It may be that next week the various parties will reach a deal to raise the debt ceiling. And whatever that deal is, nobody but David Brooks and David Frum and some other faux moderates and Beltway toadies will like it. The teabaggers won’t like it. Progressives won’t like it. And there will be weeping and wailing and cries to throw the bum(s) out. That much is certain.
News reports yesterday said that the President had offered cuts to Medicare and Social Security in exchange for significant revenue increases. And let’s assume this is true. This may be political theater, or it may be a genuine offer, but if it’s a genuine offer and the Republicans take it, I sincerely hope the Dems don’t. Just be sure that if the nation defaults, hang it and the consequences around the necks of the GOP.
It’s way past time to stop pretending we’re living in a normal country here, and not one taken over by lunatics.
That said, I’m less inclined to blame President Obama, or even The Crazy. I’m blaming those who allowed The Crazy to take over. That includes media, big time. I’m tired of them politely pretending that lunacy isn’t lunacy. They’re enabling craziness in the name of being nonpartisan. Well, screw that.
But the fault also lies with voters, especially progressive voters. Because they’re the ones who stayed home from the polls in 2010 and allowed the crazies to take back the House. And we (speaking figuratively; I voted) did this because so many of us were disappointed with President Obama and congressional Republicans Democrats for not being as progressive as we wanted them to be. And this is understandable.
But what is the result? It’s worse, not better.
I think it’s likely that if we had the same Congress now that we had in 2010 there would be a lot of noise about raising the debt ceiling, and many of the blue dogs would join Republicans to call for steep cuts in this or that, but the eventual deal wouldn’t have been nearly as draconian, nor would the nation have been pushed this far to the edge.
Presidents have very little power to do anything. They are only as effective as far as they can get Congress to sign off on what they want. With a Congress stacked in his favor, even a weenie like George W. Bush could look strong and push his agenda pretty far down the road. President Obama has been dealing with a Congress that resists him at every step, and this year it has been even worse. It’s even crazier than the Congress Bill Clinton had to deal with, and that was pretty crazy.
Even a president with the political skills of a Lincoln or an FDR, or a Bill Clinton, would have a hard time getting anything accomplished with this Congress, and President Obama isn’t in that league. But the solution is not to try to replace him with another Democrat — which would turn the White House over to the Republicans. The solution is to get rid of The Crazy and pack Congress with as many progressives as possible. That’s where we should focus.
My fear is that the usual nay-sayers on the Left will bellyache so much and so loudly about the evil Obama that progressive voters stay home from the polls again next year, giving The Crazy an even bigger slice of the power pie. When are we going to learn?
Progressives are also the people who stayed home in 2000 and bought the bullshit that Al Gore was just like George W. Bush, with the results we are all too familiar with.
Right, Maha.
Today is one of those days I could just scream in anger.
“The Crazy” just doesn’t get it, either that, or they are just so focused on total war with the opposition that nothing else matters.
I look at Obama, and think ” Dude, please! Quit letting them push you around.
You’re a smart guy, and you’re on the right path (sorta).Bush would NEVER have put up with getting dissed like this, crap, someone even called disagreeing with Bush as “blasphemy”! Currently, he who insults Obama the most is a hero in the eyes of the right.
It’s true that presidents really have very little actual power, unless the president is LBJ who had dirt on just about every key member in the House/Senate at the time (and would have had no compunction about using it should the individual be uncooperative.) FDR was always rumored to hold sway over Congress for the same reason.
Says something when to be an effective American president one has to be a master blackmailer.
Anniecat,
And a lot of them voted for Nader. I know some of them myself. Boy, have they been beating themselves up for the last decade – just not enough.
And you need to go to some of the other leftie sites like Digby BJ, or C&Liers, never even mind FDL, where Obama is about as popular as genital herpes.
Obama is more and more becoming a polarizing figure. The left is doing that, as well as the right.
If you criticize him, as I sometimes do, here and elsewhere, you get the supporters who seem blind to the fact that he always negotiates, and now even discusses, things within the Republican framing. Among other faults.
