I’ve already written about the administration’s announcement that they are going to treat walking and biking as equally important transportation options as driving in a car. Today, the administration also announced that gays and lesbians will be able to visit loved ones in hospitals and exert power of attorney even if they are not related by blood or marriage. This comes at the end of week that started with a huge international summit on securing nuclear material that might be converted to use as weapons. And it comes only a month after passing the single most progressive piece of health care legislation since Medicare. I know that the health care bill was badly flawed and I know that Obama has yet to keep his big promises to the gay community. I know that Obama has been a disappointment on accountability for the Bush years and on civil liberties. I know that his policy in Afghanistan is unlikely to succeed or be worth the costs. I know that there are other things to gripe about.
But it’s important that we take note of these accomplishments and not let them slide below the radar because they don’t get a lot of news coverage. Letting people get health insurance who have preexisting conditions, subsidizing health insurance for all Americans who can’t afford it, allowing gays the right to be with their partners and take control of their medical care, strengthening non-proliferation efforts and international cooperation, and implementing urban-friendly transportation policies are all progressive achievements.
And this is what I mean when I argue that Obama is basically a progressive. But when I look at the progressive blogosphere and the values that seem to proliferate and dominate among the participants in the progressive blogosphere, and I compare those values to the values of the country at large, I realize that we probably only represent somewhere around 20% of the electorate. And it’s worse than that because we’re really concentrated in a few metropolitan areas. Our representatives tend to win reelection with over 65% of the vote. And the congresspeople that have to fight for reelection are mostly serving in districts that aren’t all that attuned to our values. Or, if they are, they are still vulnerable to the kind of crazy fact-challenged attacks that the Republicans excel at spewing out.
You can’t elect a open progressive to statewide office in most states and you certainly can’t elect one as president. And, even if you did, they’d have to deal with the plain fact that nearly half of their own party’s congressional caucus is not progressive at all.
So, this is what progressive change looks like in a country where progressives are badly outnumbered (especially in Congress). We have to retreat on some things, and the big comprehensive bills have to be crafted to meet the broad center, which isn’t progressive at all. But, around the edges, on the small things, on the regulatory stuff, we can get big gains.
Excellent point.
of course, this is not going to quiet the people who yell OBAMA IS JUST LIKE BUSH HE SOLD US OUT!!!!
But it’s good to get a clearheaded response to this week’s events.
I will be jacking these same arguments to make to my friends. It’s a rationale I think I have to adhere to as an African-American. Obama can’t really cater to us even though he’s one of us. But around the margins, he’s doing some things that could really benefit our community. Which we will never see in any Republican administration. Or a Blue Dog one for that matter.
We need to celebrate the gains. And not just gripe over the losses.
It’s not just because I’ve been saying much the same thing to those I’ve come to call “(sigh) The Disappointed” that makes me commend your post. It’s because what you’ve said is so very true and worthy of being repeated over and over again. I’ve been compiling a list of positive things that have been done by the Obama administration and Congress since Inauguration Day, 2009. It’s quite impressive, and I update it regularly and carry it with me in the event I meet one of “(sigh) The Disappointed” while doing my daily duties. That list and, if needed, a little recap of the years 2001-2008, along with a small injection of the comprehensive political climate, usually brings most of them around, kind of like reality smelling salts.
I come to this blog every day for MY injection of sanity. Thanks for the great post.
Have you posted your list? Every once in a while I’ll be talking or writing and finding myself in need of exactly that. I’ve been wondering if there’s a way Boo could make a permanent space here for such a list that readers could keep updated. Maybe yours could be the seed for it.
Here are some accomplishments on environment & energy, plus other accomplishments still needed for the needed impact:
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2010/0417/Obama-s-gambit-to-marry-US-policies-on-environment-a
nd-energy
this is what progressive change looks like at the end of a long period of conservative hegemony.
*Lots of small initiatives that don’t cost much money (e.g., hospital visitation, enforcing existing OSHA, CPSC and FDA laws and regulations).
*Big initiatives (near-universal health care) passed in conservative form (Romneycare) or slipped into larger packages (student loan reform).
*A big economic recovery act that’s not big enough and is weighted too heavily towards tax cuts…but nonetheless is the biggest investment in clean energy, transportation and education we’ve had in decades.
It’s important for the progressive cause that, over time, all (or most) of these initiatives work and be seen to work.
It’s important that moderates see, over time, that “this is what democracy looks like” is not just a slogan chanted by DFH’s protesting in the streets. Democracy also looks like a government that’s on the side of families looking for work, paying for college, dealing with rapacious banks, seeking basic safety and dignity on the job, and wanting to visit their loved ones in the hospital.
