It’s not any secret that progressive Democrats have been some of the harshest critics of the president. For the last two years, this blog has been engaged in a non-stop conversation/debate about the performance of the president, with me generally taking the side that tries to explain the limitations imposed on any president by the structure of Congress, the rules of the Senate, and the lack of party unity. Right now, we are seeing a demonstration of what I have been trying to explain. Many people have argued, repeatedly and vociferously, that the president could attain better outcomes by demonstrating more leadership, by asking for a whole lot more than he could realistically get, and by taking his case to the American people. If he would stop trying to get along with Republicans and, instead, take them on with hot rhetoric, he would get more done and be seen more favorably by the public.
After the debt ceiling fiasco, the White House decided they have nothing left to lose and went ahead and took that advice. They called for a Joint Session of Congress and called for a Jobs Bill that is a lot more comprehensive than anything that is actually likely to pass. The president went on the road (he’s on the road today), and did his best to sell his bill. He ramped up his rhetoric and directly blamed the Republicans for their obstruction. He didn’t preemptively offer to water down his bill, but repeatedly called for the whole bill to be passed, and passed quickly.
So, here’s the test. Everyone who has been arguing that this is the way to go should be standing and applauding. They should be eager to help out and prove their theory correct. If the president had done this in early 2009, he would have gotten a much bigger stimulus. If he’d done this throughout 2009, he would have gotten a public option in the health care reform bill. If he’d done this on the financial reforms, he would have gotten a stronger, more worthy bill. If he’d done on the debt ceiling debate, he’d have won some more tax revenue. That’s the theory so many have been operating on as they critique this presidency.
Now, I am fervently hoping to be proven wrong. I am hoping that the president’s new aggressiveness will result the passage of a Jobs Bill that puts 2 million people to work largely by taxing Wall Street. But I want to note how easy it is to simply ignore the president and hand him a massive defeat.
House Republican Leader Eric Cantor said definitively Monday that President Obama’s $447 billion jobs bill is dead on arrival in his chamber.
To hear Obama tell it, that’s just about par for the course.
“I have done everything I can to try to get the Republican Party to work with me to deal with what is the biggest crisis of our lifetimes,” Obama said in an interview with ABC News. “And each time, all we’ve gotten from them is, ‘No.'”
When House Majority Leader Eric Cantor says the bill is dead on arrival, he means that he won’t even bring it up for a vote. The answer is simply ‘no.’ It’s not even that they’re going to defeat the bill. They won’t vote on it. They won’t even debate it. And it’s easy for them to do because of the lack of party unity on the Democratic side.
Cantor said the prospect of passing the bill in its entirety, though, is just not feasible, in part because of the problems in the president’s own party.
“I think from a purely practical standpoint, the president’s got some whipping to do on his own side of the aisle. Clearly, I think comments made by Democrats on both the House and Senate side indicated they have problems with the president’s bill,” Cantor said.
The president responded to this today down in Texas (no link):
“Dallas, that starts now. That starts with your help. Yesterday, the Republican Majority Leader in Congress, Eric Cantor, said that right now, he won’t even let the jobs bill have a vote in the House of Representatives. He won’t even give it a vote.
“Well I’d like Mr. Cantor to come down here to Dallas and explain what in this jobs bill he doesn’t believe in. Does he not believe in rebuilding America’s roads and bridges? Does he not believe in tax breaks for small businesses, or efforts to help veterans?
“Mr. Cantor should come down to Dallas, look Kim Russell in the eye, and tell her why she doesn’t deserve to get a paycheck again. Come tell her students why they don’t deserve to have their teacher back.
“Come tell Dallas construction workers why they should be sitting home instead of fixing our bridges and our schools.
“Come tell the small business owners and workers in this community why you’d rather defend tax breaks for millionaires than tax cuts for the middle-class.
“And if you won’t do that, at least put this jobs bill up for a vote so that the entire country knows exactly where every Member of Congress stands.
So, that’s where the fight stands. The president is testing out the theory that he can get more done by demanding the Republicans back down and stop their intransigence. He’s seeing if he can rally the people and put enough pressure on the Republicans to force some action on jobs.
What’s amazing and depressing is that the same people who have been asking him to do this on every issue under the Sun over the past two years are responding with a collective yawn.
I know, people will make excuses. The bill isn’t all that great anyway. It’s too late. The whole system is rotten, so what’s the point? The one thing you can’t do is say that the bill has no chance so why get involved. You’ve premised your entire critique of the president on the fact that what he’s doing now can work and could have worked in the past. So, how do you stand on the sidelines now?
I know that the protests on Wall Street are exciting and exhilarating and provide a visceral feeling of satisfaction. But they are coming at an inopportune time. The Republicans need to feel the full power of the left on this Jobs Bill. The presidency is probably riding on the outcome. If you ask for a fight and then leave the scene the moment the fight starts, what does that make you?
The bill isn’t that great, and it’s too late. Maybe those are excuses, but they’re also true. You can’t blow through people’s goodwill–rightly or wrongly, that’s another question–and then say, ‘Where’s all the support?’
This is exactly why Obama should’ve fought earlier. Not because he necessarily would’ve won the battles, but because he would won an army.
And even now, a great bill would see much more support. Frankly, an outlandish scheme like yours in the previous post would see much, much more support. There’s a reason that ‘too little, too late’ is a saying.
If I could wave a wand and bring the entire power of the left into play, I would. But that’s now how humans work. If you repeatedly disappoint people (again, whether or not it’s your fault), they don’t forget it so easily. Hell, I’m still pissed about the pay freeze for federal workers.
I’m not defending that reality. But I don’t think that trying to scold people into enthusiasm will work. I think there are a few ways that we can turn this dynamic around–and that all of them are top-down.
You have to take personal responsibility for your own reaction and actions. I’m not interested in sociological or psychological explanations for why people are hypocrites and cowards or self-defeating morans. You can’t skirt your responsibility just because your neighbor has cut and run.
So you’re not interested in why the left as a whole hasn’t supported the Jobs Act more strongly?
To me, that seems like the only important question. I’m not sure how we gain support for the jobs bill without answering it.
Yes, that is an interesting question. But why don’t you answer a different one.
Why has such a high proportion of the left demanded wholly unrealistic results from the beginning, and why have they behaved as though they weren’t merely helping negotiate but they seriously expected to get the whole enchilada?
And, yes, there are genuine disappointments. They are serious critiques that can be leveled at this president and all our presidents about our foreign policy, about our surveillance state, about our system of criminal justice. I’m not talking about those things.
I’m talking about actual bills that make it through Congress and are signed into law.
“Why has such a high proportion of the left demanded wholly unrealistic results from the beginning, and why have they behaved as though they weren’t merely helping negotiate but they seriously expected to get the whole enchilada?”
I think someone told them something along the lines of “we are the change we have been waiting for”. Something about “yes we can”, or something. Vague memories of the 2008 campaign, dancing in the street when he won, something about fired up and ready to go, and then… well, you know the rest. no strings bank bailouts. HAMP, which didn’t work at all. “negotiations” with the GOP where they kept getting everything they wanted. stuff like that.
but what do i know,I’m a fucking retard.
