Why We Fight: Understanding Liberal Anger over HCR and False Progressivism

[Bullet1987]

Let me be clear first and foremost, I do not now...nor have I ever WANTED Barack Obama to fail. I mean, I voted for the man so wanting him to fail is contradictory as hell. But with the three major policy decisions he's made in his first year (Bank bailouts, Afghanistan, HCR), his future don't look sunny with weather in the 80s. I believe Obama is setting HIMSELF up for failure. Sure, it's not all his fault...part of it is a compromised Senate with scumbags like Joe LIEberman acting as obstructionists just to spite Liberals. The guy is a straight up weasel. The fact that Obama supported this man and called him his mentor is not a really good sign. But of course, you can also blame CT for electing the bum (I wonder if they regret that or not)?

Now, to the point of the thread. There really seems to be two factions within the Democratic Party. One faction consists of us Liberals. The other faction consists of more Party Line supporters. I'm not going to call all of you DLCers or corporatists. But if a DLCer or corporatist did post on DU they certaintly wouldn't be with the camp expressing their anger towards Democrats. Putting it differently, you either support the proposed Senate bill or you don't. There isn't much of a grey area. So, why are we against it? If you asked members of the "other" camp it's because we're not being "rational." We're being "far-left" and we're acting like "teabaggers" in wanting the bill to fail. No, we DON'T want HCR to fail, we want the best bill possible. We want something that is even comparable to what other countries have...not some mutated, pro-corporate shill of a bill that only forces people to buy a bad product and helps so few people it shouldn't even be called reform. Calling the Senate bill reform is spitting in the face of reality. The Senate wants to play us for fools and they expect us to go along with whatever they propose. Well, Liberals aren't going to do it. Liberals don't bend over and take it up the butt very easily. What's interesting also is how our party seems to be the exact opposite of the Republican Party (again showing that we're nothing like the Rethugs). The base of the Republican Party walked in lockstep and right over the cliff with GWB. Evidence became irrelevent and it was like talking to a brick wall to them. The base of the Democratic Party is very different, we are naturally a very curious bunch (maybe sometimes too curious) and our curiosity shows itself in our holding our leaders accountable...something the base of the Republican Party NEVER did.

HCR is the single biggest mandate Obama has coming into office. More than government transparency, more than Gitmo, more than the bailouts (which liberals didn't like, but we didn't react the way we are now). Obama was going to be FDR and fight for a PO which again, liberals didn't want...we WANTED single-payer but we compromised. Liberals have stood in the background as we've watched Congress and the White House make compromise after compromise. Obama hasn't been anything close to a fighter on this issue which doesn't make him look good in the eyes of the base. To us, it looks like he's working for the insurance industry...not main street. I'd would rather have a fighter than goes down fighting for what he believes in, than a compromiser who gives in to what everyone ELSE wants and not the people who put him into office. THIS is the root of Liberal anger. Ezra Klein, Nate Silver, and all of the other self-proclaimed "Progressives" are missing this point. We're not complaining just to hear ourselves talk. Obama had the wind at his back and popular support...why hasn't he used it? Perhaps that's part of the problem...this fake politically-correct term known as "Progressive." Perhaps being a "progressive" doesn't include being a fighter. Liberals are fighters. We're not "progressives." You've had a lot of columnists and politicians calling themselves "progressive" because they want to have it both ways. They wanted to APPEAL to the Dem base, but they didn't want to scare off Independents and Republicans by calling themselves Liberal (also because they AREN'T liberal to begin with). This term progressive has no meaning and really should be dropped from use. The fight within the Party, since the Clinton administration, has always been between the Liberals and the DLCers (corporatists). For years Liberals were told to support the Party Line and believe in the Party...that everything would be ok if we got the numbers in the Senate and got a "progressive" President. We wanted Dean, and the party abandoned him. We wanted Ned Lamont, and the DLCers abandoned him. Everything we've ever asked OUR party for has been shot down time and time again. But we never rebelled. We had Bush in office and that's where we directed our anger. Barack Obama came along and we KNEW this was it. All of the waiting and being told to "wait our turn" by leaders of the Party was FINALLY going to be paid with results. Or so we thought. The anger that has erupted on DU is not all because of Obama, Obama is simply in the wrong place at the wrong time and Liberals are tired of being told by people like Klein and Silver to shut up. The same types of voices that told us we were getting real reform and we needed this and that are doing it AGAIN. Well, we're not waiting anymore. We want what we've been promised over all these years and if the apologists and cheerleaders on DU can't understand that...then so be it. It's like that sometimes.

