This is the final of the short series of “What People Are Saying About How You Should Vote.” But the fact is, the same kind of reasoning will continue after November 6. It will just switch to the post-election phase, pick up with the very brief inauguration moment, then begin the ramp up to mid-terms and 2016.
Saturday’s post by David Daley, at Salon, has stirred a good deal of conversation, though this is only one of multiple pieces out there. I thought about doing a kind of round-up, but by this point, I don’t think I have the energy.
Tom Frank: Obama’s made left ‘futile and irrelevant’
There have been poetic, soaring odes written in support of President Obama’s reelection in recent days.
Daley cites The New Yorker’s endorsement, including, “Obama has renewed the honor of the office he holds,” and that of Jonathan Chait, “Why He Is a Great President. Yes, Great.”
It’s possible to agree with them and still wince when the New Yorker ascribes disappointment in Obama, in part, to ‘a reflection of the fantastical expectations that are attached to him.’ …
So how do we get beyond fantastical in a second term? How can progressives exhibit the same influence that the Tea Party had on Republicans? How do we ask this president for more — demand more — in a second term, but with clear eyes, not lovestruck ones?
The interview with Harper’s columnist Tom Frank follows. One example in this exchange:
[Daley] … if progressives went into the first term of Obama’s presidency over-excited – and perhaps blinded to the establishment, centrist nature at his very core – and set themselves up for some disappointment … , what is the realistic way to approach a second term?
[Frank] … Well, if you’re like me, you’re resolved to voting for him because he’s not Mitt Romney and he’s not Paul Ryan. He does have some things to his credit that you cannot diminish. He ended the war in Iraq … . He got some form of national healthcare passed. He didn’t go far enough; … he played it very poorly — but he got something passed. …
[Daley] Exactly. If you have a pre-existing condition, if you’re in your 20s and need to piggyback on your parents’ insurance, all of that is now covered. That’s reason enough to support him right there.
[Frank] That’s right. I think those things alone are enough reason to vote for him. He did the stimulus also; the stimulus was great. He didn’t go far enough with it, as with so many of his other things …; he compromised and frittered it away.
[Daley] What would you say he frittered away? The opportunity posed by the financial crisis to genuinely remake government with a second New Deal and to actually re-regulate Wall Street?
[Frank] Yes. It was within his power to make himself an extremely popular president in the Franklin Roosevelt manner. And he didn’t do that … .
… I feel like the tragedy of Barack Obama is that, for whatever reason, he chose not to go that route — and now there is a really good chance that he might lose, and it’s totally unnecessary.
“For whatever reason”? Maybe the reason is simply that Obama was being Obama. Which he will continue to do if re-elected.
Later, Frank adds this:
It’s kind of funny that he wrote a book called ‘The Audacity of Hope.’ … I mean, this guy has been so cautious. And that moment when I finally grasped that he wasn’t going to do anything audacious, that was sort of the horrible moment for me.
The “Obama’s made left ‘futile and irrelevant’” thing comes here:
[Daley] You wrote in Harper’s two months ago that ‘the only honest way for progressives to assess the experience of these past four years is by coming unflinchingly to terms with our own futility and irrelevance. We reached a historical turning point in 2008, all right. We just didn’t make the turn.’
Can “we” learn from that, Daley asks. Is there a possibility that “progressives” can have a “Tea Party” kind of influence on Democrats?
[Frank] I think there is. … Clinton did the same thing. Obama has less contempt for the left and liberals, but still a lot of it. [If] you think of all the names his people call liberals and the left, their contempt for liberals is towering. …
The left is something that everybody in the circles of power in the city … knows that they don’t have to deal with. … That’s something that they do not have to pay attention to. And I think that any understanding of our position has to begin with that.
