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Defending the President
Fartacus
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So this popped up in the Economy thread, but after posting I realized it was sort of OT, so I thought it should be broken off into its own thread. Do you think that the President still ought to be defended, given how this administration has performed in its first two years? If not, or if so, on what grounds? What are the metrics by which we progressives should judge the man we worked so hard to elect, and his staff, and indeed the party as a whole?
Is criticism useful? Are we hurting our own party by not having sufficient "solidarity?" Or does lining up behind a failing and floundering leadership do more damage?
Here's the post from Angel Hedgie, in response to me saying that I'm fed up with the president and the administration -- specifically related to how we're losing out on the Bush subsidies (tax cuts) for the wealthy, and continuing them all because we don't have the votes to extend only the tax cuts for the middle and working class.
This is an unmitigated failure. Taxing the wealthy in every poll is demonstrated to be highly popular -- in fact, according to a recent poll from PPP, it's by far a more popular method of reducing the deficit than making any cuts to social security -- yet the administration's own debt commission has proposed just that.
So we're caving on the popular thing which aligns with progressive morals -- taxing the rich -- but we put together a commission that has recommend we do something unpopular that goes against our morals. What a triumph!
Anyway, here's the exchange below, where AH criticizes me for criticizing the president, and my response (which I have added to since it's now an OP):
What, do you think what the president doing is effective for the long-term health of progressivism? To utterly and purposefully fail to pose a coherent and persuasive narrative, because it's undignified? Because using some emotion and some moral persuasion is somehow beneath this imagined, romanticized, never-actually-existed idea of a rational discourse where everyone presents their twelve-point policy paper and the national discourse takes place at the level of rarefied academia?
In fact, the president has shown himself to be more willing to use political language and intellectual dishonesty in dealing with his own party than dealing with his enemies -- he constantly poses a false dichotomy (a useful rhetorical tool) between "good policy" and "good politics" to justify consistently failing to have any political success whatsoever, and his administration oozes nothing but disdain and contempt for progressive activists, yet he makes endless overtures to Republicans who openly aspire to destroy everything we believe in.
You know what? I spent the last 18 months apologizing for the administration failing again and again to persuade the American people that our bills and our policies are good ideas. The president keeps posing a dichotomy between good policy and good politics -- well what exactly do you think is the fucking lifespan of progressivism will be if we are implicitly admitting that passing our policies is inherently unpopular, is bad politics? Because that's what the dichotomy suggests. Because "good politics" is another way of saying "popular." Shouldn't what's right also be popular? Isn't that, indeed, the whole point of running for office and winning elections? That we believe that the American people may actually prefer our ideals, and that we may lead the public's moral compass in the direction of empathy and fairness?
And you know what? It's even more ridiculous, because we haven't been accomplishing good policy either. The excise tax in the healthcare bill was bad policy. Not including the public option was bad policy. Blowing the public option in return for nothing was bad policy. Not passing the DREAM Act was bad policy. Losing EFCA was bad policy. Not substantially addressing too-big-to-fail in the financial reform bill was bad policy. Never even having the political will to deal with immigration or energy is bad policy. Having a stimulus that was too small and 30% tax cuts and still not getting any Republican support was bad policy.
The things that progressives have been complaining about are not insignificant. Especially with broad economic policy, like the stimulus, or other job-creation policy, it is a difference of hundreds of thousands -- even millions of jobs. With healthcare reform, covering more people sooner is nothing less than a matter of life and death.
Now, sure, perfect policy is not always possible. And what the administration is saying (albeit far too often, too easily, and with great disdain) is to not let the perfect be the enemy of the good. However, it's important to remember that you can stand for better without being irrationally tied to perfection. There is always a range of what is feasible policy at any moment in history -- and I don't think it's a stretch to say that we could have passed better policy in the last two years. Of course we weren't going to pass a job guarantee, nationalized healthcare, and immigration amnesty -- but we could have passed a $1 trillion stimulus with fewer tax cuts, we could have covered more people sooner in HCR and taxed the rich to pay for it instead of good union healthcare benefits, and we could have passed the DREAM Act.