This is just incredibly childish — not only the sentiment, but the way it’s expressed.
I think someone told them something along the lines of “we are the change we have been waiting for”.
Really? That’s the explanation? And folks took those words to mean Big Rock Candy Mountain was just around the bend? And now they’re unhappy because it wasn’t?
I would like to add to the list of things people need to take responsibility for, their own reactions to the words of others (if we’re to credit at all your claim that the disappointment of some on the left is because they were “led to believe” they were the change; and honestly, I don’t know if I do).
And I’ll tell you… the snark with which you make your statement — “I think someone told them” — sounds like nothing so much as a petulant temper tantrum. “Waaahhh! It turned out I wasn’t the change I was waiting for, and now I’m gonna go out back and eat worms!”
Profoundly depressing.
The thing is, Brendan is so obviously NOT the change Brendan was waiting for. And he’s still waiting for it. He doesn’t appear to understand the meaning of the word “we”.
you know when i read responses like this, all I do is look out at the people on the street.
You can say I’m wrong all you want. You can accuse me of wanting a pony all you want. That doesn’t make the people in the street disappear.
there are people in the street in almost every city. People who have given up on the democrats and republicans, and who have given up on legislating. Even our host, who initially put down the OWS protests, recognizes this very clearly. And he recognizes that this is a threat.
Democrats win when the people come out to vote. if they do not come out to vote, because they are angry or have given up, democrats lose.
So make your catcalls about wanting a pony. Fine. The people in the street probably want a pony too, but taunting them about that is not going to convince them to vote for the democrats if they have decided, as many of them seem to, that the system isn’t worth participating in. Y’all saw what happened in 2010.
Oddly enough, Brandon, most of us who heart exactly those same campaign themes and danced in the streets managed to understand that we’d elected a President, not a magical pony dispenser.
“Ooooohh, the candidate ran a campaign.” And?
Well, I’m not really sure. Magical thinking, I suppose. And the ‘cult of the presidency,’ which was probably reinforced by the huge relief of the end of the Bush years–and by the election of a brilliant, telegenic president who many felt was ‘one of us.’ (In a way that we didn’t necessarily feel about Kerry, say.)
I think the more savvy (though maybe not perfectly savvy) people probably felt that the best way to help negotiate was to demand the whole leftie enchilada up front … but then the less savvy people really expected to get it.
This goes a bit farther than your question–and maybe into worthless, speculative, who’s-to-blame territory–but my feeling is that a high proportion of the left would’ve been thrilled with Obama pushing through the ACA in its current form, say, if they’d first seen him fight and lose the battle for single-payer, then the battle for Medicare for All, then the battle for the PO.
Now, you’re probably thinking that that’s not how politics works, in terms of the timeline, political capital, and actual bills getting signed into law. Maybe if he’d fought for all that, we wouldn’t even have the ACA, which has some some great stuff. You might be right.
But we’re talking about feelings, here. And I don’t think the frustration or defeatism that the ‘high proportion’ feels is with not getting the whole enchilada. (Many of those people adore politicians who haven’t even delivered a half taco.) I think the frustration is with the disappointed expectation of having a fierce advocate in the White House.
I don’t know if that’s necessarily logical, but I think it’s emotionally true. I guess that’s a pity, but emotion is part of politics, maybe the largest part.
Every Democratic president for half a century has failed to pass any significant health care reform at all. Clinton’s failure — after demanding a specific structure and not giving Congress room to negotiate — seriously weakened his presidency.
So why doesn’t Obama get major, major kudos from every progressive for getting something passed? Under the circumstances even the ACA is a pretty miraculous achievement. Yes, it’s similar to strategies advocated by the GOP in the early nineties, but we’re not living the early nineties and the GOP never actually wanted it — their proposal was just a talking point to protect them while they destroyed Clinton’s plan.
The left would be a lot more effective celebrating it and fighting for more. Instead they’ve condemned the bill, leaving it abandoned by both left and right, and giving the majority of the less-aware public the impression that government can’t do anything good for health care. That leaves additional reform is off the table going forward.
It’s sad and stupid.
Not to mention… if he’d first lost on single payer and the public option, chances are slim he’d have had the political strength or capital to get passed what he did get passed.
I think the reason Obama doesn’t get major, major kudos from every progressive for getting something passed is that many progressives didn’t want ‘something’ passed. I think he’d get major kudos from most progressives for getting the-most-progressive-act-possible passed if they felt that that happened. It’s certainly possible that it did happen, of course, but there’s no way to know for sure–so the feeling isn’t there.
But I don’t mean to derail the conversion into the ACA. That was just an example of what I see as an overall pattern: using logical arguments to address emotional realities.
I agree that it’s sad and stupid.
The ACA barely passed. The House passed a more progressive version, although even that was far from the wishes of the left. Its most progressive elements were gutted to get it through the Senate. Why would you think that something even farther left would have any chance?
“The-most-progressive-act-possible” is an impossible standard. You’d have to read the mind of sitting Senators to know what that means, and even then there’s no telling what would change if something else were proposed and threatened industries kicked lobbyists and advertising into high gear.
And it doesn’t matter anyway. The bill is a HUGE progressive step forward. Questioning what might have been is counterproductive; instead we should celebrate it and work for more. Leaving the leaders who got it done in the cold is just shooting yourself in the foot.
And now there’s the Jobs Bill. It’s not likely to pass because it’s too progressive, so complaining you can’t support it because it’s not progressive enough is totally counterproductive. We’d be lucky to get that, and we’re stupid not to fight for it.
Obviously, I’m not being clear. I never claimed that anything farther left would have a chance. I don’t know if anything farther left could’ve possibly passed–that’s unknowable. I don’t even really have a theory. Maybe twisting arms for something farther-left would’ve screwed the whole process. I just don’t know. Nobody does.
But that’s not my point. I am NOT talking the logical realities of policy-making. I’m talking about the emotional realities of politicking.
I guess I should’ve said, ‘what appears to be’ the most-progressive-act-possible. I’m sorry if I implied mind-reading.
But saying we should celebrate the ACA misses the point completely. It’s like saying that my wife should want to have sex every day. I couldn’t agree more, but I’m not going to organize my schedule around it.
I’m probably not being clear either. 🙂
I’m not talking about people’s private emotions. Go ahead and wish you had gotten more. Be disappointed all you want. Recognize that both parties sold out in many respects.
But the message to the public better celebrate the positives, or else no one is going to know about them and everything the government does is a failure.
And then how are you going to pass anything better?
Why has such a high proportion of the left demanded wholly unrealistic results from the beginning, and why have they behaved as though they weren’t merely helping negotiate but they seriously expected to get the whole enchilada?
Boo, if you observe the responses to your query you’ll the that the so-called progressive left takes great comfort in their ability to blame their sorry attitudes and refusal to cooperate on anyone but themselves.
Quite predictably, it became “too late” at precisely the moment Obama actually started campaigning for the bill.
The diaries calling for Obama to do exactly this were burning up the rec list the very same week the President started teasing his plan – and then they vanished.
But “It’s too late,” all of a sudden. Uh huh.
