Progressives projected onto Obama their own delusions

by Susan Marie Kovalinsky | December 22, 2009 at 06:24 am

506 views | 32 Recommendations | 21 comments

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The Illusion of "Yes We Can" As a senator, Obama's voting record told all, that he supports power, not progressive change, but few took the trouble to check it: he backed Homeland Security funding that, like the Patriot Act, violates constitutional rights by centralizing militarized law enforcement under the executive; he voted to reauthorize the Patriot Act in July 2005 and did again recently as president. . .

Obama Year One: Betrayal

Paul Krugman had a post today about President Barack Obama. I was struck by it, because it describes a phenomena which I had noticed, late in the campaign , and right around inauguration.

That is, as Krugman says, that the political climate in America has become so debased that voters automatically think that a candidate is speaking in code.

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But that says more about the complainers than it does about Obama himself. If you actually paid attention to the substance of what he was saying during the primary, you realized thatThere's a lot of dismay/rage on the left over Obama, a number of cries that he isn't the man progressives thought they were voting for. (a) There wasn't a lot of difference among the major Democratic contenders (b) To the extent that there was a difference, Obama was the least progressive

Paul Krugman

Obama , if people were paying attention, was never going to be very liberal or progressive. Of course, within my own perspective, he is the fulfillment of the Fourth Turning President who appears in cycle 4 of the saeculum of the historical process. This would make him, properly, nearly conservative. As Stephen Lendman says in Obama Year One: Betrayal and Failure:

He voted to approve rogue Bush administration appointments, including Robert Gates as Defense Secretary, John Negroponte as Director of National Intelligence, and Michael Chertoff as Secretary of Homeland Security.

He backed the 2007 Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act (S. 1959), called the "thought crimes" act. It passed the House but not the Senate.

He opposes impeaching Bush and Cheney or prosecuting all high-level torturers, and overall had a more Republican than Democrat voting record. It's unsurprising as on war and peace, Israel/Palestine, Wall Street, and most things business, it's hard telling the difference.

In the Senate, he earned his bona fides, showed he was "safe," and once elected hasn't disappointed - the powerful, that is, not the people growing increasingly discontented for being betrayed by a leader no different from the rest.

Pre and Post-Inaugural Appointees
From transition to his economic, national security, and other high-level team, most are former administration officials - from Wall Street, the military, and other key power centers for continuity, not progressive change he disdains. The result has been the worst of all possible worlds, including permanent wars, eroded civil liberties and social services, and plundering the nation's Treasury for Wall Street while ignoring the public interest.

But a case in point, one which I noticed, and which falls in line with what Krugman is saying: On the campaign trail, Obama said he did not believe in gay marriage. He said he was a Christian. And yet, when he chose the Reverend Rick Warren to give the invocation at the Inauguration, gays were shocked. When he made no move to endorse gay marriage during the Referendum Question One conflict in the state of Maine, gays were outraged.

And yet, they had voted for a candidate who did not endorse gay marriage, and in fact had said some quite regressive things on the campaign trail. There was a decidedly anti-90s aura to the man, yet it had gone unnoticed. The appointment of Kevin Jennings is coming from some other camp, someone in the background of Obama, who has been mostly silent regarding him. We who penetrated the meaning of the Jeremiah Wright scandal already knew of the conflict which surrounds Obama and which places him always as someone who is being projected onto, guided, coerced. The secret animus which guides Obama would tend toward a quasi-socialism with overtones of some slight sympathy to global Muslims, but it would not bear the stamp of any '90s style identity politics nor Clinton era social liberalism. In fact, it would be secretly against those aspects, even while others projected that agenda onto him. The rantings of extreme conservatives clearly missed the boat on this feature of the entire Obama presentation, and consequently fear him for the wrong reasons: They have misunderstood precisely where it matters most.

A scientist cites Krugman, and what it tells us about the debasement of American political landscape:

But that says more about the complainers than it does about Obama himself. If you actually paid attention to the substance of what he was saying during the primary, you realized thatThere's a lot of dismay/rage on the left over Obama, a number of cries that he isn't the man progressives thought they were voting for.
(a) There wasn't a lot of difference among the major Democratic contenders
(b) To the extent that there was a difference, Obama was the least progressive

Now it's true that many progressives were ardent Obama supporters, with their ardency mixed in with a fair bit of demonization of Hillary Clinton. And maybe they were right -- but not on policy grounds. (I still remember people angrily telling me that if Hillary got in, she'd fill her economics team with Rubinites).

So what you're getting is what you should have seen.

Source: scienceblogs.com

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Hugh Askew

at 06:31 on December 22nd, 2009

"So what you're getting is what you should have seen."

