Let me highly recommend Chris Hayes’ piece on Blue Dog Democrats. This is the coalition of House Democrats who have decided that "fiscal responsibility" is the highest virtue, where fiscal responsibility means preventing the government from spending more on anything but the military. (Military spending is fine—there was zero Blue Dog opposition to the war or to the perpetually increasing military budget.) In particular, it’s worth highlighting this key sentence:
"Where Blue Dogs have perhaps been most effective is in helping Republicans pass legislation and blocking or diluting progressive legislation."
Yes. You will hear lots more from and about the Blue Dogs when energy and climate legislation are debated later this year. The Blue Dogs will push to weaken the legislation and reduce the amount of investment in the green economy, not for any particularly coherent philosophical or substantive reason, but just because it gets them lots of corporate donations and media attention. As Ezra says:
The Blue Dogs smartly hew to a form of elite centrism that assures them almost uniquely glowing press coverage. ...
Put another way: It doesn’t matter if you’re a centrist or a liberal. It only matters whether you’re perceived as a centrist or a liberal. And Blue Dogs have chosen to be ostentatiously and inconsistently heterodox on the issue that’s most visible to the perception-makers.
Preserving the status quo by preventing investment in alternatives is “centrist,” even when the status quo is leading the country to ruin. It’s all atmospherics, but the consequences for the atmosphere will be very real.
Henry Waxman’s decade-long fight to improve the Clean Air Act
The new Senate global warming deniers
Are the South and the Midwest splitting on energy?
Comments
View as Flat
ids Posted 10:55 am
19 Feb 2009
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SMLowry Posted 1:13 am
26 Feb 2009
The thing is, there's a lot of money to be spent, that needs to be spent and the idea of increasing the already high deficit inherited by Obama (which the Republicans are responsible for, but who's talking about that?) in harsh economic times goes against the grain of the so-called average American. The thinking goes: "The deficit is already out of control, my income is dropping, maybe I'll lose my job, taxes will go up, OMG! what will I do? And Obama wants to spend trillions of dollars? No Way! It's too much." People don't get it and the media plays into it. What I want to know is where are all those who supported Obama, who elected him? Why aren't they speaking up, writing letters to their local papers, etc.? What's coming across (and I've had several conversations with friends about this who agree) is a conservative, mostly-Republican country that for some wierd reason decided to vote for Obama and now that he's in they're backtracking. Is it just me or is this what's going on? And what can we do about it?
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