I think I Overestimated the Democratic Party's Abilities.

[tekisui]

I think that many have. After two resounding election wins, solid majorities and the White House, I let out a sigh of relief. We had made it through the wilderness and were able to treat our psychological wounds. We were comforted with the reasonable, compassionate adults in charge.

What I didn't realize, I admit now, is the inability of the Democratic Party. I don't know if it is because the supporters who mobilized to elect President Obama left the political arena due to short attention spans. I don't know if it is because our system or this party are too compromised to move quickly.

But, I have to ask. Where are the people? When the M$M coverage is focused on the rabidly ignorant fighting against expanding health care, something is very wrong.

Are people incapable of mobilizing for issues? Are the only capable of mobilizing for candidates?

Why are there not 'die-ins' demanding the public option? Where are the acts of civil disobedience at the doors of the insurance offices? Where is the doctors and patient marches?

Who dropped the ball and shirked their responsibilities? Was it the Democrats we elected or is it us for assuming they were capable?

[Xipe Totec]

1. Don't be deceived by the Potemkin Protests

Cardboard opponents planted on astroturf.

[ProSense]

2. There is so much misinformation swirling around it wouldn't matter what anyone

said:

Harkin: Mark My Word, Health Care Reform Will Have a Strong Public Option

Obama on the public option: ‘I absolutely do not believe that it’s dead.’

[babylonsister]

3. People mobilized and I've seen it proved time and again at town halls,

but via the internet. The m$m won't show anything unless it's sensational or inspires controversy.

Blame them primarily.

[Tim01]

4. I think you nailed it with short attention span. nt

[AllentownJake]

11. Nope

Poor leadership.

I had 30 people at my house in February ready to organize for Healthcare. In June there were 30 people at my friend's house. They were told to get petitions.

We were fighting THE PRESIDENT IS HITLER, with petitions. It was a poor strategy not anticipating what the Right was going to do. I pretty much knew it was a bullshit strategy so started working on a municpal race. Rather not waste my time with petitions while the enemy was calling me a Nazi.

[Arugula Latte]

5. Part of the problem: Many Dems. are corporate whoring Republican Lites

a la Max Baucus. They LIKED the status quo, and want to keep it.

[AllentownJake]

12. Well has 6 years before he has a primary challenger

It is a lot easier for a Senator to get away with it than a House member.

Collect money now, make a few liberal votes in 2012-2014 and you can defend yourself.

[LWolf]

28. +1

[unblock]

6. it's more a matter of underestimating the right wing's influence; the election was too predictable.

the right wing easily recognized shrub's second term as disastrous for republican electoral chances and knew the democrats would win the white house. that's one reason why murdoch made an early alliance with hillary, and why SO MUCH MONEY poured in to the democratic primaries. yes there was broad participation and lots of little guy democrats, but you can bet there was a ton of corporate and right-wing money as well influencing that race AS WELL AS house and senate races.

had the right-wing put their money on the republicans, the democrats would have only been beholden to the left, and we could have our way. instead, many democrats, especially those in more conservative districts/states, worry that they won only because they got lucky enough to run against shrub's record and/or because of right-wing contributions. hence the ongoing influence of the right-wing even though "we" won.

[AllentownJake]

7. Don't blame the Obama Supporters

Blame OFA. There were plenty of supporters who wanted to do things. They (The President's people) created OFA as an organizing tool. OFA has the volunteers standing on street corners, public events and at fairs with petitions (those who did not say this isn't going to get anything done and left).

President Obama still has an email list of probably over 20,000,000 volunteers, if he really wanted to he could mobilize that list to the actions you want. They want a no protest no drama approach. Also, they won't use the list to go after any democrats on the public option.

All the other left wing groups are taking direction from the President. A couple will buck him and a couple of the unions went out and did protest and a march on Washington but they didn't get any support from OFA.

He has a resource, not sure why he has it out collecting petitions.

:shrug:

[Juche]

8. It might be learned helplessness

People have been fighting like hell but it really doesn't seem to matter in many ways. All the protests against the Iraq war didn't really make a difference. And it sometimes feels like the MSM, since it is owned by corporations that benefit from right wing policy, is generally going to ignore left wing mobilization and empower right wing mobilization, which we have seen over the last 10 years.

As far as public involvement, the 2008 election involved public involvement at a far higher level than normal. In 2000 only 100 million people voted. In 2008 it was about 132 million.

Obama raised $500 million from 3 million donors giving 6.5 million donations on average of $80.

