of corporations, and it’s true only in theory. The federal income tax on corporations is 35%, but the average effective tax rate is about half that, and many large corporations pay no income tax.

The platform alludes to a national sales tax, in this rather odd language: any such tax "must be tied to the simultaneous repeal of the Sixteenth Amendment." I’m not aware of any serious proposal for a sales tax, but of course these folks would welcome any opportunity to be rid of income taxes. After all, as they remind us, "Taxes, by their very nature, reduce a citizen’s freedom." Think of how much freer Mitt Romney would be if the government hadn’t confiscated 13% of his income.

The platform advocates a balanced budget amendment, ignoring the fact that no Republican administration since Eisenhower has achieved a balanced budget, and it’s been a long time since a Republican president proposed one; even the sainted Reagan never did. The argument for the amendment is that the federal government should follow the lead of states with such laws, ignoring the completely different fiscal role and responsibility of the two levels of government.

Obamacare is, of course, a rich source of myth: it will "empower . . . bureaucrats to cut Medicare in ways that will deny care for the elderly." (Apparently "death panels" have been laughed off the stage). Instead, the Republican plan will "empower . . . seniors to control their personal healthcare decisions," aided, of course, by the charitable instincts of insurance companies.

A discussion of inflation led the platform drafters into a brief, coy discussion of the monetary system. They were not quite bold enough to refer in terms to the gold standard, so resorted to euphemism. "President Reagan . . . established a commission to consider the feasibility of a metallic basis for U.S. currency. The commission advised against such a move." Undaunted, "we propose a similar commission to investigate possible ways to set a fixed value for the dollar."

The Party which aims to turn back the clock by decades or centuries, depending on the subject, has coined a term to attack New Deal programs: "antiquated." It aims that weapon at labor law, although piously describing pro-business policies as "the rule of law." It will bring "freedom" to the workplace by prohibiting card check union elections and by enacting a national right-to-work law, thus slipping in an infamously misleading euphemism. The party of the elite takes a shot at "union elites" in — double horror — Washington offices. This section winds up with a salute to states which have avoided fiscal disaster by "reforming their laws governing public employee unions," otherwise known as union-busting.

"We the people" (a miscellany about alleged Constitutional principles)

Our states, we are told, are laboratories of democracy. In what way? By enacting voter ID laws and other measures to suppress minority votes; democracy for the chosen only. The excuse? "Voter fraud is poison." Perhaps it would be, if it existed; no examples are given because apparently there aren’t any. Continuing the theme of avoiding democratic outcomes, the platform rails against any effort to elect the president by popular vote. It would be "a mortal threat to our federal system" and, for reasons not stated, would be "a guarantee of corruption." It also would have meant that George W. Bush would not have been elected, even with a partisan Supreme Court (dare I say activist judges?) ready and willing to help out. Contemplate the difference in the ensuing eight years.

Republicans are, they remind us, the party of the Constitution, unlike the Democrats. The platform’s commitment to the ideals of the Bill of Rights is firm but selective. As to the First and Second Amendments, it supports the Supreme Court’s creative interpretations: more money in politics and more guns. It loves the Tenth Amendment which, though basically a truism without specific content, has become a peg on which to hang states’ rights conservatism.

"America’s Natural Resources: Energy, Agriculture and the Environment"

As to the natural environment, "Experience has shown that, in caring for the land and water, private ownership has been our best guarantee of conscientious stewardship, while the worst instances of environmental degradation have occurred under government control." At this point we have passed from myth to fantasy, and from that to blather: "Liberty must remain the core energy behind America’s environmental improvement." Oh, wait: that refers to the evil EPA; I understand now. That agency and the cap-and-trade plan are denounced under a subsection on coal. Burn more, pollute more. The government has a "job killing punitive mentality." Ah yes, every federal program or action kills jobs.

Under "The Proper Federal Role in Agriculture," we are told that we must limit the interference by activist judges in environmental management.