And if you support him, or say something positive, as I do here and elsewhere, you are labeled an ignorant and blind Obamabot. And how you need to either not vote at all in 2012, or vote for a Republican, because the only way we can rebuild this country is by blowing it up. They don’t consider that we not be able to rebuild it. Or even be allowed to try, because with a few more years in power, the Conservatives could make some drastic changes in this country regarding voting, and religion in politics, that may make progressive changes through elections a dream that may take decades, or longer, to come to fruition.
I, too, put most of the blame on the MSM. Not on voters. Voters turn to news for information, and there’s almost none of that on radio, newspapers are mostly conservative, and precious little of real use on TV, where misinformation and entertainment rule the world.
One of the most overlooked aspects in this country is how influential the Foutth Estate is to be. The Founders knew that governments could and would lie and misdirect. They depended on a strong Fourth Estate to keep the population informed.
When pamphlets and newspapers ruled the day, times were simple, and the affect on voters less.
When mass media via the airwaves evolved, we had strong rules for fairness. But, idiots were not allowed to come on the air and say that Jesus rode a dinosaur to Demascus.
When broadband expanded the number of channels on radio and TV, that “Fairness Doctrine” was deemed obsolete. But never would it have been more necessary than now. But it’s not there. And so, low-information voters go to misinformers to get the information they think they need to vote. This is no way for a functioning representative democracy to function. And, so, it isn’t.
One thing about The Crazy is that it never gives up. Which is an advantage of having abandoned rationality, actually, because it no longer matters if what you’re fighting for is even realistic.
Progressives, on the other hand, being more scientifically minded in general, are more likely to be affected by the abundance of evidence that we’re screwed no matter what we do. You don’t have to be James Howard Kunstler any more to see that we’re in for some very painful adjustments to a new reality.
However much oil we have left, for instance, the remaining supply is measurable in decades, and demand is skyrocketing. I don’t know how long it takes to transform the entire energy basis of an advanced post-industrial society, but we probably should have started by now.
When you find yourself taking comfort in the thought that either climate change or the Republicans will probably have killed most of us by the time the oil runs out anyway, it’s not unreasonable to conclude that political action is pointless.
So a little less skepticism probably wouldn’t hurt, because honestly, who knows? Some things are irreversible, but it remains the case that the future is unwritten. You can sit around debating whether change is even possible, but one thing you can be sure of is that it won’t happen if you don’t do anything.
“I’m less inclined to blame President Obama” —Unbelievable! What will it take for you to realize the disastrous Obama transformation that has taken place. Do more homework. Wake up!
I have done the homework. It’s you who needs to live a little longer. I realize your adolescent hopes have been dashed, but all that means is that you weren’t jaded enough to begin with.
“Even a president with the political skills of a Lincoln or an FDR, or a Bill Clinton, would have a hard time getting anything accomplished with this Congress, and President Obama isn’t in that league”
I agree but as you point out given today’s media and corporate control the comparison may be unfair anyway. Obama didn’t do himself any favors by caving in on the tax-cuts, I feel he should have seen this coming, the wing-nuts have been playing dirty pool since he was elected and on this tax cuts, spending, debt ceiling stuff I feel he was out-smarted. In December he was faced with jobless benefits ending for many and a tax increase on all Americans, instead he caved in. Now he is faced with a probable economic collapse and double dip recession, I can’t see him standing up now? But what is really going on here is total corporate control, and right now the repugs are the party of the corporate overlords. They control the media, banks, markets and most of the economy in general. They are not going to heat up this economy until they get what and who they want. Obama knows what’s going on. I believe he feels confronting the right on this would just make matters worse for us regular folk. I feel he’s made the decision to go along to get along. I saw someone on the TeeVee yesterday call Obama confrontationally challenged, I would have to agree.
The Republicans don’t control those things; it’s the other way around, IMO. The Republican Party is just a collection of tools.
Yeah, that’s probably about right.
