NYT's Matt Bai on Obama's failed 'populism' (and BurtWorm on failed received wisdom)

[BurtWorm]

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/17/us/politics/17bai.html?ref=barack_obama

...But there is something more fundamental going on here, too, an underlying shift in the meaning of American populism. Most Democrats, after all, persist in embracing populism as it existed in the early part of the last century — that is, strictly as a function of economic inequality. In this worldview, the oppressed are the poor, and the oppressors are the corporate interests who exploit them.

That made sense 75 years ago, when a relatively small number of corporations — oil and coal companies, steel producers, car makers — controlled a vast segment of the work force and when government was a comparatively anemic enterprise. In recent decades, however, as technology has reshaped the economy, more and more Americans have gone to work for smaller or more decentralized employers, or even for themselves, while government has exploded in size and influence. (It’s not incidental that the old manufacturing unions, like the autoworkers and steelworkers, have been eclipsed in membership and political influence by those that represent large numbers of government workers.)

Since this transformation took place, a succession of liberal politicians — Jesse Jackson, Jerry Brown, John Edwards — have tried to run for president on a traditionally populist, anticorporate platform, with little success. That is because today’s only viable brand of populism, the same strain that Ross Perot expertly tapped as an independent presidential candidate in 1992, is not principally about the struggling worker versus his corporate master. It is about the individual versus the institution — not only business, but also government and large media and elite universities, too.

You do not have to be working for the minimum wage, after all, to seethe about the effects of the Wall Street meltdown on your retirement savings or the spilled oil creeping toward your shores. You simply have to fear that large institutions generally exercise too much power and too little responsibility in society.

This new American populism is why the federal deficit has emerged as a chief concern for voters, as it did in Mr. Perot’s era — not because it presents an imminent crisis of its own, necessarily, but because it signifies a kind of institutional recklessness, a disconnectedness from the reality of daily life.

The same dynamic explains the current spate of questions over the composition of the Supreme Court, which may soon consist entirely of lawyers trained at Harvard and Yale. It does not seem to matter that virtually all of those justices advanced from the middle class, rather than through inheritance. The pervasive reach of exclusive educational institutions is unnerving to some Americans now, and it helps inspire the caustic brand of populism that Sarah Palin and others have made central to their political identities....

I have to confess I was annoyed when I read Bai's essay on Obama vs. "fat cats" (see above). I took offense at the notion that populism has shifted rightward in the post-modern age, that the only effective populist movements lately have been Ross Perot's in 1992 and the tea baggers' of today. (No mention of Howard Dean or his impact on Democrats since 2004, of course.)

This is received wisdom that Bai is regurgitating (which is annoying in and of itself). But is it right? Are the baggers populists? Not if Bai is right (and I think he is more or less) about what their anger is really all about. Populism is a people's movement. It's about the power of people to unite and seek justice, all for one and one for all. The tea baggers aren't interested in "the people." They're interested in themselves.

Bai is right, I think, that baggers resent the power of institutions against the individual, (including the institution of people power). But resentment is not the main engine that drives populism. Social justice is. Isn't it?

But Bai's essay got under my skin (like a bad itch) for other reasons. I have had a hard time getting on board either of the bandwagons that are at each other's throats here: either the one that defends every Obama word and action to the death or the one that sees only betrayal behind those same words and actions.

I've tended more toward the latter camp. My anger toward Obama over the way he handled health care reform has persisted. Since this crisis began, I've puzzled over what his strategy toward BP was. I didn't hear his speech. I took my cues from HuffPost's gloomy post-speech headlines and felt the requisite disapproval of a post-Bush lefty for the disappointing leader of the Democrats.

Yesterday, however, I was pleased that Obama forced BP's hand and shamed them into creating the escrow account. It was impressive, actually, considering that until that moment there hadn't seemed to have been a single ounce of positive news out of the disaster since the explosion eight weeks ago. The entire spectacle has been about doom and failure, doom to the environment, failure to reverse the doom.

It started to dawn on me that Obama really doesn't have the constitutional power to do much more than what he has done. I'm sure I'm not the only person who has fantasized that as soon as it was clear what was going on, Obama should have seized the site from BP and thrown all the money and talent at his disposal to stop the leak, then charged BP for all the money the government spent. If it broke BP's back, well, let that be a lesson to other Cheney-enabled polluters. I don't think he has the authority to do that. I'm not sure we'd really want a president to have that authority. Would we? How could we trust that Obama (or any ideal president) in charge of the plug-up would be any more effective than BP in charge?

