Freddie made a number of different points yesterday, but I want to concentrate on one:
But mistermix—those “messy compromises” that you associate with virtue is why our country is the way it is. Because every messy compromise is at least 80% for the wignuts, you end up with a corrupted country. How long do you keep playing that game until you realize it’s rigged? I told you how I think liberal politics can be restored. There have been liberal grassroots movements in this country before and there can be again. But it can never happen if the party leadership forever cuts liberals off at the knees. It cannot happen if we have a messaging machine that refuses to listen to the left wing. It can’t happen if blogs like this one associate our own ideas and our own values with shame rather than with pride.
Let’s set aside for another time all the disappointing things that Obama has or hasn’t done that are in his purview as executive, and concentrate instead on the compromises that have come out of the legislative process, because long-term progress towards liberal goals will come primarily through legislation. I don’t see how lack of liberal messaging, or the party cutting liberals off at the knees, or shaming, led to those compromises. In the last Congress, Obama was faced with veto players in the Senate. In this Congress, those players are in the House. In the last Congress, those holding the veto were slightly more amenable to negotiation, plus a few procedural tricks could be used, so we got mediocre healthcare reform, a too-small stimulus, and a few other pieces of somewhat watered-down legislation that arguably advanced the liberal agenda at least slightly. This session: absolutamente nada. We’re essentially trying to avoid an apocalypse brought on by the Tea Party.
If Obama had a Democratic Congress, is there any doubt that we’d have better legislation? So let’s look at how we get that done. If Freddie is right and Obama was elected as a liberal, by liberals, then the 2008 election was something of a referendum on liberalism. Here’s how that shook out (click to embiggen).
If Democrats won both Senate seats in every state Obama won, we’re at 58. Of course, right now we’re not there, and a lot of the Senators we do have are from very red states, and they’re constantly jumping around trying to prove that they’re not real Democrats. Given that we had a Democratic Congress in 2008, we’re obviously underperforming there, but the 2008 Congress also had a good number of blue dogs who were elected from districts where the majority of voters aren’t down with the liberal program.
So, here’s my long-term vision for fewer compromises: In the Senate, we need to either get rid of the filibuster, or we need to settle for less liberal legislation and more blue dogs. In the House, we need fewer 80/20 or 90/10 blue districts, so we can have more competitive, winnable Democratic districts, or we need to settle for more blue dogs.
Of course, I don’t agree with Freddie that Obama was elected purely as a liberal — all my liberal friends were supporting Edwards, not Obama, in the early primaries. But if you take his premise, when people voted the liberal into office, they didn’t do so with enough votes to guarantee liberal legislation.
Susan
Ummm. Obama is not a liberal. I’m a liberal. I’m not sure what he believes.
cleek
yes, Congress. finally.
here we go again…
Rob
Which is why all those bills went through reconciliation. Oh wait, nothing passed through reconciliation. Obama wants to be seen as an unifier, he wants to impress his favorite pundit David Brooks, he believes that positive Washington Post editorials are important and he believes passing bipartisan bills are a goal in itself.
Emma
Control of the Senate is where the power is at the moment. Until and unless we do, Obama will always be playing defense. Once upon a time divided government did less damage because there were always enough people from either party that knew how to compromise to get something for everyone (even if bitterly and grudgingly). Now… we have the endofworldlers in control.
Emma
@Rob: And the mind readers strike again. I give up. I’m out of here until there’s another thread.
cleek
@Rob:
nothing except ACA, you mean.
xian
reconciliation! bully pulpit! 14th amendment!
4tehlulz
@Rob: Cool story, bro.
robertdsc-iPhone 4
I’d rather we talked about how to eject the GOP terrorists from office.
Dennis G.
The idea that this Nation can be governed without compromise is just magical thinking.
The goal should be getting a stronger hand–not aiming your site at some future Liberal control of everything. Absolute control has been the vision of the Wingnuts since before they launched the Civil War. In every age these fucks just love authoritarianism. I don’t. And so I’m a Liberal and I favor compromise–even if at times all we can get out of legislation is a 80/20 split (which hasn’t been the case, but I’ll use the chosen talking point myth).
Cheers
Ash Can
Great. Another 400 comments from a bunch of people who insist that a TRUE LIBERAL president could be elected in this nation if only we all clapped loudly enough.
I’m with Emma. Looking forward to the next thread(s).
cleek
@xian:
stand firm! line in the sand!
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
And this is where Freddie is acting like a child. Where the argument between liberals is about process, not goals, he goes off and cries because nobody will do it his way. He needs to go cry to the House of Representatives if he wants to make use of that energy, not other liberals.
Davis X. Machina
Two labels, three parties, especially in the Senate
Democrats who are Democrats
Democrats who are Republicans
Republicans who are Republicans
There used to be Republicans who are Democrats. They’re extinct.
So it’s coalition government, or permanent minority.
Call it, friend-o.
Mark S.
@Emma:
You get back in here and argue!
I’d join you, but I’ve got to get to work.
liberal
Indirectly it will, because now that Obama’s offered to cut entitlements, it will be at least somewhat harder for Dems to run against the Ryan plan for Medicare, which was up to now their best campaign message.
MikeJ
@cleek: Wey Wey Hep a hole ding dong yeah yeah!
Davis X. Machina
@cleek: LBJ! Arm-twisting! Big Dog!
Odie Hugh Manatee
@cleek:
This is what the manic progressives have a problem understanding, it’s Congress that writes the crap that hits the President’s desk.
The President doesn’t write a damned thing. He can try to influence things and that’s about it.
For me? No doubt. For the manic progressives? Absolutely. But that’s because every day is Crisis Day in Manic Progressive World and they don’t trust anybody.
It’s how they raise money.
Dan
Yup. Anyone who doesn’t understand this is either a complete idiot or actively trying to put Republicans back in power.
signifyingmnky
@Susan:
Let’s see:
He believes that every American should have access to health care that doesn’t discriminate on the basis of prior illness and that it’s purpose should be centered more on making people well than making CEOs rich.
He believes women should earn equal pay for equal work.
He believes that those offering the greatest sacrifice in the service of their country should not have their ability to serve judged by who they love.
He believes that same sex couples should enjoy the same legal rights as heterosexual ones.
He believes that when a stateless terrorist organization attacks your country, you pursue that organization, not a whole other unrelated country.
That’s just for starters, but these are from his record of legislation (and executive orders) that he’s championed and signed into law. I’d say they articulate his beliefs pretty well, and if they’re not liberal values, I don’t know what is.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@xian: Last night I read something on GOS where they were not happy with the DOE coming out with some new regulations because Congress has not updated NCLB. I wrote about it last night there and here, noting that if you change one word, it should apply to the debt bill. Here’s the link from last night.
General Stuck
@Rob:
You can only use reconciliation once in a congress, or maybe it’s once in a calender year. Either way, its use is constricted.
I’m with Emma, this kind of bullshit is a waste of time, except for the author’s egos. This post is only slightly less pointless. And I am tired of this new purity meme , making proclamations of who is liberal, and who isn’t.
If you can’t deign that Obama’s personal values lie in the gritty world of community organizing that is quite mainstream liberal, then you need to shut up and listen a while. Near every speech he gives, he speaks of the prime liberal value of looking after the poor and vulnerable, even when the subject of the speech doesn’t precisely involve that.
And the ACA is hardly mediocre. insuring 30 million people that couldn’t get insurance and will be able to is not “mediocre”. The means of delivery is likely not ideal, but the delivery is a different thing than the end result to insure more people. And neither are the extensive new regs.
The litmus test for being a liberal does not lie in demanding a PO, or being disappointed about not getting one. And as well, being progressive does not include demanding the ideal as the only acceptable result. It means making progress, navigated through the mine fields of passing legislation, when circa half the players abjectly oppose what you are trying to do.
jon
Reconciliation can be used once in every Congress. That’s once every two years. Obama’s one for one on getting something good through, unless you’re one of those who thinks the public option had a majority in both houses and Obama somehow had the magical ability to make it popular enough before he decided to embrace evil and cut a deal with those insurance and drug companies that have been so supportive ever since.
Using the 14th Amendment would have dealt with the debt ceiling, but would have given Republicans the ability to shut down the government over every one of the many budgets that still haven’t been passed. Now there’s a pathway toward actually running the country, a shutdown has been avoided, and things still suck because all the GOP didn’t die yet.
For too many liberals, the 2010 elections were a way to play “What should Obama have done in his first two years?” rather than a realization that the GOP fucking hates us and is willing to take down the country in their tantrum. We know what their agenda is, and maybe now its time to start fighting back against them rather than against Obama.
And if you think it’s a good idea to get rid of the filibuster in the Senate, I’m sure that President Perry would be all-too-happy to go along with that idea.
liberal
@xian:
Obama didn’t need to use an appeal to a tendentious interpretation of the 14th Amendment to defuse the debt crisis. All he had to do was mint a few $1T platinum coins, as expressly permitted by statute, take them to the Fed, and retire that much Treasury debt. It wouldn’t even be inflationary.
But go on, keep on making excuses for the fact that Obama is a pathetic, deluded, cowardly leader.
Sly
You’re both wrong.
No candidate is elected purely as anything, and Obama is, by any rational definition of the word, a liberal. If you do not think he is a liberal than, by extension, you would have to contend that the United States has never had a liberal President, in which case the definition of the word has become so narrow as to make the future election of liberals impossible.
You have to have a basic agreement on terms before you can have a more general agreement on anything. Barack Obama did not campaign on altering the fundamental dynamics of American capitalism. No liberal ever has, because that has the tendency to scare people. Even FDR did much more to save American capitalism than replace it, a feature of his administration that gave rise to no end of consternation from contemporary critics to his left.
Settling for more Blue Dogs is the only near-term option in the House. Fewer 80/20 districts would only come about through two long-term processes: demographic changes via migration and aging, or the gradual acceptance of Democratic policies in less liberal districts by directly appealing to those skittish of even modest changes (meaning, more compromised legislation supported by compromising liberals). The major conservative argument to the American middle-class is “better the devil you know than the devil you don’t know,” and its an argument that has worked all to well in the past few decades.
Prospects for the Senate look a bit better, but only because I think gaining a supermajority of liberals in the Senate is only slightly less likely than getting rid of the filibuster.
liberal
@jon:
One big root of the problem is that Obama himself refuses to fight.
A Mom Anon
Sooo,how do we end up with a more liberal House and Senate? I don’t mean moonbat lefty,just more liberal than it is now.
I wrote yesterday here that I think most of America is socially liberal and fiscally conservative without being mean and stingy to our citizens. And if you take the liberal label off of policy and even politics,most people are actually FOR things like good schools,working infrastructure,clean air and water,affordable health care,etc. We’ve been hijacked by mean,spiteful and hateful people who are motvivated by greed and avarice,and as discouraged as I am,I know most of us are not like that.
So what can we do to turn the GOP into a tiny minority?
gogol's wife
@robertdsc-iPhone 4:
Right. There seems to be a dearth of such discussion. Everywhere I look, from the New York Times to here, it seems as if Obama is an autocratic dictator who can do anything he wants and is just choosing not to do what we want. THIS IS NOT THE CASE. Sorry for shouting, but why is this so hard to understand? There is a Congress he has to deal with.
liberal
@Sly:
Nope. For his times, LBJ was definitely a liberal (even if totally wrong on the Vietnam War). For his times, Obama is a centrist.
Jewish Steel
As long as you have Susan patrolling the borderlands of ideological purity, you’re gonna be okay, America!
different church-lady
gogol's wife
The platinum coins! Oh my God! Just kill me now (to quote John Cole!
Samara Morgan
WTF is this?
tag team firebagging?
freddie is teh suxxor and you and Cole are teh suxxor for linking him and frontpaging him.
give up already.
different church-lady
@Sly:
Can we just make this every third front page post? Or even every post?
Here’s a tip: there’s a certain bunch of people on the left who don’t want a general agreement on anything.
