Dana Milbank writes in the Washington Post that President Obama is "killing the progressive movement."
He comes to this conclusion after observing lower turnout for this year's America's Future Now conference. But anyone who lived through the Clinton years should have been able to predict that if a Democrat won the White House most rank-and-file Democrats would feel their job was done. There is just never going to be the kind of energy surrounding sausage-making that you get around election year politics.
Hardly Barack Obama's fault.
More telling, however, are the voices of progressive dissent Milbank hears at the conference:
Speakers at the closing session exhorted the liberals to take back America -- from Obama. "The president of the most powerful country in the world is doing all right, but there are a lot of people in this country who are not doing all right," writer Naomi Klein told the crowd. "Obama is making us stupid," she added. "Love can make you stupid."
And Leo Gerard, head of the United Steelworkers, warned that if his fellow activists don't "seize the opportunity to lead with our progressive ideas," then "Rahm Emanuel will lead." And while "Rahm has the president's back," the union leader said of Obama's chief of staff, "I don't think he has our back."But many in the audience had warmer feelings toward the Obama administration. A straw poll taken by pollster Stan Greenberg found that 90 percent of those in attendance approve of the job the president is doing, and that they have no consensus about whether to help Obama or fight him.
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Ellison demanded investigations of Bush administration wrongdoings -- "and anybody who doesn't want to do it in the administration needs to be pushed to do it."
But Ellison didn't sound terribly optimistic. "Our movement lacks muscle and bone density," he diagnosed.
The Bush administration and their wars gave fuel to the progressive movement in this country, no doubt. I was personally at a loss during the primary battles -- from a movement perspective, I understood our job to be to hold fast to our principles and reward candidates for hewing to them and make them compete for our support.
What happened instead was that progressives divided into camps and started projecting progressive opinions onto candidates who had never expressed them, and fought relentlessly to establish a huge gulf between two candidates whose political records were largely indistinguishable. The progressive movement became subverted into a cult of personality on both sides from which it has yet to emerge, sucked in by a media complex that really doesn't know how to cover an election or interpret politics in any other way.
But that's only part of the story of why the progressive movement languishes, and I agree with Milbank that it does. I love the sausage-making process much more than the bomb-throwing, and I find taking part in incremental victories on issues like social security, cramdown or oversight of the Fed more satisfying than thundering defeats. But I have come to understand that the institutional forces that prevent real change from happening are more formidable and more structural than I anticipated.
That isn't Obama's fault, either.
More problematic is the way that progressive leadership is sitting things out, which is what Naomi Klein is addressing. Some may feel they have to -- if the membership of their organizations are not interested in challenging the administration, many feel they can't move without splitting them. But it's a self-reinforcing problem. If the usual progressive validators aren't saying anything, people don't perceive that anything is wrong. And it becomes extremely difficult to generate enthusiasm for activism.
But Obama does bear some responsibility for the current state of affairs. The administration has consistently moved to distance itself from progressive leadership, refusing to even meet with the Progressive Caucus until recently. They have also consciously corralled progressive organizations and sought to strictly controlled their messaging. Media Matters and the Center for American Progress may have been important voices in the progressive movement at one time, but they're little more than arms of the White House now playing a zero sum game with Republicans who really don't matter. When Democrats control both Congress and the White House, nobody needs the GOP's help to pass legislation.
I understand that nobody wants to be on the outside like they were during the Bush years, but the price of a few cocktail parties at the White House -- and the threat of lost donors -- is buying a lot more than it should. There is some weakening around the edges, particularly among intellectuals concerned with finance issues (like Klein) and unions staring down a series of broken promises (like Gerard). Some predicted that Afghanistan would cause a split, but I never bought it. It's probably going to take a big, stinging Congressional defeat -- like Employee Free Choice -- before any of the progressive institutions feel they must declare themselves independent of the White House and focus their energies on movement values once again.
You can follow Jane Hamsher at firedoglake.com and on Twitter
He has done some good things since assuming office, and I am thankful for that, but when it come to economic and foreign policy, the wars are being expanded and the Global Financial Interests are still being served.
It is hard to tell a democrat from a republican, once they get power.
I am a die hard progressive.
I always knew that O was no progressive. I love what you wrote about projection. So true.
I fought hard FOR his campaign however because I believe he has integrity and is intellectually honest. Look how he handles a press conference compared to boooosh.
I don't have to fool myself either .... he is a centrist type building a big tent.
It's funny to me when people say O is a liberal.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/05/21/obamas-new-electorate-pol_n_206249.html.
The President wisely didn't come to office to replace a group of far right-wingers who hijacked their party with a far left-wing that would hijack his.
"There isn't liberal America, or a conservative America... there is the United States of America."
The same guy who said at the 2004 Democratic convention, echoed it in his books is now governing from that core conviction. He's doing what he said he'd do.
Way to go, O!
And my appreciation the community groups who stayed on the issue .
nihilistic and powerful adversary... Showing a big Max baucus grin, but being run from the board rooms of the insurance and pharmaceutical companies, making sure that single payer NEVER sees the light of day.
You'd think some smart leader who actually has a grip on what's being formulated would step up and reflect and amplify the voice of so many who want single payer, but all we get is the constant slap down of those who are more and more obviously bought and paid for, like Max Baucus, who see their chance to be re-elected coming more from the dollars of lobbyists then from the voices of constituents.
Here's a couple of great links with FACTS from Bill Moyers, God bless him:
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/05222009/watch.html
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/05222009/watch2.html
Come on, progressive voices... Stay strong. Educate and enlighten your friends. Keep fighting these greedy bastards and just tell 'em outright to stop insulting our intelligence, because we're gonna see they get FIRED if they don't begin to answer to our call for single payer ! ! !
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I think President Obama likes "being" progressive, eating organic food, holding arts concerts, poetry readings, acting the part of an intellectual. But when it comes down to "doing" progressive things Obama has always preferred to defer to some future date.
Whether defending gay people, or blue-collar workers, or standing up for environmentalists and the slow food movement, Obama would rather we hide our passions out of temperance for the other un-progressive side of the country. Problem is, not all of us have this luxury of hiding who we are or what we believe, because we don't think there is anything wrong with what we believe or who we are.
The fantasy of a progressive leader to lead us into a more enjoyable future is really just a fantasy, and in some sense, an un-progressive belief. The progressive movement doesn't need leaders with titles, it needs average citizens, neighbors, communities, this is the bedrock of progress thought and behavior, not political circles. Democracy, civil rights, every meaningful movement was not the result of one leader, or really any member of the political class, but ordinary, forgotten, tough everyday people who like John Brown, are obsessed with a more egalitarian life. Progressives have a history of political defeat, but also a history of being right at every turn.
...these are 'progressive' things? You're saying intellectual=progressive. Talk about a leap! I know lots of intellectuals who aren't 'progressive'...I think you need to look up what Progressive actually means before you extrapolate and say someone is doing Progressive things when you don't have any idea what those would be.