What we are seeing right now is a semi-coordinated, semi-spontaneous revolt on the left to the latest compromises in the Senate health care reform bill. We can talk about the wisdom and possible efficacy of this revolt, but the administration has to deal with the left they have, not the left that they might wish to have (to use some Rumsfeldian logic). What the administration is facing is a consequence of the left having to eat too much shit on a whole host of issues from military commissions, a failure to root out and punish the crimes and practices of the Bush administration, the escalation of the war in Afghanistan, a too-friendly bailout of Wall Street, and now a health care bill that bears little resemblance to what Obama promised us in the campaign.
Obama can’t pass anything that doesn’t have unanimous support in the Democratic caucus because of the ruthless obstruction and opposition of the Republican Party. This forces him to govern to the center and make all his compromises with centrist Democrats and/or the two still-existing centrist Republicans in the Senate. The Republican obstruction empowers people like Joe Lieberman. It actually gives veto power to every single senator, but the only way to make up for a defecting Democrat is to win over Olympia Snowe or Susan Collins. So, if Bernie Sanders or Roland Burris revolt, he has to move the bill further to the right in response.
The left is immensely frustrated with this situation and inclined to blame the administration, but this is a simple logic tree. Obama cannot push the progressive position on pretty much anything if the centrists refuse to go along. Compounding the problem, progressives don’t really know how to influence centrists. They tend to insult them, call them whores, attack their families, and generally question their morals. Over time, this sets up the situation we saw with Lieberman where he switched positions on a Medicare buy-in proposal simply because the measure was pleasing to people who have been demonizing him for over three years. Rather than persuade the Ben Nelsons and Blanche Lincolns of the Senate, progressive tactics make them even more inclined to reject anything they perceive to be coming from the left.
It’s quite possible that the health care bill we’re looking at right now is worse than it would have been if ads and insults weren’t hurled at the people who have control over what will be in the bill. It reminds me of the campaign against General David Petraeus. Rather than educating the public about what was anticipated to be misleading testimony before Congress, MoveOn.org would up being censored by Congress, and the anti-war movement never recovered. That didn’t mean that MoveOn was wrong on the merits, only that they had a tin-ear and pursued self-defeating strategies.
But, if I have learned anything in my years of political activism, it’s that the left will act like the left, the right will act like the right, and that this is something it is foolish to ignore. You can’t plead, beg, or reason with people who are just wired to act the way they do. You have to know that if you make the left eat shit that they will react in predictable ways. They’ll get demoralized. They’ll blame you and your motives and your morals, even if your actions are basically dictated by the makeup and behavior of Congress.
The Obama administration can’t satisfy the left legislatively, but they need to recognize the need to satisfy us whenever and wherever they can. That means that the administration needs to throw bones to the left in appointments, and executive decisions that don’t require congressional approval. It means that they need to show more respect for what people are trying to do to assist them. It means that they need to show more fight.
Otherwise, they are going to run into a wall of opposition on the left and the right. Look at this:
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Wednesday that it’s up to President Barack Obama to persuade reluctant Democrats to fund his Afghanistan troop buildup — his most important foreign policy initiative — because she has no plans to do so herself.
Pelosi’s reluctance to lobby for an Afghan surge appropriation reflects the deep divisions within the Democratic Party over Obama’s decision to send more troops to Afghanistan.
This isn’t much different from the position the left is now taking on health care. The SEIU, Howard Dean, Keith Olbermann, Bernie Sanders and many bloggers are arguing that the health care bill should be defeated. Imagine that. Some of Obama’s best allies are now fighting on the side of Tom Coburn to kill the president’s number one priority.
That’s just what people on the left do. We splinter. The Republicans stick together no matter how disastrous their course. We fly apart and attack each other. You can’t change a leopard’s spots, but you can take account of its teeth. If the Obama administration wants to avoid a disastrous meltdown in the big-tent Democratic Party, they need to do a much better job figuring out how to give the left some victories. We’ve eaten too much shit, and now you have a big problem.