“If a foreign adversary snuck into our Federal budget and cut science research and education the way we’re cutting it ourselves — strategically undermining America’s long-term health, wealth, and security — we would likely consider it an act of war.” (Thom Hartman quoting Neil deGrasse Tyson)
Who the hell is Jude Wanniski? I’ll get to that soon enough. First though I want to say I now know why Trump wanted to sign his “Big Beautiful Bill” before Memorial Day. He hopes when he does (and it’s looking like it will pass) it will be the final insult to all those buried across the Potomac at Arlington, and in other cemeteries around the country. His way of proving he was right that all who served and especially those who died were suckers and losers as our governing institutions crumble due to over four decades of GOP effort.
In the 2000 recount fight James Baker told his team they were in a bar fight for the Presidency of the United States. A war. Cyrus Vance, heading up the Gore team treated it like a boxing match where rules were respected. We know how it turned out and the consequences. However the ‘bar fight/war’ Baker referenced had been going on for decades prior. Democrats kept playing by the rules and Republicans kept breaking them.
Make no mistake. Conservatives have always been at war with the very idea of there being a solid middle class in this country. And by extension those in the middle class moving up to a higher class, working class becoming solidly middle class and poor people moving up into the lower/working class. WE don’t seem to have accepted that outright economic warfare has been being waged. There’s a mention of it once in a blue moon but we NEED a full out and sustained campaign to call it out. And to fight back.
A lot of us have been unhappy that Democratic leadership hasn’t fought back harder, even viciously at times. I also think about Star Trek and the Kobayshi Maru “no win’ scenario. Kirk ‘beat’ by changing the program so he could win. Jude Wanniski was the GOP’s Kirk, changing the conditions of the test. Or elections. It’s long past time to find our own version of Kirk to change to put REPUBLICANS back into a no-win scenario!
If you’ve read this far I can understand your asking what has gotten into me. Ok, that’s a fair, reasonable question. I read an article from Alternet about a Thom Hartman OpEd. Alternet’s headline speaks of the GOP pulling off the biggest con of the last century. I think it’s the biggest con in our country’s entire history. Hartman’s piece is a long read. Yes, it’s worth the time. I knew a great deal of what it talks about but taken as a whole, it and another OpEd of Hartman’s linked to (I’ll get to that) easily worth your time. If like me you love our country for all its flaws you have a duty to learn why and how this all started.
And that while Reagan might have been the one who began implementing the destruction of post New Deal/WWII America it was a guy I’d never heard of who came up with the strategy. His name is Jude Wanniski who was a conservative economist who for a time was an associate editor at the Wall Street Journal. Alas, he went on to other things. Specifically he began consulting/working for some influential Republicans His evil genius ‘master stroke’ was his creation of his “Two Santas” Strategy.
If you thought Nixon’s and the GOP’s infamous electoral “Southern Strategy” was appalling it’s small potatoes compared to the Two Santa Clause Theory described in the Wikipedia link I just provided. I’ll be honest. I’d never heard of it. Frankly, that’s by design! I can easily recall all the talk about economist Arthur Laffer and his infamous Laffer Curve but I don’t recall EVER hearing/reading how Laffer, like others were working from the theory created by Jude Wanniski.
