This week, a story came out on page 13 of the
Washington Post that I found to be intriguing – both for what it said and for
the fact that it has received so little national coverage. The story involves the Democratically-controlled
state legislature of New Jersey. When
Chris Christie, a Republican Governor, was in power, the legislature sent him a
bill on five separate occasions that would increase taxes paid by
millionaires. But now that Christie has
been replaced by Democratic Governor, the legislators are no longer sending up
that bill. In fact, thanks to the recent
tax cuts, the millionaires are paying even lower total taxes than before – and still
the Democratically-controlled legislators are balking at the opportunity to do
what they did five times when Christie was Governor and when their actions were
purely symbolic... and political.
Here’s the article: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/nj-democrats-loved-the-idea-of-taxing-the-rich---until-they-actually-could-do-it/2018/05/23/259e55c8-5d4f-11e8-a4a4-c070ef53f315_story.html?utm_term=.f2ea0aeb1229 To me, what it shows is a microcosm of the
Democratic party in action. During campaign
season, the party’s candidates have no trouble embracing the mantle of “strong progressives.” But when it’s time to govern, they are
tinkerers at best. We saw this when the
Democrats controlled the United States Congress in Obama’s first two years and
they gave us zero gun-control legislation.
We saw this when Obama himself threw federally employees under the bus
when he had the opportunity to propose budgets of his own. We saw this in the number of Democratic legislators
who supported that crazy and catastrophic war in Iraq, or who failed to speak
out in favor of gay marriage until well after the rank-and-file of their party
indicated their support. And we
invariably see this whenever tax-reform legislation is proposed. The Democrats always propose modest changes;
the Republican bills are much more dramatic.
How do we explain the Democrats failure to step up
to the plate and fight for their supposed principles? Should we doubt the sincerity of their
progressivism? Should we think of them
as sincere, but cowardly? And does it
really matter what the explanation is? Isn’t
the point that America has no trustworthy progressive party, but merely a party
whose leaders can generally be trusted to enunciate progressive principles only
when campaigning or casting meaningless votes?
I watch a fair amount of CNN and MSNBC. They never report on stories like this one from
New Jersey. Instead, they focus almost
all their attention on the misconduct of the GOP. Believe me, I appreciate that the GOP is
not only the more dysfunctional of the two parties but also has become the
opposite of progressive, or for that matter even conservative. But
that doesn’t mean that reporters and commentators can afford to allow the
Democrats to become feckless and hypocritical, simply because they’re the
lesser of two evils.
Bernie Sanders is one Democratic politician who, if
he were a New Jersey legislator, would NOT fail to send up a millionaire’s tax
bill to the Governor after doing so five times when the Governor was a
Republican. He knows all too well that this
approach to governing makes a mockery of these politicians and the principles
they stand for. It makes them look like total phonies, and
when the Democrats look like phonies, the Republicans tend to win. This week on Bill Maher’s show, Bernie stated
explicitly that the Republicans didn’t win the2016 elections, the Democrats
lost it. I wholeheartedly agree. As long as liberals in the media fail to hold
the Democrats accountable and as long as Democrats continue to hold their
leaders to low standards, they’ll continue to lose elections.
It should be obvious by now that this country
can ill afford for that to happen. It’s
time to demand that the Democrats serve not as talkers but as fighters -- in the
state houses, on Capitol Hill, and in the White House -- and to take them to task whenever they
fail. Ultimately, that’s the best thing
that could happen to their party and to our country.
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