So the marriage has been a little rocky here after the first couple of years. There's been some whining and screaming and throwing of plates; there's been some flirting with other suitors. But I still believe there is plenty of time to patch things up. Where does the relationship between Obama and the progressive community go now?
The answer will come down to the following things:
1. The response to hostage taking. The president set himself up with progressives, and the media in general, by using the hostage language. Because the president seemed to concede the fight early, and because of the terms of the deal, the perception among my fellow progressives has been that the Republicans got most of what they wanted on the tax cut fight, that the terms of the deal were set by them rather than the President. In other words, by his very own language, he gave into the hostage takers. Now every time the Republicans threaten a showdown -- on the debt ceiling, on the budget fights, etc -- he is going to look weak if he doesn't stand up to them at least in part.
Compromises will have to made in divided government, but who gets the best of the compromises matters enormously. In 1995, President Clinton managed the compromise dance by having protracted showdowns with the Republicans at multiple key moments -- threatening vetoes, delivering vetoes even when they shut down the government. Even on welfare reform, which he eventually signed, he vetoed the first two versions of the bill the GOP passed, forcing real concessions before he agreed to sign it, which made it look like he was in charge.
Obama has to manage fights with Congress so that it looks like they are making compromises on his terms not the Republicans, which is what Clinton did on the budget fight and welfare reform. If Obama looks weak, if he looks like he is folding to the Republicans' main demands, progressives will rebel in a way that makes the tax cut reaction look like it was a big endorsement. The concession to Republicans on the tax cuts will smart for a while, but it will be forgiven if Obama shows strength and guts and resolve in future showdowns. And maybe he should just get started early: announce now that he will not allow the credit and financial standing of the United States to be held hostage, that he will only accept a clean, no amendment extension of the debt ceiling next year.
2. The response to the deficit commission. If the President decides to embrace all of what the deficit commission chairs proposed, including Social Security and Medicare cuts and an increase in the retirement age, all hell will break loose. Based on the conversations I have had with folks in the progressive community, this will be nothing like the tax cut deal, where progressives were actually quite divided because of the urgency of getting unemployment comp extended.
There is nothing in the deficit commission report progressives like well enough to be able to stomach cuts in Social Security and Medicare, the most core components of progressive movement identity. If Obama does this, it will truly be crossing the Rubicon, going on a bridge too far (and every other cliché imaginable). It would virtually guarantee a well-funded primary; it would provoke attack ads by Democratic base groups; it would generate millions in online contributions to groups and blogs to fight Obama. It would be civil war within the Democratic Party, the big one.
Along with the civil rights legislation of the mid 1960s, Social Security and Medicare are the ultimate achievements of the modern progressive movement, providing senior citizens (and the children who take care of them) a modest safety net as they grow older. Progressives will never sign off on cutting benefits for elderly Americans, most of whom make less than $20,000 a year with their Social Security, or raising the retirement age for working class folks who work long hours at demanding jobs if they are lucky enough to get full time employment at all. There are plenty of policy compromises and rhetorical moves to the center progressives could live with: this ain't one of them.
3. The response to the loss of immigration reform. For the last two years, the Obama administration has cracked down on undocumented immigrants, driving up deportations to record numbers. They have argued to Hispanics and progressives that doing this was the only way to get the political cover needed to pass comprehensive immigration, or more recently the DREAM Act.
With the sad death of the Dream Act last week and a far more anti-immigrant Congress coming to town in January, any hope of legislative progress on immigration is dead. Obama making preemptive concessions without getting Republican support on this and several other issues has become a real sore spot for progressives in general, but doing it on this issue is inflaming arguably the most politically volatile part of Obama's base. Hispanic voters turned out in big enough numbers, and voted strongly enough for Democrats, to save a bunch of western Senate, Governor's, and House seats for the party this time around, and they are going to be badly needed to do the same in 2012 for Obama to have a chance in states like FL, CO, NV, NM, AZ, and OR.
If Obama sticks with the tough-on-deportation political strategy while showing no progress on immigration overall over the next two years, it will irritate the entire progressive community, but it will enrage his Hispanic base most of all.
