We will miss the greed and cynicism

We are in 2023.

What will the new year bring us?

The answer, of course, is that we don’t know.

There are quite a number of thing donald rumsfeld (remember that?) called “known strangers”:

for example, nobody really knows how difficult it will be to reduce the inflation or whether the US economy will suffer a recession.

There are also unknown unknowns:

Will we see another shock like the Russian invasion of Ukraine?

But I think I can make a safe prediction about the American political scene:

We will spend much of 2023 feeling each other nostalgia for the old days of greed and cynicism.

By the end of 2015, or so I and many others believed, we had a pretty good idea of ​​how American politics worked.

It wasn’t nice, but it looked like it understandable.

On one side were the Democrats, who were and still are basically what people in other advanced nations call social democrats (which is not at all the same as what most people call socialism).

That is, they favor a fairly strong social safety net supported by relatively high taxes on the wealthy.

Over the years they have moved a bit to the left, also because the progressive departure of the few remaining conservative Democrats has made the social democratic orientation of the party more coherent.

But by international standards, Democrats are, at best, vaguely centre-left.

On the other side were the Republicans, whose primary focus was on keeping taxes low and reducing social programs.

Many proponents of that agenda did so in the sincere belief that it would be best for everyone:

that high taxes reduce the incentives to create jobs and increase productivity, as well as overly generous benefits.

But the core of the GOP’s financial support (not to mention the obscurity of think tanks, foundations and lobbyists promoting its ideology) came from billionaires they wanted to preserve and increase their wealth.

To be clear, I’m not suggesting that Democrats were pure idealists.

Money with special interest flowed to both sides.

But of the two, the Republicans were far more obviously the party of enrich the rich.

The problem for Republicans was that their economic program was inherently unpopular.

Voters constantly tell pollsters that corporations and the wealthy pay taxes too low;

policies that help the poor and middle class have broad public support.

How then could the Republican Party win the election?

The answer, outlined in Thomas Frank’s famous 2004 book “What’s the Problem with Kansas?” was to win over working-class white voters by appealing to cultural issues.

His book was widely criticized by political scientists, in part because he underestimated its importance racial antagonism dand whites, but the overall picture still looks right.

However, as Frank describes it, the culture war was essentially false:

a cynical ploy to win the election, ignored once the votes were counted.

“Reaction leaders may talk about Christ,” he wrote, “but they walk in a corporate way. … Abortion never stops. Affirmative action is never suppressed. The culture industry is never forced to clean up his act”.

It seems bizarre, even a bit like the Golden Age today, when many American women lose their reproductive rights, when schools are forced to stop teaching students about slavery and racism, when even powerful corporations are criticized to be excessively awakened.

The culture war is no longer just a stance by politicians primarily interested in cutting taxes for the wealthy; many elected Republicans are now true fans.

As I said, one can almost feel nostalgic for the old days of greed and cynicism.

Interestingly, the culture war has materialized at a time when Americans are more socially liberal than ever.

George W. Bush won the 2004 election in part due to backlash against gay marriage.

(True to form, he followed up his victory by proclaiming he had a mandate to… privatize Social Security.)

But Americans today accept the idea of ​​same-sex marriage almost 3 to 1.

And the disconnect between a socially illiberal Republican party and an increasingly tolerant public is no doubt one reason why the much-anticipated red wave in the midterm elections it was so far from expectations.

However, despite their underperformance in what, given its record, should have been a very strong year for the outside party, Republicans will control the House by a narrow margin.

. And that means the prisoners will be running half of the asylum.

It’s true that not all members of the new Republican caucus are fans of conspiracy theories.

But those who aren’t clearly are terrified and submissive before what they are.

Kevin McCarthy may cast the votes to become Speaker of the House, but even if he does, the real power will obviously rest in the hands of people like Marjorie Taylor Greene.

And what I don’t understand is how the US government is going to work.

President Barack Obama he faced an extremist and radicalized GOP House, but even the Tea Parties had concrete political demands that could, to some extent, be appeased.

How do you deal with people who believe, more or less, that the 2020 election was stolen by a vast pedophile conspiracy?

I don’t know the answer, but the outlook doesn’t look good.

c.2023 The New York Times Society