|
I have that Han-Solo-encased-in-carbonite feeling this morning. The powers that be in modern America- the insurance industry, big oil and coal companies, most of all the big Wall Street banks that control 60% of our country’s wealth- had gotten used to having everything go exactly their way in Washington. They had come to expect that they would write the laws, and then get to rewrite them if something happened to make the original law inoperative. They were used to politicians say “yes, sir” and “what hoop do you want me to jump through now, sir.” And when a new group of politicians came to town that wouldn’t say yes to every single demand, that stood up to them some of the time, they hit back hard- very hard. And they won this round.
Our elections were awash in big business money this year, and it went overwhelmingly to the Republicans. We don’t even know for sure which industries gave the most to the Republican slush fund that the Chamber of Commerce has become, or to the new ones set up by folks like Karl Rove, because they don’t have to disclose their donors. But we do that these corporate front groups played almost exclusively for the Republicans, and that the direct contributions to candidates and party committees shifted dramatically toward them as well. Given the Democratic control of both Houses and the White House, this kind of giving shift is unheard of, since usually corporations give to the party in power. But because Obama, Speaker Pelosi, and Congressional Democrats had stood up to insurers on pre-existing conditions, had stood up to the energy giants on pushing for climate change, and had stood up to Wall Street on the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and some other new regulations, these corporate leaders were pissed and looking for blood. The fact that the Democrats had unfortunately made major concessions to these corporate interests on things like the public option and breaking up the big banks didn’t mollify them at all: they were still loaded for bear and ready to pull the trigger.
So they funded the tea party uprising, and they funded Republican candidates, and they funded secretive groups to run attack ads. It worked, for two simple reasons. The first is that middle-class swing voters are mad at everyone in Washington. They think both parties have failed them, that neither party cares about them, and they are happy to send a message to whichever party is in power- as they have three elections in a row- that they will keep voting out those in charge until something changes to make them think that government works again. The second is that the voters most hurt by this terrible economic crisis the Bush presidency handed to us are precisely the voters most open to voting for Democrats: young people, working class women, blacks, Hispanics. Getting hammered as hard as they have been economically put them in no mood to come out to vote.
Democrats’ fate was probably sealed when the same Wall Street bankers who wrecked the economy and who we had to bail out were still giving themselves hundreds of millions in bonuses while the rest of the economy continued to tank. It was the ultimate insult, and it fed the idea that our system is only working for the fat cats but has stopped working for ordinary folks. As long as the economy stayed as bad it did, voters were not going to be convinced that Obama had brought the change he had promised.
What now? Democrats have a choice. They can cower in fear at all the corporate money that will be thrown against them, and backpedal on everything that would actually help working families get out of the bind that they are in. Or they can be determined fighters for jobs, a stronger economy, and cleaning up special interest corruption in Washington. Having rejected both parties so thoroughly in the last 3 elections, Americans will be looking in 2012 to figure out who will be truly fighting for them in the years to come.
|
