Progressives are Killing Obama’s Presidency
The last two elections (2006 and 2008) were a rebuke to a Republican party that was running amok, and utterly without coherence, vision, or leadership. They deserved to be ousted, and their overheated rhetoric and deliberate misstatements about the new administration demonstrate that they are nowhere near ready to return to power; they need far more time in the political wilderness.
I don’t think, though, that the Republicans are going to be out for very long. It’s highly likely, in fact, that they’ll regain enormous ground in 2010 — not because of some newly-found coherence, but because the Democrats are blowing it. And the movement left, aka the “progressives”, own this.
Progressives are, in many ways, the yin to the far right yang. Their views are not mainstream; they’re seen as far to the left. And just like their counterparts on the extreme right, they don’t understand how far away they are from the massive moderate majority in the country.
This amazing disconnect was brought home to me fully this weekend in the aftermath of the Van Jones resignation, when Jane Hamsher wrote at firedoglake:
Now [Van Jones has] been thrown under the bus by the White House for signing his name to a petition expressing something that 35% of all Democrats believed as of 2007 — that George Bush knew in advance about the attacks of 9/11.
To her, evidently, Van Jones’ Trutherism is just normal and perfectly acceptable.
Yet that same poll found that only 22% of all Americans agreed with Mr. Jones. Can’t anybody do subtraction any more? Even a third-grader could look at those numbers and see that the vast majority of America are not “Truthers”. Tellingly, that 22% figure is identical to the percentage that identified itself as “Somewhat Liberal” or “Very Liberal” in a poll just a few days ago.
Folks, when 78% of the country disagrees with you, your views are not representative. Sorry.
The take-away is not that there’s a less-than-stable wing in the Democratic Party; the Republican right wing is just as out-of-step. The problem is that this left edge has an inflated ego and an out-sized sense of power.
Many hard liberals seem to think that they and they alone brought Obama to the presidency. Without them (the thinking goes), he’d never have been elected, and thus, “he owes them”…. and right there is the root of the fear of the Obama presidency springing up around the country.
Most people aren’t afraid of Obama individually. They are, however, extremely worried about a president who’s policies are driven by the hard left of the Democratic Party.
It was America who elected this president. The Democrats (much less their left flank) did not — and still do not — represent the majority of this country’s citizens. The Democrats are in the majority right now because we have an ‘either-or’ political system. There’s no consensus on liberal policy, and there never was.
Obama needs to start twisting some Dem arms of his own, and convince his party (and the country) that he’s his own man. As today’s editorial in the WSJ says:
Mr. Obama is falling in the polls because last year he didn’t tell the American people that the “change” they were asked to believe in included trillions of dollars in new spending, deferring to the most liberal Members of Congress, a government takeover of health care, and appointees with the views of Van Jones.
If Obama does not take up the reins, the result will be toxic. The conservative districts who sent Dems to Congress — who gave them the majority — will likely overcompensate with “representatives” who are very far to the right. The end result will be an impossibly hostile environment that will make the current strife look mild.
President Obama should tell Nancy Pelosi that her “my way or the highway” approach is impossibly divisive. He needs to tell Harry Reid that reconciliation is not an option for legislation in a divided nation. And he needs to definitively untether himself from the movement progressives. They are not representative of America… but Obama should be.
He must be.
82 Responses to “Progressives are Killing Obama’s Presidency”
Zzzzz – It occurs to me that the disagreement we have about the role of the President is one that has been ongoing at various levels for 220 years in America.
Many great leaders have taken your position. A few dolts have agreed with me. Rather than propel the argument into its 221st year, I suggest we simply agree to disagree.
Nah, on second thought, let's continue the debate…example: Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation by Presidential fiat. By your theory, shouldn't that have been an act of Congress, written by legislators? Hint. If you get by that one, my next examples will include FDR, JFK and LBJ.
Let's see, did the liberals make Obama ineffectual or did Obama make the liberal agenda ineffectual?
After carefully scoring the preceding debate, I am happy to inform the group that both sides are correct!
A suggested debate question for tomorrow—which group rendered the ubiquitous election “mandate” moot faster….the liberals of 1994 or the liberals of 2008?
Sorry, but there is more than “some” knee jerk NO! going on. That is virtually all that has been going on in the public arena on the Republican/”conservative” side. As far as their proposals go, aren't their primary virtues from the conservative viewpoint their hewing to the conservative belief in free markets, not any proven efficacy? My prediction is this: if the enacted reforms inconvenience the insurance industry in any way they will be repealed the first chance the Republicans and conservative Democrats have to do so.
As far as fraud goes, who defines fraud? Recission, anyone?
“What exactly are the Progressives doing wrong? Fighting for what they believe in?”
