[Peace-discuss] WI shows why Obama will probably lose

[C. G. Estabrook]

On Tuesday, Wisconsin Republican Governor Scott Walker humiliated his  
Democratic opponent, Tom Barrett, by easily turning back a popular  
recall attempt sponsored by unions and liberal activists.  The numbers  
in the election, which were supposed to be close, were ugly, in favor  
of the Republican.  But this wasn’t just any Republican, Scott Walker  
is THE Republican, the politician who made his governorship a  
referendum on a hard right agenda, in a blue state.  Walker waged a  
direct and very public attack on the major constituencies of the  
Democratic Party, rolling back rights for women, the working class,  
and the young with measures such as ending collective bargaining for  
state employees, privatizing state assets, and repealing Wisconson’s  
equal pay provisions for women. His agenda provoked a fierce reaction  
– – Wisconsin citizens occupied the Statehouse for months -  and  
then a recall.
Yesterday, Walker’s agenda was ratified by the voters of Wisconsin,  
the state where public sector unions were born.  It’s hard to  
overstate how bad this is – Wisconsin is now on the road to becoming  
a right-to-work state, in what is likely to become a right-to-work  
country.  Right-to-work laws are provisions that allow individual  
employees to withdraw from unions, and they make it much harder for  
unions to organize.
And the deeper you look into the race, the worse it looks.   By  
calling for a recall instead of a general strike after Walker stripped  
collective bargaining rights and cut benefits for workers, labor and  
Democratic leadership in the state diverted and then subverted  
populist energy, channeling it into an electoral process (at least one  
union, one very active in the occupation of the Capitol,stood apart  
from the electoral stupidity).  Then, Barrett, an anti-labor centrist,  
won the Democratic primary by crushing his labor-backed opponent,  
Kathleen Falk.  Finally, Barrett himself was destroyed by Scott  
Walker, who outspent Barrett 7-1 with corporate money.  In other  
words, first, liberals lost a policy battle, then they failed to  
strike, then they lost a primary election, then they lost a general  
election to the most high-profile effective reactionary policy-maker  
in the country.  The conservative beat the moderate who beat the  
liberal.  And had Barrett won, he wouldn’t even have rolled back  
Walker’s agenda.  Somehow, in a no-win electoral situation, Democrats  
and labor managed to lose as badly as they possibly could.
What happened?
I wish I could say I had a new insight, but it’s basically the same  
problem I’ve been writing about for years.  Put simply, it’s that  
Obama’s policy framework is now the policy framework of the  
Democratic Party, liberals, and unionism.  Up and down the ticket,  
Democrats are operating under the shadow of the President, associated  
with unpopular policies that make the lives of voters worse and show  
government to be an incompetent, corrupt handmaiden to big business.   
So they keep losing.
It should be obvious that if you foreclose on your voters, cut their  
pay, and legalize theft of their wealth by Wall Street oligarchs, they  
won’t be your voters anymore.  Somehow, Democratic activists continue  
to operate as if policy doesn’t matter to voters, or that policy  
evaluation is a Chinese menu of different stuff, some of which you  
like and some of which you don’t, as in “Oh I’ll take a pro- 
choice moderate, with a bailout, and gay rights.  And a Pepsi”.  But  
that’s not how it works – voters’ lives get better, or they  
don’t.  And under Obama, stuff has gotten worse.  Obama’s economic  
policies have made economic inequality sharper  than it was under  
Bush, due to his bailout of banks and concurrent elimination of the  
main source of wealth of most Americans, home equity.  With these  
policy choices, Obama destroyed the Democratic Party and liberalism –  
under Obama’s first two years, the fastest growing demographic party  
label was “former Democrat.” Liberalism demands that people pay for  
a government, but why should anyone want to pay taxes for the terrible  
governance Obama has implemented?
We saw Democrats lose elections badly in 2009 and 2010 because of this  
dynamic.  They didn’t self-correct, instead doubling down on Obama.   
Then, in Illinois and Maryland in April, liberal labor-backed  
candidates were absolutely wrecked in primaries.  I noted at the time  
in a piece titled “Why Is the Left Slice of the Democrats Getting  
Crushed?” that this is a consequence of Obama’s policies and a  
general discrediting of liberalism.  In Wisconsin, the stage was much  
more high-profile, but the dynamics were the same.  This quote could  
just as easily apply to either contest.
“I’m flabbergasted. I’m embarrassed. This is the biggest screw-up  
electorally that I’ve ever been involved in,” said one progressive  
activist still sorting through the wreckage.
“Why Ilya Sheyman And Progressives Lost Big In Illinois’ 10th  
District Primary”, Huffington Post
But it’s not complete to say this is just Obama’s doing.  Obama has  
done everything he’s done with the support of labor leaders,  
Democratic supportive groups like Moveon, foundations, liberal  
pundits, African-American church networks, feminist groups, LGBT  
groups, and technologyinterests.  Any of these could have stopped him  
by withdrawing support and overtly attacking him, but only the LBGT  
community fought for their rights.  This American labor bureaucracy,  
which simply does not strike and therefore has no leverage against  
capital, operates largely as a group of fragmented business  
unionists.  Unfortunately, business unions don’t exist when business  
decides it doesn’t want unions.  And that’s what global business  
elites have decided, as this piece published on this very site titled  
The Liquidation of Society versus the Global Labor Revival shows.