Lockewasright
Why must people confuse the goal with the strategy? It’s a persistent and inaccurate error. The president is absolutely a liberal. He is also a pragmatist. The fact that he believes in results doesn’t mean he doesn’t also believe in liberal ideals. It just means that he is willing to get there in steps. His willingness to take what he can get in the real world rather than continuously watch pure bills without sufficient support go nowhere has resulted in more liberal policy being signed into law than has happened under any president since at least LBJ and possibly since FDR.
jheartney
The “60-vote Senate” requirement is a new, made-up requirement that shouldn’t be tolerated. It’s impossible to legislate if such a large supermajority is required, which is why the GOP used reconciliation to pass their agenda, and threatened the “nuclear option” when reconciliation wasn’t available.
My main beef with Obama is his consistent refusal to think outside the box, and to accept pointless roadblocks thrown up by his enemies rather than even trying to find ways around them. He reminds me of a by-the-book computer user who insists on reading the manual and spending hours on the line with tech support rather than creatively thinking his way past problems that could be solved in a few minutes.
There were path available to bypass the debt-ceiling terrorism being practiced by teahadist House members. Obama refused to even consider any of them.
General Stuck
@liberal:
One big root of the problem is that liberal is a mendacity troll with an agenda. The solution – ignore
different church-lady
@gogol’s wife: I’m beginning to think that “liberal” might be playing the ironic voice in its literal sense.
Davis X. Machina
Like what, exactly? A few examples to focus the discussion would help….
different church-lady
@General Stuck:
Either that or a parody troll with a very subtle shtick.
Danny
It’s a good post. But I dont see why we should say that Obama’s compromises suck at all. Every single piece of legislation he signed that I know something about I full out support as good policy. (Except this latest debt ceiling deal which was shitty.)
The only way to get to the other stuff (PPACA, ARRA, FinReg, DADT, etc) being actually bad from a progressive point of view is either by comparing them to some imagined dream legislation rather than the Status Quo, or by doing silly up-is-down bullshitting like the guy that somehow wanted to prove that ARRA was conservative legislation by arguing that block grants to states are ipso facto “conservative”. What we have done though is undersell the actually pretty stellar legislative outcome of the past few years.
(That’s not surprising though – given what a shitty state the country was in when Obama took over it was expected that he would have a hard time getting fair credit, and that’s exactly what we’re seeing. People are pissed at 9% unemployment and Afghanistan rather than some modest compromise to make progress.)
dpCap
Meanwhile:
http://www.alternet.org/vision/151850/8_reasons_young_americans_don%27t_fight_back:_how_the_us_crushed_youth_resistance/
Legalize
@robertdsc-iPhone 4:
This – times a million.
Han's Big Snark Solo
@gogol’s wife: I agree with you and Robert.
Obama’s compromises suck because he is dealing with people who’s primary goal is making sure Obama is a one term President. They don’t give a crap about our country, their only concern is political. Any “compromise” that was good for the country would make Obama look good, and therefore be a bad compromise that must be stopped.
Samara Morgan
@A Mom Anon:
outbreed them.
its already happening.
Sly
@liberal:
You know how many times and in how many different ways LBJ compromised on the Great Society?
LBJ (and, to a much greater extent, FDR) is beloved by some on the left today entirely due to self-deluded myth-making made possible through ignoring the historical record. From the outset, his policies to reduce poverty in the United States were based entirely around the principle I outlined above: “Do what you can to make it better, but don’t scare the middle class into thinking the world is going to end.” This stance informed every major piece of Great Society legislation proposed, and they were even further watered down in order to pass Congress.
Policy arguments don’t exist in a vacuum. For everything that liberals and leftists want, there will be conservatives telling middle-class voters that the demands of those same liberals and leftists will end up fucking the middle-class royally. Sometimes it comes in the form of populist white resentment, like the Tea Party. Sometimes it comes in the form of virulent anti-communism like JBS. Sometimes it comes in the form of paternalistic religiosity, like Christian Dominionism. But whatever its form, it is always there and successful liberals have never ignored it.
General Stuck
@different church-lady:
Liberal’s ideology lies closer to marxist than to American liberalism. Not that there is anything wrong with that, but from lengthy exchanges we had during the initial econ crisis, his solution could be summed up as fully and permanently nationalize everything, which is not included in this countries liberal ethos.
different church-lady
@General Stuck: Based on what I’m seeing here, I have a hard time believing he’s not just yanking all our chains. People have strange hobbies, and one of them is creating internet personas and figuring out how far they can take them.
But then again, it’s possible he’s being completely earnest. Which would be jaw dropping.
chopper
big dog got a clean bill! LBJ beat senators with his dick until he got what he wanted! bully pulpit rigged with C4!
different church-lady
And there you have the nut of the problem: too many writers on the left believed that ’08 was such a trouncing that the prize was to tell the right to sit down and shut up for the rest of eternity.
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
As long as we’re at it, let me chime in with my one note:
It makes sense to read “liberal’s” comments with Harriet Christian’s voice:
“That inadequate black man won’t fight!”
Nevermind the hoodless klansmen of the confederate party, they have nothing to do with the inadequate black man’s inadequacy.
Danny
@Sly:
Not to mention the fact that those same dissenters that now glorify LBJ and FDR are the remnants and ideological descendants of the New Left. But back then the New Left pissed on LBJ and threw the establishment and their proven ways of doing things aside (albeit for a good reason, Vietnam). So they’re not credible when they want to claim rights to the FDR coalition and LBJ; LBJ and FDR did stuff the establishment way, the way Obama’s doing it today, but at a point in history where the movement had not yet been weakened by the counter-establishments fuck-ups, dixiecrat defection and other things.
TooManyJens
@liberal:
Which “offer to cut entitlements” was that? The trigger that cuts payments to providers? A supposed increase of the eligibility age to 67, which never got past the “reports say” stage (and which not only didn’t get voted on, but which most people have probably never heard of)?
Exactly how does that stack up against the Republicans going on the record with a vote to dismantle Medicare? It’s not in the same galaxy, that’s how.
cleek
@gogol’s wife:
create $2T out of thin air, say it resides in two magical coins that nobody will ever see. then stick em in “your bank account” so that you can write checks against them!
what could possibly be wrong with that plan?
Jewish Steel
@A Mom Anon: Convince young people to vote.
Maybe you entice them with having one of their pop idols, like Huey Lewis for example, to write a song in praise of suffrage.
signifyingmnky
@liberal:
And it would be yet another case of the executive doing the job the legislative branch exists to do.
I thought you guys wanted an end to the “unitary executive”….
Poopyman
@different church-lady:
Well, here’s one place where “both sides do it” is actually accurate.
Yes, a more better Congress is the quickest path to a more liberal Obama. I live in a very red part of a fairly blue district (Hoyer’s), so I don’t bother with helping the local House and Senate Dems. I look for Progressive candidates in winnable races and give $$ where I think it’ll do the most good. If I had less $$ and more time I might do more legwork, but we all need to do what we can do, right?
askew
Your friends must not be very bright. A quick review of Edwards’ legislative career would show that Edwards was by far the most conservative of Clinton, Obama and Edwards. But, because he gave a couple of fiery speeches people were stupid enough to believe that he was a liberal. That is the problem with liberals and the netroots in particular. They are gullible and fall for any schmuck who uses their talking points and ignores the schmuck’s voting record.
burnspbesq
mistermix:
Even using Freddie’s premise as part of a rhetorical device is going too far.
You should take his premise out to the back yard and add it to your compost pile with all the other biological waste. That way, it can serve a useful purpose, i.e., to fertilize next year’s tomato plants.
Davis X. Machina
@signifyingmnky: We wanted our unitary executive….
The only really bi-partisan thing in politics is a hankering for monarchy.
Freddie deBoer
I love to talk to you about this, mistermix. But here is the ethos of this blog:
“Even using Freddie’s premise as part of a rhetorical device is going too far.
You should take his premise out to the back yard and add it to your compost pile with all the other biological waste. That way, it can serve a useful purpose, i.e., to fertilize next year’s tomato plants.”
Why bother?
Samara Morgan
instead of blathering endlessly about freddie emoprog agonistes, how about you deal some real news mistermix?
Please note the parallels to Tahir Square.
1. coordinated thru social media
2. started with the death of a young man at police hands.
AlphaLiberal
mistermix:
These seems pretty clear to me. Compromises are not made in a sterile vacuum but within the country’s civic and political debate.
When one side prevails in a debate and wages stronger arguments, that sides prospects in the compromise improve.
So, if Democrats run away screaming from positions they pretend during campaign time to care about, that position is less likely to prevail. To the Obama situation on deficit hysteria, if the Democrats go so far as to use their public offices to speak in favor of the Republican position, then the Republican position is strengthened.
Think of it in football terms: Republicans have a strong front line. Democrats have a few strong linemen who are overwhelmed when their teammates run away from a play and the QB gets sacked. (They also have downfield receivers, etc).
Can we please move beyond this silly point? Yes, it does matter if politicians speaks (effectively) in favor of an issue, or not. Worse, it matters a LOT if they adopt the opponents’ arguments (for shame, Mr President). If no-one is out there speaking in favor of something, it will be seen as not supported and will not fare well in debates or compromise discussions.
Is this really that hard to understand?
And, yes, they fuck their base too. not in a “fee-fee” type of way but materially in stagnant wages, high unemployment, more pollution, less economic security, etc. If all you care about is celebrities this won’t matter to you.
Samara Morgan
@Freddie deBoer: indeed.
i for one am mortally sick of you and mistermix and your emoprog tag team firebagging.
lead, follow, or get the fuck out of the way you intranisigent two-digit assclowns.
chopper
@Freddie deBoer:
it’s interesting to see one FPer shit on another FPers post, but sorry freddie your post was pretty bad. cynicism seems to be a driving force in every political sphere right now so i give things some leeway (i’m ready to start screaming at random people) but still. it wasn’t your best work.
Blue Neponset
Doesn’t anyone else remember what happened when Obama had a Democratic Congress? It wasn’t that long ago. To refresh some memories, during that time the Republicans: 1) rolled out the tea party and convinced the media that they weren’t a bunch of Republicans 2) watered down the stimulus bill with a bunch of tax cuts 3) got the media to talk about “death panels” for a month during the healthcare debate 4) won a senate seat in MA by capitalizing on the anger people felt about the bailouts.
Let’s face it people, Obama just isn’t a very good leader. I pay very close attention to politics and I couldn’t tell you what Obama stands for if my life depended on it. He totally sucks at messaging. The Bully Pulpit is wasted on him. I defy anyone to tell me what Obama’s plan to fix the economy is.
This is why we lost in 2010. The average voter has no idea why it is better to have Democrats in charge of the gov’t.
chopper
@Samara Morgan:
it’s their blog, dummy.
jwb
@Danny: Actually, we won’t know whether the debt ceiling legislation was shitty or not until we see how the budget negotiations go and what happens with the triggers and the Super Congress. It has the potential to be not bad or very shitty indeed depending on how everything shakes out. (I would say the odds favor the shitty side of the equation, but as with most of this stuff it depends very much on what happens in the details.)
burnspbesq
@Freddie deBoer:
Yes, mockery of the intellectually bankrupt is the ethos of this blog. I don’t care, even a tiny bit, who you are. I care only about the power of your ideas. And you have nothing.
If you can’t handle it, you shouldn’t be here.
Bill H.
Both sides have a policy of not introducing a bill unless they have lined up the votes to pass it. They are unwilling to lose.
You have to be willing to lose, and then make the other guy pay the price of winning. When Republicans shut down government under Gingrich they won, and the Democrats made them pay a price for that. They could have kept on making them pay that price longer, but did not.
At some point Democrats won a point that Republicans used to make them look “weak on defense.” Republicans are still making them pay the price of that victory many years later.
You fight for what you believe in, not for what you think you can win. Some things are worth fighting for even when you know that you will lose. When you lose you can somethimes turn the opponents victory against them, but that won’t happen if you did not fight and lose to begin with.
Compromise, in short, is just overrated.
Sly
@Danny:
It is a recurring theme, going back longer than anyone who doesn’t study the history of political culture of the United States rarely realizes. Lincoln and Grant had the Radicals. Wilson, FDR, Kennedy, and Truman had the Old Left. Johnson and Carter had the New Left. Clinton (and, by extension Gore) and Obama had/have The Progressives.
