Added: 816 days ago by Mardod | Posted in: Politics | 30 Comments

Rating:

 

Share:     Embed:     Fave:    

Item added to your favorites.

You must be logged in to add to your faves. Use the login box on this page or click here to regsiter.

<div align='center'><a href='http://www.kontraband.com/blog/20341/From-Yes-We-Can-to-WTF-Obama-and-the-Progressive-Movement/'>From "Yes We Can!" to "WTF??": Obama and the Progressive Movement</a><br><div align='center'></div><br><a href='http://www.kontraband.com/blog'>See more like this on kontraband.com</a></div>

So, how ya'll doing? Enjoy your summer? Do anything exciting? I spent mine watching the awesomeness of our new President do things that grown ups do; bring the U.S. economy back from the brink of a genuine Depression, sign meaningful legislation into law, talk to the American people in polysyllabic words that he knew the definitions of, and generally cause the far-right wing of our glorious country to collectively lose their freakin' minds (see "birthers", "deathers", and teabaggers, oh my!).

Surprisingly, it isn't just the far-right wing who are unsatisfied with our newest President. It's progressives who are showing signs of frustration with Obama. It's been said many times before that the way to know if you're composing good policy is if it pisses off both the right and the left. Moderation and bipartisanship have, in recent years, been the goal of both policy makers and political pundits who cover the major happenings in D.C.. But moderation isn't why so many progressive activists worked their butts off to get Obama elected. We wanted change and in a big way.

I've argued elsewhere that Democratic ideals could be summarized into four basic pillars: environmental, legal, labor, and LGBT issues (technically the LGBT pillar is part of the legal one, but this particular community has such a influential and cash-rich lobby, that I've made it a stand-alone unit). And on each of these pillars, President Obama has failed in some ways significantly and in other ways spectacularly. Case in point:

On environmental issues, his failure to lobby harder for a stronger cap-and-trade bill angered many progressives who feel the final draft was nothing more than a compromise with Congressional leaders who do not grasp the seriousness and urgency of the matter. Yes, it is far better than anything they could have expected from a Republican-controlled Congress, but it doesn't address the issue on a level that will have any substantive impact on the climate change crisis, which was the goal of the legislation.

Legal analysts and progressives have been dismayed at Obama's insistence that the extrajudicial torture regime both Bush and Cheney authorized will likely go unpunished. Yes, Attorney General Eric Holder has opened an investigation of the incidents at Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo Bay, but he appears to be focusing on the soldiers who carried out abuses rather than those who devised the system and those who provided legal cover for it. Additionally, Obama has been less than supportive over the whole process, stating time and time again that he wants to "move forward"; an odd statement for a Constitutional scholar who knows full well what happens when the crimes by members of the state go unpunished (they get repeated without impunity or fear of prosecution).

Labor organizations, like the AFL-CIO and SEIU, have expressed dismay that the President has largely avoided the ongoing argument over the Employee Free Choice Act, an essential piece of reform that unions have been working towards for years that would allow for unions to form easier. It's the one issue, next to health insurance reform, that unions are willing to play hardball on and one that will likely play a major role in the 2010 Pennsylvania Senate race, where the incumbent Democrat Arlen Specter is facing an uphill battle for re-election based in some part on his unwillingness to support it.

Then there is the LGBT issue, a movement that grew out of the legal community, but now has a spirit and power of its own. Obama's campaign for President always had a rocky relationship with this group, as he refused to endorse same-sex marriages (favoring civil unions instead), but opposed states efforts to make them unlawful. At one rally, he even had a pro-LGBT pastor speak back-to-back with an anti-gay one in an apparent effort to court the votes of both ends of the religious community. However, since his election, Obama has steadfastly refused to address the two issues that have mattered most to the community: the repeal of the Clinton-era "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy and the Defense of Marriage Act, which legally classifies marriage as a union between a man and a woman. Obama has said time and time again that he disagrees strongly with both, but as yet has declined to do anything about it.

However, these disagreements are eclipsed by the intense debate disagreement over the battle to reform the U.S. health insurance industry and how it delivers services to people. Specifically the battle over a piece of the reform legislation called the public option. For those not following the debate, the public option is a kind of compromise between the current system and the European style of single-payer that many feel would represent true reform, but is seen as politically difficult to pass in the current climate.

Simply put, the public option would create an insurance plan that people not covered (traditionally the lower income class or those unemployed) could purchase at reduced rates. The plan would be paid for from insurance premiums and be deficit neutral. Progressive activists and Democrats are all for it, while conservative and moderate Democrats (known as Blue Dogs) are largely opposed to it. The conflict arises as the Blue Dogs keep coming up with creative ways to kill the idea, from demanding some measure of Republican support so that the legislation can be considered bipartisan, to allowing for "triggers" on when a public option could be created (the triggers proposals would place the financial burden so far in the distance so that a public option could never be activated), or the creation of co-ops, which have no track record of maintaining industry-wide cost controls in the same manner that a public option would.

Obama, while stating publicly that he supports the public option, has had his aides privately telling lawmakers that he's willing to negotiate on the issue and wouldn't be opposed to a final bill without it. For many progressives, that is the last straw. Creating a reform package that mandates everyone purchase exorbitantly expensive private health insurance plans, absent costs controls, will only increase the financial devastation that many families are already experiencing. A recent study indicated the number one reason why people are facing home foreclosure in the U.S. is the inability to pay their health care bills. How bad do you think it will get if people are forced by law to purchase health insurance they can't afford?

Now I'm not saying that Obama is necessarily a bad President, or that we'd be better off had McCain won, but he is not the man many progressive activists campaigned for. When they were told change was coming, they wanted transformational change, not nipping around the edges of policy or playing the triangulation game Clinton was so famous for.

However, unlike Clinton, Obama's team has little to fear in terms of a backlash that will reward the GOP in 2012. Their bench of potential Presidential contenders have been self-imploding so much in the last few months, they're likely to be left with either Mike Huckabee, a guy who couldn't even beat McCain, or Mitt Romney, a man most far-right Republicans can't tolerate. But what the President's campaign advisers are overlooking and should be fearing aren't the conservative Democrats, the political pundits, or the GOP. The two words that should keep them up at night are Ralph Nader. Nader, who campaigned as a Green party candidate against Gore and Bush in 2000, is largely blamed for splitting the Democratic vote, prompting Bush to the White House and into eight years of the most incompetent governmental leadership this country has seen in decades.

While Nader himself couldn't possibly hope to win a national election, it's what he represents that should cause a great deal of consternation among the Obama staff. Republicans could potentially regain the White House in 2012 if Obama finds himself under attack by either a credible progressive challenger during the primary which could tarnish his reputation enough to leave him vulnerable during the general election, or by an independent candidate who could force Obama into defending his left flank through both a primary and general election.

All the GOP would then need to do would be to run a moderate Republican (say someone like Michael Bloomberg who has spent close to $100 million of his own money in his bid for a 3rd term as New York's mayor) who might appeal to voters tired of watching Democrats fighting amongst themselves, and Obama could very well enter the club that few enjoy membership to, the One-Term Club.

Added: 816 days ago by Mardod | Posted in: Politics | 30 Comments

Rating: