End of the Age of Obama - Democratic Underground

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Mon Nov-08-10 02:19 PM
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End of the Age of Obama

End of the Age of Obama
Wed, 11/03/2010 - 21:36 — Glen Ford

The Democrats’ defeat could turn into legislative disaster if President Obama continues to follow his “bipartisan” impulses. Obama’s past determination to find common cause with Republicans spells catastrophe under the infinitely less favorable terms of the new Congress. “We can only hope that the Republicans are so consumed with destroy-Obama fervor that they reject his entreaties to bipartisan collaboration,” and rush to gridlock.

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There was every reason to expect that many whites would reflexively scapegoat Blacks and browns in the wake of the economic meltdown of 2008 unless there were some countervailing rallying call for mobilization around a larger, socially cohesive national mission: a massive jobs and public works program. President Obama, the corporate Democrat, chose instead to transfer trillions in public wealth to Wall Street, the salient act of his tenure that overwhelmed – and, in much of the public’s perception, was conflated with – his wholly inadequate stimulus effort. The long and revelatory health care grind showed Obama’s eagerness to deal in the dark with the hated insurance and drug companies, to concoct a plan that essentially requires everyone to pay for private insurance. Even in friendly quarters, the glow was gone from his presidency, while the billionaire Koch brothers and Rupert Murdock fanned the flames of race hatred through their Tea Party “movement.”

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The corporate media wonder what will become of any future Obama initiatives with the House under firm Republican control and the Senate only nominally in Democratic hands. But, from a progressive standpoint, any new Obama initiatives should be feared like the plague. Even with Democrats in charge of both chambers of Congress, Obama persisted in attempting to forge a grand coalition with Republicans, which they steadfastly rebuffed. If he continues true to form in the next, much more troglodyte Congress – and there is no reason to think Obama won’t try – we will witness a repeat of the Clinton years, when a Democratic president oversaw passage of NAFTA, welfare "reform," vast expansion of the prison Gulag, and deregulation of Wall Street.

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Obama had his own plans to go down in history as the president that “reined in” so-called entitlements: Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare. On his own initiative, he caused the creation of a deficit cutting commission whose recommendations are due, next month. The president planned for commission members to threaten entitlements, whereupon he would position himself as the Great Compromiser and Conciliator, further weakening the safety net while pretending to salvage portions of it. But that was before Tuesday’s Republican tidal wave. In the new relationship of forces, an Obama attempt at triangulation on entitlements would invite utter catastrophe. We can only hope that the Republicans are so consumed with destroy-Obama fervor that they reject his entreaties to bipartisan collaboration. The people’s interests would best be served with the GOP charging ahead with their own Neanderthal agenda, forcing Obama to respond with vetoes, if necessary. The people have no champion in the White House or the Congress. The best we can hope for is that the two evils cancel each other out. Let there be gridlock.

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