Money to power to hapless government to despair to strongmen

Pien Huang of NPR reported that Richard B Hayes had died. He was a Duke Divinity School professor emeritus, best known for his book, “The Moral Vision Of The New Testament” published in 1996. Since one chapter dealt with same-sex relationships in Christianity it was used as grounds to exclude LGBTQ people from the church, which is not what Hayes intended. Huang played excerpts of an NPR interview with Hayes from last September when his book “The Widening Of God's Mercy” came out. In this book he and his son Chris Hayes argue differently than that earlier book. In the earlier book Hayes said that LGBTQ people should be welcome in the church, but should remain celibate. When he saw how that was misread and then weaponized he began to rethink his position. In the new book he says LGBTQ people should be fully embraced by the church. Huang said:

Hays argued that the Bible shows how God's mercy is ever expanding to include more people but that followers can be too caught up in the letter of the law and miss the spirit of God's commandments.

From the recording Hayes discussed a story in the Gospel of Mark. Pharisees are watching to see if Jesus will heal on the Sabbath, a conflict between compassion and Jewish laws. Hayes said:

They're operating with a deep intention to be obedient to God's law, but Jesus is grieved at their hardness of heart. Now, I think we see things like that happening over and over in the stories of the Bible and that the desire of God is for healing and inclusion of more and more people and that the rigid attempt at obedience actually is operating contrary to God's will.

A week ago Kos of Daily Kos discussed why many progressives seem to be shrugging their shoulders with this nasty guy inauguration. That’s quite the contrast to 2017 when liberals took their outrage to the streets in resistance.

We just haven’t seen an outpouring of liberal anger, and the reason is clear: We warned Americans about what would happen if Trump was reelected, and they didn’t listen. They believed Trump’s lies about Harris, refused to believe him about his plans, and ushered in the dumbest, most incompetent president in history back into office. We’re not angry. We’re shrugging our shoulders, saying, “You f---ed around. Having fun finding out.” ... Obviously, lots of Democrats will still suffer under the Trump administration, but his own voters will likely bear the brunt of it—and that takes some of the sting out of Harris’ loss. It’s easier to suffer the consequences when we see his own voters (as well as nonvoters) realize the error of their ways.

Kos noted that many of the projects from the Inflation Reduction Act went to red states. Biden tried to help them and they turned him down. Kos also noted the nasty guy surrounded himself with working-class people at his rallies. But at his inauguration he put tech bros worth $1 trillion in the front row.

So it totally makes sense liberals aren’t as angry as we were in 2017. Back then, we assumed the American people were bamboozled, or that Hillary Clinton was a bad candidate, or something something. But now? People knew exactly what they were voting for, and they will suffer for it. And yes, that makes our own suffering more bearable.

The next day Kos wrote about mind-boggling reactions to the nasty guy. These are people who voted for him and then are surprised when he does something they don’t like. An example is a person who is Hispanic and is surprised that the nasty guy talks about deporting Mexicans. Or how did a person hear the nasty guy claim he will lower gas prices (which he can’t do), but didn’t hear his racism. We need to understand how that happened. Eleven days ago vjr7121 of the Kos community discussed the after-election review written by Sen. Bernie Sanders. There are also excerpts of other things Sanders has written along with some discussion. Some of the ideas: Democratic leadership is defending the status quo. Americans are angry and want change. That’s how Democrats lost the working-class, the people who are supposed to be the base of the party.

Sanders has tapped into the frustration of American voters who see the top 1% in control of 30% of all the nation’s wealth— and the gap is growing. Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut not particularly known as the most progressive member of the Democratic establishment agreed with Sanders:

“...when progressives like Bernie aggressively go after the elites that hold people down, they are shunned as dangerous populists. Why? Maybe because true economic populism is bad for our high-income base.”

Part of the way out of this is for Democrats to grapple with the true meaning of the word “populist.” Both Sanders and the nasty guy use it to describe themselves and their policies, yet the nasty guy’s policies and actions aren’t populist. Democrats need to highlight that the nasty guy is lying. Democrats should also highlight which of their candidates are actual populists. Recently these have included Tim Walz, Pete Buttigieg, Stacy Abrams, and Sanders. They have authentic working class credentials. And the should follow Sanders in talking about taxing the rich not as socialism, but as fairness. They should use terms that show the practical nature of the policies rather than making policies sound abstract.

