For some months, the tone of Daily Kos has changed, as perception of the Obama administration is seen to diverge from an increasingly strict progressive community here. This new orthodoxy has extended to talk of "fascism", a "police state" and comparison of Obama to a Republican presidency.
The ultimate progressive aims are admirable, even if I find some of the recent rhetoric to be hyperbole. Where I do disagree, I don't find fault with the person, although it seems that there is increasing animus for opinion outside the sites new orthodoxy. I'm feeling that there has been increasing groupthink.
I understand that this won't be a popular hypothesis. The subjects that get promoted and recommended are most frequently the ones confirming and reinforcing the sites current point of view. There is an observed condition explaining this called confirmation bias. My aim in this diary isn't to disagree to be disagreeable, but to offer some insight into issues with the direction taken to it's logical conclusion.
Progressives want progressive results. I think Obama was a political mirror. We perceived (with some help with a lot of campaign promises,) a politician reflecting our own political desires. As Obama has crafted his own agenda and priorities, and reacted to political reality, there has been natural disappointment and hurt, that the idealized perception wasn't the actual result.
A lot of the criticism has seemingly jumped the shark. The U.S. system of checks and balances is such that there is tremendous resistance to completed action... to large scale legislation. Obama has gotten stuff done, abeit not to the degree that most liberals would wish.
The insinuation that Obama is somehow a republican-lite president could not be more false: the most fundamental privilege of the presidency is picking the candidates to the supreme court. The only immutable long term product of a presidency are these, should a president be lucky enough to get to choose to fill vacancies. Whenever I hear it said that Obama may as well be Republican, I think about John McCain picking two justices and the irreparable harm that could have done.
A more ideological progressive candidate
A common refrain after November 2010's elections that the candidates were not boldly progressive enough, and that more forceful ideological argument would have resulted in better results for the Democratic party. This is analogous to the tea-baggers "more effective conservative" primary challenges, and has been debunked. The "move right (or in this case, left) and win" meme resurfaces with some regularity after political disappointment, almost as certainly as a stage of grief
If you want an example you need look no further than Colorado... one of the few bright spots in a very dark 2010 cycle for Dems. Even in a very republican friendly environment, "moderate" Dems at the federal level in colorado survived even as the GOP made serious gains at lower levels throughout the state.
Posted from coloradopols.com , "2010's Top Story: Inside a Broken Wave"
Reacting desperately to their failure to thrive on the national "wave" that resulted in wipeouts for Democrats all around the nation, Colorado Republicans pushed every chip in the center of the table in 2010, and we believe it's going to cost them at the polls in future elections. Republicans alienated Latinos, the fastest-growing bloc of voters in the United States, with Tom Tancredo, and women with Ken Buck. Internal strife, fault lines that trace back to the battle over 2005's Referendum C and even before, racked the party from the earliest stages of the primaries.
Republicans bowed to the extremist "Tea Party" to win primaries and chase the myth of their influence, and they made insane claims and promises that they cannot possibly keep in the process--like Scott Tipton's "plan" to cut the government in half, and Walker Stapleton's blatherings about schools "competing with prisons" for funds. They elected some positively crazy new people in the legislature like Kathleen Conti; who are going to feed material to the Democrats for as long as they are in office, and who they may come to regret lending their brand.
2010 served as a powerful validator of the reasons we've been giving for years that success has eluded the GOP: in Colorado, Republicans could win; and have won in past elections by running moderate, trustworthy candidates who don't seek office on a platform of tearing the civic institutions of this state to the ground. But instead, the GOP in this state has veered toward thoughtless ideologues and wedge-issue obsessed embarrassments in recent years, while Democrats have been able to present themselves as responsible (and restrained) leaders who are serious about governing--and protecting the basic things everybody values. Things that will make even the most fickle and impressionable voter stop and think.
Unless that changes--and it hasn't since Democrats started winning elections in Colorado a little over six years ago, with the GOP only moving farther right in response--the result will not.
Michael Bennett is not the most popular dailykos senator, and faced a strong progressive primary challenge. He survived and went on to win the general election, by narrow margins being closer to the political center of colorado than his opponent. Even in a "republican wave" year.
Ken Buck is literally borderline "Rand Paul" crazy, and we are very lucky to have this result.
It's the geographical social issues, stupid!
For some people, their political world view is that their party should nominate candidates with a strength and purity of ideology that matches theirs. This can work at the congressional level due to gerrymandering, but less likely at the state level: consider wingnut congresscritter Michelle Bachmann. She's perfectly electable in her highly conservative district. Notsomuch in the slightly more liberal statewide environment.
Of course, this "political geography" shapes the political battlefield of the senate and the presidency. The exact makeup of the liberalism and conservatism, however, are not monolithic.
The following chart tabulates the relative social and economic liberalism/conservatism of each state. Source is Columbia University
The most striking feature is that contrary to popular opinion (the "its the money, stupid!",) economic conservatism/liberalism is NOT as strong a correlation to electoral outcomes as social conservatism/liberalism.
Economic issues are modifiers to electoral chances when there are financial crises, yet people most fundamentally support candidates for social viewpoints.
Its should also be noted that there is a very narrow range of social conservatism/liberalism where there is serious possibility to swing states, and the further from the center of this line, the closer you need to be to the median voter than your opponent. You don't have to be a DINO/RINO, but it helps if your opponent is extreme.
Purity vs reality
Reality wins. Every time. The countless diaries and posts, spawned by the liberal blogosphere, DKos among them, bemoaning the fascist dictatorship we now live under with Obama are meaningless except as an exercise in group sympathy.
As I've previously noted, the larger electorate (at least the part that matters from an electoral viewpoint) do not read dailykos, huffington post, drudge report or redstate. They don't watch MSNBC or Fox News. They might glance at a political section in CNN.com or one of the mainstream media sites, or see a mainstream newscast involving politics.
The persuadable electorate does not read this blog, or the twelve other progressive blogs you read and post to. The agreement within the "information universe" that you view politics through, is not visible to this electorate.
If we wish to see progressive change happen we can't rely on picking candidates matching our progressive wishes; candidates futher from the ideological median will be less likely to be elected. We need to move the conversation, and thus the ideological center, at a meta level. We honestly need to create the same quality of ideological infrastructure that conservatives have set up; colleges, think tanks and foundations, and battle at a more fundamental level.
Anything else, is just complaining for complaints sake, and the metaphorical equivalent of urinating directly into the wind.