HuffPost : Robert Kuttner : "The only thing wrong with Obama's populism, excuse me, his economic progressivism, is that it took him until nearly the year of his re-election to practice it resolutely. More, please"

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Huffington Post
Obama's Populism
By Robert Kuttner
January 8, 2011


Obama's Populism


Some excerpts :

Consider: The Republican strategy of paralyzing agencies of which they disapprove by refusing to confirm their officials is harming consumers and working people. It is hardly "populist" in the ugly sense of the word to remedy that blockade by using the president's power to make a recess appointment.

Nor is it "populist" in the odious meaning of the word to defend Social Security and Medicare from the Right and center-right's cynical use of the fiscal crisis to undermine programs that did not cause it. Rather, Obama's refusal to let social insurance be the scapegoat is just good progressive politics.

It would be nice if we had a word like "populist" that meant defense of regular people against the malign influence of economic royalists, but without the overtones of nativism or racism. But we don't, so it is more honest and accurate to refer simply to these policies simply as economic progressivism.

As for class warfare, it's here. The policies of the past three decades, whether on taxes, de-regulation, outsourcing, the assault on unions, or the deliberate weakening of social insurance, have been top-down class warfare. It's just charming that when progressives begin to show some spine and start fighting back, the Right screams "class warfare!" They should know.

The French have a nice rhyming couplet that describes this gambit: Cet animal est tres mechant; quand on l'attaque, il se defend. ("This animal is very wicked. When you attack it, it defends itself.")

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