“The Lesser of Two Evils” -- Why Progressives Lose Posted on 02/02/2012 at 7:02 am by Bob Cesca
[My latest for The Huffington Post]
There comes a time during just about every general election cycle when a faction of progressive Democratic voters begin to harrumph and gripe about the two party system. Specifically, the following remark jumps back into popular discourse: “we’re choosing between the lesser of two evils.”
The off-handed rejection of the Democrats as “less evil” rapidly descends into hectoring and in-fighting on the left about either supporting a third party or drafting a primary challenger to oppose the Democratic nominee, presidential or otherwise. In fact, this time around, some progressives are even considering a vote for Ron Paul, the most conservative member of Congress in the last 75 years, even though his positions on a variety of issues, namely civil rights and reproductive rights, are indefensible.
Naturally, much of this point of view can be attributed to generalized frustration with the two party system and the ugliness of electoral politics. But there’s a trend among influential progressives that’s almost as frustrating as the system itself. Whenever the Republicans are in charge, progressives unite to defeat and replace the Republican leadership with Democrats. But when the Democrats are in charge, progressives have a tendency to hypnotically lapse into contrarian, too-hip-for-the-room ambivalence, apathy and an “everyone is evil” defeatism. Thus, support for Democratic Leader X is weakened — often with disastrous consequences, the least tragic of which being a reemergence of the previously ousted Republican leadership.
In 2000, this attitude won enough progressive votes for Ralph Nader to literally change the course of history. Widespread voter fraud aside, Nader achieved 97,488 votes in Florida. If just 538 of those votes for Nader had been for Al Gore instead, the history of the last 10 years might have been significantly different. But Nader’s involvement, along with high profile endorsements from progressive heroes like Michael Moore, delivered an election-altering percentage of votes to Nader.
The word on the street was the familiar and laughable notion that Gore and Bush were basically the same person. Both candidates and both parties were painted as equally crooked and corrupt, and the system was irrevocably stacked against the people. So otherwise smart progressives backed Nader as an antidote to the crippled system — a truly “progressive” antidote, unlike Gore.
Knowing what we know now, how seriously naive was that?
Even though he ran a flawed campaign, Gore would have been a vastly different president than George W. Bush in almost every respect. Of course he might have been impeached by the Republicans after 9/11, but I don’t want to skew too deeply into an alternate timeline. The point is that Nader has since disintegrated into a careerist troll and Al Gore has become a progressive lion.
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The rest is here.
40 comments:
So do you like it or hate it?
I myself had so many problems with it that I wrote a 3 paragraph response in the Huffpo comments that we for nothing because it hurt someone's feelings and was deleted.
The lesser of two evils. But doesnt the continued choice of lesser of two evils lead to the burned village anyway?
I guess there is always hope for change and longevity has its place but what if the quality sucks? Is there dignity in choosing to die on your feet instead of on your knees as it relates to voting given the choices?
I am not an american so maybe i am romanticizing when writing about these choices.
1) Nader did what any qualified American has the right to do: run for president. (Why has there ben no equivalent decade-long castigation of Ross Perot who made them unforgettable Clinton "triangulation" years possible?)
2) The world would most likely be a VERY different place if Al Gore had simply been able to carry his home state of Tennessee.
3) If Clinton had simply said "Yes, I DID have sex with THAT woman and it's a ONLY matter between my wife and myself," then G.W. DumbAss would never gotten close enough to Gore to steal the election, Tennessee notwithstanding.
4) Florida Secretary of State, Katherine Harris, in the 2000 presidential election, prevented at least 90,000 votes from being cast, in part, by using a techniques called "caging" for which a mid-80's court order is still in effect against the RNC. Not only did she not go to jail but she was never charged and went, instead, to the US House of Representatives.
5) Who ever thinks "the Democrats are in charge" (especially in the last three years) has very potent drugs or has had his/her head wedged firmly up their nether portal.
I had to stop reading at that point before I smashed my computer and/or impaled myself, eyes first, onto red hot javelins.
