Bloodbath 2014: The Real Reason for the Losses

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Conventional wisdom now has it that Democrats who lost in the mid-term made a huge mistake running from Obama. They should have touted his accomplishments.

I’m not so sure. I share the view Robert Reich expresses in The Real Reason Behind the Democrats Mid-Term Losses:

If you want a single reason for why Democrats lost big on Election Day 2014 it’s this: Median household income continues to drop.

This is the first “recovery” in memory when this has happened.

Jobs are coming back but wages aren’t.

Every month the job numbers grow but the wage numbers go nowhere.

Most new jobs are in part-time or low-paying positions. They pay less than the jobs lost in the Great Recession.

This wageless recovery has been made all the worse because pay is less predictable than ever.

Most Americans don’t know what they’ll be earning next year or even next month. Two-thirds are now living paycheck to paycheck.

So why is this called a “recovery” at all? Because, technically, the economy is growing.

But almost all the gains from that growth are going to a small minority at the top.

In fact, 100 percent of the gains have gone to the best-off 10 percent. Ninety-five percent have gone to the top 1 percent.

I also agree with the stark choice Reich says Democrats have two years to make:

And the Democrats? They have a choice.

They can refill their campaign coffers for 2016 by trying to raise even more money from big corporations, Wall Street, and wealthy individuals.

And hold their tongues about the economic slide of the majority, and the drowning of our democracy.

Or they can come out swinging. Not just for a higher minimum wage but also for better schools, paid family and medical leave, and child care for working families.

For resurrecting the Glass-Steagall Act and limiting the size of Wall Street banks.

For saving Social Security by lifting the cap on income subject to payroll taxes.

For rebuilding the nation’s roads, bridges, and ports.

For increasing taxes on corporations with high ratios of CEO pay to the pay of average workers.

And for getting big money out of politics, and thereby saving our democracy.

It’s the choice of the century.

Democrats have less than two years to make it.

Here’s hoping.

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14 thoughts on “Bloodbath 2014: The Real Reason for the Losses”

    • Well I’ll be darned! I was certain you had to be hispanic because of everything you have written lately. It doesn’t matter one way or the other, but I can’t quite understand why you are trying to promote an hispanic takeover of the Democrat Party. I would like to see militant hispanics take over the Party because it would frighten Republicans to vote. But what do you get out of it? Assuagement of some guilt over something? An easing of some deep seated self loathing? Or is it an expression of some fear? I’m just curious…

  2. As for arizona no more rich old white men’s ego trips. Also david garcia out spent douglas 7 to 1 so enough about dark money that only interests democrat activist. The future of the democratic party is hispanics. 70% of white people vote republican in this state this can only countered by hispanics and other minorities voting democrat. Are slogan should be No more rich old white men running state wide. Barber couldn’t even win down in Tucson! I know this will upset all the rich old white men who blog here waiting for their turn to ego trip! The head of the democratic party in arizona should be militant hispanic not some rich old white who’s only claim for office is he can raise money from the rich and corporations so the paid staff’s checks don’t bounce!

    • You are just what the Arizona Democrat Party needs, an Hispanic racist who hates whites. And I think a strong militant hispanic in charge of the Democrat Party would provide great clarity as to what the Party stands for. Dark money would be the least of the Democrats problems.

  3. Both Clinton and Obama are corporate democrats. Obama can’t wait to get on the board of directors of multi national corporations at a million dollars each! Warren isn’t running. So as Lenin said what is to be done? Most countries demand their trade partners buy at least 90% from them what they sell to them, we do not. Value added tax to help exports. this would hurt poor ;but value added taxes could be used to alleviate this. Start taxing the rich so they will have less money to do evil with and tax structure can be made to force business to hire workers if they don’t want to spend all their profits paying taxes. taxes on stock trades. ect.

    • Wow.. Nice crystal ball you got there. I think you have no idea about this president and his plans…. I don’t see him being corporate at all

  4. I do believe in something called “multiple causality”. If we really want to know why people stayed home and did not vote in the mid terms, there is actually a pool of people that can be polled. First, I think the Party has a pretty good idea why there is a large disconnect between midterms and Presidential election years, but why the decline from 2010 Democratic voting numbers to 2014? A poll of the pool of Democrats that voted in 2010, who did not in 2014 would be pretty telling I think.

    I think we can say that these are our base voters and we lost about 5% of them in this election. It is very possible, that Democratic candidates who in general went out of their way to distance themselves from the President hurt themselves among the base. It is also very possible, that to preclude further disaster in 2016, which is a very different type of election year for us that Mr. Reich makes some valid points.

    What happens to us if in a Presidential election year 5% of the base stays home? What happens if the Democratic strategy is to continue to move towards the ‘middle’? (The middle of what, crazy tea party people and what the R’s call RINOs? No thank you.)

    There are a few things that need to be added to the “to do list”. We need to step up and fight voter suppression like hell. We need to intensely go after new Democratic voters. There is some encouragement in ballot initiatives, that should go further and yes it is expensive.

    Strong democratic messaging as well as action needs to happen to help a sinking middle class as Reich says, but the poor and disenfranchised can’t be neglected either. It’s not just it’s the economy stupid, couple that with are you better of than you were 4/2 years ago. Many who survived the Bush crash, only recovered by taking lower wage jobs and/or walking from their homes.

    Let’s break away from Wall Street, let’s pass/propose laws that bring corporations back to the US to pay their share of taxes without kissing their butts to get them here, and let’s support workers and unions so that all or our boats may rise and yes, lets get back to Glass and dismantle trade agreements that do the middle class economic harm.

    Some of the Arizona electorate might also wake up when we begin going the way of Kansas (although they didn’t in Kansas, so we probably should not count on that!)

    • Cheri, I’m not saying I agree with everything Robert Reich ever said or did. I just think he’s spot on in this case. Look at it this way: You’ve torn into some of the pieces I’ve written. Does that mean you’re precluded from agreeing with me in the future?

      Besides, if you’re looking on how to apportion blame for inequality between bad trade policy and bad tax policy, it’s not a close call. Tax policy wins it going away. Clinton wasn’t great on that front either, but I don’t think Reich was standing beside him for those mistakes, as they occurred later in Clinton’s presidency, when Reich was gone. Early on, Clinton actually moved in the right direction on tax policy.

  6. I agree with you, Bob. However, I have seen nothing to indicate the Democrats are ready to follow those suggestions.

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