4. Which side is he on? On the most fundamental economic issues of our time -- jobs and the foreclosure crisis -- progressives along with middle and working class swing voters need to be convinced that the president is on their side. Because of TARP, the revelations about AIG's bonuses and paying back banks like Goldman in full, the administration not putting the big banks into receivership or demanding concessions from banks in return for saving them, because of opposing attempts to break up the banks during financial reform, and most recently, because of not supporting a freeze on foreclosures or other strong accountability measures on banks engaged in foreclosure fraud, progressives and middle class voters feel like the administration hasn't held the banks to account, hasn't been on their side when the banks are running roughshod over homeowners and regular folks.
It feels to a lot of progressives and working class folks like the president has fought hard to save the banks, but not for jobs or to help homeowners being victimized by bankers. Nothing would repair the breach between progressives and the White House more than taking actions on the foreclosure crisis that showed they were clearly, strongly, unequivocally on the side of the middle class instead of the banks on this foreclosure. As I have argued before, it is the great sleeper issue in American politics over the next two years. And in terms of the jobs issue, the president isn't going to have much success getting new jobs measures though Congress, but there is a great deal that the executive branch can do to promote a strong jobs agenda, and in every speech the president needs to be pushing everybody -- his own agencies of government, Congress, the private sector, even the non-profit sector -- to have a single-minded clarity about creating new jobs.
Corporations need to be pushed to spend some of last year's record profits on producing jobs. Banks need to be pushed to invest in and lend money to businesses that want to hire new workers. Non-profits need to be given incentives and grant money to help them hire more people. President Obama needs to be seen as fighting for jobs in every single thing he does, and he needs to be seen as taking a stand on behalf of workers and homeowners against banks that are taking advantage of them, and companies sitting on big profits but not hiring anyone.
Today, the president had a great signing ceremony of the repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell". His speech was as strong and fired up as anything I have seen in a while. On that issue, it took a long time to get it done, with lots of frustrations along the way, and both the White House and the LGBT community had a lot of tense crabby times with each other. But through persistence and being aggressive, it got done. The president needs to carry that fire and that spirit forward in working with the broader progressive community. There aren't going to be a lot more clear progressive legislative victories over the next couple of years, but the President has plenty of time to rebuild the singed and broken bridge to the progressive community. He needs to show strength in dealing with the Republicans; he needs to not embrace things that progressives hold most dear; he needs to not move to the right on issues when there is no corresponding concession from the other side; and he needs to make crystal clear whose side he is on. That is not going to be easy with the Republicans running the House, and the David Broder's of DC constantly calling on him to move to some kind of mystical DC center with Republicans who keep moving the goalposts back. But this President still has plenty of opportunity, even in a divided government that will call for some compromise, to show progressives he is on their side in the things that matter the most, and they should be on his.
No president has ever won re-election with an estranged base, because it is a president's base that fights your battles for you, that stands with you and defends you when times get tough and the other side is on the attack, that gives you money and knocks on doors for you and talks neighbors and co-workers into voting for you. Mr. President, you can get your base back and you need to. If you show you are on our side, we will be on yours.
Once we realize and accept that ("denial, bargaining, anger, depression, acceptance"), progressives won't be so angry and frustrated by him.
We need to continue to promote "forward thinking" and drawing attention to important issues and solutions to problems that are not just "Obama-safe, centrist ones".
He's not one of us (but progressive Democrats never get to be President, so....), but at least, from time to time, he might be listening.
If you think the next 2 years are going to be somehow some awakening for Obama? Guess again. With the wind at his back, highest popularity at any time, full control of the House and the Senate, he crept along until the Democrats became irrelevant and THEN went broke. WTF?!
I'm looking at the entire 2 year review, and all I see are capitulation, compromise and corporate giveaways to the enemy of progress, change , hope and our civilization along with the most massive transfer of wealth upward since the baron-robber days of our republic. Awful..
This President, let the TP gain momentum when he could have shut them down using rhetoric, he let the GOP frame the argument, and he never brought pressure to bear on anyone other than the House making progress where they could. Now he's got a bunch of dangerous fools who are tampering with the debt-ceiling as a mater of principle. Really?!?
Whatever, 2012, he will not be sworn in again, not by my vote at least.
