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[Yes, it’s been awhile. Because of this. Hoping to be better at keeping this going. I’ve been trying to finish the below for…way too long]
You have to give credit to an audacious scam. By “audacious” I mean that the perpetrators of a scam, in their grab for money and power, so thoroughly disrespect their target audience that they merrily go about exploiting people because, ultimately, the end game masks a fraud.
In a nutshell, that is “No Labels”. Now that these jokers today have said they intend to pursue a presidential ticket—without knowing who the candidate might be—I want to offer a different take.
Big picture: The scam of “No Labels”, and the policies it claims to embrace, is embedded in the single idea that animates its very existence and its endless bloviating:
“Bi-partisanship”
The “No Labels” plea for the balm of “bi-partisanship” is not just misplaced as a solution.
It’s worse than that.
It’s a lie.
It misleads—intentionally, on the part of some—people from understanding the true nature of the endless crisis people feel, especially in their pocketbooks.
The elite conversation, fueled by people who don’t bother reading and traffic, instead, in gossip (those folks were once called “journalists”), conflate yelling at each other and generally acting like children with the policy shortcomings we face.
And, presto, the solution being offered is: to be nicer to each other and make deals. In other words, “bi-partisanship”.
The system is not broken because of a lack of “bi-partisanship.”
The opposite—the system is broken BECAUSE of “bi-partisanship”.
This is not a jeremiad against the idea of building alternative parties to the two dominant parties in elections. I was, in fact, at the founding of the now-dead Labor Party in Cleveland in 1996, as a delegate and supporter (the reasons for the death of the Labor Party are, perhaps, a topic for another day). Alternative parties, with all the pluses and minuses embedded in today’s system, are worth the discussion—at the right strategic time (I’ll write some other time more deeply about whether this is the right strategic time—short answer for today: No!)
A warning: If you are looking for a convincing argument that either the Democratic or Republican Party is hurt more by the No Labels scam, you’d best go elsewhere: I’m not here to make that argument, which is roughly 95 percent of the focus of the media-driven debate on this scammy group; no one really knows the answer to that question, today, based on polling (which is useless so far from the November 2024 election). And it’s less interesting.
So, what should we think about here?
“Bi-partisanship” is precisely what has spelled disaster for millions of working class people—because “bi-partisanship” has accepted the theft by corporations of half a century of increased productivity by workers, witness the poverty-level $7.25-an-hour federal minimum wage that should be at least $25-an-hour.
“Bi-partisanship” is exactly what has caused the climate change crisis we face—because bi-partisanship embraces the idea of the “free market” as God, the very economic system that has blessed the raping of the planet and brought the ecosystem we live in to its knees.
“Bi-partisanship” is the Holy Grail of a foreign policy stretching back decades—because bi-partisanship has signed off on endless war, bloated Pentagon budgets, the destruction of vast parts of communities across the globe and, most important, the death of (and this is not numeric hyperbole) millions of women, children and men.
“Bi-partisanship”, if we understand its policy implications, is at the root of the anger people feel across the political spectrum. You can only envision the idea of “bi-partisanship” if you also embrace the so-called “free market” system. The search for “bi-partisanship” is a thing because all sides accept the outlines of capitalism and some of the fraudulent ideas baked into the system for decades. And it is that economic system that screws people, even if a lot of folks find it easier to lash out at targets like immigrants.
“Bi-partisanship” is a key belief system embedded in the corrosive idea of American Exceptionalism—which is bleated, as a requirement, from the podiums by politicians of both major parties.
While the noise of superficial arguing, amplified on Twitter and other vapid platforms, consumes the chattering classes, in reality, every single day, there is a grand consensus that flows from the idea of “bi-partisanship” and doesn’t draw much real critique from those who practice “bi-partisanship”.