The hard truth of the matter is that good politics -- that is to say, actually persuading the American people that doing what you want to do is right, also known as being a leader -- can lead to better policy, because there's political pressure to pass your bills, instead of constantly fighting a headwind of political pressure to vote "no" on everything you do.
The historical moment we had in January, 2009, is one that could have allowed for substantially better legislation. Yes, we passed HCR. So would have anyone elected that year -- historical forces were such that something needed to be done. I don't buy that "this is the last chance we'll have for 30 years" bullshit. 30 years ago the system wasn't broken to the extent it is today. Failing systems promote action. The fact is, a better bill was possible -- and the bill we passed should at least have been popular given that 90% of the stuff in it is stuff that people support by a wide margin. Politically, we actually ended up with something that was less than the sum of its parts. And frankly, it's ridiculous and self-serving to measure HCR, or anything else, against a standard of the status quo -- it's much more meaningful to measure it against what the best feasible bill in that moment was. It sure wasn't single-payer, and maybe it wasn't even public option, but it also sure as hell wasn't an excise tax and 6-year phase-in timelines.
Also, it's a false choice to pose "good politics" as being equivalent to dying on a hill and passing nothing because you drew a line in the sand. How about not completely fucking up the timeline of HCR? How about not appointing people to the committees that will handle it who are going to be shit to work with? How about trading the public option for a 5% surtax on the rich, no excise tax, and get the damn thing out of committee in July and fix the problems in conference? Or, even more radical, how about posing a goddamn persuasive narrative that could inspire the American people to be better. That's what the promise of Obama's campaign was -- that he could be a moral leader who could inspire and persuade Americans to believe in what was right -- to care for the least among us. It wasn't a promise to be an aloof technocrat passing legislation over the heads of an angry and unwilling public.
That was the narrative Republicans have been telling us for decades now -- that we're out-of-touch elitists who ram unpopular legislation down the throats of voters whom we've hoodwinked in the last election. That this is a center-right country that can never be led in a more progressive direction. That our ideas are and always will be unpopular and the best we can do is chase the middle and maybe pass some legislation at the margins that we can stomach if we don't get too uppity and try to really change anything.
If the best progressives can do is engineer half-assed legislation against a political headwind once every 30 years after the Republicans ruin the country so badly that we trick the electorate into voting for us only so that we can pass policy that the voters don't actually like, well you know what? Fuck this country and fuck our progressive movement because that's no movement.
Luckily, I don't believe that's the country we live in. I think Americans really can believe again in helping out their neighbor, in lending a hand to the poor and the downtrodden. I think we can be an empathetic country, with a people who believe that the rich shouldn't get rich at the expense of everyone else, and that people shouldn't go hungry or homeless because they lost their job. We can again persuade people to care about what's fair, what's decent, and what's humane.
If you don't believe that, then I wonder why you would even bother to be a progressive in the first place -- because that's a bleak future you see for our cause and our country. You might as well give up now; though I suppose that's what we've been doing for the last two decades, so why stop now?
Is criticism useful? Are we hurting our own party by not having sufficient "solidarity?" Or does lining up behind a failing and floundering leadership do more damage?
Here's the post from Angel Hedgie, in response to me saying that I'm fed up with the president and the administration -- specifically related to how we're losing out on the Bush subsidies (tax cuts) for the wealthy, and continuing them all because we don't have the votes to extend only the tax cuts for the middle and working class.
This is an unmitigated failure. Taxing the wealthy in every poll is demonstrated to be highly popular -- in fact, according to a recent poll from PPP, it's by far a more popular method of reducing the deficit than making any cuts to social security -- yet the administration's own debt commission has proposed just that.
