Democrats just don't understand the new populism

[pollyannaish]

Washington Examiner:

The Obama campaign and other liberals are looking to tap into the populist current of today's politics and turn the Wisconsin union fight into a national issue in the 2012 election. While the liberals can wield rhetorical pitchforks and light political torches, they should realize that it's their guys who are living inside the castle today. Specifically, public-sector unions -- by many measures the most entrenched special interest in American politics -- are not fighting against The Man, which is to say the entrenched powers of government. In this struggle, The Man is the government unions, which are sitting in the smoky back room divvying up the spoils of a crooked racket. And cronyism -- not wealth -- is the object of today's populist ire.
The Left has misread the postbailout populist sentiment all along, assuming public anger was directed at the rich. But American anger, I suspect, is directed not at some people who have money or success, but at those who profit through cronyism and their connections to power.

In other words, anti-bailout anger is not anger at the rich, but anger at those unfairly getting rich -- at the taxpayer's expense.

The Obama administration was startled in March 2009 when Americans exploded with anger at AIG executives -- living off the taxpayer dime -- who pocketed huge bonuses. There was plenty of anti-Wall Street feeling, and (to the confusion and consternation of liberals) it helped Republicans win many congressional races in 2010. Democrats apparently learned the wrong lessons.

Just after the election, public sentiment didn't favor the Democratic efforts to reinstate the old death tax -- which only affects the upper class. Class warfare talk didn't help the Left's efforts to increase taxes on the rich.

Even so, Obama's Democratic National Committee now thinks it has the winning hand in the labor scuffles that began in Wisconsin this month. In the view of the Left, the Democrats are standing with the working man against the greedy. The acrid Paul Krugman wrote in the New York Times that government unions provide a "counterweight to the political power of big money."

Hard facts utterly contradict Krugman's claim.



Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://washingtonexaminer.com/politics/2011/02/democrats-wage-populist-fight-against-their-allies#ixzz1EtGTnAHa

[pollyannaish]

The money quote:

 

Union-funded lawmakers take money from taxpayers and give it the government unions, who kick some of it back to union-funded lawmakers. It's not too different from banks or defense contractors donating to politicians who bail them out or give them no-bid contracts.

 

As long as Democrats think they're on the side of "the people" because the unions agree with them, they're politically lost.

 

 

Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://washingtonexaminer.com/politics/2011/02/democrats-wage-populist-fight-against-their-allies#ixzz1EtHFRm2V