It may just be that I'm simple minded but it seems to me the explanation for FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt) diaries attacking President Obama, with dire predictions of his imminent sell out of Social Security, Medicare, Democracy, God, Mom and Apple Pie, is relatively simple.
It may just be that I'm simple minded but it seems to me the explanation for FUD diaries attacking Pres. Obama, with dire predictions of his imminent sell out of Social Security, Medicare, Democracy, God, Mom and Apple Pie, is relatively simple. It is the same reason that makes for an apparent consanguinity to such attacks, whether they originate on the Right or the Left. Those critics of the Pres. who caricature him as a devious, treacherous character, dedicated to forwarding a hidden, malignant agenda aimed at destroying all that Americans hold dear, share a common premise that cuts across the Left/Right divide. Both sides view him as fundamentally illegitimate. The reasons for holding this view may differ according to one's position on the Left/Right spectrum but the practical result: the Demonization of Pres. Obama, is the same.
I won't bother rehearsing the RW's reasons for denying the President's legitimacy (racism, incipient fascism, ad nauseum). That ground has been thoroughly plowed over elsewhere. Here I'm going to limit myself to why the Left is susceptible to same notion and how it effects their attitude towards the President.
It's more than a little ironic that the Left's basis for denying Obama's legitimacy is essentially an inversion of the RW's own argument. The Right views Obama's Presidency as a radical, unacceptable break with the traditional power structure as they have understood it. The President's Demonizers on the Left take the opposite view; that Obama, far from representing a rupture with the past, is dedicated to maintaining the existing power relationships, albeit with a somewhat different coloration. Since, in the view of such critics, the system itself is illegitimate, requiring either a radical overhaul or outright dismantling, it follows that anyone advocating less than this is simply a creature of the ruling elite. For such folks every gesture towards progressive values or even actual progressive gains made by the President can only be an elaborate charade, designed for the purpose of hoodwinking the hoi polloi and disarming them prior to dropping the axe.
This sort of quasi-Manicheanism isn't new. It has a long, long history on the Left. I and countless others who came of political age during the 1960's witnessed its effects on the popular movements of the time first hand. People became convinced that the key to the radical transformation of society was to equate Liberalism with Conservatism and Reaction, de-legitimizing the lot and opening the door to radical solutions from the Left. In the event things didn't turn out so well. It was the Left that ended up being de-legitimized and a new political center coalesced farther to the Right than anyone had imagined possible. We have been dealing with the political, social and economic consequences of this blunder for the last three decades.
One would hope that the lessons of the past wouldn't lost in the present.
As a self-described radical since the age 16, I have taken the view that our problems, economic, social and political, are deep rooted and systemic, requiring thoroughgoing structural changes. Nothing I have seen or experienced in the 40 years since has led me to change my mind. Consequently, I'm all in favor of rigorous, well reasoned critiques from Left. However, reflexive attacks based not on clear analysis but on unstated ideological assumptions, are neither reasoned nor rigorous. At best they are misguided. At worst they are cynically manipulative. In either case they serve no constructive purpose.