Voting for Hillary Part IV - Editorial, The Week in Review – Analysis, Commentary, Opinion

02.27.2016

Voting for Hillary Part IV

As a supporter of Hillary (HRC), I can tell you that it was gratifying to watch the results come in from yesterday primary in South Carolina. Even though I am not anticipating it, I hope my DFL friends who are planning to caucus on Tuesday I hope we can show the same good sense. I am going to be up at Jefferson Elementary Tuesday night, March 1^st; making the case.

I support HRC, it is not that I don’t think Senator Sanders (BS), has good ideas; I do. I share his ideals, but I think, as many of you have heard me say, that HRC has a much better chance of advancing the progressive agenda than BS does.

This is why I think HRC will get more traction for her agenda than BS will be able to do:

The republican establishment has been playing a long con, for the past eight years, by refusing to cooperate with Obama. They thought they could keep both social policy, and economic progress stagnant, and that this would do enough damage to the democratic brand that America would abandon both President Obama and his allies in congress. President Obama was able to get some things done, like the ACA, in the first two years, when the democratic party had control of both chambers of congress. However, in 2010 the democrats lost the House of Representatives, and the obstruction set in, and the long con began.

This gamesmanship did not work out quite the way they planned, President Obama was reelected, but the republicans did gain control of the Senate, and so they doubled down on their strategy for his second term; thinking that if things were held at a standstill the election this year, in 2016, would be viewed as a referendum on the Democratic Party and they would be able to sweep in. It was a big gamble, and the results of the 2014 election indicated that it might be working, the republicans strengthened their hand that year, and yet the con is not complete, and the risks are still risky, because the big money behind the Republican Party establishment, wants more than anything to make money. They want 4% or 5% economic growth, not 1% or 2%. They want the prime lending rate at 1% or 2% not 0%, or 0.25% which it is now.

The way I see the last eight years is that those interests basically accepted the notion of having a weak U.S. economy, one in which they were still making money, still performing better than the rest of the world (by just sitting on their capitol), with the hope that at the end of it they would have both houses of congress, the executive branch, and the Supreme Court all wrapped up. That is the con, but it did not quite work.

The economy performed better than expected. The stock market performed better than expected, the rest of the world did much worse than expected. At the moment, the U.S. economy is benefitting from the global slow down. The recent slowdown in China only benefits us, it hurts the stock market short term, it generated some uncertainty and instability, but it will help us in the longer term, because investment dollars will move away from those markets, into ours due to the long term stability that the United States provides. Furthermore, beyond those economic considerations, that long con that the republican establishment played forced the establishment to coddle the most rightwing elements of their party, and now establishment has been completely undermined by their ideological clowns, and they are on the verge losing control of it to an upstart named Donald Trump.

Here is the deal, those republican economic interests are not going to triple down on that bet. They will not play the con any longer if their gambit does not pay off. Those economic interests who are sitting on (as much or more than) two-trillion dollars in capitol, are going to free up that capitol, and return to investing it in the U.S., in our work force, in technology, in industry and in infrastructure development. Securing that capital investment, cooperatively (not by coercion), is the key to economic development and prosperity in American for the next several decades. But they will only play ball, if they have someone in office that will play ball with them. HRC will work with them.

For many of my friends, the fact that HRC will work with these interest groups is reason enough not to support her. I respect that, but I contend that it is short sighted. We want that capital investment in America, we can get to it much faster if we deal with them, than we can if the plan is to change the tax structure first, and take it from them. HRC will be able to make a deal in the short term, but only if they get some concessions. HRC will be able to cut an infrastructure deal, BS will not. This is true regarding the rest of their proposed agendas; HRC will be able to make deals and get some things done and BS will not. I am not going to put forward a long list of what HRC will be able to do that BS won’t, because that one example (on infrastructure) summarizes my argument and my point of view, and I think you can extrapolate my rationale from there.

I am certain that if Hillary puts out a reasonable plan for growth and the Republican leadership refuses to play ball, there will be some party switching, republicans will defect, and the leadership will get some marching orders from those economic interest groups; they will be told to play ball, those economic powers do not want another four or eight years of weak growth.

BS however, he will not get that consideration, because he either will not compromise, or he will not compromise enough. The strength of his idealism, will become his ideological weakness, he will not compromise enough. His idealism will have him come off looking like the crazy person at the bargaining table, and they will drive him out as a failure in four years, while at the same time holding on to the other channels of power. The republicans will triple down on their bet then, and the great con game will continue.