CONNECT
The Real Battle in 2012 and Beyond
NationofChange / Video Report
Published: Thursday 12 July 2012
“The upcoming election is critical but it’s not the end of this contest. It will go on for years. It will require that you understand what’s at stake.”
It’s not merely Republicans versus Democrats, or conservatives versus liberals. The larger battle is between regressives and progressives.
Regressives want to take this nation backward — to before Social Security, unemployment insurance, and Medicare; before civil rights and voting rights; before regulations designed to protect the environment, workers, consumers, and investors. They want to sabotage much of what this nation has achieved over the last century. And they’re out to do it by making the rich far richer, turning Americans against one another in competition for a smaller and smaller slice of the pie, substituting private morality for public morality, and opening the floodgates to big money in politics.
Progressives are determined to take this nation forward — toward equal opportunity, tolerance and openness, adequate protection against corporate and Wall Street abuses, and an economy and democracy that are working for all of us.
The upcoming election is critical but it’s not the end of this contest. It will go on for years. It will require that you understand what’s at stake. And that you energize, mobilize, and organize others.
This article was originally posted on Robert Reich's blog.
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ABOUT Robert Reich
ROBERT B. REICH, one of the nation’s leading experts on work and the economy, is Chancellor’s Professor of Public Policy at the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley. He has served in three national administrations, most recently as secretary of labor under President Bill Clinton. Time Magazine has named him one of the ten most effective cabinet secretaries of the last century. He has written thirteen books, including his latest best-seller, “Aftershock: The Next Economy and America’s Future;” “The Work of Nations,” which has been translated into 22 languages; and his newest, an e-book, “Beyond Outrage.” His syndicated columns, television appearances, and public radio commentaries reach millions of people each week. He is also a founding editor of the American Prospect magazine, and Chairman of the citizen’s group Common Cause. His widely-read blog can be found at www.robertreich.org.
19 comments on "The Real Battle in 2012 and Beyond"
July 18, 2012 5:03am
The only problem is where do you find a progressive to give your vote. Too many democrats say one thing, count votes, and then enough of them side with their regressive counterparts to insure regressive legislation passes. Or like the Public Bldgs Act (pass by wide majorities in both parties this March), have little bits of regressive legislation tucked in. (In this case, making it a felony to disrupt an event where someone with Secret Service protection is present by peaceful demonstration.)
In short, neither party is truly progressive. (Though Democrats use the personal morality issues to claim they are, while legislating trillions of dollars into the hands of corporations.) We need another alternative. And we need to worry about gaining control of the legislature, more so than the Presidency. As with Carter, and perhaps Obama, the power of veto is only to forestall regressive action.
Progress starts with each of us looking into the action of our own congressman, and insuring that this individual is not corrupt. It is the corruption in both parties that gives the edge to the regressive forces.
July 13, 2012 1:34pm
A Republican meme we often hear is liberal = Stalinist communism. This is just plain dumb. But dumb works for them.
July 13, 2012 11:51am
Reich cannot honestly back-up ANYTHING in that video. BUT, I am sure there are plenty reading here that have already seen evidence of Conservatives trying to make the poor poorer.
I got news for you, the vast majority of Conservatives are small businessmen, like myself, who want the government SMALLER. And the only way to do that is by voting ANTI-"Progressive". Your "Progressive" anyway.
We hire the poor, and try to make us BOTH rich. The poor will never want to work as long as the "Progressives" will pay them NOT to.
YESTERDAY, Obama , Ended Welfare Reform ! by Presidential edict.
THAT is regressive. Using a recession, that he has intensified, he is trying push more and more BIG Government down our throats .
That video could easily be changed a little and used in the 1930's Germany. (by you know who!)
STOP, and open your eyes to what really is going on.
July 13, 2012 6:25pm
I have a son who is a small businessman, and he certainly isn't a Republican. I do not believe that the "vast majority of Conservatives are small businessman." Sorry, but that's your take on it, but if you make a sweeping generalization like that you should have some solid statistics to back it up. I live in a very Conservative town, and I know that the majority of my neighbors are NOT small businessmen. They are people who get their views from Fox News and often use the same words and arguments of the chicken-hawk talking heads on Rupert Murdoch's propaganda network.
Let's not forget that this whole deficit-and-unemployment debacle began under the reins of Conservative Jr. Bush, who spent taxpayer money like it grew on trees, and actually started two expensive wars while cutting federal revenues, especially from the 1%. Obama hasn't been able to do much of what he wanted to because of the Tea Party dittoheads who took over the House 2 years ago.
