There’s an article in the Boston Globe that ought to be required reading for all progressive activists. The reporter, Sarah Schweitzer, spent time with some New Hampshire residents who are poor, losing homes and jobs, going without health insurance, and will probably vote Republican next year.
I say we need to read this, because this is why progressives remain powerless. If the very people who are most hurt by Republican policies continue to vote for Republicans, what hope is there for changing anything? Or persuading Democrats that they should be more supportive of progressive policies?
One uninsured couple with thousands of dollars in medical bills explained why they don’t have insurance:
They’d like health insurance. But it’s too expensive. President Obama’s plan for subsidized health care is an abstraction, something they’ve heard about, but not banked on. They voted for Obama in 2008. Not next year.
“Health care is not the anxiety,’’ Darlene said. “Basic needs are.’’
And I’m thinking, health care is not a basic need? But of course, she meant they have to first keep a roof over their heads and food on the table. When you’re living that close to the edge, health care is a luxury.
The health care reform law hasn’t made any difference to them, although it might after 2014, when most of it finally goes into effect. However, it appears the New Hampshire residents don’t know much about the law (and, judging by the continued incessant whining about the individual mandate, I’d say lots of progressives don’t understand it, either). Nor do they have any idea why their lives are so hard. They just know they voted for a Democrat in 2008 and nothing seems to be much better, so they’ll vote for a Republican now.
And then there’s this:
Peters has no health insurance. He could, perhaps. His business has done well, his children are grown, and he owns a home, along with several properties in town.
But like many around here, he’s a do-it-yourselfer. He built his house, and he prefers to pay his own way on health care.
“It is a gamble, but just shoot me,’’ he said. “I am not going to pay $2,000 just for health care.’’
He’d rather patch himself.
He bent at the waist and pointed to his pate. A tender scar runs down a third of its length. A few weeks earlier, he had gashed open his head reaching for a key hidden at the house where he was doing work. “If I had insurance, I’d have run to the hospital and had 20 stitches and it would have cost $1,000. Instead, I got some tape and pulled hard and really tight and closed it up. And well, it’s healed.’’
Of course, if he hadn’t healed, he would have finally sought medical help rather than die of sepsis. And if the bills were higher than he could pay, the rest of us would absorb his bills, and the cost of health care would go up a little more. This guy is very proud of his “independence,” but he’s really a moocher. And whenever healthy people make an economic choice not to join the health insurance risk pool, they become a factor in the steadily rising cost of health care that threatens to strangle the U.S. economy eventually.
And then there’s this, about the lady who runs the local food pantry:
Cross, a social worker and 40-year-resident of Ashland, gladly offers the help. But charity, from a steely Yankee’s perch, should be a local affair. Obama’s plan for national health insurance makes her nose involuntarily wrinkle.
“It’s an entitlement and it takes away ingenuity,’’ she said. “I don’t think I can be open-minded because I am so against the philosophy.’’
Getting more people affordable health care is an “entitlement” that “takes away ingenuity”? Whichever right-wing propagandist taught his fellow travelers to call federal benefits “entitlements” (which connotes people demanding things they haven’t worked for and don’t deserve) was a genius, you have to admit. Evil, but a genius.
Anyway — the people in the article certainly have internalized right-wing talking points about the evils of a big federal government. They also cling to a view of themselves as ruggedly independent and resourceful, even when they are really moochers. They are not well informed and have no idea what federal policies are actually doing to their lives. Thus, they are easily duped into voting for candidates who are going to make their lives worse.
Back in the day, New Deal Democrats would have been going to these people and explaining to them what’s really going on and how the federal government really can do something about it. Back in the day, people would have listened without the knee-jerk antipathy to “big gubmint” that years of right-wing propaganda have drummed into their heads.
Now, we can complain all day long about these people being idiots, but probably they’ve lived all their lives without ever having heard progressive/liberal arguments for government policies.
Over the past several years, time and time again progressives find themselves discussing how to reach people like this to educate them. No one ever comes up with a workable idea. Certainly, many are brainwashed beyond hope, but not everyone.
As I tried to explain to a commenter yesterday — years of voting and opinion poll patterns show that right-wing ideology is firmly entrenched in about 25 to 30 percent of the population. This seems to be a floor at which popularity for bad right-wing ideas or politicians does not go below, no matter what. There is no point even trying to talk to that group.
