I don’t understand reasoning like this (sorry for the longish excerpt):
There is something preposterous about how the administration and congressional Democrats have lost every major public argument that they should be winning.
They lost it on a stimulus bill that clearly lifted the economy, as Alan Blinder, a former vice chairman of the Federal Reserve, argued persuasively in Wednesday’s Wall Street Journal. They are losing it on the health-care bill, a big improvement on the current system enacted through a process that made it look like a tar ball on an Alabama beach. They are losing it on the deficit even though it was Republicans who cut taxes twice while the Bush administration was starting two wars.
Obama is often criticized for being too professorial. The irony is that Republicans who have little to say about how to solve the nation’s major problems are dominating the country’s underlying philosophical narrative.
From Plaquemines Parish to Wall Street, we are seeing what happens when government takes too hands-off an approach to private economic actors. Yet the GOP is managing to sell the idea that the big issue in this election should be . . . government spending.
Professor Obama and his allies ought to be ashamed of this. The cure for malaise is to have a self-confident sense of purpose, and to act boldly in its pursuit.
I’d like the Obama administration to have had a bigger stimulus bill and to have possibly done a second one. I’d like for there to have been a public option in the health care bill.
But how would self-confidence alone have gotten this through? You need votes, not swagger.
There are obvious structural reasons why Republicans dominate the country’s philosophical narrative, many of them involving national media (which is someone who works at the Post will never admit it). But, as Jon Chait pointed out recently, the difference between journalists and political scientists is that journalists will always take a narrative (“Obama isn’t tough enough”) over a structural explanation (conservatives essentially control the media and the economy sucks).
Brien Jackson
http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/tapped_archive?month=06&year=2010&base_name=jobs_bill_sliced_and_diced
Just saying.
The Moar You Know
What’s not to understand? Everyone lays their dicks out on the table, biggest guy gets to make the decision.
That’s the way we’ve always solved problems in America. If Obama wants to change 500 years of American tradition by using “reasoning” and “problem-solving skills”, instead of our traditional Villager method of penis-length determination, well, he deserves all the criticism he gets.
El Cid
I’m not sure about the “self-confidence” notion, which sounds more like psychology than political PR or campaigning for policies, and I know the incredible anti-liberal policy reflex among the billion dollar media and especially the punditarian establishment, but I don’t think it makes you some sort of fee-fee nut to think that Democrats have pretty much sucked at trying to sell their policies to the public, and it shouldn’t have been all down to Obama. And this has been true for many decades in my view. Partly I think it’s because a significant portion of Democratic politicians fundamentally agree with most of the Republican agenda, so it’s hard to present a unified image when people like Ben Nelson are going out and literally undermining the whole health care effort you’re working on.
malraux
Pretty much all of those issues have to do with a disfunctional two party system and specifically a malfunctioning senate.
Gregory
Especially when taking the structural explanation requires disputing the conservative myth of a “liberal media.”
Byrd
I don’t think the argument is for “swagger” per se, so much as it is for directly defending liberal ideas.
Question – has ANYTHING Obama done since taking office be seen as a “firing up the base” moment? We see these moments all the time from Republican leaders, but not so much from this administration. Even if he is more of a moderate, can you think of any unabashed liberal bills that Obama has taken an unequivocal stand on? Where he was a counterpoint to centrist Dems in congress from the left? Vetoed a bill as being not progressive enough?
Personally, I’d just like to hear him say – “Yes! I AM for big government! The last 30 years or so of letting corporations dominate government haven’t worked – here’s how BIG government is going to have a positive effect on people’s lives, be proactive in solutions, and responsive to the needs of the people. And I’m going to raise your taxes for the greater good! Thbbbt!”
Shalimar
I don’t see even one shred of evidence that Obama lacks self-confidence. On the contrary, he seems to have the self-assurance of just about anyone who wins his office. Can anyone name a president who didn’t seem to have complete confidence in his own ability? Even the widely-criticized Carter is most frequently slighted for trying to change the culture of Washington too much.
I don’t disagree with this, but I also think rather than trying to find faults in Obama that aren’t really evident maybe the author should consider that Washington politics and especially it’s press corps is wired in favor of getting out the Republican message of the day.
matoko_chan
man….the stupid it burnsssssss.
Yea, like human nature and biology.
Half the electorate is on the left side of the bell curve.
Half the electorate has a conservative mindset (possibly the same half).
Our side, the side of “our better angels”, already won. We elected a black man and a public intellectual. All that is left is the weeping and the gnashing of teeth on the other side.
Obama is the president of all americans….if he isn’t that, hes an oligarch supported by the intellectual elite…365 to 173.
The Grand Experiment of american self-governance is a tension between two sides of inherited human personality traits.
No where in the constitution does it say that stupid, fearful, reactionary racists are denied self representation. But knowledge accrues. What we see now in America is the Epic Fail of All Conservative Memes.
1. the Free Market. The unregulated invisible hand of the market just punched America’s working class in the face. Like Dr. Pournelle says,
2. the Center Right Nation. America IS a center right nation. But 50 years of boutique libertarianism and the Southern Strategy has rendered the GOP brand toxic to dark-skinned conservatives. And the Tea Party Movement is not republican FISCAL, it is republican FRINGE. The TPM is just as toxic to minorities and the youth demographic…if not moreso.
3. a Decisive President and a Strong Defense unfortunately turned into an intellectually incurious and belligerently stupid chief executive that initiated wars of choice and is still unable to admit disastrous errors in the face of mountainous empirical evidence.
