Obama’s Leadership, or Lack Thereof
Drew Westen gets at the heart of what independents like myself are concerned with vis-a-vis Obama. The title of his piece is “Leadership, Obama Style, and the Looming Losses in 2010: Pretty Speeches, Compromised Values, and the Quest for the Lowest Common Denominator.” Ouch. And a quote:
Consider the president’s leadership style, which has now become clear: deliver a moving speech, move on, and when push comes to shove, leave it to others to decide what to do if there’s a conflict, because if there’s a conflict, he doesn’t want to be anywhere near it.
Ouch again.
Although I lean broadly left on most issues (but I disagree with much of officially “progressive” or liberal politics), I did not vote for Obama. I, for one, was not bamboozled like a starry-eyed teenage girl at a boy band concert, like most of the left-wing people I knew. And I’m damn proud of it. I did not hear almost anything from Obama during the campaign that spoke to an authentically new, 21st century left-of-center ideological vision, and in the year since, I’m still waiting. Instead, during the campaign I heard the Democratic party basically pick up where they left off in 1980.
Never mind the massive changes that have occurred in America and the world since then (you know, stuff like the collapse of the Soviet Union, the internet and 9/11). It looked like the Democrats thought the same old tired ideological nonsense was still very much relevant. Much of that can be explained, of course, by the Democrat candidates’, shall we say, advanced age (and the seeming inability I have discovered of anyone who grew up during the Cold War to deeply grasp the true nature of the post-Soviet world order). But Obama, being younger, offered (hate this word) hope.
Well, so much for that. It turns out that Obama is basically a politician like any other. Little vision, lots of rhetoric and mountains of political strategy. With such a thin resume, so much of his appeal and attractiveness stemmed from his personality and charisma. Is anyone reminded of a certain right-wing political star? And now we see the result, as Westen points out so eloquently.
Silly liberals, when will they realize that the Republicans and Democrats are simply two sides of the same coin?
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Many of us realized that a long time ago, thank you very much. What we are faced with, however, is a moral hazard of the worst kind.
Either we vote for the Democrat, knowing that with the move to the “center” that began post-Carter we’re likely to see ourselves hosed from within, or we vote for the third party candidate, and know that the Republican will win. When that happened in 2000, we all held our collective breath. And once 9/11 happened, a wiley-er then we thought George Bush let loose the dogs of neoconservativism across the land. And we all know ho wthat turned out.
I’m no blind Obama supporter. But I can’t particiapate in the federal process, I can’t do my civic duty to be engaged, and support anyone else. Who, on the true Left, is left? Howard Dean has been marginalized about as effectively as one can be, and no one wants to run to the left of where the President currently is.
So what’s left?
Sorry for the bad pun.
I’ve never been particularly impressed by the lesser of two evils argument. To draw an analogy (without trying to draw a moral equivalence here), who would you vote for in a race between Hitler and Stalin? One could argue, well Hitler killed fewer people, so I’ll go with him.
I would submit the smarter thing to do is to go for the gold, so to speak. I would be much more impressed with an American left that organized and focused on a real alternative that they could believe in. That means building new parties and new coalitions to push a different ideological vision. If that means losing in the short term, then so be it.
I understand you don’t want the Republicans to win, but isn’t a false liberal basically just as bad, at the end of the day? Isn’t that what this article is really about?
Also, from a strategic standpoint: what good is winning the battle (i.e. a single election) if you lose the war (i.e. the country, over the span of time, continues the general rightward drift).
Look at the rise of conservatism in the 1960s and 70s: they did not compromise themselves to get power within the Republican party; rather, they stood their ground, and it was the Republican party that was transformed, thereby institutionalizing that new ideology, and subsequently political power could be won.
Not saying i would necessarily vote for such a new left, but it would provide a very interesting alternative.
I can’t argue with you at all, but after expending considerable energy to get true liberals past the primary stage, and loosing, on 2 November I had a choice – Obama or McCain. I voted OBama for the reasons I’ve outlined. it doesn’t stop my working – and donating and blogging for somthing better, but It also doesn’t mean there wer eother options.