Well, that’s just the craziest assed, most myopic thing I’ve read yet.
That is what you focus on? Especially compared to the ongoing slasher film that is state government job cuts? That’s legitimately crazy behavior.
That’s kinda my point.
Booman Tribune ~ You Asked for a Fight
the combination of the sheer, undeniable awfulness of 8 years of bushiness, coupled with the take-no-prisoners populist heart-inspiring tone and tenor of Obama’s campaign rhetoric inspired many usually politically apathetic voters to get off their butts and save america from mc-palin, a mindbogglingly catastrophic future. bomb bomb bomb iran, remember?
so they show up, campaign volunteered, phone banked etc etc, temporarily casting aside their scepticism to believe this time maybe their hopes were well founded in the hope of deep sociopolitical reform.
From FISA on down the line to all the bad things bush initiated that Obama perpetuated, we all know the list, Obama has thrown his base under the bus. you can boast little (mostly symbolic) victories like DADT, healthcare etc, but compared to the wars, the mortgage black hole, the bailouts to the already stinking rich, while tent cities are growing apace, and savvy guys are worthy, but dfh’s are for punching, it’s small beer…
it’s about balance, methinks.
we know he’s a pragmatist-centrist-appeaser by his actions, and their trajectory.
yes some will be able to get better healthcare, but the insurance companies will do far better out of it than the few who do benefit.
sure gays can fight now, (woop!), but there are 3 wars above the media plimsoll line, and many below.
the patriot act has morphed into we kill anyone we want, wherever we want.
bank bonuses are up as homeless numbers grow, the justice dept goes after med maryjane and coddles BP and GSux, deep sea drilling and shale fracking.
how can anyone sincerely wonder why people feel burned, both by Obama and their own gullibility?
it was the same with tony blair and bill clinton, both epic turncoats with an unholy gift of the gab, but obama has widened the gulf between rhetoric and reality like no-one else in history, clenis was a two-bit piker compared.
and the facts of obama’s quicksilver intelligence, elegant geniality, mischievous humour and clever words all help us to know he can’t be stupid, so there are only 2 possibilities left to agree on:
he’s scared of really becoming the president he swore he’d be, maybe for reasons of health.
or… he’s the biggest, coldest fraud ever perpetuated on an electorate in recorded history.
the first is a lot easier to accept…
i respect this blog a lot, but most non-wonk people lost faith in politics long ago, look at the voter turnouts. Obama briefly reawakened public hope for change, and we believed like we were told to that he would be our champion, a roaring lion of truth to power, just as so much of his rhetoric lustily proclaimed he would be.
there is so much on the sad side of the scale, and so little on the other. we have golf games with bonehead, and crickets about occupy wall st, or the pipeline to canada, or the surveillance state.
to breathe fire in that old urgency of now, obama would have to lay something so heavy on the other side of the scale for that to happen, because people don’t like being lied to. you can parse it how you want, that he never claimed to be progressive bla bla, but it won’t fucking wash. the abyss that awaits us all if he loses to a fascist machine-ape like perry, or a koolaide-sodden corporatist like mittensis is scary, but fear won’t get so many out to vote again like 2008, because fear is not enough.
trying to pretend obama holds the country or the fate of the disadvantaged closer to his heart than his entry into the big boys’ club, and considering his esteem for a drooling, treasonous idiot like reagan, his unwillingness to get holder to do his job, he would have to sprout wings and walk on molten lava to get people to suspend their suspicion that he’s just a kinder, gentler- talking chief exec than….fill in gap.
their own sense of being betrayed will make some hold their noses and vote, but many, many more will go back to fritos and the tv and say ‘screw politics, they’re all the same’, dropping back into apathy.
fortunately there are a significant number who will organise farmers’ markets, protest on wall st, act for change locally as they would whether bush was still around or not.
because at the end of the day, it isn’t that different, indeed for many it’s worse than under bush, because the economy is deeper in the shit.
no leader in history rose to power with so much political capital, and then frittered it away in such ill-advised futility.
he promised strong and spicy, we got yesterday’s lumpy, bland oatmeal. i feel your fear too of what may happen if he loses the election, but many will prefer to opt out of trusting government after the diabetically massive crash they had after the sugar rush of ‘change we could believe in’.
people aren’t that dumb, they’d rather shuffle the deck and see what face the new permagov joker will wear, than risk having their hopes dashed and their hearts broken again by the same guy who beckoned them into the warm trompe-d’oeil future he painted, and then slammed the door sneeringly in their faces, leaving them to cry in the cold and listen to the party going on inside. the meteoric rise of obama was really all about a will to have a peaceful revolution, his flaking on his marketing vows may be the very reason that outcome is less possible now than before his ascent.
maybe obama’s role really is just to dispense valium as america spirals into its terminal decline, imploding under the gravitation of its own inherent evermore polarising contradictions. he is good talent for that.
or maybe he really will rise to the challenge of following through on the principles he espoused and expounded upon with such genius. time’ll tell sure enough.
elizabeth warren abundantly embodies exactly what obama lacks, a novel possibility of the circle squared, a politician with untainted integrity. she deserves trust and energy, obama has squandered his.
time to stop fearing so much and move on from the great myth that obama cares about the common man, no matter how soaring the speeches. the sheer expansion of contrast between talk and walk is a narrative people cannot deny in their hearts and guts.
he still has a diminishing amount of time to pull a rabbit out of the hat, but it will take a lot more piss and vinegar than he has ever shown yet. cool and detached ain’t going to get the wave happening again for him, peter and the wolf syndrome, he’s lost the pickup power, he popped the voters’ collective cherry. you can’t be a virgin twice. he can weave oratorical spells all he wants, his brand has been revealed these last 4 years, since he popped up on the horizon, as sizzle not steak, wrapping, not reality.
oh well…at least he was charming and charismatic, but a man of the people….not really.
Not surprised. There has been a collective yawn since President Obama was elected. Some how everybody thought that Obama could just do it by himself. A classic is the healthcare debate. I have a friend who worked on the hill as a Shaheen intern. One of her jobs was to collect and tabulate all the phone calls, email etc for and against HCR. The right out worked the Democrats and Progressives by a margin of two to one. We were lucky to get any HCR let alone one that had a PO.
Here’s the deal. The people would like to be listened to, not tabulated.
What you are saying is that the right out-spammed progressives. For a spamming contest is what contacting-to-be-tabulated has become. There are media firms that will hire people to spam members of Congress for special interests. Are the members of Congress too naive to know this?
You can’t spam authentic listening.
Oh good grief, get a grip. There is always someone within Congressional office who keeps tack of the numbers of calls and which way they are leaning. This is totally separate from messages reaching a Congress Person’s or Senator’s desk for a response.
No I am saying the right out worked Progressives.
How do you know the right “outworked” progressives?
That’s my point.
Unless you have access (through larger campaign donations) the only people you speak to are people who are tabulating based on pre-set issue breakdowns.
When you send an email, you get back a prepared issue statement that completely ignores any response to your email. (Unless you’re on the inside email list.)
People know when they’re shut out. Folks who are networked to DC insiders don’t realize how much anger against being shut out there is.