The consenus:
Tax cuts are good, especially if tax cuts help “small business” and “the middle class”;
CEOs are the “job creators”, the source of economic prosperity and are bright people who should be treated with over-the-top respect;
The “free market” is American Exceptionalism’s gift to the world;
American Exceptionalism is the justification for spreading “democracy” across the globe, backed up by an armed-to-the-teeth nation boasting escalating war budgets (you remember how much money we got from the post Cold War “peace dividend”… yeah, right, me either);
If you are unemployed it’s mostly your fault (for being “unskilled” or lazy) so unemployment benefits should be kept meager to make sure you get your ass back to work and don’t sit on your couch eating bon-bons;
“Free trade” is forward looking and good, while “protectionism” is backwards and bad;
and…the list goes on and on.
Bi-partisanship kills or sickens or bankrupts millions of people every year. The crash of health care “reform” in the 1990s was a victory for “bi-partisanship”—because “bi-partisanship” values the “free market” and protecting the drug and insurance industries (which shower millions of dollars in campaign contributions on Congress). Even the Affordable Care Act, which passed on a straight-party line vote had a tinge of ideological bi-partisanship because, while the ACA covered millions of uninsured people, it left much of the price-gouging, greed-driven system untouched.
With that in mind, let’s first consider what “No Labels” is offering. From its website:
No Labels is an organization of Democrats, Republicans, and independents working to bring American leaders together to solve problems.
And, similarly:
We are a national movement of commonsense Americans pushing our leaders together to solve our country's biggest problems.
So, the scam starts with the buzz words. The first thing one does in a fraud is use poll-tested deceptive advertising, slogans, and buzz words.
Cue “commonsense”.
Because to oppose “commonsense” is to be unreasonable or irrational.
That messaging continues in the policy booklet, which, natch, is entitled... “Common Sense”. It is a superficial, blandly written tract, chock full of mind-numbing garbage. But, I’ve actually read the damn thing—so you don’t have to (this is the burden I accept to earn your attention). At the end of this dreary task, I thought of the wonderful observation by Molly Ivins: “Think of something to make the ridiculous look ridiculous.” And that’s basically this entire booklet in a nutshell.
To be kind to readers, and because you get the drift, I’ll choose just three choice nuggets from the booklet’s “Ideas” (and, honestly, I’m really stretching to call these “ideas” as opposed to warmed-over pablum).
Idea #2: The Sky is falling on Social Security:
“In reality, Social Security, the program that almost 67 million Americans depend on, is nearing fiscal insolvency.”
And:
But the longer Washington waits to fix Social Security, the harder it will be to do so and the more likely it becomes that Americans will get hit with punishing tax increases, significant benefit cuts, or both.
Oh, and here’s a real howler:
The government trustees who manage Social Security project that the program’s trust fund will be exhausted within a decade because America won’t have enough taxpayers paying benefits to a growing group of retirees. [bold emphasis added]
Rubbish.
There is no Social Security crisis. And it is *not* coming close to economic insolvency. Hogwash.
This has been a myth spread by a small group of Wall Street-connected people, amplified by a “bi-partisan” clutch of people in Congress, who want to privatize Social Security so they can rip everyone off and pocket even more obscene profits beyond what the banks, private equity firms and financiers are already ringing up.
In the worse case scenario—meaning, Congress did nothing (more on that in a moment)—Social Security would still pay out 80 percent of its benefits for decades, according to the Social Security trustees. Not an ideal situation for the millions of seniors who, but for Social Security, would face crushing poverty.
But, that isn’t insolvency.
In 2010, Barack Obama created the “bi-partisan” National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, also known in short-hand as the “Deficit Commission” but more accurately described by many of us, including yours truly, as the Catfood Commission.
Because we knew that the end result of this idiotic endeavor cuts to Social Security and Medicare would be on the menu, all in the name of “bi-partisan fiscal responsibility” to address the “deficit and debt” crisis—which, as I wrote in this book a decade ago (the updated edition came out in 2013), was, and still is, a manufactured, non-existent crisis.