People are getting involved, donating money and voting. But I think we are starting to get disillusioned. I do think we overestimated Obama and the dems. They really have no heart to fight for meaningful reform. But the anger is still going to be there, it'll just be expressed in different way. I think in 2010 and 2012 the agenda will be more on independent organizations and primaries rather than electing dems in the general.

In 2010 I'm still going to volunteer and donate, but it'll be for primaries from the left.

Also for Sestak. I've already donated to Sestak but will donate more. He needs to win in 2010. Or at the very least, he needs to win the primary. If Sestak wins it'll be a fork in the eye of Reid and Obama for pulling the crap they pulled with Specter. Letting him become a democrat (w/o asking him to change his votes) and offering to campaign for him and remove any primary opponents in 2010 wasn't smart.

[AllentownJake]

9. See my post above

People are looking for direction, they are just getting directed into stupid fruitless activities.

[Juche]

14. What are effective actions?

In the appendix the author of the book 'from dictatorship to democracy' talks about nonviolent civil action you can take to resist government pressure.

http://www.aeinstein.org/organizations/org/FDTD.pdf


But it seems like losing reelection is the only thing that bothers US politicians. The problem is many incumbents know they will be reelected strictly on name recognition, and have nothing to lose. Not only that, but after they leave congress if they piss off the wrong people they will not be able to get high paying lobbyist jobs.

What Trumka did by saying unions wouldn't support dems with volunteers or money unless they fought for EFCA and the public option might be effective.

I'm not sure why the Beck protest worked. I have signed petitions and sent emails about some other right wingers, but the Beck one was the only one that worked.

[AllentownJake]

15. Everyone knows Beck is crazy even the GOP leadership

I'm pretty sure the GOP leadership doesn't want him taking over for Rush as leader of the nutjobs. Rush can be reasoned with from time to time. Beck, not so much.

[AllentownJake]

16. Beck also honestly believes the nonsense he's spewing

Hannity and Rush are doing a job, playing an act and getting money. Glenn Beck honestly believes he's on some sort of mission from God. There is a sort of wierd right wing populism with Beck that doesn't exist with the other two.

[Juche]

19. Its the division between social dominators and right wing authoritarians

In the book 'the authoritarians' the author Bob Altemeyer talks about how 2 groups have taken over conservatism, right wing authoritarians and social dominators.

Dominators are cynical, corrupt and power hungry. They may talk about family values while having affairs, or talk about the importance of religion while being atheists. Limbaugh, Rove, Cheney, Giuliani, Gingrich, Romney.

RWAs are simple minded, dogmatic, fearful, uninformed and aggressive. Palin, Beck, O'Reilly, the tea baggers in general.

There does seem to be a war going on between them. The SDs want to keep the RWAs as puppets to toy with every 2 years for elections, but the RWAs want to run the show. All in all, fun to watch them fall apart. Its the Cheney branch of the GOP vs the Palin branch.

[Echo In Light]

10. It won't change until enough realize it's The People VS Power, not just 'their' side of Power

If you're pro-profits over people, and pro-police state, than congrats, you've got plenty of those in Power on 'your' side - if not, you're shit outta luck, like most. Hence the enormous propaganda effort to maintain "necessary illusions."

[bobburgster]

13. Change can still come, we just need to go back to work on it.

After two resounding election wins, solid majorities and the White House, I let out a sigh of relief.

I think your comment above says a lot. I reacted the same way...kind of let my guard down, felt we were safe, change would come.
Well, I, and probably many others have realized, the battle still needs to be fought if we want the changes.

[Greyhound]

17. It's not their abilities, it's their agenda.

Those that held the republikan ideals of 30 years ago were exorcised from the party by the religious wing-nuts, and instead of fighting to hold onto their own party they just became Democrats. Now we have a party that represents nothing, a mishmash of diametrically opposed ideals that is also controlled by corporate interests.

One party (corporate) with two right wings.

[Fumesucker]

18. No sigh of relief for me..

I was paying attention during the primaries and through the election, not attention to words but rather to actions, actions speak far more loudly and far more truthfully than words.

FISA was my turning point, when I saw Obama do a 180 on FISA I knew we weren't getting what a lot of us thought we were.

Then there was the Rick Warren fiasco at the inauguration, a strong signal for those paying attention to deeds rather than words.

[Selatius]

20. I feel that lots of liberals are leaving because the health care debate is pushing them out.

Many of them became active not just because of the bloody war in Iraq--which, by the way, is still raging--but also because of health care reform. They got out the vote, and they kicked ass in 2008.