The power that put Obama in office is the power that can sustain him if he would only tap into it. He has more power at his disposal that he is willing utilize.. Just something to think about, but not for the shallow thinker…What was the power that Martin Luther King used to bring about equal rights in America..Or Mahatma Gandhi in bringing about independence in India? Maybe Obama should revisit his statement..” We are the one’s we have been waiting for”
When traveling a path through life and you encounter shit in your path..you step over it and continue on your way.
Bachman/ Rand 2012 ’cause a crazy thrust to the throat is faster than a death by a thousand cuts.
The Republicans don’t control those things; it’s the other way around, IMO. The Republican Party is just a collection of tools
That is what I meant. I should have said; They the corporate overlords control the media, banks, markets and most of the economy in general.
Yes, the media is a problem, and the voters get their information from thye media. But none of this was a surprise. The president is the most watched man on earth. He could have used his bullypulpit more. I disagree with the argument that whatever deal Obama ends up getting in this negotiations it is the best any president in the history of man could have gotten. That if Obama didn’t do it it couldn’t be done. If that’s what you believe then of course those naysayers on the left look foolish and counterproductive but they are operating under the belief that he couldn’t have gotten more. You may disagree with that conclusion but the modivation behind it is pure. Progressives don’t mind losing a fight but they do hate refusing one.
I wish Obama should use the left, try a policy their way. If it fails then he can blame it on them. They’re going to get blamed anyway. Might as well go down swinging. But he’s never goint to get progressives to shut up until he at least tries their policies.
And yes, Congress is worse after the 2010 elections.
I agree, and have said so in past posts.
I disagree with that argument also, and I don’t see anyone here making it. I very explicitly didn’t.
No, its not what I believe, it isn’t what I wrote, and it irritates me to no end when people do a half-assed job reading a post and then make very half-assed assumptions about what the post says.
correction:
they are operating under the belief that he COULD have gotten more.
Swami, King and Gandhi were murdered for their efforts (as much as I admire them).
“When traveling a path through life and you encounter shit in your path…..”
Swami, I have a knack of stepping right in the pile, dragging it into the house and truck, then spending some time getting it out of the lugs on my boots.
Jean- Paul, mon pauvre petit frere…..
NON,NON,NON!!!!
Maha, I don’t get why you you think it would be a bad thing to replace Obama with another Democrat. I consider Obama unelectable in 2012. If he runs for re-election, we get Bachmann as our next president.
The best thing he could do for the country would be to announce that he won’t be running so that he can “spend more time with my family.”
As of right now, Obama is the most electable Democrat in a general election. There really isn’t anyone else who comes close. It’s not even a debatable point. Further, any Democrat who might be in the neighborhood of “electable” wouldn’t be significantly more progressive than Obama, anyway.
Bachmann will not win a general election, and I very much doubt she will be the nominee for the top of the ticket, although the GOP might be maneuvered into offering her the VP slot to appease the teabaggers if the real nominee is too moderate for them. I think Romney is a bigger threat, if he gets the nomination, but only if brain dead progressives are persuaded to stay home on election day because Romney would be no worse than Obama. He would be, especially with a Republican Congress.
The assumption people are making — which is a stupid assumption — is that Obama is making the decisions he is making because that’s what he wants. I think it’s more the case that he’s been out-maneuvered by the Right. He’s partly at fault for that, but it’s also the fault of progressives who didn’t fight hard enough to keep the House.
FDR said, “Make me do it.”
Obama never said that.
But I don’t think he needed to. He couldn’t have.
FDR had a Liberal/Pregressive support system of union members, feminists, and, yes, Socialists/Communists, who had fought for years, and could make him.
Who was Obama going to say it to, but a handfull of Congress members, some bloggers, and their commenters?
The Liberal/Progressive infrastructure isn’t broken. It’s NON-EXISTANT!!!
We’ve got to realize that.
That’s the first step.
The second step is to do something about that.
Suggestions?
The assumption people are making — which is a stupid assumption — is that Obama is making the decisions he is making because that’s what he wants.
and
FDR said “Make me do it”.
Obama never said that.
