The Chronicle of Higher Education
Christopher Phelps
16 November 2010
excerpts:
When set against other liberal-reform phases in American politics—the Age of Jackson in the 1830s, the Progressive Era of the 1910s, the New Deal of the 1930s, or the last liberal heyday of the 1960s—what the Obama presidency has lacked is not centrism but a vibrant left-of-center mass movement capable of shaking up the establishment and advancing the national agenda beyond Washington's comfort zone.
Without a doubt, the 2010 election was historic. Midterm results typically confound the party of a sitting president, even more so in poor economic times. The Republicans' gain of at least 60 seats in the House is their largest since 1938—not exactly the preferred replay of the New Deal period sought by left-of-center observers.
But that outcome does not reflect a conviction of Republican conservatism. In exit polls, voters disdained both parties. Only 41 percent viewed the Republican Party favorably, while 43 percent saw the Democrats positively. How voters could marginally prefer one party while resoundingly electing the other has to do with district lines and a perceived lack of alternatives in a winner-take-all system. It also has to do with context.
The media's story line was the skillful rebranding by the Tea Party of a discredited right. But a more crucial variable was the near-total absence of countervailing left-of-center movements for social justice. The workingmen's movements of the 1830s, the women's-suffrage and socialist movements of the 1910s, the labor and unemployed organizing of the 1930s, the civil-rights and antiwar mobilizations of the 1960s: No comparable wild-card movements materialized in the past two years to demand more of the Democrats and corporate America than they were prepared to offer.
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An estimated 29 million Obama voters from 2008 did not vote in 2010. Much of the reason lies in the administration's hewing to the center, even the center-right. Labor activists supported Obama dedicatedly, only to see the Employee Free Choice Act shunted aside. Gay and lesbian voters were estranged by Obama's failure to fulfill his promise to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act and "don't ask, don't tell." Environmentalists' jaws dropped as the administration announced its support for off-shore drilling a few weeks before the BP disaster and a once-in-a-generation chance to do something about carbon emissions cratered in the Senate. Civil libertarians have seen secrecy and warrantless wiretapping undiminished. The collapse of the youth vote may owe something to the 50,000 troops remaining in Iraq and the escalation in Afghanistan.
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The Democrats' Problem
Greenwald/O'Donnell
Lawrence O'Donnell vehemently denies his own words
Glenn Greenwald:
The Republicans have long lived by what they call "The Buckley Rule": always support the furthest Right candidate who can plausibly win. This year, knowing that it would be a wave election, one that would sweep in huge numbers of Republicans in districts where they ordinarily couldn't get elected, they changed that to: support the furthest Right candidate, period. That's because they believe conservatism will work and want to advocate for it. Democrats don't do that. The DCCC constantly works to prop up the most "centrist" or conservative candidates -- i.e., corporatists -- on the ground that it's always better, more politically astute, to move to the Right. Even in the pro-Democratic wave years of 2006 and 2008, the Democratic Party blocked actual progressives and ensured that Blue Dogs were nominated, even though the anti-GOP sentiment was so strong that any Democrat, including progressives, could have won even in red districts (as Alan Grayson proved).
With that strategy, the Democratic Party now reaps what it has sown. Its message and identity are profoundly muddled, incoherent, unclear, uninspiring, and self-negating. Worse, its policies are mishmashes of inept half-measures that, with a handful of exceptions, produce little good for anyone (other than Wall Street, the Pentagon and other corporate interests). They are perceived as -- and are -- beholden to Wall Street, special interests, and the corporations they vowed to confront. They are without any ability to confront the massive unemployment crisis and financial decline the country faces. And as a result of all of that, they lay in shambles. Anyone who can survey all of that and cheer for the strategy which Democrats have been pursuing -- let's build our majorities by relying on GOP-replicating corporatist Blue Dogs -- or who thinks that this election loss happened because "Democrats are too liberal," resides in a world that has very little to do with reality. And that's true no matter how many times they repeat the simplistic snippets of exit polls to which they've obsessively attached themselves.
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Stewart/Colbert
Rally preaches compromise and complacency
WSWS:
Joseph Kishore
The basic sentiment that Stewart sought to cultivate was one of complacency. The rally was called in the midst of the greatest economic crisis in generations, but there was absolutely no mention—either before or during the event—of the desperate situation facing millions of people. There was nothing about the ongoing wars carried out by both political parties that have led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands. There was no hint of the unprecedented attack on democratic rights in the United States.
According to Stewart’s analysis, the immense divisions that are emerging in American society are little more than a media creation. The outlook is in fact preposterous.
There was also an ugly element to the rally, a deliberate attempt in particular to blackguard and delegitimize any left-wing opposition to the policies of the ruling class. On a number of occasions, Stewart lumped together left-wing opponents of Obama with the extreme right, declaring, “Why would you work with Marxists actively subverting our constitution? Or racists and homophobes who see no one’s humanity but their own?”
