Rebuild the Dream

by Van Jones

  The Obama tax cuts may or may not have been good fiscal policy, but a president’s team should always make sure that he reaps the political benefits of passing such measures. That was not the only mistake Democrats made in defending and promoting the stimulus. They also failed to get credit for helping states and cities. Had the federal government failed to pass a stimulus bill giving aid to states, America’s state and local governments would have been forced to lay off tens of thousands of teachers and first responders. As those workers would have eventually stopped buying products and paying bills, the economy would have gotten even worse. For the first two years of the Obama administration, only one thing prevented that calamity: the stimulus bill that Obama championed.

  It was not enough for Obama supporters to talk in abstract terms about the jobs that the stimulus “saved.” The public needed help appreciating the impact. During the spring and summer of 2010, the Democratic National Committee could have run compelling television ads called “Thank you, Mr. President” with the following scripts:

  Did you drop your kids off to school recently? Was your kid’s teacher inside? Or was she standing outside in a bread line? Hmm. Well, thank you, Mr. President. Without the stimulus, thousands of teachers would be out of work in America. Some Republicans seem to hate the stimulus. I guess they’d rather see our schools closed and empty. I’m glad President Obama cares more about our kids than that. Thank you, Mr. President.

  Have you seen any police cars this week? Were there any police officers in them? Or were they all standing in bread lines? Hmm. Well, thank you, Mr. President. Without the stimulus, thousands of cops would be out of work in America. Some Republicans seem to hate the stimulus. I guess they’d rather see us fight the criminals on our own. I’m glad President Obama cares more about our safety than that. Thank you, Mr. President.

  Heard any fire trucks recently? Think there were firefighters in them? Or were they all standing in bread lines? Hmm. Well, thank you, Mr. President. Without the stimulus, thousands of firefighters would be out of work in America. Some Republicans seem to hate the stimulus. I guess they’d rather see us fight fires with our garden hoses. I’m glad President Obama cares more about our homes and families than that. Thank you, Mr. President.

  These thirty-second ads could have gone a long way toward reframing the conversation about what the Democrats had achieved and how much worse things would have been under Republican proposals.

  Instead, no coherent strategy emerged to defend and celebrate one of the singular achievements of the 111th Congress. The public had no idea how much good President Obama and the Democrats had done for the nation. When the stimulus expired, and local governments started implementing layoffs, almost nobody knew to blame the Republicans for their pain.

  The GOP succeeded in turning a major accomplishment into a major albatross.

  BIG MISTAKE NO. 3: WHITE HOUSE IGNORES CHARGES THAT OBAMA IS SOCIALIST

  Throughout the summer of 2009, conservative commentators were openly interpreting President Obama’s economic policies as “socialist” or even “communist.” For proof, they lumped together the stimulus package, President Obama’s rescue of U.S. automakers, his clean energy proposals, and the healthcare bill. They even pointed to the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP)—which George W. Bush signed into law in October 2008! Right-wing pundits presented all of this as evidence that President Obama was more than just a run-of-the-mill liberal; he was a socialist who was plotting a government takeover of the entire economy.

  The allegation was and is, of course, ludicrous. Yes, Obama has run up large deficits, but so did his predecessor, and nobody has ever suggested that George W. Bush is a communist. Obama took extraordinary economic measures in extraordinary economic times. But Bush did the same thing when he passed his own stimulus package (almost entirely tax cuts) and bailed out the banks with TARP. If Obama is a socialist, then so is Bush.

  A socialist would have nationalized the banks, not given them essentially free loans. A socialist would have taken over the auto industry, not given automakers loans. A socialist would have proposed liquidating the private insurance companies altogether—in favor of a government-run (“single payer”) approach. To address climate change, a socialist would have used the government’s authority under the EPA to order big polluters to dump less carbon into the atmosphere. Instead, President Obama championed a market-based “cap-and-trade” program, modeled on business-friendly proposals that originated at the conservative Heritage Foundation. A socialist would never have put Wall Street sweethearts like Geithner or Summers in charge of the economy.

  I could go on and on, but my point is that President Obama’s beliefs and actions are those of a mainstream capitalist. The effort to create the opposite impression is the lynchpin of a wholesale effort to sow fear, doubt, and confusion about his agenda, and to cast his most innocuous achievements in a sinister light.

  To be clear, capitalism is not perfect, and many critics of the free market, including Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., have made important contributions to our nation. Neither side will admit it, but the endless contest between those who love capitalism and those who loathe it has made America a better nation: today we live in a country that is more prosperous and more just than it would have been without that multiplicity of voices. By borrowing and experimenting with ideas from across the political spectrum, the United States has created a society that has a safety net and ladders of opportunity, which are two very good things. I have no problem acknowledging the contributions to the national debate of every kind of American, including left-wingers who would not even touch Adam Smith’s grave with a ten-foot pole.

