Lincoln Mitchell

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This page contains links to recent blogs by Lincoln Mitchell

Posted in: US Politics

Occupy Wall Street and American Soft Power

Every image of a New York City or Oakland policeman abusing his position, every story about how a veteran or senior citizen was injured by one of these policeman, every image of a university police officer casually pepper spraying a few college students doing nothing more than sitting quietly at a demonstration damages the ability of the U.S. to influence people and governments around the world and provides fodder for those authoritarian leaders who would like to ignore American entreaties before killing or beating up demonstrators in their own countries.

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Ignorance of the Issues May Not Be as Useful as Many Republicans Think →

Herman Cain's recent inability to demonstrate a command of even the most basic facts and debates around recent events in Libya made Rick Perry's failure to recall which three federal agencies he wanted to abolish during a recent debate seem positively statesmanlike by comparison. Cain, however, is not the first presidential candidate, or occupant of one of the country's highest offices to make the kind of mistake that would embarrass an above average high school student. Vice President Dan Quayle famously advised a young schoolboy to add the letter "e" to the end of the word "potato" during a spelling exercise. Similarly, poor command of the facts and garbled pronunciation were almost a defining characteristic of George W. Bush during his campaign for the presidency.

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Running Against Romney →

Herman Cain's turn as the front-runner for the non-Romney division of the Republican Party's presidential primary seems to be winding down. The candidate most likely to take Cain's place, at least for the next few weeks, is Newt Gingrich. Gingrich will continue the back to the 1990s feel of the Republican primary, but like Cain, and Donald Trump, Michele Bachmann and Rick Perry before Cain, Gingrich has no real chance at being his party's nominee in the general election. Romney remains the overwhelming favorite to win the nomination, regardless of the relative positions of candidates like Gingrich or Cain.

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Perry, Cain and Paul and the Future of American Foreign Policy

To a significant extent, the more interesting foreign policy developments in the election do not have much to do with either of the two men who are likely to be there party’s nominees. These developments may also have more bearing on 2016 than 2012. Nonetheless, at least three Republican candidates, Ron Paul, Rick Perry and Herman Cain have made statements, or taken positions on foreign policy that could prove important harbingers of the future of the foreign policy debate in the U.S.

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Herman Cain and the Tea Party Legacy →

During recent weeks the Tea Party has only received media attention when it is being compared to Occupy Wall Street, but the Tea Party continues to have an influence on politics, particularly in the Republican primary for president. The big stories around sexual harassment charges against Herman Cain, as well as that candidate's bizarre statement of fealty to the Koch brothers, for example, are also part of the story of the Tea Party.

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Occupy Wall Street and the Dirty Hippies Narrative →

This critique, which could be called the "dirty hippies narrative" is offensive and misleading, but it is also almost quaint, harkening back to a bygone era when it was considered notable if men wore hair past their collars or if women wore dungarees. What is perhaps most interesting about this narrative is that it demonstrates that even though the year is 2011, the Republican Party still seems to think that attacking the other side for how they dress, wear their hair and the like is both a legitimate, and more surprisingly, effective means of building political support.

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Obama, Occupy Wall Street and 2012 →

The Democratic Party finds itself in a different situation as the sitting Democratic president is running unopposed for the nomination and already has a sufficiently enormous lead in fundraising and organization that any primary challenger who would emerge at this point would be badly defeated. The Occupy Wall Street movement is wisely not even talking about running somebody against President Obama in the Democratic Party, but this would be about the best thing that could happen to the Obama campaign. If such a candidate were to emerge, Obama could move to the center now, run up a string of impressive primary victories and use his ample resources to marginalize the Occupy Wall Street, largely through attacking the credentials and credibility of whichever flawed candidate was supported by the Occupy Wall Street. This would put him in a strong position for November especially as once he secured his nomination Obama would then be able to use his resources to again court the activist wing of the party. Additionally, running somebody against Obama would, in of itself, erode much of the Occupy Wall Street movement's support because many liberals would see the movement as seeking to destroy President Obama and behaving counter-productively.

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Occupy Looks Forward, Tea Party Backward

The Tea Party is essentially a movement that is deeply conservative, not just in terms of its political ideology, but in its opposition to change. It is no coincidence that the faces at Tea Party events skew older and whiter than the American population, thus presenting a visual reinforcement for what is primarily a backwards-looking movement seeking to return to a largely imagined time of small government, economic security, and a less tolerant and diverse America. It is also not surprising that so much Tea Party vitriol is aimed at President Obama, who evokes hatred and fear among many Tea Partyers because he is such a powerful symbol of a changing America. Accordingly, the Tea Party is fundamentally a regressive movement with little ambition to move society forward.

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An End to One-Sided Class Warfare →

Republicans and other right wingers are not troubled by class warfare in the abstract, otherwise they would have said something during the last three decades when the political and financial leadership of the U.S., with the close support of the Republican, and too frequently, Democratic parties, have waged class warfare on the poor on behalf of the wealthy. Deregulation, cutting social programs and increasingly regressive tax structures have all been part of an effort to shift wealth from the poor and middle class to the wealthy. This kind of class warfare has been met with no concern at all from the right. When Republicans get upset about class warfare, what they are really angry about is that poor and working people are fighting back. That may be beginning now on Wall Street and elsewhere, leading to such concern from Cantor, Mitt Romney and other conservatives.