And it has generally followed the same narrative arc in terms of electing a technocratic liberal to fix a system you think should be replaced, get agitated when that liberal isn’t replacing that system, complain loudly that the technocratic liberal is the source of the problem and that he needs to be replaced, and one of two possibilities emerge:
1) The replacement strategy fails and the technocratic liberal wins reelection. Lincoln, Grant, Roosevelt, Truman, Clinton. The agitators either shut up and go away, or harbor grudges against “The Establishment” for a lifetime.
2) The replacement strategy fails and the technocratic liberal loses reelection. Johnson, Carter, Gore. In those cases, the technocratic liberal lost to opposition candidates that the agitators of the left come to hate even more.
At best, trying to nominate someone other than Obama in 2012 has, judging from what has happened before, two possible outcomes: He gets reelected anyway, or he loses to a conservative candidate. In the best case scenario, Obama wins. Meaning that the entire exercise has no other point than mindless, self-indulgent comfort. It is the political equivalent of masturbation.
Danny
@Freddie deBoer:
“Boho someone was a big meanie and bullied me after I unloaded on the President so now I’m gonna take my toys and go home”?
Samara Morgan
@chopper: yes that is zactly right.
Cole doesnt even post much anymore.
this is freddie and mistermixs blog now.
jwb
@different church-lady: It happened around here as well, or do you forget the idiotic refrain of “this is how regime change occurs”?
Carl Nyberg
When Democrats get control of the House, they have to come up with a way to inflict pain on the the Senate when the Senate allows bad actors to abuse the filibuster.
Maybe each bill should include cuts to Kentucky, Utah, Wyoming, Idaho, Oklahoma, Mississippi and Alabama.
If the Senate avoids using filibuster threats to shape the bill on the Senate side, then the cuts disappear in conference committee.
If the Senate uses the filibuster, well, those Republican states get a little less federal money.
Samara Morgan
@Danny: he doesnt have any toys we want.
let him go.
sayonara freddie!
chopper
@Sly:
seems to be the former, but they always come back during that party’s next administration and bitch about how the new guy can’t hold a candle to the earlier one they spent their days bitching about.
Jewish Steel
@Freddie deBoer: Your courage is inspiring. I look forward to the day when we link arms at the barricades, comrade.
Unless, of course, some kind of icky ethos makes you feel crampy.
jwb
@cleek: Actually from everything I’ve read it’s not the intitial $2 trillion that is the problem. In the current climate of a liquidity trap, that would be virtually meaningless; it’s rather what happens once that option is open and starts being used regularly.
Marc
@liberal:
And you pretend to be a liberal, even while calling Obama deluded and cowardly.
Do you work for the Republicans, or do you just serve their interests for free?
Samara Morgan
@Freddie deBoer: go talk about it at the LoOG with mistermixs other mancrush, Kain.
you guys creep me out with alla your psycho-sexual tension.
Danny
@Sly:
On the money. But I think you’re missing the upside there is to be had for the emoproggers, and in fact the thing they care (most) about. Which is trying to prove their relevance to themselves. “Well at least we got to take down our own guy. He should have listened to us, we showed him.” That’s the sentiment. That M.O. only result in long term irrelevance for all of us of course, but some people never learn. Better to be King in ones own mind than Mayor in the real world…
cleek
@Blue Neponset:
i do!
a bunch of solidly liberal stuff passed.
it doesn’t help that liberals are completely shitty followers.
he stands for keeping the liberal safety net intact, for standard liberal positions w/r/t minority rights and social policy. he stands for a center-left approach to fiscal matters, which includes addressing the deficit by making cuts in spending, but in a way that preserves the safety net. he believes in a pragmatic foreign policy.
etc..
jwb
@Poopyman: “a more better Congress is the
quickestonly path to a more liberal Obama.” Fixt.AlphaLiberal
@Sly:
Wow, that’s quite the steamer there. So, people who criticize Obama are guilty of whatever someone thinks the New Left is guilty of. That reveals a basic cartoonish thinking.
The fact is, given America’s hard rightward lurch, what we Obama critics are fighting for is basically a return to moderate liberalism. We’re not talking state takeover of the means of production.
We’re talking about fair and progressive taxation, maintaining and modernizing environmental safeguards, treating the working people of America as if they matter, accountability for the rich and powerful.
Your allegation is bullshit. We want Obama to stand up for, and speak for, the policies needed to help the people of this country. Instead he has capitulated to deficit hysteria, a complete play by a bunch of rich grifters.
So, if you guys want to go with the red baiting, well, I guess I’m up for internecine warfare, bitches.
Samara Morgan
@Danny: spot on. Basically the emoprogs want to scold us for believing that Obama is trying to do the right thing.
so snore-city.
jwb
@Freddie deBoer: “Why bother?” Indeed, since you obviously don’t.
Marc
@Freddie deBoer:
Where did you see that in his post?
You can expect that you’ll get some useless responses to any blog post. But you also got some useful ones, which you simply ignored. (I certainly tried.) That’s what I’d expect someone in your position to focus on – try to understand what actually motivates people who disagree with you and engage those ideas.
Ignore the garbage, elevate the discussion.
signifyingmnky
@different church-lady:
And this speaks to a much larger issue. The far left seems to be more invested in the idea of sticking it to the Republicans than putting their policy ideas into action and proving them.
To me, that is the central disconnect that fuels the “disappointed in Obama” meme and allows it to be exploited to no end.
He champions and passes health care reform that extends access to millions of more Americans and does away with pre-existing conditions, but because he had to work with Republicans or the Pharma lobby to get it done, it’s somehow not worth the paper it’s written on.
He champions and passes financial reform including a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, but because he had to work with Republicans to get it done, it too is not worth the paper it’s written on.
He champions and passes a repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, but because he had to make a deal with Republicans to get it done, it’s no longer an accomplishment worth celebrating.
The people driving the “disappointed meme” in the Professional Left have their own motivations for driving this kind of messaging, some which have thankfully begun to come into the light (Greenwald’s libertarianism and Hamsher’s profiting from helping Republicans electoral efforts for example), but the reason the messaging works is because for a number of people on the left, sticking it to Republicans and/or corporations is the goal. Actual progress and governance doesn’t matter.
What kills me, is that this ignores the message critical to selling liberalism, “Government has a role”.
I’m all for sticking it to the Republicans on the issues, and I have no love for corporate greed, but what voters want to know is what government can do for them, and for too long, all they’ve heard is that government is bad and needs to just get out of the way.
We have to counter that message, and to do that, we need to enact policy that makes a difference, and actually champion it so people understand why it’s important to them.
Continually bickering about not getting enough red meat (sticking it to Republicans) undermines that, and actually furthers the Republican message that government can’t do anything but get in the way.
AlphaLiberal
@Danny flogs his strawman, in public:
Can you please show us some links to back up your allegation that anyone has said this, let alone a majority of us? I think you are lying about us. We are not saying that, asshole.
What you have there is a “strawman argument.” You have put false words into other peoples’ mouths and now you are debating with your own (false) statements.
Basically, you’re debating yourself. It’s exactly a form of mental masturbation. It’s embarrassing.
But I guess you can’t handle actually addressing what people actually say.
mistermix
@Freddie deBoer: Well, you can always respond on your own blog and I’ll be happy to link and discuss.
Samara Morgan
@AlphaLiberal:
but that is PURE-D unmitigated emoprog bulshytt.
Obama is the president of all the americans– and half the country is still bubba.
go emocut yourself someplace else where we dont have to watch.
kindness
I might be inclined to agree that Obama hasn’t caved on every issue. Except he has caved on almost every issue.
Public Option – tossed
Single Payer – never even offered
legalizing marijuana – what a fucking joke
ending the wars in Afghanistan & Iraq – no, still wants ’em
protect Social Security – willing to cat food commission it
point out crazy Teahaddists – no, not adult behavior
Barack Obama has done everything he thinks he should do as President except fight the good fight. Some times you have to be willing to fight for something knowing you will lose. Fighting that fight brings hope to your base and you don’t get tagged as weak or as an appeaser. Barack owns that label now. I’ll vote for him in 2012, but I’m not happy with the guy.
jwb
@chopper: Freddie declared war and was surprised that his new declared enemy refused to stand down.
Bruce S
This discussion – rooted in a symbiotic duality of recycled frustrations – isn’t even boring anymore…
Anyone interested in doing something other than in-fighting might take a look at this proposal oriented toward the “Rebuild the Dream” coalition:
http://titanicsailsatdawn.blogspot.com/2011/08/national-infrastructure-movement.html
Marc
@AlphaLiberal:
Infighting is obviously a priority of yours. Obama has repeatedly stated that he wants progressive taxation. If there is one thing that is 100% certain, it’s that he will make raising taxes on the rich a centerpiece of his re-election campaign. Listen to what he has actually said; it’s blindingly obvious. Now I’m prepared to change my mind if this doesn’t happen. But if it does, will you support him? I suspect not, and that’s precisely the attitude that I intend to argue strongly against.
AlphaLiberal
emoprogs? What does that mean? That we emote?
Look, maybe you agree with Obama and Republicans that it is more important now for America to prioritize deficit reduction over JOBS. Even though their actions will INCREASE UNEMPLOYMENT.
Now you could make your case that the jobless should go suck eggs while the billionaire agenda is catered to.
Well, actually, you losers cannot do that. So, instead, you hurl insults and close ranks around your celebrity politician du jour. And, in so doing, you tell the jobless to fuck off and die.
Where are the jobs plans?
Samara Morgan
@jwb: he allus runs away.
General Stuck
Looks like the new left wing meme of labeling Obama as a faux liberal, and secret republican, and doing the same for his supporters, is the new birtherism from the left, or right, hard to tell anymore on the tubes.
It’s not internecine warfare with a handful of duplicitous wankers, more like swatting bottle flies on a hot summer day.
chopper
@Samara Morgan:
freddie has posted five times in the last week. that’s it. and that’s big for him. cole and dougj, on the other hand, have each posted some 4 times as much in that much time, and that’s twice as much as mixie has.
jwb
@Blue Neponset: You make it sound like the media is some neutral player in all of this, and all that needed to happen was the Dems needed to manipulate the media better. Start with the assumption that the media is owned by and working for the other team, and see how far you get.
Marc
@kindness:
Your Iraq point alone is bullshit – as the US presence there has drastically dropped and there is no evidence that he’s going to reverse course.
I could go through the rest, but why bother? It’s obvious that you’re in love with a stab in the back narrative, and nothing will take your hate of Obama away from you.
Go work for the Republicans; that’s what you’re accomplishing anyhow.
jwb
@burnspbesq: You have to admit that Freddie is a most excellent whiner.
chopper
@cleek:
as i’ve compared it to in the past, it’s like going to war dragging along an army of williamsburg hipsters. wow, general, you’re fucking terrible! your guys just sat there the whole time talking about bands and shit and comparing their ironic mustaches!
Tim Connor
Well part of this post makes sense. If I have to choose, right now I’d rather have a Democratic Congress than a Democratic president. So that is exactly where my contributions have been going.
What does not make sense is the idea the prevailing idea that there are no realities other than political ones. The problem with many of Obama’s compromises is that they exhibit a poor grasp of how underlying reality works. Exhibit the stock market’s reaction to its final grasp on the fact that there won’t be any help for the economy going forward.
We know that it is not a reaction to the debt crisis because:
Tim Connor
Well part of this post makes sense. If I have to choose, right now I’d rather have a Democratic Congress than a Democratic president. So that is exactly where my contributions have been going.
What does not make sense is the idea the prevailing idea that there are no realities other than political ones. The problem with many of Obama’s compromises is that they exhibit a poor grasp of how underlying reality works. Exhibit the stock market’s reaction to its final grasp on the fact that there won’t be any help for the economy going forward.
We know that it is not a reaction to the debt crisis because:
Tim Connor
Well part of this post makes sense. If I have to choose, right now I’d rather have a Democratic Congress than a Democratic president. So that is exactly where my contributions have been going.
What does not make sense is the idea the prevailing idea that there are no realities other than political ones. The problem with many of Obama’s compromises is that they exhibit a poor grasp of how underlying reality works. Exhibit the stock market’s reaction to its final grasp on the fact that there won’t be any help for the economy going forward.