Yes, exactly. With Democrats in control of both the White House and Congress, progressives in the legislature or the blogosphere or wherever have more influence and are under more pressure to get the job done. We have a tough job to do, one that affects billions of lives.
Unfortunately fighting for what you believe in—if that’s the only virtue you can claim–will get you fired from every job on the planet, from plumber to pope. Jobs have requirements, and running the country requires finding and selling solutions to all sorts of political and economic problems. Though progressives embody the best intentions, they’re failing to find and sell the needed solutions, and they're consequently feeling their agenda stall and their influence recede.
What bell curve? You make reference to things that do not exist. And besides, you seem to assume this is a perfect bell curve, but lo and behold, bell curves can SKEW to one side or another.
As for extremists, I'm willing to call a spade a spade, and Van Jones is a spade…errr, extremist. But it proves Obama is a radical just as much as Michael Moore proved Saddam and Rumsfeld were secret lovers in Fahrenheit 9/11. And then to tie that into people (a large amount of people, let's be fair) who call for a public option, and paint them as “hard left” is dishonest. Being progressive on health care is not an “extreme” position, and if Obama throws them under the bus, well, turning on your base is always a super winning strategy.
The Republicans were perfectly idle bystanders during this time?
I'm sorry, but I'm still seeing double standards. However, that aside, I think everyone can agree that there is no coherent strategy going on here on the Dem side of things and the onus is on Obama, hence the speech coming soon.
Also, I want a lot of you to take a look at yourselves and check the pure glee you're feeling at the Dems messing up. That's not a good thing, folks. I mean, if you're getting a thrill out of your political beliefs being reinforced, more power to you, but I thought we ALL agreed this country needed healthcare reform.
But apparently not. We just need a “correction” in Congress in 2010 so we can return to more urgent business, like increasing troop levels for ill-defined missions in Afghanistan and tax cuts. Yeah, that'll solve everything.
Then why all the teasing from Obama about the public option? Why all the waffling? I don't get it.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by PunditKix and PunditKix. PunditKix said: NEW: Progressives are Killing Obama’s Presidency | The Moderate Voice – http://is.gd/32AzU [...]
Also, I want a lot of you to take a look at yourselves and check the pure glee you're feeling at the Dems messing up.
Who is this directed at? I haven't seen any comments that indicate 'glee'. On the other hand, if one believes that a particular policy goal will have disastrous results, and that the party that is pushing that goal (and others) needs to have some checks placed on its power, then of course one will hope that the party in question continues on a self destructive course.
But to frame it as though there's a childish, 'root for the home team' mentality is really offensive. I am, in a sense, rooting against the Democratic party because I think the policies they're working toward will be destructive for the country and because I think there are some serious ethical problems that are not going to be addressed as long as they yield so much power. The combination of the big govt solutions to all problems and the unethical conduct of some of the party leaders is especially troubling, and instead of blaming Republicans for wanting them demoted it would be wise for Democrats (or Indies who lean that way) to start holding to account the people they elected (just as the GOP should have done, and failed until things got really bad, during the last cycle.)
[...] myself, I don’t think he gets it. I suggest that Mr Obama being himself a radical progressive is just playing to [...]
[...] myself, I don’t think he gets it. I suggest that Mr Obama being himself a radical progressive is just playing to [...]
“I disagree with the premise of this post. If you break down the “progressive” issues (of which being a truther isn't one) then they all poll very highly. It's only when the liberal label is attached that ID plummets. Similarly, the Republicans have much higher ideological ID than their issues are approved of.”
QFT.
Ending the Iraq War, ending the Afghanistan war, closing GTMO, universal health care, investigations into Bush-era government abuse, rights for abortion, etc.
Meanwhile, no one who isn't already independently wealthy wants to follow the Republican platform which calls for us to dismantle Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and the Public School system, while we spend all our remaining tax money on occupying Muslim countries half way across the world.
Chris, both your polling summations and GOP platform synopsis are highly distorted.
CStanley,
Not true. Everything I mentioned in my polling summary either has majority or plurality support. And everything I mentioned in my Republica platform paragraph has been endorsed by the Republican party with in the last few years, with maybe the exception of Medicaid (my apologies on that one).
Everything I mentioned in my polling summary either has majority or plurality support.
In some polls, perhaps, while I could point to other polls that show the opposite for almost all of the issues you cited (the wars being the main exception- public opinion does seem to have shifted so that most everyone agrees that Iraq should wind down now and recently a slight majority has begun to favor pulling out of Afghanistan.)
Please show your work on the assertion that the GOP platform has endorsed dismantling of Medicare, SS, and public schools.
“In some polls, perhaps, while I could point to other polls that show the opposite for almost all of the issues you cited.”
In any case, the progressive platform is hardly “fringe” if we're talking about nearly half or more than half the country.
