Economic Insecurity and Democratic Policies

Jacob Hacker tries to combine politics and policy as he writes:

TPMCafe || Economic Insecurity and the Super-Jumbo: As Tom Frank says, the Democrats need a compelling message and an easily understood policy agenda to address the economic insecurity of American families.... How can Democrats take advantage of the fact that Americans are feeling (and, according to my research, actually becoming) more economically insecure? And why has the growing economic insecurity of Americans not seemed to help the Democrats all that much to date?

Let’s... dismiss... [the] theory... that Americans are actually happy with the economy... large numbers think the economy is on the wrong track and disapprove of President Bush’s handling of it. In the last election, simple economic models that successfully forecasted past elections using basic economic statistics, such as the overall growth of the economy, predicted Bush winning by a landslide. Needless to say, that didn’t happen. And part of the reason why it didn’t, I’m convinced, is that the basic economic statistics mask the much greater insecurity that ordinary Americans feel....

The project of battling economic insecurity is not a project for the next election; it is a project for the next decade, and even the next half century.... Will Americans rally around Democratic candidates who make economic security one of their defining campaign themes? Much popular political analysis suggests not. We are in a post-materialist age, we are told, in which bread-and-butter issues simply don’t resonate with popular majorities....

People feel that security is slipping away, and nothing motivates voters like the prospect of losing something they already have.... At the same time, Americans... want a forward-looking vision that accommodates the changes in the economy and society that they value, one that combines the goal of security and the ideal of opportunity.

My own view is that this dual challenge calls for emphasizing the value of insurance for encouraging families to invest in their future, just as businesses and entrepreneurs are encouraged to invest in economic growth by basic protections against financial risk (like limited liability for corporations and bankruptcy protections). I also believe that it means linking economic security with the concerns about the balance between work and family raised by our very own Karen Kornbluh as well as others. But I will be the first to admit that coming up with a compelling message along these lines, much with less with effective and salable policy proposals, is a very tall order indeed.

What is interesting is that we have never before had--or not since the 1920s have we had--a Republican Leadership more interested in redistribution away from the middle class to the truly rich. You'd think that would be an effective message: your local Republican congressional candidate may understand, but the Republican Leadership is not on your side. But I'll let wiser heads than mine tell me why this is not the effective Democratic message.

What is genuinely hard is the policy agenda.

Comments

[shah8]

I very much suspect that the democrats are bought off from caring much at all, these days. They are only permitted to give the seeming of a choice.

[Dale]

At least on this matter, there may not be any wiser heads:} If increasing economic insecurity for the middle and lower classes is not a winning issue-- what would a winning issue possibly look like?

[piotr]

Dale, do you mean "improving the labour mobility"? That wins the vote of editors of The Economist. Your translation into American English somehow sounds less attractive.

How to put it nicer? "bringing fear to the workplaces and to consumers"? Ah, "personal responsibility", yes!!! I guess this is American vernacular phrase that is used in political campaigns. Is there a Canadian equivalent?

[Davis X. Machina]

...what would a winning issue possibly look like?

Putting the boot to faggots.
Showing women their place.
Keeping your guns.
Killing swarthies.
Bringing the Godless to Christ

Wins elections like billy-ho -- or at least keeps them close enough to steal.

[masaccio]

The disintegrating dems voted to remove the last hope of many when they voted en masse to destroy the bankruptcy code. Why do we look to them to protect the economic interests of the large number of voters teetering on the edge of financial disaster? Insurance? feh. This worthless bunch won't protect anything except their chances of gathering campaign contributions from the moneyed interests.

[save_the_rustbelt]

We need two political parties with ideas.

Many Dems are now denying there is any problem with Social Security, when everyone knows better (demographics anyone?). Why not a counter-proposal?

[dilbert dogbert]

I don't think message or policy agenda are the problems. Money and access to the organs of opinion manipulation are the problems. In a 50-50 country, the party with the most money will win and the R's have the money so they will win. Organs of opinion manipulation follow the money.
Only when the dominant party so screws up that money and opinion manipulation don't work will the dems have a chance. Even at that point, the dems/r's may be replaced by some sort of Nationalist Socialist Party.
Little Nell may need a passport sooner than you think.
Good Luck All.

[STS]

The Republican coalition between plutocrats and theocrats is downright bizarre, but has been remarkably effective.

The Democrats need to achieve a rich-poor coalition of similar cohesiveness, but with the thorough discrediting of all things "socialist", there isn't any conceptual language for talking about it.

[Jason]

No, there is no conceptual language that can bridge that gulf. There can be no partnership between classes based on any factual, rational basis, outside of wartime necessaity. Unfortunately, the Republicans have brilliantly stolen this outlet: presto, the War on Terror! It's multi-frontal, and multi-faceted, and may NEVER end! Anyone that questions it hates America (by definition: America = GOP).

That leaves irrational partnerships. Unfortunately, the Repubs also have that: they [GOP]SOLIDLY dominate the political though of the vast majority of religious groups. Since the plutarchs are generally amoral and don't need chuchin' getting in the way of WEALTH, it is safe to assume that the religious persons are lower class (poor, working, or middle). So, the poorer vote against their own self interest, because GOD TOLD THEM TO DO SO. You can't beat that. Yee-Haw.

The Democrats (Grand Coalition here...) are done. They have been done for a long time. That's why so many things are screwed up in this country. We've been coasting downhill since Kennedy got shot. The Republicans are nothing more than the barbarians at the gates. Arthur is dead, so the Saxons rage across the land. Sigh...

[Ralph]

The threat of economic insecurity for the American middle class is a major if not the most important issue of our time. The problem for the Democrats is the division between the DLC and the rest of the party. The core traditional values of the Democratic party was compromised in favor of free trade, the failure to enact universal health care, welfare reform, and the failure to raise the minimum wage. Hillary Clinton's recent speech to the DLC in which she praised and reaffirmed Clintonism opened old wounds that will cause problems for the party when they still face three more years of a right wing Republican national government. This premature attempt on her part to open her race for the 2008 presidential nomination will hurt rather than help her chances. Lots of Democrats in the industrial belts of the Mid-West and Eastern US are still angry at and feel abandoned by the Democrats for not defending manufacturing jobs on which they still depend for their middle class status. Sadly, by becoming Reagan Democrats in the eighties they are partly responsible for their own predicament.

[Julian Elson]

The Democrats don't know whether they're Fabians (the state as an institution is preferable to private markets, so we'll gradually, peacefully, democratically replace the market economy with the state-run economy) Millians (libertarianism as a default, plus government intervention where libertarianism doesn't cut it (income distribution, environment, health care)), or corporatists (the state and non-state or parastatal organizations should cooperate ad-hoc for the betterment of all). Or, rather, individual Democrats may know (I'm a Millian, I think), but Democrats as a group don't.

These internecine disputes will NOT be solved by one faction storming the bunkers of the others, nor can we come up with a bunch of BS platitudes that sounds like everything to everyone. I'm tempted to think the best approach is to somehow abandon the idea of Democratic unity and transform us into a coalition of non-competing factions, each of which would compete with Republicans (but not each other) where they're the strongest.

[jack]

Hillary Clinton's recent speech to the DLC in which she praised and reaffirmed Clintonism opened old wounds that will cause problems for the party when they still face three more years of a right wing Republican national government.http://www.6339.cn/