4. the White Patriarchy Model of social cohesion is dust and ashes since blacks and women got the vote. the new model of social cohesion evolving is Social Democracy. without a viable social compact to offer minorities and women, the GOP is simply DOA as the demographic timer on non-hispanic caucs runs down.
Conservatives are scared and angry and they are half the country. Their leadership told them for half a century that Obama could never happen. They are pissed as holy hell.
Comrade Jake
Allow me to quote our illustrious host from some time ago:
“The two parties could not be more different. Democrats spin victories into losses, and Republicans spin losses into victories.”
Unfortunately, I think that’s basically right, and it’s at least a part of what’s behind this piece. We may disagree as to the reasons why this reality presents itself (a lack of self-confidence seems pretty dense), but it’s nonetheless frustrating that the Democrats haven’t been able to change that fundamental dynamic.
Sometimes, I’d just like to see them grow a pair.
Morbo
@Brien Jackson: Feingold should totally primary Obama in 2012.
DougJ
@Comrade Jake:
I see your point.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
I sometimes try to imagine what things would be like with Hillary Clinton as president, and what we would get in the current political Hurricane of intractable ideology from the right, and insane press.
I say Obama was and is the only candidate, or maybe even person in the country to remain calm enough and steady enough to get a single bill passed, let alone one that has been attempted by dems for the past 100 years in HCR.
We need a no drama dude in the Oval Office, we need an eye of the storm. I can’t imagine congress being able to find the door without it right now.
“Self confidence” in the insane asylum is in short supply for everyone, except maybe Obama. Thanky the Lard.
Obot
Bill H
I think it has to do with unification of the “message,” even on those ideals which are more less central to liberalism, liberals are not really quite in unison. Moreover, and perhaps more important, there is not one central “big slogan” with which to unify all of the subsidiary policies.
Conservatives have “anti-big government.” Everything hangs on that one central tenet. Taxes are “big government,” regulation is “big government,” etc.
Liberalism is more of a “concept” and is more difficult to condense into a sound bite.
Brien Jackson
@General Egali Tarian Stuck:
Obama is the rope-a-dope President, and the beltway pundits are Foreman.
matoko_chan
@Shalimar: and yup. Obama has a metric tonne of self confidence. He masks his long term strategy with feints and kabuki while getting impossible things done…..impossible considering he has to drag at least half the electorate kicking and screaming into the future.
El Cid
@matoko_chan: On many measures the nation’s voters do identify as conservative, but they also approve of policies considered extremely liberal.
acallidryas
Yeah, I have to second El Cid. The Democrats really do seem to suck at playing politics compared to the Republicans. Even on little things that would help bolster support of government. Just think about the credit card bill that passed right before Christmas. Why wasn’t every Democrat all over the place talking about how they did this, even though the Republicans didn’t want them to, and now companies wouldn’t be able to just change your rate with no warning, or change your due date with almost no notice, causing you to incur all sorts of late fees. People would have loved to hear that! Or they could trumpet the Passengers Bill of Rights, something everyone got behind. Or, as Greg Sargent likes to point out, just look at how few Democrats are willing to go out there and proactively argue that Obama’s international policies are making us safer.
I don’t know if it’s because of “malaise” or internalizing Republican complaints or what, but even beyond the structural media problems that exist, Democrats seem to be very bad and politically selling their policies and the benefits of government. And they need to learn how to do that.
Stroszek
It’s this simple:
If the average swing voter’s immediate subjective perception of economic conditions is positive, the incumbent “wins” the argument.
If the average swing voter’s immediate subjective perception of economic conditions is negative, the incumbent “loses” the argument.
The only people really paying attention to the media are partisan trolls. Yes, it’s conservative, but it’s also less entertaining than Full House reruns.
If Democrats wanted to “win” the argument sooner, they needed a bigger and more efficient stimulus. Unfortunately, they have a handful of idiots (Nelson, Lincoln, Landrieu) who somehow think the aforementioned voters will reward them for assisting Republican efforts to keep the economy weak until the next election. These people are stupid and deserve to lose.
Best Example: Ben Nelson held the stimulus bill hostage over food stamps. Food stamps are among the most efficient means of direct stimulus and their impact would have been doubly strong for an agricultural state like Nebraska. Nelson decided to kill the provision because he thought it would make him look “conservative” for the handful of assholes reading about stimulus details back home. The reality is that, if Nelson were up for reelection this year, his purposeful gutting of the stimulus would cost him his seat. Why? Because swing voters don’t follow this stupid shit. They look at the economy, they look at the party in power and they vote accordingly.
Stefan
You need votes, not swagger.
Yes, but swagger can get you votes. Swagger indicates confidence, indicates winning, and people want to be on the winning team.
celticdragonchick
@Byrd:
That!
Even after taking a beating in the last two elections, the Republicans vigorously defended their (largely batshit insane, unfortunately) ideas and did not back down.
I am finding out that the Dems seem to have developed a reflexive “duck and cover” response to misinformation campaigns and would rather cede the narrative instead of confronting it.
jwb
@Gregory: Also it is difficult to give a structural explanation in language that is at or below a 6th grade level.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
This isn’t about “Professor Obama”. This is about a Punditocracy and (even more’s the point here) a Democratic Party establishment that has been bitch-slapped into accepting Republican arguments (“Government is the problem, not the solution” “Taxes are too high”–whether the top marginal rate is 70% or 36%) for the last thirty-odd years. I like Dionne more than most people here, but he’s a big part of the problem when, as happened a couple of months ago, he responded to some substantive criticism of David Broder (I forget from whom) by saying that “Everyone loves David Broder”.