John Puma
John that article had me down all day thanks for sanity.
Since we don't live in a utopia where everyone is healthy, wealthy and wise and cares deeply about all others, government is needed to force people to sometimes sacrifice some of their own narrow self interest for the common good. In the sense that government by its nature curtails absolute freedom to ensure a minimum level of collective benefit, it is a necessary evil.
Politics, at least outside of the land where there is a perfect candidate with a perfect platform that can be easily achieved (and unicorns shit gold ingots), is and always has been about choosing the lesser of two evils.
Deal with it.
gore lost in florida by a single vote, 5-4.
NO.
Defending a vote for Nader in 2000 is pathetic. Such a vote is political masturbation, NOTHING more. Of course on top of that, Gore won anyway, and the election was stolen both in Florida and in the Supreme Court. Nonetheless, people who voted for Nader enabled the theft, and that's the goddam truth. And by the way--emboldened, the thieves are now stealing the process wholesale, state by state, following rules laid down by the Kochs and others, and also destroying both hard-won women's rights and union rights.
"Widespread voter fraud aside, Nader achieved 97,488 votes in Florida. If just 538 of those votes for Nader had been for Al Gore instead, the history of the last 10 years might have been significantly different."
Widespread bleeding from lacerations aside, it was his hiccups that ultimately killed the patient.
Seriously, fuck Bob Cesca.
Dang. I thought Cesca made a pretty valid point--the Democratic Party lines up pretty well with the progressive agenda, Blue Dogs notwithstanding. The more Dems in the House and Senate, the better political leverage the progressive agenda has, even over a minority opposition from Republicans. The same goes in State Legislatures, my own state being a great example: the overwhelming majority of anti-union Republicans rammed "right-to-work" through the Senate and the House! There is a genuine difference in platforms between Democrats and Republicans. Only Republicans benefit from believing otherwise.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing.
Bush might certainly have been a terrible President but what made him a truly terrible President was 9/11.
Without that it would be highly unlikely he could have gone into Iraq, invaded Afghanistan, illegally wiretapped citizens, detained suspects with no trial at Guantanamo and all the rest that I've blocked from memory because I'm afraid I will have a stroke.
Does Mr Bob really think that progressives would have voted for Nader knowing what would be in store?
People voted for Nader because people were fed up with corporatist democrats.
If Gore had been in power during the 9/11 attacks he would probably have been impeached by the republicans for failing to defend the country. I do not believe they would have rallied around the president the way the democrats did for Bush.
Sorry, I should have finished Mr Bobs article before commenting. Rookie mistake. Please ignore.
Mr Cesca's conclusion is hard to disagree with: vote for the Democrat in the short term and push leftward in the long term. But the way he gets there is littered with strawmen.
I don't know anyone who thought there was no difference between Bush and Gore. I know many people who recognized that despite Gore's literary output, he was/is a corporatist thru and thru and spent eight years as VP refusing to work for anything he had written about ("progressive lion"?!?). But most importantly, the proximate cause of the vast destruction of the Bush years was not Ralph Nader, it was the complete and utter enabling and capitulation of the establishment Democrats in Bush's appointment to the presidency and the eight years of Republican raping and pillaging that followed. One almost could think that the Democratic establishment laid down just so they could whine about the people who voted for Nader.
Whatever. According to your reasoning, we should prefer midget zombies because they take smaller bites.
The HuffinStuff sellouts and those of the self-proclaimed professional left (if "professional" is to "left" as "special" is to "olympics") have one problem they just can't seen to answer: what exactly is in the agenda of the neoliberal/neoconservative wings of the two parties that's worth waiting around for? More free trade agreements? More "humanitarian interventions"? More open money spigot support for the investment banksters?
Life's short. You, Driftglass, and me, and lots of others are just getting older and more adrift from our original principles and not one iota closer to achieving them by supporting one or the other half of facade covering the same fucking power structure.