So we're caving on the popular thing which aligns with progressive morals -- taxing the rich -- but we put together a commission that has recommend we do something unpopular that goes against our morals. What a triumph!
Anyway, here's the exchange below, where AH criticizes me for criticizing the president, and my response (which I have added to since it's now an OP):
AngelHedgie wrote: »The progressive movement is who is hurting the progressive movement, Fart. And your post is yet another example of that in action.
What, do you think what the president doing is effective for the long-term health of progressivism? To utterly and purposefully fail to pose a coherent and persuasive narrative, because it's undignified? Because using some emotion and some moral persuasion is somehow beneath this imagined, romanticized, never-actually-existed idea of a rational discourse where everyone presents their twelve-point policy paper and the national discourse takes place at the level of rarefied academia?
In fact, the president has shown himself to be more willing to use political language and intellectual dishonesty in dealing with his own party than dealing with his enemies -- he constantly poses a false dichotomy (a useful rhetorical tool) between "good policy" and "good politics" to justify consistently failing to have any political success whatsoever, and his administration oozes nothing but disdain and contempt for progressive activists, yet he makes endless overtures to Republicans who openly aspire to destroy everything we believe in.
You know what? I spent the last 18 months apologizing for the administration failing again and again to persuade the American people that our bills and our policies are good ideas. The president keeps posing a dichotomy between good policy and good politics -- well what exactly do you think is the fucking lifespan of progressivism will be if we are implicitly admitting that passing our policies is inherently unpopular, is bad politics? Because that's what the dichotomy suggests. Because "good politics" is another way of saying "popular." Shouldn't what's right also be popular? Isn't that, indeed, the whole point of running for office and winning elections? That we believe that the American people may actually prefer our ideals, and that we may lead the public's moral compass in the direction of empathy and fairness?
And you know what? It's even more ridiculous, because we haven't been accomplishing good policy either. The excise tax in the healthcare bill was bad policy. Not including the public option was bad policy. Blowing the public option in return for nothing was bad policy. Not passing the DREAM Act was bad policy. Losing EFCA was bad policy. Not substantially addressing too-big-to-fail in the financial reform bill was bad policy. Never even having the political will to deal with immigration or energy is bad policy. Having a stimulus that was too small and 30% tax cuts and still not getting any Republican support was bad policy.
The things that progressives have been complaining about are not insignificant. Especially with broad economic policy, like the stimulus, or other job-creation policy, it is a difference of hundreds of thousands -- even millions of jobs. With healthcare reform, covering more people sooner is nothing less than a matter of life and death.
Now, sure, perfect policy is not always possible. And what the administration is saying (albeit far too often, too easily, and with great disdain) is to not let the perfect be the enemy of the good. However, it's important to remember that you can stand for better without being irrationally tied to perfection. There is always a range of what is feasible policy at any moment in history -- and I don't think it's a stretch to say that we could have passed better policy in the last two years. Of course we weren't going to pass a job guarantee, nationalized healthcare, and immigration amnesty -- but we could have passed a $1 trillion stimulus with fewer tax cuts, we could have covered more people sooner in HCR and taxed the rich to pay for it instead of good union healthcare benefits, and we could have passed the DREAM Act.
The hard truth of the matter is that good politics -- that is to say, actually persuading the American people that doing what you want to do is right, also known as being a leader -- can lead to better policy, because there's political pressure to pass your bills, instead of constantly fighting a headwind of political pressure to vote "no" on everything you do.
The historical moment we had in January, 2009, is one that could have allowed for substantially better legislation. Yes, we passed HCR. So would have anyone elected that year -- historical forces were such that something needed to be done. I don't buy that "this is the last chance we'll have for 30 years" bullshit. 30 years ago the system wasn't broken to the extent it is today. Failing systems promote action. The fact is, a better bill was possible -- and the bill we passed should at least have been popular given that 90% of the stuff in it is stuff that people support by a wide margin. Politically, we actually ended up with something that was less than the sum of its parts. And frankly, it's ridiculous and self-serving to measure HCR, or anything else, against a standard of the status quo -- it's much more meaningful to measure it against what the best feasible bill in that moment was. It sure wasn't single-payer, and maybe it wasn't even public option, but it also sure as hell wasn't an excise tax and 6-year phase-in timelines.
