Kabuki Democracy: Why a Progressive Presidency Is Impossible, for Now

[marmar]

from The Nation:



Kabuki Democracy: Why a Progressive Presidency Is Impossible, for Now

Eric Alterman
July 7, 2010


Few progressives would take issue with the argument that, significant accomplishments notwithstanding, the Obama presidency has been a big disappointment. As Mario Cuomo famously observed, candidates campaign in poetry but govern in prose. Still, Obama supporters have been asked to swallow some painfully "prosaic" compromises. In order to pass his healthcare legislation, for instance, Obama was required to specifically repudiate his pledge to prochoice voters to "make preserving women's rights under Roe v. Wade a priority as president." That promise apparently was lost in the same drawer as his insistence that "Any plan I sign must include an insurance exchange...including a public option." Labor unions were among his most fervent and dedicated foot soldiers, as well as the key to any likely progressive political renaissance, and many were no doubt inspired by his pledge "to fight for the passage of the Employee Free Choice Act." Yet that act appears deader than Jimmy Hoffa. Environmentalists were no doubt steeled through the frigid days of New Hampshire canvassing by Obama's promise that "As president, I will set a hard cap on all carbon emissions at a level that scientists say is necessary to curb global warming—an 80 percent reduction by 2050." That goal appears to have gone up the chimney in thick black smoke. And remember when Obama promised, right before the election, to "put in place the common-sense regulations and rules of the road I've been calling for since March—rules that will keep our market free, fair and honest; rules that will restore accountability and responsibility in our corporate boardrooms"? Neither, apparently, does he… Indeed, if one examines the gamut of legislation passed and executive orders issued that relate to the promises made by candidate Obama, one can only wince at the slightly hyperbolic joke made by late night comedian Jimmy Fallon, who quipped that the president's goal appeared to be to "finally deliver on the campaign promises made by John McCain."

None of us know what lies inside the president's heart. It's possible that he fooled gullible progressives during the election into believing he was a left-liberal partisan when in fact he is much closer to a conservative corporate shill. An awful lot of progressives, including two I happen to know who sport Nobel Prizes on their shelves, feel this way, and their perspective cannot be completely discounted. The Beltway view of Obama, meanwhile, posits just the opposite. That view—insistently repeated, for instance, by the Wall Street Journal's nonpartisan, non-ideological news columnist, Gerald Seib—is that the president's problem is that he and his allies in the Democratic Party "just overplayed their hand in the last year and a half, moving policy too far left, sparking an equal and opposite reaction in the rightward direction." And Newt Gingrich, speaking from what is actually considered by these same Beltway types as the responsible center of the Republican Party, calls him "the most radical president in American history" and "potentially, the most dangerous" as he urges his minions to resist the president's "secular, socialist machine."

Personally, I tend more toward the view expressed by the young, conservative New York Times columnist, Ross Douthat, that Obama is "a doctrinaire liberal who's always willing to cut a deal and grab for half the loaf. He has the policy preferences of a progressive blogger, but the governing style of a seasoned Beltway wheeler-dealer." Or as one of Obama's early Chicago mentors, Denny Jacobs, explained to his biographer David Remnick, Obama is a pol who learned early that "sometimes you can't get the whole hog, so you take the ham sandwich."

But the truth, dear reader, is that it does not much matter who is right about what Barack Obama dreams of in his political imagination. Nor is it all that important whether Obama's team either did or didn't make major strategic errors in its first year of governance: in choosing to do healthcare before financial reform; in not holding out for a larger, more people-focused stimulus bill, in eschewing a carbon tax; or in failing to nationalize banks and break up those that are "too big to fail." Face it, the system is rigged, and it's rigged against us. Sure, presidents can pretty easily pass tax cuts for the wealthy and powerful corporations. They can start whatever wars they wish and wiretap whomever they want without warrants. They can order the torture of terrorist suspects, lie about it and see that their intelligence services destroy the evidence. But what they cannot do, even with supermajorities in both houses of Congress behind them, is pass the kind of transformative progressive legislation that Barack Obama promised in his 2008 presidential campaign. Here's why.

