I can't agree with Charles Pierce that having Obama "joining the resistance full time" would be a good thing, if that were going to help then why didn't it during the eight years he held actual power? In his piece, yesterday, Pierce noted that Barack Obama, instead of being engaged in full time efforts to resist the destruction of American democracy and the world has been engaged in socializing with the A+++ list of celebrities and giving $400,000 speeches to bankers and the such, which, given his presidency which never challenged the utra-rich and ultra-powerful at any basic level should surprise no one. It's what a golden-boy preppy-Ivy leaguer who became and remained president for two term could be expected to do, that is the dominant culture of his class. I was really disturbed earlier in the year reading that his idea of resistance was unleashing the Wall Street lap dog, Eric Holder. To be fair, I was just as skeptical about the idea of Bill Clinton being any kind of effective opponent of George W. Bush. While I wouldn't say that Barack Obama is someone I would like to never hear from again, something I have said about Bill, though not Hillary Clinton, I can't see him as being any more effective in opposing what, out of power, he did little to nothing to fight against while in power.
No, I think any leadership in opposition to Trump has to come from someone who isn't a member of the elite which has never been an effective opponent of that kind of thing. I suspect the set of all former elite law school grad and faculty such that they might be effective in leadership in opposition to Republican-fascism might be pretty much limited to one member, Elizabeth Warren. And the null set, but that's just a formality of set theory.
Obama is a figure of the past, a great campaigner, while he was running for office but one who I heard many down ballot politicians complain about being unwilling to help them with resources or even lists. In office he did a good job of setting low bars, achieving easy wins, being unwilling to play political hard ball for even his own signature agenda items, more interested in courting Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins and making nice with Republicans who regularly spat in his face than even trying to get the votes from stray members of his own party in the Congress. By comparison with Trump, I certainly miss him, as the leader of the Democratic Party I see what he squandered and gave away. If he and Holder had held the wall street crooks accountable, if he had pursued a full and extensive economic recovery instead of giving away huge chunks for the non-support of Snowe and Collins, if he had put the screws to conservative Democrats and passed a really great healthcare bill which would be more resistant to sabotage, we wouldn't be where we are right now.
So, please, Barack Obama, don't try to do now what you refused to do then. Obama's big mistake wasn't what Charles Pierce noted, giving the country absolution without penance, though that is a good idea, too, it is that he decided to play statesman while he was holding a political office during a time when statesmanship was never going to work. I always said I'd give him 2009 before I gave up hope. That was a long, long time ago and hope deferred evaporates.
Obama came up in politics on an even easier course than Clinton. Clinton got bruised so badly by Arkansas (he lost the governorship after one term, then won it back, IIRC, only to be replaced by Huckabee; so you know what he had to do to win it back) he never unlearned the lesson, and while he was a Democrat, he was hardly "progressive."
ReplyDeleteObama never even had that much trouble, nor that much training. He was a first term Senator when he won the White House. He went from the streets of Chicago to the Senate to the White House. Compare that with Kennedy, who was involved in the Senate early on, early enough to be in Vietnam when the French were still there. And LBJ, who was a political creature from the word jump, and learned every lever on the way up, and how to pull them.
We've gone more and more for "non-politicians," as if that would fix anything. Obama even ran as an "outsider," someone who wouldn't yield to partisanship but would find ways to make accords and "reach out" and "find agreements." He wrote a whole book about it. And yeah, it sounded good on paper; how'd it work out in reality?
Obama doesn't swing any pipe in American politics; he never did. We don't really have anybody who does, except for Sen. Warren, and honestly, who pays attention to her? Besides, at this point, the opposition to Trump has to come from the people, or it will founder on the screams about the individual trying to undermine the Presidency and the Constitution for partisan purposes.
And don't put it past them to find a way to demonize the people, either.