But the percentage of voters who self-identity as liberals or progressives is even smaller; maybe 20 percent. That leaves roughly half of U.S. voters who are not married to any particular ideology, although they may lean one way or another at times. And, certainly, many have been well trained to respond to the usual right-wing dog whistles and talking points. And they mostly self-identify as “conservatives.” But I’m sure you’ve also seen polls over the years that show many of these people support specific liberal ideas when they are not labeled “liberal.”
In all the discussion about what OWS should do next, I’m not seeing any consideration of this primordial problem. The OWSers may talk about representing the 99 percent and “everyday people,” but polls show a majority of Americans do not feel connected to OWS or the Tea Party, either.
Near identical majorities say neither movement represents their values — 57 percent for the Tea Party, and 56 percent for Occupy Wall Street.
However,
A significant majority (eight in 10) believes the gap between rich and poor has widened during the past 20 years, a finding that held true across generational, religious and political lines. Nearly half of those polled believe the American Dream — the idea that if you work hard you’ll get ahead — once held true but no longer does. …
… A strong majority (69 percent) says increasing taxes on people who make at least $1 million a year is an appropriate way to decrease the budget deficit.
About the same proportion reject cutting federal money for social programs that help the poor (67 percent) or cutting federal funding for religious organizations that help the poor (66 percent).
OWSers would do well to spend some time reflecting on why their clever street theatrics have not mobilized more Americans, when a whopping majority of Americans appear to agree with OWS’s purpose.
A movement that could rally Americans behind economic justice issues would be a powerful thing. It could make a real difference. OWS is not going to do that unless it gives up its countercultural self-indulgences and gets serious about outreach. I’m not holding my breath.
Yes, but a good portion of that 99% is lost to us – barring something catastrophic. They’ve been indoctrinated by right wing propaganda.
You have to give the Conservo-Fascists credit. They had a message, they were relentless in spreading it, and they’ve been damn effective doing it.
First, the Religionista’s grabbed radio, and spread their messages of division, and cultural warfare.
Then Richard Vigueri came up with direct mail-pieces, which are still effective.
Along came Reagan, the sunny puppet-messenger of cheerful government de-evolution and smiling dystopian oligarchism.
And then, they brilliantly eliminated the one thing that kept some sort of balance – and that was ‘The Equal Time/Fairness Doctrine.’
And as soon as that was eliminated, they were ready and rarin’ to go to spread their propaganda, and played the MSM into eliminating analysis of the news, and only covering talking points – ‘he said/she said’ – and anything outside of outright Conservative propaganda, was labeled Liberal bias, and slowly but surely, todays reporters don’t know any other way of writing. about politics Here’s Steve Benen on a fine example of where newspapers are today, and why they’re dying. It’s a MUST read:
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal/2011_11/reality_has_a_wellknown_libera033653.php
Conservo-Fascism has metastasized in the last 30-40 years. And I don’t see any way to stop it. Short, of course, of an economic and/or environmental disaster, or a pandemic. Or a space alien invasion? 🙂
And it’s not like the Democrats have a clear counter-message. When you have a party with Ben Nelson’s, Evan Byah’s (recently departed, but little mourned or missed), and, earlier on, Joe Lieberman’s, it’s hard to say that you stand for the little people on Main Street, when your reelection coffers get filled by Wall Street. And for every Sherrod Brown, or Al Franken, or Bernie Sanders, you have 2 , 3, or more Claire McCaskill’s and Chuck Schumer’s – though Chuck isn’t as bad as some.
Sure, there are still people out there who haven’t been completely indoctrinated, and maybe we can reach them. But it’s not like we’ve got a lot of time. We are getting closer and closer to ‘The United Dominionist Christian States of America,’ with every election. And 2006 and 2008 may well be outliers if, like in 2010, the voters decided to hold the Democrats responsible in 2012. And it’s not like we can expect these people to know any better.
Sorry, but I’m in a bit of a Debbie Downer mood today.
Can anyone give me some hope?
Maybe if OWS puts on suits and drops the counter-culture hippy BS?
“OWSers would do well to spend some time reflecting on why their clever street theatrics have not mobilized more Americans, when a whopping majority of Americans appear to agree with OWS’s purpose.”
Is it OWS’s job to mobilize those Americans, or is it OWS’s job to cause the media and other elites to pay attention to issues of economic justice that have been neglected for decades?
I think the second one, and I think they’re doing an impressively good job of it. Mobilizing low-information voters really ought to be someone else’s job.
A lot of people, including people who write for major newspapers, have been pushing economic justice issues for a long time. It’s true that OWS has brought economic justice to the front burner, for a little while, but that cycle has pretty much played out now. Unless OWS thinks up a new approach, media attention will move on to something else soon. And nothing will have changed.
