When Obama Wins, Thank a Republican
by Brendan Delaney
According to Joe Scarborough on Meet The Press this morning, Newt Gingrich’s recent Republican Primary win in South Carolina was not so much a victory for Newt Gingrich as it was a primal scream by Republican voters against the Republican Party establishment.
Newt Gingrich wins South Carolina Primary
As a former Republican myself, I can identify with those who are so frustrated with their own party that, in order to send a message of contempt to their party leaders, they would be willing to nominate a completely unelectable candidate like Newt Gingrich. I sent my own message to the Republican party in 2007, when it came time for me to renew my drivers’ license. At that time, when given the opportunity to change my political affiliation, I opted to become a Democrat. I did this because I didn’t want to be associated with a party that I felt no longer represented the best interests of anyone I knew. I was also highly disillusioned by the way they so cynically rammed through a candidate as unqualified, and unintelligent, as George W. Bush (whom I did not vote for, btw). The election of George W. Bush allowed the Republican Party to take care of their cronies in corporate America, and also set in motion many of the policies that led to the dismal state of our economy today. And while they may have secured the White House in 2000 and 2004, they sacrificed the allegiance of people like me - people who believed in the Republican party and its ideals, before the Republican party cast aside those ideals in favor of catering to the wealthiest 1% of Americans.
So now I am a Democrat, but it hasn’t exactly been a match made in heaven. I’m a big fan of American business, and I’m not a huge fan of unions. These are two qualities that put me at odds with a lot of card-carrying Democrats. While I’ll concede that unions are great, if you happen to be in one, they also drive up prices for the rest of us, which leaves less money in our pockets, less money for spending, and ultimately, less jobs in the economy. Business, particularly small business, is the lifeblood of our economy. It creates 80% of the jobs, and generates tax revenues that fund many of the government programs that so many Democrats are fond of. The lifeblood of our economy is not big corporate America, which, in cahoots with the financial sector, seems increasingly intent on sucking the wealth out of the middle class, hollowing out our country from within, and lining their pockets with ill-gotten gains. They have done this with the blessing of the Republican Party, which has assisted them by channeling their political donations and lobbying efforts.
So when I left the Republican Party in 2007, it was because I came to realize what many Republican Party members are just now learning - that the Republican Party doesn’t represent the best interest of the bulk of Republicans. Instead, they are controlled by, and work in the best interest of, large corporations and the big banks in the financial sector. Republican Party leaders cynically cloak their true motives with messages of “freedom” and “job creation.” And they perpetuate the notion that it’s more American to be a Republican. Unfortunately, a lot of Republican Party members believe just that. But, as the South Carolina Primary has proven, a lot of them are starting to wise up.
If Joe Scarborough is correct, then the “primal scream” heard in South Carolina is, in effect, a protest by Republicans against the Republican Party establishment. And it’s not the first Republican protest we have seen from within the ranks of the party. To date, there have been three Republican primaries, and there have been three separate winners. And the very existence of Ron Paul as a semi-viable (though ultimately doomed) candidate is a form of protest as well. His enduring success, despite the best efforts of mainstream media to ignore his existence (a topic itself worthy of a lengthy blog post), only further serves to demonstrate that Republicans are in the throes of an internal revolution. And revolutions, as Republicans know, are never good for business.
At the end of the day, what we have learned (the net-net, in business-speak) is that the Republicans have shot themselves in the foot, and it's potentially fatal. In 2012, Republicans have a tremendous opportunity to take back the White House, and they are squandering it. They sold out their own party, and created an environment that is ripe for exactly what they are hoping to avoid - a two-term Democratic president. As a result, the Democrats aren’t going to win the election in 2012, the Republicans are going to lose it. So, for all you Democrats out there, when you’re dancing in the streets in November after Obama is re-elected president, be sure stop for a moment and thank those who made that victory possible - the powers that be in the Republican Party.
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January 25th, 2012 - 02:50
In the face of a rapidly changing global economy unions may have to rethink their advocacy for the American worker. It is interesting that unions are lambasted as the entity (not corporate/Wall St./banking )reaming the American middle class and driving prices up for the rest of us. Small business IS seen as the lifeblood of our economy because small business is too small to outsource. The following excerpt from The New York Times casts an illuminating light on the difference in expectations of an employee in a developing economy and the average union employee. Perhaps the lifestyle that Americans have become used to is going to be a thing of the past….are unions to blame??
Apple employs 43,000 people in the United States and 20,000 overseas, a small fraction of the over 400,000 American workers at General Motors in the 1950s, or the hundreds of thousands at General Electric in the 1980s. Many more people work for Apple’s contractors: an additional 700,000 people engineer, build and assemble iPads, iPhones and Apple’s other products. But almost none of them work in the United States. Instead, they work for foreign companies in Asia, Europe and elsewhere, at factories that almost all electronics designers rely upon to build their wares.
“Apple’s an example of why it’s so hard to create middle-class jobs in the U.S. now,” said Jared Bernstein, who until last year was an economic adviser to the White House.
“If it’s the pinnacle of capitalism, we should be worried.”
Apple executives say that going overseas, at this point, is their only option. One former executive described how the company relied upon a Chinese factory to revamp iPhone manufacturing just weeks before the device was due on shelves. Apple had redesigned the iPhone’s screen at the last minute, forcing an assembly line overhaul. New screens began arriving at the plant near midnight.
A foreman immediately roused 8,000 workers inside the company’s dormitories, according to the executive. Each employee was given a biscuit and a cup of tea, guided to a workstation and within half an hour started a 12-hour shift fitting glass screens into beveled frames. Within 96 hours, the plant was producing over 10,000 iPhones a day.
David Barboza, Peter Lattman and Catherine Rampell contributed reporting
January 25th, 2012 - 16:23
One of Obama’s points in the State of the Union address last night was that companies should get tax breaks for keeping jobs in the country, instead of getting tax breaks for shipping jobs overseas.