Money, money, money

Back in the day, when I was a chief academic officer, I would sometimes tell people that some problems are like "tax reform."  At a high level of abstraction, everyone's for it.  Everyone wants a simpler and fairer tax code, but the problem in coming at a simpler and fairer tax code, of course, lies in the particulars.  Everyone wants a simpler tax code -- everyone except those who benefit by its complexity.  At the most mundane level, think H&R Block and those who benefit from the preparation of tax returns.  At a less mundane level,  much of the complexity comes from tax breaks for special interests, which often are anything but fair.  Everyone wants to eliminate the tax breaks for "special interests" -- everyone, of course, but those "special interests" that benefit from the tax break.  At a high level of abstraction, everyone is "for" a simpler and fairer tax code, until we actually start examining the reality of the tax code and how particular changes might have impact on particular tax payers.

Imagine, for example, a congressman considering "tax reform."  Setting aside any outright bribery by those representing the special interests -- that is, setting aside he outright corruption of a quid pro quo arrangement -- there is a deeper corruption.  Imagine, to continue the example, a particular lobbying groups representing a broad industry "special interest" make it known, up front, that they will have a difficult time "supporting" the re-election of those candidates who support a particular change to the tax code.  The support can come in the form of advocacy or campaign contributions, both of which are necessary, if not sufficient, to a successful re-election bid.  If the congressman decides in favor of "tax reform" and follows through on that decision,  eliminating a "special interest" loophole in favor of simplicity and fairness, not only does he lose support of a broad industry, but his opponent by doing absolutely nothing potentially gains the support he just lost.  If the congressman decides against "tax reform," and the lobbying groups will give him any number of reasons why he should be against it and how he can "spin" his resistance with his constituency, he does not necessarily get a bonanza in campaign contributions, but he has removed the possibility that his opponent might pick up that advantage.  The congressman will, at the very least, "think twice" about advancing "tax reform."  Consequently, the status quo has considerable resilience, particularly when those who would be negatively affected by a change have the money to resist change.

That, in a nutshell, is what Lawrence Lessig calls "systemic corruption" in his book Republic Lost.  A candidate can run on a platform of "change," as Obama did in 2008, and at a very high level of abstraction, where one does not have to engage the actual numbers and the mundane rules, "change" can get considerable support.  No one is really satisfied with the status quo as a whole, but even so, Obama was quickly confronted with an inherent systemic recalcitrance to change.  It's not that some change isn't possible, and we got the Affordable Care Act, but the conservative response was not really "repeal and substitute a better act," but simply "repeal and reset the status quo."  The Tea Party reaction to Obama, despite the pretentious of being "outsiders" immune to the systemic corruptions, have not really effectuated change, except to make the whole process of governance more feckless and "meaner," in every sense of the word.  Moreover, if Paul H. Jossey's account of the fund-raising associated with the Tea Party is even half true, just half true, the Tea Party supporters were the victims of the very political operatives that they sought to constrain.  As Jossey sums it up, "the spontaneous uprising that shook official Washington degenerated into a form of pyramid scheme," one that "transferred tens of millions of dollars from rural, poorer Southerners and Midwesterners to bicoastal political operatives."  As a consequence, politics has never been seen in a dimmer light.  The approval ratings of congress, consequently, have plummeted.  In the current election cycle, we again have a candidate running as an "outsider" uncorrupted by the system, espousing at a very high level of abstraction a "back to the future" platform of change.   Everyone is free to imagine the sort of change they might desire, but short of a "strongman" takeover, a Putinesque putsch that throws constitutional "separation of powers" out the window, he too will confront a congress inherently recalcitrant to change.  His campaign is flailing, in part because he has systemically alienated those whose support is necessary, if not sufficient, to a successful campaign.