The more that moderates see that’s what progressive change is about, the easier it becomes for moderates to join in supporting progressive change.
It’s a long-term project. What’s most important is that we’re moving in the right direction.
We are indeed “badly outnumbered” by the moronic majority in this country. On many issues, however, I think Obama and his team have gone further to the right than they needed to. The center in this country would have supported a much better health care bill if the president had fought for it earlier. The center would also, I believe, have understood a rational disengagement from the folly in Afghanistan.
Obama has done good things and has the potential to do great things. To achieve greatness he can’t keep placation of the right as his default objective.
Your big and constant mistake is assuming that, first, Obama can just make people change their minds, and the fact that they haven’t is his fault, and his alone. More importantly you assume that what the population wants automatically gets through Congress. You know as well as I do that that’s not how it works here.
Between the contemptible burdens the founders placed on Constitutional change and anything resembling popular representation, and the shift from votes to money as the real political power base, what the citizens think takes a poor second or third in policy outcomes.
I suspect we both wish for radical change in this country. The difference is, you seem to think that could be brought about by a president if only he’d try harder. I think that’s teabagger-level analysis.
If you would only try to read what I write you’d understand that I don’t think minds need to be changed. The ideas you and Obama fear are too radical for main stream America would be welcomed by main stream America. His trepidation is the obstacle here.
Your lack of comprehension is a bigger obstacle yet.
I would agree that the general public would have supported a more progressive bill, however the Senate especially and Congress and general are well to the right and far more conservative (in the most literal sense of the word) than the general public. And since our nation’s laws are not passed by poll, I think the bill was just about as progressive as could have been squeezed out at this point in time.
I would argue that the political condition of progressives in this country is because of their self-segregation into progressive strongholds where they can feel comfortable and not have to contend with those who dramatically disagree with them. This is what I have labeled “duck and cover mode”.
It is time for that to end. There is no place in America that progressives cannot live — as long as the Bill of Rights is enforced. It is also time to come out to friends, family, neighbors, and co-workers. A lot of the enchantment of the Bush years is disappearing (which means that the Tea Party movement has missed their chance and will soon return to its woodwork). Not everyone has lost that Fox edge and motormouth, but enough have doubts that they test everyone they meet with anti-Obama slurs. And some can be engaged in real conversation.
So if your boss wants to transfer you to Nashville or Louisville or Cincinnati or Jackson, MS (or TN or MI) don’t use the fear of being a progressive in the midst of Republicans (or conservatives) as a reason not to consider it.
We “red-state” and Southern progressives could use a few more numbers in order to make our case and to eliminate the default assumption that everyone here is a conservative (“because it’s North Carolina values” or Mississippi values or Texas values or whatever). The fact is that that conservative cliche is a lie. No state ever was ever uniform in its political values.
Louisville is the blue dot in this beet red state (Frankfort & Lexington as well to lesser degrees), the place to make a difference is in each of the little townships in Appalachia and western Kentucky.
This is a quiet administration about its accomplishments. They don’t crow. Not on anti-terrorism, not on “the doc fix,” not on Lily Ledbetter, not even much on the improving economy. Those of us who voted for Obama and who see the daily progress, have to stand up and speak.
I thought yesterday, as I read about Obama signing the unemployment extension and the doc fix, etc. that all we heard for weeks on the teevee was about how Bunning and Coburn were blocking it. When it finally passed the press moved on, without skipping a beat, to the next area of potential contention: maybe the financial regulations or the START treaty. And the headline is always the same: “Obama faces trouble on ____ (fill in the blank)” But when that trouble is overcome there is no coverage. Their story is only the conflict, not the accomplishment.
So if the administration itself doesn’t crow, and the progressive blogs are nitpicking about their disappointments, then who will do it? I guess each of us has to find our own way.
For me, I have confidence. I see a strategy. When I see Obama meet and greet 47 world leaders and cooperate with them on loose nukes (the video of the meet and greet was quite amusing), I see someone starting to say: “OK, let’s cooperate here on this. We can make some headway on an important goal.” Let’s do it over here on climate change too. It’s building a spirit of cooperation. Even get Russia and China to come along. Then when the sanctions on Iran comes up in the UN, maybe those countries won’t vote “yes”, but they might not veto either. He probably got at “A” for “works well with others” in grade school.
The same is happening in domestic affairs. We have to look longer term. As Booman says we have to see each of these steps as progressive (not radical). Of course, that’s the fear that the far right has … that each of these small steps heads us off in a new direction. And indeed, they are right — over time. Yet over time people become accustomed to the changes they once feared and railed against; the changes don’t seem so radical in retrospect; and these same people become defenders of what they once opposed (see Medicare, see Social Security).
