Let me be clear on this one thing before I get to my thesis: while the recent events on here with regards to the FISA bill are the primary motivation for this diary, it really is more about the overall general attitude people have taken that I've witnessed in the last few weeks (and probably was here before I came around to these parts). Let me be clear, this is not about FISA; I am not espousing my views on the matter nor is it relevant to the purpose of this diary, so sorry folks but I am not being a concern "troll", apologist, nor an "Obamabot" who is either unfailingly for him or looking for the first opportunity to give up on him. I am simply attempting to bring my own perspectives about Obama as a whole (that means pre-, during, and post-FISA) as well as a moderating voice on the shifted dynamics that this site has taken up since Obama was close to wrapping up the nomination. That said, this is a long diary but I think it's not only worthwhile but something that is desperately needed on this site, so please take the time.
Let me start by saying that Obama is in fact my senator as a fellow Chicagoan. Contrary to what many may think, Illinois isn't exactly the bastion of Liberalness. Granted a good chunk of Chicago and the college towns all over have a progressive streak, there are still many moderates and conservatives that populate the state, especially in the rural areas and some of the more affluent suburbs. I'd go as far as to say that most of Chicago tends to be economically liberal (big union city, after all) but socially moderate on average (fairly liberal downtown and in the Northside, more conservative in the Southside), but obviously tends to be more tolerant due to its very high diversity in culture. While we have two Democratic senators and almost always go blue for the Presidential elections, most 21 years we've had Republican governors and you'll see that we have a fair amount of Republican Congressmen in D.C.
The point I'm trying to make is that these are the people Obama represents as a senator; they're as diverse politically as they are culturally. While in many respects he falls on the left-side of the spectrum and is obviously a Democrat(at least with reference to the rest of the nation), he does not represent nor has ever intended to represent the national Progressive movements (e.g. the people that come on this site) nor is it his job. His job is to represent the interests of his state--with regards to national affairs--in a way that lies in between his views and the median view of his constituents; you know, what most politicians are supposed to do when they represent a state or nation.
Therein lies the problem with the average view of Obama on this and similar sites: you all see him naturally as your presidential representative and thus impose your views and values onto him as a vessel. That's fine in moderation, as he does currently best represent our vision for the country for the next four years and beyond and it's natural to find an emotional investment in someone going for such an important decision. It's also fine that since he best represents your politics that you hope he takes more of his stances from those on the Left and that you try to take reasonable action to convince him to do so, in fact I almost expect it as natural. However, in that last statement the key word was "reasonable", and that is the defining line that I am taking issue with here. But before I go there, we need to clear a few things up first.
In my intro I stated that I accepted his stances and views in an honest fashion, but it is my conclusion that--at least with regards to this site but I see signs elsewhere too--there lies a good percentage of folks here (likely more vocal than numerous) who have NOT done so. With that in mind, let's use this time to review a few truths with regards to Obama.
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- He is first and foremost a politician and will act as such, at times to his detriment. Yes he like many others sees this as an avenue to serve the country and try to improve it along the lines of his own vision but in the end he is a politician in a position of power. With that power often comes corrupting influences (e.g. lobbyists and high-end donors) and questionable judgment (e.g. his current FISA stance), and as someone seeking the highest office in the land, he is much more susceptible to such than most others. Sometimes he will act these out because he is fallible and not immune to negative influences, other times it's because he thinks that politically it is the best move regardless of whether he's right or not in his assumption. Point is, he's not God and he's not going to be perfect. He like the vast majority of our politicians will not always do the right thing nor follow the Constitution in strict accordance and may even violate it either as Senator or as President. This is NOT to say that you should accept what happens and be happy with it, au contraire I think the best way to change the current direction in Washington with regards to this is to speak up; rather, what I am saying is to be realistic and accept that he like most others will do what they do and the best we can do is to limit the corruptible influences and to encourage him to do the right thing. Note, I am taking a firm stance in stating that positive reinforcement of him doing good is more helpful and more effective than severe punishment for at times doing the wrong thing, because he can always rebel against us and be sincerely like "any other politician" if he feels he cannot look up to us anymore (see it as us being a parent and him a child, if that helps). Not that there should be no punishment, but what I see here is a swing to thinking that punishment should be the policy of choice instead of positive reinforcement (I am using the psychological definitions by the way) and in general that makes for VERY bad parenting.
