Barack Obama has failed progressives in every arena. Although it'd be preferable to unseat Obama with a primary challenger in time for 2012, because none has stepped forward (tic toc...), it would be beneficial to the progressive movement in the long term for Obama to lose the Presidency in 2012.
This way, if not a radicalized Tea Party President (e.g., Romney), then one certainly beholden to such a radicalized Congress will take power, and will surely inflict so much pain and suffering on the American people, they will return power to liberal Democrats in a 2014 wave election. By controlling Congress in 2014, progressives will control the budget, spending, and National dialog. Progressives will then win the Presidency in 2016, led by a "True Progressive" leader to be named later, and with control of both houses of Congress, a new progressive era will dawn.
And Republicans will wander in the wilderness for 20 years. This time for real.
Or so a mythology espoused by some of the activist left goes.
The Myth
Bob Brigham Tweets on June 22nd:
@BobBrigham
If Gore really cares about climate(1), he almost has to run. If Obama wins, GOP will wins 2016, making 2020 earliest for problem solver in WH.
Now Bob "Payola" Brigham is not the most reputable "activist" on the left. He's been on Jane Hamsher's Payroll, and as so eloquently pointed out by Dana Houle, Richard M. Nixon kept company with a whole bunch of people like Jane Hamsher back in the day. Donald Segretti called them ratfuckers. No, Bob Brigham is an obsessive tweeter, making him easy to quote, and he usually links to reputable liberal activists who harbor similar, albeit moderated, sentiments. It was following Bob Brigham that led me to an article by Glenn Hurowitz in the the Grist.
Glenn Hurowitz wonders if [President] Obama has lost environmental voters? And (wait for it) whether environmentalists would really be worse off under a Romney Presidency.
The Obama Effect
As an aside, I have been trying to come up with a Greek fable to describe the political life of Barack Obama. The tired meme of Obama losing support among a key constituent group is most certainly Sisyphean in nature, wherein his detractors are perpetually on the verge of being able to demonstrate that President Obama has lost support, only to have their hopes dashed in a rockslide each and every time. No, a more apt fable would be of a hero whose detractors constantly assert that he is in danger of losing something different and important to him each and every day, except that he doesn't. Such a story doesn't exist, nor does it really need to: we already have the legend of the Bradley Effect, although notably challenged as a legitimate phenomenon. The fear of the Bradley Effect was repeatedly raised throughout the 2008 Presidential campaign. Political memes never die, even if negated by demonstrable fact (id est, one President Obama). They just step ever so slightly out of the debunction crater to lead a new life. This time, President Obama won't lose support among voters on election day. He is losing support now among key liberal groups. Note to Glenn: President Obama's support among liberal democrats was rock solid and steady at 86% last week.
Unfortunately, the Weekly Standard already coined the term 'Obama Effect' on October 27, 2008 to refer to the inevitable coming of the McCain Presidency despite Barack Obama's poll numbers. Perhaps that's why he's always on Meet the Press? But since that neocon rag just makes shit up and is the laughing stock of media, I think it is safe for us to steal the name from them and redefine it.
Obama Effect (n.) The unsubstantiated claim by media that President Obama is losing support among a key liberal demographic based an action or omission.
What prompted Glenn Hurowitz to make his assertion? Apparently it was not carefully reading Al Gore's essay entitled
"Climate of Denial" in
Rolling Stone Magazine. Anyone who has not read the essay should take the time to do so.
In the 4000 word essay, President Gore happened to use the words 'Obama' and 'fail' in close proximity. That's all the evidence the MSM needs to sound the Democrats Divided gong, so as to simultaneously a) obfuscate the important message Al Gore was attempting to convey and b) turn Democrats against their elected leaders. But the MSM behavior was predictable. dKos user Vyan has an excellent diary up on the rec list detailing how the MSM will cram any perceived criticism of President Obama from the left, real or imaginary, into the rubric of Democrats Divided. The Democrats Divided meme is decades old, and stems from a kernel of truth: the Democrats are diverse, and sometimes a polyglot. What was alarming was that activists and liberal bloggers seized upon the same story to champion the Obama Effect. The Huffington Post giddily plastered Obama's "failure" across the front page. Relegated to Column 3 in the Green section on the same day? GOP Presidential candidates pledge to strip EPA of authority. Why? Why would the Huffington Post ignore Al Gore's larger message and attack President Obama? And as for Glenn Hurowitz, why strain Al Gore's words to invoke the Obama Effect? And why kid yourself that Democrats would be better off under a Republican President?
