The Democratic base seems to have coalesced around two opposing realities: Either President Obama is inept - if not an enemy of all things good and true - or he's doing the best any human being could possibly do. Both of these seemingly opposing positions lead to the same outcome. They encourage inaction, either through trust or through hopelessness, at a time when action is urgently needed.
Whatever his motives, reports suggest the President's about to make a terrible mistake by announcing cuts to Social Security in his next State of the Union address. If he does he'll be remembered as the "anti-FDR," the President who destroyed the Democratic legacy of Franklin D. Roosevelt, began the dismantling of the New Deal, and led his party to overwhelming defeat. As for his Presidential legacy - well, you can bet he'll be remembered. Generations of older Americans will mutter his name under their breath every time their Social Security check arrives.
What are his motives? I don't know, and at the moment I don't really care. He's shown that he'll respond to public pressure, and he urgently needs to feel some of that pressure right about now.
Alternate Realities
These days the activists who helped elect the President seem to be living in one of two realities:
Reality #1: Barack Obama is a cynical hack, a sell-out who lied to get elected and then reversed himself as soon as he got the keys to Air Force One. He's a Manchurian Candidate sent by Corporate America to destroy all government, with David Axelrod in the Angela Lansbury role. (Mother, stop it!) We're all f**ked.
Reality #2: Barack Obama is a brilliant, wise, and compassionate leader. His carping critics don't realize that he's playing a subtle, n-dimensional chess game that's beyond the comprehension of mere mortals. Sure, it looks like he's caving on key campaign promises before he even fights for them. It looks like he's a weak negotiator, or that these are the results he wanted. But if you could see the whole picture - if, for example, you had the reality-revealing sunglasses Rowdy Roddy Piper wore in They Live - you'd understand.
What do these two seemingly opposite realities have in common? They both lead to citizen inaction instead of citizen action. They have something else in common, too: They're both wrong.
Among the Believers
President Obama is clearly not the candidate he claimed to be. He said this at last week's press conference: "Look at what I promised during the campaign. There's not a single thing that I've said that I would do that I have not either done or tried to do. And if I haven't gotten it done yet, I'm still trying to do it." Granted, he was under the pressure of relentlessly hostile questions, but he really shouldn't have said that. It was a Gary Hart moment, an unwise challenge to the intellectually curious.
Let's see ... There was the health excise tax, which he opposed and later actively worked to enact; the individual mandate for health care coverage, which he opposed and then supported; some matters of civil liberties; science policy; Internet freedoms ... there were others, too, but you get the gist.
The true believers still say that the President's biggest problem is that he "inherited a mess," and that he's the victim of impatient critics who want him to do everything at once. He did inherit a mess, but impatience isn't the problem. Because of these reversals, a lot of people don't trust him very much anymore. He could regain that trust by fighting to protect Social Security.
All the President's Enablers
Then there are the believers' fellow travelers, the enablers.They'll criticize the President to a greater or lesser extent, but then they'll insist that he's doing a perfectly fine job overall. Steve Kornacki takes an enablers' tack in pieces like "Obama's Silent Majority." "It is the elites that have turned on him," says Kornacki, deftly echoing Nixon's use of the "silent majority" phrase. Yet Obama's approval ratings have been consistently below 50% for the better part of year, which is not a majority.
Okay, wrong title. Kornacki's real point is that Obama's approval ratings remain high among Democrats and liberals, despite the naysaying of the progressive "elite." But how deep is that support? The Democratic base stayed home on Election Day this year. They may say yes when asked if they "approve of" the President. But are they likely to raise money for him or knock on doors? That remains to be seen. (And we need to to watch the trend line on that "approval" figure, too.)
Meanwhile Ezra Klein looks at the post-election polls and concludes that "Obama's brand remains surprisingly strong." Ezra writes: "(Obama) is doing a far better job than his predecessors did preserving his brand within an unfriendly political environment." In other words, these are good numbers - for a guy with less than 50% approval ratings who just led his party to an electoral massacre. Well, yeah, I guess, if that's how you define victory.