You’re darn right he never said it. In fact, he and his people have dissed his natural base (that’s us progressives, you and me) many times. He’s made it very plain to me that this – going along with the right to get along – is indeed what he wants. I don’t think it’s a stupid assumption at all – the proof is right before us. He has had plenty of opportunities to roll back the Bush era excesses, but hasn’t. He could’ve gone for real financial reform, but hasn’t. And on and on.
Frank Rich (and others before him) have written that Obama has this blindspot for “the best and brightest”. This is how you get people like Larry Summers and Tim Geithner, figures as establishment as they get, figures who had a lot to do with the economic crash, running the show, setting us up for an even bigger failure down the road. This is exactly what Obama wants. He has plenty of power to appoint or fight for better people, but he won’t do it. And his amazing ability to give away the store just as negotiations are beginning on (topic goes here) – it’s obvious he doesn’t really care about the store, just in getting along.
Just as it took an ardent anti-communist (Nixon) to open up China, it will take a Democrat to gut Social Security, and I fear that we’ve found one.
—
As for running a Democrat against Obama, I’d be all for it, if there was one of enough stature and probability of winning to pull it off. But sadly noone comes to mind.
Yes, but he’s not cutting Social Security (assuming that story is true) because he wants to get rid of Social Security, as if that was his plan all along. All other things being equal his impulses probably are more progressive than not, but obviously he’s been caught in tides that are stronger than he is. It doesn’t help that his style is to lead by building consensus rather than by throwing his weight around.
Maha said:
[i]Bachmann will not win a general election[/i]
Although I hope not, you may have to eat those words.
Bachmann is serving her third term in Congress. And she’s from relatively liberal Minnesota.
I don’t know why people vote for her, but they do. The fact that she’s crazy hasn’t been an impediment to her political career. Her home-schooled Christian Taliban base adores her. And they keep having babies. They are making more and more.
http://www.achristianhome.org/Good_Things/LargeFamily/Large_Family.htm
http://www.duggarfamily.com/
You have to live here for a long time to really get the feel of the place. And Minnesota will elect just about anything.
Maha, I don’t know why you interpet everything I write as a direct attack on you, but you shouldn’t. Perhaps I was wrong to say “you” this and “you” that. The things I wrote are directed at Obama, not you.
On President Obama – news flash! He’s a moderate. Go to his speech to the convention in 2004. His approach is finding a place in the middle. In any other time in American history, other than the Civil War, that approach would have been a winner. There’s some cruel irony there.
In the not election, we will have two choices, President Obama, or whoever the GOP nominates. You can wish for a third option, but the third option cost democrats Florida and the 2000 election. Romney is the least crazy GOP candidate, but increasing revenue is central to the deficit/debt problem, and I don’t see him signing any real tax reform.
Barbara hit the nail on the head here. The issue is getting a not-crazy Congress. The GOP will put up a full slate of lunatics for Congress in 2012. The Congressional outcome is more important than the presidential race, though Obama must be reelected. IF Obama and a tea party congress are reelected, the country is screwed.
I mentioned that Obama will negotiate to the middle. I should say the *perceived* middle of the Congress he has to work with. He’s negotiating far to the right, because that’s where Obama calculates the middle to be with the Congress America sent in 2010. Obama would prefer a different Mid-point, but that’s up to us, the voters in 16 long months.
Political strategy. The man behind the man curtain developed a good strategy years ago. We were all scratching our liberal heads as the GOP will drove moderates out of the party. The ranks of the independents swelled with right-leaning moderates. With a firm majority of radicals in the GOP, the outcome of primaries is guaranteed to produce certifyable crazies. Who get elected by independents who refuse to vote democratic. That has to change. The Tea Party has to be the brand of the insane – to the independent voter.
In the last election, the Tea Party was a vague ideology with no history. That has changed. They have a history of legislative history at the state and federal level. They are hostile to women’s rights, voters rights, Hispanics, Muslims,
Workers rights, seniors Medicare & SS… its a Hell of a list.
