Let's imagine the political possibilities of the next two years and beyond. So far, President Obama's response to the drubbing of the mid-term has confirmed the progressive community's worst fears. Astonishingly, he still seems to believe the following:
The American people care more about bipartisan compromise and budget cuts than about ending the economic crisis.
If he just compromises a little more, the Republicans might still meet him halfway.
The recipe for economic recovery has something to do with reducing the short term federal deficit.
All three of these premises are disastrously wrong -- as politics and as economics.
Gestures like freezing federal pay levels and cutting the government workforce only play into the rightwing mantra that the government is the problem. Politically, they signal weakness.
This move makes no significant impact on the deficit, reduces employment and purchasing power; and, characteristically, Obama got nothing in return. The Democratic National Committee, disgracefully, even used the Organizing for America email list to try to drum up support for a Democratic president freezing worker pay during a deep recession.
The Bush tax cuts expire on December 31. Most Democrats are beating on the Republicans for refusing to spare 98 percent of Americans a tax hike, so that the top 2 percent can continue to get lower rates. Most Democrats are whacking the Republicans for letting unemployment insurance expire at a time of increased joblessness. But the message gets blurred because of Obama's mixed signals.
And instead of drawing a line in the sand and making clear that Democrats will not cut Social Security, Obama encouraged Democrats to support the scheme of the deficit commission, which was an anti-government, anti-social insurance blueprint that had very little public support and no constructive impact on the economic recovery that the country needs, and robbed Democrats of their most potent issue -- that Democrats defend Social Security and Republicans don't.
To add insult to injury, Obama just proposed yet another Bush-style trade deal with South Korea, which is likely to be a net job loser for the U.S. The widely expected appointment of investment banker and Robert Rubin protégé Roger Altman as Obama's chief economic adviser to succeed Larry Summers will continue the Wall Street dynasty at the White House.
The problem, however, is not Obama's advisers. It is the man who appointed them -- and his failure to know how to fight and lead as a progressive.
Let's stop pretending. Barack Obama is a disaster as a crisis president. He has taken an economic collapse that was the result of Republican ideology and Republican policies, and made it the Democrats' fault. And the more that he is pummeled, the more he bends over.
So what exactly are our prospects and alternatives?
Absent radically different policies, an economic depression will continue indefinitely. This is not a "Great Recession" in the New York Times' cute pun. It's a depression, made up of persistently high unemployment, reduced consumer purchasing power, damaged banks, and business unwillingness to invest, just like the 1930s. Unemployment is not quite as severe, but measured properly it is around 18 percent. And unlike in the 1930s, we don't have a strong Democratic president using activist government to dig our way out.
With Congress deadlocked, the second best course in these circumstances is to offer progressive policies that will cure the depression, and beat the stuffings out of the Republicans for blocking them. But that is simply not going to happen because that is not who Obama is. His style is not to draw bright lines, but to blur them.
Absent that kind of leadership, the Republicans going onto 2012 will succeed in blaming the continuing crisis on Obama and the Democrats. Obama is rapidly becoming our Herbert Hoover. As you will recall, Hoover's legacy was Democratic dominance of American politics for a generation.
The 2012 election is especially bleak because redistricting, with the increased Republican control of statehouses, gives the Republicans a likely pickup of ten to twenty House seats independent of other electoral trends. On the Senate side, just 10 Republican-held seats are up for re-election compared to 23 Democratic ones. The arithmetic alone suggests a Republican Congress.
So the choices boil down to these:
*Let Obama continue to undermine the economy, the real Democratic Party, and the New Deal-Great Society legacy.
*Do a ton of grass roots organizing to put pressure on the administration to change course and in the meantime to back real progressive leaders. The one time in recent memory that something like this worked was in the successful campaign to have Elizabeth Warren appointed interim head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The trouble is that the Warren appointment was something of a one-off. Though progressive pressure can produce an occasional decent appointment, it is not capable of compelling Obama to grow a spine.