I was just reading Chait’s critique of Liberal Disappointment Syndrome, where JC rightly demolished Rachel Maddow’s sentimental fantasizing about ‘the speech Obama should have given’. EJD is indulging in the same kind of “cult of the presidency” fallacy here. The problem isn’t Professor Obama, it’s Chuck Schumer and Evan Bayh and Blanche Lincoln and Kent Conrad and Claire McCaskill and every other Dem who apologizes for Democratic successes that don’t fit the generation-old narrative about smaller government and deregulation, however disastrous those notrums (nostra?) have proved.
kommrade reproductive vigor
Yep. If only Obama had jumped into a flightsuit and told the Repubs to Bring it On
there’d be a unicorn in every garage and pot in every chickenwe’d be arse deep in opinion pieces about the ANGRY OUT OF CONTROL PRESIDENT SCARY WAAAH ALSO2!(self-fxd)
Mnemosyne
@Bill H:
I think you’re on to something. Republicans have a single, simple phrase to hang everything on: “big government.” From that position, they can demand everything from lower taxes for rich people to deregulation of the oil industry in the name of “shrinking big government.”
Liberals don’t have a unifying phrase like that to explain every action they take. I’m not sure there even is one, though it sure would be handy.
Dave
So basically, the media thinks Obama isn’t loud enough, the spoiled teenagers on the Left think he hasn’t given them enough RIGHT NOW, and the psycho teabaggers on the right think he’s a sleeper Muslim-Communist-Terrorist.
All I can think of right now is the Simpsons episode “Trash of the Titans” where Homer is elected Sanitation Commissioner over Ray Patterson and makes a hash of it. The people beg Patterson to come back. He does and then says:
If Obama did this tomorrow, I don’t think I’d blame him one bit. He gets Lilly Ledbetter passed, pushes monumental health care reform through Congress, gets a stimulus package through, has to deal with two wars and a god-awful oil spill and all people can do is bitch.
Sheila
@Shalimar: Thank you, Shalimar. Does the “journalist” quoted believe that the arrogant, petulant narcissists who preceded Obama exuded self-confidence? Maybe he should try reading a little psychology, or even Christopher Lasch’s The Culture of Narcissism so he has a slight idea of what true self-confidence is and how it is manifested.
jwb
@Byrd: It might make us feel better, and it would certainly help convince many that Obama has our backs, but would this be an effective political strategy for getting things through congress? Personally, I think it would be a net negative on that count (we’d have fewer legislative accomplishments), and I presume they have calculated that a somewhat alienated base is the price they are willing to pay in order to make passing legislation somewhat easier. I don’t know that I agree with their calculation, since I think they might be understating the risk of the alienated base, but we won’t really be able to tell until we see the results in November’s election, and if it’s a middling result, perhaps not even then.
Davis X. Machina
Economists look at systems. People want stories, with a narrative arc, and moral deserts, and people like themselves as heroes. The Undeserving Poor, the Welfare Queen, the Self-Made Man are as timeless as the heroes of Trojan War.
People will choose a good, familiar story, well told, and a crust of bread, over a banquet and a strange new world every time, until
you reach a level of immiseration we haven’t even approached yet — 1933 US bad (1937 bad isn’t bad enough), 1789 France bad, 1917 Russia bad (not even 1905 is bad enough) — before stories lose their power.
That’s the impulse that put the ancien in the ancien regime, that makes nationalism work, that keeps a Mugabe in power, that is responsible for there still being any GOP at all.
Xenos
When you are confident that you have a winning strategy, arguments over how to spin your tactical successes and failures are not very engaging. When you have a losing strategy, and you know it, and you can’t even admit the severity of your problems, then you have to spin every tactical success and failure as a success in order to keep alive while you hope for the unpredictable.
Throw in a system of magical thinking justified by theology, and you have these attempts to change reality by assertion. It is unlikely to work, but it is not impossible.
When it finally fails everybody will admit it was a scam all along.
Mnemosyne
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
This is why the “why didn’t Obama do more?” crowd drives me up the frickin’ wall. He is not Superman. He is not Stalin. He can’t force the Senate to pass bills if they dig in their heels.
I have no problem with people criticizing Obama for things he’s actually done, like continuing to chip away at our civil liberties, but complaining that Obama failed because Ben Nelson decided to side with the Republicans like he’s done for a decade is just stupid.
bkny
the repukes just keep rolling – via tpm:
Inhofe Objects To Subpoena Power, Unlimited Cap
1 hour ago
Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) objected to two unanimous consent requests made by Democrats this morning: Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) proposed giving subpoena power to the oil spill commission and Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) proposed erasing the cap on oil companies’ liability for damages.
****
apparently, polling is showing a gradual increase in support for the healthcare bill.
i just can’t believe that all this gop assholery won’t finally be realized by the public and end up biting the repukes in the ass.
Sentient Puddle
@Mnemosyne:
Oh but he can force the Senate to pass bills. With swagger!
God, there is so much stupid in the whole psychoanalysis. It’s like our own Green Lantern Theory of the left…Obama can get shit passed if only he tried hard enough.
cleek
what El Cid said. and what the quoted article says, too.
Dems are congenitally terrible at selling their successes. they’re terrible at selling their ideas. they’re terrible at selling their philosophy.
speaking of… what exactly is the philosophy of the Dem party ?
Jason Bylinowski
I think EJ is pretty accurate in his assessment, frankly. I mean, sure, the Rs are playing their usual obstruction game (and it is an A-game they are playing), and sure, I sympathize with the notion that Dems can’t get a whole lot done right now because of overall political climate, but come. the fuck. on. childrens.
