Dear America,
The Republican platform is based on one premise and a proposition derived from it. The premise is that the Obama administration has not just been a failure; it has been a disaster for the country. The derivative proposition is that if you want more of the same, vote for Hillary Clinton. The Republicans running for President never seem to state with any credibility in what fashion the Obama administration has failed the country...at least they never do so in anything but a conclusory fashion, positing the premise as if it were a fact without supporting it in any cogent way. They say that "Obamacare" has been a disaster for the middle class, or that The President has failed to form a strategy in the fight against ISIL. They claim that his administration, in tandem with the Dodd-Frank Act, has unnecessarily burdened finance with regulations that are inimical to American prosperity, and that regulations in general--from the EPA in particular--will kill the economy if left in place. However, assuming that Republicans who vote aren't blindly trusting idiots, someone at some time is going to begin asking what they mean by that. They'll ask, if Obamacare has led to tens of millions of previously uninsured people getting health insurance, and thus health care, how has it been a failure. And they'll want to know how constraining the financial industry, which sank the country and the world into near-depression with naked speculation inspired not by business prudence but by sheer avarice, can be a bad thing. And as to ISIL, they might begin to scratch their heads the next time they hear a Republican pule about The President lacking a strategy, and point out that he keeps on saying what he is doing and why. He even gave a speech to the country about it, laying out what he is doing and his rationale, in other words, his strategy. That's what a strategy is, isn't it?
So, anticipating that the Democrats will do nothing to rebut these hollow arguments being launched by the Republican, arguments that are more of an ideological balloon than a factual "canon" ball (excuse the pun, but sometimes I can't resist), I want to point out some things myself. I think that the Democrats are really doing what the Republicans should have done fifteen years ago when they controlled the entire federal government. And their failure to do them is the real reason that things may not be that great right now. The real reality, if you'll excuse the use of a pleonasm for rhetorical purposes, is that our president has had to spend the eight years of his administration, seven already having transpired, digging us out of their hole rather than creating one himself. The four main areas of Republican hyperbole are the war against ISIL with a subtext about getting rid of Assad in Syria, financial regulation, environmental regulation as well as regulation in general, and the Affordable Care Act. Let's start with the last one first.
The ACA was the best that President Obama could prevail on congress to do--and I fault the Democrats for this as well as the Republicans. It was primarily the insurance subsidization plan we call Obamacare. His goal originally was a single payer system like Medicare imbedded in the law as an option for everyone who wanted it. Single payer is a model employed by almost all of the other thirty most industrialized nations, and despite Republican claims that what we have is better, we rank near or at the bottom of that list of countries in all meaningful categories including infant mortality, cancer and heart disease morbidity and mortality and life span. As to the claim that single payer systems lead to long wait times for care and poor quality, our nearest neighbor, Canada, isn't having that experience, and I am willing to bet that you would be hard pressed to get a repeal of Canada's system past the voters there. So, what President Obama wanted wasn't what we got, but it was the best he could do...and the reason we don't have a better system despite the fact that during the Bush administration more than 60% of Americans supported a single payer system, is that Republican politicians and blue dog Democrats didn't want it, so they misled the public and created an internecine movement against it. Next is the ISIL-Assad strategy.
There isn't much to be said about that. The president has stated his policy over and over again, and even when claiming that he hasn't, the Republicans haven't yet come up with anything that could be called more distinctive than a variation on the Obama theme. Similarly, as to regulation, the Republicans haven't said anything about how we would prevent the mine and environmental disasters that big business has continually inflicted on states like West Virginia even with regulations, if we eliminated regulations altogether. And as for Dodd-Frank, it is the pale orphan sibling of the Glass-Steagall Act, which kept us safe financially from the predation of the 1% and the finance industry for almost seventy years, and it gives banks more freedom to keep doing what they did than I, or for that matter Glass or Steagall, would have allowed. If the American people ever realize that--Martin O'Malley is counting on them doing so because that is his most distinctive platform plank--no Republican will ever utter such an idea again...if he is smart.
So, all in all, it seems to me that if the Democrats ever decide to defend themselves, they will probably do pretty well in 2016, and then the country will do better in 2017 and 2018. While the Republicans want everyone to think that our economy is still sinking because of the Obama policies, almost no administration has come to fruition on account of Mitch McConnell's stated objective in 2009--that President Obama serve only one term--and the molding of a partisan strategy, assiduously adhered to by the party, that conformed to that stated goal. Still, unemployment is down to 5% and we have better employment than most of Europe, if not all of it. So, Merry Christmas, America. We are doing well enough that the Fed is beginning to raise interest rates so as to prevent the economy from running too hot. Considering that the Republicans created the mess, and have tried villainously to keep it going until the next election, we seem to be doing alright. Now, all we have to do is spread the word.
Your friend,
Mike
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