[msongs]

1. nobody is afraid of Barack Obama. oh well, he's just a nice guy "in the wrong place...." nt

[Bullet1987]

8. People shouldn't be afraid of him

But they should take him seriously as a leader and fighter.

[yourout]

2. Good read....K & R.

[liberalpragmatist]

3. What exactly would you have Obama do with the Senate?

Look, as I've said on another forum, I think Obama has made some mistakes here, and I thoroughly disagree with Rahm and him telling Reid to give Lieberman what he wants.

But that being said, person after person complains that Obama should just "make" Ben Nelson, Blanche Lincoln and the like vote for it. How? There seems to be this "green lantern" theory of the presidency which is that if the president just wills it, senators will just bend.

The myth is that LBJ did that. But it isn't really true. LBJ suffered several major defeats. Medicare itself took 5 separate votes through the Kennedy Administration and the Johnson Administration. And Johnson had 68 Democrats, and several progressive Republicans. As Senate leader, he twisted and pushed, but yes, he usually watered things way down (see the 1958 Civil Rights Act).

This is the reality of governance in the United States. Even if you elect Dennis Kucinich you aren't going to get anywhere near what he promises, because the Senate is structurally conservative and the filibuster makes it even worse.

Yes, I think Obama has made some mistakes, but the idea that he could single-handedly get us anything close to single-payer is nonsense.

[Armstead]

5. You miss the ;point

It is the Democratic Party that is the problem in a more systemic sense than just Obama.

[Bullet1987]

7. His voice alone could go a long way

IDK. Possibly coming out and looking like a fighter. Going to hospitals and showing Congress what it really is we're fighting for. Make it personal. Make anyone who doesn't want REAL reform feel like a cold dog. Force them to pass real reform through EMOTION...the way Michael Moore made Sicko. Obama's entire approach to this, his whole style screams business as usual. There are MANY people who are extremely passionate about this issue because it effects them on a personal level. We're talking about our children here, our parents and grandparents. I think of movies like John Q with Denzel Washington, maybe parents don't hold hospitals hostage on a daily basis...but patients gets turned down...hundreds of them everyday. THIS is why we fight!

[Armstead]

4. Wish I could recommend this 5 times

My feelings exactly

[tledford]

6. K/R eom

[FrenchieCat]

9. Good Read!

Interesting of how you mention what we "wanted"....Dean, Lamont, etc....and that these folks were abandoned by certain wings of the party. You talk about how we never rebelled, that we were told to wait, and so we waited. But, what were we waiting on, exactly? Do you mean that we were waiting to rebel and go against our own party? Because that is how I intepret what you are saying.

I offer a different view of what false progressivism is. I suggest to you that perhaps we should have fought as opposed to simply "wanting"; and taken action as opposed to waiting.

This summer, when Obama really did start off with high approval ratings, the Town Hall maniacs started showing up on all of our televisions. They were everywhere for weeks! They were fighting and taking action. They were loud, angry and rebellious. And so....where were we at that time? Maybe we should have made sure that our voices were louder than theirs, instead of sitting on the sideline watching, waiting for someone else to do something. Perhaps that would have been a good time to rebel, against the other side....not so much ours.

I hear you though, and you make a lot of sense in answering why the anger is there. What I see though is that when it comes to taking action, we can point to the faults of this President, his administration or/and our elected Congressional Democrats. But inasmuch as that would be true, we ought to look at ourselves as well. Democrats were split from the get go. Some wanted single payer and nothing else, and were willing to fight the President for it; not fight his opponents so much. Others were willing to accept the PO, but it had to be a certain type of PO, and they rebelled against the President, because they felt he wasn't doing enough to support it. Other did not much more than offer weak support (not much marching, calling congress, or hitting back at the media via phone calls, letters and such), all along always finding criticism, not so much toward the true opponents of health Care reform, but againg, against our own. So some of us did in a sense rebel. We did in a sense fight. I just think we fought the wrong people. We fought those who could help us every step of the way, instead of doing what we could to match or surpass the voice of the opponents. They had a rally that was attended by thousands. We sat mainly on the Internet and discussed what it was that we were insisting on, and debating on whether the administration was doing right or doing wrong. You see, we have been doing this since the election, and we did it throughout the summer, and we never bothered to even consider to act on the premise that we were the one that we were supposed to be waiting for. Because believe you me, most of us didn't even bother to ever show up.

