As the fiscal cliff discussions have progressed we've been having an extensions of a passionate debate on concessions Obama should make and whether he's being tough or weak. I fall into the weak camp, and if you see my post history you will notice I have commented several times on how I thought the president was caving and dedicated a thread to simply usher a harsh critique of the deal that was coming into focus with Boehner.
But I repeatedly run into a 3rd camp who doesn't think Obama is weak, but is actually very machiavellian in his quest to reduce the social safety net. A variation of this critique is that Obama is actually a republican at heart and is getting what he wants in these deals. I think its important to address this group of people because they're the closest thing we have on our side to the right and their conspiracy theories that always subject Obama's policies to more nefarious reasons and intentions. And, like the right, these progressives describe the leader they've called weak in other situations as a strong, shrewd, and a flawlessly effective person...only with bad intentions.
For most, the faultiness and irrationality of this thinking should be obvious. Bet let me spell it out:
-If Obama was intent on cutting the social safety net, why did he spend basically all of his first term's political capital on the largest expansion of the safety net in 47 years. It's pretty much well known and has been corroborated by everybody that Biden, Rahm, and the entire WH(except Melody Barnes) strongly advised against initially pushing HCR and pushed even harder after the Scott Brown victory.
-Knowing the predictable retort from this crowd about HCR being a ploy to please corporate america, I got news for you guys...corporate america ain't impressed, as any of us who read a paper or check opensecrets.org occasionally are fully aware.With the exception of a tepid endorsement from the pharmaceutical industry, most of corporate has ranged from "meh" to openly hostile. The insurance companies you claim made out like bandits we now know spent more than $250 million via the chamber of commerce to kill the bill, and, this election cycle, almost spent 100% of their money on republican candidates. Once again, they weren't impressed with Obama's supposed fealty.
-If he wants to throw poor people off the bus, why did he expand Medicaid drastically, and why were all programs for the poor exempted from the sequester. Why has he doubled Pell Grants, why has he successfully fought for unemployment benefits to be included in this package.
-If he's machiavellian and "this is what he wants" like most of you say, why did the debt ceiling debacle play out the way it did and bring the US on the verge of default and his presidency to its lowest approval numbers. There is nothing his corporate overlords hate more than playing with the Debt Ceiling, I don't think they would've appreciated that strategy.
I could go on but you guys get the point, I wanted to address these critiques because they come from a visceral dislike of Obama and that allows them to jump through multiple hoops so their critique can stay in place. You see the same thing on the right with Obama, obviously those noises are louder because there are more of them, but they basically come from similar places. People who make those comments don't intend to affect policy outcomes, they intend to end conversations. You notice they never advocate pressuring liberals in congress to kill deals, as I have multiple times and the front pagers routinely do. Thats because at the end, there goal isn't on outcomes, but on indictment. Indictment of Obama, and for some indictment of the whole system. IMO, thats totally unconstructive.
Obama like most politicians, particularly presidents, has a nuanced record that can be convincingly argued as a success or a disappointment for progressivism. There are some policies of his that I detest and that aren't different from republicans, like his drone policy his K-12 education reform policy.
But here's the kicker, he's pursued those policies and hasn't contracted immaculate schemes to show one thing while doing another. Our political system is too complex and there are too many variables outside a presidents control for him/her to basically dictate outcomes they like while having a public posture thats the complete opposite. Such a strategy would never survive scrutiny in todays media age and is simply not how politicians operate. Anyone who is familiar with political science basically knows that the key to holding office is trust. So while politicians cheat and are dishonest, their basic public and ideological persona is actually remarkably consistent with what they truly believe. Being a politician is hard enough, to be a politician is simultaneously runs a on a public platform thats diametrically opposed to what you believe is called magic, its not done and anyone who does would fail spectacularly.