*Run a progressive candidate against Obama in the 2012 primary. At a recent meeting of the Democracy Alliance, most of whose private donors and trade union backers were big Obama supporters, the two White House emissaries were ripped apart. AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka was severe in his criticism of the White House failure to promote a real jobs and recovery program. Co-panelist Austan Goolsbee appeared weak and ineffectual, like his President.*
Since the mid-term rout, some progressive donors who were big Obama supporters in 2010, have been meeting on the issue of trying to topple Obama in favor of a Democrat who would be able to fight the 2012 election as an economic progressive with clean hands, challenging the failures of both Obama and of the Republicans. Names that have been mentioned include Howard Dean, Russ Feingold, and Byron Dorgan.
My initial reaction was that this idea is both premature and far-fetched. Ted Kennedy's run against Jimmy Carter in 1980 only softened up Carter for Ronald Reagan in the general election. On the other hand, toppling LBJ was the right thing to do. Had Bobby Kennedy not been murdered or had Hubert Humphrey displayed just a bit more nerve, the Democrats could well have held off Richard Nixon in 1968, and emerged as a more effective governing progressive party.
The labor movement is just disgusted with Obama. Young people who rallied to him are turned off. Progressives in Congress are seething. Obama could well head into 2012 with little of his base intact, save the African American community. A serious primary challenger could easily win Iowa, where it all began. And a primary fight is a terrific organizing tool. It could force the media to take note of a progressive message about the economy.
Even if this doesn't come to pass, it is salutary that serious conversations are occurring, because it gets the attention of the White House, and raises the possibility, however faint, of a more progressive Obama.
There is also the likelihood in 2012 of a centrist independent candidate, perhaps Michael Berlusconi -- oops, I mean Bloomberg -- the billionaire martinet mayor of New York. What -- is Obama not centrist enough? Do we really need three candidates from Wall Street?
If things proceed as they have been going, here is what's likely:
Republicans take both Houses in 2012. Obama may barely hold on to the presidency, in which case a continuing depression becomes even more of his responsibility and we have an eight-year Herbert Hoover that the Republicans can run against for a generation.
Alternatively, Obama loses in 2012, Republicans become the governing party, do incredible damage, but don't cure the depression. And there is a shot that a progressive Democrat wins in 2016.
We could be in for a period like the late 19th century, of festering economic and social problems, failed one-term presidencies, and partisan oscillation in Congress.
To be clear: I am not rooting for a wall-to-wall Republican win is 2012 on the faint hope that it will set the stage for a Democratic comeback for years later. I am too mindful of the pitiful slogan of German leftists in 1933 -- "After Hitler, Us." Palin is not Hitler, but there is never a good tactical reason to root for the far right.
Yet if we are to be spared an awful decade, both economically and politically, either Obama needs to grow a backbone; or some other Democrat could well challenge him in 2012. Either course will require the progressive community to stop crying in our beer and to get out and organize.
*Correction: A previous version of this post erroneously stated that Goolsbie left the Democracy Alliance panel. This line has been removed from the post.
Robert Kuttner is co-editor of The American Prospect and a senior fellow at Demos. His latest book is A President in Peril.
Lincoln Mitchell: The Republican Party and the Future for the Democrats
Robert Kuttner: Saving Progressivism From Obama
If a president could be elected entirely from social networks on the internet, with little or no money backing, the whole game would change.
My proposition is to start a "Draft Feingold" movement via the internet.
What may be interesting is what the Independents come up with. Look at the reaction to Bernie Sander's display of endurance and passion for the middle-class; eight and a half hours of truth about how the middle-class is suffering due to corruption and greed on Wall Street and within the Federal Reserve. The corrupt and powerful corporate world has all but taken over our government. Politicians all know where their money comes from; on the right it has been an all-out sell-out, holding our legislature hostage unless it protects the ultra-wealthy to the extreme.
Bernie Sanders was a long breath of fresh air for many. A lot of the country is definitely weary of what both the major parties are dishing out. If voters are in the mood for a radical fix, the question will be which way they lean - to the Ron Paul Libertarian view of taking power away from the government and privatizing everything (leaving us all the more vulnerable to corporate corruption in my opinion), or the Bernie Sanders view that we need to "clean house" of the corporate bought politicians and bring back a government for the people.