We know that it is not a reaction to the debt crisis because:
Tim Connor
Well part of this post makes sense. If I have to choose, right now I’d rather have a Democratic Congress than a Democratic president. So that is exactly where my contributions have been going.
What does not make sense is the idea the prevailing idea that there are no realities other than political ones. The problem with many of Obama’s compromises is that they exhibit a poor grasp of how underlying reality works. Exhibit the stock market’s reaction to its final grasp on the fact that there won’t be any help for the economy going forward.
We know that it is not a reaction to the debt crisis because:
Tim Connor
Well part of this post makes sense. If I have to choose, right now I’d rather have a Democratic Congress than a Democratic president. So that is exactly where my contributions have been going.
What does not make sense is the idea the prevailing idea that there are no realities other than political ones. The problem with many of Obama’s compromises is that they exhibit a poor grasp of how underlying reality works. Exhibit the stock market’s reaction to its final grasp on the fact that there won’t be any help for the economy going forward.
We know that it is not a reaction to the debt crisis because:
Tim Connor
Well part of this post makes sense. If I have to choose, right now I’d rather have a Democratic Congress than a Democratic president. So that is exactly where my contributions have been going.
What does not make sense is the idea the prevailing idea that there are no realities other than political ones. The problem with many of Obama’s compromises is that they exhibit a poor grasp of how underlying reality works. Exhibit the stock market’s reaction to its final grasp on the fact that there won’t be any help for the economy going forward.
We know that it is not a reaction to the debt crisis because:
Samara Morgan
@mistermix:
oh, yes! yesyesyes!
go resolve your subliminated sexual tension with Kain and de Bore at the LoOG!
brilliant!
chopper
@General Stuck:
progressives are also forseeing a shitty economy and wish to distance themselves further from the guy who’s likely to take a lot of blame for it. so they can stay pure and tell their friends ‘shit, i never liked that guy. don’t blame me’
cleek
@kindness:
talk to Congress. they write the laws, not the President.
it’s illegal by statute. talk to Congress.
that does suck. but they are starting to wind down – at least Iraq is, anyway.
having a few people make suggestions about a program is not exactly ending it. not in the real world, anyway.
why does he need to point them out? does anybody not know about them?
Samara Morgan
i interrupt this stream for a PSA
ggreenwald Glenn Greenwald
@
@Johngcole Oh, so you think evil comes from both sides? Now everyone is David Broder!!!
8 minutes ago
Johngcole John Cole
@
@ggreenwald Now you are flailing. I never said anything of the sort.
10 minutes ago
ggreenwald Glenn Greenwald
@
@Johngcole Yeah – I wish the GOP would stop killing all those innocent people in Afghanistan, Yemen, Libya, Iraq – all evil comes from them
10 minutes ago
Johngcole John Cole
@
@ggreenwald Other than good luck with the libertarian party.
12 minutes ago
Johngcole John Cole
@
@ggreenwald If you don’t, and want to sit there spewing “both sides do it,” there ain’t much I can say.
12 minutes ago
Anya
Sometimes I wonder if some of the most vociferous opponents of President Obama from the left, actually prefer a true winngut in the WH.
They focus all of their venom on the President that one can only conclude two things: 1) that they’re naive dreamers, who cling to a flawed understanding the workings of the three branches of the government; 2) a Republicans in power serves their purity needs, more than a Democratic President, hence the constant attacks on the President, and lack of focus on the Republicans who are doing the actual damage.
jwb
@Samara Morgan: Actually, Freddie, doesn’t post that much either. I would say DougJ and mistermix do most of the posting. But Kay is the one who brings most of the new information into play.
chopper
@Tim Connor:
that’s where your money should be going. obama’s probably going to raise plenty of money, and what we really need is to take back the house.
lol
@jheartney:
And the revisionist history continues.
Reconciliation (which can only be used for budgetary matters) was used for his tax cuts.
Iraq War
Patriot Act
NCLB
Medicare Part D
Partial Birth Abortion Ban
They all got 60+ votes in the Senate for various reasons.
Samara Morgan
@mistermix:
Sly
@Danny:
Like I said: mindless, self-indulgent comfort.
He took Single Payer off the table! He refuses to prosecute Bush/Cheney for war crimes! Out of Afghanistan Now! He’s a puppet for Wall Street! He doesn’t want to close Guantanamo! He secretly hates gay people!
See the violence inherent in the system! Cthulu fhtagn!
If the disgruntled left doesn’t want to be treated like a cartoon, the best defense against that is to stop acting like one.
So there’s not a hairs breadth of difference between your policy preferences and those of liberals like Obama. Good to know.
I get it. Obama should say that the immediate concern should be jobs, that any spending cuts should occur in the out-years, and that middle-class and poor folks shouldn’t be forced to take the brunt of it.
Which is exactly what he has said. So I suppose you want him to say it more, and in a louder voice.
No, this isn’t about red baiting. If I thought the criticism from the modern disgruntled left were based on some residual Marxism from the Old Left, I wouldn’t even waste my time with this nonsense and I doubt many others would, either.
AlphaLiberal
@Marc:
Wrong. I am reacting to the hatred posted here toward Obama critics. The name calling, the false attributions, etc.
My priority is to see someone in this country fight for working people.
Marc, I have listened to what Obama says, and not as a self-deluded follower:
That is Republican rhetoric from Barack Obama. It’s also false on multiple levels.
Look, we live in a country that has been lurching to the right for 30 years – my adult life. All throughout this time the liberals have been told to STFU buy the party elites as they concede the policy gains of previous generations again and again. They keep retreating in the face of Republican advances – and working people keep losing because their “champions” won’t stand their ground (See: Obama).
I don’t want to live in a right wing nation. But if Democrats keep being as squishy and accommodating to the right wing as Barack Obama, we will continue to lose.
We need to stand and fight. We need to disagree with Republicans and offer a better message. Instead, we continue to get this triangulation bullshit that has helped the careers of a few Dem pols and lobbyists, but not the working people of this country.
Blue Neponset
@cleek:
Didn’t Dubya try that line?
Thanks for the elevator speech. The bold part is the main reason I still don’t know what Obama stands for. You can’t address the deficit by making cuts in spending and preserving the safety net. That idea is a bullshit Republican talking point. The fact that a Democratic President is repeating bullshit Republican talking points is what is really bothering me right now. What is even more depressing is that the true believers from my side of the aisle are quoting bullshit Republican talking points when the defend a Democratic President.
ETA: Also too, why are we talking about the deficit when unemployment is over 9%? My answer, because Obama lost the messaging battle.
cleek
@Anya:
yup, and yup.
once again, joe from Lowell’s “Protest People” aphorism rings true:
signifyingmnky
@AlphaLiberal:
He stands and speaks for liberal policies, but he still needs a Congress to make those policies law. To do that, we have to win elections.
We didn’t win 2010 because there was much talking about what we hadn’t accomplished and too little championing of what we had or were on the cusp of accomplishing. As a result of that, no one outside of “likely voters” saw any reason to come out an vote to defend what we accomplished.
It may be easier to just point at President Obama and say things are a mess because he isn’t “fighting” hard enough, but the truth is, Congress matters.
We still have time to make that point to voters for 2012.
Samara Morgan
@AlphaLiberal: WTF?
that isnt republican rhetoric…its the TRUTH.
OzoneR
@Rob:
HCR and tuition reform passed through reconciliation
lol
@kindness:
The votes aren’t there in Congress.
He’s withdrawn 100,000 soldiers and counting from Iraq and he campaigned on increasing our presence in Afghanistan.
You mean the commission that was designed to fail?
You know, after claiming half a dozen times that Obama was at various points about to cut Social Security and being proven wrong time after time, maybe you should re-evaluate things.
What does this accomplish?
Or, in other words, what did Alan Grayson’s “die quickly” rhetoric accomplish other than depriving us of a reliably progressive vote in the House in the very next election?
cleek
@Blue Neponset:
i’m not exactly sure why you think this. there are plenty of ways to cut spending which do not impair the efficacy of the safety net. military spending, for one.
of course. only Republicans think we have long-term spending issues that must be dealt with.
it’s because the Dems lost the House Of Representatives, in a spectacular fashion.
AlphaLiberal
@Sly:
Did you have a playground taunting tone in your brain as you typed that? Sure read that way. So, you think any suggestion that Wall St should be held to account should be met with derision. Why is that, exactly? Because it’s convenient? Or because you think plutocrats are above the law?
No. It is not what Obama has said. I just posted his very Republican rhetoric that has helped elevate deficit hysteria over action on jobs.
Obama last year “pivoted” to deficits. He does not make the case that the best way for our nation to take on deficits is to first fix the unemployment crisis so we can attack the deficits with a stronger economy better suited to the job.
No, instead Obama and his loyalist defenders who continue that decades-old tradition of bashing liberals, support policies that will result in more people without jobs, thrown out of homes, and a longer prolonged unemployment crisis.
Obama took the bait on deficits. He let the Republicans play him. You should address that rather than bash critics.
And the New Left reference was absolutely a form of red baiting. The same aversion to listening to anyone on the left that Obama has so disastrously practiced.
Danny
@AlphaLiberal:
It must be a bit embarrassing for you when your understanding of the strawman concept is so poor that you make a blatant strawman of your own while inaccurately accusing others of doing so.
How I characterized you and other emo-proggers, that’s me telling you my idea of what makes you tick. Asking me for a cite is completely fucking irrelevant unless you’d also ask me to quote Sigmund Freud as saying he was obsessed with sex or else abstain from holding the opinion that he was.
That’s no fucking strawman, you illiterate twit. Maybe you could convince a fellow firebagger that it qualifies as slander, but not a fucking strawman.
I, however, maintain that the characterization is spot on. No one else cares about what you have to say about anything, so to prove relevance you opt to bring grief to the only people who gives a shit – your fellow teammates. I don’t approve of that behavior; it reeks of lazyness, childishness, and an inflated sense of entitlement.
Samara Morgan
@AlphaLiberal: dude i wanna fight.
lash our forearms together and cut each other with truth blades.
use links.
cowboyup and fight for your ideals, pussi3.
lol
@OzoneR:
The HCR budget fixes (which included the student loan stuff) went through reconciliation. HCR itself got 60 votes in the Senate.
The Senate HCR bill wouldn’t pass the House, but after agreeing to pass the budget fixes, the House passed Senate HCR bill and then the budget fix bill.
Remember folks, only budgetary items can go through reconciliation. It’s not the magic bullet progressive pretend it is.
MaxxLange
If Obama ever does mint a $1 trillion dollar coin, he may as well put the Rev. Wright on its face….that would be awesome
AlphaLiberal
@cleek:
You sure are charitable to Republicans! If they actually believe this, how did they manage to run up those monstrous deficits? They do not believe that, they believe deficits are a handy cudgel to use against any Democrat in the White House, against the poor and workers.
@lol:
and here is a big difference in worldviews. The centrists and Obama loyalists (I am avoid “Obamabot”) think that these positions and votes are written in stone for all eternity and no amount of advocacy for a given position will make any difference.
Well, the Republicans prove otherwise frequently! The President is not a helpless observer to this process. He is a part of it and could advocate for something.
Again, Obama’s priority is not to advance anything liberal but to shine his halo by “transcending” with his bipartisan compromises. He also empowers Rs by making bipartisanship a hallmark of his administration, because they control how much bipartisanship will occur. He has made himself a supplicant.
lol
@AlphaLiberal:
No, actually he did. Every speech he’s given has been that the deficit is a long-term problem and we need to fix the economy now. Look it up.
Blue Neponset
@jwb:
That is an excuse. The media is what it is. The Republicans manage to play the media to their advantage. There is no reason Democrats can’t do the same.
Danny
@AlphaLiberal:
Speaking for myself, I love Liberals and Progressives and consider myself both a Liberal and a Progressive. That’s why I’m careful to aptly label you people as Emobaggers or similar. You dont get to steal those words for yourself and discredit them with assorted clownery.
signifyingmnky
@AlphaLiberal:
“The night is always darkest before the dawn”
That’s also false, but it relays a message that appeals to people, so it’s used.