But yes, the administration has not acted as strongly as I would have anticipated.....which is why I keep on calling, and writing, and whatever else I need to do....
cause nothing is over, and nothing is set into any stone; Feeling defeated before the bill is done is more, in my mind of what I intepret as "false Progressivism". How weak can we possibly be, because again, we are claiming to have lost without ever having fought (except for fighting with ourselves), because we are still waiting for others to fight for us, and we continue to debate on the Internet and discuss whether the administration has done it right or wrong. Same as right after the election. We haven't changed, and yet we expect radical change like single payer, total withdrawal from Afghanistan, etc. Change that is radical cannot happen unless we are willing to stand up and fight. But most of us never fight the real opposition; we fight amongs ourselves, and then we fight against a Democratic administration constantly (and I mean constantly). And so here we are again, and who do we talk about fighting now? Who do we rebel against now? Personally, I think we will do what most of us have been doing; continue to lament about how everyone around us manipulated us, lied to us, misreprented themselves to us. So, False Progressivism = Acting as Weak Victims before, during and after. We only seem to want to fight ourselves; just like the democrats in Congress fight each other. Perhaps at the end of the day, we are getting exactly what we deserve; something weak, watered down, and tepid; because that is exactly the type of support the majority of us offered.

[SeattleGirl]

11. Well said, Frenchie

I, too, think Obama needs to do more, but I also think WE need to do more. To assume our job was done on election night when Obama won is just wrong. I remember on election night, Obama talked about how WE need to work for change. WE. The collective of you and me and everyone who gives a damn about what's going on in this country. Sometimes that's going to me calling and writing the White House with messages specifically for Obama. But it also means getting after your congress critters, telling them that what you think of what they're doing, and telling them what you want. I know, there are some who will say, "It won't do any good", but frankly, I don't believe that. Yeah, some of them won't listen to us no matter how much we yell, but others will listen. They will listen because what you say matters to them, or they will listen because they are scared they will lose their jobs. Doesn't matter why they listen; it matters that they DO.

Arguing with each other from behind our computer screens isn't going to help effect any change. If you're okay with that, well, so be it. But if you are a person who does care, but you think that Obama has tote this barge all by himself, you should think again. Instead of just typing posts on DU, fire off emails. Send them every day. Or take a minute and call.

If Obama does something you don't like, let him know about it. Let him know what you don't like and why you don't like it. And again, let your congress critters know too.

I know that many of them are in the pockets of the big corporations, and that pisses me off to no end. But instead of just sitting around bitching about it, I do what I can to make my voice heard. Perhaps if more of us did that, they would start getting the message. Maybe. Maybe they won't, but if we keep after them and they still don't change, then we get rid of them. We are not powerless, and we are not weak victims (as a whole; I'm not talking about people who are really in a hole and are having a hard time putting one foot in front of the other).

If we don't speak up, we share the blame for what does and doesn't happen.

[FrenchieCat]

15. Oh we speak up alright......just to the wrong people or at the wrong time.

We oftentime don't seem to be there to do the heavy lifting when the time is right.

Or we think we are supposed to do one thing, and then we can step back and
enjoy the fruits of our labor.....not realizing that we were supposed to have only
begun to fight. Determination and perseverance are virtues for a reason...
and change is hard precisely because it is hard, and therefore takes a whole lot of work,
constantly.

[Bullet1987]

12. Thanks Frenchie!

When I said we were waiting I was talking about for a "progressive" President. And it looked like that's what Obama was. He may very well be that at heart, but that's not how he's governing for the most part. Rebelling is a result of bursted expectations and Liberals tired of being told to wait for something that it's clear now is never going to come. I agree though that we need to do more as the base. Part of the strength it seems that Republicans have with their base is that there are already people in place ready to whip them up if need be. Meaning there are coalitions and groups already established that can "muster the forces" of the GOP base to rally against what they don't like. Liberals, as far as I can tell, have no group or coalition to turn to. And it also doesn't help that self-proclaimed Progressive columnists don't stand by us but instead seek to shut us up because we're not repeating the Party Line. Which is why I'm starting to not like the word progressive altogether. It's more PC, but it also seems to mean folks can have it both ways. To really organize, you need money and an actual organization for starters.

[FrenchieCat]

14. You are still missing my point......

Because a President can only be as progressive as his support will allow....

What Obama did election night, Inauguration day, and many times before and after is explicitly state that he would need our help. What he got instead is a whole of of folks too busy "keeping his feet to the fire" to notice that they weren't there to fight the fight by his side...instead many were fighting him.

