There was a time not very long ago when I believed that most human beings could be reached through reason.  You know:  you make what you consider a solid and persuasive argument, back it up with hard facts, and you assume that the average person will agree eventually with what you have to say.  And if they don't agree, you would hope that it's because they had solid arguments themselves to back up their own positions. 

But as I've gotten older I've begun to realize that human beings are influenced much more by things like strong emotions (fear, anger, indignation), ideology, and social prejudices than by logic, reason, or rationality.  Case in point:  The South.  The Huffington Post had a wonderful article recently that shows just how backwards the entire region we call the South is on just about any measure of social progress: 

The South is poorer, less upwardly mobile, more unhealthy, and much unhappier than the rest of the country.  One would think that the people who live in these southern states would welcome any sort of governmental assistance that they can get, but that's not the case.  In fact, southern states are at the forefront of the movement to cut government programs that assist the most vulnerable members of the society (children, the handicapped, the mentally ill, substance abusers, the elderly, and pregnant women).   Reason all you want with a southerner who thinks that government is the problem, but it probably won't convince him that many of the social difficulties that he experiences in his state are in fact the result of too little government, not too much. 

Prior to the last presidential election, film-maker Angela Pelosi tried to understand the anti-governmental attitudes of people in Mississippi, one of the most backward states in the Union, according to the data in the Huffington Post article. While the people she interviewed may be more extreme than the average Mississippian, the attitudes expressed seem to be typical, insofar as the citizens of this state continue to vote consistently against their own self-interest:

I'm not trying to pick on the South here.  I'm sure that there are many fine, decent people living south of the Mason-Dixon line.  And I don't think that the cult of the irrational exists solely in the south.   For example, Pelosi also interviewed citizens of New Jersey after Hurricane Sandy to ask anti-government folks there what programs should be cut from the federal budget.  The answers that she received to this question were as painful as they were funny:

Keep in mind that these were all people who thought that the size of government ought to be cut substantially, but, when they had to explain exactly which government programs ought to be cut, they seemed to become transformed all of a sudden into New York liberals.  Once again, ideology and self-interest trump logic and reason.

So, if large segments of our American population seem to be totally impervious to rational arguments and even self-evident facts, how is it possible to persuade such individuals of the "truth"?  Either one has to resort to flagrantly rhetorical appeals to emotion (hardly philosophical) or one attempts to engage in rational discourse, knowing that his or her arguments will inevitably fall on deaf ears.   

In short, how can philosophical argumentation work at all in a society where the average citizen hasn't been educated to understand the value of reason in the first place?  It's a dilemma that I don't have any easy answers for.  I can't help thinking, however, that this great love affair that we Americans are currently having with the irrational doesn't bode too well for the future of our country. 

The 2012 Presidential Election has shown us that the religious landscape of America appears to have changed dramatically and perhaps irrevocably. White Christians overwhelmingly desired Mitt Romney to be the President of the United States, but discovered—much to their surprise—that they lacked the political clout necessary to achieve this goal.

Evangelicals, in particular, seemed shocked that they had so little power to affect the course of the election. In the election of 2000, Evangelical support helped George W. Bush win the White House and win re-election in 2004. In 2012, their overwhelming support for Mitt Romney was almost futile.

The country is changing rapidly and the changes that are occurring don’t bode well for the future of religious conservatives in general. For example:

• One-fifth of Americans now claim no religious affiliation at all (Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, 2012). 
• One-third of Americans ages 18 to 22 self-identify as atheists, agnostics, or claim no religious attachments at all. 
• These younger Americans, furthermore, are more likely to have a liberal outlook (70% of those who had no religious affiliation voted Democratic in the 2012 presidential election). They are also more likely to have tolerant views on abortion and same sex marriage and to take environmental concerns, like climate change, very seriously. 

In short, conservative manifestations of religious belief definitely seem to be on the wane throughout the United States and one could image a time in the not-too-distant future when the United States will look more like Europe: people might still identify themselves culturally with a particular religion and participate in services to celebrate significant transitional periods in their lives (marriage, childbirth, death, etc.), but they’ll keep organized religion at a distance and all but ignore the political and moral exhortations of religious leaders completely.

If one looks at the Catholic Church, for example, one can see this sort of change already occurring. The Church continues to rail against abortion, contraception, gay marriage and pre-martial sex. But its message is all but ignored by its members. When it comes to contraception in particular, Catholics clearly like their condoms and birth control pills and are not likely to give them up, no matter what the bishops—or the Pope for that matter—have to say on the subject.