That said he is not to blame. The Democratic party has controlled both Houses of Congress since 2006 and for a year after the 2008 elections had a filibuster proof majority in the Senate. The fact that the progressive agenda wasn't completely enacted is totally due to the policy and institutional incompetence of the entire Democrat establishment.
Frankly as a constitutionalist I hope that all Democrat party strategy is as much based in fuzzy indeterminate illogical thinking as Kuttner's article. Without having to concern ourselves with smart opposition from the left we constitutionalists can focus on removing the still too numerous big government statists in the Republican party.
People, life is hard. You have to be self sufficient. You have to believe in yourself and stick to your principals. Get over yourself. Don't call yourself progressive and then sell-out quicker than a cheap suit when it gets challenging!
With this, the President's true colors are revealed. While he may claim to 'care' about our 'needs', he promised that simply to get our vote. Nothing more. Now his job is on the line, he does whatever it takes to keep it. And guess what, he's concluded that the promise of taking from the 'haves' and giving to the 'have-nots' would get him elected, but it will not let him keep the job. Hence he's supporting the Bush, yes GEORGE W BUSH tax economics. Once again, supposedly educated people over the age of 21 continue to believe in the tooth fairy.
I am so MAD! Guess who is not getting my vote in 2012. He walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, so he must be a duck. shame on him the first time, shame on us the second. Hopefully the next year or so will go quickly.
I have been wondering why he capitulates and plays lawn jockey to the goops... it's because this presidency was supposed to be all about assuaging FEAR in white people.
THAT is IT! If Obama could be a non threatening black man with the squeaky clean family portrait... it was supposed to advance race relations... even if he bent over for the old white boys club every time...
I think he had very low expectations... that he expected the racism... and if he can just get through this without history being too unkind... its a victory .... of sorts.
Why else the costuming of the wife? And it IS a costume.
The answer is in the people.
The problem is we put money before the lives of the people.
Money has never been the answer.
Cause it has always been the problem.
The Corporations.
While Conservatives are trying to convence the people they are about defending the peoples Freedoms,our independence and liberty's.they work to take control over them.
Their supporting a corporate take over.
They have already put in place laws that have made it difficult to get a job and require you take a background check ,credit check , piss test,and answer their little survey questionaire in order for you to qualify for a job.
You can clearly see what the agenda is here.
Massive cut backs on jobs,hiring Freezes.
was meant to put a hard ship on the people to make the people more compliant to those demands.
It is to show who has the power and control over ,the jobs ,the resources,the economy,the government and the people.
They cry about Big Government.
Last time I checked our government was here to serve the needs of the people and sworn to preserve the laws of the constitution.
Protecting our Freedoms.
Corporations aren't here to serve no one but their own needs and want the people to serve them ,not the other way around.
They want to get rid of Government so they don't have to answer to anyone.
No ,I don't support Big Government!
But I don't support Privatized Corporations having control of our lives either.
The people need to regain control of their lives and stop being manipulated by both.
With Citizens United, our flight to plutocracy advances at warp speed......leader-less.
Obama has followed his own agenda from the start. He has slammed seniors and the disabled with his freeze on cost of living raises while caving into legislation that benefits Wall St.and now the tax cuts for the top 2%. He has shown what he is from the very start, but everyone was in denial.
We cannot let him run again. He has been responsible for numerous policies that are destructive to our country. That Healthcare bill ranks near the top. His inertia during the Gulf disaster was sickening. It goes on and on. The Democrats are totally divided under his leadership. He has no made no friends in D.C. He is an outsider by choice.
The problem is the Democrats don't have a Robert Kennedy figure. The only Democrat that displayed the type of idealism an charisma of Bobby Kennedy was Obama in 2008. I'd say the Democrats need a politician like a LBJ that isn't flashy, maybe isn't that likeable but can just get the job done. LBJ got Medicare, Civil Rights act and Voting Rights Act done.
We've tried the likable candidate. How about we try someone that can actually get the $*@)ing job done.