"Reforming Government to Serve the People"

"We are the party of government reform." That’s a true statement so long as the definition of reform is flexible. In this case it means "reversing the undermining of federalism" and opposing "the expansion, centralization and bureaucracy in an entitlement society." The last term has become the vehicle for selling an abandonment of Social Security and Medicare. The GOP is against massive indebtedness, blaming that, not on the irresponsibility of the Bush years, but on entitlements. But wait! Two paragraphs later, the platform asserts that the Republican Party is "committed to saving Medicare and Medicaid." If that isn’t enough chutzpah for you, read on. Younger workers, we are told, have lost faith in the Social Security System. Might plans to gut it have contributed to that?

The platform applauds initiatives by Republican governors; you know, like the request for more flexibility regarding the welfare work requirements which Obama was denounced for agreeing to. The GOP also is concerned about our health and wants to combat lifestyle evils, such as obesity. Didn’t conservatives denounce the anti-obesity campaign led by Michelle Obama as one, to quote Sarah Palin, that seeks to take away "God-given rights to make our own decisions"? Never mind.

A subsection is captioned "Regulatory Reform: the Key to Economic Growth." Of course: get government out of the way, and all will be well. Here’s a concession: "Many regulations are necessary." However, not all: "no peril justifies the regulatory impact of Obamacare on the practice of medicine, the Dodd-Frank Act on financial services, or the EPA’s and OSHA’s overreaching regulation agenda." Health care, banks and industries are best left alone, so that we can continue to have worse health care at greater expense than other advanced countries, risk another financial collapse, live with pollution and ignore workplace hazards.

"Renewing American Values to Build Healthy Families, Great Schools and Safe Neighborhoods"

The GOP is the party of "independent individuals and the institutions they create," including families, schools, congregations and neighborhoods, but not government. One of Bill Clinton’s most telling lines at the Democratic convention was his reference to the aim of We the People in the Constitution: to create a more perfect union. Republicans view that union in terms not far removed from those of the Confederacy, and no surprise, as this now is a southern party.

Republicans are worried, as they have been for decades, about the threat to the Constitution from activist judges. That seemed to be a myth, but give them credit: they saw it coming. Just look at Citizens United . Oh, apparently that’s not the reference. Requiring people to purchase health insurance — you know, like Mitt Romney did — is "an attack on our Constitution," upheld because of that activist Roberts. They have a point, of course, because the Affordable Care Act "was never really about healthcare." It was about power, expansion of government, control over the economy. It was "the high-water mark of an outdated liberalism," an attempt to impose "a euro-style bureaucracy to manage all aspects of our lives." It was — oh come on, say it — about socialism.

"American Exceptionalism" (foreign policy)

Republicans are, they tell us, the party of peace through strength, an interesting slogan for a party which recently followed a policy of war through lies. To be fair, that occurred under a former president, what’s-his name.

_____________________

On the subject of myths and clichés, and in furtherance of my mission to record the daffiness of right-wing authors, here’s the latest from the shelves of the local bookstore:

David Limbaugh, The Great Destroyer: Barack Obama’s War on the Republic;

Michael Savage, Trickle Down Tyranny: Crushing Obama’s Dream of the Socialist States of America;

Dinesh D’Souza, The Roots of Obama’s Rage; and, ironically,

Jonah Goldberg, The Tyranny of Clichés: How Liberals Cheat in the War of Ideas.

August 24, 2012

A new book, It’s Even Worse than It Looks, by James Mann and Norman Ornstein, describes how polarized American politics has become. It identifies two problems; the first is that the major parties have become "more ideologically coherent, internally unified and adversarial." As to the Democrats, that is true only in an historical sense: years ago, the conservative southerners left and the party became rigid, although not unified, on certain social issues.⁷⁴ The authors’ reference to both parties sounded like the introduction to an equal condemnation. That, however, is not what they have in mind, as they identify the second problem thusly: "[H]owever awkward it may be for the traditional press and nonpartisan analysts to acknowledge, the Republican Party has become an insurgent outlier — ideologically extreme; contemptuous of the inherited social and economic policy regime; scornful of compromise; unpersuaded by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition."⁷⁵ To me, that is the problem, and it plus the dithering weakness of the Democrats describe the present situation.