What impact will these religious changes have on the politics of the United States? For one thing, I think that it is going to be very difficult for the Republican Party to win over younger Americans in the future if it continues to identify itself so closely with old white angry Evangelicals. The party might regain some influence if it could move beyond social issues, like abortion, and focus on its more traditional “small government, lower taxes” message. If it can’t do this, the Republican Party will increasingly become politically irrelevant—a party of fringe wackos who have nothing practical to offer the American people.

On a more positive note, I think that the death of religious conservatives and religious fundamentalism will ultimately be a good thing for the country. For the past decade the country has been held hostage by a group of religious extremists who really do believe that the end of the world is coming almost immediately, and that, therefore, it’s a waste of time to try to solve long-term problems like climate change. Once these extremists go the way of the dinosaur, perhaps we can begin to take a more long-term view of what’s ailing our country and our planet and actually create rational policies to address the issues that face us.

At the very least, it will definitely be a very good thing to be in a country in which the next generation actually begins to take its responsibilities to our planet more seriously and are not fixated on teotwawki (the end of the world as we know it). I might actually enjoy living in a world like that!

Here it is…It’s the evidence that demonstrates conclusively that I am completely beyond redemption, that I have no true moral standards, and that I am as shallow as the shallowest of my fellow countrymen.I hate to admit it, and I only do so because I believe that the writer of blogs must be candid, even about the most odious of personal details.  I do so knowing full well that I will be completely shunned by all civilized society…and deservedly so. 

Here it is in a nutshell:I liked Bill Clinton’s speech at the Democratic Convention.  And even worse, I couldn’t help liking the man who delivered it.

Now get this straight: I never voted for Bill Clinton, I never approved of him as President, and I always thought of him as a sell-out for supporting NAFTA and welfare reform.  I certainly do not think of him as a true progressive any more than I do President Obama.  But you’ve got to hand it to him: The man knows how to COMMUNICATE.  More than any other living politician, Clinton knows how to take a complicated message (i.e., Obama’s health care reform plan) and SELL IT in a way that ordinary, uneducated rubes in places like Arkansas and Alabama can understand.  He also knows how to play upon the audience’s emotions and aspirations better than any American politician since Ronald Regan.

If only Obama were as adept as communicating his own vision for the country.  The problem is that, while Obama is a great speaker, he is a horrible communicator and persuader.  He probably saved the country from a depression through his prudent governance after the economic meltdown in 2008, and he definitely offers a more reasonable economic plan for the future than Romney, who sincerely believes that every problem the country faces can be solved by giving millionaires and billionaires more tax breaks .  But Obama never effectively “sold” any of his policies to the American people, and as a result most Americans don’t really believe that he has done much of anything in the past four years. 

Back to Bill Clinton.  He is a charlatan, a narcissist, and has absolutely no moral center.  But, when he talks,  you can’t help feeling that he believes what he says and that what he says is the gospel truth.   If Obama’s lucky, perhaps the American people will accept what Preacher Bill said at the convention as gospel and give him four more years in the White House. 

If he wins in November, Obama might want to consider working on his poor communications skills. And who knows: maybe Bill Clinton will even give him a 20% discount on charisma lessons.

As some people get older they find themselves becoming more and more conservative; for me, the situation has been the exact opposite.  With each passing year, I find myself becoming more and more of a social and economic liberal.  I see what the other side stands for and I get frightened for the future of our country. 

Just to give you an idea of where I stand politically, I view President Obama more as a moderate conservative than as a liberal.  He has governed as a center right politician, and many of his policies are quite similar, in fact, to those of his predecessor, George W. Bush.  To think that this guy is a socialist, as some wacky right-wingers do, is simply the height of delusion. 

If the stakes weren't so high I would probably support a Green Party candidate for president or even a Republican progressive like Buddy Roemer, who at least expresses some concern about the dangerous role of corporate money in our elections.  But, after what has happened in Wisconsin yesterday, it would be morally irresponsible for me to do anything like that.

In case you haven't been following the news for the past year, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker was forced to fight an extremely tough recall election after basically trying to strip public workers in that state of collective bargaining rights.  He is probably the most loathsome governor in the country--and given how many despicable right-wing governors there are all around the country right now, that's saying a hell of a lot. 

