General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsPlease stop trying
A lot of Obama's and Democratic success recently has (imo) been due to them finally starting to treat their relations with the GOP like the fight it actually is. Seeing Obama publicly calling out the GOP for obstructing a jobs program, and seeing him bash Romney over the head with Bain capital, is like a breath of fresh air.
Washington is broken because corporations can bribe and intimidate even good legislators with unlimited amounts of money, because the media is more interested in balance than truth, and because about 30-40% of the country truly believes that the government's primary job is to deliver the cosmic justice of divine punishment to those lesser humans who didn't work hard enough enough to be wealthy, male, or white.
Sure, people want to see leadership solve problems. But two halves of this country tend to have very different and diametrically opposed perceptions of what those solutions should be.
Nothing much can be done about that, so it would be nice if the President would stop trying. As the President proved with the Ledbetter Act and the Affordable Care Act, you don't need to fix Washington's culture to impose your will on it. You just need a bare minimum of legislators to pass the bills. All the attempts to achieve compromise with the other side of the aisle were functionally useless. A lot of nasty concessions had to be made to various corporate interests just to get to 60 recalcitrant Senators to pass the Affordable Care Act. We might even have been able to enact single-payer if all we needed were 50 Senators.
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2012/07/please-stop-trying-to-fix-washington-by.html
uponit7771
(90,370 posts)...agree with him were like wtf is he doing.
The issue now is will the at least learn and try to manipulate the hell out of the current GOP culture, they have shown to be weak to a rope a dope...a feigning of weakness by Obama, the GOP punches and gets caught with a thunderous counter which they usually run from.
Obama's ability to be great depends on this ability to manipulate the M$M and GOP memes in his second term IMHO...(knock on wood)
Folk who work on his campaign prolly should help him deal with GOP congress, those guys are brutal...
tridim
(45,358 posts)Progressive stuff, and lots of it, during a teabagger congress and with a hostile media. Even with the non-stop opposition and negativity coming from all directions the progress this administration made has been nothing short of stunning.
And his second term will be more progressive than the first.