Obviously, we can't count on you guys to get discomforted in an effort to make real change. That's something the fundies have all over you and why they'll always have more impact than you guys. And that's fucking pathetic.
Time to get off the fake hopium and start smoking the real hopium.
First, Gore, lost his own damn state, Tennessee. That's a 26 vote electoral swing right there. Was that Nader's fault that he couldn't win his own state?
And BTW, last I checked, Gore won Florida except he eschewed the radical and fair strategy-- demand a total statewide recount. Instead, he went with the centrist, don't make waves, lesser evil choice of trying to game the recount just like Bush. And the other half of the same power structure handed him his ass.
ANd having had his ass handed to him, he, like you, meekly accepted it as the lesser of two evils. The evil he avoided was a massive challenge to the whole execrable system that carried itself into 2004 and cost Kerry Ohio. Was THAT Nader's fault?
It was choosing the lesser of two evils (not starting a national riot over a stolen election) that got us Bush. I don't see you people taking any responsibility for that.
You evil pickers are just weak, and frightened, and unable to muster the personal strength to roll the dice like there's nothing to lose. And that's because you dwell in a delusion that there is still something to lose. And there may be. It's just that for a lot of us, the stuff left to lose isn't worth all that much.
Civil liberties gone, perpetual world wide war, banks firmly in control of the legislature and pretty much the executive branch. Whatever is left to lose ain't worth a shit. But by all means, cling to Obama's and the Dem's bullshit because that's all you'll end up getting.
Crooks and liars, Driftglass and Bob Cesca. My three essential blogs,with a Mugsy's rap sheet and a Vagabond scholar thrown in on the side.
That Gore "let" Bush win without a fight is all that needs to be said.
Evil is still evil whether by gentlemanly courtesy(Gore) or outright theft by glaringly vicious behavior (Bush).
that was the reason for voting Republican all the years since Reagan. To own the Government, the Supreme Court in particular.
so far i haven't seen much by the idiots called American, who haven't ever bothered to hold Republicans accountable. Hell, these Zombies still vote Republican.
so i don't care about the lesser of evil theory. the reality is much, much worse.
Obama is the perfect Republican candidate. Obama has started defunding Social Security by the "Payroll Tax Cut". Obama offered this. NO Republican could have done this.
so show me a bad Republican, and i'll show you the same in Democratic clothes.
yes, there are degrees of bad. once the water boils, do degrees of heat make "much" of a difference. We are cooked, anyway. so Obama is less bad, lol. that may be true. i'll have to remember that when i see Geithner, Rubin Summers, et al, at Obama's side.
when you sell your soul, aka lesser of evil, we are merely haggling about price.
I don't think I have ever seen a group of comments (here and on his blog) which (albeit unintentionally) demonstrate Cesca's point so succinctly. He could have written the actual article based on the various players who showed up to attack it.....
I only hope the nihilists who really believe both sides are the same do what they usually do on election day: Stay the fuck home...
Well, I don't think I've ever seen (the post link) such a compelling argument for taking what ultimately is a spineless milk toast three monkey position. The current disappointment with the democrats generally and Obama in particular has nothing to do with Ralph Nader, and everything to do with how far the demcratic party has drifted from the party of FDR and dissolved into little more than a weak tea version of republican corporatist ideology.
I've been wondering when the big Obama redux rodeo would f(as it inevitably would) finally kick into gear, and cattle prod all those disaffected and disenchanted wondering little doggies back into the corral for a short rail trip up to the Chicago stock yards and slaughterhouses.
This must be the moment.
Those attacking, or cyber-"Fuck Bob Cesca"ing are so off base here. By all means critique this, or any other, article or blog post - thats your right. But as an avid reader and listener and when I can contributor of both Mr. Cesca's outlets and those of Driftglass and Blue Gal, I will respectfully ask that you take a deep breath and refocus that venom at the real problems. I wonder why this was posted without any sort of comment by DG. Interesting to see how his readers ran with it though!
"..party of FDR.." Yeah, the party has changed. The Republicans have drifted from the party of Lincoln too.
