This article by Democratic strategist Robert Creamer, author of Stand Up Straight:
How Progressives Can Win, is cross-posted
from HuffPo:
If your tax bill goes up
$2,200 a year, or you're one of the millions who would stop receiving
unemployment benefits, the cause of your economic pain is not some a natural
disaster, or a major structural flaw in the economy. The cause is Republican
fear of being beaten in a primary by people like Sarah Palin, Sharon Angel or
Richard Mourdock - funded by far Right Wing oligarchs like Sheldon Adelson and
the Koch Brothers. It's that simple.
Most normal Americans will have very little patience with Republicans
as they begin to realize that GOP Members of Congress are willing to risk
throwing the country back into a recession because they are worried about being
beaten in low turn out primaries by people who do a better job than they do
appealing to the extreme right fringe of the American electorate - and to the
far Right plutocrats that are all too willing to stoke right wing passion and
anger.
Often, economic crises are caused by real physical problems - like
draught, war, demography, or technological innovation that robs one economy of
a competitive advantage over another.
Other times, economic crises result when asset bubbles burst, or
financial markets collapse. That was the case of the Great Depression - and
more recently the Great Recession.
The economic crisis of the moment - the "fiscal cliff" -
does not result from any of these factors. In fact it is not a real
"economic crisis" at all, except that it could inflict serious
economic hardship on many Americans and could drive the economy back into
recession.
The "fiscal cliff" is a politically manufactured crisis. It
was original concocted by the Republican Senate Leader, Mitch McConnell as a
way to get past the last crisis manufactured by the Republicans - the 2011
standoff over increasing the Federal Debt Ceiling.
Theoretically, "the cliff" - composed of increased taxes and
huge, indiscriminant cuts in Federal programs - would be so frightening to
policy makers that no one would ever consider allowing the nation to jump.
Now, America is on the brink of diving off the cliff for one and only
one reason: many House Republicans are terrified of primary challenges from the
Tea Party right.
That's right, if your tax bill goes up $2,200 a year, or you're one of
the millions who would stop receiving unemployment benefits, the cause of your
economic pain is not some a natural disaster, or a major structural flaw in the
economy. The cause is Republican fear of being beaten in a primary by people
like Sarah Palin, Sharon Angel or Richard Mourdock - funded by far Right Wing
oligarchs like Sheldon Adelson and the Koch Brothers. It's that simple.
Most normal Americans will have very little patience with Republicans
as they begin to realize that GOP Members of Congress are willing to risk
throwing the country back into a recession because they are worried about being
beaten in low turn out primaries by people who do a better job than they do
appealing to the extreme right fringe of the American electorate - and to the
far Right plutocrats that are all too willing to stoke right wing passion and
anger.
Nate Silver, of the New York Time's 538.com, argues in a recent column
that one of the reasons for this phenomenon is the increasing polarization of
the American electorate. That polarization translates in to fewer truly
"swing" Congressional seats and an increasing number where Members
are more concerned with primary challenges than they are with losing in a
general election. He concludes that at this moment the number of solidly Republican
seats is larger the number of solidly Democratic seats.
This, he argues is partially a result of redistricting by Republican
legislatures that packed Democrats into a limited number of districts in many
states. But he also contends it results from increasing polarization of the
electorate in general. And it is due to the fact that solidly Democratic urban
areas have very high concentrations of Democrats, where Republican performing
areas tend to have relatively lower concentrations of Republicans. These
reasons help explain why, even though Democrats got more votes in House races
this cycle than Republicans, Republicans still have more seats in the House.
Increased political polarization in the United States is not a result
of some accident or act of God. In 2006, political scientists Nolan McCarty,
Kevin T. Poole and Howard Rosenthal published a study of political polarization
called Polarized America: The Dance of Ideology and Unequal Riches. Their study
found that there is a direct relationship between economic inequality and
polarization in American politics.
They measured political polarization in congressional votes over the
last century, and found a direct correlation with the percentage of income
received by the top 1% of the electorate. It is no accident that the years
following the second World War, a period of low political polarization, was
also a period that economist Paul Krugman refers to as the "great
compression" -- with robust economic growth for most Americans and
reducing levels of economic inequality. In other words, it turns out that if
you want less political polarization, the best medicine is reducing income
inequality.
Of course, one of the other major factors feeding the GOP fear of
primaries is that, because of the Citizens United decision, far right
plutocrats can now inject virtually unlimited amounts of money into primary
races. Unlimited independent expenditures have so far been much more successful
in unseating incumbent Republican Members of Congress than it has been winning
General Elections.
In the end, of course the relatively more diluted presence of
Republicans in Republican districts - and the country's changing demographics
-- may allow Democrats to win many currently Republican seats. What's more,
Republican near term concern about primary challenges - and the stridency it
breeds -- may alienate increasing numbers of moderate Republican leading
independents. We've already seen this effect in the Presidential and Senate
races and it would not be surprising that by 2014 many of the primary obsessed
Republican incumbents are hoisted on their own petard in the General Election.
Just ask Tea Party Members of Congress who were defeated in 2012, like Alan
West and Joe Walsh. But in the near term, at least, there is also no question
that many occupants of Republican seats appear far more concerned with primary
challenges than they are with general elections.
If House Speaker Boehner is to be successful passing any form of
compromise to avoid the "fiscal cliff" - either before the end of the
year or after - he will need to convince Republican Members of the House that
he is doing them a favor by bringing a bill the floor that can pass even with
many Republicans voting no. That, of course requires that the deal is good
enough to allow many Democrats to vote yes.
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