Are Progressives Fucking Retarded?

This was the famous question Rahm Emanuel asked in 2009 when progressives questioned Great Leader Obama's capitulation to conservatives.

The answer is, of course, no.

But Steven Hill makes some really good points in his review of the question and why progressives put so much hope in a clearly centrist Obama.

During the presidential campaign, while Obama deployed the lofty rhetoric and vision in his speeches that became his stock in trade, some of us were pointing out that there was nothing in this former state senator and then-U.S. Senator’s unremarkable record that indicated he was a strong or reliable progressive. Sometimes he had progressive tendencies, other times not. A friend of mine from Chicago who had Obama as a law professor presciently predicted that an Obama administration would be characterized by “ruthless pragmatism,” not progressive idealism.

But many progressives believed, quite fervently, that in the course of finding that ruthless pragmatism, Obama would cleverly figure out how to lean strongly progressive. There was always a nod and a wink coming from the Obama movement that seemed to say, “Don’t worry, he’s more progressive than he’s revealing. That’s what you have to do to get elected president in the United States.” When some of us continued to express doubts, these Panglosses got upset. Very upset. “It’s time to get on board,” they said. And I felt like Bongo, the one-eared rabbit in Matt Groening’s Life in Hell cartoon, shut up and gagged in a detention room.

How can so many brilliant people have fallen for so much hokum? That question is not an easy one to answer. Perhaps at some point Arianna Huffington, Robert Kuttner, Michael Moore and other left-ish pundits will engage in a bit of self-criticism and enlighten us as to how they were hoodwinked so easily. Because here’s my fear: Progressives don’t seem to be learning from their mistakes. Right before Obama’s inauguration, Huffington wrote, “Now, more than ever, we must mine the most underutilized resource available to us: ourselves… It is not just the Bush Years that should be over on January 20, but also the expectation that a knight in shining armor will ride into town and save us while we cheer from the sidelines. Even if the knight is brilliant, charismatic and inspiring. It’s up to us—We the People.”

Yet that’s exactly what so many did—they invested their hopes and aspirations, their passion, activism and money, in a shining knight for whom there was scant evidence of his progressivism or legislative accomplishments. Was it their desperation to see the GOP run out of town and the Bush legacy overturned? And the Clintons too? Was it their desire to see an African American elected president? Kuttner, author of Obama’s Challenge: America’s Economic Crisis and the Power of a Transformative Presidency and co-founder of The American Prospect, wrote about a friend who said, “I so wanted to be supportive of a great progressive president this time instead of being back in opposition.”

I've probably shared this story before on the blog, but in during the 2008 primaries, my students asked me who I supported. I said, "I'm ready to be disappointed by someone new." Quite clearly, there was little in the way of policy difference between Hillary Clinton and Obama. I thought Obama would be a little better than Hillary on foreign policy, though that difference has been heavily mitigated by her appointment as Secretary of State and the bizarre Libyan action. I figured Hillary would be better on health care. I was worried that Obama wouldn't do as good a job fighting against the Republicans as Hillary. I knew she would disappoint me and that 4 more years of Clintonism would not be a good thing.

So I voted for Obama in the primary. And I drank a little bit of that kool-aid as well. But its effects wore off very quickly. Obama is as disappointing as Clinton ever was. That's not Clinton nostalgia--Clinton sucked. But so does Obama.

And I am very unenthused for Obama's reelection. Obviously, I'll vote for him. I have no doubt that the next 18 months is going to create a Nader-nostalgia movement, when we again hash over whether Nader did the right thing in 2000 and whether we need a similar movement today. Of course, that was a complete disaster. Whoever wins the Republican nomination will be dangerous for the country. The only other option is to vote for the ever-rightward shifting Obama.

That's obviously distressing. And we need to have discussions about how we can escape this horrible cycle of evil Republicans and caving Democrats. But I do want to make one thing very clear--there is no progressive out there who should expect anything at all from Obama at this point. Anyone who thinks he will advance a progressive agenda on any but the most noncontroversial issues is completely delusional.

And this leads to what will be one of Obama's biggest challenges in 2012--the people who worked the hardest for him in 2008 are almost all totally disillusioned. They'll come out and vote. But will they give money? Will the volunteer? I doubt I will.