There really wasn't much of a realistic chance that Walker would lose the recall election.  As soon as the monied elite in this country saw what was going on, they pumped millions of dollars to prop Walker up in the campaign.  In fact, out of state corporate money helped Walker outspend his Democratic opponent, Tom Barrett, by almost eight-to-one.

The recall election in Wisconsin is almost certainly a rehearsal for what is going to happen in November.  Corporate interests are poised to spend over a billion dollars to defeat Obama and, if possible, take control of both houses of Congress.  Money buys elections in the United States and the 1% in this country want one of their own as President.  They are not likely to find a more compliant servant then they'll get in the form of Mitt Romney. 

The 2012 presidential election, in fact, could move the country so far to the right that our American democracy itself could be at risk.   With the tremendous disparity between rich and poor in this country, the vanishing middle class, and corporate control over our government, the United States is rapidly becoming a classic banana republic.  The only question now is whether we'll be the first world equivalent of Bolivia or Uzbekistan. 

That's the reason why I'm supporting a conservative--Barack Obama--for President in the fall.  It's not because I like conservative ideology or governing policies.  It's just that, given a choice between a conservative Democrat who at least talks a good game about issues like income inequality and a candidate beholden to a party that is moving inexorably towards corporate-sponsored fascism, I'll choose the conservative every time.

It would be nice if there was a real progressive candidate who could win the Presidential election in the fall--the 21st century equivalent of a Franklin Roosevelt or Bobby Kennedy--but that's probably not going to happen.  So I'm going to grit my teeth and support Barack Obama for President in November. 

Sadly, it's the only sensible thing a realistic progressive like myself can do.

I hate people who thrive on causing pain and suffering to others.  That's why I hate rapists, pedophile priests, and child abusers.  But these folks are practically saint-like compared to another group that has it in, not just for specific individuals, but for entire generations of human beings not even born yet. 

The individuals I'm referring to are those who, out of purely ideological motivations or because they are whores for corporate interests, continue to spread the idea that global warming is a hoax perpetuated by rabid environmental wackos who hate our beautiful American way of life.  What these folks typically do is find some fringe, right-leaning "scientist" who has "hard data" that proves either that global warming is not really happening at all or that it is not caused by human activity.

Of course, there's virtually unanimous agreement among serious scientists that global warming is real, that it is caused mainly by the spewing of carbon emissions into the atmosphere, and that the consequences, if we don't get a handle on this problem, are dire for our species and for the planet as a whole. 

Period. 

End of story. 

There is no real debate about global warming.  There's only the truth that we are screwing up the planet because of our selfish, short-sighted, materialistic human activities and there's the reality that, if we want future generations to inherit a planet that is not completely inhospitable to human life, we'd better act now, before it's too late.   This means living far more sustainably, consuming much less, and radically reducing our global CO2 emissions.

But global-warming deniers will do all they can to prevent us from changing our lifestyles in any way that will cut into fat corporate profits.  The more we consume and the more we use fossil fuels to heat our homes and drive our cars, the more profits there are for multinational corporations like Exxon and General Motors.  And the way our economy is set up, just about the only thing that really matters is nice, bloated profits.  The well-being of future generations is a luxury that a corporation can't afford to consider.

The global warming deniers, however, may finally have gone too far.  Recently, the Heartland Institute, a right-wing think tank funded by - you guessed it - corporations interested in spreading doubts about the reality of global warming, created an ad campaign comparing those "who still believe in global warming" to some of the world's most notorious murderers, like Theodore J. Kaczynski (aka The Unibomber) and Charles Manson.  According to the Institute, "what these murderers and and madmen have done differs very little from what spokespersons for the United Nations, journalists for the 'mainstream media' and liberal politicians say about global warming."

After receiving a torrent of criticism from liberals as well as conservatives, the Heartland Institute suspended its nasty campaign.  You can be quite sure, however, that this won't be the end of their attempts to spread misinformation and raise doubts about the legitimacy of global warming.  It's the same strategy that the tobacco industry used to try to cause confusion about the health risks of cigarette smoking.

But just as this misinformation spread by the tobacco industry created a backlash against cigarette smoking, so too will global warming deniers, like those at the Heartland Institute, eventually go too far with their malicious lies.   All right-wing ideologues, after all, share a similar contempt for the intelligence of the average person.  That will ultimately prove to be their down-fall.  The more extreme they get in spreading their propaganda, the more attention they draw to the issue of climate change, and the more they ultimately help those of us on the left to get the truth out.

