Dear Fellow Democrats,
So, because it hasn't been confirmed yet, we're supposed to click our heels and believe our president will stand up for progressive principle and fight the Republicans by insisting on putting forward a bill that only extends the Bush tax cuts for the middle class? Really? Well, the first step to solving your problem is admitting you have one, and fellow Democrats and progressives: we have a problem.
A recommended diary at the moment tells us we shouldn't assume that President Obama will punt on the upper-brackets-tax-cut because it hasn't been confirmed or corroborated. To that I can only muster bitter laughter. You don't hear any denials from the White House, either, do you?
UPDATE: Apparently this is supposed to constitute pushing back hard. Sorry, no: those quotes are non-denial denials. And the fact that voters prefer taxing the rich to cutting Social Security doesn't mean squat either, because...
...of course he's going to cave. What on Earth would make you believe otherwise? I look back a couple years and cannot believe how much my faith in this man has been eroded. I was about to type "His heart may be in the right place, but..." but then I realized that I don't believe that, either. At every turn he has chosen not just the expedient course, the weak-kneed course, the get-sand-kicked-in-your-face-by-Republicans course, but the course that explicitly aids and abets the continued transfer of vast amounts of American wealth to the plutocratic class. This is classic "Shock Doctrine" stuff, and this president is, utterly accountably, doing the, uh, Chicago School's bidding to a degree that I would not have believed even remotely possible two years ago.
I mean: why do you abandon the public option in the middle of the health care fight when polls say it's the most popular aspect of the proposed legislation?
Because he simply lacked the votes in the Senate, dude. The legislation would have failed.
Wrong answer! Your clauses are backwards. He lacked the votes in the Senate because he signaled from early on that he didn't want the public option in the final bill. He wound up with a bill that is less popular and won't work nearly as well to solve America's health care problems. Why?
And why did the Democrats quaver and fail before the midterm election to push the tax issue when the polls were completely on their side and putting middle-class-tax-cuts-only up for a vote would have been a devastating political move against Republicans?
Um...
And why did his Wall Street reform give the banks most of what they wanted while leaving most serious oversight completely toothless and failing to address the derivatives abuses that played such a huge role in the financial crisis to begin with?
And why was the stimulus package way too small and heavily weighted toward tax cuts that don't stimulate the economy nearly as quickly?
And why didn't Democrats even fight for climate change legislation at all?
And why did Obama completely abandon any pretense of attempting to prosecute anyone from the Bush era for that administration many crimes against the Constitution?
I'm sure if I thought about it some more I could come up with a half a dozen more doozey of examples.
And why, just this morning, did the White House explicitly signal that it planned on taking seriously the recommendations of the deficit commission, which, as we know, will recommend transferring trillions of dollars in future wealth from Social Security recipients to the plutocratic class, for decades and generations to come (see how important eliminating the estate tax is? We're setting up a permanent class of uber-wealthy humans here; it's all of a piece).
There's no longer any reason to think Obama has a political plan. Or any justification for arguing that circumstances demanded his decisions, or that he'll turn around and change, or even (in my view) cares about any of these points. His actions -- every signal he sends -- are utterly craven, truly humiliating for a lifelong member of the Democratic Party, demonstrably damaging politically, and rational only if your ultimate aim is to Appease the Plutocrats. Most likely because you consider yourself one of them and plan on joining them.
I'm stunning beyond words (well, not beyond words, exactly) to find myself thinking and believing and writing these things about Barack Obama. Nice man, it would seem. Very good writer. Great campaigner. Lousy president. Failed leader. Not a progressive. Continuing Dubya Bush's work of destroying America.
Seriously. To think otherwise is delusional. We should plan accordingly.
Cross-posted at Popletters.com