At some point, you have to be responsible for gaining leverage and getting votes. The only thing I blame the president for is mistakenly assuming that there are other grownups in Washington, and I do hope to see a more jaded Obama in the very near future. I want Obama to do something so downright slick and cynical (but effective) that it just freaking stinks up the room, so awful that I’m forced to say “Don’t hate the player, hate the game, son.” And then smile a little slick smile of my own.
I do not expect miracles from the party. I just expect vigorous effort, a little nerve, and occasional epic victory, and I’m not seeing a whole lot of either from our current leadership, with the exception of Pelosi and Obama, and as flawed as both are, we could stand to have somebody with cohones like that in the Senate.
Rommie
Hey, a Republican just apologized to the BP CEO at the congressional meeting for being ashamed at how America responded to the little mishap in the GOM.
That’s not self-confidence; that’s just Hardcore Crazy. All the self-confident mojo on the planet can’t counter the irrational. The long-term goal here is to convince more and more people that they are INSANE, and will happily march into Doomsville as long as they are rich. You can’t out-crazy a crazy person.
slag
@Bill H: Except when you’re talking about women, gays, brown people, and a ton of other issues where, to Republicans, “big government” appears to be the only answer. Not buying the “big government” argument. It’s never had any real meaning in my lifetime. But we let them get away with using the phrase in spite of its obvious emptiness. Because we have to be sensitive to their psychotic fee fees.
Chris Johnson
Somebody needs to start throwing around sound bites like “You break it, you bought it!” re. the oil disaster. Hi! You just paid for the American coast, you broke it…
david mizner
@Dave:
Uh, boy.
“the spoiled teenagers on the Left think he hasn’t given them enough RIGHT NOW.”
I wish critics of Obama critics would correctly criticize the criticism, 99 percent of which focuses not on the lack or slowness of progressivism but on the abundance and speed of Obama’s centrism-corporatism-centrism.
Neither the Republicans nor conservadems forced Obama to appoint Rubin’s henchmen, expand the use of drone strikes, maintain a secret prison in Bagram where torture’s occurred, go after Miranda rights, expanding secret ops and assassination, fight the Lincoln derivative provision, oppose the effort to break up the big banks, come out for expanded offshore drilling…etc, etc, etc.
Yes, I agree, Obama faces many structural barriers to progressive change, one of which is the president of the United States. Here I could do no better than cite the immortal words of Fafblog:
http://fafblog.blogspot.com/2010/02/mule-variations.html
acallidryas
And I’d just add to my comment up above, in light of what lots of people are saying, that there is a difference between “Obama” and “Democrats.” There are lots more people in the party than him, and they could all be out there pushing a Democratic agenda more aggressively.
There have been some great wins, but there is also a lot of frustration. As others have been pointing out again and again, it is mindboggling that this horrific spill is not being harnessed to push through climate change legislation right now. And it is a problem with the Democratic Party, not necessarily Obama.
CalD
So let me see of I understand this: Democrats may have pulled off a couple of the most ambitious policy initiatives in the last 50 years and are generally winning more arguments than they’re losing at a time when any poll on virtually any topic or issue you can think of shows the electorate as a whole divided pretty much straight down the middle. But Democrats are still losers because obviously they could also win the rest if only President Obama would stuff a sock in his shorts and hitch a ride out to an aircraft carrier in an S3 Viking or something?
Does that about sum it up?
Allison W.
I know Liberals aren’t here throwing stones at glass houses. both groups are very good at turning wins into losses. Every win that Obama gets is met with “meh” and “It’s a start” or “not enough” from Liberals so lets not put this all on Democrats.
We need more aggressive Dems who are willing to go on tv and take on misinformation. They must come prepared and know what they are talking about and reading to pounce on the lies.
Kryptik
It’s definitely some of Column A, some of Column B, but the problem is that Column A is given an inordinate amount of attention and swing whereas Column B is virtually ignored.
@Comrade Jake has a point, in the general mindsets, but the Repubs wouldn’t be able to do that as effectively as they could if not for the absolute structural advantage they enjoy, and the Dems’ cowardice is a self-fulfilling consequence of that exact disadvantage they suffer from: it’s impossible to penetrate the bubble without having to dumb things down, and trying to talk above the bubble only ends up with the echoing ‘elitist’ bullshit.
Obama could definitely use some more full-throated support of liberal causes, yes, but the sheer dint of being a Democrat means he’s already forced to play with two hands behind his back. Swagger will get you only so much before you run into the Wurlitzer Wall. And the media are accomplices in building and fortifying the wall along with the GOP, and until we can make dents in there, you’re going to have too many damn idiots on our side cowering toward the right to many any genuine difference.
In other words, we need institutions to combat the entrenched Conservative institutions, so we CAN have swagger that makes a damned difference. Otherwise, it will mostly end up empty because of the inevitable cutting out of our feet by Conservadems or pathetic media morons like the WaPo and Politico folks parroting the latest Glenn DrudgeBaugh pablum.
PTirebiter
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I agree. Fundamentally changing the narrative would require Obama to very publicly bitch slap some Democrats and risk getting nothing done. If there’s one thing the Democrats in Congress have a surplus of, it’s ego.
Comrade Dread
You know, just a thought, but as a reporter, one could conceivably see the Republicans (who have no clue about what to do) and their bullshit arguments, and actually use questions and logic and the power of the press to honestly call and prove their arguments bullshit, and that might help set the narrative.
The Fool
I disagree. I thnk the Democrats, led by Obama, have absolutely sucked at message strategy. They’ve sucked both at selling their own policies and at attacking the Republicans and holding them accountable for their policy failures.
