Get up. Stand up.

Don’t give up the fight

Noah Smith today published a terrific piece about the current rejection of Bidenomics. Here’s the link. After you read this piece, go read his:

The Rejection of Bidenomics

He points out how important to our future are many elements of the president’s Build Back Better bill but points to the reality that Bidenomics and related aspects of his administration’s priorities may not come to reality in the near future, and not necessarily at all. He analogizes how FDR’s and Reagan’s agenda’s were largely implemented by later presidents after facing significant resistance during their own presidencies. He concludes with this thought:

So while Bidenomics-as-legislation has been stalled, Bidenomics-as-idea will live on, because it’s the only sensible program to address the challenges of the modern world. We may have to wait for other leaders to implement that program, and Biden may ultimately not get the credit. But it’s what needs to be done, and that won’t change any time soon.

The analogy to transformative presidents’ agendas being stymied and ultimately (at least in part) fulfilled by subsequent administrations is very helpful. I think Lincoln’s example may be the most difficult one to swallow, because, here we are more than a century and a half later, and still trying to win significant elements of the “Black Lives Matter” fight. And this has me wondering whether one can learn something even more fundamental about the sorts of democracy-advancing issues that are most difficult to address.

I think we often forget that our economic system is amoral. Markets will reward and punish actors irrespective of whether any particular actor is nefarious or not. And, overall, our capitalism — any capitalism — will exploit people as much as it can in the process, in order to advance profit-making. Capitalism can exist in almost any sort of society, whether a fledgling and/or imperfect democratic republic or an authoritarian  or communist state. It is up to each country (and, very importantly, in the U.S., each state, as well) to add-in the moral overlay.  This is what we mean here in America by the fight for liberty, equality, and justice — the fight for democracy.

I think history shows that it’s not simply “the voters” who are responsible for applying a moral framework for our economy. It’s not just that “the people” are not ready to accept a huge investment in a “Green New Deal” or child tax credit. It’s more often that the leadership of the country and/or state, or the Chamber of Commerce, etc., is not ready or willing to accept democratization or changes in investment priorities and so therefore find innumerable ways to make such policy choices, or their implementation, difficult-to-impossible. 

A simple example is the failed expansion of ObamaCare into Medicaid. There are millions of American ready to have better health care, but a conservative Supreme Court found the inclusion of this Medicaid provision in the legislation unconstitutional and numerous (exclusively Republican) governors and legislatures refused to sign-on. They have willfully deprived their poorest citizens access to affordable health care and they have done so while most of those citizens were not even made aware that this choice has been made for them. This happens all the time across endless issues and initiatives from the very top of our federal and judicial systems all the way down to the local level.

This is the stuff of the fight for democracy and, in some ways, why the autocrats and hyper-capitalists have won or delayed “losing” on so many fronts in the democratic quest for bettering the welfare of the people. The people who are most privileged and powerful in our country generally are very conservative when it comes to protecting the economic and business arena (and all of the ways in which these provide for their privilege) from being too far infused with the morality of liberty, equality, and justice for all — of democracy. They have always much preferred an effectively autocratic moral overlay and, whether or not they are as rabid as the Koch brothers and Steve Bannon, they act on behalf or they accede to all manner of anti-democratic policies and practices.

This is not to say that the economically privileged are all involved in a knowing, massive conspiracy against democratization. One of the most difficult things about the struggle for democracy is that there are so many ways to be formally pro-democracy, but in actuality, acceding to or working for non-democratic policies and outcomes. There is a whole literature right now, for instance, about how the new authoritarians worldwide have adopted formal mechanisms of democracy to seize and hold power. This is what is in the works right now in our own country, especially in the Republican states, where Trump-inspired neo-authoritarians are effectively seizing control of the mechanics (legislative and electoral) of our democratic processes.

One of the most under-analyzed aspects of the Black Lives Matter protests last year was the effect on our entire society, not so much of the rioting that occurrred in a few places, but instead, of seeing live on television how (mostly) young Caucasian people participating in peaceful Black Lives Matter demonstrations along with many Black people, were so viciously and indiscriminately beaten and gassed and arrested by police who generally looked like they were armored for all-out war. And this happened pretty universally across the country. This brief but brutal response showed the vast majority of Americans that, yes, police brutality is a thing and it can and will be unleashed even on our white sons and daughters (not to mention the press and anyone else they choose), if they stand for justice and in solidarity with Black people.

I believe that this was a real shock for the more democratically-oriented middle class and even privileged class. They saw up close the brutalization and repression that Black people have complained about was really a thing; and it led to widespread adoption of at least formalistic commitments and initiatives towards diversity, equity, and inclusion.

But what most people think of now, when they think of last summer’s protests, is the rioting, looting, and burning. That’s in large part because this is what FOX and the many other authoritarian propaganda outlets, as well as the entire Republican Party, have talked about ever since, to the exclusion of anything else. They want us all to forget why we were so upset and moved at the time. They want us to think that the brutal treatment and ultimate killing of George Floyd was either legitimate police work (collateral damage of subduing a dangerous (by definition) Black man); or the actions of one rogue cop. If they can achieve this, which many believe they already have in good measure, then the efforts around DEI will fade away.

It is important for all of us to remember that our economic system is not by nature or design an equitable or democratic system. It is an “amoral” system; a system for ordering economic and even larger social interactions that has no inherent moral compass and is not, in the end, about competition. It is a system that uses various forms of competition for essentially producing goods and accumulating wealth. It’s a system that is all about ultimately dominating “markets” and monopolizing the power to control them. The role of law enforcement is in no small part geared to enforce laws that protect the e systems that advantage the privileged. “Racial justice” and “policing reform” are just two of many areas where we are fighting what, for many, remains an existential battle between the “liberal” project of democracy and the “ultraconservative” project of autocracy.

That our economic system can be harnessed for good is self-evident. Capitalism is an extraordinary engine of innovation and production, and generates a rising tide of wealth that is capable of raising all boats. But, to the extent that this wealth is, in fact, shared to some extent through mechanisms of democracy like taxation, public administration of “safety-net” programs, public works, and so forth, it is because of the battles that have been won to date in bringing to our version of this economic system the American project of democracy that includes principles like “equal opportunity” that provide for the general welfare of a nation formed “of, by, and for the people.”

Our long and continuing American project is to bring the moral force of democracy — embedded however imperfectly in our Constitution and in our identity as a nation — into and onto our our economy and our body politic in the form of just laws, regulations, and related enforcement mechanisms. In this moment, we are laying down important new markers for advancing democracy and we are being opposed by very dark, authoritarian forces that have been fighting us all the way through our history.

Now, as ever, as the song goes:

“Get up. Stand up. Stand up for your rights. Get up. Stand up. Don’t give up the fight!”