Thanks for marginalizing what I was saying.
Because we all saw it firsthand. Did you go to a town hall in the summer of 2009? I did. Many. And the left was simply out maneuvered at ever turn. Go back to FDR in the 1930s and the activism of the left. Those labor activists didn’t waste their time bashing FDR in some desperate hope that he would be shamed into doing something. They went out and organized. They made sure there was a public display of support for what they wanted–and then they took that movement to FDR and said, “Do this. We got your back.” That’s how the bully pulpit works.
But the left didn’t do that. When it came to healthcare reform, the purity hounds on the left slagged off on organizers like OFA. They invested most of their time tearing down the President and Dems. It’s remarkable that in that political climate anything was passed at all. And for far too many on the left, it appeared that the preferable alternative was to put forth the most idealistic legislation imaginable, with no feasible way of enacting it, and watching it go down in defeat. At least that way they could wallow in their sanctimony.
It was the same story on financial reform. The President was sworn-in and the ideological left said, “Okay–now make everything we want happen overnight.” It’s really quite funny, because a lot of these hardcore ideological lefties openly mocked Obama supporters for naively believing that he would create utopia overnight, and now they are the ones complaining the loudest that he didn’t create utopia overnight. You’ve laid everything at his feet and taken us right back to the “There’s no difference between Bush and Gore” days.
At some point, the far left–which only has even the slightest chance of success when it cooperates with a center-left coalition, not dictates to it with ideological dogma– will realize that President Obama’s loss in 2012 is their loss, too.
Yes, I did. But there are not a whole lot of “the left” in my area. And unlike others, it was a civil meeting.
So the folks who show up through political maneuvers at town hall meetings mean more to a Congressional vote than the rest of the citizens?
You are missing my point. Most folks feel the system is rigged against their participating because of political maneuvers of special interests.
The Tea Party revolt of August 2009 was astro-turfed by media consultants in DC.
Most folks are fed up with the middle school games.
hoping some connection is made between OWS and the jobs bill.
There is one made already. It’s the reception of the jobs bill in Congress that has pissed a lot of folks at the grassroots off. Obama teed it up, and folks like Casey ran the other way. Folks know that Republicans won’t help them. And they know that the Democrats can’t help them even on token legislation because too many Democrats have been bought.
And the jobs bill does nothing for students just graduating with large student loans. They’re not likely to be first hired without experience.
The connection does not have to be overt. You don’t have to point to it. People know it’s there.
The “overnight” thing again. You apologists are so funny and you think you’re being so cute. It’s been three years, dude! It’s not 2009 anymore.
So, this new tone of not “welcoming (Republican) ideas” after three years is the change I should believe in now.
Yeah, we’re snarky cuz WE TOLD YOU SO, but you all decided to stick your heads in the sand and take us for granted as “having nowhere else to go.”
Reads like Fredo’s lines.
“I can handle things! I’m smart! Not like everybody says… like dumb… I’m smart and I want respect!”
I reckon that if the Dems could wish away the left wing of their party and still win elections they would. Instead they’ll settle for blaming all of their party’s failings – from crappy policies to crappy politicians – on what’s left of the left of their party. They’ve been doing it for years. It is a hell of a lot easier than taking on the corporate interests who fund their campaigns, I suppose. Mark my words – if 2012 does not go down EXACTLY the way that the party brass and its apologists wish, it will all magically be “the left’s” fault. Wash. Rinse. Repeat.
Isn’t it possible that the left is half-retarded? Have you ever considered it? I agree with the progressive wing of the party on about 95% of the issues, which is why I consider myself a progressive. On any one of those tests that measure your ideology, I always come out far to the left. But I’ve never had the feeling that it has a clue how politics work.
A) Don’t use ‘retarded’ that way.
B) Yes.
Oh fine. What’s the PC word for dumb?
Conservative?
But seriously, the left isn’t stupid, we are just disorganized. And that is because anyone who would organize the left in this country into a potent force is “Hulk Smashed” or frankly bought off and used to create chaos within the ranks.
With Communism absolutely discredited, why is this country’s “destroy the left” mechanism still on autopilot?
“average intelligence”
I have a sneaking hunch that leftists generally would score quite well on matters of Civics (I’d be willing to wager above average) – we’re the ones who stayed awake during Government classes in high school and/or college. 🙂
So no, I certainly would not honestly be able to say that I have seriously considered the question as you frame it.
Exactly where was OFA during the healthcare fight? Locally, they sort of collapsed after the inauguration.
But that is ancient history now. It is clear from the post-mortems that no amount of public pressure would have gotten Max Baucus to support the public option. It is clear that the debt ceiling crisis was set up by Evan Bayh, Kent Conrad, Mark Warner, Dianne Feinstein, and Joe Lieberman taking that Dec 2009 debt ceiling vote hostage in exchange for the Catfood Commission.
The President has not been stabbed in the back by progressives as by senior members of the Democratic caucus in Congress. And Congress is dysfunctional and out-of-touch. The mechanisms they have set up to “control the message” have made them more and more out of touch.
The left at the time of FDR was the Socialist Party, and they did bash FDR. So did a lot of Democrats. FDR did not have easy going. All of the great accomplishments look great in hindsight. I suspect that will be true as well of President Obama.
It’s the Congress that is broken. Instead of continuing to beat up on progressives (some of whom deserve it for their ODS), it’s time to field candidates to challenge Republicans and organize the 170,000 people per district required to put them in office.
If there is a fight to be made for the jobs bill, Obama has to make it; the people have been shut out. And he must make it in the heart of the beast, not in comfortable territory. In Tyler TX, in St. Cloud MN, in Athens, GA, in Tulsa OK, in Gastonia NC, in Boone NC, in Janesville WI –those sorts of places.
The political situation in this country has moved beyond the stale arguments from even a month ago. The debt ceiling debate has shifted the political environment and delegitimized the Tea Party. People are angry and they are trying to figure out solutions before they think about electoral politics again.
But the Democratic politician who decides to challenge a Republican would be wise to start attacking Wall Street and the failure of government to regulate it. The incumbent Democrat would be wise to keep his mouth shut until the popular mood is sorted out. And to vote in lockstep with the President.
Uh, what?!? The over 360,000 phone calls to congress organized by OFA are why Harry Reid introduced a bill with a public option to the floor of the Senate.
Operative word was ” Locally”
360,000 phone calls, eh? So why didn’t they move Max Baucus? Or Blanche Lincoln?
And what happened to Larry Kissell, Heath Shuler, and Mike McIntyre?
And why is that more important than the fact that I called my reps once a week for two months about the public option? Even the Republican ones. I even called Kissell once and referenced the fact that I had donated to his first campaign (the one he lost by 300 votes).
I’m not one who’s doubted the President’s desire to get a public option.
But you can’t argue you were outflanked by the Tea Party and claim that 360,000 phone calls proves that Congress isn’t broken.
People got tired of making extraordinary efforts and nothing happening because some Democratic Congresscritter stabbed President Obama in the back.