Also, it's a false choice to pose "good politics" as being equivalent to dying on a hill and passing nothing because you drew a line in the sand. How about not completely fucking up the timeline of HCR? How about not appointing people to the committees that will handle it who are going to be shit to work with? How about trading the public option for a 5% surtax on the rich, no excise tax, and get the damn thing out of committee in July and fix the problems in conference? Or, even more radical, how about posing a goddamn persuasive narrative that could inspire the American people to be better. That's what the promise of Obama's campaign was -- that he could be a moral leader who could inspire and persuade Americans to believe in what was right -- to care for the least among us. It wasn't a promise to be an aloof technocrat passing legislation over the heads of an angry and unwilling public.
That was the narrative Republicans have been telling us for decades now -- that we're out-of-touch elitists who ram unpopular legislation down the throats of voters whom we've hoodwinked in the last election. That this is a center-right country that can never be led in a more progressive direction. That our ideas are and always will be unpopular and the best we can do is chase the middle and maybe pass some legislation at the margins that we can stomach if we don't get too uppity and try to really change anything.
If the best progressives can do is engineer half-assed legislation against a political headwind once every 30 years after the Republicans ruin the country so badly that we trick the electorate into voting for us only so that we can pass policy that the voters don't actually like, well you know what? Fuck this country and fuck our progressive movement because that's no movement.
Luckily, I don't believe that's the country we live in. I think Americans really can believe again in helping out their neighbor, in lending a hand to the poor and the downtrodden. I think we can be an empathetic country, with a people who believe that the rich shouldn't get rich at the expense of everyone else, and that people shouldn't go hungry or homeless because they lost their job. We can again persuade people to care about what's fair, what's decent, and what's humane.
If you don't believe that, then I wonder why you would even bother to be a progressive in the first place -- because that's a bleak future you see for our cause and our country. You might as well give up now; though I suppose that's what we've been doing for the last two decades, so why stop now?
Fartacus on
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Posts
1) Yeah, Democrats always cede the narrative and it's infuriating (and Hedgie would almost certainly agree with you there).
2) Progressive infighting is asinine and self destructive. We always do this. Simple example: who is more to blame for DADT not being repealed this term: John McCain or Barack Obama? The factual answer is John McCain. Who are progressives pissed at? Barack Obama (or, if they're being generous Harry Reid).
What I really want to know is whether he planned to do HCR with his first Congress and then pivot to debt reduction under a Republican Congress. If so, my hat is off to him.
*I do worry that taking on the Israeli Palestinian peace process (which is the right thing to do) will end up costing him.
Because we don't have any control over what John McCain does. We cannot influence him, whereas we can (ostensibly) influence the administration or the Democrats in Congress.
But this is nonsense anyway, as Republicans in-fight constantly -- or do you remember the disarray of that party in the beginning of 2009?
The point is that they come to conclusions, develop a good message, and actually produce something out of their internecine conflict. We just sit endlessly with our thumbs up our asses, unable to influence the people who depend on our activism, our money, and our support, while we watch them piss away an amazing political moment in this country.
So, it has its criticisms, but it has its praises. Yes, it is to be defended where applicable. The overall defense is up to each individual.
That's why we lose. You go after the people stopping things, not the people who are held in check by asinine Senate rules. Republicans would never give a shit that they can't influence Democrats.
Also, you'll note that Republicans in fight but are unified politically. They have tremendous party discipline.
It's terrible strategy to go after every Democrat for reasons that should be obvious. Target the shitty ones who aren't helping all you want, but you're committing like eighteen sins of blindness here, foremost among them is ascribing too much power to the President, who is not a motherfucking God-King.