No, the government doesn’t operate like a household budget, but when people are taking on pay cuts, pay freezes, fewer hours or flat out losing their jobs because some corporation says it has to make ends meet, and they have to struggle at home themselves to make ends meet, and they have Republicans in their ears telling them that the one entity that doesn’t operate on a bottom line is responsible for it all…
“Government living within it’s means like you have to do at home”, become an extremely persuasive argument.
You can try to diffuse that argument by arguing that we can as a government spend more efficiently and still invest in things that make a difference, or you can say that it doesn’t matter how much government spends because it operates by different rules.
Now that’s factually true, but it also comes off as “what you’re feeling, what you have to go through doesn’t matter”.
Simply being right isn’t always enough to persuade. If it was the Republican party would have been run out of government long ago.
OzoneR
@AlphaLiberal:
he did that, and then the people of this country decided they wanted policies that benefited the rich.
Unabogie
Yesterday on the GOS, they had a diary on the awesomeness of Al Gore. Several commenters said that Al Gore would be a much better president than Obama and would fight harder for liberal causes.
Al Gore.
Now, I like Gore. I think he’s a decent guy. But in 2000, he was Tweetledum next to Bush’s Tweetledee, and both parties were the same, and a vote for Gore was a vote for the DLC. Now, just 10 years later Gore is a liberal hero? Could it be that being in office and having actual responsibilities restricts what you can do and say?
Full disclosure: I voted for Nader in 2000. I look back on that vote in horror (although living in CA my vote didn’t help Bush). But the horror is that I bought into the line that Gore and Bush were anything alike. How short our memories are.
Tim Connor
@chopper: Note that the stock market has crashed since this stupid debt deal. Note also that, contrary to the the commentary by the political media, the debt deal is not the reason.
How do we know that? Because interest rates on 10 year Treasury bonds have actually fallen in the last week. If the debt mess had been the key cause, those rates would have increased.
That is not to suggest that the general aura of ineptitude exhibited by the Republican Congress –in particular –is doing the economy any good.
What has happened is that people have panicked. They have just realized that Europe is in real trouble, so its economy won’t pull America’s economy out of the ditch. They have also realized that our economy is doing quite poorly, and that the US government won’t do anything but cut spending, let the payroll tax abatement expire, and watch it implode.
Some people have said –on this blog –that Obama is going to switch to job creation. How? His compromises have left him no tools left to do it.
Now maybe these things would have happened even if he had publicly opposed them. However, his compromises, and their associated public pronouncements, have deprived him of the chance to try and explain to America how the economy works, and why –when it is sputtering so badly–government investment in infrastructure is important.
Now, he has no money to invest, and no moral standing left to make the case. That is why these compromises were unfortunate. Do you understand?
And trust me, the economy is going backwards. Timely government action could have prevented that. Just as, a larger initial stimulus initiative, with fewer rosily unrealistic pronouncements, might have got the US all the way out of the ditch in the first place.
The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik
I won’t say much here this time around because honestly the whole debate makes me feel kind of ill and makes politics feel more and more impenetrable to the point of uselessness for me. All I’ll say is that I’ll echo the folks who are complaining about the tacit acceptance of Right Wing language and frames about just about fucking every issue now, just extending it past Obama to the whole of the goddamn Democratic party. This is where it starts to fucking get me. We may win a battle, but they end up fucking winning the argument and the war in the long run. It’s like the best we can hope is the ‘pox on both houses’ result because it seems like the only outcome we can expect from our leaders now that isn’t outright ‘IT’S ALL THE FUCKING HIPPIES FAULT BURN THEM TO THE FUCKING GROUND!!’
This is where the whole compromise issue gets to feel like teeth pulling for many. It’s not just the results of the compromise, but the fact that the language, the attitudes, the frames that bear out of it almost always end up exclusively benefiting the GOP. Obama is keeping his approvals up and all that, sure. But the rest of the party is getting a shit share of the blame for the GOP’s mess, for the only reason of they’re allowing or even tacitly accepting that blame by giving in to the language and the frames. Yes, media as well, etc., etc. But even with that handicap, there has to be some kind of fucking pushback, and what little pushback we get ends up drowned out by the sheer rush and stampede to accept whatever rules the GOP lays down, because ‘that’s what Real Americans are asking for’.
This isn’t and should never have really been about Obama in specific. It’s about the entire fucking Democratic Party that rolls over and shows ass to the GOP every time it says ‘Boo!’ for shit fear of the people revolting against them and calling them ‘hippies’, which inevitably results in the people kicking them while they’re down and calling them hippies any-fucking-way.
Edit: (Yeah, won’t say much…guess I’m just full of sputtering, impotent rage these days… :/)
OzoneR
@Blue Neponset:
Yes there is, the media as is won’t pay attention to them
Poopyman
@chopper: Looks like the Timfinite loop crashed.
Obama’s already raised a shit–ton of cash, indicating that he doesn’t really need mine. I’m quite fine with that since I already spelled out my plan @Poopyman:
Davis X. Machina
.No one but those most likely of likely voters, the elderly.
The party gap in the +65 vote went from +0R in ’06, to +10R in ’08, to +19R in ’10…
Served
Freddie appears to be having a meltdown or has given up, since he’s trolling both here and at the Atlantic today.
Jewish Steel
Can we not safely assume that everyone who wants to know if the Tea Party is crazy has had ample time and resources to establish whether they are?
Three-nineteen
@Freddie deBoer: There were many comments in your thread refuting your original premise that liberals elected Obama (their argument was that he was elected by the youth vote, independents, and people who don’t usually vote). They also had evidence (North Carolina, Indiana) to disprove at least part of what you said. In addition to not providing any evidence for your point of view in the origianl post, you chose to ignore those comments. This point renders your entire post moot (in my opinion). If you won’t engage in the discussion, what else is there to do but mock? That’s what seems to get your attention.
AlphaLiberal
@Danny:
You omittted what you actually said that I took issue with. You put these false and lying words into the mouths of progressives, along with your little “emoprog” slur:
I invited you to back that shit up. Show where people have said that.
You got nuthin. Your response is completely devoid of backup. So, instead, you heap on more insults.
I, myself, have written here and elsewhere, that I will vote for Barack Obama. I will not donate to him or work on his campaign again (subject to change if he gets some stones), but I will help out progressive Dems and expect those benefits to accrue to the President.
And, here’s why: I don’t support Republicans or Republican policies. Obama has been out there for months mobilizing the resources of the White House to work on deficit reduction. And he got played.
Now, he gave me great hope when he gave that economic policy speech, the one with Paul Ryan squirming in the front row. I gave the man all kinds of credit for that and encouraged more. Instead what followed was validation of Republican deficit hysteria!
You may choose to applaud that. I think it’s dumb and cynical politics. I no longer know what the man believes but do not think any longer it is close to what I believe. he has coddled Wall St, he has used his office to further policies hurtful to working people, etc, etc.
Danny
@lol:
Just wanted to add for the record that there’s now a deal in place to hand Afghanistan over by 2014 and training of Afghani forces and police is ongoing and focused on that goal. It’s not like Obama’s position is “however long it will take”; there’s a set schedule to get us out.
Lawnguylander
I thought that Freddie was going to be the labor blogger here at BJ. Didn’t he start off here saying that he was going to school everyone for their naive support of the welfare state, pity charity he called it, or something like that? I guess he discovered the flaw in that plan after he wrote his initial post here, he knows nothing about labor, and bagged it.
Maybe instead of BJ’s labor blogger, he could be its basketball blogger:
Bolded that one part because, c’mon, that’s awesome. Glenn Greenwald as a sports writer, who doesn’t want a steady diet of that?
cleek
@AlphaLiberal:
nobody cares.
the point is that Obama, and other people (raises hand) do think it’s important to try to reign in our deficits. and that belief has nothing to do with what Republicans say about the deficit or why they say it.
OzoneR
@AlphaLiberal:
yeah that called losing. Which is why you always win in politics, no matter how many principles you sacrifice while doing it. Personally, he was better off never giving the speech in the first place.
AlphaLiberal
@The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik:
Fucken A, bubba!
Especially when they start talking like Republicans! I don’t want to support people who espouse and enable Republican policies.
It is bizarre that we have to have intense debates over whether or not the Dem Party should speak in favor of issues where they clearly stand with the majority of American people, where the people they claim to serve will be served.
It’s nuts. Bad enough they run away from their positions but then we get all these insults dumped on us, as well.
Fuck the Democratic Party. Before they fuck you.
Carl Nyberg
Did Democrats agree to show Bush how to exit Iraq?
How is that drawdown coming?
AlphaLiberal
@OzoneR:
What? As a result of that speech, Paul Ryan’s plan was more widely discredited for the POS it is. Instead of Obama coming out and praising the plan, he offered a robust alternative in a smart way that resonated with a lot of people.
Paul Ryan’s luster was dimmed considerably and his extreme plan was damaged. That’s a win. Maybe not of the war and the whole agenda of issues before us, uh, no.
Again, we have to debate this stuff? With our own so-called allies?
OzoneR
@AlphaLiberal:
he has, and it has not worked.
Nied
@Blue Neponset:
Oh FFS! You realize that there are plenty of things in the budget that aren’t social safety net spending right? I mean you don’t think Nimitz class aircraft carriers are social spending do you? Do DHS nudie scanners do a lot to alleviate poverty in your world? As for jobs you do realize that Obama has been making the rounds through the country talking about various things the country could do to add jobs right? (Unemployment Insurance extension, Payroll tax cut, Infrastructure bank.) Unfortunately though he’s been going around promoting this stuff, presidential speeches are not the unstoppable word cannons some think they are.
kindness
Man some of you all are dicks.
I make a point that Obama hasn’t yet ‘fought the good fight’. You know, the one he knows he’s going to lose but is willing to fight it to show he has, you know, principles. And point out that not being willing to fight that good fight has properly or not labeled him as weak and as an appeaser. I say I’ll vote for him in 2012, but I’m not happy with the guy.
So what do you point out? Not my point. No instead I get called names & it is pointed out the things I list didn’t pass or couldn’t pass. That was my whole point. Those are the things you have to fight for.
So I’m thinking some of you are prima donnas who are assholes. Gee….I wonder where I could have gotten that idea
Blue Neponset
@cleek:
I think that because military spending is 20% of the budget. How much are you proposing we cut? How long will those cuts take to get the budget back in balance?
I also think that because safety net spending is growing like crazy and is the main driver behind the budget deficit. You can’t cut other spending to keep up with that growth. You either have to raise revenues or cut safety net spending if you want to seriously address the budget deficit.
Worrying about long term spending while the economy is deep in the shitter is just plain stupid. Growing the economy will help the long term numbers way more than any spending cuts. Also, cutting spending slows economic growth. Focusing on spending cuts are also a way for Republicans to reinforce the ideas that spending less is better for its own sake, and government is the problem.
C’mon man, I am not telling you anything you don’t already know. Obama jumped in the Republican bullshit with both feet. Some other Democrat is going to have to undue the damage he has done. We are talking about spending cuts in the middle of a very very slow recovery. That is Republican turf and, thanks to Obama, we are now fighting on it.
AlphaLiberal
By the way, the candidate I backed in 2008 opposed this move. But I guess Obama was lying to us:
For people working at a keyboard that’s no big deal. For people who work with their bodies, it’s a huge deal. Their bodies may not make it to 60, let alone 67.
What we really need now, on a temporary and emergency basis, is to reduce the eligibility age to help older people retire and leave the job market.
AlphaLiberal
@kindness:
Amen, brother. I am not one to use names normally but and I have given in to temptation here. Will try to do better but when people are openly insulting you… ?
But this whole pattern of debate is very very similar to the substance-free, respect-free ways of the right wing. I debate them often and this is real close.
They will also lie about what we say. See Danny’s posts.
Donald
“Anyone who doesn’t understand this is either a complete idiot or actively trying to put Republicans back in power.”
I picked that quote out because it could be said by either side. It’s why these arguments never go anywhere–many on both sides are convinced they have the complete truth and everyone on the other side is a complete idiot. There’s nothing to learn, no valid points one might grudgingly acknowledge made by one’s opponent. How could there be, if the other side is composed of morons?