In September of 2011, I suggested that Democrats replace Barack Obama  
on the top of the ticket.  My rationale was that Obama’s policy  
framework is a disaster, and the failure to stand up to him is causing  
a meltdown of institutional elements of the Democratic Party.  Ahead  
of the Wisconsin recall, emails from liberal internet groups flooded  
supporters asking for money and time, saying your dollars or your vote  
matters.  But they didn’t matter.  And in terms of 2012, your voice  
won’t matter.  Here’s what I said in 2011.
For Obama, the die is cast. He has put forward his economic program,  
and it will work to return jobs and income, and get the votes, or it  
won’t. Knocking on doors won’t change that, nor will a donation in  
a $6 billion election season.
That’s still true.  Of course, that’s not what high profile  
Democratic consultants are going to tell you.  Here’s former White  
House official and current Democratic SuperPAC operative Bill Burton,  
retweeting former Clinton political consultant Paul Begala.
RT @PaulBegala One WI lesson: Dems must not allow the right to  
outspend us 7 to 1 if we want to re-elect POTUS? ‪#wirecall‬
Obama has largely insulated himself from the consequences of his  
policies, so far, with a strong and aggressive PR campaign that has  
kept his approval ratings high enough to potentially win in 2012.   
This PR campaign blames everyone else for policy failures, from  
Democrats in Congress to Republicans in Congress to the Eurozone.   
Regardless of what happens, Obama will reap enormous monetary rewards  
for what he’s done, as Bill Clinton’s $80 million post-election  
payday shows.  And if Obama loses, the recriminations will start, and  
liberals will take the blame for not allowing Obama to be centrist  
enough.  At this point, the Democratic Party is hopelessly broken and  
overrun by the same interests that are running the Republican Party.   
I hate to be the bearer of such awful news, so I’ll end this on an up  
note.
We are not alone, and the system is weak.  There is an international  
movement, led at this moment by Alexis Tsipras of Greece (though he  
could betray or lose), to reject the destructive neoliberalism that  
has run our world for forty years.  These movements are contagious.   
Meanwhile, the financial system is teetering on another meltdown, and  
meltdowns do create opportunities for new social movements and elite  
shifts in opinion.  If we can figure out how to interrupt the stream  
of profit and commerce, or persuade a slice of the elites that they do  
not want to live in the nice gilded parts of what is increasingly  
becoming a global prison, then the revival can come much quicker than  
anyone imagines.

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/06/wisconsin-recap-thanks-to-obama-american-left-lies-in-smoldering-wreckage.html



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