Obama gave the GOP the greatest gift of all [View all]

[brentspeak]

When he idiotically proposed to cut Social Security benefits by means of adopting a chained CPI, he gave away the Democratic Party's hard-earned 80-year-long status as the party which promised to protect Social Security against all attacks from Wall Street billionaires. Now, for the first time ever, Democrats seeking office or fighting for reelection can't really claim that their Republican opponents are seeking to dismantle or weaken Social Security without also being vulnerable to counter-attacks that it was the Democratic president himself who actually proposed similar measures to cut Social Security.

Have you seen much talk from campaigning Democrats on the issue of Social Security and how vital it is to prevent Social Security-hostile Republicans from getting into office? Not really. A massive weapon in the Democrats' campaigning arsenal has been surrendered -- by the party's own leader. It does not matter that Obama eventually dropped talk of the chained CPI; he never disowned it, and it's a matter of record now that the Democratic president supported it.

So, in sum, the New Democrats who have finagled their way into controlling the Democratic party have succeeded in giving away almost all of the Democratic party's traditional strength and appeal to the American people:

-- By enabling "free trade" agreements such as NAFTA, CAFTA, MFN for China, KORUS, etc. they have shrunk union membership -- a major chunk of Democratic support -- as well as giving away the party's claim to protect and strengthen the middle class.

-- By joining with Republicans to do away with things like teacher tenure, they have severely diminished support from another major component of the Democratic rank-and-file: the nation's teachers.

-- And by openly accepting GOP policies to begin the process of undermining Social Security, the New Democrats have toilet-bowled one of the defining differences between the Democratic and Republican parties.

Do you see how utterly important it is for the Democratic rank-and-file to once-and-for all remove the corporate Democrats and their flunkies from party leadership?