AlphaLiberal
@Blue Neponset:
Well said! Hear, hear!
Now they will insult you!
Democrats sure do suffer from a massive self-esteem problem when they attack their own supposed allies who think the Democrats should stand up for what they purport to believe.
Standing up for yourself and your beliefs, BTW, is also a winner with public opinion and voters. Much more so then being pushed around by political currents and not being trustworthy.
Blue Neponset
@Nied: So learn us all then smart guy. How many aircraft carrier tasks force do we have to mothball before the budget is in balance again? How will you get all those sailors back to work and replace the government spending?
I can’t believe I am explaining this shit to Democrats. Government spending is part of the GDP. If you lower gov’t spending you lower GDP. That is a very very very bad thing to do during a slow recovery. Do you not understand this?
Danny
@AlphaLiberal:
Sentiment: an attitude, thought, or judgment prompted by feeling. That’s from websters. The quotation marks implies me summarizing that sentiment – that attitude – as I percieve it, in my own words. They are not lines attributed to an indivual or several individuals; they are my rendering of my view of how guys like you work. Get it?
I dont need to back anything up, rain man. I gave you and anyone who’s interested my opinion of you and people like you. Deal with it.
Good for you.
It’s your prerogative. I urge you to reconsider though, and work your ass off for Obama as well. As a factual matter, he’s the president who’s delivered most in terms of progressive legislation since LBJ. And you’re not likely to see a more progressive one in a while unless he’s reelected.
We failed to mobilize in ’10 and republicans forced the issue by running on it and winning big. You need to improve your ability to distinguish between cause and effect.
Long term deficits are a real problem and most americans really care about them. The republicans were willing to force the issue by taking the budget and the debt ceiling hostage. There’s no way to get it off the agenda once it has come to that.
Your lack of insight into how things work makes you pivot from one second imagining Obama as some savior that’s gonna deliver us all from evil by himself, to ascribing every calamity that republicans cause solely to Obama the next.
I don’t like the debt ceiling deal at all, and I am quite disappointed in it. I’m willing to entertain the notion that maybe Obama could have gotten a better outcome by some other strategy. I cant say for sure what strategy that would be, or know for sure if it would have produced better outcomes though so I’m prone to give him the benefit of the doubt.
And from the macro perspective I’m perfectly satisfied with pretty much every other bill he put his name on. Could I improve on them all in my head? Very much so. Are they still an improvement in comparison to the status quo? Very much so.
AlphaLiberal
@cleek:
I agree that Obama thinks deficits are important. A big debate has been “what does Obama believe?” Because he has said contradictory things.
I am coming to the conclusion that Obama really does think the deficit issue is a more pressing problem than the jobs crisis. I think he’s bored by the jobs crisis and put off by the idea that he needs to fight for the jobless.
Instead, he thinks he can have his bipartisan pony if he makes a higher priority of the deficit. And he’s fucking the unemployed in the process.
Now, if he got all savvy and smart and accurate and said “we cannot address the deficit while we have this unemployment crisis, we need to put out country back to work first, that’s the fire that’s burning our house. We need to bring the Wall St malefactors to justice. We need to make the rich pay their fair share.”
Something like that. Why then I’d be running through walls for him! Fight for the jobless! For the middle class!
But, and you’re not getting this point, he has abandoned the jobless by making it a second priority to the deficit. he is playing the Republican/Tea Party turf.
We need some real in-the-streets militancy in this country for a jobs agenda.
General Stuck
@AlphaLiberal:
Dude, give it a rest, you’re going to strain yourself with all that self patting yer own back. So pure, so very pure. LOL.
Oh, and whatever term you want to bandy about, you are absolutely not on my side. I’m not completely sure what side you are on, but I doubt it’s really the center left side.
I suppose your next act will be to nail yourself to a clown cross. Please let us know when so we can have some popcorn ready.
AlphaLiberal
@Danny:
Not really. The unemployment crisis has consistently polled above the deficit.
Now, to the point we “emoproggrammers” (whatever) are making:
There does seem to be an increase in the polls for support on deficits. That follows the President making deficits the Number One priority for the nation. He has affected the public view in the wrong direction.
And, the public view is, mistakenly, that taking care of the deficit will help with jobs. It will not, it will hurt jobs.
TooManyJens
@Blue Neponset:
We should raise revenues. We should also do something about safety net spending — namely, it is absolutely vital that we do something to control health care costs. There’s a shit-ton of inefficiency in our health care system, and addressing it would be good for everyone except the people currently profiting from it. Why is the left supposed to be against that?
lethargytartare
@burnspbesq:
+1
General Stuck
@AlphaLiberal:
Passing a long term deficit bill will not hurt job growth one iota, and is fully consistent with Keyneysian doctrine, and Obama is preparing a new jobs bill. It is not contradictory to deal with long term deficits while at the same time push for short term stimulus. The wingers have wasted all our time with this debt ceiling hostage bullshit, buy you don’t mention that much. Why not?
Danny
@AlphaLiberal:
This stuff has AFAIK never been said on the record. This harks back to anonymous sources that claimed such proposals were on the table in the negotiations behind closed doors. Might be a good thing to keep that in mind, because that’s not the same thing as actually proposing something, supporting it, or even necessarily being willing to accept it as part of a deal.
Nied
@kindness:
I think it’s a matter of priorities. For a lot of people here “fighting the good fight” and losing is just losing. It doesn’t alleviate poverty, it doesn’t get someone health care coverage, or improve civil rights. Those things are important to a lot of people here, and it’s incredibly frustrating to hear people advocate throwing those out the window so they can have some feel-good losses.
So what’s your priority? Do you want to make people’s lives better even if the means aren’t as good as they could be? Or do you want to lose glorious ideological battles over things that would be great in some ideal world but do nothing in the real world because you lost?
jheartney
@lol:
“Thinking outside the box” doesn’t mean always using reconciliation for everything. It means finding ways to get your way, even if they are unorthodox.
For Patriot Act and Gulf War 2, they used 9/11 and an immense amount of dishonesty, plus a full court press on their pet media. NCLB suckered in Ted Kennedy. Medicare D meant an unprecedented corrupt vote left open for hours with lots of threats and arm-twisting. I dunno about the Partial Birth business, but that’s a mostly symbolic thing anyway compared to the others.
In any case W didn’t have a unified opposition (at least at the beginning) dedicated single-mindedly to making him fail. Going forward, any Dem president who aquiesces to the notion that the 60-vote “requirement” is legitimate is setting him/herself up for failure.
General Stuck
There it is, again, that smell. That smell of freshly fucked rat
The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik
@TooManyJens:
And…the problem there is optics and framing. When it comes up, no one gets out in front of it fast enough with specifics before the GOP makes it about ‘OMG Democrats want to kill your Medicare!!’ And when we do get into specifics, it almost inevitably gets hijacked, usually without a fight, to where we end up targeting the most efficient parts while the bloated parts that most need pared (like say….Medicare Part D) are almost instantly put into the ‘lockbox’ never to be touched.
chopper
@kindness:
sometimes it’s a good idea to fight a battle you know you’re going to lose, to show the people what principles you have. but in american politics, where people worship winning, it’s also just as often going to make you look like a total loser.
TooManyJens
@The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik:
Absolutely; I just wish that the leftier-than-thous wouldn’t do the same thing. “OMG Obama wants to cut your Medicare!” Talk about reinforcing bullshit right-wing frames.
kc
@Samara Morgan:
Fuck Twitter.
The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik
@TooManyJens:
At the same time, Obama didn’t precisely help by just saying ‘ok, cuts to these programs will be on the table, long as you give me tax raises’, and then leaving it open ended where the cuts would come from, not even an inkling of suggestion. It’s not that I think he wanted to cut the good things, but he made an absolute stunning blunder in leaving it like a hanging curve ball for the GOP to smack.
This is where Obama kind of infuriates me: he keeps getting bludgeoned with his attempts to cross the aisle, and yet it’s like ‘If I just reached across just a little more earnestly…’ It may be gaining him in specific cred, but it helps fuck the Dems over even further in the overarching argument.
OzoneR
@kindness:
You mean like Bill Clinton did with health care? Turned out well for him.
Danny
@AlphaLiberal:
As a matter of policy: Long term deficit reduction is something we should do, and something Keynesian theory says we should do. We should spend in recessions and depressions and we should cut back (by taxes or cut spending) in good times. Debt should be kept stable below 100% of GDP.
As a matter of politics: sure jobs polls as more important than deficits. But if you look at polling that simply asks “is it important to do something about the deficits” majorities says “yes”.
So the fact that voters think that jobs are more important doesnt mean that they think deficits arent important. And it doesnt mean that anyone’s gonna successfully pitch “don’t worry about the deficit” to them. If you manage to make yourself believe that you’re in for a huge reality check moment down the road.
That was true long before the present showdown. It may be the case that support further improved during the debt showdown, and some additional support may have come from Obama borrowing some republican tropes, but that doesnt mean voters didnt care before, or were open to persuation that deficits doesnt matter.
Now looking at jobs, we run head first into the small problem that Obama cant get anything through congress anymore. So while he could have talked more about jobs, he wouldnt have passed any actual jobs legislation, and therefore not created a single additional job. And in the end Republicans would have still forced the debt issue by holding the budget or the debt ceiling hostage.
So he went for trying to negotiate actual jobs legislation as part of a debt ceiling deal (e.g. payroll tax cuts, extension of unemployment benefits). Seems reasonable enough, that’s the way to get that through congress – as part of a deal.
And now when the downrating and market crash puts the economy front and center he’s trying to use that to bully the republicans into passing jobs legislation. Seems perfectly reasonable to me, given post midterms circumstances.
OzoneR
@chopper:
I don’t think it’s ever a good idea to fight a battle you know you’re going to lose. People don’t care about principles.
different church-lady
@AlphaLiberal:
It means you wear black eye liner and listen to The Cure.
@cleek: I had no idea Joe From Lowell could be that smart.
@kindness: I’m a little unclear on when (a) Obama promised to legalize marijuana and (b) the battle occurred so that he could cave on it.
I’m not even going to bother diving into the particulars of the rest of your list, because at this point it’s just boilerplate that will be repeated ad infinum no matter what anyone says.
les
@Freddie deBoer:
Jebus, thin-skinned much? You do realize this is a “blog,” on the “internets?” I get the impression you bloviate, then scan comments till you find one to be offended by and flounce off. ‘Cause I sure haven’t seen you bother to scan for substance and respond. On the other hand, purity trolls aren’t generally good on substance.
General Stuck
@The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik:
You seem well intentioned, unlike some others, so I will offer some advice to take as is your wont. Don’t make everything so personal, with Obama, or anything or anyone concerning the eternal and infernal game of bullshit that is political theater.
Sometimes, it’s a good thing to offer a hand to your opponent, with full knowledge it will get swatted away. It is a means of defining your opponent to the greater number of voters, that don’t follow politics like we do. There was never a chance that the grand bargain would happen, so long as Obama insisted on it having tax increases, and he did. Common knowledge with GOP politics these days.
I do think Obama and others, including moi, were not quite sure that the wingers would take it as far as they did, and Obama ended up taking the far less reaching long term spending cuts, rather than risking default. But lessons learned, and why he got his demand of taking the debt ceiling issue off the front lines of pol combat for the rest of his first term.
The only other option would have been for Obama just to bow up and refuse to engage the wingers with their hostage taking, which they still would have taken the debt ceiling hostage, and we would have had a harder time defusing it before the worst happened, and Obama would look like a tight ass ideologue, that Americans don’t like that much, at least the ones not into politics that much, which is most of the country.
kindness
Ahhh….now I see. Many here feel that fighting for something they may not win is a sign of weakness & bad. That would be funny except the Teabagggers are getting all the good press because they are fighting and losing and fighting and winning. They are the shit right now because they fight.
How do you all know that if Obama had spent any political capitol on something he’d lose anyhow? Polls? Gut? Intuition? Magic 8 ball?
Sucks to be you. Here you have a president with a decent record of accomplishing several good (but watered down) things. Yet the only group he has yet to openly fight are the DFH’s in his base. And in all honesty that has had an impact. It reinforces the right’s meme that Obama is weak and it makes a bunch of those DFH’s unwilling to do what they do to win elections. And yet many here want to beat those damned DFH’s for even bringing it up.