- He is not an archetypal Progressive. Socially he has fairly liberal views (e.g. Women's Rights) though a few tend more moderate (e.g. his stance on Gay Marriage), but economically he is clearly Centrist (in the American definition, he'd be considered more right-wing elsewhere but definitely not the far right as the GOP is currently).
- As a continuation of (2), he always held those views, at least with regards to this campaign. I was very aware of his centrist economic stances as far back as November and came to support him knowing fully well that these were his views. Obviously I support some views and not others, but I accepted these differences knowing that rarely do you have a candidate who is 100% with you (and honestly, most viable politicians have never been more left than centrist in this field). I know many of you were up in arms at his choice of Economic Director and some of his advisors but the truth is it should have not come as a surprise to ANYONE who claimed to know fairly well about the candidates, and the reaction here really does suggest that there's some among you who were more caught up in the personality and blind to the obvious (that which, mind you, was put in plain view on his website long ago).
- Regardless of where he stands politically, this is a political reality of ALL viable candidates from both the Democrats and the Republicans: the primaries are when you vet yourself to the base, while in the general you vie for the moderates that make up the MEDIAN of the population. Yes folks, outside of your world in the progressive blogosphere, the average Unitedstateperson is a moderate (either genuinely in the middle or shares a mix of liberal and conservative views) and this is the time when the candidates try to go after them (even McCain has evidently changed from showing himself as the typical Bush-Republican to trying to come across as much more moderate not unlike the "maverick" myth we hear all the time as he turns to GE mode). In fact, the current political climate isn't such that the people are sharply polarized, but rather the political parties and so moderates generally have to move further to the left or right in their choice of candidates today than they did 40 years ago. This is one of the prevailing findings of reputable political scientists, and I'd like to point you out to the book "Culture War?: The Myth of a Polarized America" by Morris P. Fiorina. (Side note: this was one of the textbooks I used for a political science class I took in 2006).
- There is a very good reason why these candidates must move to the middle, at least with regards to their GE campaigns (obviously their terms in office can result much further to the left or right, as evidenced by our current idiot-in-chief), as cited in the aforementioned book: the candidate that is closest to the middle wins every time. This is a fact, and while the median person in the country may swing more to the left or right in time, one has to be closest to that median if only in perception if winning is the desire (Mind you, this is why third parties almost always fail). So given that, are you honestly surprised that Obama is trying to move to the center? Frankly as the lefty that I am I'd be scared if he didn't. Yes there is always the risk that he ends up taking the more centrist or conservative stances once in office, but it's equally likely that he moves back towards the left once he wins (again, that's what Bush did with the right), so really the "changes" that you see (really the changes is more in his foci and rhetoric style than his stances if you paid attention) are very non-predictive of how his hypothetical Presidency will turn out.
- He does not represent the Progressives, not so much because he isn't one but because it is not his job. I'm sorry folks, but we only make up a third of the population of the country. His job is to represent a hell lot of folks that lean either slightly to much further to the right of us as much as to represent us. Put in another way, his job is to represent everyone that he is in charge of governing. This may come as a disappointment, but as a senator he has to represent people who voted for Bush equally as those who voted for Gore/Kerry with regards to his state, though obviously he can represent the latter group more so since they make up a greater proportion of Illinois. As President, he's going to have to represent a much larger and diverse group that is (comparatively) more conservative than he does in the Senate.
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It is with the last bullet-point where I come back to the term "reasonable". Folks, I understand the desire to want him to represent Liberal values; I myself am quite liberal, and he is the nominee I will vote for in November. I understand the frustrations that even as the best remaining candidate he doesn't fully espouse my views and the wishes that in general the candidates better represented them. I am quite aware of where he succeeds in this and where he falters if not downright fails and feeling appropriately towards them. But folks, the reality is that you may hold many if not most of the cards with regards to his money supply and manpower but you really are the minority of the people he has to represent. That to me is the potential danger in seeing him as the vessel for our values to the degree I see here, that you get so disappointed with unrealistic expectations that you deprive him of the life-source of his campaign and ultimately concede the victory to John McCain, whom we overwhelmingly agree is the worst possible choice of President for us.
