Liberalism’s Next Steps
E.J. Dionne Jr. writes about the problems with liberalism in the United States. First lets look at what President Obama has accomplished in two years.
And, yes, there is the small issue of Obama’s real achievements, the health-care law, above all. If insuring 32 million more Americans is not an enormous social reform, then nothing can be said to count as change. The now well-rehearsed list of additional accomplishments – from Wall Street and student-loan reform to the end of “don’t ask, don’t tell” to the simple fact that the economy’s catastrophic slide was halted and reversed – would, in the abstract, do any administration proud.
Then Dionne gets into the Fringe Left’s complaints that Obama hasn’t done enough.
For the left to ask Obama to be bolder in testing the limits of the possible means it is doing its job of pushing the president to do more, and to do it faster. Conservatives have mastered this approach. Why can’t liberals do the same?
Agreed. My biggest problem with the Obama Administration is that they stopped campaigning. Maybe it’s the dichotomy of governing and campaigning, however the administration needed to be out there selling what it was doing and not depend on the hapless Reid. But, where I diverge from the Fringe Left is saying that the Obama Presidency is an abject failure. If nothing else, the Fringe Left is all but adding to the stereotype that liberals are inherently negative.
But too often progressives have spent more time complaining about what wasn’t done than in finding ways to build on what has been achieved. It took decades to complete the modern Social Security system and years to move from tepid to robust civil rights laws and from modest to comprehensive environmental regulation. Impatience is indispensable to getting reform started; patience is essential to seeing its promise fulfilled.
So, the Fringe Left has a decision to make. Do you work with the Obama Administration and try to get more of your agenda passed? Or do you throw the baby out with the bathwater when you don’t get what you want, because President Palin would be a much better choice?
Tags: Fringe Left, President Obama
No. The Fringe Left is not a player in this debate. The Fringe Left is your own personal strawman and your artificial blogging muse. This debate is between the traditional Democratic agenda, and the Third Way/New Democrats represented by this post.
It is a classic technique of movement conservatives to label mainstream Democrats as fringe or radical liberals. Then once they force Democrats to the right, they start over again. Lather, rinse, repeat. They are 100% on message with this point and are backed up by the media. It is depressing to see Democrats now doing it too. It is damaging when Republicans do it, but even more damaging when Democrats do it.
This blog used to be the home of the critical thinking that identified and called out these false premises and Republican frames. It was refreshing. But now that spark seems to have been lost.
You are having a lot of fun talking about the Fringe Left, but who exactly are you talking about? How many Congressmen can you name from your mythical “Fringe Left?”
So, the Fringe Left has a decision to make. Do you work with the Obama Administration and try to get more of your agenda passed?
“Your” agenda? Wrong, wrong, wrong.
The strongest legitimate dissatisfaction with Obama demands no more than the Obama 2008 platform. In 2008 I didn’t hear any Democrats calling Obama’s platform “Fringe Left.” Even now we agree that Obama ran as a centrist. If that was good enough for you in 2008, why is it “Fringe Left” now?
I don’t accept that the “center” is defined by Republicans. The center is where it always has been. I don’t concede that the Repubs far-right policies are a legitimate place to measure the center from. Do you?
Policy has been pushed to the radical right for going on thirty years now. Any radical movement to the left would have to start from the far center-right, and then it would take quite a bit of leftward pressure to even get it back to the center, let alone to the center-left which is the heart of the traditional Democratic agenda.
I wish Third Way Democrats would just become Republicans already. Then at least they would own the corrosive policies they support.
Dionne is correct. Many of the accomplishments of the Obama would do any administration proud. That is precisely the problem from a progressive point of view. The “accomplishments” would have been suitable to even a center-right administration. Even the health care reform was based in large part on Romney’s model for Massachusetts. That’s hardly progressive.
Anon’s comment above needs to be memorialized somewhere as the textbook of *strawman*.
Anon: If current trends continue, I can see the DLC Democrats and the Castle Republicans coalescing together. IN that case the question becomes which wing, left or right, becomes the second major party?
If current trends continue, I can see the DLC Democrats and the Castle Republicans coalescing together
They already vote the same. The only thing keeping them from merging is vestigial tribalism.
The only thing that separates the Castle/Third Way Democrats from conservatives now is are the social issues.
And conservatives have proved they are willing to concede their social issues in exchange for more raids on the middle class.
Anon’s comment above needs to be memorialized somewhere as the textbook of *strawman*.
Lost spark.