As to the former, it’s not just that the daily attacks from the right are partisan and it isn’t just a matter of exaggeration or distortion; such tactics would be nothing new and Democrats hardly are above using them. It isn’t just the shameless hypocrisy, or the outright lying, or the disdain for the 99% while trying mislead them into thinking that their interests and those of the 1% coincide. It isn’t just an inability to learn from history, an ignorance of science or an or ideological warping of facts, although by here things are adding up to an extreme position. What is striking to me is that so many of the claims are not merely false; they are absurd: Obama is a communist, a fascist, a Muslim, a foreigner, the anti-Christ; he is planning detention camps; he’s going to hand over sovereignty to the United Nations; the administration staged the Aurora shooting in order to impose gun control.

And its not just the nutty fringe babbling nonsense; pundits, party officials and those elected to high office have joined in.

Michael Gerson decided — in April, 2009, three months after the inauguration — that Obama is the most polarizing President in recent history, not only a premature appraisal, but one reached by ignoring the source of the polarization. Following the election of 2010, conservative writers cheered a return from the brink. Charles Krauthammer claimed that the first two Obama years were an "experiment in hyper-liberalism.” To George Will, the election “was a nationwide recoil against Barack Obama's idea of unlimited government.” To Kathleen Parker, the election was "a fight over capitalism.” Obama the centrist became Obama the Marxist.

The Affordable Care Act generated some of the stranger comments. Sarah Palin claimed that the health care act created death panels. OK, she’s on the fringe, but Sen. Charles Grassley, Republican of Iowa, pushed that myth. While the health care bill was pending in Congress, Sen. Tom Coburn, Republican of Oklahoma, was asked, “will government-run health care . . . end up killing more people than it saves?” and answered, “absolutely.” Rep. Steve King,* Republican of Iowa, and Rep. Louie Gohmert,* Republican of Texas, made inane comments to the effect that people die waiting for treatment under "socialized medicine." According to Virginia Foxx, Republican of North Carolina, we had more to fear from the bill "than we do from any terrorist right now in any country.” John Boehner, Republican of Ohio, declared that the bill would "ruin our country."

Rep. Addison Graves (Joe) Wilson, Sr.,* Republican of South Carolina shouted "you lie" during President Obama’s speech on health care reform in 2009. Rep Paul Broun,* Republican of Georgia, during the 2011 State of the Union address, tweeted "Mr. President, you don't believe in the Constitution. You believe in socialism." (This on an occasion when Republicans and Democrats "sat intermingled . . . in a show of civility intended to honor wounded Rep. Gabrielle Giffords . . . ."⁷⁶) Sen. James DeMint,* Republican of South Carolina, described Obama as "the world's best salesman of socialism." Former Republican Governor Mike Huckabee, referring to projects like "health care rationing," said "The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics may be dead, but a Union of American Socialist Republics is being born. . . . Lenin and Stalin would love this stuff."⁷⁷ Rep. Allen West, Republican of Florida, charged that there are at least 78 Democratic members of Congress who are also members of the Communist Party.

Rep. Pete Sessions,* Republican of Texas, thinks that Obama's program is to reduce employment and suppress stock prices in order to damage the free enterprise system, all this being part of a plan to consolidate power. Rep. Bobby Schilling, Republican of Illinois, thinks Democrats are "very anti-capitalist." When asked whether he thought Obama had a strategy to make America fail, he responded that "a lot of people" think that the slow recovery "is being done on purpose." The irony of that is the distinct possibility that Republicans have stymied recovery efforts not only out of ideology but in order to blame Mr. Obama for the continuing pain and to defeat him this year.

Rep. Todd Akin,* Republican of Missouri, now a candidate for the Senate, has become infamous for his remarks on rape. He also believes that “the heart of liberalism really is a hatred for God,” that President Obama is a "flaming socialist," and that "America has got the equivalent of the stage three cancer of socialism because the federal government is tampering in all kinds of stuff it has no business tampering in." Medicare and school lunch programs apparently are part of that overreach.

