On President’s Day, our writer Jim reflected on the value of the Obama presidency so far and concluded that, in spite of its many flaws, he was still glad he voted for Obama. As for myself, I didn’t vote for Obama in 2008, and I’m glad I didn’t.
I voted for Cynthia McKinney, the Green Party candidate, not because Cynthia McKinney would make a good President, but in order to make my vote a protest of the abandonment of progressive values that, even then, the Obama campaign had become. As we recorded throughout the second half of 2008, Barack Obama’s presidential campaign offered several prominent reversals of the progressive promises he made as a Democratic primary candidate.
Since Obama became President, the disappointment has grown worse. Obama is now supporting the “clean coal” hoax, devoting billions of dollars to the development of new nuclear weapons, expanding the corrupt Office of Faith Based Initiatives without reform, continuing Bush’s unitary executive policy of President-as-Dictator, keeping Guantanamo open, and continuing massive spying operations against law abiding Americans. Obama has worked to cover up torture by the American government, and most recently there are revelations that Obama lied about a torture coverup that was begun under Bush but continued by the current White House.
For a while, it seemed that most Democrats were determined to be willfully oblivious to these betrayals by Obama. “He needs more time,” they’d say. It’s clear by now, though, that time isn’t the problem. Obama is the problem.
So, Democratic voters are feeling pretty glum about their own political party, and especially about their Democratic President. Obama is doing many of the same rotten things they used to hate George W. Bush for doing. But what can the Democrats do about it? He’s their candidate, right?
So, Democratic activism these days is pretty limited. The Democratic grassroots is halfhearted, sitting on its hands, sighing deeply, profoundly reluctant to give strong support to any Democratic politician, out of fear of being betrayed again.
That is priceless!