Its almost like the world has changed or something.
Also, FDR was far, far from perfect. His record looks better through the lense of hindsight.
All I have to say is, if the Wisconsin Democratic Party handles the recall election against Scott Walker (and yes, I'll be at the polls even if I need three clothespins for my nose, because so much is at stake) the way the Gore campaign handled Election 2000, you won't have Mr. R. to kick around anymore because I will probably stop caring about political matters entirely. (Every cloud really does have a silver lining, however meager!)
Let's be clear hear the real reason Cesca is getting crap is that it's from Bob Cesca, one of the many people who got famous for writing W is dumb, and now writes mainly as one of our President's PR people.
Cesca is not a political organizer, and to go around telling people to organize from your apartment in Hawaii is being nothing more than an armchair activist.
well, robspl, i didn't know that about bob cesca. i'm writing because as others have amply made the point, what cesca wrote is afflicted with a serious case of teh stupids, aggressively so, and if he really and truly believes it -- which i doubt -- then he has no business writing a column and needs to enroll in a basic logic course or two.
one more time, for those is the back of the class, gore DIDN'T lose florida, it was taken from him, and to put "widespread voter fraud aside" to blame naderites is on a par with "aside from that, how was the play, mrs. lincoln?"
and it goes without saying that gore's inability to win his home state trumps whatever bashing of the nader straw man cesca chooses to engage in. it goes without saying because cesca, a craven provocateur, doesn't take up the issue. lame.
no, he wanted to pick a fight that he and his lost long ago. he's right about one thing: there is no doubt that life on this planet would have been better had gore been in the white house, not bush. but, with that agreed to, the gore apologists should at least have the cojones to accept their own responsibility for failing to make that happen. instead, they are forever blaming others. project much?
yes, yes you do...
Losing Florida had nothing to do with Nader. That theory has been debunked several times already. Gore won Florida but the SC intervened and installed Bush. It was a cou.
Nader had no expectations of winning but ran to keep his platform in the conversation and to get the Green party in the process.
I'm really surprised you allowed this 'Nader lost Florida for Gore' crap to go forward on your site.
Ask Thom Hartman to explain it to ya dude...he voted for Nader.
If Nader bows out, and Gore takes say 60% of those 97,488 votes - some 57,000 additional votes - his margin would surely have been harder to "cover up". Yes Gore was a dolt, yes Florida and the 2000 election were stolen, but I think Bob's point is that nothing good can come from staying home or (seriously??!)supporting Ron Paul just because President Obama, in the face of unprecedented obstructionism, hasnt fulfilled everything on our progressive bucket list. If you've read more than a post/article or two of Bob Cesca's, I don't think you'd be so quick to demonize him. His blog and podcast and this blog and podcast lead the way for me.
I have little love these days for Ralph Nader. I think the events of the past decade have amply displayed he has feet of clay, and he's made enough stupid mistakes of his own - and some pretty damned easily aviodable mistakes, in some cases - to merit plenty of criticism of the man entirely on his own merits. His choice to march in solidarity with the fascists during the Terri Schiavo affair was breath-taking in its sheer stupidity and lack of political insight, quite apart from the larger issues at hand in that whole sorry episode. Indeed, I thought it was a particularly arrogant slap in the face to all the poor chumps who had voted for him in 2000.
But the only motivation for bringing Nader up here as Cesca does is to shore up that clearly corrupt gang of bloodless "centrist" corpratists known as the Democratic party "leadership." In other words, "Shut up and do as you're told, peasants." Yes, Gore was the lesser of two evils in the 2000 election. As such, I would have held my nose and voted for him over Bush if I had to (I'm not American, so it wasn't a decision I had to make), but as that election got closer and closer, I was increasingly appalled and horrified by how feckless, cowardly, and downright fuckin' incompetent Gore's campaign was. The sorry, but the Democrats lost 2000 entirely on their own; Hell, they "lost" even though they actually won! And then proceeded to roll around in puddles of their own piss, sobbing and boo hooing that it was unreasonable for the grubby peasants who'd voted for them to actually expect them to, oh, do anything while the Rethugs openly and unashamedly stole the election in the light of day.