But, for the sake of “bi-partisanship”, if the Commission’s recommendations became law, seniors would go hungry because Social Security checks would be smaller (in real terms) or die because they couldn’t afford health care costs.
The “bi-partisanship” sheen of this ridiculous exercise was supposedly to be found in the personage of the co-chairs, a wing-nut Republican Alan Simpson and a business mouthpiece, Democrat Erskine Bowles.
At the time, Bowles sat on the boards of General Motors and Morgan Stanley, and was also a member of the Business Council, which lobbied for business interests and was particularly aggressive in trying to scuttle any significant Wall Street reform. During the Clinton era, Bowles was the co-architect of a scheme to partly turn over Social Security to the private sector (read: Wall Street). His sidekick in the plan was Bruce Reed, who, no surprise, was hired as the Catfood Commission’s staff director. And, by the way, can you imagine, if Bowles et. al. had been successful back in the Clinton days? What would have happened to those Social Security funds if the funds had found their way into the grubby hands of the geniuses at Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, Citibank and Bernie Madoff? Bye-bye.
Alan Simpson’s views on the deficit “crisis” were well-known, as was his fondness for Social Security. It wasn’t just his most talked-about description of Social Security as “a milk cow with 310 million tits.” For years, he had a mission to turn Social Security money over to Wall Street. In 1994, as a member of Bill Clinton’s Bipartisan Commission on Entitlement and Tax Reform, he pushed for benefit cuts and partial privatization.
The only saving grace in 2010? To adopt the Obama Commission’s cuts required a 3/4 “bi-partisan” super majority. I’ve said in the past that progressives have a lot of legit beefs with Nancy Pelosi, in her role as a leader of the Democratic Party at the time. But, on this Commission nonsense alone, at least she had the gumption to say back then, in opposition to the president from her own party, that cuts to Social Security or Medicare would pass over her dead body, or words to that effect.
Now, we absolutely know how to massively increase Social Security funds and *increase* benefits: remove the cap on the annual income subject to the Social Security tax, which is now at $168,800, and force rich people to pay into the system; a millionaire stops paying into Social Security after the first two months of the year.
“Idea #5”
“Our leaders must take action to get health-care costs under control to give all Americans access to quality health care and reduce our debt.”
There’s a reason that in that entire “idea” a national health care system—Medicare For All—is never mentioned even though it’s the only system that would not only save lives but cut by as much as half the amount of GDP spent on the current corrupt system: the founding chairman of this “No Labels” shakedown is none other than Joe Lieberman. Throughout his tenure in the U.S. Senate, he was one of the biggest recipients of drug and insurance industry political cash; his wife worked for two large corporate lobbying firms, handling their Big PHARMA and Big Insurance matters.
Idea #17: More Bombs, Please!
Today, most Americans understand there is growing danger in the world and, like Reagan and Roosevelt, believe in the importance of American military power. They want Washington to invest more in the military so we will be prepared to fight a two-front war against Russia and China if that is necessary, even as we all hope it never is.
And:
“So America undoubtedly needs to spend more to protect our security in a dangerous world, but we need to do so with much less waste and with zero corruption.”
Aha! Context: the current 2024 fiscal year budget for the Pentagon is $886 billion, if last year’s spending caps agreement holds. And if the president’s additional requests for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan pass (not a sure thing), the Pentagon would spend $953 billion in 2024.
We are within shouting distance of a one trillion Pentagon budget—and the only challenge, according to No Labels, is that we continue to enrich defense contractors and arm this nation to the teeth and seed more conflict and death across the globe as long as there is no “waste” or “corruption”. And not a single thought, or caveat is offered, that perhaps the whole Pentagon endeavor—the entire premise behind the national security state—is waste and corruption.
Upshot: we need to work hard to kill the idea of “bi-partisanship” so the people, who know at a gut level that the system is screwing each person, can be given a very clear view about a path forward.
