At Campaign for America's Future (CAF), Richard (RJ) Eskow took the CBS poll results about American's issue priorities that I wrote about yesterday and put them into graphic form:
This chart only includes economic issues (health care registers at 14%--more than twice the level of taxes and the deficit combined). As Eskow says:
Only 6% of Americans think Congress should concentrate on reducing the deficit or changing the tax code, according to the latest CBS News poll. Nearly ten times as many people, 56%, want it to focus on creating jobs and fixing the economy. Guess which set of policies is the center of attention in Washington right now?
This is why the Democrats lost the mid-terms. As HousesofProgress notes in Quick Hits, "POLL: Election was not mandate for GOP (70% - 17%)":
Americans overwhelmingly say that the midterm election results that gave Republicans control of the House represented a rejection of the Democrats and not a mandate for the GOP, according to a CNN/Opinion Research poll conducted Nov. 11-14. (Story; Poll data). Seventy percent of those surveyed said the results were a rejection of Democratic rule in the House while 17 percent called it a mandate for Republicans. Eight percent answered "neither" and 5 percent had no opinion.
The Democrats lost because they didn't address the people's number one concern. How hard is that to understand? Of course, they did address it sporadically and inadequately--which only makes matters worse, actually. It shows that Democrats know the problem exists, they just don't care enough to actually take it seriously. For all the GOP lies about Democrats "not sharing your values", this truth is far more devastating.
Also at CAF, Dave Johnson, who guests here occassionally picked up on the poll and Eskow's post, ("The DC/Rest-Of-Us Divide And Its Consequences"):
Only 6% of the public is concerned about the deficit. The only thing Washington elites are concerned about is the deficit. The rest of us live on the other side of the planet from the people in DC who make the policies. Maybe the other side of the solar system.
You can see how this divide affects policy. There is a "deficit commission" but no jobs commission. There are millions of people needing jobs and millions of jobs that need doing, but Washington won't "spend," even on badly-needed infrastructure investment. People over 50 (laid off because they were paid more or their health care was expensive) can't find jobs but the DC elite discuss raising the retirement age to 70. The deficit commission proposes cutting back the already-meager "safety net" while cutting tax rates for the really rich even more.
And while all of this goes on the rest of the people in the country are worried about jobs, foreclosures, bills, jobs, wages, jobs, and jobs - the things that matter to regular people. And they are feeling the consequences of the DC/rest-of-us divide.
In 2008, we expected the Democrats to recognize the obvious, side with the vast majority of the American people, and thereby cement long-term majority support. It was no-brainer. Unfortunately, the Democrats showed us they have no brains.
There is, of course, an explanation for this: the elite dominance of American politics, as described and explained, for example, by Thomas Ferguson's investment theory of political parties. In fact, the complete ignoring of the people's overwhelming #1 priority is about the most striking bit of evidence one could ask for proving such elite dominance. The question is, however, why that elite dominance has turned so short-sighted and self-destructive.
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