Luckily, they had Nader as a handy scapegoat. For that reason alone, he would have been well advised to stay out of it.
Bullshit demands to be demonized.
Who the fuck IS Bob Cesca to call Nader a "careerist troll," for example. There are precious damn few people I can name who are worthy to gather up Nader's political toe nail clippings. From the BS he generated here, I guarantee you that Cesca is not be worthy to pump Danforth Quayle's political septic tank.
Obama catered and pandered to Republicans for 22 months in his apparent case of pathological bipartisanship AFTER the GOP loudly and repeatedly said they wanted him to fail and would do anything to see that happen.
As a result, many who voted for him 2008, were, at best, not interested enough to make it out to the 2010 mid terms. The result, the vast Dem majority in the House shifted to GOP and there was NO hope of getting a filibuster-proof majority in the senate.
ALSO, since 2010 was a census year, the midterm fiasco put GOP governors in charge of 29 states just in time for congressional redistricting.
GOP obstructionism either, inexplicably, did not register with the Obama administration or it was too skilless/gutless to do anything but make it worse.
His two triumphs, DADT repeal and refusal to defend DOMA were simply cleaning up the mess of a previous Democrat impersonator.
The health care fiasco was al about kissing GOP asses. If SCOTUS, Inc. overturns Obama's "signature" legislation this summer the GOP nominee will be sailing with teabag fervor.
I ask you, how could an extension of Medicare to all Americans ever have been accepted for judicial review, much less be put in peril of repeal?
Not politically possible? Did you notice what happened with the Komen foundation in the last few days. Touch the people and they give you support. There was 65% approval for some sort of public option FOR MONTHS.
Obama buried the issue in wonkism. He studiously avoided any bold, public leadership but, instead, privately courted the likes of Grassley and insurance moguls. THAT is why there were nothing but collective political groans as opposed to grass roots support that even GOP obstructionism could not have diverted.
Oh, yes, can we expect Cesca to ring a little blog bell when Obama begins the Herculean "fight" that he sincerely promised in order to prevent the second extension of Bush tax cuts for the 0.001% ... immediately after handing over the first extension to retrieve hostage #43?
The great democratic experiment of two centuries is heaving its desperate death rales after 40 years of vicious abuse. And we are supposed to think timid, polite, deferential incrementalism is the answer? WTFU
John Puma
"Bullshit demands to be demonized", replied Lucifer
Anyone else find it strange that most of Drifty's posts tend to get a max of 10 comments, but as soon as he reposts an article that contains the name of a certain socially-regressive fiscal-"libertarian" Republican, the number of comments triples and a significant number of them seem to be of the "both sides are the same - vote third party" variety.
Almost as if there's a bunch of keyboard warriors looking for blogs who mention a certain person... I guess they don't call them "P**lbots" for nothing!
I wish some commenter, blogger, pundit or writer would address the profound disappointment and despair of those who have become disillusioned with our President *without* calling them "babies" (as I heard recently on the Liberal Oasis podcast) or raising the spectre of Nader 2000.
It's specious at best and dishonest at worst and mirrors the basest of Rovian tactics. This blinkered "la-la-la not listening/let's keep this train rolling" mentality is a trait progressives once derided rightwing conservatives for.
And those who sneer at third-party options as a pipe dream should be reminded that abolitionists, "suffragettes" and civil rights activists of old used to be attacked likewise.
Have at me.
@Jasper,
I think you're taking off-the-cuff remarks too close to heart, but the truth is that they have a point. Idealism is great in it's place, but reality will always find a way to kick idealism's arse - especially when the forces of regression have a gigantic financial advantage and a lot to lose. Presidents who tried to do too much too soon in modern times ended up assassinated either in terms of character (Carter) or literally (JFK), with the conservative orthodoxy returning to power, emboldened, within a term of it happening. This isn't hyperbole, it's just the plain truth.
