2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumIt’s time to take a serious look at Martin O’Malley.
'Well, somebody has to do it. Somebody has to write about Martin OMalley. Hes a serious person, with serious things to say, and its a travesty that he hasnt gotten more coverage.
In this election, two big issues are colliding: broadly diminished economic opportunity and concerns about growing federal power, which in some forms battles over excessive surveillance, the war on drugs, police violence and the No Child Left Behind Act, for instance have shaken up long-standing left-right splits. On the surface, wage stagnation and income inequality appear to be Democratic turf, while worries about big government belong to the Republicans. For the latter half of the 20th century, tackling both issues simultaneously would have been like trying to square the circle. The antidote to poverty and inequality was government, requiring more taxes, more programs, just plain more. The antidote on the other side was less. Lower taxes, austerity, sequestration.
If this presidential race had quickly resolved to the candidates we expected to have, Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush, wed more or less be getting the usual conversation. But thanks to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Donald Trump and an anti-big- government Republican chorus that has included Sen. Rand Paul (Ky.), weve got something far more interesting in the works.
Republicans are finally waking up to the issues of the working class, even while continuing to decry big government. The editors at National Review last week called on the GOP to advance a compelling working-class agenda that doesnt leave the working class vulnerable to a demagogue. If the candidates listen, the pieces are in place to force the party to think through both halves of the dilemma facing the country.
What about the Democrats? Are they ready to face the fact that we have to figure out how to tackle inequality without further feeding the growth of state power? As Ive watched the campaign unfold, Ive come to the conclusion that OMalley is the only voice on the Democratic stage with the potential to resolve the dilemma.
Well, somebody has to do it. Somebody has to write about Martin OMalley. Hes a serious person, with serious things to say, and its a travesty that he hasnt gotten more coverage.
In this election, two big issues are colliding: broadly diminished economic opportunity and concerns about growing federal power, which in some forms battles over excessive surveillance, the war on drugs, police violence and the No Child Left Behind Act, for instance have shaken up long-standing left-right splits. On the surface, wage stagnation and income inequality appear to be Democratic turf, while worries about big government belong to the Republicans. For the latter half of the 20th century, tackling both issues simultaneously would have been like trying to square the circle. The antidote to poverty and inequality was government, requiring more taxes, more programs, just plain more. The antidote on the other side was less. Lower taxes, austerity, sequestration.
If this presidential race had quickly resolved to the candidates we expected to have, Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush, wed more or less be getting the usual conversation. But thanks to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Donald Trump and an anti-big- government Republican chorus that has included Sen. Rand Paul (Ky.), weve got something far more interesting in the works.
Republicans are finally waking up to the issues of the working class, even while continuing to decry big government. The editors at National Review last week called on the GOP to advance a compelling working-class agenda that doesnt leave the working class vulnerable to a demagogue. If the candidates listen, the pieces are in place to force the party to think through both halves of the dilemma facing the country.
What about the Democrats? Are they ready to face the fact that we have to figure out how to tackle inequality without further feeding the growth of state power? As Ive watched the campaign unfold, Ive come to the conclusion that OMalley is the only voice on the Democratic stage with the potential to resolve the dilemma.
In recent years, economists and political scientists have routinely pointed out how municipal and regional decisions about transportation, mobility, housing, communications infrastructure and finance powerfully affect the distribution of opportunity. We often use zoning regulations, housing and transportation policy, and municipal funding structures in ways that generate socioeconomic and ethnic segregation. These policies reduce the likelihood that bridging ties connections between people across demographic cleavages form within our population. Significant bodies of research suggest that the more a society is characterized by bridging ties, the more egalitarian will be outcomes across economic, health and educational domains. To maximize these ties, we need policies that push in the opposite direction from those we have now.
The good news is that this doesnt require adding services and programs, only smarter choices about the things that governments already do and will always need to do. One can have a dramatic impact on the distribution of opportunity without increasing governments footprint. One just needs to use the existing levers differently.
This, it turns out, is just what OMalley, the former governor of Maryland, wants to do.
OMalley consistently says that one of his most important efforts as president would be a new agenda for our cities. (Full disclosure: I donated $100 to OMalley in 2015, along with $250 each to Clinton and Sanders.) This is worth paying attention to. Cities are places, OMalley told me when I traveled to hear him at one of his New Hampshire town halls, where we see still the most entrenched structural unemployment. Structural unemployment doesnt solve itself. We have to solve these things. You see in places like Flint, Michigan, the results of our underinvestment in infrastructure and underinvestment in our city centers. You see the gap in terms of criminal justice. So the opportunity gap and the justice gap is the greatest in Americas cities and yet we havent had an agenda to invest in cities since Jimmy Carter.
To address entrenched unemployment, OMalley, who is also former mayor of Baltimore, wants to invest in mobility, transportation and infrastructure. He wants investment in workforce housing so our cities remain economically diverse places so that we dont simply move poor families out of gentrifying neighborhoods. And he sees retrofitting cities for environmental sustainability as a major potential source of jobs.
Doing this, he points out, would give us a chance to take advantage of new efficiencies that have developed in cities. As he sees it, the levers and the mechanisms are already in place for doing many of these things. Mayors have become entrepreneurial and better at creating public-private partnerships that leverage those dollars many times over. He adds, Cities on their own have for the most part been improving how they govern and how they deliver services, but we have not yet really harnessed them for the economic engine and their potential.
So why do I think OMalley can help the Democratic Party reconsider its approach to the scale and scope of governmental power? Its true that OMalley does want to raise taxes on high earners, but the point of pride on which he distinguishes himself from Clinton and Sanders is his record of having balanced a budget 15 years in a row, including during a recession. He cares about fiscal discipline, and he wants to use resources from taxes as investments to be allocated by mayors and, presumably, governors. He places emphasis here rather than on expenditure through federal agencies.