The attempt to equate socialists with racists and homophobes is a deliberate attempt to render illegitimate any argument that the political system is dictated by the interests of the corporate and financial elite—a sentiment in fact shared by millions of people.
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dancing in the dark
Glenn on Health Care maneuvering:
[excerpt]
The primary tactic in this game is Villain Rotation. They always have a handful of Democratic Senators announce that they will be the ones to deviate this time from the ostensible party position and impede success, but the designated Villain constantly shifts, so the Party itself can claim it supports these measures while an always-changing handful of their members invariably prevent it. One minute, it's Jay Rockefeller as the Prime Villain leading the way in protecting Bush surveillance programs and demanding telecom immunity; the next minute, it's Dianne Feinstein and Chuck Schumer joining hands and "breaking with their party" to ensure Michael Mukasey's confirmation as Attorney General; then it's Big Bad Joe Lieberman single-handedly blocking Medicare expansion; then it's Blanche Lincoln and Jim Webb joining with Lindsey Graham to support the de-funding of civilian trials for Terrorists; and now that they can't blame Lieberman or Ben Nelson any longer on health care (since they don't need 60 votes), Jay Rockefeller voluntarily returns to the Villain Role, stepping up to put an end to the pretend-movement among Senate Democrats to enact the public option via reconciliation.
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in conclusion...
from digby:
The "tea partier may believe that he's part of something 'unique' and 'fresh' but the American far right is the same as it ever was: angry, resentful, bigoted, xenophobic and nativist, afraid of change, anxious to blame those who they perceive to be undeserving and the elites who defend them. Guess who those undeserving and elites are?"
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lowered expectations...
from Glenn:
"As I've written for quite some time, I've honestly never understood how anyone could think that Obama was going to bring about some sort of "new" political approach or governing method when . . . what he practices -- politically and substantively -- is the Third Way, DLC, triangulating corporatism of the Clinton era, just re-packaged with some sleeker and more updated marketing. At its core, it seeks to use government power not to regulate, but to benefit and even merge with, large corporate interests, both for political power (those corporate interests, in return, then fund the Party and its campaigns) and for policy ends. It's devoted to empowering large corporations, letting them always get what they want from government, and extracting, at best, some very modest concessions in return."
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"One finds this in far more than just economic policy, and it's about more than just letting corporations do what they want. It's about harnessing government power in order to benefit those corporate interests and even merging government and the private sector. In the intelligence and surveillance realms, for instance, the line between government agencies and private corporations barely exists. Military policy is carried out almost as much by private contractors as by our state's armed forces. Corporate executives and lobbyists can shuffle between the public and private sectors so seamlessly because the divisions have been so eroded."
The underlying divisions in the healthcare debate
sadly, I agree
"This bill appears to be legislation that the president wanted in the first place." - Russ Feingold
from digby
"One can only speculate about what might have happened if they had gamed this out a little bit differently. Maybe it wouldn't have made any difference. But the fact remains that Obama last made a speech about health care last September (in which he inexplicably put a 900 billion dollar cap on the legislation) and there's been nothing but mild admonitions to "work it out" ever since then. He simply did not show leadership on the issue. And now his own ratings are suffering because of the mess. If Greenwald is right when he says that the White House achieved the plan they always wanted, then it came at a very high price."
Joe Lieberman didn't merely campaign against Barack Obama and several other Democrats. That's the least of his sins. He was not only among the most vocal supporters of the Iraq War, but at least as bad, has endorsed and supported every last radical Bush policy to expand executive power and surveillance activities while destroying core constitutional liberties and checks and balances. He used his Chairmanship for only one purpose: to block oversight into Bush scandals and corruption. He has spouted the most defamatory attacks, not only against Barack Obama, but against war opponents generally. More significantly still, Democrats in his own state -- his own constituents -- booted him out of the party, no longer wanting to be represented by him.
That is who Senate Democrats appear well on their way to selecting to serve as their Chairman of Homeland Security, of all committees. That's because nothing that Lieberman has done really bothers them. Endorsing the Iraq War and the full panoply of radical Bush policies isn't disqualifying in the least because so many of them also endorsed that and support it, or, at the very least, it's not a priority for them. They care even less what their "base" thinks, what the so-called "Left" wants. Few things in this world are less likely than them ever taking even a mild stand -- such as stripping Lieberman of his Chair -- in order to defend some sort of political principle, or to punish ineptitude, or to announce that there are certain lines to the Right that can't be crossed. They don't do that. They never have. And it shouldn't surprise anyone that they won't now.
The Democrats of 2002 and 2007 haven't gone anywhere
Katrina - 3 years later
August 29, 2008 is the three year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina.
via guaranteedhealthcare.org
