Dying Breeds: Moderate Republicans and Spanish Socialists
Dying Breeds: Moderate Republicans and Spanish Socialists
Brandon Storm: Moderate Republicans and Spanish Socialists
One of the more notable acronyms to enter the American political lexicon in recent years is the RINO, short for Republican in Name Only?an emerging pariah of the right. In 2010 in particular, a slew of moderate Republicans was taken down in primaries across the country by eccentric right-wingers and Tea Party darlings empowered by newly energized and vocal grassroots groups.
As I was chatting with a similarly energetic and vocal young woman on the left in a working-class barrio of the capital of Socialist Party?controlled Spain last month, such grim developments were far from my mind. Her concern wasn?t RINOs, but SINOs?the Socialists in Name Only of the ruling PSOE (Partido Socialista Obrero de España). With Spain still reeling from the explosion of a huge real estate bubble, and saddled with an unemployment rate of over 20 percent as well as plummeting confidence in the value of public debt, the PSOE government has been trying to placate worries it could spark a eurozone-disintegrating catastrophe by implementing austerity measures that have come into vogue in Europe.
Indeed, the austerity bug has spread to ?socialist? governments in countries with economies in even worse straits than Spain?s. The infamous bailout of Greece?s economy became necessary after the socialist prime minister, George Papandreou, put in place an austerity plan that not only sparked nationwide strikes but failed to adequately repair Greece?s fiscal health. In Portugal the socialist leader José Sócrates recently resigned after the Portuguese legislature rejected his austerity measures and Portugal was forced to become the third European country, after Greece and Ireland, to accept a bailout. Across Europe, socialist governments are enacting some of the most Spartan budgets around.
The very mention of Prime Minister Zapatero of Spain or his party was enough to bring a grimace to my madrileña friend?s face. ?They?re not really socialists,? she explained disdainfully. After my initial surprise, I began to see what could spark such scorn. After all, what solutions were they really offering for the stagnating economy and millions of unemployed? Cutting spending and implementing austerity measures less severely than their counterparts on the right might have? Like her, I was left with nothing to do but sigh and shake my head at the intractable mire the ?Socialists? seemed incapable of pulling the country out of.
This fatigued reaction is symptomatic of one thing these SINOs do not have in common with the North American RINO: an energetic, grassroots movement pushing against them. The truly leftist Izquierda Unida?the only visible national party outside of the center-left and center-right PSOE and Partido Popular?has played as marginal a role in Spanish politics in recent years as it ever has.
It also reminded me of another notable development in American political culture, one that I have felt more acutely than the plight of the RINOs and SINOs fighting for survival: the growing disenchantment of the Left with a charismatic leader who seems more eager to placate worries and appear moderate than mobilize those who are on his side. To be fair, President Obama is a long way from the precipitous slide into unpopularity his Spanish counterpart has undergone. Still, he should be cautioned by the situation in Europe.
While Obama?s recent budget speech succeeded in providing an eloquent, reasonable vision for bringing down the deficit, in sharp contrast to that of House Republicans, this in itself is a problem; after conceding to a budget deal that cut $38 billion in spending, the debate is no longer centered around whether we should cut spending but how we should cut spending. At times the president seems to acknowledge this, saying that he is ?sympathetic? to the view that spending should not be cut until a full recovery. However, this is immediately qualified with the assertion that ?doing nothing on the deficit is just not an option. Our debt has grown so large that we could do real damage to the economy if we don?t begin a process now to get our fiscal house in order.?
This warning is nothing compared to the Malthusian predictions of economic doom?trillions of dollars in interests payments our children will have to pay to, gasp, China?that Obama also uses to justify the primacy of cutting debt. But if the fate of Sócrates and Zapatero should teach us anything, it?s that what makes politicians popular on election day is not how reasonable of a plan to tackle debt they propose but how many people voting have jobs.
At a time when unemployment continues to hover just under double digits, a White House that has been overly bullish on the strength of the economy from the get go seems more inclined to focus on the former. And as Christina Romer?the President?s former top economic adviser, whose urgings for a bigger stimulus and more federal spending were largely ignored?has recently asserted, the administration is not acting as aggressively to combat unemployment as it could be.
What both my madrileña friend and I and the American people need is something we can sink our teeth into?not damage control, but aggressive action to make sure we get back on the right footing. Ceding tens of billions of dollars from the budget without much of a fight at a time when unemployment is still languishing is not going to cut it any more than austerity plans have in Spain. We can only hope that as House Republicans once again try to hijack the budget in the looming battle to raise the debt ceiling, the president will focus less on coming across as the rational proponent of compromise and more on fighting tooth-and-nail for the policies we deserve.
