The complaint is now familiar.
To parse it down, it goes something like this:
"I worked my tail off to elect Barack Obama because I believed in Change. I wanted the fat-cats and corporate crooks to be regulated out of business. I wanted the people behind torture, George Bush, Dick Cheney, Rumsfeld, Yoo, and the hundreds if not thousands of others who enabled, legitimized, authorized and committed acts of torture to be tossed into jail. I wanted Card Check, Single-Payer Health coverage, a complete withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan, closure of Gitmo and a repeal of DADT and DOMA. I wanted the economy to be restored, the tax burden fairly shared, the gap between rich and poor closed and lobbyists run out of Washington on a rail. I wanted an energy program that broke the back of big oil and put polluters on notice that their days of destroying the planet were over.
NONE of this has happened. We have a watered down public option that may not even pass the Senate hurdle. We have an escalation in Afghanistan, troops still in Iraq, Gitmo still open and not a single torture prosecution. Daily we still see and hear from torture apologists like Dick Cheney, showing no remorse or regret for their crimes. DADT and DOMA repeal is placed on the back burner and may never happen. The rich are still getting richer and the poor poorer. We have bailed out banks that are now making billions but failures on Main Street are still being ignored. There is no energy plan worth spit being discussed or likely to be implemented. Card check is being demonized along with ACORN and progressives are being told to sit down and shut up.
This is not what I worked so hard to achieve. This is not change. This is just the same old, same old.
President Obama, Democrats in Washington....You have failed me and I will no longer support or work for you."
Of course the reason this refrain is so familiar is because it has been said in varying fashions since November 2008. It started with President Elect Obama’s cabinet picks. It gathered steam with his decision to ask Rick Warren to give the inaugural prayer. The snow ball grew larger through the spring when DADT remained on the books. The health care debate turned the snow ball into an avalanche. Next up is the Afghanistan decision, which will probably see a full scale defection of the progressive vote to a third party candidate or a boycott of the elections all together in 2010.
Already, some progressives have started attacking liberal and moderate Democrats who continue to support Obama as "ObamaBots", "kool-aid drinkers" and "blind" (These are in quotes, because I have actually read these descriptions).
Now the defenders of the President make a few good points. They say, quite correctly, that he has been on the job for a total of 10 months. Every President is stuck with the past President’s last acts in the first year of his (or her) presidency. George Bush wasn’t able to start running up huge deficits until after 2001, when Clinton’s last budget ran out. But even so, Obama managed to pass a 700 billion dollar stimulus package and to stop the free fall of the economy.
They also, again correctly, point out that many of Obama’s decisions (such as Afghanistan) are consistent with what he said he would do when he became president. As well, Obama told voters he would be "looking forward" and not back when it came to questions of torture prosecutions and that questions of prosecutions would be the responsibility of the justice department not the White House. If this is a deal breaker for progressives in 2009 why wasn’t it when Obama was campaigning in 2008?
The Presidents defenders have also described health care reform as herding cats and the latest demonstration of competing self interests makes this an apt description. Clearly, the American people are not anywhere near ready to accept single payer health care. And even if they were, the interests aligned against it are so rich, so powerful and so influential, that it is still unlikely that it would be realized.
Still, the President’s defenders like to point out, reform has progressed far further than it has in the last 40 or 50 years. The changes and reforms being offered are historic, important and needed and the President deserves credit for this achievement. In this they are also correct.
But let’s leave all of this aside for the moment.
Let’s instead engage in a little thought experiment.
It is repeatedly stated that President Obama is not progressive enough. That he is too right leaning, too centrist, too accommodating of conservatives. In this accusation, the deep partisan divide that currently characterizes the United States today is clearly evident.
But let’s pretend for the moment that it wasn’t President Obama who was elected in 2008 but President Karl Marx along with his running mate Friedrich Engels. The Marx/Engels ticket promised sweeping change. Workers would control the means of production, banks would be nationalized, lending at interest would be abolished, the wealthy would be taxed out of existence, marriage would be 100% civil and open to any who were of age and imperialism tossed into the ash can of history.
President Marx rides into the White House on a tide of popular opinion, capturing 55% of the vote and all but 10 states, mostly located in the South.
Now you can’t imagine any candidate any more left wing than President Marx. His bona fides are impeccable. He is no toady of the capitalist class nor is he a captive of any special interest lobby. He is a firebrand of revolutionary fervor and an intellectual giant to boot.
But there is a problem. Both houses of Congress are controlled by Republicans and conservative Democrats. Together they hold over 60% of the House and Senate seats and they oppose just about everything President Marx intends on doing.
How far do you imagine President Marx would be able to implement any of his program in the first 10 months of his presidency?
This is the real problem progressives face.
The U.S. system is designed to frustrate not to empower. The checks and balances that were designed to prevent a dictator from rising generally work pretty well. But the trade off is they also prevent swift action and sweeping reforms. This can be a good thing, especially as for the last 30 years right-wing pirates were intent on sweeping effective government out of existence. But it can be frustrating when it comes time to repair the damage that they have left behind.
For all the talk of blue dogs and conservative Democrats, the need to elect progressives and to remove conservadems, the fact is, unless progressives actually live in those districts or states, there is very little they can do to change the make up of the Congress. And even if they do live in Ben Nelson’s or Blanch Lincoln’s state, they still have to convince a majority of Democrats to nominate a more progressive candidate and then a majority of voters to elect this candidate. The fact is, unless the opposition melts down or the right wing vote is split, a progressive running in a conservative district is unlikely to win elections, no matter how much progressives nationwide may want it.
That it seems, is the biggest objection to the progressive opposition to President Obama. It seems to be based on a fundamental lack of understanding of the political system and its limitations.
If Obama were the head of a parliamentary democracy, progressives would be right in complaining that he has not done enough. Prime Ministers wield enormous power and if they have a solid majority they can rule almost as dictators during their term in office. U.S. Presidents don’t have that advantage. They must, by design, negotiate, compromise, cohearse and bribe even members of their own party to support their programs. Quite often they fail miserably.
Reagan’s "revolution" didn’t start to pick up steam until roughly two years after he was elected and he needed to be shot to win over public approval. Bill Clinton’s health care reform went down in a blaze of partisan fury, despite Democratic majorities in both the House and Senate. Even with control of both houses of Congress, a majority on the Supreme Court and a very high early approval rating, George Bush was unable to repeal abortion or privatize Social Security.
Barack Obama may yet fail miserably. He may be the most successful President who ever lived. Only history will be able to tell. But one thing is certain, even Barak Obama could never have hoped to pass any significant reform in the first 10 months of a presidency, no matter how popular or how big the majorities in Congress.
The United States, just doesn’t work that way.