Ezra's right, in a limited sense: Obama might be able to parlay himself into re-election, since he's been blessed with such inept and repulsive opponents. But that's far from certain, and if he loses even more Congressional seats (as now seems likely) his second term will be an unpleasant experience for him.
Enablers like my old pal Bob Cesca are a different breed. Bob says that progressives were never Obama's real base (really? during all those battles with the Clinton team over her Iraq vote and Iran posture?) Bob says "progressives have lost touch with reality" when they criticize the President. (He takes exception to seeing him described without the "President" honorific.)
Even if you accept the first highly debatable assertion, here's the real "reality": Most non-progressives oppose the kind of action Obama (excuse me, Bob, make that President Obama) is about to take, too. 76% of those polled oppose cutting Social Security to reduce the deficit, including 77% of Republicans--and 76% of Tea Party supporters! 81% oppose cutting Medicare, which will be the next falling domino. (There's more polling information in "The New Silent Majority" - I hadn't seen Kornacki's piece when I gave it that title.)
The believers and enablers are undoubtedly well-intentioned, but they do the President a disservice when they echo the bad advice he's getting from his inner circle. Sure, his approval numbers are holding more or less steady - but no President's ever been re-elected at such a low level. And yes, most Democrats still "approve" of him. But their level of enthusiasm has plummeted. Turnout for young voters dropped from 51% to 20% in this year's election - below 2006 numbers! If he can't turn out his base he'll get clobbered in 2012 - or wish he had.
Can he turn things around in two years? Of course. Can he do it by enacting such widely unpopular policies? Doubtful.
The Powerlessness of Negative Thinking
Disillusionment can be positive - if it leads to action. Unfortunately, too many people have turned to bitterness and personal animosity instead. That's a waste of energy. Have I gotten ticked off at the President? Sure. And yes, I believe he misrepresented himself in the campaign. But he's a politician. As politicians go, I've seen worse.
Obama doesn't always take the right position, but he can be influenced. We saw that to a certain extent during the health excise tax debate, when the unions and other groups pushed back on his mistaken policy reversal. He finally met them halfway. In politics, "halfway" is good.
Too many commentators have suggested that Obama's "cave-in" on Social Security is inevitable. It's not. He delivers the State of the Union message on January 26. That gives the public more than four weeks to stop him from doing something that's both destructive and self-destructive.
A President On the Verge of a Political Breakdown
Any move to embrace the radical recommendations of his Deficit Commission's co-chairs would be disastrous for the President, his party, and his Presidency. (Have I said that enough yet?) For those of you who are asking if he would really do something like that, the answer is yes. He's on the verge of it right now.
The President's "fence-mending" meetings with the Left are very nice, I suppose - but his problem isn't with "the left" and it can't be fixed with meetings. Remember, Republicans and independents don't want these Social Security and Medicare cuts either. He needs to build a fence - around Social Security and Medicare.
Beyond Faith and Cynicism - and Into Action
The President told voters that he wouldn't cut Social Security[1] and that it makes more sense to lift the payroll tax cap instead. Then he fixed the nation's attention on austerity by appointing the Deficit Commission (where's my Jobs Commission?), and appointed two Social Security haters to run it. Now he's being evasive about their recommendations. Voters need to tell him they don't want ambiguity, they want an answer: Is the Administration going to protect our retirement security or not?
We'll be accused of rhetorical excess for saying that the New Deal itself is at stake. But the Republican hostage takers are relentless. The threats and demands won't end with cuts to Social Security. Social Security and Medicare are immensely popular, but so are all the other elements of the New Deal and Lyndon Johnson's Great Society. Voters across the political spectrum embrace a variety of positions that are stereotyped as "progressive" on topics that include tax policy, student loans, and fighting poverty. Social Security cuts would be the first step down a road that ends in political suicide and an end to 75 years of government achievements.
