Paul Krugman throws a fit, prophesizes doom

Paul Krugman's op-ed piece in Friday's New York Times quickly spread through the Web and attracted much derision from right-wing pundits. The piece is essentially a long, manic rant about the terrible world to come if the Republicans take control of the House (and possibly the Senate), nicely sprinkled with apocalyptic prophecies such as the following:

This is going to be terrible. In fact, future historians will probably look back at the 2010 election as a catastrophe for America, one that condemned the nation to years of political chaos and economic weakness.

Also:

So if the elections go as expected next week, here’s my advice: Be afraid. Be very afraid.

The Economist, which recently published a decidedly balanced column about America's Tea Party movement, jumped all over Krugman's rant, making the following observation:

Mr Krugman offers no reason to believe that if Republicans fail to capture the House, Democrats will deliver the policies he thinks we need to avoid "years of political chaos and economic weakness". It's a little sad, isn't it, when even our most eminent public intellectuals waste so much of their time, and ours, on baseless partisan freakouts?

Ouch. But Democrats and their supporters, facing up to the reality of what seems likely to be a disastrous election night next Tuesday, have started making a rather crude argument -- yes, they've made mistakes, they say, but if the Republicans win they'll be even worse.

Why are Democrats making this argument? Well, even though the Tea Party crowd brands Obama as a radical leftist, the truth is that the President has been a huge disappointment for the liberal left. He has failed to enact credible policy changes in any area that matters to the voters that put him in office. The health care bill is weak, the climate change bill died in the Senate, and "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" has yet to be repealed.

This is why Obama went on The Daily Show and made the now infamous remark, "Yes we can, but..." -- the point being that he is still supposedly committed to great change, but that more time is needed.

Mr. Krugman makes a similar appeal with the following remarks:

Right now we very much need active policies on the part of the federal government to get us out of our economic trap.

But we won’t get those policies if Republicans control the House. In fact, if they get their way, we’ll get the worst of both worlds: They’ll refuse to do anything to boost the economy now, claiming to be worried about the deficit, while simultaneously increasing long-run deficits with irresponsible tax cuts — cuts they have already announced won’t have to be offset with spending cuts.

But here's the problem -- the Democrats have had two years of utter domination in Washington in which they could have enacted the agenda Mr. Krugman is demanding. And the fact is that they have failed miserably. When you're in office and you fail so badly, you don't really deserve to stay in office, do you? The "we're less worse" argument doesn't wash -- at the very least, it's not the sort of message that's going to get the base to go out and vote.

Mr. Krugman also blunders badly with the following argument:

We might add that should any Republicans in Congress find themselves considering the possibility of acting in a statesmanlike, bipartisan manner, they’ll surely reconsider after looking over their shoulder at the Tea Party-types, who will jump on them if they show any signs of being reasonable. The role of the Tea Party is one reason smart observers expect another government shutdown, probably as early as next spring.

The Tea Party movement certainly has its mean, hateful side. It also has terribly unrealistic expectations. But are we to automatically assume that every Republican elected to office is going to behave boorishly in office? Is it too much to assume that at least some of them will act in a "statesmanlike" manner, or at least as statesmanlike as any other member of Congress? Every politician who goes to Washington has to make compromises. Why should we automatically assume that the Tea Party candidates will be no different?

Don't get me wrong here -- a Republican House will make things very difficult in Washington. The party has yet to indicate how it is going to try and enact legislation with a Democratic President holding the veto pen. The economic situation is still dire. There are many reasons to "be very afraid" -- but the Democrats have had their chance to assuage our fears. And they haven't.