Thanks for your effort and the effort of those in OFA who did get on the phones. But because of Max Baucus it was a lost cause from the git-go.
how to put this gently?
no one trusts the government anymore. no one. no one on the right, no one on the left. Even you, sir, have remarked that nothing can pass that isn’t totally watered down, or riddled with loopholes. you’ve even said how hard it is to get excited for that.
there is a compact between the governing class and the governed, and part of that is predicated on playing straight and fair. how long has it been since anyone played straight or fair on ANYTHING? It hurts to tell you this, but there are only so many empty promises a broke man can take before he says “suuure you’re gonna pass a jobs bill. Right.” I think the president’s having trouble rallying people because he hasn’t been a leader… but now it’s campaign season, and the populism comes out. I’ve seen this movie several times.
And by the way, i HAVE called on the jobs bill, but guess what all my calls have gotten me with my reps? they know my phone number now and don’t pick up.
As long as you do your part, I have no problem.
What you have is a generalized apathy that’s certainly warranted under the circumstances, but which isn’t healthy. It’s okay because we are all suffering from the same problem to one degree or another.
Here’s my point. The system is broken mainly because it’s breakable. We can down the big list or the small list of the ways this country is fucked up, but we’re beyond that now.
When one party refuses to let the country address its problems out of spite and paranoia and hate and raw politics, then we have to fix that problem before anything else can be addressed. And even if we can’t fix it, we can fight it and keep it at bay, and do our best to ensure that they aren’t rewarded for it.
If this were a playground instead of our country, it would be easier to understand. If one kid simply refuses to play by the rules, eventually the other kids won’t want to play anymore. They’ll get tired of being angry and frustrated and they’ll walk off the field. Imagine that the cheater’s whole goal was that no game be played at all. The only reason he cheated was to demoralize everyone else so he could have the field to himself.
If you know what the little brat is trying to do you to psychologically and what he is trying to get you to do (quit), you are a little less likely to fall for his scheme.
And to back to our national politics, I’d argue that the Republicans are even responsible for the Democrats being shitty. It’s conservative judges that gave us the corporate personhood and Citizens United rulings, and that (along with gerrymandering) is what makes it impossible for decent people to compete for high office. There have been serious efforts at reform. McCain-Feingold passed before it was gutted by the Court. If we can replace Kennedy on the Court, we can overturn Citizens, which I think is the single most important political problem we have right now in this country.
-sigh-.
what I am telling you, and what you’re not hearing, is “doing my part” isn’t working. it never does.
my experience, that doing my part doesn’t work, is shared with a LOT of americans who voted for change and got Larry Summers and Tim Geithner.
Boo:
Riddle me this. Why is our Senator(meaning Brendan’s, yours and mine) blocking the jobs bill? Didn’t he support the President in the primaries? Why is he running away from the jobs bill now? I bet it isn’t because taxes aren’t going high enough on the rich.
So, that warm bag of vaseline and crushed valium we call a senator is not backing the bill? Outstanding!! I blame Obama.
So what are you guys gonna do to turn him around?
Nothing. You don’t understand, this is just a game lefties play to see who can be more whiny, stale and unproductive. The internet has just made these games more frequent.
brendan has the obvious early lead. He’s a real pro. But joe from lowell’s pony express is making a late charge. Don’t count out Delonjo either. Deep field. Very competitive.
Hear, hear.
What exactly do you want folks to do?
Contact members of Congress who demonstrably ignore them?
Advocate on blogs where most people are convinced already?
It’s. the. same. fight.
It’s good that the President is getting out to Dallas and other places to sell his bill. He should keep doing that. That does more to make clear what the issue is than anything else; the media are not telling the people that it’s Congress; they’re up to their ears in the 2012 horserace horseshit. Having the President tell them directly and through local coverage is the only way to penetrate the media iron curtain surrounding his Presidency.
But if Congress is the problem, and Wall Street is what is making Congress the problem, then the people asking to be listened to is not a bad thing.
Crickets. The past is so much more fun to fight about.
Booman, I disagree a bit with the way you’re framing the theory. I don’t think he’s testing out the theory but rather he has set up the possibility of making 2012 about taxing the rich and aiding the middle class through a series of strategic choices. As you have articulated many, many times in one previous instance after another, the theory that he should have asked for more than he could have realistically gotten was flawed in the sense that it set up failure, however noble, and failure back then would have become THE narrative. The blind spot among many progressives has been to think that Obama’s conciliatory rhetoric was naive–on the contrary it was necessary in order to obtain the goodwill of a majority of Americans, so many of whom are susceptible to right-wing talking points about Democrats. The media would have further aided and abetted the Republican pushback had he adopted hot rhetoric before now, painting him into a corner. Even the bought and paid for mainstream media will have trouble convincing the majority that his warming rhetoric isn’t reasonable–there’s just too much clear-cut evidence to the contrary, as evidenced in the polling on the issues he’s now talking about forcefully. Yesterday I heard Jim Dean talking about congressional races across the country in which Citizens United/American Crossroads type advertising was actually alienating a solid majority of voters.
That’s just obot bollocks. You can’t possibly look at things right now and think everything is going to plan.
Everything is not going to plan.
The “plan” is the 30-year war the Republican Party has been waging on us, which accelerated rapidly during Bush’s two terms, culminating in the meltdown just before the election in 2008. The manifestation of the plan since then has been to make sure congress barely functions and to thwart the Obama Presidency in order to further destroy the social safety net, unions, and anything else that doesn’t benefit the top1%. As others have said here in this thread, Democrats relaxed after 2008, while Republicans took over Governorships, Statehouses, and Congress. I live in North Carolina, and we are paying dearly for just that–take a look at Jane Mayer’s New Yorker piece, which Rachel Maddow did a whole segment and interview on last night. Reid and Pelosi wouldn’t bring a vote on the extension of the Bush tax cuts prior to the 2010 elections out of fear of losing more seats. I think Obama made a calculation then to not fight that major battle under the conditions on the ground after the election. He punted in order to take the time to reset the conditions and make the 2012 elections all about fairness. I thought so in December 2010 and I still think it now. But of course you can discount my opinion since in your mind I’m an Obot.
Fairness will not prevail during stagnation. Stagnation did in Carter. Stagnation did in H.W. Bush. Stagnation almost got Dubya too. And stagnation makes Romney viable and suburban swing districts in the House unflippable. At this point, Speaker Pelosi is as pressing a necessity as President Obama.
Redistribution cannot occur without growth first. At least Booman has the ability to see the urgency of the moment and realize that Republicans still hold all the best hostages.
Sorry, Obama is not Carter, Bush I or Bush II. Don’t buy it.
Do you think it honestly matters who Obama “is” or “isn’t” if the economy tips back into recession in early 2012 due to collapsing federal support and a evaporation of business investment due to dire growth prospects in Europe?
You focus exclusively on the President at the expense of the real action going on.
Yes, it does matter, since he will have a real live opponent rather than it being him against not-Obama. And the real action I just previously described has little or nothing to do with Obama. These people are nihilists who want total collapse and destruction if that’s what it takes to regain power.This is not 1980, 1992, 2004 or 2008.