The haters have given up on on Barack Obama, while the believers and enablers think he's doing the best that anybody could do. Both are wrong. He's no saint, but he's persuadable. It's up to us to save Social Security by pressuring the President - not by attacking him, and not by trusting him, but by pressuring him. That's the political game. There's no need to cut Social Security, and if he does he'll pave the way for future cuts in Medicare and other needed government programs.
It's irresponsible to have blind faith in the President, and it's misguided to give up on him altogether. The only smart course of action is to take matters into our own hands. There's no time to waste analyzing Barack Obama when action is so urgently needed. I want him to have a successful Presidency because I want what's best for the country. And what's best for the country right now is to save Social Security. That can only happen if the White House is pressured into backing down on these reckless and unjust plans, whatever motivations may lie behind them.
We can argue about the rest afterwards.
Sign the petition - 'Tell the President: No More Negotiations With Hostage-Takers. No Social Security Cuts."
[1] Candidate Barack Obama: "What I have proposed is that we raise the cap on the payroll tax, because right now millionaires and billionaires don't have to pay beyond $97,000 a year." Candidate Obama: "If we kept the payroll tax rate exactly the same but applied it to all earnings and not just the first $97,000 ... we could eliminate the entire Social Security shortfall."
Richard (RJ) Eskow, a consultant and writer (and former insurance/finance executive), is a Senior Fellow with the Campaign for America's Future. This post was produced as part of the Strengthen Social Security campaign. Richard also blogs at A Night Light.
He can be reached at "rjeskow@ourfuture.org."
Website: Eskow and Associates
Follow Richard (RJ) Eskow on Twitter: www.twitter.com/rjeskow
The Perpetual War must be perceived as an offensive against the United States, threatening its' security, bankrupting the nation in lives, and its' the wrong war.
The Inter Alpha Group of Bankers irrationally demand that derivative loses be bailed out, forcing budget cuts and austerity on the population. The US irrationally obeys. Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, Belgium, Norway, Spain, the UK, the US, must convince everyone that the world financial system is in disintegration. This is the war.
A National Economic Recovery Plan is necessary now; Crisis economy formation measures must be implemented now or this great nation is doomed. Now.
Statecraft demands the termination of the monetary financier system: Reinstate Glass-Steagall in US banking, Stop QE2 as deadly hyper-inflation will ensue, put the Fed into bankruptcy protection, recover the bailout trillions, banks that qualify will join the US National Bank. Then fund the 50 states, the necessary facilities that enhance the population's standard of living. Stop the Perpetual War Policy.
The US must activate its' economic platforms creating the higher order of existence via the organization of resources and infrastructure that enhances the populations standard of living. We must commit to the redevelopment of the North American continent starting with the NAWAPA plan and the Nuclear Fueled Energy Economy.
It's over. We had a shot, admittedly a VERY long shot, at fixing at least some of the ills that beset us, and we passed. We decided to keep doing what we were doing and talk about change.
Don't believe it?
How many petitions did you sign to impeach Bush-Cheney? I can count seven right off the top of my head, excluding the two times I signed Florida congressman Bob Wexlers's IMPEACH CHENEY petition. Wexler announced that if he got 50,000 signatures he'd begin hearings into impeaching Cheney. Within 8 hours, the petition had more than 100,000 signatures. Wexler backtracked, raised the ante to 500,000 signatures and the petition, the hearings, and impeaching Bush-Cheney were never heard about again.
Then there was Pat Leahy's petition to establish a Truth & Reconciliation Commission to investigate the abuses by the Bush-Cheney administration.
Oh yeah, Obama's going to be moved by a petition. We already handed Obama a 'petition', 'signed' by more citizens than ever in the history of the country. His election to the presidency. Not a day passes when I'm not filled with the same dread as when Bush and Cheney were office, powerless to prevent the mistakes they were making, that Obama is making.