Abolitionists and suffragettes achieved their aims during times of social upheaval and war - in fact the postwar consensus following WWII came directly from the understanding that if you're going to ask the working and middle classes to die for their country, then the country owes them a reasonable standard of living in recompense, a consensus which the ultra-rich have been trying to tear to shreds since the 1950s.
In a political system where billions of dollars are required to stand the slightest chance of success, that puts the rich at an unbelievable advantage and it would be foolhardy in this day and age to take them on directly.
@bluepillnation,
With all due respect, my idealism is *very* much informed with realism. And I've seen plain truth firsthand; all I have to do is go back home.
Speaking as someone of swarthy complexion and living in the American south, and who often gets "that look" from the locals, I can't but help take it to heart. When I consider things like permanent detention, assassination of American citizens abroad, warrantless wiretaps and the sudden flexibility of that whole habeus corpus thing those looks tell me, "just one slip the wrong way and you're next, brownie." I haven't seen our President reverse those terrible decisions and we know enough about history to understand that such powers will not always be used justly and risk being turned on the populace.
I'm huge on civil liberties and human rights not only because its right and just, but because I'm one generation removed from a people who weren't permitted access into certain places because of their culture and skin color—only two generations removed from people who were forced into boarding schools and corralled into ghettos called "reservations". I've seen firsthand the defeat and despair of my family as they hovered above and below poverty, and I've experienced the psychic damage of all that entails.
Long story short: this is far from a romantic notion. I *know* what a Republican victory means. I strongly suspect I'll hold my nose, control my gag reflex and vote for Obama again, but it will be against my principle to do so. And it utterly guts me when I hear someone go off about how those on the left who are critical of Obama are just "whining" or delusional or unrealistic. Anyone who's not pulling a six-figure income knows there's some real pain going on down in the trenches and to sneer at those who express feelings of betrayal smacks of bourgeoisie glibness and it's unconscionable.
I appreciate your attempt at dialogue with me.
I have the best commenters in the blogosphere.
@Jasper
As someone who also knows the "you don't belong here" look (though due to social class and means or lack thereof rather than melanin levels) I understand where you're coming from. But change in this media-centric day and age is going to be more gradual than it has been in the past. Every generation of western kids seems to understand more implicitly that racism is wrong - so we just have to keep the trend going.
I still think you're being a little over-sensitive regarding some blogs and commenters however. I'm not seeing accusations of immaturity or "whining" in response to criticism of President Obama per se, but I do see it aimed instead at a specific kind of criticism - namely the kind that demands actions that would be political suicide in the current climate and signs off with "...so I'm sitting out the next election/voting third party". *That's* immature, and not unlike a kid who won't eat their dinner or tidy their room unless they get what they want right now, even in the face of an honest promise that they'll get a treat later.
It seems a significant number of otherwise intelligent and empathetic people have yet to understand the concept of deferred gratification. In this case you have a political climate that has been dragged further to the right, inch-by-inch, for the last 32 years at least. Even Bubba Clinton only managed to slow the process down to some extent, and for that he was pilloried by the Right, who spent billions digging up dirt on him until they had something with which they could attempt to impeach him. The only reason their shellacking of Obama (who, as you say, is even less able to halt the slide) is so impotent is because they didn't think he'd beat Hillary to the nomination - what do you think they'd do to a President who gave you everything you wanted?
I view change (policy, social, etc.) in our media-centric era as something that comes more quickly than it once did. See: the Komen Foundation firestorm.
I'm not sure about your perception of race and western society, but it's still a contentious issue down this way. And the internet seems to be yet another flashpoint.
I'll accept that I am over-sensitive, in that I want someone to care about my political opinion and not dismiss it cavalierly. My specific demands of our President were promises he made during his campaign and certainly would not have amounted to political suicide of any kind; especially not when he and the Democratic party held the reins of power for two full years.