***

The American political system is nothing if not complicated and so too are the reasons for its myriad points of democratic dysfunction. Some are endemic to our constitutional regime and all but impossible to address save by the extremely cumbersome (and profoundly unlikely) prospect of amending the Constitution. Others are the result of a corrupt capital culture that likes it that way and has little incentive to change. Many are the result of the peculiar commercial and ideological structure of our media, which not only frame our political debate but also determine which issues will be addressed. A few are purely functions of the politics of the moment or just serendipitous bad luck. And if we really mean to change things, instead of just complaining about them, it would behoove us to figure out which of these choke points can be opened up and which cannot. For if our politicians cannot keep the promises they make as candidates, then our commitment to political democracy becomes a kind of Kabuki exercise; it resembles a democratic process at great distance but mocks its genuine intentions in substance. ........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.thenation.com/article/37165/kabuki-democracy-why-progressive-presidency-impossible-now

[ixion]

1. k/r...

Not until after we go through the Corporatist Police State phase, at least. :(

[SusanaMontana41]

14. I think we're there:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pi8R_FUGys&feature=player_embedded

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

2. Long, excellent article

Summary:

We're f!@#ed. But then again, maybe not.

Alterman ended on an upbeat note of suggesting that President Obama would reform his reforms in a second term. Personally, I think that is just more wishful thinking and projection. None of the roadblocks he presents eloquently throughout his article will be any different in a second term.

Here's his bit on healthcare:

Despite his attempts to transform the way business is transacted in Washington, special interest money worked its will through Barack Obama's agenda in Congress to the point where it is simply foolish to discuss almost any issue without focusing first on who was buying what from whom. Consider healthcare. Why was a single-payer program defined as off the table from the proverbial get-go? Why was it impossible to include a public option in the final legislation? Why was the re-importation of prescription drugs declared out of bounds? Why does the insurance industry get to elude anti-trust regulations, particularly given the inefficiency with which it delivers its fundamental product? Why did it prove impossible simply to lower the lower the age at which Americans became eligible to buy into Medicare? Why wasn't Medicare allowed to negotiate drug prices for seniors in order to secure lower costs? Any of these options would quite likely have lowered the cost of deliverable healthcare to Americans, and significantly increased both the system's reach and its efficiency. The members of the Obama administration working on the issue were undoubtedly aware of all this. And yet they finally presented Congress with legislation that included none of them. Why?

Well, it wasn't the president's cowardice, his shortsightedness, a lack of character or an absence of cojones, though many on the left chose to attack Obama on exactly these terms. Without powerful special interests lined up on Obama's side, the battle for reform would have been lost before it had begun. As it was, Obama won it by the skin of his teeth.

In other words, we got the reform we were allowed to have.

[Nothing Without Hope]

3. One thing that is seldom mentioned is that Obama comes

out of the political machinery of the state of Illinois, where corruption is too often the rule of the game. I never trusted him - he was just too smooth and too ready to make promises and take advantage of the "Second Coming" explosion of hope.. And coming out of that political background, he would have learned backroom compromising of "principles" and how to wheel and deal "political reality" early.

[jaxx]

4. LOL the Chicago politics!

That always makes me laugh.

[Jefferson23]

5. marmar, thanks for posting. That is one of the best pieces I have read

in awhile.

One thing I would disagree with, he remarks that people find the reasons why Obama did not pursue some of objectives as outlined
during the campaign is due to lack of character etc. I think it is true, many get angry, but for the most part people who voted for
him realize that our established status quo system of government is a disgrace.

I was pleased to see the author state, "willing to fight for publicly financed elections". I know I am not alone when I say I've been
speaking out on this even during the campaign of 2008. To me, this is crucial for meaningful change to occur.