Didn’t he have majorities in both houses of Congress after his election when he had all the momentum of the Democratic ‘base’ on his side? He was determined to stay above the fray and now he and the country are paying for his wishy-washiness. Rightly or wrongly, he has lost the trust of a lot of people. BooMan, you frame it as f people are wrongly abandoning him and he did no wrong. He has definitely done wrong. Do you truly believe tjat his past actions as president warrant current support? Yes, I know, what other choice is there. Well now there is OcuppyWallStreet and we seem to be moving into a different ballgame. Obama has his demons, which have had a profound effect on the world—just the contradiction between the Cairo speech and his rejection of the UN recognition of Palestinian statehood says it all. No he is not helpless. He could have put himself on the line, his supporters had his back. No so much anymore.
Didn’t he have majorities in both houses of Congress after his election when he had all the momentum of the Democratic ‘base’ on his side?
You’re talking about the two-year period when he, and they, passed the largest body of progressive legislation of any president since early LBJ, right?
Yes, that’s when he could have done more to get the financial institutions under control and to demand accountability from the perpetrators. He may have passed as much legislation as ever, big deal, the basic problems which he did not really attempt to solve are still with us and growing worse.
Well now there is OcuppyWallStreet and we seem to be moving into a different ballgame.
Please don’t tell me you seriously believe that you can just throw all your support to OccupyWallStreet and thus wash your hands of Barack Obama. After some initial skepticism, I’m starting to see that OccupyWallStreet can turn into something positive, but not if it casts itself as being in opposition to Obama and the Democrats.
Look, the left–or, I should say, a certain faction of the left–is partly responsible for the election of George W. Bush. I don’t mind making that accusation, because I’m one of the people who voted for Nader. Fortunately I live in California, so I can tell myself my vote didn’t directly contribute to Gore’s defeat, but it was still a terrible mistake.
Of course it might not have mattered if Gore had run a better campaign, or picked a less uninspiring running mate, or if the Supreme Court wasn’t so corrupt, but still I don’t think it can be denied that the few percentage points that Nader took in Florida made the vote count close enough for the Republicans to steal the election.
I think it’s entirely possible for OccupyWallStreet to become a force for meaningful change, but they’re not going to get anywhere by undermining the Democrats in the next election. However little faith you may have in Obama, you can predict with 100% confidence that any Republican who might get elected President next year will shit on everything you care about.
You don’t need to put words in my mouth. Obama and any success Occupy Wall Street might achieve are not mutually exclusive. What I meant is that he also has to live with the recently emerging reality of the protests. The longer they go one, the more he will be compelled to recognize the challenge to his rather static, conventional view of how to govern and whom to placate and prefer. Who said anything about underminingg Democrats? Looking around you might have noticed that Democrats know very well to take care of themselves as a group. You might say I’m a genetic Democrat. Too bad the constitution makes it nearly impossible to establish a credible third party on a national level. I’m too old to begin on that project. P.S. I thought there was once a spell check on this site. Am I wrong?
So hundreds, perhaps thousands of people are out right this minute protesting joblessness and the ruin Wall Street has made of the economy, and Booman dismisses that with a yawn. They’re sitting on the sidelines, he says, I guess by getting out and getting maced (not that he gives a shit, as he’s said before) instead of … writing supportive blog posts, I suppose. Clap louder, people!
Some politicians would grab hold of the palpable anger at Wall Street and use that to advance bills and to gain re-election. Of course, they’d have to not be complete tools of Wall Street to do that, so most of the Democratic Party and all of the Republicans are in quite a bind.
They’re sitting on the sidelines, he says
No, he doesn’t. They’re not sitting on the sidelines; they’re off playing another game in another stadium.
Clap louder, people!
Isn’t that exactly the strategy of Occupy Wall Street; to get enough people to Clap Louder that…well, it just trails off at that point.
Some politicians would grab hold of the palpable anger at Wall Street and use that to advance bills and to gain re-election.
Oh, yeah, that reminds me: the same people were off wanking when the strongest bill of financial regulation in 70 years was passed. I know, I know…wrong color pony, daddy.
I want to agree with Booman here to some degree. The strategy of the Republicans, it seems, has been to poison the well. All politics seems dirty and stinky, so one wants to turn away. It doesn’t seem to me that this is about Obama at all (or Geitner or Summers or public option or any particular decision or negotiation). It’s just about looking and smelling something disgusting and wanting to turn away.
In this sense, I think it’s all a bit too early to be giving up on Obama or the jobs bill or anything else on the progressive wish list. As we get nearer to the 2012 election, people will have reason to be enthused again — though not perhaps with the vigor of 2008. After all, how can that be matched? It wasn’t that intense since Kennedy — kind of once or twice in a lifetime enthusiasm.
As for the Wall Street protests, there is nothing contradictory about supporting both that action and supporting the jobs bill. For that matter, folks should be supporting the defeat of “5” in Ohio. And should be working to support a recall of Scott Walker in Wisconsin.
In my view, people put too heavy a burden of expectation on Obama and now blame him for their own disappointments. ‘Tis a shame.
A-FuckingMen Booman- AMEN!!! The left has been pulling this shit since after the stimulus. Its not new.
who thought they would vote on it?
I didn’t. but, take the fight to them.
Boo, the lad is crying wolf again. It’s campaign time. Who hasn’t seen this Obama before? We were led to believe it in 2007. The flowery ads about that “fierce advocate” succeeded. Obama won the presidency with little more than rhetoric. You noble types accuse us of being naive and “stupid” for falling for it, but it seems you want us to be stupid again; to suck it up and swallow hard what we know is only a sales pitch. Why? For you and the other people (who always knew better, mind you–but I won’t go there) to kick us again and call us suckers? I don’t think so. You can play your violin and trot out the unwashed masses as much as is your wont but Obama has clearly shown he doesn’t care about anyone but people like him: wealthy people and the social climbers who love them.
You can dismiss emotion all you like but it’s you who are being emotional playing by playing your sad, sad violin and calling for us to back a president who has done nothing but cozy himself to the powerful and kick his “fucking retard” base, i.e., the powerless. That’s the definition of a coward.
Anyone who chooses to back a symptom of a problem (Obama) as being the solution because the problem can only be worse is part of the problem.
And you call us whiners?! This, my friend is the definition a whine:
Boo-hoo, Mr. President. They won’t let you do anything you (claim to) want to do. Wah-wah-wah! Sounds like a loser to me.
He went from being the “only adult in the room” to a crying rube really fast. And you ask us to believe him?
I said before, we will see very soon who and what stupid really is.
There’s basically no part of your post that isn’t completely fucking wrong. It really is rather sublime in its bitter, juvenile ignorance.
I guess it’ll be the same guy who is blaming Barack Obama for Republicans acting like assholes. The same guy who basically ignored calls for voting more Democrats in to offset these Republican assholes from taking office because stuff wasn’t happening as fast or as left as they liked it.
Then, go on to blame Barack Obama for that because he wasn’t the beatnik, pacifist hippie + liberal George W. Bush that you had conned yourself to hallucinate during the last campaign. Then you expect people to feel sorry for you when everyone who actually listened, read, and heard him are acting more rational than you did.
Seems there is a projection problem on the left as well as the right.
Obama won the presidency with little more than rhetoric.