Here’s my point if anyone read this far. If independents reject the Tea Party, democrats sweep. If independents reject democrats, we all lose. That center demographic rejected John Birch, and other wingnut sponsored movements. We have a year to expose how vile, extreme, and anti-democracy the Tea Party ls.
If you don’t vote, won’t the alternatves scare you to death? They sure do me .
I don’t normally do this, but I’m going to cross-post a comment I made on Steve M’s great site ‘No More Mr. Nice Blog.” It was in response to David Brooks’ “Oh Miasy, what will dee indeependent people think?
Here’s my take on Independents (Caution – foul language alert):
I am so fucking sick and tired of “Independents” being treated as some sort of rational actors in this national theatre of the absurd. As if they’re Solomon, weighing the pro’s and con’s of both sides.
THEY ARE NOT!
They don’t sit there weighing evidence and facts to see which side has the better options.
NO!
They are at best disinterested, and at worst, lazy, and stupid or ignorant motherfuckers who are really too ill-informed to vote, but feel duty bound to do so.
And so they fuck around watching TV and wait until the last minute, then tune to some right-wing douchebag on TV or radio, or read an editorial or Op-ed piece by a writer living off Wingunt Welfare, and blame the Democrats for shit the right is directly responsible for – “The Platinum Age,” and the fact that their ignorant and stupid lives are far worse than their parents.
After The Great Depression, the people who benefited the most from the changes after that era put up pictures of Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the homes.
Several generations later, the people who benefited the most from the people who put up pictures of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, took that picture down, and put up Ronald Reagan’s picture in their homes.
And Reagan’s still up there. Never mind that he was the nice old guy that ruthless and vicious nihilists propped up so they could rape this country and the world or every last penny so they could go in their bottomless pockets.
So, fuck Independents. Fuck David Brooks. And fuck Roger Cohen, who’s also got a ‘woe-is-me,’ ‘whodathunk it that the Republicans could get so extremist?’ column today, too.
Well, Mr. Brooks and Mr. Cohen, everyone who’s not a fucking Villager or terminally fucking stupid, but I repeat myself, could have seen this coming,
So don’t act all surprised when you finally observe what you were paid not to see. You make us think you’re even more fucking stupid than you really fucking are.
FUCKIN’ FUCKITY FUCKIN’ FUCKS!!!
The next time I meet an Independent, I’m going to ask them, “So, you consider yourself open-minded, am I right?”
Feeding their ego – and of course they’ll agree. That’s how they want others to see them – as individuals who are above the petty language and actions of the political fray around them.
Then I’ll say, “So, you’re open to the Liberal/Democratic ideas of helping out the least among us, at a slight cost to the rest of us, and a slightly higher cost to the wealthiest, the most, among us? All for one and one for all! Am I right?”
And, being reasonable Independents, they’ll of coursel agree.
“But, you’re also open to the Conservative/Republican ideas of fuck your Grandma, fuck your Mama, fuck your kiddies, and fuck YOU!? None for all and all for me and mine! Am I right?”
I’m sure there’ll be silence, or a hesitant, “no…”
“So,” I’ll say, “then you’re really not open-minded then are you? You’re just fuckin’ stupid. Am I right?”
At which point I duck.
It’s all in how you frame the questions. Something the Republicans are great at, and something that completely escapes Democrats.
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cund – thanks for the laugh. Methinks, you’re a tad angry at Independents. An Independent always makes me think of a loser, the particular guy who won’t try anything because he might lose, but by not trying anything, he’s automatically a loser (and clueless that he is one.)
Nobody’s mentioned that strange breed of cats called blue-dog Democrats. If I remember correctly, weren’t they the ones who put up endless roadblocks to foil Obama’s drive to reform health-non-care in this country? After all, Obama should have had the tiger by the tail when he had a democratic majority in the House.
Maybe we should be asking was it his fault for not taking advantage of the majority or was the ‘majority’ in party identity only but not a voting majority, or is Obama a Democrat in name only. If he gets a second term, an opportunity to shed his politically expedient garb, we’ll likely have an answer to the latter.