Admirably? Yes, I think he should be defended based on his excellent record. The only things he's done that I'm not proud of are keeping Guantanamo open, and not being as transparent as he promised.
Could he market himself better? Frankly, NO. OBAMA is marketed excellently, and has great press, and great poll numbers. CONGRESS does not, and is the body at which you are ACTUALLY upset, and don't realize it.
So yes, you ARE part of the problem, considering that the big issue that decided this past election was excitement and voter turnout. Wonder why people aren't excited to vote about democrats? Maybe it's because for progressives, the glass is always half empty.
Looking at the sort of people who make up each of the parties, Republicans tend to be more homogeneous, less open to new ideas, less diverse, and generally agree with one another on most issues. There might be some discrepancies when it comes to implementation or on the details, but by and large they are a monolithic entity, and one which is composed of people who are less open to nuance and discussion.
The Democratic Party, on the other hand, is more diverse, open to new ideas and discussion, and is full of people who use nuance and are open to discussion and changing their minds when new information comes to light. Because of their very nature, they have a number of people who hold different priorities which may not always coincide.
No shit they don't have any cohesive message which is all-encompassing and that they can get everyone to adhere to no matter what anyone (or reality) says. That's why they're Democrats. If they were the sort of people who were capable of adhering to that sort of message with such bullheaded ferocity, they'd be Republicans.
Fine.
Show me the votes in the Senate.
What? Fuck you. Go to jail. This is total garbage. Were you alive in 2009? Do you not remember the pushback against any kind of health care reform at all? People hated the very concept. Anything would have been called socialization. Yeah, again, better marketing would have helped, but inevitable it was most definitely NOT.
They have historically been better caucus-discipline wise than the democrats, but their current operation is enabled as much by the size of their caucus as anything. It will be interesting to see how much the results of the election change this.
In the context of the broader point, I think you have to be willing to lose an election to win the argument. We've seen the republicans do this over the years and it's resulted in a fairly steady rightward drift in the national conversation and resultant policy. By contrast, democrats have been much more motivated by simply winning office, regardless of what the policy outcome of their majorities have been.
I don't think it makes a ton of sense to attack Obama specifically, because as much as we haven't gotten all the outcomes we'd have liked, his policy preferences seem to be in the right place and the health care bill, flawed as it was, was still a pretty titanic achievement in the overall struggle to reform our health care system. In general though, the liebermans, the nelsons, the reids of the world don't particularly need our support and probably deserve our opposition.
that's why we call it the struggle, you're supposed to sweat
that's why we call it the struggle, you're supposed to sweat
That said;
He's done a hell of a job given the situation. He's got two wars he didn't ask for, an economy in goddamn shambles, industries failing left and right, and an opposition party that has decided it's better off letting the country spiral toward oblivion than actually work together to help out.
Healthcare isn't the bill I would have written, but we didn't have the votes for my bill. Same with the stimulus.
There's really only so much the President can do to actually fix the country. And going on television every day and lambasting the Republicans would be a childish waste of time when there are so many other things that need doing.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
i think most of liberal criticisms is Obama does not like to seize control of the narrative. It seems odd considering how his campaign framed him as some sort of media darling. As a president he simply doesn't seem terribly interested in utilizing the bully pulpit.
The bigger problem (again the stimulus is the big case of this) is the White House has a hard time admitting it was wrong. And there are civil liberties where they've been a disaster, but alas that was to be expected.
Fart, that's a goddamn ignorant statement.
If there's one thing the history of this country has to teach us, it's that we won't do something because it needs done. We have to believe that it needs done, then we have to fight tooth and nail against the people who don't believe.