  I do have a problem with political opportunists pretending that President Obama somehow belongs in the anti-capitalist camp. It is a ludicrous charge. If anything, his detractors on the left would say that he has given too much deference to the prerogatives and demands of big capital—from Big Oil to Big Pharma. But Obama’s opponents never intended to have a fair or rational conversation about his economic beliefs. Their plan and modus operandi was simply to pass out megaphones and make their allegations too loud to ignore.

  Trying to Ignore the Smears to Death

  Unfortunately, the strategy of the White House helped Obama’s opponents succeed—because neither President Obama nor his supporters were willing to stoop low enough to meet these claims head-on. Instead, they tried to “ignore the allegations to death.” Daily charges of communism and even treason were met with a cool silence. Big mistake. The White House did not arrive at this approach by accident; it was part of a deliberate, conscious strategy.

  I have first-hand experience with the reasoning. When I worked as a special advisor to the Obama White House’s Council on Environmental Quality, the attitude was that we should simply ignore Fox News and the whole right-wing noise machine altogether. The constant refrain went like this: “This is the White House. We are not going to be distracted by this nonsense. Why should we dignify these ridiculous allegations with a response? Why elevate these people? Why have a fight on their terms? We need to stay focused on governing. That’s what the American people expect from us. We are not going to reward and validate these people by giving them the attention they crave.”

  That approach made sense to me at the time. It is part of the reason that I didn’t work harder to clarify the evolution of my own views from anti-capitalist critic to champion of market-based innovations. But, looking back, we made a serious misstep that was rooted in public relation orthodoxies that have not taken into account important changes in the media system.

  After all, the right wing was able to tie President Bill Clinton in knots, using only talk radio and the online Drudge Report, at a time when the word “blog” did not even exist. Back then, Fox News was just getting started, yet Rush Limbaugh and his “mini-me” clones kept Clinton off balance throughout much of his presidency. Even in the simpler media environment of the 1990s, a Democratic White House was barely able to hold it
s own.

  By 2009, President Obama was confronting a much more dangerous and difficult media system. Fox News had emerged as a twenty-four-hour propaganda machine, beamed into 100 million homes every day (although only 2.2 million are watching at any given moment). It billed itself as a news network, but it acted as an arm of the opposition GOP (and forces even farther to the right). Right-wingers continued their dominance of talk radio—both satellite and terrestrial. And there was the rise of Internet-enabled pranksters and provocateurs, such as Andrew Breitbart. The times called for new rules of engagement, especially at the White House and DNC levels.

  For instance, conventional wisdom says one should never repeat a libel to rebut a libel, because any repetition just supports the libel. (This is a lesson that GOP senatorial candidate Christine O’Donnell learned with her infamous “I’m Not a Witch” TV ad.) But not repeating the libel is not the same as not responding to it. Democrats should have learned this lesson from the “swift boat” experience of 2004 Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry; he waited too long to refute false and scandalous allegations, and he paid a fatal price in the polls.

  In this media environment, one must not stand back from challenging a nasty charge, for fear of amplifying it or dignifying it. An online search engine cannot distinguish between truth and poppycock. Once on the Internet, even ludicrous statements multiply, generate feedback loops, and amplify themselves ad infinitum until the public begins to assume that there must be at least some truth to the slurs. Left unchallenged, ugly charges in the new media system dignify themselves.

  Early on, Team Obama failed to appreciate the danger that these attacks posed. Perhaps worse, it failed to see the opportunity.

  Missed Opportunity for Speech on Capitalism (and Socialism)

  Because Obama is not a socialist, he could have used the false allegations as the occasion for a series of speeches on capitalism itself. He could have explained to Americans how the free market works—the good and bad. In the process, he could have explicitly defined and rejected socialism, tying it to failures around the world, including in Africa and Asia, where he has family and personal experience. He could have referenced capitalist success stories—individual and national—in places such as Indonesia and Kenya. By owning his rich life experience, he could have used his perceived “otherness” to strengthen his fidelity to American values, including American capitalism. (U.S. senator Marco Rubio of Florida has done a brilliant job on this score.)

  Obama could have pointed out that the free market works according to rules, and sometimes those rules have to be better enforced or even upgraded. He could have said that our system is the best in the world but far from perfect; that is why the federal government has to get involved from time to time, to put things back in order, to ensure basic fairness, and to keep things on track. He could have welcomed the attacks and used them as opportunities to reinforce his own free market commitments, to debunk the false claims, and to lead a public discussion about basic economics.

  Then he could have taken on his critics—from the left and the right. He could have told libertarians why their radically deregulated version of capitalism failed the country, by letting Wall Street run amok. But he also could have explained to traditional leftists why he was rejecting some of their favorite government-based approaches in lieu of market-based mechanisms. For instance, as I pointed out earlier, he rejected the idea of a government-run single payer solution for health care, choosing instead to change the rules of competition among private insurers. In the energy field, he rejected the idea of directly ordering polluters to cut emissions, in favor of letting companies use a more flexible cap-and-trade system. Whatever one thinks of those proposals, they reflect an underlying philosophy that is strongly pro-market.