On the latter point, failure to hold the Republicans accountable, I blame Obama. He came in wanting to be Mr. Don’t Look Back Bipartisan Guy and he got his ass — predictably — handed to him. First impressions matter a lot, and now he has lost his chance.
When Reagan found himself in a somewhat similar situation, he did precisely the opposite. He attacked Jimmy Carter repreatedly and blamed him for everything. It just so happens that Carter wasn’t guilty of most of the stuff Reagan said but it didn’t matter. Reagan created a conventional wisdom that Carter sucked.
Well with Bush, the attacks would have been perfectly true. But Obama was busy being a bipartisan dumbass and now he owns all of Bush’s failures. This is a titanic failure on Obama’s part.
And the Democrats have failed to sell their own policies just as disastrously. Health care reform is a great example. The Republicans have suceeded in convincing a majority of the public to oppose Obama’s health care reform plan. But interestingly, I have seen polling data that shows that one of the best attacks a Democratic candidate can make against a Republican opponent is to go after them for wanting to repeal HCR.
The secret to making that work is you don’t call it Obama’s health care plan, you just describe what repealing it would do. People support the underlying policy. They just don’t like it when you call it Obama’s health care plan. That is another titanic failure on Obama’s part.
matoko_chan
@El Cid:
Such as?
A good example is civil rights. A large portion of the country was against it. LBJ’s legislation was filibustered for 57 days. Then a much reduced version of the bill finally passed….largely because the electorate had lost patience with the filibuster.
The Founders were genius at human nature. the American Experiment was based on a tension between two expressions of human nature, conservative and liberal. But for 50 years the conservative side has not been holding up their end. The GOP may do well in the midterms, but that is tactical.
They don’t have a strategy to stay relevent.
Steve in Sacto
You’ll never have the votes if you can’t win the narrative.
Opponents will never pay any price if you can’t win the narrative.
wengler
I like how every time Republicans lose big they double down on the crazy. It’s like they say “oh we lost because we didn’t support going back to 19th century America”. Then the next time it’s “oh we lost because we didn’t support going back to 18th century America” and so on and so forth.
The corporate media supports the GOP narrative because they’ve been trained to do it for so long. To be a journalist that is part of the club you need to be self-important, lazy, rich, and want everything for free. The Republicans feed packaged storylines with no work involved at all. They feed the culture of privilege by giving all the people that have made it into the club money for nothing, and they push the class and caste system(don’t need anybody competing for those cushy writing jobs).
Of course this all ends when a competing interest group takes their stuff away, such as the Progressive movement or the New Deal, but no such movement exists, and with an economy of scarcity breeding dependence and desperation it is unlikely to form anytime soon.
Kryptik
@CalD:
I believe it’s more ‘Democrats are winning arguments, but Republicans are winning results’.
ChrisS
Don’t worry, I’m clapping real hard fer mr. obama. Yes I am.
Good fucking luck. We should all be grateful that Mr. Obama co-opted the GOP faith message and that he spent a trillion dollars that was gobbled up by states before it hit the streets. WhooO!
Kryptik
@Comrade Dread:
The problem isn’t calling them out. It’s getting said call-out taken seriously rather than drowned out in the usual news inanity about lapel pins, swagger, and earth tones. Internet definite helps due to access, but not when our leaders decide that Drudge, Politico, and Limbaugh are the names to be trusted for serious analysis.
@Steve in Sacto:
The problem is, the narrative is part of the structural advantage as well. If a Dem manages to seize the narrative, it’s usually despite said structural institutions. It’s like swimming upstream. You can do it, yeah, but you’d probably have a better interest in swimming somewhere where the water isn’t actively working against you.
gwangung
Um, is it just me, or does this argument make no sense?
flukebucket
They just have to keep in mind that a public argument must be made at a third grade level.
Shorter words. Shorter sentences. Shorter paragraphs.
“See BP Run?” “Run, BP, Run!”
Joe Buck
The lack of swagger led to the lack of votes: timid Democrats bucking their party because they believe Republican spin; moderate Republicans correspondingly afraid to buck their party.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@Allison W.:
No shit. And the libtards that show up here and elsewhere endlessly opine when something gets passed, the “meh” and “it’s a start” and “not enough”. Or Obama is weak, isn’t commanding enough, doesn’t appear enough, or too much, yadda yadda ya.
And in the next breath complain that Obama and dems are terrible at selling their successes. Glass houses indeed.
Sentient Puddle
@david mizner:
Um…
We don’t criticize that criticism because it’s legitimate criticism. I mean, what do you expect us to say about that, have a cookie?
We criticize the dumb shit like “Obama should will a public option into existence” because it truly is dumb shit that needs to be criticized for not having any grounding in reality. And it makes up a lot more than 1% of the criticism (seriously, all you have to do is pick any thread here about health care in Q1 of this year and slog through the comments to see that).
cleek
@gwangung:
not just you.
Pangloss
No one here has mentioned the fact that about 25% or so of those eligible to vote are incredibly stupid. I mean really, really, stupid. They have no interest whatsoever in public policy. They have no interest in their own needs, what is just, what is fair, what is best, what works, or anything else. They vote on tribalism, whim, tradition, superstition, racism, sadism, or other base motivations.
Kryptik
@Sentient Puddle:
Not to mention that way too much of the criticism that Obama ends up subjected to in the mass media and in the public as a whole is the stupid shit that is either just flat out stupid and wrong on its face, or ends up criticized in the wrong direction. Stuff like why didn’t Obama magically plug the leak himself, or why did Obama send troops to the border when we could just electric fence the whole thing and kick out all our eeleegals?
