Eye Recommend --- It Takes a Party

IT TAKES A PARTY, by Paul Krugman --

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/13/opinion/it-takes-a-party.html

what eye thynk:  In this op-ed piece, Paul Krugman offers an excellent distillation of the issues sure to be argued during the 2016 election.

"So Hillary Clinton is officially running, to nobody's surprise.  And you know what's coming:  endless attempts to psychoanalyze the candidate, endless attempts to read significance into what she says or doesn't say about President Obama, endless thumb-sucking about her 'positioning' on this or that issue.

Please pay no attention...

...There has never been a time in American history when the alleged personal traits of candidates mattered less... The huge, substantive gulf between the parties will be reflected in the policy positions of whomever they nominate, and will almost surely be reflected in the actual policies adopted by whoever wins.

For example, any Democrat would, if elected, seek to maintain the basic U.S. social insurance programs--Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid--in essentially their current form, while also preserving and extending the Affordable Care Act.  Any Republican would seek to destroy Obamacare, make deep cuts in Medicaid, and probably try to convert Medicare into a voucher system.

Any Democrat would retain the tax hikes on high-income Americans that went into effect in 2013, and possibly seek more.  Any Republican would try to cut taxes on the wealthy--House Republicans plan to vote next week to repeal the estate tax-while slashing programs that aid low-income families.

Any Democrat would try to preserve the 2010 financial reform, which as recently been looking much more effective than critics suggested.  Any Republican would seek to roll it back, eliminating both consumer protection and the extra regulation applied to large, "systemically important" financial institutions.

And any Democrat would try to move forward on climate policy, through executive action if necessary, while any Republican--whether or not he is an outright climate-science denialist--would block efforts to limit greenhouse gas emissions.

How did the parties get this far apart?  Political scientists suggest that it has a lot to do with income inequality.  As the wealthy grow richer compared with everyone else, their policy preferences have moved to the right--and they have pulled the Republican Party ever further in their direction.  Meanwhile, the influence of big money on Democrats has at least eroded a bit, now that Wall Street, furious over regulations and modest tax hikes, has deserted the party en masse.  The result is a level of political polarization not seen since the Civil War."

Mr. Krugman then discusses personalities and perceived sincerity before returning to his most salient point.

"The differences between the parties are so clear and dramatic that it's hard to see how any one who has been paying attention could be undecided even now, or be induced to change his or her mind between now and the election.

One thing is for sure: American voters will be getting a real choice."

I have to agree.  The choices are hard-lined and clear.  You either support social programs and you don't.  You're either rich or you're not.  You either endorse financial regulations or you don't.  You either believe in science or you don't. 

The one unknown factor that could make all the difference is religion.  I have never understood the wierd corollary between votes and demographics in our Southern states.  Study after study has shown that people in the South are poorer than those in the North.  They are more likely to depend on social programs and yet they consistently vote for representatives who publicly vow to eliminate those same programs.  All a candidate need do is wave a Bible and Southern voters will happily follow that candidate to their own financial ruin as long as he promises to take away their neighbor's right to an abortion or their co-worker's right to marry the person he loves--all in the name of a book that mentions neither abortion nor same-sex marriage.

We are a country built on the separation of church and state, whose founders decreed that no religion should be given supremacy over any other, in fact religion should have no part in government at all.  Yet here we are, 240 years later facing the possibility that the religious--specifically modern, conservative Southern Christians--could well be the wild card in 2016.  And that should frighten the bejeezus out of the rest of us.