One of the oft-mentioned memes around these parts is the idea of "holding his feet to the fire" with regards to his stances, or at least when they go against your own. Folks, it's time to be realistic. He always was less progressive than us, and as President he even more likely is going to stay that way. Not saying he's going to abandon all or even any of his platforms (I am no psychic, after all), but even if he kept the majority of them he is by default going to disappoint us in some ways to various extents. He never ONCE claimed to be represent the staunch Left side of the political spectrum, and it is frankly quite unfair of you to act as if he did and expecting that he uphold himself to a standard that was always something you created, not him. It's one thing to lobby and try to convince him to try on more progressive stances--read, ONCE he's in office, until then it's time to suspend fantasy and accept that he's going to be more moderate until November for reasons I explained earlier--but it's another to demand if not threaten him into doing so, and that my friends is where you collectively crossed the line in my eyes time and time again and I am sorry but I cannot support that extreme of action as demonstrated by some of you. I see it as non-constructive, defeating the purpose, well-intentioned but misguided, and frankly at times downright juvenile.
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Now I can already hear some of you asking me "so what are we supposed to do, then, smart-ass?" To that, I have a few recommendations that I think in general will make things more effective and much easier on our souls. This is not to say that I cover everything nor that I am correct in my advice as I can be absolutely wrong in the worst possible way as much as I can be absolutely right. With no further adieu, I present what I think we as a group ought--if not need--to do.
Well first and foremost, you need to start being more realistic and honest with yourself about the candidate (and yes, that includes being CLEAR with where he stands and accepting that he will NOT represent you 100%). He is a politician, not the Savior. While it's reasonable to expect him to demonstrate some leadership, you must NOT expect him to "save us" every time you want him to, and you must be understanding that his power of influence is limited at some point; he may be the party's presidential nominee but until he is President he is the party leader in name only. Until then he is still only a freshmen senator with now a little more clout than before, and those who are in charge of the houses of Congress are the ones who truly hold the power, and he will act himself accordingly as to not usurp them. This means sometimes he is going to act against our will and while we have all the right in the world to be unhappy about it, we cannot afford to let it stand as the be-all-end-all of everything and definitely cannot have it disgruntle us to the point of no return because frankly, folks, if you turn your back on him now and take back any pledges to actions to help him win, you honestly never were honest with yourself in the first place about anything pertaining to Obama, his campaign or the political realities.
Secondly, with learning to accept Obama as the best of the pool of candidates and not as the projection of your beliefs one must also learn to start showing some discipline. Honestly folks, if this site is going to effectively shut down in its goals and efforts for two days every time he does something you found disagreeable but not contrary to where he demonstrated himself, and for a week when he shows a little of his politician side (yes this is where I refer specifically to the FISA situation)--ESPECIALLY when nothing has even happened yet, and frankly while I may be more understanding of it from Friday onward, you all should be ashamed at how you acted with regards to Obama on Thursday of all days of this issue, acting as if he back-stabbed you when he hadn't said/done a damn thing!--then you have effectively failed at your mission. I refuse to debate this point any further; if this site's purpose is to elect Democrats and you spend a week--preemptively no less--effectively shutting down all operations regarding that purpose and even going as far as to threaten to give up altogether, then I regard the mission as false advertising and recommend that those of you who wish to work to that pre-stated purpose go elsewhere (maybe even somewhere that actually will be constructive to those goals) until the people on this site get their acts together. If you intend on working towards winning the elections in November, such metamorphoses of this site's dynamics work contrary to that goal and I think you really should make more constructive use of your time. I apologize if it is almost heretical to tell people to temporarily leave this site, but as much as you think your actions and reactions can be used to control the candidates to keep them to your standards I feel we as customers to this site (so long as I am viewing ads here to give Kos money, I'm a customer) have the same power to use the same methods to ensure that the site keeps up to our relevant standards, and frankly there are many more options for websites than for President, so let that idea sink in to my intended conclusion.
