I could have called this post "Kicking his base in the teeth" after Rachel Maddow's formulation. But let's leave it at this: The 2012 Problem.
How should a progressive think about Obama? Just in the last few news cycles, several items scream for attention.
First this, the budget cave, Paul Krugman's observation ("Celebrating Defeat", my emphasis):
Ezra Klein gets this right, I think; it’s one thing for Obama to decide that it was better to give in to Republican hostage-taking than draw a line in the sand; it’s another for him to celebrate the result. Yet that’s just what he did. ... It’s worth noting that this follows just a few months after another big concession, in which he gave in to Republican demands for tax cuts. The net effect of these two sets of concessions is, of course, a substantial increase in the deficit.Cave Week 1 was the Lame Duck for the ages, in which Obama promised never to give in to the Bush tax cuts for the super-rich, then gave in. That blew a multi-trillion dollar hole in the long-term budget, which spending cuts are expected to fix.
Now we have Cave Week 2, Obama vs. the Teabags, in which the Teabags win big and Obama does a victory dance.
Next we find this, Obama vs. the Entitlements, a "major speech" on Wednesday, via Teagan Goddard (my emphasis again):
President Obama plans to deliver "a major speech" on Wednesday laying out an aggressive plan for deficit reduction -- including reform of entitlements, such as Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.Cave Week 3? "Reform" of Social Security by Obama will mean the death of the Democratic Party, and yet Obama wants it bad.
Add these recent items to any number of others. starting with the FISA cave long before his inauguration, and ending with what both Rachel Maddow and Glenn Greenwald noticed earlier this week — Obama's decision to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed before a military commission at Guantanamo, announced on the same day as he announced his re-election campaign.
It's a horrifying anti-progressive record, favoring everything we oppose.
It is now out in the open that progressives have a 2012 problem, and that problem is Barack Obama. Here's Maddow's disgust, well expressed:
"Kicking the base in the teeth." Here's Greenwald on the same subject; I won't quote it, but it's an excellent read and has a lot of people talking. Our own John Moyers expressed himself eloquently on this subject to great response.
The relationship between the Dems and Republicans is often described as a "hostage situation". Republicans threaten to kill the country with starvation if the Dems don't cave.
Progressives also have a "hostage situation". Obama threatens to kill the country with Republican rule if progressives don't cave (by voting for him).
What do progressives do? Joan Walsh will vote for him anyway. Sam Seder will vote for him anyway, if only because of the Supreme Court.
What will you do? Which burnt bridge is a bridge too far for you?
More importantly, what should progressives do as a group?
The choice is clear. Unless some primary challenger turns up, it's Obama or some Billionaire-financed Teabag-worshiping Republican.
I won't express myself on the shoulds of the decision, not yet. Is it automatically worse if a Republican wins in 2012 and the Democratic Party goes up for grabs? I'm not prepared to say.
But I will express myself on the shoulds of the discussion — we have to be talking about this now, and well within earshot of Team Where Else You Gonna Go?
GP
