I'd call myself a member of the "Howard Dean-Elizabeth Warren" progressive wing of the Democratic Party, but I also get it when Dems sometimes fall short of all their progressive goals, and I've strongly supported all of our recent Dem nominees-- Clinton, Gore, Kerry, and Obama-- and will support the Dem nominee in 2016, whoever that turns out to be. I'll vote and campaign for "imperfect Democrats" not only because the neo-fascist GOP alternative is even worse, but because we need those "imperfect Dems" to support the work of the progressives (not to mention to keep the Fascists off the Supreme Court).
I start with this just to emphasize that I'm not demanding unicorns out of Obama's presidency, and that overall I feel he's done great things and deserves our continued support. With that being said, I'm not letting Obama off the hook for the disastrous mid-terms last week, because there were some very easily avoidable blunders that Obama just walked right into and continues to walk right into, which cost Democrats dearly last Tuesday and continue to damage our brand. Above all:
What the hell is Obama thinking in pushing the TPP? I. Just. Don't. Get. It. This was by far the most easily avoidable mistake of Obama's second term thus far, and Obama has completely blown it on this issue, and even worse, his stand simply doesn't make sense.
When it comes to Americans' voting behavior, bread and butter pocketbook issues predominate above all other considerations-- "it's the economy stupid" and still is. By which I mean the real economy, especially in terms of real wages-- what 99% of Americans actually earn and can afford. And all the chatter about US oil production and GDP and the U3 unemployment rate and supposedly low core inflation (the numbers for which frankly seem questionable to people on the ground, especially considering how GDP depends on financial-sector machinations that produce no value) means virtually nothing to the vast majority of Americans
The Reich article really drives the point home-- practically all of the gains from the "recovery" have gone to a tiny percentage of Americans who were already obscenely wealthy to begin with, while most Americans have been stagnant or even doing worse. And that's even before we get into the issue about how price inflation, at least, doesn't seem to capture the real growth in costs for things like housing, college, and other things.
The take-it-home message from all this is pretty simple: For Democrats to win, our candidates and officials must address the issue of poor wage gains and higher costs for the 99% of Americans, and support policies that make this happen. That's it, and we really need to keep it that simple.
Which is why Obama's support of the wage-killing Trans-Pacific Partnership is even more perplexing. What the hell is he thinking? Obama was rightfully pushing for increases in the minimum wage, but such an FDR "pro-worker stance" was severely undermined by Obama's backing of the TPP, and even worse, his backing for secret negotiations that wouldn't even allow the American people to see how fully reprehensible it is. What we have learned from the Wikileaks revelations is pretty damn ugly-- basically giving corporations their own political power and making it virtually impossible for victims of corporate abuses, pollution, even outright crimes to get redress (since the corporations would own the courts), give carte blanche to corporations to pollute at their leisure, to depress wages with a hideous race to the bottom in which Americans' wages would be pushed down to 3rd world levels.
American voters aren't stupid on this issue-- they can see how disastrous the TPP would be for their incomes. It's one of the reasons that the TPP is just about universally hated by the people at large. I've talked to not only progressive Democrats about this but plenty of Independents and even hard-core Republicans, and everyone absolutely hates the TPP-- even the Tea Partiers I work with on some contracts (I wasn't even the one who brought up the issue, they'd heard about it and hated everything about it). Even though Americans are poorly informed about many issues, a basic pocketbook issue like the TPP tends to get more attention, and even if Americans hate it simply due to its resemblance to the broadly-hated NAFTA (and the TPP is much, much worse), what matters is the TPP has virtually no popular support. And this is just from the leaks, that is, even before we've gotten a full look at how awful it is.
So given all this, why in the world does Obama support the TPP? What in the world is going on? Is he just completely oblivious? The TPP would be one of the worst economic disasters for the US in a century and would kill US wages, and it's so universally hated that Obama's support of it is angering the base and doing untold political damage to the Democratic Party.
Any policy that would hurt US wages during a period of such economic distress is a terrible idea. The proposed H1B visa expansion in the immigration reform bill was a terrible idea that cost us too, but the TPP would be orders-of-magnitude worse. As several articles have said, it would basically be a coup handing control of the economy over to the worst, most abusive, most polluting and disgusting corporations in the world. Basically the Koch Brothers would have almost unlimited power.
And Americans know it. They simply can't rally around any candidate or policy associated with the TPP, and thus Obama's support of the TPP is policy and political poison for him and his party. There is no reason imaginable to support it. Even if Obama was just trying to mollify corporations to get extra PAC dollars, then the solution would be to simply open up the TPP to transparent debate, none of this "secret negotiations" bullshit. Corporations will continue to give to both parties to hedge their bets, and nothing will stop the Kochs from giving hundreds of millions to neo-Confederates in the GOP.
Anything that would hurt the wages of 99% of Americans is a vote-killer at the polls, and it cost us dearly last Tuesday-- and I suspect Obama knows this. Is Obama still just under the thrall of free-traders like Geithner (even after he's left office)? Obama's complete and utter stupidity surrounding the TPP-- because that's what it is, let's not be euphemistic about it-- is totally out of line with his general temperament of at least being smart about what gains political advantage. What's really going on for Obama to be embracing such a transparently stupid policy?