Labels, as all consumers discover, are just packaging. And truth in packaging is almost a contradiction in terms. The purpose of packaging is to make a sale, not admit the truth.
The political group that calls itself “No Labels” is a perfect example. Its name, game, and claim all are poll driven and message centered. The billionaire-funded group praises bipartisanship as an end in itself. Now it is toying with running a Third Party candidate for president – peddling West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin as a “centrist,” running on a manifesto entitled, inevitably, “Common Sense.” The manifesto offers up a series of poll-driven, carefully crafted policy positions, wrapped in pretty paper and designed to sell.
If there were truth in packaging, “No Labels” would call itself “No Clue.” It seems perversely blind to the reality we face.
America faces severe, simultaneous challenges – what academics call a “polycrisis.”
They are pressing and apparent. Climate change threatens existence itself, with severe weather already savaging lives and communities. Extreme inequality corrupts elections and subverts decent government. The million plus lives lost to Covid have exposed our broken public health system. Our infrastructure is dangerously decrepit. Our healthcare system is simply unaffordable. Systemic racism continues to mock the promise of equal justice under the law. We’re taking on both China and Russia, while fighting endless wars trying to police the world, a mission even our military, the most expensive and powerful in the world, can’t afford.
We have guided missiles but misguided leadership.
How does “No Labels’ Common Sense” address these challenges? Mostly by ignoring them. On climate change, they worry not about the extreme weather but about the price of oil, wanting an “all of the above” energy policy that polls well but utterly fails to address the crisis.
On extreme inequality, they say nothing. On infrastructure, they praise Joe Biden’s infrastructure act (while preposterously trying to take credit for it), without talking about how it is but a first step to what is needed. On health care, they offer traditional nostrums that won’t offend insurance companies and Big Pharma – and won’t take us any closer to affordable ,…
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