I’m not talking about OWS “mobilizing voters” specifically. I’m talking about getting people to wake up and realize they still have power, if they would just use it.
A minor quibble, and I know this is obvious, but it needs to be said. The people who reject the notion of health insurance – be it private or socialized – are not just moochers, they’re either too young to know better, or plainly delusional. They’re betting that any problem can be solved with duct tape or “ingenuity” as the lady put it. That attitude will only get you so far.
If they truly believe that should some problem come up that goes beyond their “ingenuity” and are willing to die and not mooch off the system, then I’d say they have a level of fatalism or lack of self worth that is just stupid. But I know enough about human nature to know that the vast majority of them would simply mooch instead.
I’d like to see an age break out of those who self-identify as liberals. If this cohort is overwhelmingly older than average, then we’ve got some very difficult times ahead. I think we have difficult times ahead anyway, as the right wing controls everything that matters in this country, and this control is expanding every year. Entire generations of people don’t know anything different – and those who do – you and me – are targets. Thanks to their stupid policies, we’re locked on course for the biggest economic crash in the history. This country is going to have to fail, and fail hard before things change. Sorry Gulag, no hope here.
One other thing, now that I think about it.
President Obama and the Democrats would have been better served if they had prosecuted some of the most egregious of the Wall Street criminals.
A few perp-walks would have done wonders.
As it is right now, it’s only Bernie Madoff, who made the mistake of ripping off other rich people, who got punished. If he had stolen from the poor and middle class, he’d be free after maybe paying a fine, and sitting on a beach somewhere, counting his ill-gotten gains, like the rest of these economic criminals.
“President Obama and the Democrats would have been better served if they had prosecuted some of the most egregious of the Wall Street criminals”
Do you have any laws specifically that were broken? No I didn’t think so, because everything that was done was perfectly legal, wrong yes but illegal no. Didn’t Maha just write a brilliant post on the permanent counter-culture?
I’m not sure it was all perfectly legal. The Justice Department is “probing” several companies, according to news stories. There may be indictments yet.
The phrase I keep coming back to is “If this really is the 99%…” I think that’s what some of them keep forgetting. At our local camp (the suddenly notorious Davis), they were having a dance party. And at the GA before the dance party they were talking about whether you could really start a dance party at 7:00, as they had announced. It’s so early! I had to remind them that a lot of people go to bed early in Davis.
But is something that they keep talking about–how do we attract more people? And this particular group aren’t trying to keep this thing for themselves, they really do want to welcome the community. They just need to consider that if you want to attract people, you need bait. And there are a hell of a lot of devout liberals in Davis, so you just have to think about what kind of bait will work.
Stephen — another article I ran into today says the Occupiers are overwhelmingly male. In some camps only about one-fifth are women. To me, this is a problem not only because their perspectives are not heard, but also because women tend to be less emotionally volatile than men (stereotypes to the contrary) and better at community building.
Thanks, maha, you ‘tackled’ an issue I have wondered about for years. Maybe something I read the other day will shed some light on this perplexing conundrum. Liberals look at systems, government and even widgets and ask how can we make (them) better. Conservatives look at the same things and say they’re fine just as they are, or (probably common in New Hampshire) if it was good enough for my grandfather, it’s good enough for me.
Back to Aesop and the Fox and the Grapes. The ‘conservative’ fox can’t reach the grapes, is upset, decides they’re probably sour anyway, so walks away content. The liberal fox comes along, sees the grapes, can’t reach them either but figures that since someone put them there, there must be a way to get at them. He reaches them, eats them in front of the (now) very upset conservative fox and declares them delicious. In my head, this ditty explains why conservatives hate liberals, and, I might add, why liberals don’t hate conservatives, just thinks them a tad unimaginative.
Short version:
“Liberals” critical of the mandates = whiners.
Vast swaths of the citizenry are ignorant = OWS is doing it wrong.
Tag for “These Are the 99% Too” = Obama administration.
Lynn:
Fixed.
Here’s a little hope…
After last year’s midterms, I realized education is the key to winning the long game and decided to use my skills as a professional designer to create some fun, eye-candy presentations. I call it “Civics and Policy Basics for the Busy Majority.” They have become quite a hit all across the country and with the OWS crowd. People tell me they learn more about the federal budget, for example, in 20 minutes than watching 20 years of cable news. You can view the PDFs and download individual JPG images for free at my website:
http://www.ConnectTheDotsUSA.com
Titles currently available include
“Dude, Where’s My Job?â€
“Budgets and Deficits and Debt, Oh My!â€
“Rebuild The Dream Budgetâ€Â (aka “The People’s Budgetâ€)
I am now working on my Healthcare presentation and a “Progressive Framing” presentation, which I hope to have live by the end of the year. Those will certainly go a long way toward addressing the topics discussed here today.