OMalley is right. We could do a lot to reverse current economic patterns if we took seriously the infrastructure projects needed in our cities. We could use such projects to reconnect isolated groups to opportunity, and we could do this without expanding the administrative state. Theres a lot more to be said about how a federally supported, municipal-level agenda could rebuild an egalitarian economic structure for our country. But if were going to hear about it, I cant be the only one asking OMalley serious questions.'
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/ts-time-to-take-a-serious-look-at-martin-omalley/2016/01/27/1cf1f040-c465-11e5-a4aa-f25866ba0dc6_story.html
Danielle Allen is a political theorist at Harvard University and a contributing columnist for The Post.
Skwmom
(12,685 posts)Do the Democrats want to win?
Do the Democrats want to alienate one of their most loyal bases b/c I don't know who you talk to but mass illegal arrest of African Americans doesn't sell to well with the people I know. And when I watched the document about Freddie Gray I thought no wonder the police acted in the manner that they did (there was a long history of it being okay to treat Black people in such a manner). And spare me that my opinion is politically motivated. Some things should be above politics.
Fumesucker
(45,851 posts)Reagan never submitted a balance budget and Congress actually cut a couple of his budgets.
Republicans love a police state, love socialism for the wealthy, love very expensive wars and on and on..
elleng
(130,865 posts)Fumesucker
(45,851 posts)They got a basic indisputable fact wrong, why should we listen to anything else they might say?
elleng
(130,865 posts)and how?
Fumesucker
(45,851 posts)He's deluded and believes Republican propaganda.
Good grief, the last Republican administration *buried* this country in debt and this mouth breather thinks they are for smaller government, he doesn't have a clue.
elleng
(130,865 posts)and the author, professor of government and director of the Edmund J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard, is a woman.
Fumesucker
(45,851 posts)Mistaking propaganda for fact is not a sign of clear thinking and the "Republicans are for smaller government" meme is a clumsily catapulted propaganda talking point that's in stark contrast to the actual facts on the ground.
I have a lousy GED and I understand the Republicans better than the director of the Edmund J Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard.
The piece starts with untruthful propaganda, deliberate or not and I'm not sure which is more damning.
FSogol
(45,480 posts)The GOP is just talk and your misinterpretation (a lot of the going around, huh?) doesn't invalidate the writer's points about O'Malley.
Fumesucker
(45,851 posts)It's a lie, Patriot Act, Homeland Security, a several trillion dollar war begun under false pretenses and deficits reaching to the skies are the legacy of the last Republican administration.
They worry they can't shovel enough public money to their wealthy supporters in the private sector.
FSogol
(45,480 posts)You are splitting hairs to be disagreeable about another O'Malley article, just like the other day. Nothing the writer said about them is incorrect.
Fumesucker
(45,851 posts)Not "claim to worry about big government", there is a profound difference.
FSogol
(45,480 posts)Peacetrain
(22,875 posts)cut everything they needed for the republican talking point of smaller govt.. I live in a very red area.. and that has always been the republican talking points.. cut goverment.. cut goverment.. not realizing goverment is the people for the people.. They are selective on what big government they want to cut.. that is a fact..
Fumesucker
(45,851 posts)My posts weren't about O'Malley but rather the author of the article, I have no idea if the person is deliberately spreading Republican propaganda or is simply too ignorant to recognize it for what it is.
If it's ignorance then all I can say is God help us all, a high powered Harvard political theorist who could be whomped by half of DU at least.
FSogol
(45,480 posts)bigtree
(85,987 posts)"Are they ready to face the fact that we have to figure out how to tackle inequality without further feeding the growth of state power? As Ive watched the campaign unfold, Ive come to the conclusion that OMalley is the only voice on the Democratic stage with the potential to resolve the dilemma."
Peacetrain
(22,875 posts)KittyWampus
(55,894 posts)and to engage in immature wishful thinking. Watching them was like watching lemmings go over a cliff. They won't switch. It's all about ideologues lining up behind an Ideologue who promises them rainbow crapping unicorns.
Hillary supporters are also too committed.
Undecideds? At this point I doubt O'Malley will gather enough momentum to catch their attention but I hope I'm wrong.
FSogol
(45,480 posts)elleng
(130,865 posts)demmiblue
(36,841 posts)aikoaiko
(34,169 posts)Bernie and Hillary sucked all the all our of the room. They defined the Democratic nominee race and a compromise candidate doesn't seem that appealing to a lot of people.
elleng
(130,865 posts)so too EARLY to count anyone out. Basing decisions on 'polls' would be mistakes, imo.
aikoaiko
(34,169 posts)Bernie was once single digits, too. Anything can happen.
elleng
(130,865 posts)so this 'poll' seems to be more fantasyland than others.
DaGimpster
(130 posts)That Martin O'Malley has, at the minimum, a future cabinet spot waiting for him. I think some time needs to pass on the issues in Baltimore/Maryland-at-large though.
This is just one persons opinion.
Agnosticsherbet
(11,619 posts)I like his record on gun regulation better than Clinton.
In a year where Clinton had such a high profile, and Sanders emerged as the Candidate of the deep left, he has not taken hold.
He will be good for 2020, if the unthinkable happens, or 2024.
FBaggins
(26,729 posts)I prefer Bernie.
Hell Hath No Fury
(16,327 posts)Been paying attention to him in the debates and reading what I can.
one_voice
(20,043 posts)the floors. Good read for the break!
Thanks for posting.
K&R