Thomas Frank’s piece from last weekend, It’s not just Fox News: How liberal apologists torpedoed change, helped make the Democrats safe for Wall Street, makes an outstanding case for the proposition that Obama’s done basically zilch to address inequality for the simple reason that he didn’t want to. Progressives would be well advised to read this piece carefully before spending time, energy and money on the next election.
Frank acknowledges all the arguments made by the “center-left” crowd to explain why progressives are whiners who just don’t understand that Obama (and the Democrats in Congress) could not do more to address inequality and confront the abuses of Wall Street.
But the heart of Frank’s piece is what follows after the jump:
To say that Obama fumbled this most critical issue is to understate the matter pretty dramatically. More to the point is the great unasked question of why he fumbled it so dramatically. Again, let’s review the historical record as it actually exists—not as Obama’s apologists like to imagine it:
* It was fully within Obama’s power to react to the financial crisis in a more aggressive and appropriate way—i.e., laws were in place, there was ample precedent, he wasn’t forced to choose Tim Geithner to run the bailouts or Eric Holder to (not) prosecute the bankers or Ben Bernanke to serve another term at the Fed.
* It would have been good policy had Obama reacted to the financial crisis in a more aggressive and appropriate way—i.e., the economy would have recovered more quickly and the danger of a future crisis brought on by concentrated financial power would have been reduced.
* It would have been massively popular had Obama reacted to the financial crisis in a more aggressive and appropriate way. Everyone admits this, at least tacitly, even the architects of Obama’s bailout policies, who like to think of themselves as having resisted the public’s mindless baying for banker blood. Acting aggressively might also have deflated the rampant false consciousness of the Tea Party movement and prevented the Republican reconquista of the House in 2010.
But Obama did the opposite. He did everything he could to “foam the runways” and never showed any real interest in taking on the big banks. Shall I recite the dolorous list one more time? The bailouts he failed to unwind or even to question. The bad regulators he didn’t fire. The AIG bonuses that his team defended. The cramdown he never pushed for. The receivership of the zombie banks that never happened. The FBI agents who were never shifted over to white-collar crime. The criminal referral programs at the regulatory agencies that were never restored. The executives of bailed-out banks who were never fired. The standing outrage of too-big-to-fail institutions that was never truly addressed. The top bankers who were never prosecuted for anything on the long, sordid list of apparent frauds.
Obama didn’t play this greatest-of-all issues the way he did because the white working class rose up to defend its friends in the investment banking community. He didn’t play it this way because forcing the Republicans to defend Wall Street would have been really bad politics. Nor did he do it the way he did because the presidency lacks sufficient power. In fact, everything I just mentioned “can be done by the president,” says noted former bank regulator Bill Black. “It just requires some will and some imagination and a lot of planning and determination.”
What I am suggesting, in other words, is that the financial crisis worked out the way it did in large part because Obama and his team wanted it to work out that way.
I’ve noticed two broad categories of activists in the Democratic Party. Some are all about winning elections. They’re the ones who explain to me condescendingly when an elected official casts a puke-worthy vote that he/she is “in a tough district.” This post would never in a million years reach them. The other category of activists are the ones who believe the Democratic Party is the best hope for delivering real change, change that makes a difference in people’s lives. I hope at least a few of them will read Frank’s concluding paragraph and consider it seriously:
The notion that Democrats might have agency is shocking, I know, since it means they bear some responsibility for our unhappy situation. However, once you acknowledge that it might be true, it occurs to you that this simple and direct explanation might also be the key to all kinds of Democratic betrayals and failures over the years, from the embrace of NAFTA to the abandonment of the Employee Free Choice Act. Maybe these episodes weren’t failures at all. Maybe it’s time we confronted the possibility that these disasters unfolded the way they did because Democratic leaders wanted them to work out that way.
Wow! You are a very honest man to focus attention on what must be a touchy subject among Democrats. I wish the GOP would look in the mirror with equal candor.
Yes.
This is the direction we must go in if want real change.
This is the direction we must go in to give people real hope for their economic futures and the economic future for their children.
No more fiddle faddle with establishment rhetoric.
No more “Don’t upset conservatives” because weight lose a few voters.
We need to go full bore into the belly of the political process by standing with and for the economic well being of the American people.
Thanks