Krugman is Right

Having taken last week off I return today and find the economy not much changed from a week ago! In other words things are still grim. Already there has been an outbreak of right wing chatter that attempts to paint Obama’s victory as too modest and restricted to amount to a mandate for dramatic change. The notion, apparently, is that America remains a ‘center-right’ kind of nation and therefore any wild imaginings harbored by the newly empowered liberal majority are dangerously self destructive.

That’s just plain wrong.

Paul Krugman writes today about one aspect of this: Op-Ed Columnist – Franklin Delano Obama?

Krugman has also urged to be bold in interpreting his mandate. I couldn’t agree more. Anyone who suggests that Obama’s win is limited and therefore not supportive of bold progressive thematic programs is entirely missing the point. Last week’s win was dramatic in that it came in the face of fierce accusations of Obama abetting ‘socialism’ and favoring ‘redistribution’. The election was fought mainly over economic policies within the backdrop of the manifest failure of right of center ideology. Especially anything tainted by ‘free market’ driven deregulation.

Given the intense scrutiny of Obama’s policy bias during the last few weeks to claim that the country did not embrace that bias is just plain stupid. I understand why Republicans are saying it: they fear years in the political wilderness and shudder at the repudiation of the Reagan legacy. So it’s natural for them to try to misdirect us now.

But they are hopelessly wrong. The election was, indeed, a repudiation of Reaganism. It was an overt embrace of Obama’s progressive bias. And it was a strong mandate for radical action.

It is the Republican party that now has to recalibrate its platform to the newly expressed center-left preference of America.

Meanwhile Krugman is right: now is not the time for half measures. The economy desperately needs attention on a grand scale. Hopefully Obama gets that message.