This is rambling, but imagine the nurse who might be very anti-homosexual who now has to allow a sick or dying gay or lesbian person to have visits from their partner or even has to respect that person’s decision-making. That contact, that experience for the nurse will, over time, change minds and hearts. Obama has patience and we have to as well.
I guess it was Jackie Robinson Day yesterday. I guess some folks were pretty upset back in 1947 when Jackie Robinson started to play in the major leagues. That’s 63 years ago, if my math is right. Can you imagine anyone saying today that there shouldn’t be Blacks playing baseball with Whites? Well, we have the same situation in government. We have folks who just can’t stand the idea that there may be a person of color in the presidency. THIS IS THE TRULY PROGRESSIVE ASPECT OF THIS PRESIDENCY more than anything else that Obama does. It’s just that he IS THERE. It’s going to take some getting used to for some folks, but over time, step by step, it’ll be ok. We just have to keep the faith, keep confident and, yes, remind our more conservative friends and our more liberal friends that this is progress.
I apologize in advance for the stream of consciousness aspect to this post.
Never apologize, especially for an outstanding and coherent commentary.
Agreed with some of your points, but I don’t think the President or Congress need to hide behind bipartisanship and center-right ideas to appease this country. You don’t look at the polls and move with them, your policies are what moves the polls.
So I don’t necessarily blame Obama for this, he can only get the public behind him. Even with the public behind him Congress won’t necessarily act on that. And while they dilly dally, the public is tugged in the other direction by Fox and Friends.
However, Congress needs to wake the up and start acting like Grayson and Perriello. They’re both interesting cases because neither of them are following the rules of the freshmen, nor are they following the rules of the typical left/right/center appeasement for their district. They’re both leaders, but in a different way; they’re both progressives in conservative districts. I lean toward Perriello’s model, since Grayson seems a bit too prone to shooting from the hip with his mouth, which, while entertaining and effective at firing up the base, in the long run might not actually prove effective at passing legislation and building coalitions. Let Grayson inspire, and Perriello lead. If we split the Democrats into these two types of modes, we’d be unstoppable. And we wouldn’t have to be stuck in the metro areas, as you’ve stated.
“I know that Obama has been a disappointment on accountability for the Bush years and on civil liberties.”
Indeed. one would expect that expanding Bush policies (and in fact going further than Bush did) would merit more than a sentence vaguely referring to “disappointment”.
If you are linking to an article that is all about that sentence then why do you need Booman to write another one? His blog post isn’t about that, that’s why there is only one sentence devoted to it.
Yes, I agree that progressives are located in large numbers in a few urban areas, and New York, New England and California. But all of that impressive polling that shows that the far right constitutes maybe a fifth or a quarter of the country ignores the fact that the vast majority of them are located in the Confederacy. Outside of that area, they are tiny minority except in pockets. There are a lot of progressive voters anywhere there is a large university, and that includes the Confederacy. The Northwest and the Upper Midwest have a lot of progressive voters. As to the rest of the country, they are persuadable. We just ain’t working hard enough or smart enough.
We need more reminders like this. Sometimes it seems like the loudest voices claiming to be Left have just immigrated from Sweden or someplace and have no idea of what this country is really like. They have no knowledge of the destruction left behind by Reagan, Bushes, and, yes, Clinton. Obama is no good because he didn’t singlehandedly turn us into Sweden.
It’s not that he doesn’t have his flaws or hasn’t given reasons for disappointment. The allegedly left Obama haters predictably say he’s all talk and no action. To maintain that fiction they force themselves into a corner where they have to ignore or discount all the changes that have already made America a better place to live.
I think the real problem with progressives is that we rarely do shit about anything. Where were we when ACORN was destroyed by lies? Where was our detailed healthcare plan? We went all-in on Obama and now seem to think our work should be done, and whatever he doesn’t push through our broken and corrupt system is a betrayal of our hope and our belief.
A prime example of our problem comes from MoveOn and allied groups. I love MoveOn and put in many hours working on their cause. But now they’re campaigning to show Capitalism, A Love Story at little house parties for MoveOn supporters. We already saw it. Why are we not renting the local library or movie house or college auditorium in rural Oklahoma or Kansas or Virginia and offering a free show to all comers? That’s where it needs to be seen. We are not isolated because of where we live. We are isolated because we don’t like going out of our comfort zone. So when an ACORN is destroyed for actually reaching out to new constituencies we just bitch a little and let it go, almost relieved to be rid of such a low-class image. We have a long way to go and Obama is not the problem. Given our crappy political system and our pathetic Left, he remains to a remarkable extent the beginning of a possible solution.
Good point.