Paul Krugman calls us out, and lectures on "How Change Happens"

[Proserpina]

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/22/opinion/how-change-happens.html

There are still quite a few pundits determined to pretend that America’s two great parties are symmetric — equally unwilling to face reality, equally pushed into extreme positions by special interests and rabid partisans. It’s nonsense, of course. Planned Parenthood isn’t the same thing as the Koch brothers, nor is Bernie Sanders the moral equivalent of Ted Cruz. And there’s no Democratic counterpart whatsoever to Donald Trump...Moreover, when self-proclaimed centrist pundits get concrete about the policies they want, they have to tie themselves in knots to avoid admitting that what they’re describing are basically the positions of a guy named Barack Obama.

Still, there are some currents in our political life that do run through both parties. And one of them is the persistent delusion that a hidden majority of American voters either supports or can be persuaded to support radical policies, if only the right person were to make the case with sufficient fervor.

Are you ready for it? Yet another Hillbot calling you delusional? Krugman has an infinite capacity for overlooking the obvious, until his nose is rubbed in it


You see this on the right among hard-line conservatives, who insist that only the cowardice of Republican leaders has prevented the rollback of every progressive program instituted in the past couple of generations. Actually, you also see a version of this tendency among genteel, country-club-type Republicans, who continue to imagine that they represent the party’s mainstream even as polls show that almost two-thirds of likely primary voters support Mr. Trump, Mr. Cruz or Ben Carson.

All the while denying that the Rebublicans have been doing this on an annual basis...rolling back everything from the New Deal onwards...usually with Third Way help!

Meanwhile, on the left there is always a contingent of idealistic voters eager to believe that a sufficiently high-minded leader can conjure up the better angels of America’s nature and persuade the broad public to support a radical overhaul of our institutions. In 2008 that contingent rallied behind Mr. Obama; now they’re backing Mr. Sanders, who has adopted such a purist stance that the other day he dismissed Planned Parenthood (which has endorsed Hillary Clinton) as part of the “establishment.” But as Mr. Obama himself found out as soon as he took office, transformational rhetoric isn’t how change happens. That’s not to say that he’s a failure. On the contrary, he’s been an extremely consequential president, doing more to advance the progressive agenda than anyone since L.B.J. Yet his achievements have depended at every stage on accepting half loaves as being better than none: health reform that leaves the system largely private, financial reform that seriously restricts Wall Street’s abuses without fully breaking its power, higher taxes on the rich but no full-scale assault on inequality.

Yeah, half a loaf for the 1%, and not even crumbs for the rest of us

There’s a sort of mini-dispute among Democrats over who can claim to be Mr. Obama’s true heir — Mr. Sanders or Mrs. Clinton? But the answer is obvious: Mr. Sanders is the heir to candidate Obama, but Mrs. Clinton is the heir to President Obama. (In fact, the health reform we got was basically her proposal, not his.) Could Mr. Obama have been more transformational? Maybe he could have done more at the margins. But the truth is that he was elected under the most favorable circumstances possible, a financial crisis that utterly discredited his predecessor — and still faced scorched-earth opposition from Day 1.

And the question Sanders supporters should ask is, When has their theory of change ever worked? Even F.D.R., who rode the depths of the Great Depression to a huge majority, had to be politically pragmatic, working not just with special interest groups but also with Southern racists. Remember, too, that the institutions F.D.R. created were add-ons, not replacements: Social Security didn’t replace private pensions, unlike the Sanders proposal to replace private health insurance with single-payer. Oh, and Social Security originally covered only half the work force, and as a result largely excluded African-Americans.

Just to be clear: I’m not saying that someone like Mr. Sanders is unelectable, although Republican operatives would evidently rather face him than Mrs. Clinton — they know that his current polling is meaningless, because he has never yet faced their attack machine. But even if he was to become president, he would end up facing the same harsh realities that constrained Mr. Obama. The point is that while idealism is fine and essential — you have to dream of a better world — it’s not a virtue unless it goes along with hardheaded realism about the means that might achieve your ends. That’s true even when, like F.D.R., you ride a political tidal wave into office. It’s even more true for a modern Democrat, who will be lucky if his or her party controls even one house of Congress at any point this decade.

Sorry, but there’s nothing noble about seeing your values defeated because you preferred happy dreams to hard thinking about means and ends. Don’t let idealism veer into destructive self-indulgence.


And a big FU to you,Dr. Krugman.

[Duckhunter935]

1. F him

[draa]

2. Fuck you Krugman.

You don't decide what's best for our country the fucking voters do. Go away you fuck.

That's why I could never be in politics or on tv. I'd cock punch pricks like this, fire off a string of invectives and they'd run me off. But, at least I'd get to cock punch one asshole before they did.

[swilton]

3. This is the same 'perfection is the enemy of good enough'

argument that we heard under Obama....

I counter with good enough is the enemy of it could be better. Krugman is painting Sanders' platform as some far out in left field pipe-dream, when Sanders' positions are favored by most of Americans and are also what the rest of the world already has...

[Depaysement]

4. This is easy to rebut

To get the half loaf, you usually have to start by advocating a full loaf. And why not first try to get what you want, what's best for the country and its people? If you start by advocating the half loaf, you will probably get much less.

A President Sanders will have to compromise with Congress to govern, but why compromise before you have to?