Bullshit like that. Obama has plenty to be criticized for, but it’s the stupid shit that he ends up catching the most heat for, and it drowns out the things he should be catching legit flack for.
Bill H
@slag:
And they either change the subject back to “big government” or they twist they argument to make “big government” fit it. When they scream that mantra long enough and loud enough, they can apply it to anything and everything.
@CalD:
It’s called “winning on policy and losing on message” and liberals have been doing it for centuries.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@gwangung:
Let me translate. That’s Firebagger for “I got nothin”
Bill Section 147
@The Moar You Know: Somehow I am picturing the Poker Playing Dogs. It is a sick, sick morning.
BR
All I see is that Obama is getting hit by crisis after crisis and he handles it the best I could expect anyone to handle it, but gets little credit for it.
The thing that worries me the most is that we’re facing a likely double-dip recession or even depression in the coming months. For the past few months I’ve been following the possibility, and for a while there it was only the perma-bear doomsday sayers who were saying it was likely. Now trustworthy folks like bonddad (Hale) and company are worrying about it, if not actually forecasting it:
http://bonddad.blogspot.com/
And the lack of will on the part of conservadems is a large part of the problem, not to mention the usual GOP obstructionism.
If they were actually called out on it, Obama won’t receive the blame for another economic dive, but the media and the Dems are so bad on this that they will just blame Obama and that means who knows what for 2012.
cleek
who has suggested that ?
david mizner
@Sentient Puddle:
Well, at the risk of turning this into a Daily Kos-style meta cheese exchange, this wasn’t the thrust of most of the criticism.
“Obama should will a public option into existence.”
We wanted him to fight for it with the same zeal and consistency he fought for, say, his deal with Pharma. Nothing wrong with fighting and losing. Compromise after you lose, you know? (In fact, I’m not sure this president has really lost yet. He’s gotten most of what he’s sought.)
As for your belief that the criticism in my comment was legitimate, I’m glad to hear it. Many don’t. I think I could have a discussion with you.
Which is to say that I’m not representative of the people you’re criticizing and visa versa.
Kryptik
@cleek:
The media morons and usual talking heads wondering why Obama didn’t have things mopped up and stopped first day, like it was physically possible to have done so?
NobodySpecial
@Sentient Puddle:
Yeah, the Purity Police do.
ruemara
Sorta OT, did anyone notice the Keith Olbermann GBCW diary on GOS? I’d have thought that someone who’s stock in trade is vociferous critic (who won’t vote) would be able to handle…not that vociferous criticism.
El Cid
@matoko_chan: It’s pretty surprising to me that in a comment in which I suggested that Americans express approval of policies often ranked as “liberal” you cite opinions on the Civil Rights Act.
I would not suggest any sort of uniformity on the issues. And opinions change over time as campaigns and propaganda efforts (screaming about “soshullism” and “debt” about health care reform for about a year).
But, say, in October of 2009, a majority (53%) of Americans polled said that health care reform should prioritize providing health insurance to the uninsured rather than keeping health costs down. In that same poll a 2/3 majority favored a government-administered program like Medicare be offered to Americans younger than 65.
Significant majorities of Americans favored unions than disfavored them. Gigantic majorities (8 out of 10 Americans) favored raising the minimum wage.
By two thirds majority, Americans opposed the Citizens United decision deregulating corporate spending in election campaigns and almost as strongly support federal legislation to re-limit such spending.
A plurality favored the government spending more to create jobs rather than focus on reducing the deficit. Half said income taxes were fair and half said they weren’t fair. Every time they were asked to choose who paid a “fair share” of taxes versus too little in taxes, people overwhelmingly said that ordinary low income to middle class people paid their fair share, while “upper income” people and corporations — by a 2/3 majority — didn’t pay enough.
Over half said that banks weren’t regulated enough by the federal government. A strong plurality identified Democrats as being better suited to this task than Republicans. On the other hand, if you generically asked about regulating ‘business’, without defining small versus big or banking in particular, they thought business was too regulated. Yet over half though Obama was “just right” in how he was approaching regulating business.
Over half thought the U.S. should only go to war with countries after they had attacked the U.S. On the other hand, if you ask them if the U.S. was or should be #1 militarily, well, you get the nationalistic response.
Are there contradictory, non-liberal (center-left) favoring responses? Sure. Particularly when you’re asking about specific politicians than general policy issues. But blandly saying that the U.S. is a “center-right” nation clouds as many issues as it addresses.
jwb
@david mizner: Except candidate Obama didn’t run as a progressive, he ran as a centrist. Don’t blame him for being someone he never claimed to be. Prominent progressives need to figure out how to criticize him in a way that is useful to their political goals. Complaining about how Obama doesn’t give progressive stemwinder speeches or push progressive legislation that would be impossible to pass is not useful (it does not get you closer to your goal), nor is threatening to take your marbles and go home. Krugman has been a decent model on economic policy (and I think he’s had a measurable effect: I firmly believe that we’d be far worse off economically right now if he didn’t have that post at the NY Times) and Greenwald has been pretty good on civil liberties (though he verge at times on threatening to take his marbles and leave, which may be one reason he has been far less effective than Krugman in driving the larger conversation). What distinguishes them both is a doggedness on the issue: they bolster their comments with an extensive command of the relevant facts and document, document, document. If you are trying to influence an administration that claims to be results based, that—and not horse-race-based cheap political commentary—is your ticket. If you are merely trying to entertain the political junkies, that’s another question, and writing fake presidential speeches may well prove the right ticket.
Bobby Thomson
@ruemara: Pretty embarrassing.