I’m equal parts horrified and disgusted to only be learning about it now because it’s at the heart of the Reagan, Bush and Trump Tax Cuts and other GOP policies that have devastated first the middle class, then the lower/working class and is about to crush the poor. What is Wanniski’s Two Santa theory? From Wikipedia:
The Two Santa Claus Theory is a political theory and strategy published by Wanniski in 1976, which he promoted within the United States Republican Party.[15][16] The theory states that in democratic elections, if members of the rival Democratic Party appeal to voters by proposing programs to help people, then the Republicans cannot gain broader appeal by proposing less spending. The first “Santa Claus” of the theory title refers to the Democrats who promise programs to help the disadvantaged. The “Two Santa Claus Theory” recommends that the Republicans must assume the role of a second Santa Claus by not arguing to cut spending but offering the option of cutting taxes.[15]
According to Wanniski, the theory is simple. In 1976, he wrote that the Two-Santa Claus Theory suggests that “the Republicans should concentrate on tax-rate reduction. As they succeed in expanding incentives to produce, they will move the economy back to full employment and thereby reduce social pressures for public spending. Just as an increase in Government spending inevitably means taxes must be raised, a cut in tax rates—by expanding the private sector—will diminish the relative size of the public sector.”[16] Wanniski suggested this position, as left-liberal observer Thom Hartmann has clarified, so that the Democrats would “have to be anti-Santas by raising taxes, or anti-Santas by cutting spending. Either one would lose them elections.”[17]
What we, or at least I have spent most of my adult life thinking of as “Reaganomics”, not just Reagan’s (and Bush 41’s) economic policies branded as “Supply Side” was actually Wanniski’s creation. His name for his strategy wasn’t exactly marketable but conservatives have always had a talent for creatively naming things to mislead the public. “Supply Side” sold. So Bush 43 was able to foist a second (and third) round on us, then Trump gave us yet another in his first term. EACH time the deficit EXPLODED.
And that’s where the evil genius Wanniski’s Two Santas strategy kicks in. Many times I’ve read/heard about Republican’s whining about the national debt being crocodile tears. I’ve said and written it myself many times. Now and then there’s been a batch of stories with a them of ‘Democrats are tax and spend while Republicans are tax cut/borrow and spend’, ‘or Republicans mess up the economy with massive budget deficits and increasing of the national debt and then Democrats have to come in and fix the damage.’ The thing is, this kind of scrutiny should have been a major topic in the news every single week for decades! It’s worth asking why that has NOT been the case.
It’s also worth asking why, even though Hartman published a specific and detailed accounting of Wanniski’s Two Santa Strategy before the end of 2024 (anticipating what was coming this spring) it didn’t turn into a national discussion. That OpEd calls it the Republican Santa Scam and I think that’s a great way to think of and talk about it. Again, it’s a detailed read but I can’t urge you strongly enough to make the time. It goes far beyond the Wikipedia entry I blocked out above. I guess I’m referring to the philosophy about first accurately defining a problem before trying to fix it.
It boils down to this. Rich conservatives have always HATED the very thought of Average Americans having enough money to live decent lives, and helping those who needed some assistance to get by even more! Progressive, going back to FDR’s New Deal were not just lifted out of poverty, but provided means/tools to actually live the American dream of having a decent life, and providing the next generation a chance to even do a little better. THAT simply won’t do for rich and powerful conservatives.
Democrats provided the means for Americans to achieve many of their dreams. GOP claims that was “wrong” and simply opposing it was proving to be a losing electoral strategy. In fact it was a losing strategy that left them with no way to win. Worse it would continue to unless they changed the ballgame. They needed a way to ‘flip the script’ and Wanniski invented the poison they needed to inject into this country’s bloodstream. It worked so well that at Harman noted fifty TRILLION of wealth got transferred from average Americans into the hands of a relatively few elites. Now they want the rest and if breaking America is what it takes THEY DON’T CARE!
What has both depressed and yet fueled me with anger today is this use of the Two Santa Strategy to put Democrats in a no-win situation with voters has been well known in GOP circles for four decades (plus) now. So of COURSE Democrats knew that was the GOP playbook. The lack of educating the public, of FORCING news outlets to cover this in all its ugliness is in itself appalling.
I’ve said before sometimes you have to accept that even if you don’t want to be you can find yourself in a bar fight. When that happens you have to conduct yourself accordingly and THAT means doing whatever you have to do to get out of there with minimal injury. Hitting people with broken chair or table legs, beer bottles, gouging faces, ear biting if in a clinch. Whatever it takes to put the person/people trying to put YOU down down themselves! Bill Clinton in retrospect tried appeasement. Had Gore succeeded him it might have even worked although the repeal of Glass-Steagall signed by Clinton was a time-bomb. Which went off in 2008.