- A prime example of the american entitlement problem.
"For the last two years, the Obama administration has cracked down on undocumented immigrants, driving up deportations to record numbers."
- And so they should, they are doing something illegal and should be punished.
"he administration not putting the big banks into receivership or demanding concessions from banks in return for saving them"
- The government policies were what caused the mortgage crisis so the government should have admitted that and saved the banks but instead they just saved them.
"Corporations need to be pushed to spend some of last year's record profits on producing jobs."
- Do we not still believe in capitalism?
Nope. Look at where we are....each generation since the 50s worse off than the one before. The middle class all but gone, poverty rampant and the top wealthiest richer than ever before.
Clearly capitalism is a failure.
- This is one of the fundamental problems in my opinion with the country, people feel entitled the government should not be required to provide any of these things.
"the administration not putting the big banks into receivership or demanding concessions from banks in return for saving them"
- The government policies on forcing banks to accept mortgages they normally wouldn't because of perceived racism in mortgages cause the crash so the government should've stepped up and accepted responsible, which they didn't.
"Corporations need to be pushed to spend some of last year's record profits on producing jobs."
-Do we not believe in capitalism anymore?
"Non-profits need to be given incentives and grant money to help them hire more people."
-More spending great exactly what we need.
"For the last two years, the Obama administration has cracked down on undocumented immigrants, driving up deportations to record numbers."
- Good he should they are here illegally they need to be deported
Please tell me you didn't just type that? The entitlement mentality that the liberals have created with their social programs are what's hurting the country right now. The government has ZERO responsibility to provide everybody with health care, food, gas, heating, A/C, and other things.
Aside from that, I agree with your other points.
You TP members and Libertarians are quacks. I want to live in a society where we can work together and help each other cooperatively, raising all boats. This is a civilization, not some winner-take-all contest. It's obvious you and other, "people" like the dog eat dog world, which is exactly WHY we got here in the first place, pure plain greed.
The Govt. helps those least capable of taking care of themselves. Such as people with mental disabilities, like my son, or the elderly or infirmed. We should take care of our citizens who can't, by no fault of their own, take care of themselves.
Why haven't I heard a single one of you geniuses of government encroachment talk about the military and how that weighs us down, how we're garrisoned as much and how much that costs? How about the subsidies to large corporations paid for by tax payers, businesses using our commons and paying little to nothing for their use?
You know, I could hear you and other TP heads arguments on spending if you were at least 25% genuine about having a discussion instead of demonizing the poorest and the people least capable of defending themselves.
A shameful display, and quite ugly.
Truth.
"If Obama does this, it will truly be crossing the Rubicon, going on a bridge too far (and every other cliché imaginable)."
For some he has already done this. He lost me, and others, when he killed the Public Option.
"Which side is he on?"
Too easy: Wall Street, Big Banks, Insurance Companies, Big Pharma, Hospitals and Corporate America.
"Corporations need to be pushed to spend some of last year's record profits on producing jobs. "
Heck yes he does, would love to see him do so.
Interesting analysis so far Obama and his Administration have found it easier to demonize his base, repeatedly, than reach out to them. My guess is that once we hit 2012 he will start making nice sounds toward them again. The question is whether they will believe him after everything that has happened so far. We will see.
“The president seemed to concede the fight early”, yeah, ALL the fights! This apologist “strategy” that wants to “repair our unity” is just more illusion & wishful thinking. If Obama had any intentions to actually fight for people instead of corporate/banker/filthy-rich greed, he would have done so already; the fact is he betrayed us, & his intentionally deceptive rhetoric was used to gain our trust that was then thrown into the garbage; any “progressive” rhetoric in the future will be only to attempt to regain trust from a gullible public; please don’t add to that cynicism with distortion of his record.
The tax-cut “compromise” bill has many elements that will damage our nation & people for decades, & if anyone thinks they will be allowed to “expire” or be modified in favor of justice & fairness, I have a bridge in Brooklyn to
Come on all you "progressives," go for some good anti-gun stuff. How about it? You know you want to. Don't let those old, white men push you around. Give us a good "Assault Weapons" "Ban". What could possible go wrong?