from Truthdig:
Democratic Corporatism Brings Reagan Back from the GravePosted on Jan 21, 2010
By David Sirota
“After months of struggling to find their footing, it looks like the GOP has finally found an effective spokesman: Republican leaders have unveiled the reanimated corpse of Ronald Reagan (and) the undead former president has quickly emerged as the new face of the Republican Party.”—The Onion
This line from a recent satire perfectly captures the moment’s political zeitgeist—except for one detail: Republicans aren’t responsible for the revival of Reaganism. Democrats are.
That is the moral of Massachusetts’ U.S. Senate election this week. In a state where Democrats outnumber the GOP by a 3-to-1 margin, little-known Republican Scott Brown defeated Democratic Attorney General Martha Coakley with an ancient Reaganesque message demonizing the government and taxes.
Why did this tired old Republican tactic suddenly work? Because Reagan’s vote-eating cadaver is now stalking the land, thanks to Democrats’ odious new worldview.
In 2009, Democrats made clear that their idea of government is radically different from the one embedded in their legacy and campaign promises. They unleashed what The Nation’s Chris Hayes calls “corporatism”—an agenda that fuses public and private sectors, replacing Rooseveltian regulations and LBJ-esque social safety nets with taxpayer-funded bribes of rapacious business interests.
Under Democratic corporatism, “government” is not what it used to be—it is not tough financial rules or public programs like Medicare. Instead, ”government” now means giving public dollars to private banking, insurance and drug firms, and then hoping (but not mandating) that such largesse compels those companies to change. .............(more)
The complete piece is at:
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/democratic_corporatism_brings_reagan_back_from_the_grave_20100121/
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