Whether Democrats can abandon the allure of the donor class is the real test. Money and its proximity to power is a recipe for corruption. Compromise and bipartisanship should not be the ultimate goals of governance. Sometimes compromise is used to avert solutions and to slow reform. And bipartisanship can often be purchased at great cost. The first two years of the Biden administration were marked by the political need and Biden’s preference for bipartisan agreement. The process was infuriating and led to a belief in the ineffectual nature of government. The courting of bipartisan support made the administration seem weak despite its accomplishments because debated in public, the results appeared to be half-measures. A divided government best serves those who resist change and progress. Progressives in the Democratic Party have been characterized by some in the media as extremists as if to equate them with the right-wing extremists within the MAGA movement. The characterization feeds a misconception that freedom and inequity can somehow coexist within a liberal Democracy. They can’t. Those of us on the left have a right to be angry and frustrated as our rights are placed in jeopardy. The “populist” pretensions adopted by the Republican right mask their economic predilections that in so many ways hurt those it has lured into its trap.

angryea of the Kos community posed the question “Does capitalism inevitably lead to fascism?” Here are some of the problems of capitalism: It is fine with allowing someone to starve to death if they don’t find employment. The idea of a free market is that it treats people fairly. But that notion leaves out power dynamics. Capitalism always produces costs generated by the business but paid by the society. Examples are pollution and people paid too little to afford to live, which strains charities and government services. These costs should be paid through taxes, but capitalists hate paying taxes. People with money inevitably attempt to meddle in politics. They work to weaken anti-trust laws, labor laws, and the social safety net.

That in turn leads to society becoming harder to live in for most people. And that in turn leads to anger, resentment, and fear, all of which are fertile breeding ground for authoritarianism. Because if the normal workings of government have been neutered, why would people believe that normal politics works? Why wouldn’t they believe that a strong man has all the answers, especially if he or she has a ready scapegoat that the majority already distrusts or is biased against? In theory, this could work for the left, but targeting the power of capital is difficult when capital is powering your election funds. So, money leads to power leads to inefficient or helpless government leads to despair leads to turning to strongmen solutions leads to the effective end of liberal democracy.

This is not a promotion of communism. Communist nations may look good on paper, elections and all that, but are authoritarian nightmares. So when are we going to talk about the dangers of capitalism and protect our democracy from it? I actually read through the comments. Several suggested that highly regulated capitalism isn’t a problem. However, I know (and others mentioned) that when some people get a little bit rich they start meddling in politics to get the regulations loosened. They ask for only a little bit at a time and work over a long timeline. I can trace our current situation to the Reagan tax cuts in 1981, more than 40 years ago. Rich people went from having a bit more to having a lot more and could meddle in more ways. Many corporations declare their home to be in Delaware because many decades ago rich people convinced the state legislature to loosen the rules. The attempt was made in many states and Delaware did it first. Not at all surprising: Emily Singer of Kos reported that Rep. Andy Ogles of Tennessee introduced a bill that would ban medicated abortion nationwide. He is joined by 18 other House Republicans. Also not a surprise: Back in 2022 Ogles denied that if elected he would work to pass a national ban. In a pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin quoted Matt Johnson of The Bulwark speaking of nasty guy nominees:

In truth, it would be a relief if [Robert] Kennedy and [Tulsi] Gabbard were merely grossly unqualified. The deeper issue is that Kennedy and Gabbard are anti-qualified. The only conceivable reason to elevate them to the top of the United States’s public health apparatus and intelligence services is to destroy the agencies they have been selected to run.

Russel Berman of The Atlantic discussing the nasty guy’s freeze on parts of federal spending, which has since been rescinded.

Democrats and government watchdogs see the directives as an opening salvo in a fight over the separation of powers, launched by a president bent on defying Congress’s will. “It’s an illegal executive order, and it’s stealing,” Representative Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, told me, referring to the order targeting the IRA and infrastructure law. Withholding money approved by Congress “undermines the entire architecture of the Constitution,” Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland told me. “It essentially makes the president into a king.” Last night, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said that Trump’s freeze on federal grants and loans “blatantly disobeys the law.”

In the comments exlrrp posted a meme, a takeoff of a well known poem.

First the came for the immigrants and I spoke up because we’ve all heard this f**ing story before!

Erik Larsen posted a cartoon by Will Santino showing St. Peter at the gates of heaven looking through the book of life and talking to an approaching man:

Says here you went to church your whole life and loudly proclaimed yourself a Christian, but worshipped rich people, hated the downtrodden, and cheered for cruelty. Like what the f--- man?”