Now that Bill Daley is the new White House Chief of Staff, there are two directions relations between progressives and populists with the White House can go. And no, those directions are not worse and worser. But worse is definitely one of them.
Let me start by saying something that will surprise a lot of readers from this lefty populist: I actually like Bill Daley personally. I've known him for almost a quarter century, and he has always treated me with respect in spite of our many disagreements. He has a steady no-drama manner about him which makes it easy to understand why the President likes him. I think he is an effective manager. Now you would think a DC guy like myself who had warm feelings and a long and positive history with someone would be delighted that he just got the Chief of Staff position, but it is pretty hard to feel that way. I lobbied against Bill being the guy to get this job, and I encouraged my friends to lobby against him as well, for two reasons.
The first is optics: 35% of voters in the 2010 election said that Wall Street was primarily to blame for our economic class, more than any other entity or politician, but Democrats lost those economic populists 56-42. The big Wall Street banks are the single most hated institution in America. People already tend to think of Obama as being on the side of Wall Street -- they think he is a big government "Wall Street liberal" in EJ Dionne's classic phrase. Obama needs to show middle class voters he is on their side, and hiring a top exec at JP Morgan Chase as his Chief of Staff is not the way to get that done. It is a political mistake with both working class swing voters and base voters, both of whom strongly dislike the big bankers on Wall Street. This appointment was a classic "which side are you on" moment, but the side taken was not the right one.
The other reason I don't like the appointment is that I fear it is a sign that Obama is coming down firmly on the side of DC centrism, rather than where the country actually is. As I discussed right after the election, the exit polls and other post-election polls were completely clear that the swing voters who turned against the Democrats in 2010 were working and middle class populists: they don't like the big banks, they don't like TARP, they don't like the idea of "NAFTA-style trade deals," they hate outsourcing, they hate cuts in Social Security and Medicare. But the President seems to believe the views of these middle class voters, as well as his own base voters, don't matter much, and that the better political path is picking an Democratic establishment guy from Wall Street who led the fight in the Clinton administration for NAFTA. It's what I would call trickle down politics: make the DC establishment happy and hope their pleasure trickles down to everyone else.
Enough said on that, though. Bill Daley is the new Chief of Staff, and progressives aren't going to change that. The arguments of people like me did not carry the day. The question now is what happens next. If the White House soaks in the applause of the DC establishment and the business community, and decides they don't need to court those pesky working class voters or their base, I fear it will be a very long couple of years with a sound drubbing in November of 2012. If they turn away from populism at every point in order to court big business and the elites, this Presidency is in deep trouble. But if the White House is smart, they will realize that by appointing Daley, it is now incumbent on them to actually be far more aggressive in reaching out to progressives and populists. They could appoint a strong progressive populist as a senior White House staffer; they could announce sooner rather than later they will adamantly oppose Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid cuts; they could empower Elizabeth Warren and give her a bigger role, and they could far more aggressively push the big banks to write down mortgages, since with Daley as Chief of Staff the presumption will be that the White House has become all pro-Wall Street, all of the time; they could send a clear signal that they aren't going to bow to hostage taking on the debt ceiling issue. If they did these kinds of things, progressives and those swing vote populists would not fear having Bill Daley as Chief of Staff.
Having appointed a Chief of Staff like Bill Daley, the President could take this opportunity to say to the progressives who aren't very happy today that he understands their disappointment, but still shares their values, and then go out and prove it. Or he can send a signal that he just doesn't care what they think. And Bill Daley himself could do Obama a great deal of good by sitting down with some leading progressive populists in the party and seeing if we can get to common ground. We'll see what path they take.
It's just not likely. Sorry to break the news.
They keep recycling holdovers from a time and cirmustance that have little relevance today. Rationalizing that knowing how to navigate on the hill is paramount. And uttering the sage 'have to go along to get along' mantra. They would do as well to appoint martians. Insiders with the not-so-secret wall street handshake got us here.
And that is more bad news for America's middle class and its poor, that latter group of Americans at greatest risk never even mentioned by the Dems anymore. In today's political world, caring about the poor is just not cool, not even for the Dems. That would be way too liberal, way too politically risky for today's Democratic Party. Wouldn't want to draw the ire of the radical right for that class of people, especially when they have so little influence. The fat cats are the Dems' friends of choice, their real constituents.
