Obama has been, in this writer’s opinion, on balance, a failure. And unlike our conservative colleagues who rally round their leaders in slavish, thrall-like adoration, unquestioning and unchallenging regardless of their inadequacies, I believe progressives should be better than that. We have to be better than that. Through moral obligation, we must hold our politician’s feet to the fire of Progress lest we will backslide into a world of hate and rigid hierarchy so loved by the Randian Right. That cannot be allowed to happen. So when Democrats out-Republican the Republicans, we must rise up!
I can hear the whining already. “Consider the options! What about the Supreme Court? The Republicans are more evil! They won’t work with the President…” Yes, I know… I get it. We don’t want someone like Mitt Romney with the ability to appoint one or maybe two Supreme Court justices. I understand that the Teabagger GOP is doing everything in their power to burn the nation to the ground so they can rule over the smoldering Pyrrhic ashes of our Republic. I get all that. But of the things that the President can do, nay, must do, Obama has fallen woefully short of expectations.
Economist Yves Smith has a positively scathing review of President Obama’s first term over at Naked Capitalism and why President Obama is not really the lesser of two evils, but rather he is the more effective of two evils. Obama came into office on a wave of what we all hoped was a transformational moment in our Republic. Boy were we wrong.
Obama didn’t make compromises necessary to lead effectively. He entered office with majorities in both houses and a country eager for a new direction. He has repudiated or retraded every pledge he made. He promised transformational leadership, and instead emulated Wall Street, devising complex programs that to sell average Americans short and reap his funders handsome rewards in the process. Rather than elevate his fellow citizens, Obama’s transactional focus and neoliberal philosophy have kicked the struggling middle class down the road greased by the right.
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Readers of this blog are likely to argue that they have a jaded view of Obama, but still regard him as preferable to Romney. But they seem to fail to appreciate another layer of Obama’s deception, that his charm and unflappable demeanor mask his ruthlessness. It’s no accident that he chose Rahm Emanuel as his initial chief of staff, an enforcer and by all accounts one of the members of what was an unusually tight inner team. The Democrats are now indistinguishable from the Republicans in their mastery of Rovian playing on identity politics. Obama has also proven adept at neutralizing well positioned actual or potential threats, such as David Petraeus, Elizabeth Warren, and Eric Schneiderman.
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And remember, Obama has embraced deficit hawkery and has made “reforming” Social Security and Medicare a top priority for his next term.
Ford is right. Defending Obama as “the lesser of two evils” isn’t merely letting him off the hook for his betrayals. Those who take that position are actively enabling his conduct. They are part of the problem.
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Groups that have has a lasting impact on the social order – the Populists, the original Progressives, suffragettes, labor, blacks – organized outside the party system; indeed, when they were brought in the tent, they became less effective. The public has been told, again and again, the only choice is to hold your nose and select one of the two parties. It’s time we recognize that that myth no longer serves us.
Those of us who care about decency, the rule of law, constraints on corporate power, civil rights, and economic protections for the downtrodden have become complacent, and we are now reaping the bitter harvest of our neglect. Many of these protections seemed so fundamental that there has been a tremendous amount of denial over the speed at which they are being stripped from us. But these gains were not granted freely or easily by those in authority. They came about as a result of long, persistent, difficult campaigns. If we want to preserve the rights previous generations fought hard to win, we have to make this battle our own.
This is why “hopey / changey” within the Democratic party machine is a fantasy. I, for one, am tired of holding my nose and voting for fake “hopey / changey.” Let’s face it, Obama is no more an agent of change than was Ronald Reagan, Jack Kennedy or Richard Nixon. Or Mitt Romney for that matter. They are all cut from the same worn out political cloth.
Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice… won’t get fooled again.
A plague on both your houses!
Phil, people were desperate for the whole Hopey-Changey thing and they saw what they wanted to see. I thought it was really sad and really scary. People were so easy, so Lemming-y. Just a few nice emotastic speeches and bam! everyone’s in love. There was news coverage of the way Obama had a big deal secret-clubhouse kinda meeting with some female head of a huge Chicago-area banking family, one of the banks that was responsible for the housing bubble bullshit. I have searched and searched but can no longer find that news story. However, it was pretty plainly stated in it that Obama was confabbing and basically ‘asking” this very influential banking Lizard-person for “permission” and blessings. Not long after that he declared. His meet-up with that horrible right-wing mega church guy in CA, etc etc. No one lacked for indications of how he’d really govern. It’s all a big damn show and no one wants to give it up. Even the guys who preach hardest about how “the system” is all bought and paid for blah blah, and about the need to get money out of politics – what’s the first freakin’ thing they do once their angsty little speech is done, they ask you to give money to their “reform” org. It would all be hysterical, IF you were watching from another planet. And you have to admit, we have had a lot of Change, so have the Europeans. Just not the kind of change people imagined. I have always felt contempt for Obama, he’s a worthless self-serving frat boy IMO and voting for him was distasteful in the extreme to me, but I did it. Just in case I was wrong and all the weeping Oprah Winfrey Oh Happy Day type people were right, the messiah had come and I was just too stupid to see it. Also, more importantly, there was, and is, no alternative.
Well, her point that issues-based advocacy is, on the whole, more effective than electoral politics is certainly well-taken.
But I seem to remember that people back in 2000 thought that maybe if we had 4-8 years of Bush that maybe people would wake up and we’d be ready for a true progressive. Well, that obviously didn’t happen.
So I don’t think that 4-8 years of Romney is going to do anything good either. Instead, it would just continue to pull the entire political dialogue further to the right.
Issues based advocacy and partisan politics is not an either/or proposition. It’s a both/and proposition. And local politics is just as important as national politics, if not more important.
Right-wingers understand this. They hated Eisenhower and Nixon, thinking they were too liberal. But they still got out there and voted for them anyway, but also continued their issues advocacy. They recruit slates of right-wingers to run for school board and city council, knowing that they will be able to change policies in their hometowns and also run for higher office. They were able to do multiple things at once. Apparently you and Yves Smith are not willing to do this. What progressives should be doing is supporting Obama, but also laying the groundwork for more progressive policies at the same time. In the words of Barry Goldwater, grow up.
Prepositional Voting: Does one vote for or against? Or, does one vote “for” in order to vote “against?” Does one vote for half-truths and half-measures or does one vote for the public good and the politically impossible if it is ethically grounded?
My vote doesn’t require perfection or even a reasonable chance of victory, but it does require an identifiable moral core. President Obama is not the immoral monster that conservatives make him out to be, but he is all in with the DNC/DLC approach to governance. I believe that approach to be ethically challenged, without merit, and not the direction that will lead to betterment or progress. And it not an approach that has successfully kept rabid conservatism at bay.
Now is as good a time as any to go green. I’m not interested in bullying the Democratic Party the way the Tea Party bullies the GOP. I will just quietly and in good conscience take my vote elsewhere.
As long as people continue to vote for the Democrats and hope that they will listen without being willing to hold them accountable by with holding their votes the Democrats will continue to follow the advice of Rahm and simply “fuck Progressives”. We absolutely need to hold our leaders accountable the same way the Tea Party holds the Republicans accountable and not be afraid to lose rather than compromise on our principles.
I’m absolutely in agreement with almost all said here — except, Boomtown Rat: There was an alternative. But it wasn’t a bright, shiny object that glittered and gave away free food to claim crowds of easily persuaded peepsles.