As for the GOP platform:
Republicans have recently voted for a budget which would destroy Medicare as we know it, and have long said it was a bad idea to begin with.
George W. wanted to “privatize” aka gamble away Social Security by giving it to Wall Street.
Republicans have long called for the creation of school vouchers to facilitate the move from public to private schools financed by tax payers.
I apparently missed that GOP vote on an alternative budget, and I guess all I can say is that it appears to be a posture toward acknowledging that current Medicare spending is unsustainable (so, a proposal to continue paying out to those who are retired or nearing retirement while privatizing the plan for young people.) I think it's an unwise way to go about things, but it's just as bad to keep pretending that we can continue on the current course or pretending that the Dem's healthcare reforms will fix the cost problems.
As for the rest, those are strictly your opinions about where the policies would lead. That would be like me claiming that the current Dem platform is to dismantle the private healthcare industry. It may be my opinion that that's what they're after, and I can support that with some fact, but other people can connect the dots in different ways.
CStanley,
I can only hope the current plan is to dismantle the private health insurance industry. It does nothing of value. No one that I'm aware of has ever talked about dismantling the system of private doctors and hospitals.
private health insurance industry
was actually what I meant to write. And I'm not surprised that you'd support this, but I'm sure you know that Obama and most of the Congressional Dems who've participated in the public option bills will deny that this is their goal.
Yes, because the health insurance industry is lining their pockets and they're afraid of charges that they are trying to nationalize doctors and hospitals as you mistakenly said.
Right, Chris, because it takes a lot of political courage to state what your real goals are when there are always plenty of people who will distort and demagogue. Just like you do when you rephrase proposals to privatize SS and Medicare as 'dismantling.' I'll grant you that those proposals are game changers, but by using the term “dismantle' you intentionally imply that nothing will take the place of the current programs, which isn't what was proposed in either case, at all.
To be clear, I think it's more about insurance industry money than any genuine fear. Democrats are facing the sort of distortions you're talking about even with their weaksauce plans.
I still think “dismantle” is the proper term. Handing our grandparents off to the private insurance industry wolves doesn't solve any problems in terms of costs, unless you're ready for onerous regulations or reduced subsidies. And handing off Social Security to Wall Street would have destroyed it if we went through another stock market crash like we just went through.
I love this blog!
Nah, on second thought, let's continue the debate…example: Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation by Presidential fiat. By your theory, shouldn't that have been an act of Congress, written by legislators? Hint. If you get by that one, my next examples will include FDR, JFK and LBJ.
I don't disagree with what many of these great leaders did, just how they did it. I think we would have gotten there legislatively, it just would have taken longer. However, once we got there legislatively, it would have been a lot less controversial and there would be less blow back. You may argue that this would mean a longer period of injustice and you would be right. However, what is so special about America and so enduring is our process (as outlined in the Constitution). It is about working to get consensus from the majority. Winning at all costs quickly just poisons the system. You get resentments that last for generations. Think about it. The bad behavior by Republicans over the last several years means an entire younger generation views them as inherently untrustworthy. We can't have tit for tat politics. It is bad for this country. I would rather have delayed justice than endorse tactics that further tear us apart.
As a personal note, I am a lesbian. So, when I say I would rather have delayed justice, I am speaking as someone who has experienced plenty of injustice. The thing is this, my side is winning the culture because all we are asking for is justice. I am patient. The military will stop kicking out gay soldiers. I will be legally married. This will all happen in my lifetime in my conservative state by majority consensus. Already, I am out and open and well liked at work. I wouldn't have dreamed of that 20 years ago.
Why do you completely discount Obama's stated reason, which was that we can't throw millions more people out of work during this economy? How does it remotely make sense to purposely kill an industry that employs so many people, even as we're bailing out other huge industries like the automakers?
My comment was mainly aimed at Dr J, casualobserver, and DLS. I hate seeing the fermenting CW of “Ho-hum, Democrats overreached again and America said, No!” and people forgetting the pure obstruction of the Republicans, as if the Democrats acted in a vacuum.
Beyond that, big government is here to stay, along with the Imperial Presidency, and corruption in whichever party is currently in power. The only way I see to even begin touching those issues is a Third Constitutional Convention or another Civil War which I don't think will happen in my lifetime.
“How does it remotely make sense to purposely kill an industry that employs so many people, even as we're bailing out other huge industries like the automakers?”
A couple things… these health reforms are due to phase in. Hopefully in three years we wont be in “this economy.” Second, even if the economy has improved we should certainly offer them jobs at the Public Option and give others generous unemployment benefits (which is what we should have done for the auto industry and really all workers, but that's another argument).
But the thing is, and as a capitalist I know you'll appreciate this, if an industry – especially one that already is the beneficiary of substantial government subsidies – isn't working we don't have some moral obligation to preserve it in perpetuity even if it results in short term pain.