Mr. Lux, I can answer that for you. Indeed, millions of Americans can answer that for you but that is not necessary, because you already know the answer.
We'll have more of the same from this president except that, with his new found friends on the right, the enrichment and empowerment of the wealthy and the big corporations, at the expense of America'siddle class and its poor will increase exponentially in speed and breadth. Who's going to stop them - the Dems in the Senate? Now that's rich, pun intended.
Looking at your last paragraph, I simply cannot understand how you and so many others can continue to believe that Barack Obama has even the slightest interest in the perpsectives of so called progressives. There is absolutely no reason to expect progressive policy, or anything more than the standard lipservice for the middle class and the poor, from this president. Indeed, everything we see from Barack Obama, including his hiring of Mr. Daley, tells us that we'll have more of the same. And that necessarily includes a bigger and sharper stick in the eyes of progressives or, as President Obama sees them, his patsies.
That, Mr. Lux, is the path this president and Mr. Daley will take, and soon.
Conservatives stand for "conserving" the power of the CORPORATIONS.
Wall street hasn't provided anything but record profits for themselves and the bonuses to go along with it....they aren't lending their record profits
We have TWO economies in this country, one on wall street, and another the rest of us endure. Look at the numbers, we have close to 10% unemployment.... the one we're in is tanking. All this talk about who will vote for Obama and where else will progressives go is missing the point, by surrounding himself with Wall street insiders, he ensures that he will get advice from people who are more concerned with protecting their friends wealth, their own wealth, and their reputations than fixing the ills that plague our lopsided society and the struggling middle class. If he can't fix the fundamentals he will lose, and you can't fix a problem with the same thinking that created it. No independent or progressive is going to look at what these Banksters has done and say this is going great!
Most progressives know in their heart of hearts that there is a high probability that we probably aren't going to be very happy after the State of the Union. That's on President Obama. It's most likely where he was headed before Bill Daley came on board. Coming out in front of everyone with a proposal to make cuts to SS and Medicare will signal that he's once and for all not going to be a populist president...Daley or no Daley.
Daley's idea of a "centrist," is really a conservative in today's political context.
I don't judge Daley's appointment as a single event. Peter Orszag recently left the White House and then took a cushy job at Citi Bank. And Obama will appoint Sperling to replace Summers today. As Frank Rich of the NY Times said recently, "This is exactly the kind of revolving-door synergy between corporate power and governance that turns off Americans left, right and, yes, center." Now that the White House is officially married to the banks, it will further damage the Democratic Party and result in political disaster in 2012. If there is one thing the public hates, it's the banksters.
As an FYI, Jamie Dimon is the head guy at J.P. Morgan.....just in case you didn't know.
Honestly, I don't even understand why this man is considered a Democrat--he is against regulating corporations, he is against labor, he is against the President's own health care bill. Clearly, he is with the wrong party; perhaps he only joined in order to be on the same side of the aisle that the rest of his famous family hails from. I don't know. But the author of this article is right--griping from dazed and confused liberals like myself is not going to change what happened. Instead, we should be bracing ourselves for the worst which may come: a return of deregulation, Presidential indifference toward progressive ideals, and social security cuts. Hell, at this point I would not be surprised if the President starts attacking his own health care bill. I really can't fathom why he made this choice.
We definitely do need to make the sale of progressive policies more effectively to a wider audience, I agree. but who will get the word out? Nancy Pelosi? Paul Krugman? These types of people are hated by the right, and unintelligible to the independents.
Obama campaigned and was elected on the basis of public perception that he would be a champion of the people. The real significance of his being the first black president was this expectation that all Americans, include groups who have been traditionally excluded or mistreated would finally have a leader who was ready to stand up and fight against the wealthy special interests.
Obama has talked the talk but he has never walked the walk. He is not a champion of the people.
Instead of fighting for what is right he is committed to an absurd notion that bipartisanship is the way to find effective compromises that keep everyone happy. By doing this his is weakening the democrats and strenghtebing the GOP more than they could have themselves even under Palin and McCain.
It's over for Obama. He may want a second term, and I am sure he does, though why is utterly unclear unless it is some sort of ego trip that puts his own needs ahead of a sober assessment of just how inadequate his performance has been.
I share your sentiments entirely and agree fully with your conclusions.