Populist elitism

Can Obama give 'em hell before it's too late? Salon:

The most dangerous deficit that the United States faces is not the budget deficit or the trade deficit. It is the Democrats' demagogy deficit. Franklin Roosevelt, looking down from that Hyde Park in the sky, would not be surprised that conservatives are seeking to channel populist anger and anxiety, not against the Wall Street elites who wrecked the economy, but against reformers promoting healthcare reform and economic security for ordinary people. As he told his audience in 1936, 'It is an old strategy of tyrants to delude their victims into fighting their battles for them.' But FDR would be shocked by the inability of his party to mobilize the public on behalf of reform.

I was struck most by FDR's statement about tyrants getting their victims to fight their battles. It has long amazed me how successful the right wing movement has been in getting a huge swathe of middle and lower class America to vote against its economic and social interests. The list of policies railroaded through, or shot down, behind the veil of "family values" and "social conservatism" is very long and troubling. To name a few: huge tax cuts for the wealthy, a repeal of the estate tax, a dismantling of the regulatory systems for the financial industry. And now, the forces aligned against health care reform seek to use the same device to turn aside changes that would be of immense benefit to many of the very same people turning up to rail against them.

Obama is said to be weighing a major prime time speech on the topic. I think that is needed, and I think it needs to be fiery. The script is not hard to write. The campaign for affordable health care is opposed by the same forces, and in the same way, as were the campaigns for social security, Medicare, the civil rights movements, labor reform, the abolition of slavery . . . . Don't let false populism blind you to the real interests of the populace and how they can best be served.