That has worked so well for you. It worked wonders in 2010. I can only hope you aren’t planning on using the same motivational techniques for 2012.
Three-nineteen
@kindness: Why do you want the President to waste time fighting for something you know, I know, and he knows won’t happen? He’s got about a billion other things to do. There are a lot of criticisms I have about what Obama has done and hasn’t done, but picking a fight he knows he’s going to lose isn’t one of them. OUR job is to pick that fight, over and over, until it become politically possible, and THEN the president (whoever he or she is at the time, because this takes a while) can do something about it.
Keith G
@kindness:
Welcome to B-J 2011. There is a cadre (and I don’t think a majority) who must be feeling a bit vulnerable. Your comments might have been constructed with the up-most care to be based on as many empirical ideas as possible, but if you cast doubt on the choices made by President Obama you will be attacked and there will be temper tantrums.
That is really a shame since there are those who do attack the President with “evil” intent and they do need to be confronted. Yet the defense of this very good man gets watered down when his defenders generate so many other unnecessary attacks.
Emphasis in the block quote is mine.
kindness
@OzoneR: Dude…Clinton fought and it helped him immensely. I only wish Obama had more of the Big Dog in him. (I mean that figuritivly, not literally you sick minds).
different church-lady
@kindness:
This is only true if one subscribes to the idea that any publicity is good publicity.
The same way you know he would have won if he did.
Marc
I live in Ohio, where the Republicans have been inflexible and pure. The net result is that their approval ratings have cratered, the governor is widely hated, and we have all of the ingredients for a massive backlash. The elimination of public sector unions is looking to be a 2-1 underdog in the polls, and we got 1.3 million people to sign a petition to dump it.
Instead of admiring the fanatics it may be useful instead to use their over-reach against them. And doing the opposite (appearing reasonable) can help tremendously in that goal.
Danny
@jwb:
Missed this one and it’s a good point. I won’t grow to love the billions of cuts in domestic discretionary spending that are in the phase I part of the deal.
But Listening to Obama’s surrogates pinning the downgrade and the market crash on the teabaggers and continuing to push for revenue and jobs legislation, I’m not so sure that the republicans wont eventually have to yield.
It’s fairly clear that any final outcome is gonna include some stuff we dont like and some stuff they dont like, but the final breakdown we dont know yet, and might still come out looking not to shabby. There’s a difference between losing a battle and loosing the war.
Dollared
@kindness: Bingo!!! Why are we so worried? Because Obama is not part of any movement or direction in history. He is just a beleaguered middle manager who is staunching the bleeding.
AlphaLiberal
So they have some dirty fucking hippies at the New York Times:
wrb
@AlphaLiberal:
It sounds like Republican rhetoric, and that is to fool Republicans, unfortunately too many on this side are fooled to. I have to think it is partly willing. Thy want to be outraged.
Krugeman says that we have a serious LONG TERM deficit problem and it is almost entirely due to skyrocketing medicare costs, with some defense.
That is exactly what Obama went after, cloaked in what sounded like Republican Rhetoric. He has said repeatedly that in the short term we need stimulus.
Which is just too complicated for some on our side.
Which is very, very unfortunate.
different church-lady
I hope to heck you’re never around if I’m in an auto wreck. Because while I’m bleeding to death you’ll be diligently working on breakthrough cures for pancreatic cancer.
General Stuck
More like disgust, and none so much at the increasing whining from people on this blog who think they can say what they want and not be challenged, because they are of purer liberal royalty than the rest of us.
Dollared
@Anya: Actually, you have no fucking idea where people to the left of Obama put their venom, and NONE of them put ALL OF IT toward the president.
New bullshit meme from Obots, please.
Keith G
@Three-nineteen: So, there is no utility in a political leader fighting for an ideal or policy that might be defeated?
Wilson’s League of Nations
Carter’s saner energy policy
Clinton’s attempt at health care reform
I am glad you were not advising General Washington or the Second Continental Congress in 1776
different church-lady
@Dollared: Way to ignore the qualifiers there, bub.
Danny
@kindness:
I’d say that it’s usually a mistake to fight on something you’re likely to lose if it’s also likely that the end result will be worse than opting for some other option available. In the end that comes down to predicting the future and making judgements about likely outcomes, but if you consistently choose to fight – not because you’ve thought it through and found it wise, but in pursuit of some emotional payoff – then you’re likely to end up in a world of pain.
Iraq II is a fairly good illustration of that principle…
Whatever good press they’re getting is mostly due to the Conservative Movement being powerful in terms of FoxNews, Talk Radio and a thousand flacks in Washington D.C. You aint gonna get those things by gloriously falling on your sword. But if you still like to try, how about organizing a bunch of people to go rabble-rabble against austerity on the steps of Capitol while proclaiming they represent middle america. After all that’s what the teabaggers do.
Anyhow they’re at 20% approval (net -20%) while the president is at considerably better, even now. So maybe there’s something to his strategerizing after all. God knows he’s had his work cut out for him ever since day one and he hasnt crashed or burned yet.
General Stuck
These threads on Obama’s purity of liberalism are just plain soul draining. I’m outta this silly thread, take 534.
Danny
@Keith G:
One strategy – at least – successfully borrowed from the wingers: happily shit on everything while dishing it out and when you get called on it cry and moan about the unfair world and being persecuted.
Much like the problem for white people is that they’re discriminated against, the problem for emoprogs is that people complain about them. Oh, the irony.
OzoneR
@kindness:
it WHAT!?!?!?!?!
Did you spend 1994 under a rock?
different church-lady
This time faster, and more intense.
@OzoneR: good catch.
@Danny: that’s a lot of words to say “persecution complex”
Dollared
@OzoneR: Wow. You’re right.
That whole labor movement? Shoulda cashed in their chips when Pharoah reinstated slavery. At least should have apologized for the HayMarket Riot and promised to never, ever attempt to get a 40 hour work week again.
The Civil Rights Movement? Should have apologized to Mississippi for bringing in northern agitators and forcing the noble southern gentlemen to burn and bomb those perfectly useful black churches.
Nelson Mandela? Shoulda quit all that nonsense and focused on having the best prison soccer team in all of Africa.
Ronald Reagan? Should have recognized that the the country was far too liberal to embrace deregulation, lowered tax rates and states right, and quit after the 1976 debacle. He had that nice ranch in California and all…should have simply enjoyed it, and his golden years with Nancy.
George Washington? Shoulda figured out after Valley Forge that it made a lot of sense to be a rich Virginia colonist, and enjoyed the privileges of a well respected colonial general. Perhaps he could have fought with Wellington and told his grandkids about it.
les
@AlphaLiberal:
God, talk about tiresome. You “think” he cares more, you read his mind and see boredom. How about listening to what he says? He always talks jobs; he talks infrastructure bank, payroll tax holiday, the only kinds of things possible in this congress, if even that can work. He talks extending unemployment. He took the teabaggers to the cleaners with the “cuts” package in 2010; every set of spending cuts he’s proposed are loaded in the future, because as he says constantly you shouldn’t be reducing spending while the economy is weak. He talks benefit program cuts that preserve the benefits. But you whiners hear one thing–you avidly believe he means to cut benefits, but anything else he says is a lie. Fucking alleged liberals don’t even hear his message, except to come up with weakass excuses to attack him. FFS, if you think we can tax our way out of expanding medical costs, you’re dumber than the teabaggers. It’s no damn wonder this country’s a mess, insanity on the right and purist stupidity rampant on the left.
Dollared
@OzoneR: Yeah, and did you spend 1996-2000 under a rock?
different church-lady
I’m beginning to see a theme here: the problem with Obama is that he doesn’t stand astride history correctly.
different church-lady
@Dollared: You’re absolutely right: Clinton’s mammoth failure on health care lead to his later popularity. It’s all so obvious now.
OzoneR
@Dollared:
you mean when Clinton triangulated, gutted Welfare, repealed Glass-Steagall and used Republican rhetoric?
kindness
@OzoneR: Moron. Clinton’s presidency came into his own later than 1994. Why you gotta be such a ball buster just because some of us disagree with you is beyond me. I think it says more about you than us and it ain’t pretty.
Get over it. Obama is wimpy but I’ll vote for him. It’s that whole wimpy thing that he has to ditch and many here don’t agree with that.
OzoneR
@Dollared: None of this examples are relevant because in the end, they WON.
Point to an event in history where someone lost and still got credit or was recognized for standing up for his/her principles and we’ll talk.
OzoneR
@kindness:
yes, when he stopped fighting losing battles and started triangulating.
cause you’re a liar.
les
@Dollared:
Except you, of course.
Admiral_Komack
@gogol’s wife:
Put Michelle Bachman’s crazy-ass picture on them, and they’ll sell like hotcakes.
OzoneR
@kindness:
I’d rather a wimpy winner than an arrogant loser.
les
@Dollared:
Have you forgotten everything we discussed about straw men and goalposts yesterday? Is there an award for stupidest persona on the internets? Do you get government assistance for the minder who tells you to keep breathing?
cleek
@AlphaLiberal:
tell us what a president can do about jobs, given that any legislation he proposes will be DOA in the House. and it must be something that can get results, actual jobs, not just cheerleading and posturing for the sake of the liberal base.
ideas are not turf. they are not the property to be staked out.
flukebucket
@OzoneR:
Sun-Tzu says “to win without fighting is best”
Keith G
@General Stuck:
General, I know that there are people who do that. I am frustrated by the wide net that is cast by some who you qualify as “the rest of us“.
Instead of a tribal (and I might add, emotional) “us against them”, why not analyze what is said case by case? I have read critics of Obama that were emotionally wrought and lacking in common sense; and, I have seen folks carefully point out what the President should do to better lead this government. Often both types of comments get met with what best can be described as petulance and name calling.
Changing a few words, I see:
lol
@Dollared:
The Civil Rights movement racked up small victories that proved change could happen. For that, MLK Jr was considered a sellout by many of his contemporaries.
There was the Civil Rights Act of 1957, the CRA of 1960, and finally the CRA of 1964, which was replaced with a compromise bill to get moderate Republicans on board to overcome conservative Democrats.
I know in the Purist Progressive History Book, the civil rights movement just came out of nowhere in the 1960s to win victory in one mighty blow, but it took years of small victories to build up to the big one.
See also Social Security and Medicare.
Danny
@kindness:
Clinton was popular because the economy was good, he balanced the budget and he was still a reasonably progressive guy and then the wingers went and impeached him over a blow job.
Hillarycare was a massive defeat though and making that out as some kind of example to take after is just one of the reasons that it’s hard to take you guys seriously.
Pretty much every charge that emoproggers usually level against Obama could be made tenfold against Clinton. I still consider him a great President.
TooManyJens
@The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik:
I mostly agree with this. Still, this was just one of a squillion things that got tossed out there during the debt talks. I don’t think it really has legs. Unlike the Republicans, Obama and the Democrats haven’t left their fingerprints all over an actual bill that would end Medicare.
Keith G
@cleek:
Maybe he could put forward the most aggressive and far reaching jobs/infrastructure bill that lays within the bounds of economic common sense. Fight like hell for it.
And when it gets defeated in the House, he will have his tangible campaign issue – plain for all to see.
“This is what Democrats fight for…This is who Republicans fight for”
lol
The most infuriating aspect of the Firebagger left is the revisionist history of Bill Clinton’s presidency.
And it’s not like they don’t know every shit part of the Clinton years because they were able to recite it chapter and verse against Hillary during the primaries. The best part is when they praise Clinton while attacking Obama for not undoing Clinton policies fast enough.
If you want to know the difference between Clinton and Obama, it’s their reactions to the mid-term defeats: Obama stayed the course and played defense; Clinton hired Dick Morris and started campaigning on school uniforms.
lol
@Keith G:
Why don’t you talk to a climate change or immigration advocate to find out how much credit Obama should get for “trying”?
More to the point, last winter, during the tax cut extension deal, the left kept saying “Put a middle-class tax cut only bill and make the Republicans vote against it”. So, Reid did and it failed and he was right back where he started.
