Bad Attitudes
Today’s meme in Left Blogostan is based on the news about Mike Bloomberg’s increasing enthusiasm for a Presidential bid.
Everyone seems to agree that the idea of bipartisanship is less than attractive, and to ask where these bipartisans were in the face of the x-treme partisanship of the Bush/Cheney administration. The point is well made that any group David Broder loves can’t be all good.
In one way bipartisanship makes sense: blaming both parties for the effects of their concerted actions, many of them in direct opposition to what polls say people want. As Steve Clemons puts it:
…Republicans and Democrats were complicit in the Iraq War. Both parties have been complicit in the appropriations corruption that came with obscene Homeland Security spending around the nation. Both parties have been complicit in refusing to solidly challenge the most aggressive expansion of Executive Branch authority in more than a century. Both parties have been complicit in failing to shore up investment in the American economy and its workforce. Both parties have been complicit in allowing Americans to be spied on. Both parties have been complicit in allowing low level soldiers to take the hit for Abu Ghraib and allowing the decision-makers in the White House and Pentagon to get a complete pass. The situation we have today was produced by aggressive, high-fear tactics of minority political operations within both the Republican and Democratic parties — that then cowed a party membership that passively followed.
This complicity, including what any reasonable American must conclude are war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by Americans in direct response to official policies, condemns many in both parties. But fortunately not all, in either party. Otherwise we’d be left with only the Libertarians and the Greens, and society would explode, like Richard Pryor’s milk and cookies.
Steve seems to see the issue in terms of ideology versus pragmatism, the zealots and the realists. To me some of those terms are a bit slippery. For example, is it realistic to assume that the US empire can hold on to unitary power in the current world climate of change? Is it realistic for elites from both parties to agree on and execute policies opposed by two-thirds of the population on a regular basis? I’d answer no to both, but I think many called realists make those assumptions and agreements all the time. (I’m not suggesting Steve thinks that way, only that some people he would call realists do.) And it’s undeniable that Congress regularly ignores public opinion in its actions. My view of realism would make it much more responsive to the popular will, and much less representative of Big Money.
To me what a billionaire media mogul running for chief executive recalls is Berlusconi. A case can be made that the ability to self-finance an entire campaign should be a disqualification. It’s been suggested that Bloomberg would be willing to spend a billion of his own money to get elected. That automatically makes him a credible candidate.
To combat the impression that he’s a modern Didius Julianus, who purchased the throne of Rome in an auction at the walls of the Prætorian Guard (but was unfortunately decapitated by his successor two months later), Bloomberg is assembling the Old-Boy Network, plus Christine Todd Whitman, already an honorary member in any case. Apparently Chuck Hagel and Sam Nunn have entered the VP primary, in which there’s only one vote. The ticket’s platform is still vague, and perhaps will remain so. But I think I can summarize it in the title of an old Chomsky book: deterring democracy.
It’s an old theory among power elites that the people are too dumb or too lazy or too ignorant of world affairs or economics to make reasonable decisions, and the delicate machinery of government must therefore be shielded from them. And, it must be admitted, the peoples’ record at making decisions that benefit the power elites is a poor one.
Yet a surprising percentage of the time, if the US government did what polls show people want it to do, the country as a whole would be far better off. As Krugman recently noted, the polls show a population whose positions are regularly to the left of the center of the Democratic party. But as Steve says both parties have been “taken over by a combination of ideological and utopian zealots as well as a policy-blind secretariat that passively follows the ideologues.” For the Republicans, it’s the anti-abortion folks crowding out the country clubbers. In the Democrats’ case, it’s the DLC and Wall Street overcoming labor.
I don’t see much to like in any of the scenarios outlined by Steve on Friday, or by the Times today. According to Steve’s (usually quite reliable) sources, Bloomberg’s more interested in running if the Republicans nominate Huckabee or Giuliani, and the Democrats nominate Clinton, while he’s less interested if it’s Obama. The Times claims he’s most interested in a large divide between candidates, like Obama or Edwards versus Huckabee, where he could claim a larger middle ground to plow. These seem like conflicting predictions, but perhaps I’m missing the point.
The point I think I see is that a Bloomberg candidacy would move the debate toward the elitist end of the political spectrum at a moment when Americans seem ready to move the other direction.
