This is how it works
by David Atkins ("thereisnospoon")
Your liberal media at work:
Is Social Security a Ponzi Scheme?
Room for Debate experts discuss Gov. Rick Perry’s claim that it’s a scam on young workers.
It doesn't really matter what sort of he said-she said tripe fills the "debate." What matters is the mere fact that we're having a "debate" on whether social security, the most successful government program in history, a program that is nowhere close to going belly up in the near future, a program that even if payroll taxes fell short of covering it could easily be funded directly just as our overseas military adventures are, is somehow a "ponzi scheme."
According to the centrism fetishists in the Democratic Party, Rick Perry's embrace of anti-Social Security talking points should doom his candidacy and marginalize his supporters, leaving the field clear for Democrats to seize the day. In reality...well, in reality in may do just that, or it may not. But who cares? Either way Rick Perry wins.
Because if Perry wins the Oval Office, he'll try and likely fail to eliminate Social Security, settling instead for weakening it by raising the eligibility age or some such tripe that will directly harm America's seniors and our economy. If Perry or the GOP nominee loses, Obama holds the Presidency and raises the eligibility age of Social Security in order to pursue a "moderate" media-friendly agenda, even as the media continues to "debate" whether Social Security is a ponzi scheme.
Perry and friends play this game because it works--whether they win elections or not. Because for them, winning the election isn't the key to success; winning the policy battle is. And they don't need to necessarily win the election to do that.
There are only two ways out of this mess; the first is to change the media so that they no longer fall for this Overton Window game. That is highly unlikely.
The second is to push the envelope just as hard in a progressive direction as the GOP pulls it in a conservative direction, and acknowledge the reality that the nation is in a political civil war. But in order to do that, progressives would need to rout out and disempower the centrism fetishists who continue to infect its ranks and negatively influence its decision making and endorsement processes.
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