They are unhappy at a leadership that appears to be talking out of both sides of its mouth, and it is pretty difficult to get roused up about something that comes off as tepid, indecisive, or weak.

Revolutions are never won with timid leaders and pale colors. Your colors should never fade, and your leaders don't abandon you.

On a lot of fronts, the Democratic leadership is fading and pulling back.

[mmonk]

21. It became corporatist after the election of Clinton.

The base is considered a liability. They want corporate dollars and they will represent them to get it. The only traditional small guy Democrats are the Progressive Caucus.

[TxRider]

22. Maybe you underestimated the role independents played in gaining majority

And now incumbent representatives not wanting to lose that independent vote?

[tekisui]

23. I don't know. It was the liberals and progressives who

organized, donated and campaigned. They brought the Indys along. If they are lost, who will round up the Indys? Independents are are usually the willfully ignorant. They don't stay informed enough to make intelligent decisions, they just wait to be told what to do. It is almost beyond me how so-called independents could have voted for bush twice, then Obama.

[TxRider]

24. Your welcome to your opinion

I don't tend to label the voters critical to win as clueless sheep though.

[tekisui]

25. They are only critical to win because the US population is full

of disinterested, willfully ignorant lazy thinkers. If they would just do us a favor and not follow the media winds telling them what to do, we'd be better off. I have little interest in pandering to an uninterested middle who doesn't know how to form political opinions on their own.

[HamdenRice]

26. The left wing of the party turned on Obama and the Democratic Party day after inauguration day

The first calls for impeachment here were within days of inauguration. You didn't over estimate the capacity of the party. You over estimated the capacity for rational thinking of one wing of the party.

[Fumesucker]

27. Why support someone or something when it is clear they are kicking you to the curb?

It became clear quite rapidly that Obama was not interested in listening to the Democratic wing of the Democratic party.

So many things are dependent upon perspective, if your perspective is that of a corporatist then indeed, the Democratic wing of the Democratic party appears irrational.

If on the the other hand you are not a corporatist, then the Republican wing of the Democratic party appears irrational.

[HamdenRice]

29. You can't tell you are being kicked to the curb within days of inauguration

That is opposition for the sake of being oppositional. Much of it was based on lies and misinformation anyway, and confident projections of what Obama "will do."

[Fumesucker]

31. Sure you can..

If you were paying attention to deeds rather than words during the campaign.

FISA and Rick Warren were but two clues as to where Obama was really going, there were a lot more.

[HamdenRice]

32. What about FISA? There's more misinformation about it than information here

[Fumesucker]

35. It's quite clear what telco immunity was all about..

Whatever you might think of the rest of FISA..

Telco immunity was all about keeping the misdeeds of the bushies from being exposed in court.

[Bluenorthwest]

33. he stood with Warren against my family

and never did a thing to balance that insult. McClurkin calling us murderers was enough. And on health care it has been a leaderless outing.

[Fumesucker]

37. He didn't just stand with Warren..

He stood Warren up and honored him.

There were and are plenty of religious figures less offensive to Obama's supposed base that could have been honored during the inauguration.

[Bluenorthwest]

38. Not only are there great religious figures he could have invited

I personally sent them a list of names, including the names of ministers who have worked for decades to ease homophobia in the church community. Real heros that they pretend do not exist.

[TransitJohn]

34. Retaining Gates as SecDef = being kicked to the curb

Obama was supposed to be anti-war.

[LWolf]

30. Why wouldn't the left wing turn on Obama the day after the election?

He's a center-right president, and his agenda is anti-left. He distanced himself from the left very early on.

During the campaign, it was "support him now, and hold his feet to the fire after he's elected."

Now it's "the left turned on him." Doing exactly what campaigners who wanted to secure the left's vote for a center-right candidate suggested.

Of course, opposing Obama's center, center-right, and sometimes just plain right agenda is not "turning on the Democratic Party." Obama is not the Democratic Party.

If the Democratic Party continues to shift right, that may very well happen. At this point in time, the current Democratic administration and majorities owe as much to the votes of the left wing of the party as they do to the right.

I'm sure all those "centrist" members of the party will be happy to help with the purge, and happier to blame the left for future losses, as well.

Oh, right. You'll make up the difference by inviting in moderate republicans, since the party will then fit them better than the "left."

[LWolf]

36. I think you just overestimated the Democratic Party's motivation. nt