Barack Obama vs. the progressives
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“As a candidate, Barack Obama endorsed the idea of allowing consumers to import cheaper pharmaceuticals from other industrialized countries. In the Senate he co-sponsored a bill that pushed the idea.
But now that he’s president and is taking money from the pharmaceutical lobby (PhRMA) to help get his bullshit health care bill passed, his administration is backtracking.” ~ Matt Taibbi
This makes me think of the Tea Parties. Leaders of these Tea Parties promise a return to small government, but for the most part whenever conservatives have been elected into power, the actual return to small government is fairly limited. Reagan had a few solid victories. Bush – not so much. When you’re out of power, it’s easy to promise the world. Think of Eric Cartman haranguing Wendy (if you’re a South Park fan) over the direction South Park Elementary was headed. There are limits to what you can achieve when you’re actually in the White House. When you represent a district or a state, you still have a vastly smaller constituency than you do as president. As a legislator, you can propose and modify laws. As president you have a veto pen.
More importantly, the president has to do the thankless work of actually governing, and that means building coalitions, making compromises, and trying to please a very wide swath of America including its special interests. Obviously you can’t please everyone. You have to work within a system that is its own entity, whose gears turn largely on their own. This is difficult terrain to navigate, and it’s a bit starry-eyed to think Obama could push the sort of agenda die-hard progressives projected on to their candidate. Thus we have post after post from Matt Taibbi leveling one silly charge after another, as though Barack Obama was elected just to pursue the electoral wishes of the Matt Taibbis of the world. See how quickly the starry-eyed turn bitter?
It’s the expectations that are at fault here. Anyone who thinks their president will radically change the world is drinking the kool-aid. The only way a president can really exert the extent of their power is in foreign policy, and how could there be any doubts about Obama’s foreign policy agenda?
If Obama passes this “bullshit health care bill” (which I’ve admitted is far from perfect, and which has at times frustrated the hell out of me, too) then he will have done something few presidents could possibly achieve. It’s no small accomplishment after just over a year. More to the point, if healthcare fails you might as well kiss the whole idea good-bye. And I suppose Taibbi thinks that it could succeed in the Senate if it was somehow a more progressive president at the helm – that this would somehow magically end the threat of filibuster and shore up 60 solid votes?
It’s time for progressives like Taibbi to realign their expectations with the demands of reality. The art of governance is hard and requires more than naive idealism. It’s fair to be critical, but at a certain point this sort of wishful thinking gets tiresome. It becomes the easy way out.
Then again, if you really want something to get done in Washington, maybe it’s time to start pushing for the repeal of the filibuster….
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[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Tweets Tube, E.D. Kain. E.D. Kain said: Barack Obama vs. the progressives http://tinyurl.com/yejswb9 @trueslant [...]
From which planet did you just arrive?
Obama was elected by voters, like myself, who were in Fall 2008 experiencing a very uncharacteristic feeling of ‘hope for change’ (hey, wait does that phrase strike a bell?) Because he campaigned endlessly to that regard, it seems a little more than disheartening that on pretty much all fronts, using the guise of ‘compromise’ and ‘political reality’, every major thrust of his campaign platform (War, Economy, Healthcare) has lost any significant momentum to essentially take us back to status quo (i.e. not change).
Oh, and you should tone down the celebrity envy. It flared up – a rich shade of deep green – when you called Taibbi naive. That guy has forgotten more about politics than you’ll ever know.
Do I sense a Taibbi fanboy on my thread?
I joke. I’m sure that’s not the case.
However, it is naive to think that only progressives elected Obama. That’s silly. That assumes that over 50% of the country are progressives. A lot of people – even progressives – elected someone that they thought would be competent. You’d have to be delusional that all that hope and change meant some wave of progressivism given Obama’s stand on issues like Afghanistan etc.
But what do I know? Taibbi’s forgotten more about politics than I’ll ever know so why even bother?
In response to another comment. See in context »Against better judgment, let me help you out here Erik. ‘Fanboy’ is a term that refers to a devotee of comics/films, usually of the science fiction sort.
Now i love comics and film, don’t get me wrong: one needs serious escapist indulgences in this day and age when our political system is broken on a fundamental level. But back to why i read Taibbi: it’s the opposite of escapist entertainment. He’s one of a small aggregate of reporters that isn’t afraid to document the truth at a time when most of the news media has become just as sold-out and broken as the political system that elects leaders that are expected(?) by many upstanding but daft individuals to actually go back on their campaign promises (now that’s Kool-Aid my friend.)
Again, since you called me a fanboy (sarcastically but nonetheless), that suggests that i’m a devotee of a fictitious/fantastical body of work. (btw – What you are doing is the typical response of all of Taibbi’s detractors. A standard ad hominem attack that attempts to belittle the accused so as to make him appear like he doesn’t know what he is talking about, when you really have nothing substantive to say to diminish the ugly truth that has been reported.) So, here it is, Erik. I linked it for you to make your job easier. Now prove that this is fiction, and i’m just a fanboy, by pointing out all the factual and judgment errors contained therein.
In response to another comment. See in context »