Which brings us to Clinton.  I am always a bit surprised by her "untrustworthy" reputation, particularly when compared to Trump whose mendacity seems to know no bounds.  While one should take it with a grain of salt, according to Politifact, she has been the most truthful the 2016 candidates, and with the possible exception of Bernie Sanders, the least mendacious.  One really doesn't need fact check much of Trump's fabulation.  A half second's though reveals much of what comes spewing forth to be incredible on the face of it -- Obama and Clinton the founder and co-founder of Isis, really?   Moreover, he's less transparent than any candidate since ... no, he's less transparent than any candidate period, refusing even to release his tax returns.  Clinton has been subject to more scrutiny, of a more partisan and malignant sort, than any candidate within my recall.  While she hasn't come out of it wholly unscathed, the republicans haven't been able to find an indictable offense.  Then too, although she may choose her words carefully and resists the open forums of the "press conference," her life is a matter of open public record, not figuratively, but literally, in excruciating detail, with more detail no doubt to come.  One difference, and perhaps it's the significant difference, is this:  Trump may be as corrupt in his business dealings as the proverbial used car dealer, but Clinton is "systemically" corrupt -- that is to say, part and parcel of the systemic corruption described by Lessig and others.  Although it takes the imaginative ingenuity of a good conspiracy theorist to see Clinton as personally corrupt -- to see her personally as an indictable felon -- it takes much less ingenuity to see her as a player in a corrupted system of governance.

So we have Lessig writing of the 2008 election that "Clinton's vision of the precedence was much like her husband's" -- that is to say, "she saw the job of president to be to take a political system and do as much with it as you can."  One could say the same today, though her husband's "pathetic scandals" with Monika Lewinsky have morphed into her own email scandals (less fun, more portentous).  She still has "a raft of programs she promise[s] to push through Congress" and again, to the best of my knowledge, "nowhere on that list [is] fundamental reform of how Washington works." So, the question, of course, remains: what to do about it?  In case it's not obvious, there's a catch 22 at work.  The very people who can do something are caught up in the system that thwarts the "fundamental reform" envisioned by the likes of Lessig and others.  To do so "within" the system, as Obama promised to our later disappointment, as Sanders promised to our inevitable disappointment, isn't like "fixing" the airliner while one's flying to Washington, it more like "dismantling" the airliner while one's flying to Washington.  At some point in the flight, it occurs even to the most sincere "reformer" that "dismantling" the airliner might not be such a good idea, particularly if they want to arrive safely in Washington and do "good" work for the nation.

So again what to do about it?  Although I don't find Lessig's suggestions at all compelling, behind them is a recognition that the change, if it is to come about, must come from outside the system itself.   Such is the appeal, in part, of the populist candidates like Sanders and Trump, the former crowd funding his campaign, the latter ostensibly self-funding his campaign.  Although it would have been interesting to see what Sanders would have done as THE candidate, we won't really have that opportunity, though one suspects he is more of a "pragmatist" and a "realist" than the Bernie Bro's might have wanted.  Then there's Trump, who is ostensibly flying his own plane to Washington, so he ostensibly doesn't particularly feel the need to either dismantle the plane or rebuke the money funneled through the K street operatives.  He promises a sort of terrorist attack -- yes, an ethno-nationalist terrorist attack --not on the corruption in the system, but on the system as a whole, beginning with the constitution and the implicit rule of law he will promise to keep and defend.

With Trump, one asks, OK, you've blown it up, now what?  If one attends to what he has actually done, and what he actually says when he actually says something, he is not promising to dismantle the existing systemic corruption of wealth.  He is, rather, quite openly, promising to be the oligarch's oligarch and institutionalize the systemic corruption of wealth.  He is promising a Putinesque putsch.   As just one egregious example, he promises to repeal the so-called "death tax."   Trump framed the promise in the language of populism, saying “American workers have paid taxes their whole lives, and they should not be taxed again at death, and it’s just plain wrong,” but as Alternet's R J Eskow points out, "only estates of $5.4 million or more must pay any estate tax at all," and as he goes on to detail, "today’s estate tax is only imposed on less than 0.2 percent of households. Fewer than two estates in a thousand pay it.  More than 2.5 million Americans die each year, but less than 5,000 estates were taxed in 2014."  The repeal of the estate tax will not benefit "American workers" by any standard definition of "American workers," but it will benefit the likes of Donald Trump and their heirs. To put it in perspective, Eskow writes "The estate tax will collect an estimated $270 billion in revenue over the next 10 years. At an average teacher’s salary of $56,310, that money could be used to pay nearly half a million teachers for an entire decade. It could be used to double the scope of Hillary Clinton’s infrastructure plan." 