  By explicitly challenging both sides of the argument, he could have located himself in the middle, where he authentically is, and projected strength in doing so.

  He could have said, “My job is to protect and fix the free market system, to make sure it works. And this time I want us to make sure that it works for you—not just for the global corporations, China, and the folks on Wall Street. There are two kinds of capitalism. There is the kind that just wrecked our economy, and there is the kind that will rebuild it. My opponents are in love with the kind that hurt America and left us all poorer. I am standing up for the kind of capitalism that will restore America’s prosperity and grow our wealth again. To get America back on track, we will need the best of America’s entrepreneurs, the best of America’s government, the best of America’s communities and families, and the very best from you. If we ignore these silly distractions and work together, we can fix America’s free market system so that it works for you and your family. To get the job done, I need you to stand strong and stand with me.”

  Such a message, repeated ad nauseam, could have been more than just a rebuttal to the Tea Party’s wild charges of socialism; it could have been an important contribution to our nation’s battle of ideas. President Obama would have forged a more coherent storyline for his presidency, secured his leadership, and distinguished himself from the anti-government libertarians and the anti-capitalist leftists.

  The gladiator spectacles on cable news and Sunday morning TV shows have an important place in our society, providing public catharsis and helping to define political parties and leaders. A president cannot sit out the big fights, nor can he simply stand above them.

  Alas, in the summer of 2009, nobody wanted to lower the stature of the commander-in-chief by having him respond to charges from right-wing nobodies and sore losers. And so the moment came and went when the president could have gone on the ideological offensive before the midterm elections and aggressively defined himself as a free market champion.

  BIG MISTAKE NO. 4: THE PROGRESSIVE GRASSROOTS IGNORES THE TEA PARTY

  QUESTION: When is the best time to kill a dragon?

  ANSWER: In the egg.

  Taoist masters teach that we should solve problems when they are small. It is unwise to let a minor matter get out of hand and then try to fix the mess with big efforts on the back end. Failure to apply this counsel to the Tea Party threat—while it was still in its infancy—is the root of many of our country’s current problems.

  It was not just the White House that ignored the extremists too long. Grassroots progressives did, as well. Between summer 2009 and the November 2010 midterm elections, progressives passed up multiple opportunities to derail, or at least slow, the reactionary steamroller.

  Today it is hard to remember how puny and foolish the Tea Party looked at its inception. On April 15, 2009, the liberal establishment did not gaze out upon the groups of tricorne hats and fall down trembling in fear. To the contrary, its leaders mostly fell down laughing. Afterward, mainstream liberals proceeded to express disdain for the whole Tea Party movement, scoffing at it, even as it picked up dangerous momentum.

  Throughout August 2009, the Tea Party sent trained activists into the town hall meetings held by U.S. Congress members—and disrupted them. From coast-to-coast, angry, red-faced, President Obama haters were grabbing microphones and screaming about “death panels,” communism, and “czars” (ahem).

  The resulting spectacle dominated television news coverage for weeks; the media treated these eruptions like a spontaneous uprising against President Obama and his healthcare plan, which had not even been released yet.

  The truth is that these populist outbursts were staged and largely scripted. Well-funded groups such as FreedomWorks and Americans for Prosperity had quietly provided training beforehand; they unleashed free PR afterward. Meanwhile, right-wing media outlets led the rest of the press in hyping the disgruntled protesters, reacting to the relatively tiny numbers of activists as if they were already a massive force.

  In fact, OFA outperformed the Tea Party in terms of the number of people it turned out. Obama supporters outnumbered the screamers by at least one hundred to one at many town hall meetings. But the small number of
Tea Party protesters had been trained in the dramatic art of disrupting meetings. They would stand up and start yelling, pulling all of the television cameras to them and stealing all the coverage.

  Meanwhile, the vast majority of attendees, including overwhelming numbers of respectful supporters of President Obama, were left sitting there with their mouths hanging open, unsure of what to do. The OFA attendees had not been trained to take the room back from professional hecklers, for instance, by drowning them out with patriotic songs or “Yes, We Can!” chants. So the media focused on the loudest voices and angriest faces. The theatrics worked.

  In the end, August of 2009 was an unmitigated disaster. President Obama’s forces numerically out-mobilized the Tea Party, but the Tea Party politically outmaneuvered the president’s forces. And September was just as bad, if not worse, with a mass march that brought tens of thousands of backlashers to the streets of Washington.

  After Labor Day that year, progressives should have taken stock. It was clear by then that the forces fighting for positive change were facing a serious uprising, however contrived its origins. Some nursed a false hope that a legislative victory on healthcare would silence the backlash. But no amount of legislative action was going to put the Tea Party genie back into the bottle.