Sentient Puddle
@david mizner: I don’t want to get too meta either, so I’ll avoid that rabbit hole. But I do want to speak a bit more about this:
I can’t speak for everybody, but I do think that quite a few people think that criticism on drones, civil liberties, and the like really is legitimate. You probably just don’t hear about it as much because, well, we agree. What more do we have to add? And I think this relative silence on stuff like this might lead to the impression that we’re ignoring this stuff, and instead knocking down straw men.
It’s unfortunate how that happens, and I don’t really know how to deal with it. But yeah, I really think there is a lot more common ground here than people realize.
suzanne
@The Fool:
This.
I think much of the problem stems from the fact that the Democrats seem to suck at or just hate making convincing moral arguments. I see lots of “passing XYZ bill will save blah-blah-blah dollars over ABC years,” but not “passing this bill is the right thing to do because it helps people who are functionally unable to help themselves. Don’t believe me? Here’s the proof.”
I want more discussion of secular morality, not pragmatism. I mean, pragmatism is important and comes later, but the core of good policy comes from a consistent and just moral core. “Big government” and “the free market” are successful because, at heart, those are simple moral arguments. We need to get really good at countering those.
Calvin Jones and the 13th Apostle
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Bingo!!
FlipYrWhig
If Obama uses “swagger,” which seems to be the same thing as the “bully pulpit” he should use to “fight harder” for Big Liberal Policy Du Jour, here’s what happens: 15 or so Democratic Senators freak out because they think their careers hang on the idea that they must _oppose_ Big Liberal Policy. To get them on board, Obama has to stroke them and massage them so that _maybe_ they’ll come around to voting for the policy, when every bone in their gelatinous, quivering bodies tells them not to do it. When he does that, liberals — of the tough-talking Internet variety — berate him for “compromise.” The call goes out: “Go Directly To The People!” Well, the people in the states whose politicians act recalcitrant don’t really like Obama, so that’s not going to work.
The upshot of all of this is that people on liberal blogs would be, it seems, much much happier to lose many votes 35-65 as long as the argument for those votes was more “swaggering” in support of “fighting.” But they wouldn’t _really_ be happy, because the media would be ripping into Obama for being an alienating, polarizing figure, and people on liberal blogs would be saying, “You know what he _really_ should do? Use the Bully Pulpit to Fight Harder, because we need a Narrative.”
matoko_chan
this is both good and true.
tech98
Maybe Obama needs a Swagger Wagon —
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ql-N3F1FhW4&playnext_from=TL&videos=rPa77Dtbp-E
Tecumseh
I think EJ is right. He doesn’t mean “swagger” as in strutting around like they’re hot shit, he means having confidence in what they’re doing is right. The Democrats HAVE done a lot of good things this past year and a half but they seem to run away from it as fast as possible. You don’t hear them talk about how much the stimulus has helped or the credit card bill or HCR or the Financial Reform Bill they’re working on. And you never hear them talk about how many times they’ve had to force the Republicans into passing more money for COBRA unemployment extensions. I just wonder how many Democrats are actually going to bring up HCR when they run for re-election this year.
It doesnt’ help that the Republicans have a simple message, have no shame, and are masters at repeating the same damn talking points over and over again like a bunch of automatons. Democrats go out there and either hem and haw about what they want to do, go into full wonk mode or, as somebody mentioned above, argue the “logic” of the idea instead of the morality. It doesn’t help that Obama has to be nuanced in everything he says and often clouds what he really wants/believes with about three or four different caveats. There’s absolutely no central messaging and considering the lack of ideas and craziness of the Republicans, they should have them bloodied and beaten and up on the ropes.
I also wonder how much it has to do with the fact that even people on Obama’s side (even including EJ Dionne) criticize pretty much everything they do do so the Democrats feel like there’s no point in talking about what they’ve done if nobody seems to like what they’ve done.
Calvin Jones and the 13th Apostle
@BR: Funny thing was, Bonddad pulled a KO because people at TGOS told him things weren’t really getting better. Bonddad posted a number of diaries that said things were getting better and people told him that it was only temporary(because of the stimulus mostly). The fundamentals still remain, and they suck big time. Housing is going to muddle along at best for a long time.
FlipYrWhig
@suzanne:
It’s a fine notion. But here’s how things unfold:
Secularly Moral D: “This is unconscionable and demands a major effort to solve it.”
“Fiscal Conservative” Ds and Rs, in chorus: “But how much does it cost?”
Secularly Moral D: “It costs a lot to get started but in the long run it saves money and makes the world better.”
Fiscal Conservatives, in chorus: “So, it costs a lot. I’m opposed. I’m a Fiscal Conservative.”
Secularly Moral D: “No, look, I’ll show you the savings.”
That’s why the discussion diverts that direction over and over and over again. People fuss about the pricetag on every liberal policy. They fuss when times are good and they fuss when times are bad. The “secular morality” move isn’t a speech by speech thing, it would have to be _enormously_ long-term. When was the last successful “secular morality” argument in American politics? The Civil Rights Act? Social Security? And even Social Security turned into back-and-forth about who was eligible and what the country could afford in literal monetary terms.
danimal
First of all, the Obama presidency has had a lot of success.
The biggest problem is that Obama has spent much of his political capital on changes that will take effect over the long term while the short term situation is still difficult. The infrastructure investments in the stimulus bill along with the health care overhaul will improve lives for decades, but they are slow starters. Financial reform will also be a structural change.
The stimulus was not enough money and was not apportioned well, but that is not Obama’s fault. We can thank the GOP for that by choosing politics over people.