If that’s the case, that the beginning point is “understanding … our position,” then the first step is “the left” looking not at Obama, but at itself. “Fantastical expectations.” “Lovestruck.” “Over-excited.” “Blinded.” Finally “grasping” that “audacious” was just the title of Obama’s book, not his way of governing. That sounds to me like it wasn’t that Obama “made” the Left “futile and irrelevant.” Some, apparently many, of the Left did that to itself.
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That sounds to me like it wasn’t that Obama “made” the Left “futile and irrelevant.” Some, apparently many, of the Left did that to itself.
Exactly so. And as far as I can tell, that will continue to be the case. The left, or what passes for the left in Democratic circles, votes out of fear, not out of principle. And every four years it’s the same thing. We are told that no matter how bad the Democrat is, we have no choice because the Republicans are worse. And so the Dems have a license to be awful. Lather, rinse, repeat.
We will get a better result when we stop repeating the same insanity over and over and expecting a different result. As of 2012, I’m there. And when enough others get there and stop voting for the “lesser evil”*, we might just get change. Until then, we are just so…you know.
*As far as the lesser evil thing that so many of my still staunchly Democratic friends try to push on me, I’ll outsource that one to Arthur Silber:
To cast a vote for Obama is to cast a vote in approval of that. I won’t. And damn if I can understand how anyone on the left will.
Awesome, Romberry. Could not have said it better myself.
I’m afraid that Liberals have been made into cowards by this Administration- afraid of the Republican alternative, afraid of being cast as detractors of our First Black President, etc.– so we are told to just keep our heads down and go along because It Could Be Much Worse And After All He’s Our Guy.
I couldn’t vote for Obama again because a vote for Obama is a “thumbs up” to murder by drone, murder by hit squads, and betrayal of the middle class and Unions. to HELL with that. Frankly, If I’m going to be f–over, I’d rather have it be done by someone I KNOW is an enemy, not someone who was SUPPOSED to be my friend.
We’ve got so-called “progressives” on the radio telling us that it’s “Ok to vote Green” IF we live in a solidly blue or red state. So we should vote our principles- UNLESS it might hurt Obama. Obama Uber Alles!!
To HELL with that- I live in Virginia and voted for Jill Stein. I would have voted for her if I lived in Virginia, or Ohio, or Colorado. Because Obama doesn’t deserve my vote REGARDLESS OF WHERE I LIVE IN THE UNITED STATES. Trying to explain this to so-called Progressives (who are actually just water-carriers for the Democrats) is like trying to pull teeth.
Excuse me, I meant to type that I live in MARYLAND and voted for Jill Stein.
Joyce, thank you for your hard work and brilliant contribution over these past months in keeping the liberal flame lit. My greatest sadness over the Obama presidency was that it gave permission to American politics to revise, minimize, and ignore the struggles and successes of the social movement of the of the 1950′s, 1960′s, and the 1970′s. When Obama supporters chanted this year that we cannot allow Republicans to turn back the clock on women issues, few listened to liberals on how exactly we turned the clock forward. It was not with the politics of pragmatism and compromise. Change occurred in that period at a heavy price to individuals and groups. The non-liberal Democrats today pretend that the existence of FDR’s New Deal was the struggle – they are wrong. The true struggle was the enforcement and the necessary defense and protection of those ideals and principles. The maintenance fees for justice and freedom are recurring and never ending. Somewhere along the way we on the left decided to discontinue the payments, thus, allowing the country to move back to the right.
Joyce, thank you for your hard work and brilliant contribution over these past months in keeping the liberal flame lit.
Seconded, because she *so* deserves high praise.
Hey Taylor, thanks. And thanks for allowing me the opportunity to post at TM, and basically go off in my liberally independent directions …
First, thanks very much, TPAZ. In truth, this is something I can’t not do.
Second, that’s some excellent analysis you provide here. The “maintenance fees for justice and freedom” really don’t end, and yes, somwhere beyond the anti-Vietnam war, Civil Rights years, the Left did seem to decide to coast, and that’s taken us further and further to the Right.