Corporate Democrats assume we will tire of this "flavor of the month" outrage over the Chained CPI
We are just liberals being liberals after all, flitting from one burning cause to another. By Summer at the latest they count on us moving on to something else; it might be GMO crops, or Fracking, or maybe some current event in some corner of the world that hasn't quite become current yet. And of course they are banking on some predictable new Republican outrage to consume us all instead, and make us feel sheepish about ever having beaten up on a Democratic President to begin with.
It's the old conventional wisdom about liberals, which just happens to resemble the old conventional wisdom about the American public as a whole. We can't focus, there are too many details, and too many celebrities (the apolitical substitute for causes) to read about instead. Look, there's a shiny new object over there!
No, liberals aren't like gun advocates they say. We don't burn with a constant fire. You do remember that old conventional wisdom, don't you? The people who support responsible gun regulations don't care about their position nearly as much as those who will fight them to the death. Therefor, it went without saying, the NRA always gets its way.
Except that particular conventional wisdom no longer goes without saying, or to be more precise, without being challenged. To their credit many mainstream Democratic leaders have begun to reject that line of reasoning. They argue that times have changed.They talk about a sea change that many in Congress have just been slow to recognize. And they point to a new resolve in the American people to fight back against those who disregard their stated preferences on an issue that may mean life or death.
On Guns these Democrats argue that public safety advocates are engaged for the long haul now. They are confident this cause will not be forgotten three months after Sandy Hook. Change will not be averted by stalling for more time, distractions will not bury this cause in the public mind. Why? Two reasons; the imperative for common sense gun legislation has broken through the background static of our daily lives. We just got our wake up call. And second, and maybe even more importantly, we are organizing. Not just for one hearing, not just for one vote; we are organizing for an outcome regardless of how long it takes to get there. The President himself is making that case. Congress may not reflect that reality now, but it will in time. It's not just the next election, it's the following one too, and the one after that. There is a sneaker wave building off shore, and politicians who are not alert to that risk being washed away. That is the nature of a sea change.
Many of the same Democrats who bear witness to a sea change on gun safety remain blind to the one now happening on issues of economic justice. It too has been building over time, and a Democratic President's budget that calls for cutting social security benefits now serves as a sharp alarm. Maybe that's due to the shock of seeing a political heir of FDR calling for the first cuts in his legacy achievement No this isn't the first betrayal of economic justice in America, nor is it the worst example of it, but in time it will be seen as the turning point in the larger battle. Progressives are organizing now, not just for one vote, but for the long haul. We speak for the American people on this one, with polling consistently showing large majorities of Americans wanting the economic safety net stronger, not shrunken.
Not only are more Democrats keyed in to this issue today, more will be keyed into this issue tomorrow, and even more the year after that. The progressive base of the Democratic Party is fully engaged now and our anger will not subside in three months, even if headlines move on to other issues. Income inequality, the massive shift of wealth from 80% of all Americans to the top 1%, is the core progressive issue of this coming decade, probably for far longer. The ranks of the poor in this nation keep growing. We will not soon be silent, and we will not soon rest. This is not something that will blow over, it is more than a sudden squall.This is a sea change, and it can't be countered with pep talks or admonishments, or mere calls for party loyalty. It's much more basic than that. It is time to sink or swim.
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....more and more obvious, to me, at least, that chained CPI is appearing to be nothing more than a shiny object being used to distract us from the bigger economic issues, such as the wage gap, the ever widening chasm between rich and poor, lack of prosecution of the banksters, privatization, etc.
And unfortunately, it seems to be working quite well. 