[Broward]

5. At the very least, a Bernie presidency would change the conversation.

We could get this country moving left again rather than constantly compromising further and further right. I doubt Bernie's big-ticket ideas could become law in the near term, but you have to play the long game. Bernie will shift the terms of the debate. Krugman has to know this. Perhaps, he's jockeying for a job in her administration in case she wins.

[Proserpina]

7. I expect that after the 2018 midterms, things will really start to roll

as Congress will be filled with progressives by those voters who put Bernie in the White House. They will continue riding the coat tails that Bernie started in 2016.

It's called momentum. Since Bernie won't be disabling his GOTV structure, nor throwing his supporters under the bus, there should be a growing momentum, unlike Obama, whose momentum came to a dead stop in the first 6 months...by his own actions, no less.

[Broward]

8. I agree. There's a real opportunity here.

It all starts with Bernie. We just need to get him elected first.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

6. Go take a run and jump Krugman

[CharlotteVale]

9. When they make it about Sander supporters, they have no argument.

[Proserpina]

10. The best comment from readers of the NYT

BruceKap Berkeley Ca 22 hours ago

"Paul Krugman is on vacation today. This column was written by David Brooks."


So, David Brooks also has a column in this edition:

The Anxieties of Impotence by David Brooks

...nobody feels like they have any power...As Anand Giridharadas writes in The International New York Times, “If anything unites America in this fractious moment it is a widespread sentiment that power is somewhere other than where you are.”

The Republican establishment thinks the grass roots have the power but the grass roots think the reverse. The unions think the corporations have the power but the corporations think the start-ups do. Regulators think Wall Street has the power but Wall Street thinks the regulators do. The Pew Research Center asked Americans, “Would you say your side has been winning or losing more?” Sixty-four percent of Americans, with majorities of both parties, believe their side has been losing more.

These days people seem to underestimate their own power or suffer from what Giridharadas calls the “anxiety of impotence.”

Sometimes when groups feel oppressed, they organize by coming up with concrete reform proposals to empower themselves. The Black Lives Matter movement is doing this...But in other cases the feeling of absolute powerlessness can corrupt absolutely. As psychological research has shown, many people who feel powerless come to feel unworthy, and become complicit in their own oppression. Some exaggerate the weight and size of the obstacles in front of them. Some feel dehumanized, forsaken, doomed and guilty...

I think he's got something. This is about the rising death rate of the middle class to suicide and equivalents, among other current trends.

I loathe David Brooks as a rule, but this time....

[Proserpina]

12. and then, there's this OP-ED: When Will the Candidates Start Talking About the Economy?

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/22/opinion/when-will-the-candidates-start-talking-about-the-economy.html

[Proserpina]

13. White people have least confidence in the American Dream

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/white-people-think-the-american-dream-is-least-achievable-2015-07-02?siteid=YAHOOB

Americans say the American Dream is suffering — and that our laziness and low morals may be partially to blame.

Searches for “American Dream” have fallen 24% since Google began tracking this data in 2004 -- and when you type “American Dream” into Google, three of the four top autofills are “dead,” “a lie” and “leaving America,” according to an analysis of Google Trends data released Friday in a report by brokerage firm Convergex.

Furthermore, three in four Americans now say that the “American Dream” — broadly, the notion that through hard work and determination every American can have a successful life — is suffering, according to the 7th Annual American Values Survey unveiled last year at the Aspen Ideas Festival.

What’s more, 69% say the obstacles to realizing the dream are “more severe today than ever” — and note that a decline in work ethic is the primary hurdle to Dream achievement. The poll of more than 2,300 Americans was conducted by Burson-Marsteller and market research firm Penn Schoen Berland...

It's called trickle down economics...

[Mufaddal]

11. Feudal lord instructs serfs on what's good for them

Yeah, no thanks.

[n2doc]

14. He has really jumped the shark on this one

He gives HRC a complete pass on her war mongering. And as others above have noted, at least Sanders wants to change things. HRC clearly does not, she will be quite content to blame repubs for 'not working with her' when in fact she has no intention of doing anything that would cut the profits of those who have bought her and Bill.

I have a lot of admiration for Krugman, but he seems to have spent too much time among the Villagers, so to speak.

[Proserpina]

15. You mean the Family? C Street?

Hillary's Association With "C-Street"

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/7/12/752573/-

not the Village People, surely!

[n2doc]

19. They. Want. You!

But seriously, folks, Krugman and others use the term 'the villagers' or the beltway 'villagers' to denote a class of folks, mostly politicians and pundits, who live in their own world in Washington, ignoring reality in preference to their own strongly held beliefs. The Austerity myth is strong with these folks, for example.


I find it fascinating that Krugman has decided to weigh in on this matter at the exact same time as HRC's proxies are doing so, and using the same arguments. Makes one think that there might be more of a connection there than previously suspected.

[Bernin4U]

16. Was going to reply, but...

Couldn't resist instead to turn it into my own "fuck that shit!"-themed thread.

[MrMickeysMom]

17. Indeed.... Go fuck yourself, Paul Krugman...

Radical?

How about protecting jobs and production, protecting water and air and infrastructure.... stopping endless war? What about our unsustainable climate?

You call that radical, but the majority of us call that obvious.

[Autumn]

18. His opinion means less than nothing to me.

He should stick to writing about his candidate and her supporters.

[eridani]

20. Good thing that supporters of marriage equality and MJ legalization never--

--fell for that kind of advice.