Which brings us back to Clinton.  She has not made reform of the systemic corruption an up front agenda item, and as Robert Reich has posted in his blog, "she hasn’t established a powerful mandate for what she wants to get done. Her policy proposals are admirably detailed but cover so much ground that even her most ardent supporters don’t have a clear picture of what she stands for. And she’s had to spend more time on the campaign trail attacking Trump’s outrage du jour than building a case for a few big ideas."  As I've said in previous posts, she's a policy wonk that would much rather DO president than BE president, and to my mind at least that's hopeful -- that, and the number of major republicans that have endorsed her.  There will likely be no honeymoon, as Reich also notes, and the delegitimizing disinformation machine of fox news will likely quickly crank into action, particularly around the social issues and immigration.  Having said that, however, she is not exactly pro-wallstreet and big money, but she is not anti-wallstreet and big money either.  Perhaps, maybe just perhaps, she might find the common ground for compromise that Obama has failed to find.  Still, the sort of policy she would like to implement, as Reich notes, are likely to be resisted:  "the heart of American politics is now a vicious cycle in which big money has enough political influence to get laws and regulations that make big money even bigger, and prevent laws and rules that threaten its wealth and power. " 

Clinton, as president, however, does present an opportunity, not at the macro, but at the micro level.  The can provide cover while the real revolution takes place.  As Reich points out, "organizers from the Sanders campaign have already launched Brand New Congress, an ambitious effort to run at least 400 progressive candidates for Congress in 2018, financed by crowd-sourced small donations and led by a nationwide network of volunteers. Sanders himself recently announced the formation of “Our Revolution,” to support progressive candidates up and down the ticket."  The suggestion is to adopt the methods, if not the policies, of the Tea Party.  The goals of Brand New Congress, for example, are indeed ambitious:

They want "an honest, accountable Congress, but trying to win each congressional seat one-by-one is impossible. So let's replace Congress all at once. Our plan is to recruit and run 400+ candidates as a single, unified campaign with a single plan. By giving the people an option for big, tangible change, we plan to whip up the same enthusiasm, volunteerism, voter turnout, and grassroots donations as Bernie's presidential campaign.

Having said that, however, just a note of caution -- not a claim, but a caution inspired by Jossey.  The goals are laudable, but the ambition brings to mind the old saying, "if it's too good to be true, it probably is." I am sure there are plenty of unscrupulous operators out there quite willing to capitalize on the progressive, Sander's inspired populism as the Tea Party inspired conservatism.  If we want a transparent and accountable government, we should want the same from the organizations that purport to support it -- just saying -- but that said, the idea is energizing.  

So, as Reich points out, "the most promising source of a new countervailing power in America was revealed in Bernie Sanders’s primary campaign: millions of citizens determined to reclaim American democracy and the economy from big money. "  If this "revolution is going to succeed, it must also succeed in the red states.  Reich also notes, parenthetically that "Donald Trump’s faux populism tapped into similar sentiments, but, tragically, has channeled them into bigotry and scapegoating."  There is a secondary strategy, one that would likely be endorsed by Lessig -- focus on and solve the vicious cycle of the money problem first.  If we have more democracy, less oligarchic capitalism, we are then placing our faith in the good will of the American people.  Given even a modicum of civility in our discourse, their votes will help resolve the social issues.   Beyond that, I'm not sure how you convince the rural, under-educated and isolated whites that have been "irradiated" by the likes of Fox News and the conspiracy laden Breitbart to vote their interests, not their prejudices, but it is and always will be worth the effort.