Passing HCR is a feather in the cap of every single person that was involved. Not something that would have happened via inertia.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
The plodding pace with which we're still coming to grips with the combine lapses both in judgement and, as importantly, in oversight which contributed to the financial meltdown of 2008 underlines this point nicely. Honestly, if I had to pick one area to strategically fault the President, it wouldn't be about tone or ideology -- it would be that he didn't prioritize financial reform at least as highly as health care because while health care was a huge issue during the primaries, the meltdown in September 2008 was the most important issue among independent voters on election day that year, and the fall-out (particularly the unemployment rate) remains their overriding concern. If you wanted to drive this administration to the political middle, spending every day between the inauguration and the midterms talking about ways to expedite the improvement of the housing sector and providing adult supervision to the crooks on Wall Street who took tax payer bail-out dollars would be the crown jewel of your legislative agenda.
Instead, he made healthcare reform his top priority. And don't get me wrong, I think it's fantastic not only that he took that issue on but that he also got a bill out of it by the end of the day. I'm just pointing all of this out because I can offer a lot of little tactical or doctrinal quibbles with the White House about how they could be pursuing their goals in a way which I think would ultimately yield better results -- but I couldn't fault him for not pursuing a more-liberal agenda without admitting that I'm a flipping ignoramus.
It always seems like the Left is more then happy to let the perfect be the enemy of the good. And from that, let the other side win because the Left you voted for was only merely good instead of perfect and so your just not gonna try and help anymore.
The Left always likes to measure their leaders against what they dreamed they could have done, and not by what they actually accomplished.
The thing is, Health Care WAS a bigger financial issue. It has been for decades. Reading stuff from his initial campaigning and such straight to now, it's pretty obvious it was like his biggest target. He said it himself, he was willing to be a 1 term President to get it done because he believed, rightfully, that it was probably the most important thing facing the US for the past decade and no one was doing anything about it.
What he should have done, and should have done on many other issues, is sell it better. He basically propped out of politics and into policy once he one the election, forgetting that policy needs political backing. You need to stir the voters up and give your people the political cover they need to support you.
YES.
Alternatively, we can speak the truth, which is that the efforts of any progressive movement in the United States is going to be perpetually blocked by the Republican Party. The Republican leadership is immoral and wrong; their policies are based in lies and fantasy; and they have no desire to compromise on even the smallest concessions.
The first rule of politics is: stay on message. Well, there's your message. When liberals start bitching that Obama hasn't done enough liberal stuff, that's not staying on message.
We're diluting our own power by drawing attention away from the real-life villains and scoundrels in office.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
If we don't meet progressive goals, it's not because we failed. It's because the GOP is insane. If the economy tanks, it's not because Obama failed to stop the bleeding, it's because the GOP sabotaged it.
Blame the people who are actually at fault for dragging this country down.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
Seriously. Many don't see how ideologically extreme they are in comparison to the rest of the American electorate, they aren't willing to engage with moderates who approach the issues in different ways, some (particularly college-aged kids) don't even research the positions they support, and ironically, many of them don't even recognize how privileged and yes, elite they really are. I mean I know how it damages my liberal credentials to agree with anything that the author of The Bell Curve says, but seriously, Charles Murray has a point.
The worst part is, you can't fucking count on them to vote. And if they do vote, they're likely to throw it away for some third-party spoiler who doesn't stand a chance in hell in winning. How to hell do you expect the president to cater to his base when the only people he can rely on actually going to the polls are moderates, "Independent," old white guys?
It's idiotic not to vote for the Democrats just because you're disappointed that they haven't shit rainbows and done everything you've wanted them to do. Because if you're part of the Democrats' base, and you don't vote or vote for some meaningless third party, then you helped the Republicans win.
Am I disappointed in the President and the Democrats? Abso-fucking-lutely. They've had terrible message control, and the fact that Nancy Palosi was the only high-ranking politician who was actually willing to play hardball with Republican obstructionists was infuriating. Obama and Reid could have accomplished a lot more if they had a goddamned spine, and for that reason I am VERY happy to see Rahm Emanuel go.