However we have to face the fact that the GOP flipped the script on the Democratic Party due to Wanniski’s strategy and we HAVE to find a way to flip it back. I realize this is itself a dense read. But this weekend of all weekends we need to remember what this holiday is about. It’s not sales, or cookouts and the like. It’s about remembering those who gave so much service including their very lives to build the America that existed prior to Ronald Reagan’s election. It’s about our DUTY to fight Trump’s determination to make all those who gave so much dismissed as “suckers and loser.” To do so you have to understand how we got to that point.
So once again I urge you to set aside an hour this weekend. HONOR those we should be honoring this weekend by reading both of the Hartman OpEds I’ve linked to here. Figure out how in your own words to explain it to others, and to take elected officials (including Democrats) to task. We can do it. We have to do it!
***Zoomers, we are always in need of donations. It’s been an especially rough month and my own health has not been great these past few weeks, which just adds to the frustration. Anything you can spare will be immensely appreciated. And thank you to all who have donated generously already. Ursula***
This made me cry. It feels like that no matter what we do, we’re fcked. And if it passes with that nasty little bit I wrote about tRump becoming a king, we HAVE NO OPTIONS LEFT. Elections will become a thing of the past. Lawsuits and the courts will become irrelevant.
Agent Orange will not be a King Charles and rule the country wisely and well, to know enough not to go mucking around with what works just fine. It’s North Korea coming. I’ve been calling amd emailing and even writing my Congress Critters. I’m afraid it won’t make a difference.
If you add in what you just wrote about, with that nasty bit I wrote about, the future looks dark and bleak. I don’t see any light. And I may curse the female side of the family because we are VERY long lived, to 100 years and *more* with nearly everyone keeping away from dementia. Actually I can only think of one grandparent that went into that and I have a good idea of why because *her* mom did not and she lived to 102!!!
The Armed Forces and what they have done is very important to me. My granddad was a chaplain in one of the wars, although I can never remember which one, which is embarrassing. Heh. My brother is a retired Marine. I don’t forget those who gave their lives for me. If this bill gets passed all of that will have been in vain.
We won’t even be able to move and escape. The future is bleak.
Sure…it ‘looks bleak’, but let’s remember, none of us has a crystal ball on tomorrow. None of us really are in possession of complete knowledge and foresight, especially people who hate or are afraid to think. Given the reality of the universe, it’s just another form of arrogance and self deception to throw the towel in based on how things appear.
OUCH, Scott! That was unfair. And uncalled for. I’ll just stop with that statement.
Adam Mockler has a video that picks out some of the hidden provisions of this massive bill. It’s unbelievably corrupt. I think markets are going to react very negatively when investors have had a chance to read it and understand its consequences for the economy and the national debt. The $300 million FEMA carve-out to protect Mar-a-Lago suggests trump is expecting threats on his life and property.
Adam Mockler is here:
This should/must not be hidden, small print. It needs to be SHOUTED FROM THE ROOFTOPS. While Headline news in every TV and Radio channel, every local, regional and national print outlet. “Aye, there’s the rub” quoth Hamlet, mindful of the present supine MSM, the distractions of tax cuts for the rich et al.
How about BLUE for the Dems: Base Levelling UP Economics? Demonstrating that a tax cut for those under $Xk will all be spent meaning more spending, ; a tax cut for those earning $Yk creating jobs and incomes but who will save some generating investment resources paid for by economic growth and increased taxes on wealth (which will not affect their spending by the same percentages). There is ample world wide evidence where relative levelling of incomes after tax allows prosperity all. Surely a message that can be told in stories.
But then I forget the American Reality: All for it, so long as I have more than them uns. A hard psyche to break
I started listening to Tom Hartmann’s 2 Santa Claus theory 20 years ago. I always wondered why it wasn’t common knowledge at that time.