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The Occupy Wall Street Movement: Not a Moment Too Soon →

In this context, the Occupy Wall Street movement seems particularly notable. It is not yet entirely clear what the specific goals or demands of the Occupy Wall Street movement are, but that is neither a fair nor reasonable question to ask of a movement that appears to be, to a large degree, organic and genuine. The Occupy Wall Street movement appears to be a legitimate expression of the anger and frustration that many ordinary Americans have felt towards the leaders of the banking and finance sector, and the good treatment they have received from the federal government, despite driving the economy into the ground, causing millions to lose their homes, savings or jobs.

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Romney Still Trying to Have it Both Ways on Foreign Policy

“Trying to have it both ways, while running up massive debt” may not be the successful slogan for the Republican Party, but it would be accurate. The Republican refusal to see the obvious contradiction between preaching the need to balance the budget while advocating for policies that would increase the debt is neatly captured in Mitt Romney’s recent foreign policy speech.

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Is Anybody Really Shocked by Rick Perry's Hunting Camp Controversy →

One of the most intriguing questions surrounding the word painted on a rock in Texas Governor Rick Perry's hunting camp is not whether or not the rock was painted over, or even whether or not the governor is a racist, but why the tone of so much of the media coverage of this story is one of such great, perhaps even genuine, surprise. Is anybody really shocked that a right wing governor who has never sought or received African American support, almost never sincerely said or done anything to suggest that racial equality is important to him and who has closely aligned himself with a movement whose members have frequently crossed over into overt racism, has a disturbingly high comfort level with racist words?

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For Obama, Winning Reelection and Governing Effectively Are Not Conflicting Goals →

A presidency premised on the idea that the popular thing to do and the right thing to do are likely to be in conflict is very different from one that seeks to build a constituency to support what the president believes is the right thing. The latter will be more effective and characterized by real leadership, whereas the former almost suggests contempt for the people and a view of the role of the president that is in contrast with an important element of democracy, the idea that government serves and represents the people.

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Could Perry Make Us Miss Bush? →

Rick Perry's emergence as a national figure is a reminder that nothing is ever static and that politics can always get more extreme. Bush had roots in the newer, more Southern and conservative wing of the Republican Party, but due to his family name and degrees from elite academic institutions, still had ties to an older and more moderate Republican Party. Perry, however, is a far more authentic product of the right wing of his party. Although, Bush is only four years older than Perry, in some ways they seem to have come from different generations.

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What Obama's Fundraising Advantage Means →

Despite President Obama's latest poll numbers showing that his approval rating lags behind his disapproval rating by a roughly seven points, the numbers are not all bad for Obama. A more significant indicator, at this time, is that the President has raised more money than all of his opponents combined. Similarly, all of the Republican candidates lag far behind where both candidates Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were at a similar time in 2007.

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A Perry or Bachmann Nomination May Not Be Good for Democrats →

Rick Perry has shaken up the Republican presidential primary because he seems to be taking the mantle of Tea Party favorite and far right darling away from Michele Bachmann. Before Perry joined the race, Bachmann seemed to be the most likely to be the last Tea Party candidate standing against Mitt Romney. Now Perry is more likely to be in that position. On the issues, Perry is not more moderate than Bachmann. Both are fundamentalist extremists with radical anti-government views who have evinced little understanding of a modern state or economy and demonstrated little interest in or knowledge of foreign affairs other than their belief in a strong America. Perry seems to have eclipsed Bachmann's popularity because he is less prone to gaffes than Bachmann, is slightly better at keeping his mouth shut sometimes and is enjoying something of a bump in the polls because he is the new candidate about whom voters may not yet know very much.

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Can an Obama Jobs Bill Be Taken Seriously →

This bill almost certainly has its origins both in Obama's need to address the problem of widespread unemployment as well as for the President to regain the political upper hand in the jobs debate. While it is good that the President is concerned about unemployment and preparing to try to address this problem, albeit through proposals that will inevitably end up being too modest to make a significant difference, it is troubling that this far into his term, Obama is still searching for a way to both help develop jobs and to demonstrate that he is genuinely concerned with the widespread unemployment that has existed since he took office.

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Romney Still the Front-Runner →

In the last week, three things have happened in the race for the Republican nomination for president: Texas governor Rick Perry officially became a candidate, Tim Pawlenty's candidacy officially came to an end, and Michele Bachmann won the Iowa Straw Poll. While none of these developments involved him directly, all three of these developments collectively were a victory for Mitt Romney, moving him slightly closer to his party's nomination.

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American Partisan Fighting in the Global Context

It is something of an unusual development that the opposition party in a major economic power put the global economy at risk and contributes to downgrading their own country’s credit rating for little reason other than their desire to make the incumbent chief executive look bad and modestly improve their own party’s chances in the national elections which are still 15 months away. The story of one of that party’s leading candidates reacting to all this by holding a rally to call upon divine intervention to help his country and to mobilize his party’s fundamentalist religious base, is also notable. This is, of course, the state of political affairs in the U.S. as it might be seen from Moscow, Brussels, or from Beijing, America’s biggest creditor.

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