My wife said to me last night that Obama's problem may be that he hasn't mastered the theater of the office, which may be why his speech was so universally panned. I don't know about that, but I do agree that Obama, for all his strengths and weaknesses, is a no-bullshit president. No drama Obama, they used to say. Perhaps it's true that he's no good at the theater of the office. He's a realist, a nonfiction prose president.

Such people are not easy to fit into shoe boxes. They defy the Big Narrative critics in the media who prefer guys like Bush and Cheney. Those guys, unlike the president we have, are a snap to figure out.

[Radical Activist]

1. Corporate power always wants to divert populism onto some other target.

It's not surprising to see the NYT join that effort. It has been going on for over 200 years.

The American revolution, as it was justified by Thomas Paine, was a populist uprising against abuse of concentrated power in both government and business. Corporate conservatives try to divert that anti-authoritarian tradition into anti-government libertarianism, or demagoguery against a weak minority.

There's nothing new about the current populist wave. It's the most typically American of all ideologies. One of the biggest mistakes of many liberal Democrats over the last few decades is the failure to understand that Americans are both anti-big-corporation AND anti-big-government. We've allowed conservatives to score too many points against us by equating liberalism with big government.

I think you'd have to go back at least 100 years to find a President who was as effective as Obama at expressing that anti-authoritarian ideology in a liberal way. It reflects his background in the community organizing tradition.

[Berry Cool]

2. Bai's assumptions are wrong...old conservatism wrapped in new populist packging.

Read between the lines and you can see it.

First, he claims as a fact without backing it up that some trend of decentralized employment means that Americans no longer have the problems with big business that they once did. This is bull. Yes, many Americans work for themselves or for small employers, but corporations have been getting bigger and more acquisitive for decades. Many people work for companies that have been bought and sold again and again and become behemoths. Many more of us do business with such companies. They are STILL oppressing and exploiting us, as employees and consumers.

Second, he repeats the conservative canard that government has gotten bigger and bigger while implying that corporations have become smaller. He even uses this as an explanation for why "the old manufacturing unions, like the autoworkers and steelworkers, have been eclipsed in membership and political influence by those that represent large numbers of government workers." Bull. That's happened because we don't make cars and steel in this country as we used too--the jobs have been outsourced.

Third, he implies that among modern populism's targets are "large media and elite universities, too." Haven't the media and universities ALWAYS been favorite bogeymen of conservatives? Why? Because, they say, LIBRULS hang out there!! This is completely different from the problem progressives have with the media (too corporate owned), and if progressives have any issue with the universities, it's that they're too unaffordable to many people.

He tries to equate people's upset with the Wall Street meltdown and the oil catastrophe with conservative fears of Big Government. That dog won't hunt. People aren't unhappy the government did too much about Wall Street or Big Oil, but that they did too LITTLE.

And then he gets back on the deficit, a favorite conservative bugbear, which he says reflects "a kind of institutional recklessness, a disconnectedness from the reality of daily life." So I guess we should keep unemployed people from getting any more benefits because if we don't, we're exhibiting a disconnectedness from the reality of daily life? Really? It is to laugh.

And then he goes back to "The pervasive reach of exclusive educational institutions" and essentially says they are to blame for why Sarah Palin is so popular. You know, because REAL people are sick of those librul elites, and they want a plain-talkin', common-sense gal who had to go to five different schools before finding her fit and scraping through. So much better to listen to her than to a snob from Harvard or Yale.

Really, it's all the same old conservative crap, dressed in new clothes as "populism." Don't be fooled.

[Johonny]

3. I agree

For instance Ross Perot wasn't popular. He lost the election big time twice. So didn't Sarah Palin. If that is some over powering new form of popularism then why isn't it actually popular? Has the writer ever looked at Palin's approval ratings. Most people think she's a kook.

Fact is corporations moved out of traditional manufacturing centers where the labor movement was strongest (rust belt and northeast) to centers where the labor movement was weaker (the south and out of country). Leaving only the government jobs in those areas to have unions. Why unions aren't popular in the south has a lot to do with education (indoctrination) than some false belief in populism of conservatism.