These people have turned into the Palinite trolls from 2008.
Come on, at least work “celebrity” and “teleprompter” into your routine.
There’s a huge difference between what you apparently fell for last time (by your own claim anyway) — i.e., some notion that Obama would fix everything — and what you’re being asked to do now — work to get a bill through Congress.
How is it that you apparently can’t tell the difference between these two very different things?
You know, I honestly had no idea there were this many whining babies out there. Thanks to the internet for that bit of enlightenment, I guess.
I’ve always just assumed the “Professional Left” is fundamentally committed to reactionary sentiment and not actual progressivism.
I think Calvin and Hobbes had a good way of summing up the matter:
“”When I grow up, I’m not going to read the newspaper and I’m not going to follow complex issues and I’m not going to vote. That way I can complain when the government doesn’t represent me. Then, when everything goes down the tubes, I can say the system doesn’t work and justify my further lack of participation.”
It’s infinitely easier to complain about things (and there will always be something to complain about) than to fix them. Good for narcissism too. Failure sucks. Best to avoid the possibility, not through hard work, but through apathy…
It’s not really about Obama. It could be anybody in office. The PL wants glorious affirmations of justice and righteousness. Anything short of that is pointless.
Indeed, Booman.
Except that Obama, and many of the progressives you’re talking about, don’t really think that campaigning for the jobs bill will actually get it passed. Rather, they think that it will draw a sharper contrast with the Republicans for the voting public.
But I thought if he showed some leadership and demanded he get what he wants that he’d get what he wants. I’m confused.
That is, indeed, the argument that most of the made. The Bully Pulpit argument. I see a couple of its more fervent proponents have already graced the thread with their presence.
I’m pointing out that there was a smarter version of this argument – one based around electoral politics and a longer timeframe, not fantasies that speeches from Barack Obama are going to get Joe Lieberman to stop being an asshole in the middle of a Congressional term – that some of the people calling for more public politics from the White House were making.
Unsurprisingly, it seems that a lot more of these people are embracing the White House’s efforts.
I’m not sure if you’re using the term “bully pulpit” correctly. You may be, but I’m puzzled. BP doesn’t mean [as Booman put it]”if he … demanded he get what he wants [then] he’d get what he wants.” It means that even when he CAN’T get what he wants, he can at least use the bully pulpit, i.e. use his position to advocate, educate the public. It would not put him in a position to make demands, let alone have them satisfied, as it would have no effect at all on the congressional GOP — but it might change the way the public perceives the congressional GOP.
I think Obama has influenced the way the public perceives the GOP, though not so much through the bully pulpit in the usual sense. It’s more like he has given them enough rope to hang themselves.
Three years ago!
Three years ago!
The battle cry of the newly-populated “Too Late!” contingent.
You were writing comments about how much you wanted Obama to do what he’s been doing three weeks ago.
I’ll also note that the president who reminds so many of Kennedy, and who arouses many of the same passions on both sides of the aisle, just went to Dallas in the fall of his third year in office.
That takes balls.
I’m glad he was done and gone before I realized he was there.
Booman, I don’t understand what you’re trying to accomplish with these posts complaining about the Left. It isn’t members of the Left who are undermining Obama’s jobs initiative. It’s people like Ben Nelson, Mary Landrieu and Heath Shuler (AKA the Blue Dogs). The Left has had his back throughout his presidency, even when they were pissed off with him for the concessions he made to the Republicans.
And they aren’t pissed off at him right now. That’s a big improvement from last summer. So already, his strategy is starting to pay off.
And now you’re complaining about the protests on Wall Street? Those are people who are motivated. Those are people who are likely to get out and vote if they see the Democratic party pick up the banner for the middle class. And you want them to tone it down a little? You think they’re stepping on Obama’s message? Fighting for the other 99% is Obama’s message. Maybe you noticed that all the successes Democrats have had in the past year have been in places were people are mobilized and protesting against the status quo.
Every time you lecture us on the “political realities” and the inability of Democrats to pass legislation, you’re effectively telling Democratic-leaning voters to stay home next November. That’s the warning in Gallup’s recent poll. Democrats are demoralized. Republicans aren’t. People will not come out to vote for Democrats if you convince them that Democrats literally can’t get anything done.
The protests on Wall Street, and the fights in Wisconsin and Ohio are the type of public action that motivate people to get out to vote for change. So will seeing that Obama and the Democrats will fight for the middle class against the Koch Brothers Party.
Telling us that the Mitch McConnell will rule the Senate unless Democrats win more than 60 Senate seats… not so much.
I don’t care what the people on Wall Street do. I am not asking them to tone it down. If they want to protest, more power to them, and they might just change the narrative in this country for the better.
I’m talking about the president’s Job Bill. If he doesn’t come out of this scrap looking good, if he can’t get any bill at all, he’s going to look impotent, and that’s not a good way to look when facing reelection. So, he either needs to get a bill or he needs to convince the public that the Republicans are to blame and need to be repudiated. And opinion leaders on the left can’t be distracted over the next several weeks by protests going on on Wall Street.
I hear people say that we can do this now and the election later. No. The election is right now with this Jobs Bill.
This is where we disagree. The president looked impotent last summer when the Republicans threatened to derail the economy and in response, Obama offered them trillions of dollars in cuts, put Social Security and Medicare benefits “on the table”, dropped demands for tax revenue as part of the solution, and still couldn’t get a deal.
Anyone who pays attention to politics knows that Obama can’t always get legislation passed. The first question is what he’s willing to fight for. If he can show that he’s fighting for popular values while the Republicans are fighting for Wall Street, people will be motivated to vote for him and for Democrats like him.
Well, you did say that they were coming “at an inopportune time”, which suggests that you think they’re detrimental to Obama’s goals. And the fact that you don’t care what the protesters do, tells me that you think they aren’t an important part of this whole debate. Koch didn’t sponsor all those Tea Party revolts for nothing. Protesting works. OWS is fighting for progressive values. Having them on the street pushes the debate towards Obama’s side of the agenda. The phrase “class warfare” has shifted from a slur Republicans use against Democrats, to become instead a description of what Wall Street is waging on the public, while “job creators” is getting to be a punchline. They keep the topic in the news and show that people aren’t willing to shoulder all the burdens of the downturn while the wealthiest are exempt.
The more of these protests you see in the next year, the better it will be for Democrats. If they vanish from the scene you can say “Hello” to a Republican sweep.
This post and this whole thread is beyond depressing.
Did anyone realistically think that the GOP was going to pass any bill the President wanted regarding the economy? I’m sure some minority did, but I think the vast majority of us figured out that, absent an extreme event, this won’t happen.
A lot of people have argued that in 2009-10 Obama could have led more forcefully, back when the issue was convincing a few Lieberdems in order to get past the filibuster. That’s been a subject of intense debate on the left, with no possible resolution. But in 2011 the situation is clear.
I do think that the argument around the debt ceiling negotiations was that the President should stop trying to play middleman with people whose clear, primary objective is not to accomplish policy objectives but to see the President fail. And moreover, to cease starting his negotiations from a position that already is a mid-point compromise.