Zzzzz – Thanks for the reply. The issue you raise is very interesting, i.e. the limits on the power of the presidency and the legislative process. I think we still have nuanced differences, but perhaps not as much as I initially thought. Most of our great presidents have been those willing to wield their power. On the other hand, most of our worst presidents have also been those willing to wield their power. Consistently, however, those presidents unwilling to wield their power have tended to be ineffectual.
As for waiting for justice, equality and social welfare, I guess I'm old fashioned enough to believe in the maxim that “justice delayed is justice denied”.
But, I'm getting off point. You are correct that Congress writes legislation constitutionally. Our nuanced difference is that I believe there is a role for the president to get involved by stating a policy preference, twisting arms and making deals to get it done. LBJ's sheparding of the Voting Rights Act and Civil Rights Act are great examples. He insisted that the bills go through the Senate Commerce Committee, peopled by liberals who would get it to the floor for a vote, rather than through the “proper” committee (forget which one) where an anti-civil-rights chairman would have buried it.
We do not need to usurp the legislative function, but we also should not deny the leadership role of the president in pushing legislation forward. My view. Btw, I would agree that Jefferson (Louisiana Purchase), Lincoln (Emancipation Proclamation), FDR (Court stacking scheme to intimidate the Supreme Court) technically exceeded constitutional authority though to good effect, as did President Nixon, President Cheney – er Bush, and Andrew Jackson all to bad effect.
Agree 100% with the original post.
One of my issues with the Obama/Biden team going into the election was that they voted 96% and 97% with their own party and I felt they would have trouble standing up to a Congress led by the progressive wing of the democratic party. it turned out that my concern was merited.
“Zzzzz”: What's relevent and noteworthy is just that — not a rant.
* * *
“So what about the right saying 'no government involvement no public option no trigger no nothing or bust buddy'”
What has actually been said is the obvious(!) truth, that reforms don't require an expansion of federal health care, in fact are completely separate from the former (which is what the Dems want, not “reform” [sic]).
“There are options between “government in it even deeper” and “nothing”.”
Note that the pair of choices you list, the false dichotomy that only fools proponents, is not the choice we currently face, though obviously there is no obligation to Do Something, Anything.
“Do nothing” and “status quo” by themselves also have been routine false charges accompanying those with concerns about what the Dems have been doing (about more than just health care). The extent and rapidity of change (and shifting of Washington well left of the mainstream) is at the heart of all the issues this year.
It only is gratuitous (but merits mention here) that adults already know “change” is not the same as “improvement,” by definition.
* * *
“if an industry – especially one that already is the beneficiary of substantial government subsidies – isn't working we don't have some moral obligation to preserve it in perpetuity even if it results in short term pain”
Tell that to the people in Washington who paid off the UAW and propped up GM and Chrysler if not also viewed them as their “Green” toy boxes, and now we learn (unsurprisingly) that they are unlikely to repay all the money of ours that was given to them. It only adds to intelligent wariness about what Washington wants this year so far.
“Beyond that, big government is here to stay, along with the Imperial Presidency, and corruption in whichever party is currently in power.”
I'd like to see reform that, ironically, the farthest lefties are often the ones who want — partition (break up, fracture) the two major parties and create a system with four to six or more parties instead, with proportional representation in multi-seat bodies, where this is appropriate. Accompany that with the kinds of “mechanical” constitutional reforms like revising terms in federal office, term limits, etc., and we'd be in much better shape than we are in now.
I don't have faith in many to be able to handle the bigger, more modernist tasks like reorganizing and reconstituting the states (including defining what they are, what sovereignty if any they would have, selecting physical or natural as well as political boundaries metro-area orientation as well as possible metro area unification), and so on.
“standing up to a Congress led by the progressive wing”
What's hurting Obama separately and additionally is that he is siding with these people, as well as being subject to tarnishing of the embarrassment and disgrace related to the Van Jones exposure.
“We do not need to usurp the legislative function, but we also should not deny the leadership role of the president in pushing legislation forward.”
“Fusion of powers” has periodically been considered by people dissatisfied with “divided government,” which was exemplified by liberal and Democratic frustration with having a Republican in the White House in the 1980s who wasn't acting as if he were another of the Congressional Democrats.
Such “fusion of powers” was addressed, for example, in Sundquist's work.
[Note: "Fostering Inter[-B]ranch Collaboration”: “Modifying the Separation of Powers”]
http://books.google.com/books?id=K7yvhNxY0DkC&d…
Concern about FDR's overreach (the motive for the original edition of the book) and later, about the Watergate affair with Nixon (the motive for a new edition and new remarks in the book) led to the writing of a book advocating a change to a parliamentary system of government:
http://www.amazon.com/new-Constitution-now-Henr…