But will the Republicans’ presidential nominee really have any similarity to a Tea Party Republican? Certainly, it’s possible that a climate-denying, EPA-repealing extremist like Michele Bachmann could turn the Republican primary into a clownish right-wing race to the bottom. But we shouldn’t forget that Republican primary voters want to win, usually choose establishment-backed candidates, and, like all Americans, have deep concerns about the economy. That could hand the nomination to someone like Mitt Romney or (less likely) Jon Huntsman—people who are building their campaign not around fealty to an agenda contrived by the far right, but around the notion that they are best positioned to put America back to work.
Indeed, it’s notable that Al Gore (sort of) praised Romney just a week ago for “sticking to his guns in the face of the anti-science wing of the Republican Party.” And Romney has left himself room for climate action—endorsing a transition to clean energy, but ruling out international agreements that don’t require emerging countries like China to take action as well, exactly the position of the Obama administration...
You can read the conflict in Hurowitz's writing (Maybe a President Romney wouldn't be so bad...) Wanna bet? Regardless of the pace of progress, what would lead an environmentalist like Hurowitz to even
entertain the notion of a Presidency determined to undo it? In my opinion, it's personal.
The Anti-Activist President
I firmly believe President Obama's leadership
style is at the heart of the conflict. Activists, by their nature, are ideological. They can be rigid and unyielding, vigorous and vociferous. They may be emotional, irascible, intense, fiery, and impassioned. President Obama is
none of these things. And because nobody apparently read
Audacity of Hope, conflict ensues.
All of us have tremendous difficulty explaining complex and conflicted emotions, and we tend to resort to simple schemes when confounded. In my opinion, challenges to the President's Leadership are often an exasperation with his leadership style. I confess that I often find his style infuriating. But disagreements over complex issues of leadership style have been allowed to degenerate on the left into false dichotomies. Revisionism then takes hold, and some on the left espouse a meme of Obama as a Capitulator-in-Chief; in essence, the anti-activist who stands for nothing, accomplishes nothing, and caves for everything. Crossroads GPS sincerely thanks us.
But we're talking about the man, after all, who not only resurrected Healthcare Reform from the political grave after Sen. Scott Brown's victory, at a huge political cost to him and his party, but then staked a Presidency on a risky commando mission in the Middle East. Why? Because millions of people are victimized by insurance companies every day. Because the entire world was safer the moment Osama bin Laden left it. That is cold, hard Leadership, even if executed in a style that grates our nerves and does not achieve all our end desires.
And Barack Obama would not be the first anti-activist President. It is said that he has a fondness for President Lincoln, another President whose opinion on a matter of civil rights famously "evolved" at a glacial pace for the day, who could be pensive, cold, rational, and detached.
"I feel utterly disgusted with Lincoln -- upon him do I throw all the blame -- He is in my opinion a paltry coward." -- Franklin A. Dick, unionist and anti-slavery activist, Missouri, 1862, over frustration with Lincoln's lack of progress in ending slavery.
And you thought Netroots Nation 2011 was a rough crowd. Abolitionists were the activists of the day, and they put the netroots to shame in terms of
passion murder.
In fact, it is safe to say Presidents in general are notoriously anti-activist. the last President was a notable exception. Armando touched on the theme of Presidential motives in a diary read by too few earlier today. Simply put, the President is primarily occupied with legislative accomplishments and election. To ascribe ulterior motives is pointless, and the occupation of activism often conflicts with one or both of those goals. This is why, historically speaking, movements lead Presidents, Presidents don't lead movements. The Civil War came after abolitionism. The New Deal came after the progressive populist movement. It would be ahistorical for an activist President, which is why conflict so often ensues between the activists and the President.
