krebscycle

Desire for a low wage, low education workforce and simple short sighted greed could easily explain why cutting government social programs is so popular among the elite, but the question of why anyone can get voted into office on that platform seems mystifying to our Progressive friends. The well documented answer is racial animosity with maybe some xenophobia and homophobia thrown in. And it’s not hard to discover that racism is also endemic in the elites. Anyone who doubts that should consider what Romney fundraiser, Mrs. Jack Welch, meant about Barack Obama being a member of “a different America” . Open racism is rare, but nobody familiar with American culture should have a hard time understanding why Suzzie Welch found such significance in the difference between “patriotic” Mitt Romney struggling to sing “America the Beautiful” and Barack Obama singing a few lines of an Al Green song at the Apollo. For that matter, Mitt Romney claimed his chilly reception at the NAACP meeting was due to his unwillingness to give out “free stuff” – hardly bothering to even pretend.

The bizarre prominence of “budget balancing” in American politics and the apparent enthusiasm of many Republican voters for cutting their own benefits is impossible to understand at all without decoding the racial content. Fortunately, Ronald Reagan’s political strategist left us with a translation.

“You follow me — because obviously sitting around saying, "We want to cut this,” is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than “Nigger, nigger.” “

Once you understand that "cut the budget” is actually a euphemism for “stop giving free stuff to black people, immigrants and foreigners”, the mystery evaporates. Tea Party members shouting “get your government hands off my medicare” makes sense. The invisible character of the submerged state is explained. The puzzled reaction of Texas voters to the consequences of policies they endorsed makes sense:

“Ronnie Evans is a self-described conservative. ‘I’ll say that I was backing some of the Tea Party stuff,’ he says. But he never imagined the Tea Party victories last November would result in the Texas Legislature proposing budget cuts that would kick elderly people out of nursing homes—especially his nursing home.” – from a great article in the Texas Observer.

These voters see themselves as “hard working real Americans” whose taxes are being given to undeserving members of that different America. They don’t have to consciously consider themselves as racist, just to operate within the box of racial preconceptions. Which brings us to white progressives.

The dominant effect of racism in US politics is largely denied by progressives/leftists. They don’t deny that racism exists or that it has influence, but they tend to minimize. They marvel at “neoliberal” elites power, despair at President Obama’s (largely fictional) limitations, and complain about the “obsession” and “lunacy” of Republican budgets. The unwillingness of Republicans to actually cut expenses like benefits to corporate farmers and the reasons for the public support for “austerity” elude them because they have to pretend that the man in the conical white hat is not behind the curtain, pushing the buttons.

Worse the Progressives are generally unwilling to believe that their theories are anything but the fruit of incisive, objective, analysis. Those of us who disagree with them are, apparently, uneducated, emotional, partisan, overly devoted to President Obama, lacking in proper understanding of Keynes or David Harvey or insider gossip on Capitol Hill or something. But in reality, racism has been the wrecking ball of progressive politics in the United States since the earliest European settlements were established. There is no path to a more progressive, more just, United States with a more prosperous and fair economy that does not involve limiting the power of racism and the conservative voting blocs mobilized via racism. And this means that as long as the Progressives manage to monopolize progressive media, actually progressive politics will be crippled by a self-interested blindness.