There is no appealing to Obama. There is only appealing to his 'most ardent supporters', to try to get them to take off the blinders, and get Obama and the DLC out of power in 2012.
Obama has long since mastered the art of ignoring irrelevancies like his internet constituency.
It's not a "pendulum system" that swings back and forth. It's a ratchet system where we're jerked to the right, the pawl drops into the notch, and we hold what we got until the next jerk.
Obama MAY change this dynamic by actually making things as bad as possible in his own right. Then we'll get BOTH parties dragging us down.
Is it also possible that his native Kansan grandparents were supporters of FDR's 1936 Republican opponent, Governor Alf Landon of Kansas? Is it also possible that the President's grandmother, a top executive, and head of the mortgage banking unit at the Bank of Hawaii, instilled in the President a deep respect and admiration for bankers and the banking system in general?
Do some internet searches. Fascinating stuff. Excellent comments. F&F!
I'm not saying that I necessarily want to see cuts in these programs or that he doesn't - I just don't know yet and prefer not to speculate. I intend to keep an open mind until I hear from the President exactly what HE has in mind and then make up my OWN mind whether the ideas seem wise or not - all speculation by either you or Mr. Eskow aside.
I live in Republican Congressman Jack Kingston's district and I've heard him speak publicly about the so called Social Security crisis. He sounds like a salesman trying pitch a junky product to a skeptical customer. The audiences at his town hall meetings are made up almost entirely of his most avid supporters but even some of them push back on this issue. His response is to sell it even harder. Wall Street wants this money real bad.
We have raised our voices, and been called the "professional left" and other missives. He's not on our side.
I think we need to run a strong primary against Obama - draft Howard Dean before January and run him straight at Obama's left. Let Dean (or another strong liberal) show the building plans for that fence around SS and Medicare, and Obama can then position himself.
My prediction is that he will claim "adult in the room" status, and the MSM will love him for it.
The Democrats have NOT learned that lesson, that a dissatisfied base will ultimately make you pay. Obama responds to pressure, like any politician. Unfortunately, he feels most of his pressure from Faux news and the Washington media.
In my opinion, Obama will lose to any Republican, including Palin. Read some more recent history - America will elect an idiot, twice! Also, the #1 issue will still be the economy, and our chess-master president has endorsed supply-side economics with his tax deal. He will have to run against himself, as well as Romney, Palin or whomever else comes out of the Republican primary bloodbath.
We don't need to read history, we need to make history.
The original SSI (supplemental security income for elderly) is presently in reasonable health in the pay-as-you-go nature of the system, but those things not originally included (medicare and disability the prime additions) are already broke and going further and further in the hole each year. An aging population will very soon have the SSI core utterly broke as well.
There is no revenue to retire a huge amount of soon-to-mature 30-year, EXTREMELY high interest bonds that SS "loaned" to the general revenue fund when Reagan abandoned the pay-as-you-go nature in the early 1980s effectively using excess SS funds to hide excessive federal spending. The much vaunted federal "surplus" during a very few years during the Clinton presidency is in fact a deficit when you consider that it was excess SS collections diverted to general revenue via bonds that created the appearance of surplus.
First and foremost, health care costs must be reduced and there must be reasonable guidelines for health services--even if such can be described as "death panels". The entire disability determination system must be completely changed--hopefully to remove ALL disability "advocates" who receive pay for their services.
The ten-year growth in disability alone is enough to put fear into any actuary studying the system: http://www.disabilitycanhappen.org/images/research/10_year_final.jpg
How can you fail to mention the implication of the recently approved pay roll tax holiday - including and especially the short term political implications vis a vis the deficit commission and recommendations mentioned in the article?
He has much to answer for and I'm afraid at this point anyone who wants to see it can tell that he is a political operative serving the interests of plutocrats and doesn't much care what the people who elected him think of his priorities, he is betting you won't have another choice and he knows where the campaign money is coming from