But am I so disappointed with the Dems that I'd willingly throw my vote away and hand the keys to the Republicans? No. Freakin. Way. The fact is that we're way better off than if McCain had won office, and Obama's managed to accomplish plenty of good shit during the last two years. Besides, if progressives ever want the Dems to pay attention to them like the Republicans do to their base, they need to turn out just as reliably to the polls. With the way things are now, it's really no wonder that the Dems spend more time and energy courting independents than they do their own base.
To answer the questions of the OP: sure, it's fine to criticize the president if you're a progressive. He deserves criticism for some of his actions, and it's important for progressives to remind him what the base wants. But if you throw a temper tantrum and outright abandon him like some progressives have, then you're an idiot who is doing nothing to help the progressive cause.
You know the argument that drives me up the wall almost more than any other?
"I'm voting for (guy who disagrees with me violently on just about everything). and against (guy who supports some but not all of my positions). At least he's got principles!"
Yes. And those principles totally fucking suck. Moderate does not automatically mean "person who worries only about winning an election that will inevitably backstab you every time you actually need them", but that's what we as a country have twisted the word to mean.
By voting for the guy you vehemently disagree with because the guy you usually agree with was less than stellar on one issue.
This isn't a goddamn phone poll, people.
I really hate voters sometimes.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
You know the message you send when you stay home? The message you send is "Ignore me. Caring about what I think is a waste of time and might cost you the election because I'm not going to surrender the goods." The only time to go third-party is when the third party might actually win. Otherwise you send the message "Ignore me. I'm that little half-percent turd nugget that shows up every time and getting us in the half-percent is likely going to cost you a couple full percentage points from the center, and we'll probably vote third-party anyway out of a deluded subconscious sense that we live in a system of proportional representation."
And voting for any candidate just sends the message "I am a supporter of this candidate, and everything they stand for." Doesn't matter if you actually support them or not. Doesn't matter if you're timid or rabid in your support. The candidate will likely see each and every vote for them as rabid support anyway. The only thing they see is support for the entire agenda, even the parts you hate. The overall winning party is almost certain to claim a mandate even if it was a nail-biter. You don't get to say "but I don't like this and this and this and wish you'd reconsider this". Nope. You had an entire campaign season to do that. When you step into the booth, you vote for the entire agenda. The whole thing.
It's not like you show up and either have votes, or don't. You have go out and get the votes. Any means necessary.
And that's what they did.
You want Lieberman's vote? Bye, bye public option.
You want that 60th vote for stimulus? Better make it smaller.
They just had a bar to clear that was far higher than it reasonably should have been.
Without the fillibuster, or at least without the insta-fillibuster, HCR is a very different bill.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
There's no doubting that there are significant reasons why reforming healthcare needed to be tackled from a policy standpoint. That's not my point -- my point is that while I have criticisms about the tactics and doctrines employed in pursuing this particular legislative agenda, asserting that the President has abandoned an agenda that reflects liberal values is thirty-two different flavors of stupid.
*throws up*
You don't do it by sabotaging what you are trying to pass.
Tie the fucking fighter jets to it or even the Bush tax cuts. Or just blackmail some fucking Senators, I don't really care.
basic premise is a little bit farcical. If the GOP is insane, a reasonable person expects Obama (or whoever) to treat them that way, not play at compromise as though their ideas had merit. Progressives don't criticize the democrats for not doing enough, they criticize them for not trying hard enough.
This is a chicken and egg argument. When politicians make a concerted effort to appeal to young progressives, they do turn out and vote, and volunteer (and even sometimes give money: see Obama, Barack, 2008.) I don't think that blaming the voter for not being willing to continuously offer support on the basis of some light at the end of the tunnel that their elected leadership never quite reaches is realistic.
that's why we call it the struggle, you're supposed to sweat
Actually, you do. This is exactly how it works. You bribe people to get them to vote for it. Sometimes, that bribe has to involve watering down the bill.
As the absolute last measure maybe.
Not as your opening bid.