I’m not sure the federal government can do much between now and November to tangibly improve people’s lives, but I’m confident that the building blocks for American recovery are in place over the next couple of years. Liberals could help their cause by showing a little bit of confidence and hope for the future. The Wurlitzer is working overtime to put a pessimistic spin on everything, but we’re on the right track.
Scamp Dog
@Byrd: I’ve heard Obama make the argument that Big Government is a bogus attack, and that we need regulation, etc, plenty of times (granted, not quite as goofily as you did). Now I expect media fops, pundits and Villagers to miss that stuff, but I was hoping that people on our side would be paying attention.
Are you just going to bitch in blog comments to other choir members, or go out there and make the argument to people on the outside?
david mizner
@jwb:
I think maybe there’s a worthwhile discussion-debate to be had among Obama admirers who are willing to criticize (like Cole) and Obama critics who are willing to praise.
There’s also a who world of issues and politics beyond Obama. Or so I’m told.
John S.
This will be particularly interesting to watch in the rearview mirror of history. A lot Obama’s accomplishments seem like they won’t come to fruition until long after they would have been politically useful. That could be a pretty interesting data point.
PTirebiter
Maybe something like this from FDL?
Stop the BP Bailout: 50,000 Petition Signatures by Next Week
By: Michael Whitney Thursday June 17, 2010
ruemara
@PTirebiter:
Really? That’s not a joke. goddess.
Pangloss
@david mizner: There are Obama critics willing to praise? Where? And I notice you used the plural there, so you’re saying there’s more than one?
matoko_chan
Andrew is rollin’ today.
And an advantage Obama has is the demographic timer. While it is true that half the electorate is genetically disposed to the conservative mindset, after 50 years of fake-libertarianism, race-baiting and the Southern Strategy darkskinned conservatives are simply never going to vote conservative.
The other advantage is the internets….young people that might have the conservative mindset(because their parents do) will often be dissuaded from voting conservative by the flattening of information….and the flattening of coolth.
frankdawg
@Mnemosyne:
Maybe its only a matter of degrees but I am not disappointed that Obama didn’t do more, I am disappointed he didn’t even try.
He gave away the public option & several other key issues before they even began the process. Same with the stim bill – he gave away more tax breaks before the negotiations began. Why should Senator X support something if the head of his party won’t?
Had he tried to do those things & failed I would be mad at the Dems that stopped him. But how can I be mad at them when Obama didn’t make them stand up & be counted?
matoko_chan
@El Cid: oh…im basing the center right nation meme on polling of self-identified conservatives.
i should have made that clear.
Sure, if you poll policy support America is not a center right nation.
frankdawg
@General Egali Tarian Stuck:
You won’t hear me say “meh” AND “the Ds are bad at selling their success”
They passed the healthcare bill that the Rs proposed in 1992 – how is that a success? Of course they can’t sell it.
matoko_chan
@frankdawg: Obama is a shrewd machiavellian pragmatist.
He plays strategy, not tactics.
He spends political capital parsimoniously and never embraces a lost cause.
Consider el Cid’s linkage–
but 67% of americans furiously opposed “Obamacare”.
Again, half the country is below the mean of IQ. Those people are extremely permeable to fearmongering and demogoguery.
They don’t know any better…..they can’t…..they don’t have the substrate.
But they are citizens too.
frankdawg
@PTirebiter:
I assumed that ad was troll bait – they just want you to click in so they can sell their real message. Was I wrong? Its like those ads asking your opinion on Obama that lead to newsmax. Nobody is seriously THAT stupid . . . right? oh crap – we ARE doomed! ;)
BTW- I see you are a Tirebiter. Don’t crush that dwarf, hand me the pliers.
PTirebiter
@frankdawg: No joke, that’s the headline. Michael Whitney performs some pretty awkward gymnastics to get to his unlikely but conceivable bailout scenario, but they have a petition. I think you can honestly give it the “how has Obama failed you today” tag. Or maybe file it under there’s hamburger all over the highway in sector R, order a tuft of creamy slaw and call it a day.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@frankdawg:
They passed the healthcare bill that the Rs proposed in 1992
Bullshit
The Fool
The Obamabots can make all the excuses for him they want but the fact is Obama’s job approval is now net negative. He’s blowing it.
matoko_chan
@frankdawg: nope….they passed the healthcare bill that made Kristol wet his pants in 1993.
the conservative nightmare of permanent defeat…..
how sweet it sounds.
Bernard
health care a la Mitt Romney, last i heard was a Republican. from the right, once again upholding the Republican label. kind of like a Michael Steele in some respects. standing up for those good old Republican “economic” values. One party two sides for “our” entertainment.
And the Kabuki theatre is very entertaining.
Bernard
i live in New Orleans, and the oil spell is not long distance from my home, unlike a lot of you around America. the lack of any co-ordinated, well thought out “plan” that will stop the OIL is what concerns me most.
as they say the proof is in the pudding. and all i see is lots of spilled oil and “savvy Businessmen” controlling the PR of Corporatist America’s Eff up.
even the appearance of doing something NOW, instead of talking about doing something later, would be highly appreciated by those of us who live on the Gulf Coast.
after 40 years of “Government is the Problem”, i am not surprised the Government is Incapable of Anything.
the Republicans got their wish, the Democrats learned how to be Republican-Lite, and the People get screwed. a Very Successful game plan if you ask me, except i am of those “small people” who pay taxes. for only the “little people” pay taxes.
i would not be surprised for the Bankersters to get it all, Social Security included, thanks to Obama’s Commission.
what i am surprised at is the willingness to destroy the Gulf of Mexico for profit.
that was a surprise.