I believe most people are just confused and apathetic. If they know better, they will vote better.
Enjoy!
And because OWS largely does not present itself in a way that connects with the majority of the country, we have wingnuts who will do it for them. Here’s Newt Gingrich, rising in the polls, by tarring OWS. He’s using moral language – right and wrong – to frame OWS the way the right wants it seen. Because nobody on the left does this effectively, the right’s narrative rules.
The only good thing about this is that OWS is on the right’s radar; the bad thing is that it’s very effectively being used to club progressivism, once again.
Well, that really was depressing.
Dear Maha: All political activists for progress in this nation’s history have been roundly disliked and feared by the apathetic middle of the electorate — even before there was an electorate. Our Founding Fathers weren’t much liked outside New England and Virginia during the Revolution. Abolitionists were subject to mob violence. The history of the labor union and the civil rights movement is of people taking action which the majority profoundly wished they wouldn’t.
OWS has just started. The movement is two months old. It couldn’t possibly effect major changes in political attitudes in that time, and it’s not right to say it’s failed because it hasn’t. It may fail at some point in the future, but we don’t know yet.
And while I have not abandoned the Democratic party, you can’t excuse those New Hampshirites for oversimplifying their opinion of Obama and blame Democrats who do the same thing. Obama said he’d change things and he didn’t, but oversimplification is the great American skill.
To an extent, but they didn’t become effective until they gained public support. You’re never going to get EVERYBODY to love you, but to succeed you MUST gain the trust or sympathy or at least the passive acceptance of the majority of the people, or you will fail.
If you aren’t familiar with my previous writing on the history and relative effectiveness of demonstrations, see my latest post on the subject.
Sometimes (as in the case of the abolitionists) events pushed public support in their direction. The eventual passage of the 13th Amendment actually had little to do with abolitionist efforts. I argue that the same thing is true of the Vietnam era antiwar movement and the end of the Vietnam war — one did not have as much to do with the other as is commonly believed. And sometimes passionate people spend years demonstrating and never make a dent in public opinion.
And sometimes (as in the case with Martin Luther King) people learn how to use events and demonstrate in a way that gains the public’s trust and sympathy. The civil rights marchers may have been confronted by hate mobs and police brutality, but people around the country watched on television and mostly sympathized with the marchers. Rosa Parks alone made a bigger difference by not giving up a bus seat than all the “occupying” done so far put together.
Without some degree of trust and sympathy from a large part of the public, the cause will fail. And this is true because public support is the only leverage you will ever have against those in power.
I suppose it hasn’t failed, but neither has it succeeded. The question is, can the OWSers learn from their mistakes and apply the discipline necessary to make their demonstrations more effective? It could go either way. But the way things are heading at the moment, I’m not too hopeful.
I’m not seeing most Obama supporters “oversimplifying” as much as being realistic. I suppose there are a few who can’t see his flaws, but most of us acknowledge he’s made mistakes and fallen short of what we had hoped. However, the fact remains that in some areas Obama has succeeded where previous Democratic presidents Clinton and Carter did not. And some of his failures were not his failures, but Congress’s. And as soon as anyone flaps his mouth and says “Obama is no better than Bush” I know we are hearing from the Pathologically Clueless. It’s oversimplification on steroids.
Michael Moore, Where Does OWS Go From here?.
Re Michael Moore — I gotta admit, his list of priorities is a great list. I couldn’t have done any better.
For twtfiltrd – Here’s a link to a transcript of an interview titled, ‘Why Isn’t Wall Street in Jail?’ Matt Tabbi is a writer with Rolling Stone. He’s very well informed and he connects the dots.
http://m.democracynow.org/web_exclusives/821
Anyone who suggests nothing criminal led to the meltdown is in denial of the facts. There is also evidence that the SEC is covering up as a matter of policy. Also Matt Tabbi…
http://readersupportednews.org/off-site-opinion-section/83-83/7076-is-the-sec-covering-up-wall-street-crimes
twtfltrd said:
Do you have any laws specifically that were broken? No I didn’t think so, because everything that was done was perfectly legal, wrong yes but illegal no.