I know his critics play on this but what defense is there when he had 2 years of a Dem Congress, a populous tired of GOP malfeasance and his tactical decision was to try to reach some sense of accord with the lunatics on the right and take legislative baby steps? Some defenders put this down to a mysterious long form strategy but I cannot see it.
I agree with your charge our generation's want for immediate gratification, but it cannot be dismissed that Obama played to that desire with his "Hope" campaign and with his heady campaign promises—he didn't just lightly tease that bundle of neurons, he gripped it with both hands and yanked it like a friar tolling a church bell until it pealed far and wide. And then he rode that endorphin rush all the way to the White House. For him to do this and then a couple of years later say, "Whoa, whoa…slow your roll, everybody" and *not* expect cries of foul play from those fervently caught up in his rhetoric just seems unfair.
Again, civil liberties and social justice were the hill I chose to die on and as such it will be a bitter pill to swallow to vote for him again. But I probably will. I just wish the dialogue with those left disillusioned and (seemingly) disenfranchised were less of a dismissive, accusatory nature. There are legitimate complaints to be heard.
Of course there are legitimate complaints to be heard - however at the same time achievement is constrained by possibility, and it is a sad truism that the higher up the pyramid you get, the less room for manoeuvre you have.
Today Clinton is vilified almost as much by progressives for not doing enough during his two terms as he was by conservatives during his time in office - and yet those same conservatives howled from the rooftops that he was some kind of un-american socialist for the changes he did make. I suspect that a lot of the things progressives now vilify him for (passing NAFTA for example) were essentially a quid pro quo to get some leeway for small progressive reforms with a pathologically antagonistic Republican Congress - but his greatest legacy in office was turning a sizeable deficit into a respectable surplus, which I'm sure he intended to pass on to Al Gore to keep things moving in the right direction.
Instead, you had the Bush Administration piss the whole thing away on military and security boondoggles (most of which were resurrected Cold War projects - completely useless against terrorist cells), which has left Obama even more limited than Clinton was in terms of room for manoeuvre in terms of financial standing alone - and like Clinton, even the little he has managed to do has come at the expense of being called an un-american socialist by the Right, which has consolidated it's hold on media even more aggressively than it was in Clinton's day.
If President Obama were to do all the things being asked of him by progressives, I could guarantee you a one-term presidency followed by a lurch even further to the right. Both Clinton and Obama know this - they (and the Democratic Party as a whole) saw what happened to Jimmy Carter and changed tack accordingly - just as the Republicans did following Nixon's defeat in 1960 and resignation following Watergate.
The issue is that the very nature of progressives, being humanist in nature if not in name, is that they tend to take "First Do No Harm" as a baseline. Even self-proclaimed "fighting liberals" like the beloved and much-missed Gilly took the fight only to those who were causing harm and deserved to be rhetorically threshed and politically sidelined. Regressive conservatives don't care who they steamroller as long as the result suits them. This is why Democratic politicians try to find consensus even as the Republicans wilfully double down on the crazy - because the former care what's at stake and the latter clearly do not. Combine this fundamental drive with the woeful financial situation and the aggressive antagonism of the right-wing media and you have your answer.
Yes it's frustrating, but it may bring some comfort to remember Aesop's tortoise and hare. Push too far too soon and you'll get cocky and lose (which is particularly true of the previous administration). Slow and sure is the way...
Fair points all around.
I have the Gilliard Doctrine tattooed on my heart and it's probably among the chief reasons reason I haven't checked out of the game.
Thank you sir.
Steve Gilliard was an exceptionally talented and visceral writer, and he was also a very concise and precise wordsmith. In the paean to being a "fighting liberal" that we all know and love he used the phrase:
"I want to stop them".
He didn't want to kill, annihilate, crush, dismember, maim or hurt them in a physical sense - even as he pointed out how destructive and morally bankrupt they and their creed were, and I like to think that was because he knew in his heart that to cross that line would be to become like them, and make any eventual victory over them an empty, pyrrhic one.
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