Third, keep our major goals in mind at all times. If you honestly are so temporarily disgruntled with Obama that you cannot do anything for him, work on your other representatives. We all have people to elect to the House and about a third of us have senators as well. Not sure how individual local towns/cities and states operate but many of you may also have people to elect to those offices, put your efforts to those. If nothing else, try to find a local cause that needs some support. I think in doing this, you keep the energy positive and do something more constructive than taking a week to a month of incessantly coming here to bemoan and whine about Obama (sorry but it does often devolve from constructive action to non-constructive echo-chamber whining very fast). If you can take actions that are more relevant to him like calling his office to voice your views on a stance, go right ahead but individually limit it to one contact attempt per issue and then LEAVE IT AT THAT. Honestly, the last thing you need working for you is to come across as a deafening fringe group instead of a vocal representation of the public, and the more your efforts come across as such the less effective you're going to be. Remember that you do not want to be like the laymen wingnuts we often decry.
Finally, maybe this is a view that is contrary to the site's mission but I honestly think instead of focusing on moving the candidates to the left, you should work on moving the POPULATION to the left. Part of my reasoning is along the lines of what I said about how the candidate closest to the median wins and thus if you move the median to the left you move the candidates by proxy, but part of it has another logistic attribute in mind. You see, not everyone agrees with liberal views and politics; some are genuinely diametrically opposed but I honestly think the majority of the population--at least on some issues--is either mis-informed, under-informed, or receptive but otherwise hesitant or maybe even insecure and scared. For example, most Americans sincerely believe that Global Warming is a hoax, which is clearly a sign of under-or-mis-information gone awry. Somewhat similarly, most people want better health care but are skeptical with regards to getting the government more involved, yet most of them don't realize that taxpayer dollars already go to the health care industry to almost the same extent as countries with some form of single-payer health care yet privately we pay WAY much more than they do and in fact the average person gets BETTER medical treatment under such systems and for the most part they have proven to be successful.
These are just two instances but look even deeper you see a LOT of issues where if the population knew better they'd see things more aligned with our side. What we have to do is not convince politicians to force people into these viewpoints to the risk of a knee-jerk backlash, but to inform and guide our family, friends and neighbors to show the positive values and benefits that they hold. If you do that, not only will they be MUCH more receptive to Liberal values, but in addition you have more and more people on our side and you gain access to a vast pool of allies that will help to convince and demand our politicians act on these important issues. Not only that, but by doing so you transform into something bigger, from a mere political movement to a SOCIAL movement, and social movements often prove to be stronger and longer-lasting. Add in the fact that the political pendulum is starting to swing back to the left and you have HUGE potential here.
Let me clarify that I'm not suggesting that you DON'T try in any way to move the candidate pool to the left and/or to hold your choices to higher standards. Rather, my point is that your efforts will be short-sighted and risk failing if the candidates move left and support our positions but the population as a whole does not. The reasoning of my argument is basically saying that you have to give the politicians a reason to move left and represent our values and giving them a larger population that wants them, otherwise you risk back-firing in the end. Again these ideas merely represent my opinion, so feel free to take them either in their entirety, in part, or not at all.
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My sincerest apologies if I come across strong if not confrontational at times; like many of you my emotions are tending a little high at the moment. However, I hope this diary served two purposes: to bring in a relieving sense of reason and sanity into our site and causes, and to encourage you to view things into a new paradigm. Obama himself said that this campaign was not about him, but us; not the rise of a superstar but the rise of millions of American voices screaming for change. That's the ticket, people, we're the agents of change here, but we can only do so if we realize it and act accordingly. However, like Obama, we're not perfect and infallible and we do fail ourselves from time to time. It's okay though, we're humans, not robots. But we have to stop looking at the trees and start seeing the big forest, and we have to stop focusing all of our desires and needs onto the politicians and start turning some of that energy into pro-active action onto ourselves. If this is supposed to be a grass-roots movement, then the only way to make it viable is to act like we're employing all our nation and not just as an enclave of people with a particular but not necessarily a majority political view. That may mean we have to start acting less like Liberals and more as concerned citizens, but I guarantee you your efforts will not be all for naught. Let's show that Yes, We Can take our country back, stop the wars and destruction of the planet in part and in whole, and to show what we're made of.