The people have spoken, and they have decided that “fat cat teachers,” and not greed gone wild on Wall Street and beyond, are the source of their problems. A deep disappointment. A defeat. This was my initial response to the results of the special recall election in Wisconsin.
I noticed a Facebook post blaming Obama and the Democratic Party. They betrayed the grassroots. He who engages in a crazy militaristic foreign policy killing innocents abroad was denounced. This is irrational, self-defeating and irresponsible. Politics is about alternatives, and the direction the country would go if it follows Wisconsin’s lead last night is profoundly problematic. There is a deep seeded problem in our political culture that must be addressed at the grassroots and in the Democratic Party.
Big money surely played a role, as John Nichols at the Nation quickly declared, reflecting on whether people’s power can overcome money power. But something more fundamental is at issue. How the broad public understands the problems of our times. Somehow in Wisconsin, at least last night, the Tea Party’s diagnosis of our problems made more sense than the view of those engaged in and inspired by Occupy Wall Street. This was my first reaction this morning.
This afternoon I feel a bit less alarmed, though still deeply concerned. There is considerable evidence that the campaign itself made a difference. With the 7 to 1 spending advantage of the Republicans, many Wisconsinites seemed to be critical of the idea of the recall absent major malfeasance in office. They, along with Walker’s most passionate supporters, prevailed. The Democrats were not as united as they needed to be. Their message was muddled. Yet, despite this, in fact, there was a progressive advance. The Democrats took control of the State Senate. Governor Walker won’t be able to count on the rubber-stamp approval of his proposals anymore.
And oddly polls indicate that if the election were held today, Obama would win in Wisconsin decisively. Wisconsin with a long and deep progressive traditions, including a distinguished record of supporting labor unions, would re-elect the President, but conservative Wisconsin, the state that elected Joe McCarthy to the Senate, affirmed Walker and his very aggressive deeply conservative (really reactionary) policies.
In the end, the results tell us what we already knew about the upcoming election, and not much more. As in Wisconsin, the Presidential election is going to be not only about the incumbent and his party, but, more significantly, about Obama’s and Romney’s competing political approaches and personalities. It is often noted the Democrats will try to make the election a choice, while the Republicans will try to turn it into a referendum on Obama and the present state of the economy. But because the principles upon which the two men will be running are so strikingly different, it is hard for me to believe that it will just be a referendum. It is interesting to note that few national commentators observed the Wisconsin recall as being about Walker himself and the state of the state under his leadership, which it was formally. Rather the big principled issues have been emphasized, for and against unions, for and against austerity as an economic policy, sharply highlighted by none other than Sarah Palin.
The election results present a big challenge to those of us on the left. The union movement and not only public employee unions, has suffered a serious blow. The momentum of the Occupy movement has been turned. The focus on inequality is in danger of being lost. It was not a good day.
But giving up on electoral politics, or blaming Obama, as I read on Facebook, is extraordinarily foolish. Two strongly competing visions about America are in competition, on the economy and much more. Elections matter, as was revealed last night. For the general public, Wisconsin announces some of the key issues that lie ahead: blame teachers and their unions or finance gone wild for our present fiscal woes and depressed labor market. Address the problems by working for a more just economic framework, or by breaking unions. For the left, the challenge is to engage, and to link grass root concerns with the Democratic Party and truly reach out to the general public. I observed how powerful this worked in the case of the anti-war movement and the Dean campaign in The Politics of Small Things. I showed how this became the base for the Obama campaign and how it contributed to the project of Reinventing Political Culture, in my book by that name. The task is to win hearts and minds. If we don’t, the trouble suggested by the results last night will come to define our political reality.
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