This conflict can drive activists to behave badly. When New York passed Equal Marriage on Friday night, much to my astonishment, my heroine Rachel Maddow is reported to have said that "President Obama is against what just happened". Not cool, Rachel, and also not true. But I don't blame Rachel Maddow for her anger, as the President espouses a vexing and indecipherable opinion clearly in contrast with what is in his heart meant to keep support amongst a key base demographic(2). Everyone's favorite Keynesian Paul Krugman called the President of the United States a "fraud" and a "chump". This level of disrespect for The Office is something we would reserve for a Rush Limbaugh. And lastly, Lt. Dan Choi, in a seminar at Netroots Nation 2011 entitled "What to Do When the President Is Just Not That Into You", famously declared he would no longer support President Obama and tore up a flier handed to him by an volunteer. As Michael Grunwald so excellently states:
"And why should [Lt. Dan Choi support Obama]? What has Obama ever done to help gays serve openly in the military? Other than repeal don’t-ask-don’t-tell, so that gays can serve openly in the military?"
Michael Grunwald's article may describe the frustration between the activists and President Obama, but his snark also belays a growing frustration between Democrats and liberal activists that is equally deleterious to our common goals.
What to do?
I don't believe it's any coincidence the issue of President Obama's leadership style resurfaced this past week. President Obama is about to face the greatest test of his Presidency: the debt ceiling. His predecessor, George W. Bush, was atypically activist. Members on both side of the aisle referred to it with praise and disdain as cowboy activism. After the ruin of such leadership, America deliberately chose a classic anti-activist.
But America is fickle. It's no surprise that Chris Christie has been receiving an over-sized portion of media attention. America, in eternal amnesia, begins to crave what it just jettisoned. Despite being an unpopular ass, Christie represents a stark contrast to President Obama's leadership style. This is why you have to see him on the Sunday Morning Talk Shows. It's what America wants right now in crisis. The good news? Everybody will be utterly bored with Christie come 2016.
I theorize that many on the left have become so trapped in their own belief of Obama as the anti-activist, they presume complete capitulation. That may still happen. I make no guarantees, as President Obama is on extraordinarily difficult political terrain, and Democratic negotiating tactics have been, well, sub par. But being cool, pragmatic, and rational do not necessarily ensure such a calamity. The two are unrelated. And the activist left needs to channel that anxiety into constructive means. If Obama goes to the wall on the debt ceiling limit showdown like he did for Osama bin Laden, we all will be singing a very different tune come two months.
In the meantime, let the activists remember that they have the burden, and more importantly, the privilege of leading, with or without Washington in tow. Don't ever forget who's in charge of the movement. Hold the friendly fire, and no more Al Gore attacking President Obama for failing to do Al Gore’s Job. It is, after all, Al Gore's (really, the climate activist's) fault, not President Obama's, that more and more people do not believe in global warming. That trend started well before President Obama took office. On the other hand, supposed betrayals, such as the White House missing the deadline to install solar panels on the roof as called out by Glenn Hurowitz in his article, may seem like crying over not getting that frosting flower on your slice of cake, but they speak to the very real pain of pragmatic decisions(3).
And let us never go so far down the trail of leadership style antipathy that we begin to ponder Republican leadership as a viable long term strategy just to escape. Progressives won't be better off. And neither will America. One need look no further than WI, OH, MI, and FL. And if you think those Governors are guaranteed losses in 2014, you have another thing coming. The irony in Hurowitz's article is that he is citing disaffection from Al Gore, who lost the White House because progressives of the day decided that there was "no difference" between Al Gore and George W. Bush. How'd that work out, America?
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(1) Read this first phase by itself. If Al Gore really cared about climate change? So by not mounting a primary challenge, Al Gore doesn't care about climate change?
(2) It's ugly, but true.
(3) The White House is still afraid of Jimmy Carter.
Mon Jun 27, 2011 at 7:51 AM PT: Thank you all so much for all the recommendations. Not in my wildest dreams did I expect this to make the Recommended List, nor receive as little hate mail as I did. I also appreciate all who took the time to read the whole thing. The sentiments expressed have been building for weeks. I understand this is a difficult and stressful time for the left, as we're simultaneously getting the worst pragmatism from our elected leaders, and the opposition has the greatest leverage.