Plenty of laws were broken, the most common one being fraud. The manufacturing of mortgage documents by the mortgage mills is outright forgery. Are you aware of the latest case, involving MF Global?
http://jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com/2011/11/tavakoli-mf-global-revelations-keep.html
In this case, the investment bank literally stole money out of investors’ accounts to cover their shortfalls, while tipping off “preferred customers” (ie Koch Brothers) to get their money out and short the stock before the Ponzi scheme collapsed. Seems the amount stolen is about $3 billion. I suppose they’ll have to pay a fine, while admitting no guilt, and then get bailed out.
Yes, those pesky bailouts. Obama himself couldn’t throw bailout money at the banks fast enough – he started even before being elected president. And after getting elected, he brought even more Goldman-Sachs alumni into government than Bush did.
And as for the crimes committed, Obama now wants to give the banksters amnesty:
http://www.truth-out.org/amnesty-indefensible/1314211785
And some of you wonder why there are people who voted for Obama (such as myself) who are disillusioned?
Back in the day, New Deal Democrats would have been going to these people and explaining to them what’s really going on and how the federal government really can do something about it.
The problem is the government has already “done something about it”. The government support that brought about the current situation is to them just “the way things have always been” as if it were a state of nature with only their wonderful self-reliance, and government would just make it worse.
Of course, which comes under the “knee-jerk antipathy” I mentioned in the post. This tells us that changing perspectives is going to take a mighty effort along many fronts. Part of that is gaining sympathy and trust. People will more likely listen to you if they sympathize with you. If they don’t sympathize with you, it won’t matter how right you are. They won’t listen.
Herm. Probing question: Why is it OWS’s job to reach out to people?
I mean, sure, if they want to cause changes to happen, they’re not doing it – not yet. But why is it *their* job? They got the conversation started. Maybe someone else can build on that.
I’m reminded a bit of Krugman who pointed out that it’s the job of people like him to think about what OWS wants, and to come up with policy prescriptions that generate the outcomes they’re looking for. It’s not OWS’s job to say that X_Policy regarding education funding is best; it’s OWS’s job to say “huge debts for ordinary students are killing education!” and someone else’s job to either expand grants or create greater loan forgiveness or something.
Now, I’m not arguing that OWS’s methods aren’t the ones that will necessarily reach everyone. Sure, if they want to maximize their impact, they have to make some changes.
But… hm. Another analogy. I remember hearing one person complaining bitterly that doctors who treat ADHD only prescribe medications, rather than thinking over overall lifestyle changes, or spiritual help. And that angered me because that person was blaming doctors for being doctors – one typically shouldn’t go into doctoring if one wants to be a life coach or a spiritual leader or advisor.
The whole point of demonstrations is to change public opinion. Please read my latest post on this. Demonstrators who make no effort to communicate to parts of the public that might agree with them are not demonstrators; they are merely tantrum throwers.
It took Great Britain 50 years to end England’s slave-trade. It took one man ‘working’ the streets and one MP working inside government. If OWS can keep its movement alive and in the public eye AND get some legislators to front-and-center their support, I give it a good chance of accomplishing its goal.
(Of course what has to happen is an amendment to the Constitution taking big money out of politics. And that can only happen inside government so the support of legislators is absolutely vital to the cause.)
That might depend on what its goal is. It’s kind of fuzzy.
Progressives need to stop being so disdainful of outreach, or we’ll remain a minority.
You say ‘remain a minority’ like it’s a bad thing. The best part of a tree-house is that it’s hard to get into, easy to keep people out of, and high, high above the everyday world.
Some people are going to really like that.
I take you really don’t want to be part of the 99 percent.
Me, I’m comfortably ensconced in the 99%, and of the magic age where tuiltion loans are now a multi-generational family tradition..
But there are progressives whose lives would be over, or at least reduced to empty shells, if they woke up one morning and there were 300 Democrats in the House CPC. It wouldn’t be special any more.
Ah. I think you may be right.
The Reference to New Hampshire at the beginning of the post reminded me of this:
For eleven of the years that I lived in southern Illinois, I had an address with Creal Springs, IL 62922 as my address. I did not live in Creal Springs proper, (the town has zero traffic lights) but had to drive through it going to and from work. Come election season, the whole town would be plastered with signs for Repubs. And the houses/buildings had the rundown look of the worst of Appalachia.
A roof over ones’ head, dry when it rains and something to quell the hunger pangs are Priority One & Two.
But I have yet to understand why people vote against their best interest.
Pingback: This Week’s Mtg: What Is Populism? (Occupy Versus Tea Parties) « Civilized Conversation