In the meanwhile, feel free to let the Heartland Institute know exactly how you feel about their campaign of lies!

There’s a war going on as I write this post—a war that will determine precisely what kind of country we will become in the 21st century.  And Sandra Fluke, a student at Georgetown law school, has emerged as the hero of the hour in this war.   

Ms. Fluke, former president of the Georgetown Law Students for Reproductive Justice and an editor on the Georgetown Journal of Gender and the Law, had been engaged in a struggle with Georgetown University over the university’s refusal to provide insurance coverage for contraception.  Prevented last week from testifying at the overtly misogynistic hearing Republicans held in the House of Representatives, she was given a forum to speak at a Democratic event, where she reported that students at her university often pay as much as $1000 a year for contraceptives.That simple statement of fact prompted right-wing blow-hard and Oxycontin pill popper, Rush Limbaugh, to slander her in the most appalling manner possible.  “What does that make her?” he asked.  “It makes her a slut, right?  It makes her a prostitute.”  These comments provoked a slew of denunciations from Democrats, and even Republicans like John Boehner and Mitt Romney attempted to distance themselves from Limbaugh, knowing full well the violent reaction that these words would provoke, particularly among women.  

But Limbaugh himself was unrepentant.  On Wednesday, he went on to throw even more fuel into the fire he had started by offering this piece of advice to Ms. Fluke:  “If we’re going to pay for your contraceptives and thus pay for you to have sex, we want something for it.  We want you to post the videos online so we can all watch.” 

It would seem that, according to Limbaugh and the conservatives who support him, any woman who uses birth control is not only a slut and a prostitute, but an aspiring porn star as well. 

Despite the equivocation of some conservatives on this issue, there’s no doubt in my mind that the right-wing agenda in this country is fixated on turning back the clock on women’s reproductive rights.   The problem for conservatives is that the war for control over reproductive rights was fought and won by women over 40 years ago, and there is no conceivable way that any reasonable woman is going to allow pasty old white men and clerics to strip them of the freedom that they now take for granted.   Indeed, when over 90% of all Catholic women use some form of birth control—despite their Church’s attempts over the years to demonize the practice—you know that contraception is not an issue any longer in most Americans’ minds.  It’s about as controversial as the question of what fabric softener to use. 
When reactionaries like Limbaugh or Rick Santorum start to challenge the validity of these rights, all they will really succeed in doing is completely alienating reasonable women around the country.  Furthermore, by continually harping on these sorts of issues, conservatives will ultimately drive women out of the Republican Party, just as they have driven out minorities, gays, and those who care about issues like environmental protection, civil liberties, and the separation of church and state.  The only people who will be left in the Party will be the most extreme reactionaries and fanatics, whose sole agenda will be to return the country to a time when women knew their place (i.e., in the kitchen and in the bedroom) and the good ole boys could run the country without interference from those with wombs or excessive pigmentation in their skins. 

So much thanks is owed to Sandra Fluke for providing progressives with a new weapon with which to fight the new fronts that are opening up in the culture wars.   Sometimes, it takes a woman of courage to remind the rest of us how easily freedom can be undermined without extreme vigilance. 

Two classes this semester—one filled with very liberal students (my Long Island Experience class); the other filled with a very high percentage of conservative students (my Rhetoric class). I gave an on-line Political Compass Test to the first group and they scored off the charts as having a left/libertarian bent. The latter group, which includes a high percentage of business majors, on the other hand, fought with me over the issue of the death penalty last class, not because they were opposed to the idea of execution, but because some of the students thought lethal injection was too kind. Not exactly a liberal stance to be sure!

Over the past four or five years, I’ve noticed that the college-aged students I teach are, in fact, becoming much more progressive overall. This is in keeping with nationwide trends that young Americans are moving to the left on many political and social issues. From my experience, the average college student today is extremely concerned about environmental issues, opposes any kind of discrimination on the basis of factors beyond a person’s control (race, gender, sexual orientation), thinks that people should have the right to live any way they want provided they don’t interfere with the rights of other people to do the same, generally supports the idea of universal health care, has a tolerant attitude towards immigration, believes that the rich control too much power in this country, and thinks government has an important role to play in promoting the welfare of its citizens.