The only other comment I have is the lack of mention the author gives to Arne Duncan. Who has brought nothing to education I can support, and
an area that Obama does support that I find puzzling and disturbing.


Excellent thread!

[Enthusiast]

6. I'm with you on the education

thing. Puzzling and disturbing is how I see it. It makes me feel that Obama is a bit more of a mystery than I want to admit.

[Jefferson23]

8. I agree, puzzling in that it doesn't fit the Op either when you think about

it. His choice in Duncan was a pragmatic one? I have serious doubts about that.

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

7. I have just started paying attention to Arne Duncan and what is happening to public education

It just wasn't my issue - I was too hung up on health care and Supreme Court misdeeds, the wars, the Justice Department, Social Security and Medicare, etc. to pay much if any attention to Arne Duncan and education.

What a freaking Pandora's box of evils that turns out to be! I know the educators have been posting here since Duncan was named with their hair on fire just like Richard Clarke was running around with warnings before 9/11.

Arne Duncan is the corporate enabler supreme of public education. It's just one more area to be commoditized. His track record in Chicago is a horror story that was falsely passed off as a model to be emulated.

President Obama made his agenda plain with his appointments. It's not a coincidence. You can't have a Chief of Staff and an entire cabinet filled with DLC/NeoLiberals without knowing exactly what you want to accomplish.

As went healthcare, so will go education and Social Security and Medicare

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoliberalism

[Jefferson23]

9. Similar for me too on the education front, I was much more focused

on executive power, civil liberties, health insurance reform etc too. I was just reading about Duncan and Special Ed, when he was
in charge in Chicago, made me cringe. A Democrat is behind this??

But I will say that for the most part I think the author of the Op speaks to the tragic consequences of our electoral system
being flooded with hideous levels of money, until that changes, I don't see that much else will.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

10. I never trusted Obama, although I had a tiny glimmer of hope that he might be a closet progressive,

but my heart sank when I saw who his Cabinet appointments were. DLCers or Republicans every one.

He's not helpless. He doesn't want to do any of the things his campaign speeches gave the impression of wanting. He never did. He was never a progressive. He just played one on TV.

The corporate establishment picked the two "acceptable" Dem candidates in 2007. (I was suspicious when there were half a dozen candidates but Obama and H. Clinton were the only ones mentioned in the mainstream press.)

Then they ran them against each other to see which one would fly. Instead of revealing what each candidate was promoting (and thereby hiding the fact that there was very little difference between them ideologically), the press played a game of, "Do you want the first black president or the first woman president?"

Obama is no progressive, because the media and political and corporate establishment will not allow a progressive through the primary process. They will allow a few Congresscritters to represent a few Congressional districts, but as far as real power is concerned, that's reserved for pols who play nice with the Big Boys.

[marmar]

12. Agreed.

The establishment will not allow a real progressive into the race.....only a revolution will change it.

[depakid]

11. Alterman's problem is that he simply fails to look at the objective record

preferring his own vacant musings on Obama to the evidence.

[Jefferson23]

13. Is it your opinion he is giving Obama a pass? n/t

[depakid]

15. No, he's just not looking at Obama's voting record in the Senate

or public statements after he won the nomination.

These show rather clearly a set of attitudes, beliefs and values that one saw in Rockefeller Republicans. He's not "settling for half a loaf" most of the time- he's simply not interested in the full loaf (and especially not interested in rocking the boat or engaging in conflicts, arm twisting or ensuring political consequences for those opposing the loaf).

[Jefferson23]

16. I agree with that in part, Obama was close with Lieberman then and

gave his support over Lamont back then too.


For me, I question what is the motivation of a Third Way ideology, and I can't get away from wondering if at its inception
it was a means to compromise beyond what occurs in politics in general as a response to a corrupt system as opposed to a
set of principles. If we were to have public funded clean elections, I have my doubts many Third Way candidates would be still be around.

Regardless, Obama is responsible for his choices, his decisions.