During the LBJ, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama administrations, Republican elites have sought to dismantle social programs. They target laws that make compassion, opportunity, and justice the tenants of political policy instead of the fear, discrimination, and inequity fundamentals they have used to keep their base angry for decades.
The Republican elites (ultra wealthy, corporate executives, politicians, strategists, and conservative entertainers) have successfully continued to rile their base by depicting some low-life who got an unfair advantage. To add insult to injury, the spin is the federal government paid for the other person’s gain with the Republican base’s tax dollars. Republican elites have gotten their base to embrace a self-reliance mantra. They tapped into the protestant work ethic that helped found this country. These elites incessantly tell republicans that government handouts rob America of her greatness and innovation. The Republican base believes they are better off as strong individuals instead of supporting collective wasteful government assistance.
The Republican elite can then strip collective bargaining rights and begin reducing wages. They know one man is too afraid to protest for livable wages when he stands alone and can be replaced. Republican elites can then cut education insuring a permanent underclass because states, unlike the wasteful federal government, must balance budgets.
Republican elites aided the government in giving billions to banks to offset greedy predatory lending and risky loan bundling losses. Republican elites fight bank regulation for the same industry that caused the economic crisis. Yet, their base grows angrier being nickeled and dimed by bank fees. But, the Republican elite cannot give money to an individual to save his or her house (thus averting the continuing housing crisis and economic calamity). That person in foreclosure just bought too much house because HUD forced banks to make bad loans to wrongdoers in those areas.
The Republican elites let millions have healthcare taken away through job loss. Meanwhile, the angry base loudly lets it be known that they do not want to take care of sick good-for-nothings that do not work. The Republican elite can convince their base that trial lawyers and frivolous lawsuits drive up healthcare costs. Then they pass laws limiting the ability to recover damages from doctors and their insurance companies. When a patient gets her intestines nicked and has to endure multiple corrective surgeries and permanent disability, there is no recourse. Poor, uninsured women seeking a pap smear or yeast infection treatment from Planned Parenthood are having their services threatened. Again, the angry Republican base has been convinced Planned Parenthood is too immoral to provide healthcare services. Justifiably, Planned Parenthood mostly provides abortions, which are paid for with the Republican base’s money.
Republican elites make it harder for the elderly, students, and minorities to vote because those people are more likely to commit voter fraud, but a person with a gun (property owner) will not. Personal liberties are being taken away by detaining individuals or having warrantless wiretaps conducted because one of them worshiping at a mosque might be up to something.
The Republican elites accuse the President of class warfare. But, it is the Republican elite that practices divisive politics. They convince their base that the Republican party is guarding their money from some shirker – insert the age, gender or minority group of your choice. And as always, the government is taking money from the hard working real Americans and giving it to them, the other. The Republican base should be angry after years of receiving scraps and being fed pigswill. The Republican elites dine on steak, invoke insurance to seek healthcare for their families, and send their children to private schools with no worries. They know their base is too blinded by misplaced anger to see their fancy houses and plump healthy pockets. The Republican playbook has not changed since MLK marched on Washington and neither should the Democratic fervor for justice, equality, and opportunity.
The Republican elite could not continue rewarding the few at the cost of the many, if they did not keep their base so angry that they become irrational. Remember the summer of 2010? All the anger and vitriol was stirred up in the name of healthcare. I mean think about that for a minute. Healthcare? Healthcare! It was not about healthcare. It was another straw man argument to inflame the Republican base. It dressed up as the Tea Party, which was organized at the behest of powerful Republican elites. In their inability to think straight, the Republicans have attacked the individual mandate. The mandate is the component that makes each person responsible for his or her healthcare. Like the wizard behind the curtain, the Republican strategists and talking heads ignited their base over a Republican idea because it has been embraced by “others.”
It is going to take someone with passion, courage, and conviction to keep challenging America to her higher ideals like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. did. It takes a person like a Dr. King to organize, push back, and yet, show restraint and love of country in the face of dangerous anger.
When the cantankerous Newt Gingrich Republican congress created welfare reform legislation, Bill Clinton vetoed it twice. The pervasive implication was that single African American females were the major beneficiaries of welfare. Bombastic voices railed against “welfare queens” who were using the Republican base’s money to finance their lazy single parent lives. The Republican base was repeatedly told about them, “the welfare queens.” These recriminations have continued to infect our politics even when they are not spoken. Like the Ryan Plan, the legislation overreached and was harsh. The Republicans wanted to “dismantle the welfare state” and accused welfare recipients of welfare fraud. Just like they want to dismantle “Obamacare” and are using the straw man argument of voter fraud against other groups of Americans who are likely to support President Obama.
Bill Clinton could make a persuasive case for welfare reform that included assistance to help transition off welfare. But, even President Clinton needed an MLK to push against the distorted rhetoric. On the third time the legislation came before President Clinton, he signed it. He was afraid that the politically charged term “welfare queen” and his having vetoed the legislation twice before would be too toxic during an election season. He had to compromise with the Republican house. When President Clinton signed the legislation, the Democrats were angry because they felt the legislation did not do enough to help mainstream welfare recipients and the Republicans were angry that the reform gave too much unnecessary assistance. Sound familiar?
