The uses of a desperate populace

Stories like this one get tiresome to write about and emotionally draining to contemplate, especially when watching the culprits get rewarded. Late last month the GOP in Congress killed the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), part of the Recovery Act. The TANF subsidized jobs with private companies, nonprofit organizations, and government offices. Killing it means 240,000 people -- nearly a quarter million -- will be unemployed. And this for a program that got praises from GOP governor Haley Barbour of Mississippi.

So at a time when the country is screaming for jobs and the GOP is promising that jobs will result from their policies the same GOP makes a quarter million jobs go poof.

I'll let you read the essay Terrence Heath wrote about it, which includes the sordid details and a chart that shows the job growth in each decade starting with the 1940s. I'm sure you're not surprised that the job growth for the 2000s is zero with all other decades showing job growth at 20% or more over the 10 years. We know well that if they're back in office the GOP will enact policies that will kill even more jobs. The GOP will also do all they can to simply not fund all Obama programs, including health care. I'll turn instead to a much more important question: Why?

Why is the GOP so concerned about the deficit that they will put a quarter million people out of work? That for a program that makes up about 0.02% of the $2.3 trillion it will cost to maintain the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy.

Sharon Begley of Newsweek provides a glimpse of an answer. Anxiety among voters is at very high levels, no real surprise. They deal with anxiety by turning it into anger. They are now evaluating who to vote for by seeing which candidates are as angry as they are. In this state they are impervious to logic and Obama's accomplishments are meaningless -- he didn't do a thing to make their anxiety go away.

The resulting attitude is: I want a candidate who will do something. I don't care if you try something that doesn't work. Try something else. Keep trying. You Democrats aren't trying hard enough. I don't care if the other candidate is a lunatic. You had your chance. Things are so bad they can't get worse. Perhaps we should blow up the whole system and try another.

Hold that thought.

That desperation has allowed candidates touch the perennial third-rail issues, the ones that would normally electrocute a campaign, and live. Want to overhaul or eliminate Social Security? Good. It means you're willing to try anything. Besides, we don't believe you'll really touch Granny's pension.

Some personal speculation now. Perhaps these proposals to gut major parts of the social safety net are trial balloons. If voters don't blink at these third-rail issues the GOP can propose even stronger ways of cutting the social fabric. Perhaps voters are desperate enough that they'll agree to do away with democracy if the GOP can convincingly claim that by doing so the economic problems will be solved.

Skeptical? Go read about how fascism developed in Italy and Germany. Go read about how the GOP has a proven track record of undermining democracy. A desperate populace is a prime ingredient.