Inspired by Donna Edwards
I read the following, and I am endlessly frustrated.
I don’t want to have a fight over the stimulus fight, the health care fight, and the current budget battles or the tax deals. I don’t. I want to just say one thing about this meme that’s been here from jump street, that Obama is weak, that he isn’t a leader, that he doesn’t know how to negotiate, that he doesn’t have a set of values (HELLO, have you seen the last three budgets? I defy anyone to read those documents which encapsulate the President’s vision of the country and not see a liberal ethos.). I really just want to know one thing…
Who the fuck has done better?
IMO, the Democratic party has been fucked over the last two years by Democratic conservatives and corporatists and the lack of support for the administration by progressives and the netroots. And that has been aided and abetted by the laziness and real messaging failures of progressives who looked toward the Obama administration to do EVERYTHING. Who, though they couldn’t explain what leverage a liberal president has over rock solid red state conservatives senators who view him as an anchor around their knecks and went running to conservatives for cover over every damn thing and had to be dragged begging, screaming, threatening, and pleading to enact the financial and health reforms that did occur; that NO STIMULUS would have happened had it not been for Republican crossover votes.
Pausing for my favorite stimulus fight flashback that pretty much encapulates everything that frustrated everyone on the left over the most progressive Congress in memory...
Today, as we watched the country step back from the brink of a shutdown (possibly) that would affect real people in concrete ways that so many here blithely feel for political reasons it is a failure on the part of democrats to make concessions to the CLEAR MAJORITY of tea party/republican conservatives in the House who hold the purse strings of the country. Recognize that the House you see is the House so many thought would be no different than the last Congress – what’s the difference btwn Republicans and Democrats the mantra went. There is no difference between a corporate democrat or republican came the answer. And we have a pure progressive caucus in the house; it has no power and no voice but it’s fucking pure. And we’ve got a senate in democratic hands filled with the conservadems you all love to hate. (Through you definitely used to love them as they built the majority in ’06 and ’08.) They’re the ones standing between Planned Parenthood, EPA riders, and a clear majority of conservatives.
Liberals and progressives are the minority in this country; analogous to the right. The country is filled with a mushy middle that doesn’t give a damn and wants the trains to run on time, the checks to clear, and the lights to be on. When it all doesn’t go to plan they throw the bums out. Progressives have succeeded in creating a social safety net and with the health care reform have sealed it into the governmental cake; now the trick is to defend it and that has to happen on a hyperlocal level. The so called bully pulpit is bullshit: when the President does use it he polarizes the situation further. Real change happens at the grassroots level as we make progressive values daily values on the ground in school boards, city councils, state houses, and start primarying Democrats to give voice to liberal values.
As everyone rushes to insult the administration that has done more to create progressive change than any in my lifetime; I’m left wondering when the netroots community will take responsibility for its failures in driving any message and when Congress takes responsibility for what happens in its chambers (First Read, that's where I read the phrase).