Palin and Politics of Anger

By John Ballard

Robert Reich says Palin has a good shot at the presidency in 2012.
Seriously.
But he makes a good case.

While the unemployment rate among college grads (most of whom are professionals or managers) is around 5 percent, the average unemployment rate for people with only a high school diploma or less (blue-collar, pink-collar, clerical) is almost 20 percent.

All of this is spawning a new and more virulent politics of anger.

This reality is neither trivial nor apt to go away in the nest fifteen months or so. Current economic conditions are not your garden variety cyclical recession. Take a look at this.

That colorful little cobweb top-left represents all the recessions since WWII. In terms of duration, 1990 and 2001 were potentially longer in duration than what the country is now experiencing, but the dramatic depth of the current unemployment percentage is shocking.

Couple that with Reich's observation regarding education and the prospects for the next two years are pretty grim.

Whether by design or default (I frankly think it's the latter) Palin's overtures in the direction of the White House more resemble those of a cougar than a house cat.(I almost said hooker and debutante but changed my mind. Cougar is suggestive enough.)

Palin's presidential strategy is to circumvent the Republican establishment. That's why her path to the GOP nomination is a celebrity game. It's a snark-fest with the nation's angry middle class. Buy my book and we'll show the know-it-all coastal elites a real book directed at real people! Tune into my reality show and we'll show the real America - far from the urban centers with immigrants and blacks and fancy city slickers! Vote for Bristol's dancing and we'll show the media establishment how powerful we are! She will threaten the GOP establishment: Deny her the nomination and she'll run as an independent. This will split off much of the middle class and guarantee defeat of the Republican establishment candidate. It will also result in her defeat in 2012, but that's a small price to pay for gaining the credibility and power to demand the nomination in 2016.

Palin is betting that the economic prospects of most Americans won't improve by 2012, or even by 2016 and beyond.

Sadly, this is likely to be the case. Last month, the Fed issued a gloomy prognosis. Even if the U.S. economy began to grow at a rate more typical of recoveries than the current anemic 2.5 percent, unemployment won't drop to its pre-recession level for five to seven years. A minority of the Fed thought this too optimistic.

In reality, the bad economy is likely to continue for most Americans beyond seven years - maybe for 10 or more - because of a chronic lack of aggregate demand. So much income and wealth have now concentrated at the top that the broad middle and working class no longer has the buying power to get the economy going again.

More at the link but you get the point.

Some think the Teabag Insurgency was either a grassroots, "know nothing" movement co-opted by serious (read more responsible) big players using them as sock puppets -- or astroturf altogether. Both views underestimate the dynamics I notice. When I see videos and hear the language of many of these folks I feel the rage of racists, Second Amendment extremists, survivalists and sovereign citizens. The politics of anger is alive, well and growing stronger.  Dave Neiwert sees it. Mark Potok sees it, and SPLC has added Family Research Council to its list of hate groups. (Check out their map where over nine hundred groups are tracked.)

If the current economic picture were more traditional, i.e. shorter, or affecting all income ranges I would be less concerned. Past recessions have often hit the rich along with the poor. Wealthy people are always insulated from pedestrian problems like being hungry or forced to live in an automobile. But they still experience a feeling of loss when forced to take more modest vacations or tap a line of credit to maintain club dues because of cash flow issues. It appears that unlike past recessions we now have an upper crust not only insulated from economic pain but instead is simultaneously getting richer.

For reasons I find mystifying, Noam Chomsky (like Chris Hedges) is outcast, even by modern Progressives. Perhaps his age works against him (Octogenarian, you know. Today, December 7, 1928 is his birthday. Happy Birthday, Professor Chomsky). I dunno. Anyway, he recently made these observations toward the end of an interview with Amy Goodman.

...the Tea Party movement itself is maybe 15, 20 percent of the electorate. It�s relatively affluent, white, nativist. You know, it has rather traditional nativist streaks to it. But what is much more important, I think, is the�is its outrage. I mean, over half the population says they more or less support it or support its message. And what people are thinking is extremely interesting. I mean, overwhelmingly, polls reveal that people are extremely bitter, angry, hostile, opposed to everything.

The primary cause undoubtedly is the economic disaster. It�s not just a financial catastrophe, it�s an economic disaster. I mean, in manufacturing industry, for example, unemployment levels are at the level of the Great Depression. And unlike the Great Depression, those jobs are not coming back. U.S. owners and managers have long ago made the decision that they can make more profit with complicated financial deals than by production. So, finance�this goes back to the '70s, mainly Reagan escalated it, and onward�Clinton, too. The economy has been financialized. Financial institutions have grown enormously in their share of corporate profits. It may be something like a third or something like that today. At the same time, correspondingly, production has been exported. So you buy some electronic device from China. China is an assembly plant for a Northeast Asian production center. The parts and components come from the more advanced countries, and from the United States, and the technology. So, yes, that�s a cheap place to assemble things, sell them back here. And it's, you know, rather similar in Mexico, Vietnam and so on. That�s the way to make profits.

It destroys the society here, but that�s not the concern of the ownership class and the managerial class. Their concern is profit. That�s what drives the economy. And the rest of it is a fallout. People are extremely bitter about it but don�t seem to understand it. So, the same people who are a majority, who say that Wall Street is to blame for the current crisis, are voting Republican. Both parties are deep in the pockets of Wall Street, but the Republicans much more so than the Democrats. And the same is true on issue after issue. So the antagonism to everyone is extremely high. Actually, antagonism�they don�t like�population doesn�t like Democrats, but they hate Republicans even more. They�re against big business. They�re against government. They�re against Congress. They�re against science.

I want Robert Reich to be wrong but I think he's correct. This is part of what he wrote Friday.

We�re heading in the wrong direction. In October, the jobless rate was 9.6 percent, and employers added 172,000 jobs. Private-sector job growth totaled 160,000.

At this rate unemployment won�t return to its pre-recession level for more than a decade, if ever.

Over 15 million Americans were jobless in November. This doesn�t include those who are working part-time but would prefer to work full time. Nor does it include a record 1.3 million who are too discouraged even to look for work.

Nor does it take account of the fact that most families are dependent on two breadwinners. So to figure out the true impact on most families, all these numbers have to be doubled.

Nor does it reflect the fact that the level of unemployment tracks level of education. Only 5 percent of those with college degrees are now unemployed, while more than 20 percent of everyone else is without work.

Maybe that�s why Washington doesn�t get it. The Washington echo chamber is filled with college degrees.

The Big Money economy on Wall Street and in corporate suites doesn�t get it, either. They�re doing marvelously well because they�re tied to rapidly-growing markets in China, India, and Brazil.

But the Average Worker economy on Main Street continues to wallow.

There is a certain cynical segment of Democrats for whom a Sarah Palin GOP candidacy would be a wet dream. They dare not say so openly or risk doing anything that might blow up in their face. Good politicians know well how counterproductive it is to cast stones at an opponent already breaking his own windows. But in the absence of any meaningful Democratic alternative there could be enough pissed off voters in 2012 to insure defeat. Barring unforeseen circumstances the Democrat will be Barack Obama and the anger directed at him within his own coalition only compounds the anger he triggers among card-carrying political opponents.