Perhaps, when you say Conservative, you mean educated and principled persons who own small businesses, but if so, where do you put the rednecked yahoos who say Obama is a Muslim who hates America, and all that rot. Are they Conservative or not? They vote for Conservative politicians, and that settles it for me. The plain fact is that many "Conservatives," of whatever stripe, just don't like Obama because of his funny name, and they don't like having a black man in the White House, so they scrounge around and manufacture slogans they can use to disguise their distaste for the President.
July 13, 2012 12:54pm
Reagan (in 8 years ) hired 12,000 new government employees, Carter hired (in 4 years) 100,000 new government employees, And Obama (in less than 4 years) has hired 130,000 new government employees !
July 14, 2012 11:56am
You forgot to mention how many government employees Bush Jr. hired. Was this deliberate on your part? I don't have the figures, but I've always heard that W actually expanded government during his two terms. You skip from Reagan to Carter, then jump over Clinton and Bush. Sounds like deliberate spin to me.
July 13, 2012 11:11am
I have sometimes been disappointed by the rightward drift of the modern Democratic Party. Because of this, I have sometimes voted third-party, notably for the Green Party candidates. Thus, I hate to have my vote taken for granted by the Democratic Party. But what alternative does that leave me. At one time, during the Rockefeller-Javits era in New York, there actually were some Republicans who could be progressive, but that time is long past. Now the Republican party is firmly committed to preserving the rule of the rich, so it's unimaginable for any progressive to vote for a Republican, especially for the White House. And not voting is not a sensible option. Those progressives who refrain from voting may feel pious about their principled position, but they are doing just what the Republicans want them to do. Like it or not, it's still a matter of voting for the "lesser evil" among the two major parties, and then doing what you can to make the Democratic Party more responsive to your own progressive ideals. And frankly, I would have much preferred ObamaCare to include the public option, but the President had to accept what he could get in this highly partisan environment. At least, I console myself, it's a step in the right direction, so I'm glad it was not over-ruled by the conservative Supreme Court. Those of us with progressive ideals should not take the position that "if you won't play the game my way, I'll take the ball and go home." Work with what we have, in reality, and it's surely not the rich-pandering Republican politicians.
July 12, 2012 5:42pm
Are you saying we have any sort of choice in the upcoming election? That the two candidates don't represent exactly the same interests, which are far from the majority's?
July 12, 2012 5:22pm
the "progressive" want to take USA to stalin ussr
July 13, 2012 11:02am
the "trolling nazi" want to take USA to hitler germany
I don't pretend to be an authority on the incidence of views of America's progressives, but would venture to say that perhaps 95% to 99% of us reject communism but favor actions against extreme concentrations of capitalist wealth and power, under the constitution we have now, with an amendment to reverse Citizens United. Many progressives are coming to the view that the Republican and Democratic parties have hijacked the representative democracy prescribed by our constitution, and have been corrupted by the extreme and rising concentration of wealth and power among a very small number of wealthy individuals and corporations, such that we are losing or have in effect lost government "of, by and for" the people.
July 12, 2012 4:14pm
Republican Obstruction Plan.
Barack Obama Is Sworn In as the 44th President of the United States on Tuesday, January 20, 2009 and immediately that evening the Leadership of the Republican Party and the Tea-Party had a secret meeting to develop a plan for the next 4 years. They agreed that they would not support anything that President Obama wanted to do. They would not support anything that the Democratic Party wanted to do. It would make absolutely no difference if it had been a Republican idea originally, it would not matter if it was good for the United States of America, and it would not matter if it was supported by a Majority of the American Citizens. We will oppose anything that might in anyway make Barack Obama look good or help him get re-elected. Therefore, we will use holds to prevent his appointments, we will filibuster any Laws, Regulations or Programs. We will refuse to fund any programs that he wants. We will vote "NO" as a group and we will use any means available to obstruct anything that he wants.
The Republican-led House voted Wednesday to repeal President Obama’s health-care law, a symbolic gesture meant to highlight the GOP’s commitment to ending it despite a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that it is constitutional. The vote to overturn the Affordable Care Act was 244 to 185, with five Democrats joining all of the chamber’s Republicans in voting to eliminate the measure. It was the 33rd time that Republicans have moved to repeal all or parts of the legislation since the party took control of the House in January 2011.
Democrats countered that Republicans are wasting time on a settled debate. They said the Supreme Court ruling is a sign that it is time to move forward with the law’s implementation. This is time that could have been used to create Programs and Funding for the Creation of Jobs.
In a sign that the politics surrounding the law may have shifted a degree since the court ruling, some Republicans are emphasizing the need to quickly find other ways to implement those popular aspects of the measure, even as they insisted that it must be repealed in its entirety.
