Why We Got Ayn Rand Instead of FDR: Thomas Frank on How Tea Party 'Populism' Derailed a New New Deal...
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'Populism' Derailed a New New Deal
After a brutal recession was brought on by Wall Street greed, it
looked for a moment like we'd rejected the Right's economic mythology.
Then the "Tea Party" came along.
February 1, 2012 |
http://www.alternet.org/teaparty/153973/...
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Editor's note: In late 2007 and early 2008, the house of cards came
crashing down around us, and all of the economic doctrine we'd been
fed by the pundits and politicians of both parties over the past few
decades was laid bare for all to see. The deregulated cowboy
capitalism that was supposed to release unbridled prosperity had led
instead to widespread economic pain – hardship that would spread
globally and remain with us to this day.
It was a moment ripe for a populist uprising. Many observers expected
the pendulum to swing back from the rightward lurch authored during
the “Reagan Revolution” – perhaps a new New Deal would emerge as
America elected its first black president in a dramatic rejection of
George W. Bush's business-friendly ideology.
But something happened on the way to this much-anticipated swing back
to the left. Instead of FDR, we got Ayn Rand. Rather than calling for
programs that might alleviate some of working America's suffering, we
saw the emergence of the Tea Parties, which demanded that ordinary
Americans feel every bit of pain they had coming to them – and also
that we leave the Wall Street hustlers who had precipitated the crash
alone.
It was an ahistoric reaction to a recession caused by Big Finance, and
it captured the imagination of author and columnist Thomas Frank. In
2005, Frank wrote the now-classic book, What's the Matter With Kansas?
in which he detailed how the “Backlash Right” used social issues to
hoodwink many Americans into voting against their economic interests.
It was a classic bait-and-switch – they voted for politicians who
promised to overturn Roe v. Wade, and got tax breaks for the
ultra-rich, deregulation for Wall Street and trade deals that took
down barriers to corporate offshoring.
In the aftermath of the crash, Frank returns to the topic to discover
that the “New New Right” had once again offered Americans a
bait-and-switch, but of a different kind. The result is Frank's new
book, Pity the Billionaire: The Hard-Times Swindle and the Unlikely
Come-Back of the Right. AlterNet is proud to bring you this excerpt
from the book.
*****
An appropriate metaphor for the conservative revival is the classic
switcheroo, with one fear replacing another, theoretical emergencies
substituting for authentic ones, and a new villain shuffling onstage
to absorb the brickbats meant for another. The conservative
renaissance rewrites history according to the political demands of the
moment, generates thick smokescreens of deliberate bewilderment, grabs
for itself the nobility of the common toiler, and projects onto its
rivals the arrogance of the aristocrat. Nor is this constant
redirection of public ire a characteristic the movement developed as
it went along; it was present at the creation. Indeed, redirection was
the creation.
Drawer of Water, Hewer of Bullshit
The call that awakened the rebellion came not from some itinerant IWW
organizer but from a TV “rant” delivered on February 19, 2009, by one
Rick Santelli, a business reporter standing on the floor of the
Chicago Board of Trade— a reporter ranting, let us be clear, not
against the traders who surrounded him but on their behalf. In
retrospect, there would be few better examples of the spirit of
inversion that drives the conservative revival.
Rick Santelli had criticized many aspects of the bank bailouts over
the preceding months, but on that day in February when he had the ear
of the nation, the part of the TARP that drew his disgust was,
significantly, the element designed to help homeowners modify the
terms of certain underwater mortgages, making payments more affordable
and thus preventing foreclosures. It was the only part of TARP that
was intended to directly benefit individual borrowers rather than
institutional players, and thus it was supposed to help make the
program popular. Instead, it brought down the wrath of this man
Santelli, who found it inconceivable that such an initiative was even
under consideration. “This is America!” he yelled, working himself
into a rage.