"Had Enough?"

[pbrower2a]

Even a stabilization of the economy at a lower level than that associated with the corrupt Dubya-era, credit-fed boom could seem an improvement... or at least the right direction. There are likely to be fewer jobs in 2010 as lots of kids get pushed out of the job market as retail stores close due to reduced consumer spending and public policy encourages the hiring of 'family breadwinners' even in menial jobs but for living wages. The good side of that is that the menial jobs will probably be better paid than when kids who used the jobs to support cars, clothes, and electronic goodies are in school or are doing homework instead.

We absolutely cannot return to the Dubya-era economy of illusory prosperity -- a false prosperity based upon people consuming assets or going into debt just to keep up appearances as real pay shrinks for most people. That is no more possible than expecting heat waves to reverse the cooling of December in January.

The American economy stank when FDR was President from 1934 to 1940... but such was tolerable because people saw a pattern of improvement and saw no chance for a return to the economy of the 1920's. FDR won landslide victories in 1936 and 1940. After Dubya, Obama has much leeway with results.

Some Republicans seem to act as if the wise course is to obstruct the efforts of Barack Obama and the Democratic majority so that the Democrats can fail and the Republicans can offer their own alternative -- essentially their own agenda of Profits First, People Never. It is a huge gamble, one that can fail badly politically and weaken their political position in elections of 2010 and 2012 at the least, or one that can succeed politically but make things worse -- and leave some Hard Right Republican with an economic situation even direr than that that we now have -- and an opportunity to establish a plutocrat's paradise/worker's hell. (That system: no unions, no corporate taxes but instead highly-regressive sales taxes and capitations, no minimum wage, no welfare, 70-hour workweeks, plenty of child labor, the vote limited to the rich, working people generally being wrecks in their middle 30s... )

That is a gamble -- a huge gamble, one that depends upon the catastrophic failure of the Other Side as well as the society as a whole. That is a revolutionary stance that only extremists can support, Right or Left. If we are lucky, then the consequences are the failure of the Hard Right as it is further discredited. Conservatism will have to re-emerge slowly as cautious conservatives develop within the Democratic party and eventually split from it. We might have a split around 2020 between Christian Democrats and Social Democrats, the Republican Party having gone the way of the Federalists and Whigs. If we are not so lucky, then we might get Karl Rove's system on steroids.

It's a bad gamble for everyone, one to be avoided. My suggestion to the Republicans: whittle away a little on the edges and do what is necessary for survival in a time of Obama's success and a recovering economy. Political success isn't worth the ruin of society.

[pbrower2a]

I agree the economy won't be recovered by then; as such, we are likely in for a less-than-stellar election.  (thankfully, the economy will probably recover by 2012, and with the typical "are you better off than you were four years ago?" argument, Obama should be re-elected fairly comfortably)

Many are now saying that the economy will not be back to normal until 2015.

The longest continuing downturn in American history was "only" three and one-half years -- Autumn 1929 - Spring 1933. The one that we now endure has lasted about a year and a half. We may have further to go, but this time the leadership addresses the downturn on the brink of a depression. The upturn begins within a year. 

"Many" are often wrong, and without attribution one has a fallacy of anonymous authority.

Names, please.

[pbrower2a]

It will be the GOP theme.  And it will work.  Because people will have had their fill of welfare/nanny state socialism by then.  And if not by 2010 then certainly by 2012.

If things are better in 2012 than they are now, then people won't give a d@mn about the deficits and big spending that got them there. Most people would rather make a living off the welfare state than starve in the street. Merchants who accept food stamps/TANF and medical professionals who treat Medicaid patients will support the "nanny state". Employees of contractors doing big government projects don't care that the money ultimately comes from government grants.

People won't accept cold, hunger, and idleness as proof of some virtue of a government that might do otherwise -- not even in Oklahoma.