Senator James Inhofe, Republican of Oklahoma, cited Genesis to prove that global warming is a hoax: "The arrogance of people to think that we, human beings, would be able to change what He is doing in the climate is to me outrageous." That’s the Rush Limbaugh theory. Representative John Shimkus, Republican of Illinois, cited the same passage in opposing cap-and-trade legislation. In an effort to show that they are up to date, each also cited the New Testament. Shimkus declared that there is a "theological debate" as to whether there is too much carbon in the atmosphere. Apparently the medieval quality of proving scientific issues by scripture doesn’t seem odd to them. (Inhofe claimed, several years ago, that he had "insisted all along that the climate change debate should be based on fundamental principles of science, not religion." Perhaps his "science" wasn’t holding up, and he needed help from another source).

Inhofe also relies on Genesis to establish that Israel should occupy the West Bank. In a speech to Congress, he referred to Genesis 13:14-17 in which land is promised to Abraham and added, "That is God talking." This of course simplifies the issue: "This is not a political battle at all. It is a contest over whether or not the word of God is true."

Rep. Michele Bachmann,* Republican of Minnesota, denounced the compensation fund set up after the BP oil spill as "a redistribution-of-wealth fund." Rep. Joe Barton,* Republican of Texas, called it a shakedown by the government. Sen. Inhofe likened the EPA and OSHA to the Gestapo.

A former Republican staffer, referring to King, Bachman, Broun, West and Foxx, summed up the situation this way: "the crackpot outliers of two decades ago have become the vital center today: . . . The Congressional directory now reads like a casebook of lunacy."⁷⁸

Reince Priebus, GOP Chairman, repeated the false charge, made by the Romney campaign, that the Affordable Care Act stole $700 billion from Medicare, and added this hysterical touch: "If any person in this entire debate has blood on their [sic] hands in regard to Medicare, it’s Barack Obama. He’s the one that’s destroying Medicare." This from the head of the party which wants to destroy Medicare.

John Sununu, Romney campaign chairman and former Republican governor of New Hampshire, blurted: "I wish this president would learn how to be an American." Did he really mean that ? Well, yes: Obama “has no idea how the American system functions, and we shouldn’t be surprised about that, because he spent his early years in Hawaii smoking something, spent the next set of years in Indonesia, . . . and, frankly, when he came to the U.S. he worked as a community organizer, which is a socialized structure . . . .⁷⁹ Romney added that Obama’s "course is extraordinarily foreign.”

It may seem unfair or unrealistic to keep harping on the sins of one of the parties, which partially explains why the media are so reluctant to do so. However, the criticism not only is fair and realistic, it is necessary if anything is to change. Later in their book, Mann and Ornstein repeated the description of the GOP quoted above, adding that it has "all but declar[ed] war on the government."

This election matters. It can’t be a good idea to put people who think like that in a position to wage war from within.

* Members of the Tea Party Caucus.

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74. Later, they offered a more accurate description of the contemporary Democratic Party: "while no paragon of civic virtue, [it] is more ideologically centered and diverse, protective of the government's role as it developed over the course of the last century, open to incremental changes in policy fashioned through bargaining with the Republicans, and less disposed to or adept at take-no-prisoners conflict between the parties." It’s Even Worse than It Looks , p.103.>
75. Id. at xiv. A similar quote was included in an article by the authors in The Washington Post on April 27, 2012. The article was more direct in placing blame, and was titled, "Let’s just say it: The Republicans are the problem."
76. http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20029697-503544.html
77.  http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2009_02/017091.php  78. Mike Lofgren, on Truthout in September, 2011. http://www.truth-out.org/goodbye-all-reflections-gop-operative-who-left-cult/1314907779
79. http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2012/07/17/531231/romney-campaign-obama-cant-create-jobs-because-he-spent-his-early-years-in-hawaii-smoking-something/