President Obama’s head knows that oppression and injustice still exist. He also knows because of the legacy of Dr. King, and his own meteoric rise to the presidency, that the United States is still capable of great things and embracing social change. But, President Obama’s heart cannot seem to embrace that avarice, supremacy, and fear are stronger than the presidency alone, neither can his advisors, or his base. The President is the inside mediator, but there must still be an outside agitator. Unfortunately for President Obama, he does not have an MLK in the national spotlight who is organizing the base to go out and protest the right. But for Wisconsin, the left keeps taking its firepower out on President Obama.
President Obama has the unenviable position of having people think that the president can make anything happen. He more acutely shoulders the burden of multiple constituencies taking for granted he will champion issues of middle class Americans and oppressed citizens. But, President Obama needs an MLK. He needs a national force to organize people to help him enact legislation. He needs an MLK to push back entrenched interests and to garner media attention. He needs a Martin Luther King Jr. to persuade the nation that the issues we face are those of the nation, and not just of the president.
President Lyndon Johnson knew when mighty forces pushed against justice, equality, and opportunity, he needed dynamism to brace against the political winds. LBJ understood Americans needed a visual image outside The White House. Or else, LBJ would have become the target, expeditiously expending political capital. The results of which could have seriously undermined the civil rights legislation.
To condense the LBJ and MLK relationship, LBJ told MLK that he agreed with him on civil rights and then challenged MLK to go out and make him enact the legislation. Johnson knew that the Civil Rights Act outlawing discrimination in education, employment, and public accommodations would receive severe opposition. It would threaten the power of the Republican elites and make their base insecure about their perceived power and cultural mores. Johnson pushed against entrenched power structures, much like those threatened today by the power of the first African American president and the changing demographics. LBJ knew that he would have to have a persuasive argument and media attention to help him stand in the face of such opposition. President Johnson understood that for the legislators he could not strong arm, he would have to weaken the resolve of the constituents in their districts. Martin Luther King Jr. unrelentingly provided that persuasive force that showed real people affected by injustice.
President Obama’s administration is a political machine that is learning to govern. But, he struggles with changing public opinion. President Obama and his advisors have made the political calculation that his base’s emotions, beliefs, and values are expendable. But, the base brings the passion. However, the base must understand that sometimes they will have to push an issue because the president must deal with multiple competing concerns and priorities. President Obama needs a fervent MLK to organize for economic opportunity, educational justice, and the assault on voting rights. Where are the millions of people with no health care rallying? Where are the images of the homeowners who were victims of predatory lending practices living with family members or in shelters? What group marched on Eric Cantor, Mitch McConnell, and John Boehner? Why didn’t Michael Moore organize groups of people to protest in front of banks as vociferous and persistent as the Tea Party? However, Michael Moore is disenchanted enough to daydream about Matt Damon running for president. Why? For months, the base has been telling President Obama he compromises too much on major principles. President Obama must learn to listen to his base and stop chastising them in public. It is demoralizing to them. He makes his presidency that much harder.
The base must give up the naïve fantasy that Obama can make congress do his will if he were just tougher. When President Obama was elected, the base knew he was not confrontational. When the base lifts its voices in anger, it should be at Eric Cantor, Mitch McConnell, and John Boehner. MLK would have been extremely proud of our first African American president. But, he would not have left the fate of justice for the poor in the grips of the presidency. Martin Luther King Jr. was a realistic optimist who understood power and its limitations. The base needs to provide the visuals and strength like in Wisconsin. They did not get three Dems in the Wisconsin senate, but they got two. Thus, they achieved making Governor Walker’s agenda items more difficult to pass. Their standing up made Ohio Governor Kasich reassess his power.
Martin Luther King clearly articulated who was affected by unjust laws and poor opportunities. He would have called a meeting with President Obama to assess the man. Then MLK would have organized, not against the president, but around the issues. The base must speak clearly to President Obama as the senators who charged the White House to express that they would not stand for the proposed cuts to social programs. He then held the line against the cuts. His base cannot leave him alone. Dr. King did not get to complete the agenda for education, economic justice, and the right to healthcare. Dr. King did not seek to replace the people who marched with him. He attracted larger support by being committed to noble action plans. King went to where the people needed him. President Obama needs his base. But, they may not be there when he needs them in 2012. They are not like Dr. King who continually offered his cheeks to be slapped by his enemies. Many voters in the Democratic base feel as if they have been slapped on both cheeks by President Obama – once during healthcare and again during the debt deal- and President Obama was supposed to be a trusted ally.
President Obama embodies the nonviolent part of Dr. King’s movement through his civil tone and refusal to demonize another American. But, he must learn to orchestrate those who give his agenda items imagery, clearly articulate the impact of his policies on Americans, expand his base while not displacing his base, commemorate the ideals of those who helped get him to the White House, and continually challenge America to rise to her better self.