For the Jobs Bill, a lot of us (and I am one) applauded the President for his tough position – not expecting the GOP to capitulate but instead expecting him to use this as campaign leverage. If there had been a chance that the GOP would have compromised on a reasonable jobs bill I’d have preferred he take that approach, but there was no such chance.
In terms of blaming the left (AGAIN) for not supporting Obama on this — and moreover, the many posts here saying the left hasn’t supported Obama since the beginning — i call BULL FUCKING SHIT. Sorry, guys, but I was there with OFA during the campaign. I was there at the local community gatherings starting in the summer of 2009 as those of us who worked on the OFA campaign got together to fight for health care reform. We called, we wrote Congress, we wrote letters to papers, we called in to talk shows, we canvassed, we went to town halls and spoke up. In retrospect it is disappointing that OFA didn’t pro-actively organize such activity beforehand, but eventually they did start some organizational work.
I’ll argue that the biggest difference between the left and the right in the HCR period was that the right was organizing ground troops from the top down and pouring in money, while the leadership of the left was at best, quietly discouraging the ground activism while hoping to get a vote from Snowe. The Right leadership had registered the tea party domains back in the summer of 2008 and was preparing for a huge fight — the left leadership still appears uncomfortable with the idea of mass protests in the streets. 100,000 showing up to cheer an Obama speech in 2008 was fine – but intensely confrontational protests don’t fit the “we’re above the fray” approach Obama had hoped to take.
I still get OFA texts. They ask me to call my reps in Congress. (I do, but my Congresscaveman is Lamborn and my Senators are solidly Democratic, so it’s kinda pointless but I do it.) They ask me to donate to Obama. What they DON’T ask me to do is organize and protest.
So, I join the protests that ARE happening. Against Wall Street. Against the ultra rich who are killing this country and the planet.
We’re up against an entrenched, extremely well-funded system of propoganda and top-down activism. Their goals are evil. Their allies include 98% of the media. Any chance we have of defeating them requires strong leadership on our part – leadership that knows that this is a fight, not a negotiation. Leadership that will channel their activist base as well as the right channel’s theirs.
In the absence of such leadership on the left, the best we can hope for is something like Occupy Wall Street and ineffective calls to Congress. And blaming the left.
This. And it’s exasperating to see Booman discouraging ground activism in this post, as well. You aren’t going to win any victories if you keep telling the base to stay home.
Wait, I thought Obama was the problem here!
With “friends” like these…
Reid: I Can’t Get Unanimous Support From Dems To Use The Bathroom, Let Alone For Obama’s Jobs Bill
Finally, the truth behind our discontent.
Clearly Obama’s problem is that he owns a Tardis and refuses to use it. Or something like that.
I’m totally with you on this one, Booman.
I may be way off, but sometimes it all seems to me like adolescents fighting with their dad. Dads are not perfect, but the adolescent thing is just this need to fight, not to resolve a particular issue, but for the sake of rebelling and resolving identity.
Son: I want to use the car, you bastard.
Dad: You can’t use the car unless you remember to put gas in it. You always forget to put gas in it. Also, there’s no need to call me a bastard.
Son: I’ll put gas in this time.
Dad: Great, you can use it. But if you don’t put gas in the car, you can’t use it again.
Son: You bastard.
And there’s no resolving this problem because Obama is not actually anyone’s dad (excepting Sasha’s and Malia’s), and the issue people actually have is with their own dads anyway. Unfortunately, that ship has already sailed.
P.S. I made phone calls with OFA to constituents of a local swing district Democrat to get ACA passed. The idea was to get THEM to call or visit this rep. I thought that was good strategy, and I feel a little proud of the hard work. Also, ACA passed, and this swing-district Democrat, who was waffling, voted for the bill.
I am persuaded by Booman that this Fight Wall Street movement is a massive pie-in-the sky distraction that isn’t grounded in reality. The 99% need the American Jobs Act and if they aren’t organizing for the fight the professional left claims it wanted, on the terms it demanded, then I don’t know what the fuck they’re really doing except wasting people’s time.
I’m starting to wonder if any of you complaining that OWS is “wasting people’s time” have made even the simplest effort to see what they’re saying.
Here are a few of their ‘ignorant’ complaints:
via: http://wearethe99percent.tumblr.com/
Maybe you notice a theme here? Virtually every post is about jobs. They’re demanding that the government start focusing on getting people back to work. So if they dropped this “pie in the sky distraction” and took up the fight for the jobs act, exactly what do you think they would be doing differently?
What I’m saying is that the president is out fighting for a jobs bill. So, join him.
The rest is just argumentation.
If people want to yell at Wall Street, that’s fine. But if it’s really all about jobs, then get on board and fight for jobs.
Well we obviously disagree about the usefulness of the demonstrations, but you still haven’t answered the question. What would you want them to be doing differently? Your entire post is a complaint that the Left isn’t actively supporting Obama’s jobs plan. And here you have thousands of people in the streets, trying to change the economic debate from Austerity Now to Jobs, Jobs, Jobs, and you dismiss it as so much argumentation.
Did I miss the “Obama SUX” signs? Are they belittling his bill? Maybe you should recruit a few like minded readers to go to Wall Street with “Pass the Damn Bill” signs and take advantage of the situation. Because it seems to me that the Left is doing exactly what you claim you want it to do.
the strongest thing I said about the Wall Street protests in this post was that they are happening at an inopportune time. Maybe we can turn it from what it is into something that better complements the president’s message. Your suggestion isn’t bad.
You’re writing posts bitching about a disorganized mass of people – people who are mostly natural allies and who are angry and trying to make a difference – but you feel that their message isn’t fine-tuned to sync with Obama’s. Somehow I think that won’t change anything.
Here’s an alternate suggestion – the next time you get on the phone with your White House source, try to convince him/her that if the WH want these protests to sync with their message then they have to actually lead. Use OFA to do something other than raise campaign cash. Organize – identify local leaders – provide them with material support, instructions for what to say and do – numbers to call for help. A mechanism for sharing experiences and ideas. You know – what the campaign did in 2008 and then stopped doing immediately afterward.
other than my first post about the protests, which was really a reaction to one woman’s experience, I have not been bitching about the protesters. I have been bitching about something entirely different, which is that people are not focusing on the Jobs Bill.
The protests are NOT about “jobs, jobs, jobs”. It would be great if they were, but that’s just one theme lost in the miasma.
I see you’re nicely parroting the Beltway memes, but the idea that these protests don’t have a fundamental objective is absurd. You could travel to any small town in the world, tell them that people in America are protesting Wall Street, and they’d know what it was all about.
Wall Street is the center of the world’s financial powerbrokers, and it was their greed that caused the worldwide financial collapse. Banks and traders have been bailed out by governments, no strings attached, while workers, teachers, and policemen have been fired. Social programs have been cut. Fire departments, hospitals and schools closed. Unemployment has soared. All while the financial geniuses on Wall Street have made record fortunes and pay the lowest taxes in our lifetimes.
The political and financial elite are demanding austerity packages for the masses and a free ride for the wealthy. OWS is responding, “Fuck you. Pay for the mess you’ve made and get people back to work”.
I hear ya, SB