That is what was done to Carter. Folks didn't fight with him....
as was the case when Hillary Clinton try to do healthcare in 1993.

Seems like we come around too late, and then it is to offer some critique,
and analysis was to why whatever happened, happened.

Many started out stating that if they didn't get things exactly their way,
they weren't going to support this President, and I think that this is the ultimate
meaning of false Progressivism.

The Party of Me is at the end of the day,
not that much better than the Party of No.

[Bullet1987]

18. I updated my post above...but yea

That's why I say he should've been more of a fighter. He would first need to show he's willing to fight himself before Liberals will amass an "army" of support for him...which I honestly think they would. He's also done more to alienate us than show his support for our beliefs. You can't expect folks to rally for a HCR bill that they don't agree with. Let me write out my scenario...

Barack Obama has just been elected. He's enjoying a majority approval rating and has the wind at his back. There's a sea of hope that has invigorated a whole swath of first-time voters who are waiting for the orders from their leader that it's time to bring real change to Washington. Progressives think he just may be the President America desperately needs...and he doesn't let them down. He appoints Progressives to positions in his cabinet. Economic Progressives to oversee the banking fiasco (instead he drops the Progressives from his campaign and appoints Wall Street insiders Geithner and Summers). He shows passion...almost anger on TV against Wall Street. He establishes pro-Progressive/Liberal Think Tanks and organizations to "rally the troops" making organizing against powerful lobbyists and special interests easier for the base of the Party (making Liberals LESS marginalized and more mainstream). When it comes to HCR, he is a VOCAL and APPARENT advocate. He goes to hospitals and gives daily examples of how the system has failed. Everything is on the table including Single-Payer! He doesn't start out from a compromised front. Even if he doesn't think it'll work, the simple threat that he would destroy the insurance industry if they don't accept reform SEEMS realistic. People begin to think he just might kick Wall Streets ass (something no one has felt in real life). If the healthcare lobby is getting to Congress, he exposes them. He names names and shows everyone the wizard behind the curtain. HE DOESN'T PLAY GAMES...he comes off as being completely serious about reform. But the money being thrown around still seems to be too much to handle. The MSM is attacking him daily as are the Republicans. He's called everything from a socialist to a Nazi...even a socialist Nazi communist (if there is such a thing). He resorts to using the base of his Party that he has been building up since he came into office (and anyone else willing to join). There are rallies in the thousands and he mentions them in his speeches (forcing the MSM to talk about it instead of ignoring it). Congress is drowned in mail, phone calls, and protests on their doorsteps by Progressives calling for reform.

The above scenario could very well have happened...but it didn't. Why? There is no Liberal coalition, Liberals are still demonized by the Party leaders (and apparently even by other Progressive columnists) and Obama has been in the background for most of the debate. He instead sought "bipartisanship" with Republicans and met with Wall Street behind closed doors. He still treats Liberals as "Them" and not as a serious political force. And you still expect us to rally in support of him? It's like I said in the OP, everything that has happened is of his own making...not ours. That's somewhat of a Blame the Victim argument. I mean, yea we could do more...but our options are really limited without overhead support. We don't have millionaire's getting our word out like the Republican base has.

[angee_is_mad]

17. We talk about lamont, but what about Meek?

how many on here has shown him support for senator? This is a man who WILL work with the President.

Why are we letting the blue dogs off the hook and placing all the blame on Obama? The repubs are and will do that for us, meanwhile scaring the bejesus out of the blue dogs that Dean was instrumental in finding and helped to get elected.

IMHO, the Democrats are FUCKED UP!!!! One thing I can say about the repubs, they stay unified no matter what. When shit don't go their way the find another strategy, while dems start pointing fingers at each other. Hell just look at the threads. If you are criticizing Obama you are a teabagger, if you support the President, you are DLC and stupid.

What will it take for us to unify? Medicare 55+ is gone and Public Option is gone. What are we going to do now? We better figure it out and soon, because we are handing the gop machine great material to use in 2010 and a weakened President who's own party is split.

[depakid]

10. "Obama hasn't been anything close to a fighter..."

You didn't elect a fighter- you elected a conciliator and consensus builder- or, to put it bluntly:

On this and other matters: conflict averse appeaser.

[angee_is_mad]

13. When r u going to change the Obama 08 sign?

just asking since you have put him out to pasture.

Oh, I'm a liberal, southern, black woman by the way and not dlc.

[IndianaGreen]

16. A brilliant post!

K&R

:kick: