For the record, I support Obama and I will vote for him again in 2012 so I have no problem defending his record against critics from both the left and right. That said, there’s one thing about Obama supporters that always annoyed me about them. It’s this idea that we should be eternally grateful for his presidency and if we criticize him then it’s because we had unrealistic expectations for him. You see this type of argument in Andrew Sullivan’s big piece in Newsweek.
While the left is less unhinged in its critique, it is just as likely to miss the screen for the pixels. From the start, liberals projected onto Obama absurd notions of what a president can actually do in a polarized country, where anything requires 60 Senate votes even to stand a chance of making it into law.
They miss, it seems to me, two vital things. The first is the simple scale of what has been accomplished on issues liberals say they care about. A depression was averted. The bail-out of the auto industry was—amazingly—successful. Even the bank bailouts have been repaid to a great extent by a recovering banking sector. The Iraq War—the issue that made Obama the nominee—has been ended on time and, vitally, with no troops left behind. Defense is being cut steadily, even as Obama has moved his own party away from a Pelosi-style reflexive defense of all federal entitlements.
I’m not disputing any of this, and I do believe that the Obama Administration will go down as one of the most productive administrations in our history. But should progressives be satisfied with this? Absolutely not! If you truly believed in the progressive ideology, then you know that there is a whole lot of work for us to do. When it comes to public policy, progressives should never ever declare “Mission Accomplished”. Even with the passage of ACA, any credible health policy wonk we’ll tell you that we’re no where close to resolving the massive disparities that exist in our health care system.
The main goal of progressive critics is to continually keep pushing boundaries on the political possibilities. That is the only way we can get significant legislation passed in this country. It’s not enough to only focus on things that seemed achievable because ideas such as universal coverage needed time to become acceptable in our political culture. The only reason health care became a priority for the Obama Administration is because the Democrats spent the entire 20th century trying to get a health care bill passed, and many of those opportunities involved several high profile failures. We could have easily assumend that health care was unachiveable and not do anything about it. But we kept at it becasue we strongly believe that health care is a universal right regardless of its political implications.
To wrap up this post, Democrats need to stop being so thin-skinned. If you’re being criticized by progressive writers, don’t just dismiss them as naive couch potatoes. If you truly believe in progressive ideology, then you should want to know if you’re actually living up to your ideals.
Note: Check out my personal blog at http://2moneythoughts.wordpress.com/