July 12, 2012 3:37pm
The House can sock it to students, reduce or cancel your Medicare, your Social Security check, no more COLAs, eliminate the EPA, the SEC, the Department of Education, the banking commission, food stamps, Medicaid, Student Aid, the Post Office, Health Care and dozens others; lay off police, firemen, teachers, park rangers using the savings to pay for the deep cuts to the 1% and corporations proposed by Romney and Paul Ryan, but it won’t reduce the deficits and the Debt. More years of Bush’s tax cuts to the rich will create more Romney-like billionaires, but ruin the nation.
July 12, 2012 3:36pm
Republicans and Tea-Party Members are Regressives, who want to take this nation backward — to before Social Security, unemployment insurance, and Medicare; before civil rights and voting rights; before regulations designed to protect the environment, workers, consumers, and investors.
Democrats are Progressives, who are determined to take this nation forward — toward equal opportunity, tolerance and openness, adequate protection against corporate and Wall Street abuses, and an economy and democracy that are working for all of us.”
July 12, 2012 4:26pm
While there are no progressives among Repubs and many Dems who think themselves progressive, I strongly object to EQUATING Dems with progressives.
Most progressives observe that the Dem establishment has shifted so far to the right as to be indistinguishable from what was once considered moderate or centrist Republican. Obama has repeatedly dissed progressives, who recite a litany of duplicitous and/or compromising non-progressive and anti-progressive acts of omission and commission by Obama/Dems.
Reich's dichotomy of Regressive vs Progressive does not translate to the Dem establishment being the standard-bearer, spokesperson or champion of progressives. Many see Obama as its Quisling.
July 12, 2012 1:48pm
I have the greatest respect for Prof./Sec. Reich. One of my very favorite books is his "Super Capitalism."
The things he says are Progressive are definitely so.
But notice the subtle way this message is presented. It is sponsored by MoveOn, an arm of the Democratic party. That party may at one time have been progressive in the '60s, but it certainly is not any longer.
For instance, if you want to know why we don't have Single Payer or the Public Option - MoveOn is why. They actually picketed Dennis Kucinich's main office when he refused to vote for PPACA unless it had a Public Option.
MoveOn is an insidious group of stealth Democrats, who in the end will work to undermine all progressive initiatives. I know because I tried to work with them during the health care 'debate' and got severely burned by believing their story line.
This is an advertisement for the Democratic party pure and simple. And if one looks at the results of the last 3.5 years, one can see where that goes.
It disappoints me to see Prof. Reich become so deluded by them.
July 14, 2012 12:20pm
Did you ever consider that MoveOn felt that without Kucinich's vote the Health Care Reform package would have been sunk, and we would have nothing in its place? I greatly admire Dennis Kucinich and Ralph Nader, but sometimes they seem to insist that they'd want nothing if they can't get the plan they wanted. Sometimes progress comes in small steps. I'd rather have something rather than nothing. I was very disappointed when the public option was dropped, but the fact is that Republicans wouldn't accept a public option, and that was an obstacle that confronted the President. What would you have done? Politics is supposed to be the art of compromise, and because this is now forgotten, we have Tea Party Republicans in Congress spending millions of taxpayer dollars voting to repeal ObamaCare for 33 consecutive times just so they can make a political statement, instead of addressing the pressing problems of our nation.
July 12, 2012 12:53pm
I like Mr Reich in the sense that he speaks for progressivism, and fully comprehends that the 2012 elections will not determine the outcome of the war.
I have the impression that he harbors a private lament sympathetic to the
view of many progressives of Obama/Dems as clearly the lesser of evils but nonetheless guarantors of a continuing spiral to hell.
I regret Reich stops short of participating in the difficult discussion/debate as to what exactly we should do about that.
July 12, 2012 11:56am
Thanks for your simple and straightforward talk about what is really happening in America. You do a huge service to our country in educating our citizens about what is at stake for the majority of the population. The constant barrage of lies from the REGRESSIVE S, must be counteracted by the PROGRESSIVE message of saving what we have earned, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, plus unions who protect our workers. The capitalist system is at the brink of collapse due to unethical practices from bankers and financiers who always put the bottom line first. We must reclaim OUR DEMOCRACY.
July 12, 2012 11:43am
God Bless you, Robert Reich!
We must communicate with our fellow citizens. Most Americans do not give the "social" infrastructure much thought. They don't think about an America without unemployment insurance, social security and medicare. Some Republicans actually believe that elected Republicans would protect their social safety net. These people are sadly mistaken.
Write Obama, force him to declare his position on social security and medicare. Demand that your candidate declare their position on the issues -no weasel words.