This trend seems to suggest that conservatives will have a difficult time appealing to this generation, because their values are so at odds with those of most young Americans. Indeed, Barak Obama won the under 30 year old voting block by ridiculously high margins in 2008 and will probably do the same this time around as well. In short, the future bodes extremely well for the liberal-progressive agenda.

In the end, the conservative-leaning students in my Rhetoric class represent an anomaly among educated young people in the United Sates. Their views have probably been skewed living in a reactionary place like Nassau County, coming from conservative-leaning families, and having majors that promote a conservative world-view like Business, Law, and Criminal Justice. I have no doubt, however, that many of these students will probably see their views becoming more like the mainstream of their age-group once they leave home and get a first-hand perspective on just how unjust the world actually is.

So, I’m fairly optimistic about the ultimate triumph of the kind of progressive agenda that I’ve always supported. In another decade, the Eisenhower generation will be gone, and what will be left will be the Baby Boomers who grew up in the 60s and younger generations whose minds have been shaped by the best that the 1960s had to offer: a world-view that is tolerant, open to diverse ideas, committed to social justice, and dedicated to correcting the harm that has been done to our global ecosystems.

And what an amazing world that will be!

According to a recent report issued by the Mercatus Center, a libertarian-leaning think tank out of George Mason University, one-third of all Americans received some form of means-based public assistance, like Medicaid or food stamps, in 2010. The report then goes on to say that when Social Security, Medicare and unemployment benefits are included, nearly half the country—148 million Americans—were living in a household receiving some form of government benefits.

This comes at a time when less than half of all Americans are paying income tax.

It makes your blood boil, doesn’t it? Just think about it: half the country footing the bill for the benefits of the other half; the industrious ones being crippled by onerous tax burdens to prop up those who are too lazy or stupid to take care of themselves.

The problem with this report is that Social Security, Medicare, and even unemployment benefits are not “gifts” from the federal government. People pay into these programs throughout the course of their working careers, and, therefore, they can hardly be considered government entitlements. So the 50% number is pure propaganda designed to enrage those who look for any excuse at all to bash any and all government programs—even successful ones like Social Security and Medicare .

This is not to say that we don’t have a problem in this country, however. When one-third of the country is so poor that they require public assistance and when one-half of all taxpayers make so little that the government can’t even tax them, that should concern all of us, because it means that our country is on an unsustainable economic path. The question is how do we interpret this data.

Economic conservatives like those at the Mercatus Center and the Heritage Foundation would argue that the size of the American government itself is the issue. They would probably maintain that government programs designed to assist the poor actually create a perverse incentive not to work, while at the same time penalizing those who are the most industrious in the country. The solution, then, would be to dramatically reduce the size of government, thus lowering taxes, giving wealth creators (i.e., the rich) more money to invest, and creating jobs for those Americans who actually want to work. To do this, they advocate privatizing some current government programs (Social Security, for example) and entirely eliminating other programs (Medicaid) and troublesome government agencies (The Environmental Protection Agency, among others).

Progressives, on the other hand, would interpret this data as evidence that the middle class is being squeezed economically to the point of oblivion and that our public policies, which are skewed in favor of the top 1%, are creating a nation of rich and poor. If 50% of Americans pay no taxes, they would argue, it’s because they aren’t making anywhere near enough to be taxed in the first place. Cutting government programs like unemployment benefits, Social Security or Medicare is exactly the wrong thing to do, especially at this time, they would argue, because all this will do is push more Americans into the ranks of the poor. Taking their refrain from Franklin Roosevelt, progressives would argue that, especially during difficult economic times (i.e., right now), what we need is an even stronger safety net reestablished for the most vulnerable Americans and large-scale public spending to stimulate the economy.    

So what’s the right way to interpret the data put out by the Mercatus Center? This issue, I believe, gets to the heart of politics in the United States. It pits those who believe that “government is the problem” (conservatives/libertarians) against those who believe that government has an important role to play in insuring that all citizens have a decent minimum standard of living and have access to those goods that are vital for human flourishing—employment at a living wage, adequate health care, and some degree of economic security in their old age (progressives/liberals).

So which side of this issue do you come down on and why?

As I was reading the New York Times on Saturday morning, I happened upon two stories that give a good indication of just how dangerous the reactionary right-wing in this country can be.

The first story has been all over the news this past week. The Susan B. Komen for the Cure foundation is one of the country’s largest charitable organizations in the fight against breast cancer. You’ve undoubtedly seen their ubiquitous pink ribbons on the back on people’s cars, and may have even given donations over the years to help this organization in its important work.

