I'm surprised that nobody else has brought this up, but listening to Mike Malloy's radio show last night was quite depressing. Of all people, the last person I expected to espouse a defeatist (and borderline nihilistic) take on the 2008 election was Malloy. The short of it is that he was advocating the election of John McCain in 2008, because the big change that this country needs won't happen unless things get even worse than they are right now. Malloy is always teetering on the edge with some of his more outlandish takes, but at least I had the sense that he wants what's best for the country. After last night, I'm not so sure.
The only other place where I found this discussed was a blog entry from The Huffington Post.
Mike Malloy's Anti-Obama Rant
The first traitor to the Democratic Presidential nominee with a national microphone made his move to support McCain and urge others to do so. On his radio show , billed as "Speaking Truth to Power," Mike Malloy abandoned all progressive logic as he spent his entire show in a rant against Barack Obama to the amazement of listeners and those who have heard him push for Obama's election. Citing Obama's vote in favor of the FISA law and change of heart on allowing off-shore drilling, Malloy said that Obama would not be able to bring about the change that he has championed and that those who follow him through eight years of failure will allow the Republican fascism to point to that failure as evidence that the government the Republicans have put in place by the Bush/Cheney cannot be undone.
There were countless logical lapses just in the short-time that I tuned into Malloy's show. Basically, Malloy called Obama a corporate Democrat, and a neophyte who's unprepared for the clean-up job that will be needed once he gets to the White House. Unlike other progressives who are concerned about Obama's moderating positions, Malloy is now ready to go Operation Chaos on the left.
Malloy's basic premise is that the federal government is now so thoroughly corrupted that it cannot be fixed without a radical overhaul. In his opinion, Obama is too moderate and too inexperienced to do the job, particularly with the array of right-wing appointees that now make up the civil service ranks sabotaging his agenda at every opportunity.
In his view, the federal government has to be even more corrupted and even more radicalized by the right wing before the American citizenry will wake up and embrace a top-to-bottom overhaul of the federal government that will secure progressive ideals for the next generation. It's almost like assuming that letting fascism take complete control will eventually lead to a progressive democratic uprising.
To Malloy, 2012 is the more logical target. He's confident that McCain will be a senile mess by that time, and an easy mark for the next Democratic nominee. But, my concern is that by that time, the federal government will be even more politicized, the national media even more neutered, and the fear card ratcheted up several more notches. This will not only solidify the reactionaries' hold on power, but it will force the Dems to nominate their own version of a strongman hawk.
The illogic of Malloy's premise came when callers brought up the issue of Supreme Court appointees. Malloy rightfully called out the Dems for caving in on the Roberts and Alito appointments, but he totally glossed over the fact that McCain and Obama will likely nominate very different candidates to the Supreme Court in the first place. If the Dems continue to kowtow on Supreme Court appointees, wouldn't it stand to reason that capitulating to Obama's wishes is more palatable than McCain's?
While I share Malloy's concern that the damage done over the last 8 years will take a lot of work and a lot of pressure on our elected officials, I also think there's too much at stake to just hand the White House over to McCain and his Bushie handlers. Malloy might very well be right in that the challenge is too great and too entrenched for Obama (or any Democratic President) to fix in four years, but I think the consequences of four more years of neocon control over the Executive branch are far too steep a price to pay for the chance that 2012 is a better bet for progressive policies to take hold.
In the end, I think the demographics of the country are decidedly working towards a progressive generational shift over the next decade. This will happen regardless of whether Obama gets elected in 2008 or not. So, with that mind, I'm perfectly willing to take the chance that Obama will realize our best hopes rather than confirm our worst fears. And if McCain indeed represents a third Bush term, then he has the potential to far exceed our worst fears.