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| Good Speaker When He Speaks Up |
Again like many others, I had sat for eight years glued to C-Span and MSNBC watching the Bush years trudge by with anger and disbelief at the lies and wars and economic collapse that had been the lowlights of that period.
Like many Democrats I had started off as a Clinton fan only to have him seem to get more conservative with each passing year of his presidency. We got welfare "reform" and the deregulation of the financial industry; pharmaceutical companies were allowed to begin advertising their products. To say the Clinton years were a setback for the progressive agenda is putting it lightly. We got the financial collapse from the banks in our country going absolutely crazy from lack of restraint and pharmaceutical and health care costs went through the roof.
So on that night, going on six years ago, I saw a man taking the reins who was a confirmed warrior for the disadvantaged, a crusader for the little guy, and I had all the hope in the world. Now is finally our chance to stick it to them. A revolution of the progressive spirit of Teddy Roosevelt a hundred years prior.
Rather than that long hoped for renewal what we got for the support, the dreams, the money, the shouting was nothing. I mean literally nothing. Well, yea, there's the healthcare thing, but as I pointed out in my previous post "The Myth of Affordable Care for the Poor" it is merely more of the same. It's a benefit for big money and the real poor in this country can hardly feel better off. They're mostly like me, either shifting over to Medicare or stuck in a red state that didn't expand Medicare benefits and stuck in the hole with no insurance still.
Just a reminder, Guantanamo is still open and running like it has since it opened. The banks and financial institutions that caused the Great Recession are mostly still going just fine, business as usual, and for the most part bigger and richer than before. The gap between the richest and poorest Americans has continued to get larger. Never in the history of our country has the disparity been so glaring. Never before has so much money been concentrated in the hands of so few. Wages are still stagnant. Most of the new jobs that have been created are low paying service jobs.
Certainly some of this can be put on the Congress. Despite Republican claims that Democrats controlled all the power in DC until the 2010 elections which cost the Dems the House, there has never been a filibuster proof majority in the Senate. Republicans have threatened to or actually filibustered everything the president has tried to get through except the Affordable Care Act. In fact, this Congress has actually been the most ineffective in the history of our country. They passed something like 58 bills out of the House and over 40 of those were attempts to repeal the ACA.
But despite the excuses that are legitimate, Obama has still been a terribly ineffective leader. He can take credit for a few things like killing bin Laden, handling Libya, getting Iran to the table. But with the full popular weight of the American people behind him Obama has backed down in regulating the banks, implementing gun control, raising the minimum wage, in short he has failed to act on anything on the progressive agenda even though some of those issues have been far over a clear majority in public opinion.
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| Obama's Birth Certificate |
From the fringe the teabaggers have been lobbing grenades since they started in response to Obama's election. Their fears of a "socialist, Marxist, black foreigner" led to their creation. And with evidence that he is clearly not even close to being socialist or Marxist and after displaying birth certificates those attacks have gone on unabated. Obama has had ample opportunity to get in front of this and send the Republicans reeling. But he has chosen what I guess he feels is the high road and tried to stay above it.
Well that's fine if you're running for class treasurer in high school. Most people that watch Fox News, and that's a lot of people unfortunately, still believe most of the lies. Aside from issuing a copy of his birth certificate Obama has been a punching bag. He has alluded to the Republican obstructionism from time to time but the average American has no idea how the Congress even works. All they see is that the Senate is more than half Democrat and think that means something.
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| Freak Leader Ted Cruz (R), Texas |
Most infuriating to me is that for the past six years we've endured the birther garbage from the lunatic fringe. Then along comes wingnut Ted Cruz, Republican Senator from Texas and teabagger favorite. Turns out he actually was born in Canada. Looks like he's out of the running for 2016, oh no! But wait, his mother is American. Guess what? That means he can legally be president and is actually a U.S. citizen. Uh, what?!?!? So you mean that since Obama's mother was American that even if he was born in Kenya he would still be a U.S. citizen and the birther nonsense would have been a moot point? Well apparently, yes. Wonder if anybody in the Obama administration knew this. The answer is of course they did. They just wanted to look like they were above such stupid accusations. But for God's sake look at the cost! There are still people who think he is an illegitimate president because of the Obama administration's years of inaction.
Obama has handled the right like this throughout his presidency. It's as if he thinks the American people are too smart to fall for obvious lies and what passes for news on Fox, Limbaugh, the Drudge Report. Guess what Barack? They're not! A solid number of Americans still think Iraq had nuclear weapons. They believe in ghosts. They believe in death panels. Global warming is a hoax. Dinosaurs and humans lived at the same time. The number on the bottom of a bottle of Tabasco indicates the level of heat in the sauce. Starbucks refuses to serve coffee to the American troops. Americans are by and large idiots. They will literally believe anything they see in print or on TV.
The bully pulpit is a powerful thing and Obama has made no use of it at all. He has not taken a stand for anything but the ACA which is a far cry from the single payer system most progressives had hoped for.
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| "Pull my finger!" says Chris Christie |
The danger of what could be for Dems in 2014 and 2016 is being realized now. A report from Reuters today showed that adults aged 18-29, Obama's key demographic in 2008 are becoming increasingly disillusioned with him as a leader. More than 50% said they disapproved of his handling of things from international issues to the economy. That would be worse news if it weren't for the 75% who feel similarly about the Republicans in Congress. But these are the people who get out the vote and get riled up by populist issues. If the Republicans put somebody like Chris Christie up in 2016 he is highly likely to appeal to this group.
Democrats like me are a terribly deflated bunch. Pundits like Rachel Maddow and Ed Schultz are trying to put a happy face on Obamacare but it just feels so hollow. I'm sure in the long run it will be a boon for most average Americans but it just falls so short on the progressive scale. Next on the agenda might be some of what's called "comprehensive immigration reform". Basically that means giving everybody here illegally a pass and more pressure on low wage earning legal Americans. So while solidifying the Latino base you'll have many poor blacks and whites just feeling more disenfranchised. This brings to mind the term Reagan Democrats. Same group. Well except for the blacks but it's a big chunk of white people.
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| Hillary Clinton - aka Cheney Light |
But Obama is gone in 2016 so what's next? It looks like it will be Hillary Clinton. I think most progressives would look forward to that as much as they'd look forward to Joe Lieberman. She's far to the right of Obama. And I mean far to the right of the Obama of now, not the Obama we thought we were getting. That means it's going to be very hard to whip up the base unless women just vote for Hillary based on her sex. She would actually make Obama look like a Marxist. She's been sucking up to AIPAC for the past several years having to get money to run for office in New York. She'd be hawkish, crazily pro-Israel, anti-Iran, if Obama is Bush light she'd be Cheney light.
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| Populist Goddess Elizabeth Warren |
As a populist, a socialist, all that scary stuff I'm a firm supporter of Elizabeth Warren for 2016. Not sure if she'd be willing to challenge Hillary and she'd lose to Christie, but if the Republicans put some nut job like Cruz or Rand Paul up she'd win heavy. One thing I know is that if Dems go through another four years of something like Obama, which I think would happen under Hillary, they're going to bail and Warren will look like a welcome change. As for now I am so sick of Obama's meek leadership along with the equally meek Harry Reid in the Senate I wouldn't mind suffering through four years of Republican lunacy just to get a good shot at Warren in 2020.
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