Last week, Komen, caving under pressure from conservatives who are determined to kill off Planned Parenthood, made an announcement that it would no longer be helping to fund Planned Parenthood’s successful program of offering breast exams to low income women, because there was supposedly a question about whether they have used taxpayer funds for abortions (they don’t and never have). Fortunately, the sane majority of our country was outraged by this decision, and Komen received a barrage of hostile emails from people who, not surprisingly, were disgusted by the politicizing of this issue. Reeling from public pressure, the Komen foundation finally announced that they would, in fact, be continuing to fund breast exams through Planned Parenthood.

The other story that caught my attention was one that hasn’t been in the media much, but may even be more important than the Komen story. The Times reported today that over the past few years activists associated with the Tea Party have been using their clout to attack local programs to conserve energy, limit sprawl, and promote public transportation. Apparently, they view these green initiatives as part of a “United Nations-led conspiracy” to undermine the freedom of Americans to live as irresponsibly and destructively as they want. Although normal Americans might laugh off this type of activism as the by-product of the paranoid and delusional mindset of the typical Tea Party fringe lunatic, the protests that have occurred in recent years have actually caused some important environmental legislation on the local level to be undermined, according to the Times.

In a recent post, I argued that younger Americans are increasingly becoming more progressive in their politics, so you would think that the type of right-wing activism that is trying to kill off Planned Parenthood and eviscerate all decent environmental programs (not to mention deny women, gays, minorities, union workers, and immigrants their legal rights) would be doomed to fail. And, indeed, it will fail in the end. The problem is that the right-wing in this country is well funded, vocal, and highly motivated, and progressives, unfortunately, are not. In the short term that means that reactionaries like those who seek to cast doubt upon the reality of global warming, for example, can do a great deal of damage to our planet and the people who live on it.

Fortunately, progressives—and I speak of real progressives here, not Democrats, who haven’t stood up for their beliefs since the time of Lyndon Johnson—are learning to fight just as tenaciously as their reactionary counterparts. The efforts to defund Planned Parenthood have failed so far precisely because people on the left were able to shame the Komen foundation. This shows that political overreach on the part of the right in this country can be thwarted, but it will take constant vigilance on the part of everyone who considers themselves part of the sane majority.

Rabid reactionaries may score some victories in the short-run: they’ve already succeeded in causing grave harm to an environmental movement that has been teetering on the precipice of irrelevance for some time now. But the future is not theirs. It belongs to those on the left who have the courage and conviction to stand firm during the dark times that are undoubtedly ahead of us.

A recent report by the Pew Research Center found that 2/3s of Americans now believe that there are real conflicts between the rich and poor in this country (click on chart for larger image) and that such economic conflict now represents the greatest source of tension in the United States.

What struck me when I read about this report in the New York Times was that majorities in every demographic group that was polled--young and old, black and white, rich and poor, educated and uneducated--clearly think that the kind of economic inequality that we have in the United States represents a serious problem. Even 55% of conservatives believe this to be the case.

The report, I believe, shows that Occupy Wall Street protests last fall clearly have changed the political discourse in this country in ways that are extremely positive for a progressive agenda. In this sense, even if Occupy Wall Street disappears completely from the political landscape in this country, the movement has already succeeded in focusing public attention on its central issue--income inequality in the United States. And, even more importantly, it has succeeded in getting just about everyone to recognize that this kind of inequality represents a serious problem for the long-term viability of our country.

The real question now is: what comes next? Public opinion on the issue of income inequality had shifted but won't mean anything if this doesn't translate into some kind of concrete legislative agenda that restores the economic balance in this country into something more favorable for working American families.

Fortunately, President Obama, who in the past has proven willing to sell out the interests of the poor and middle class in this country to appease conservatives in Congress, seems to have finally realized that a little old fashioned class warfare of the type employed by Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt might actually prove to be good politics right now. He also appears to understand that Americans want to see their President fight on their behalf rather than constantly working in the interests of multinational corporations and banks.

I don't image that anyone as testicularly challenged as Barack Obama can remain in populist mode very long. It's just not in his temperament, I'm afraid, to rail against the "malefactors of great wealth." But, if he does manage to squeak out a victory this fall, he will owe his success almost completely to the hard work of Occupy Wall Street activists.