The funny thing is the left, or anyone for that matter, doesn’t even remember that vote happening. That’s the credit ones gets in politics for “trying”.
Keith G
@lol: Did he try anything? Or were you being snarky?
Stillwater
@AlphaLiberal: I think he’s bored by the jobs crisis and put off by the idea that he needs to fight for the jobless.
Of course you believe this. You have to. It’s derived from First Principles!
Danny
Then it gets scored by the CBO and it costs 1 Trillion $ in deficit spending. And republicans go on morning Joe and claim it will destroy jobs not create them that the Stimulus failed and that cutting the deficit will create jobs.
That’s perhaps a fight we should opt for if there was a fair shot at getting that legislation passed, but in the real world trying to get stimulative measures as part of a long term deficit reduction deal was probably smarter and that’s what he opted for. He didnt succeed though, which is too bad. That’s why he’s now out there pitching payroll tax cuts and extending the unemployment benefits.
cleek
@Keith G:
which is why i wrote:
symbolic defeats are only good for feefees. they do nothing for actual results.
different church-lady
@lol: hard to argue that he’s taking a strong enough stand on climate.
But if my sense of things is correct, immigration reform is in the works. And that’s going to be an uphill climb that will make Frodo’s ascent to the fires of Mount Doom look like Sunday in the Park with George.
Paul W.
This. Actually, 1000 times this. This is exactly the problem I have with Freddie’s “analysis”, criticism of the outcomes needs to take into account the conditions that led to that outcome (not just one’s personal pet peeves).
Congress writes the legislation, the President signs it. No amount of bully pulpit changes that. The solution is a more liberal Congress, not a louder president.
lol
@Keith G:
DREAM Act came up to a vote in the Senate and failed. Go visit GOS to see how much credit kos gives Obama for “trying”.
Climate change passed the House and died in the Senate. This is a good example of where trying was a net-negative because unlike HCR, House reps stuck their necks out on a bill that didn’t even become law.
Jesus, just look at the Ryan plan. Teabaggers give Republicans no credit for voting for a bill that didn’t become law while the Reps themselves are going to get crucified for voting to end Medicare. People here can grasp the concept when it’s Republicans trying and fail, why not with Obama?
That’s not to say that they don’t try to get votes, but that all happens out of public view. Generally, you don’t hear about legislation until the votes have already been lined up to pass.
People praise success, not “well, I tried my best”.
JC
So so so tired of the CIRCULAR firing squad.
But, tip of the hat to Tom Tomorrow, who says the liberal frustration as well as anyone.
Can we have a couple of threads – in the early evening, so I can contribute – on two things:
a. What are the possibilities regarding the budget fight in two months? How to deal with Rethug instransigence? How do we get through to the Obama administration that these guys will not compromise, and he has to stop being Middleman.
b. Come up with plans to break through the ‘both sides do it’ BS on the news shows.
c. What can ACTUALLY be done, on jobs, given the Rethugs NO’S to everything?
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
Just an FYI, the alternative to Ben ‘F-ing’ Nelson, isn’t Bernie Sanders. It isn’t a real liberal. In Nebraska, that isn’t even faintly realistic. The alternative to Ben Nelson is this guy.
sparky
mm–
i haven’t been cranky about your posts in a while so i was somewhat overdue ;)
the problem with this post is that not only is it begging the question, it’s asking the wrong question.
begging the question: Obama can’t be a liberal because of Congress, where Congress is “illiberal”. the assumption here is that nothing could get through Congress. the problem with that is there’s no evidence that more liberal legislation could or could not get through. what there is is plenty of evidence of Obama rapidly adopting a co-opted position from the start that always gives at least half of what the opposition desires. so there is no way to tell what would happen with actual liberal legislation. would it fail? probably. but that’s not evidence for anything other than the current structure of Congress, which is mostly incumbents trying to keep their jobs.
#2. the only adequate method to judge Obama’s political leanings are for those areas that are purely executive, where there is no Congressional fetter/excuse. and on those he comes out as either exactly the same or to the right of Bush except on social gimmies that are marginal (by marginal i mean that the change is mostly symbolic as the number of people actually affected is small compared to the US population).*
if you want to argue politics, then argue it. don’t make an argument by sculpting away all the points that count against you.
*i am not minimizing the benefits to the affected people, just noting that while most people are unaffected by any of the positive Obama polices, they sure are affected by the negative ones.
sparky
because i cannot edit my above comment–shorter me: you can’t use congress as an excuse because Obama has never introduced anything that could be considered “liberal” in congress. IOW: you don’t know if you don’t try, and Obama hasn’t.
The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik
@TooManyJens:
True, but it’s still infuriating that our leaders seem to fall over themselves to play the GOP’s game no matter how fucking Calvinball it becomes.
Keith G
@cleek: They are good for defining the debate, they are good for establishing baseline goals of what a good and just society should be about, they are good for teaching as well as doing, and they are good for proclaiming that this is why our view is the best view for this country.
I worry.
I worry that Obama’s hopes for reelection are too dependent on confusion and incompetence in the GOP. To me, that is a foolhardy if not dangerous game. I will cop to being an old dinosaur of a Democrat who believes that citizens want to rally around a fighter who (for better of worse) can push certain primal emotional buttons. Group dynamics are what they are.
Obama tapped into such emotions in 08 with his unique story. That ship has sailed. What is his new narrative? “That guy is worse than me”? Might not be enough.
You say
I posit sometimes results are won once the sides are galvanized after a previous defeat that clarified the perilousness of the consequences.
Remember the Alamo.
Sly
@AlphaLiberal:
No, I think the notion that the President who enacted the toughest restrictions on Wall Street in 80 years being a puppet of Wall Street is fucking moronic.
But that most certainly is how his policies are going. Have you even seen the structure of the deal? Do you know how much in cuts are slated for this year and the next?
The New Left weren’t the orthodox Marxists of the Old Left. The New Left emerged from SDS and Community Action Programs with the recognition that both Soviet-style Communism and European Democratic Social_ism were inadequate to address the systemic inequalities in American society.
And I’m not saying that Progressives are like the New Left because they’re both Marxist. I’m saying that Progressives are like the New Left because they’re both fucking moronic.
Samara Morgan
@lol: and then O passed the DREAM act with an executive order.
did you miss that?
WTF is wrong with you emoprogs?
you can’t negotiate with reavers.
you can trick them, or you can kill them.
so go over the LoOG where they appreciate this crap.
you can wallow around in it together like emopigs.
Triassic Sands
But Edwards was long gone and irrelevant by the time of the general election — he was gone relatively early in the primary season (Jan. 30, 2008 headline on MSNBC.com “Democrat Edwards Exits Presidential Race.”)
Lefties supported Obama over Clinton quite often because they expected him to be more liberal than Clinton, an assumption based on his campaign rhetoric, Senate voting record, and the Bill-Hillary history with the DLC and “triangulation.”
That pretty much leaves Obama getting nominated and elected as a liberal, despite all the indications that had begun to appear that were in conflict with that conclusion…e.g. choice of VP, position on FISA, etc.
Keith G
@lol: But there was no effort. As a Mexican American coworker said of Obama after the Dream Act was sent to hospice care.
Many of my blue collar non-white coworkers had such expectancy for his fighting for their needs. Many now view him as just another pol.
If that satisfies you, fine. It scares me.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@sparky:
you can’t use congress as an excuse because Obama has never introduced anything that could be considered “liberal” in congress.
Obama isn’t in Congress and never has been. Legally, he can’t introduce anything in Congress. That is how our government is set up. There is a separation of powers. Do you not know that?
Uncle Clarence Thomas
.
.
Fortunately, from what I can gather by reading balloon-juice.com, President Obama is the best and most blameless president a nation ever had, and that every decision, non-decision, action, and non-action he has made was correct, all things considered.
.
.
Heliopause
Percentage of self-described liberals who voted for:
Obama 89
Kerry 85
Gore 80
Clinton 96 78
Clinton 92 68
Dukakis 81
Mondale 70
Carter 80 60
Carter 76 71
Dollared
@Sly: The toughest restrictions on Wall Street in 80 years? Dodd-Frank, fully implemented, is far more relaxed than what was routinely enforced in 1990.
Ever hear of Glass-Steagall? Obama negotiated that away before discussions began.
In the 1980s, every single IPO law firm, accounting firm and investment bank in silicon valley insisted on 16 auarters of profitability before they they would take any firm public. The SEC simply wouldn’t read the S-1 if it didn’t show consistent profitability.
In the 1980s, Cramer would have gone to jail for his pumping and dumping. Under Reagan.
I realize Clinton really is to blame here, but you need to have some tiny historical perspective before you start lauding Obama.
If you want real historical perspective, look at Carlyle Group and think Krupps. Look at the large hedgies and think about the huge, manipulative Trusts that Teddy Roosevelt decried. Look at AT&T/T-Mobile and think US Steel.
Obama has not even gotten us to a 1901 level or regulation of Wall Street or monopolies.
Keith G
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony:
It has been the normal practice for the White House for have a willing Representative (easy to find) to introduce their legislation if they desire to go that route.
Samara Morgan
@Keith G: but he passed it.
with an executive order.
tell your friend that, the news media sure aint gonna.
Samara Morgan
@different church-lady:
the Cure are not emo. try Sunny Day Real Estate.
les
@JC:
That’d be nice; but if the meme survived the debt ceiling fight, which was pure and obvious hostage taking, I don’t know what will change it.
Dollared
@Three-nineteen: Wow. Who knew that there were zero liberals in Indiana and North Carolina? Not one? Wow.
Dollared
@different church-lady: What? “I feel” is not a qualifier – it is a preface to an unfounded assertion.
What is “is?” Sheesh.
Dollared
@OzoneR: Jackass. They lost first, and kept trying. And people thought more highly of them after they lost.
What part of that is too hard for you to understand? Or do you love unregulated hedge funds, privatized health care, permanent 9% unemployment with no jobs programs, shrinking government capability, and the largest defense budgets in history. Because Obama says those are EXACTLY the policies he wants – not compromises, not bad policy but the best he can do with evil bastards making life difficult, not valuable steps on the way to a better America that is far more liberal and fair, but the best darn, belt-tightening, Ronald Reagan honoring policies we should have.
different church-lady
@Dollared: I was thinking more about the “Sometimes I wonder if some of…” phrase.
I mean, if you’re honestly gonna tell me there’s not a small subset that fit that description, I just don’t know what to say. Even in this political environment there’s a difference between an unfair categorical slam and a reasonable observation about the far extremes. If I were to say “Oh there’s no blind cheerleaders on the O-bot side” I couldn’t take myself seriously either.
@Samara Morgan:
Everyone else here gets to make authoritative statements based on things they’ve heard of but don’t comprehend on a deeper level. Why can’t I?
NobodySpecial
@AlphaLiberal: OzoneR is not your ally. Nor is he the ally of any Democrat. That should be well known by now.
Hbin
@mistermix:
Hah, again with the go back and post and your own blog thing, this time from mistermix. Were you taking advice from TNC, mistermix?
Hbin
@mistermix:
Hah, again with the go back and post at your own blog thing, this time from mistermix. Were you taking advice from TNC, mistermix?
Ronrab
Let’s look at your suggestions. Dropping the filibuster would require incredible political wrestling, if it’s even possible; it’s hogtied by Senate rules and procedures as well. Changing 90/10 Republican districts into something that can elect a genuine liberal is obviously incredibly difficult and would require the same kind of liberal friendly climate we’re trying to get to begin with.
Here’s the alternate suggestion:
“But it can never happen if the party leadership forever cuts liberals off at the knees. It cannot happen if we have a messaging machine that refuses to listen to the left wing. It can’t happen if blogs like this one associate our own ideas and our own values with shame rather than with pride.”
These are things that can be done by individuals, unilaterally, /today/. The decisions could be made and these could all be done immediately. I’m not saying that would be easy or wouldn’t require a lot of banging and yelling, but it could be done; people have just made conscious decisions not to.
So progressives bang and yell and get very angry because people refuse to see this and refuse to do it.
Of the two methods I know which one seems to me to be a lot more practical and doable.