I saw what we were getting, and it wasn't pretty.

Karl Gotthardt - albertacowpoke

at 06:41 on December 22nd, 2009

I'm not sure what being against gay marriage has to do with being conservative or the fourth turning. I believe he said during the campaign that he was for civil unions. I also believe you can be a progressive and still believe in Christ.

People can put in their minds to make themselves believe whatever they want to. Personally I haven't seen any conservative tendencies in Obama.

Susan Marie Kovalinsky

at 06:44 on December 22nd, 2009

I have seen a social conservatism to Obama which contrasts markedly with the 90s era Clinton liberalism, and in this sense, he is a cipher, a sign, of a change in the political climate. Being for civil unions is NOT what the gays wanted from him. His Christianity would be at odds with 90s identity style politics. Canadian does not see aura that American sees.

Susan Marie Kovalinsky

at 06:47 on December 22nd, 2009

Oh, another thing: At a party on Fire Island, a gay mecca, there was icy silence when his name was brought up. That speaks volumes, you miss the mark about what I say.........

Karl Gotthardt - albertacowpoke

at 06:56 on December 22nd, 2009

Read this Obama Year one Betrayal. It's the far left that believes this. It's not at all conservative. I supposed it all boils down to the eye of the beholder.

Susan Marie Kovalinsky

at 07:09 on December 22nd, 2009

Yes, well, I was coming in from a different angle. I have had an intuition about him all along but......no matter....OK, so this whole piece is wrong : (

Hugh Askew

at 07:17 on December 22nd, 2009

Not wrong, just not being seen correctly - as the premise of your article says of BO.

Mostly, he was elected as the anti-Bush.

Folks (liberals are easy marks) saw what they wanted to see.

Karl Gotthardt - albertacowpoke

at 07:28 on December 22nd, 2009

No one called this piece wrong. We all see things they way we want to see them. The story should create discussion and that is the point. Is it not?

Susan Marie Kovalinsky

at 07:36 on December 22nd, 2009

Grrrrrrrrr

Hugh Askew

at 09:07 on December 22nd, 2009

Got a bear friend?

nanute

at 10:05 on December 22nd, 2009

Now if you'd of said that conservatives are projecting their delusions onto Obama, you'd be on to something.

As a progressive, I remember seeing and hearing signals from the campaign that gave me serious concern. I honestly thought it was part of a strategy that required the center and independents to win the election. Openly identifying with progressive liberal ideals, is seen as a losing strategy by the DNC and most inside the beltway pundits. (What Digby likes to call the Village Elders.)

Reality since the election, I think validates what Krugman is saying to an extent. Obama and Rham Emanuel have mad a conscious decision to abandon the progressive liberal wing of the Democratic Party. The party leaders have made a serious error in judgment, in my opinion. If they seriously think we are going to support party candidates in the next cycle due to fear of the crazy people regaining control thru the Tea Party movement, they are seriously mistaken.

Conservatives will never give legitimacy to Obama no matter how many polices from the Cheney Administration are continued. Rendition, torture, spying on unsuspecting Americans, escalation of the Afgan conflict, should all count for something. But they don't . For every action that is consistent with their philosophy they will cite twice as many inconsistencies. Count on it. Roy has already given a few examples.

Roy Edroso at Alicublog had a comment today on the health care debate that was rather insightful: "If the bill gets reduced down to nothing more than imported aspirin from Canada, the opposition will be screaming that old folks will suffer serious nose bleeds."

Hugh Askew

at 10:20 on December 22nd, 2009

"If the bill gets reduced down to nothing more than imported aspirin from Canada...."

Looks like that is an accurate statement of the mess that got passed in the Senate.....

a211423

at 11:11 on December 22nd, 2009

smk

Thanks for posting this controversial article. It makes us look into our own reasons for voting for Obama and what our expectations were. Did voters project? I would have to say yes, but not in a derogatory sense. Every time we vote, we are more or less projecting our own hopes and dreams in a candidate. Their nuances become our banners, and we run with them all the way to the voting booth.

a211423

at 11:21 on December 22nd, 2009

rng

Thanks for the introduction to Mr. Barnett.

He has capsulized it well.

a211423

at 11:39 on December 22nd, 2009

I didnt read the Brooks' article, but I have seen him before, so know his political position.

At least Mr. Barnett is not afraid to take on the MSM, which is admirable.

Karl Gotthardt - albertacowpoke

at 14:18 on December 22nd, 2009

Why don't you just call it what it is, instead of opining this off the face of the earth. Washington, DC, is a group of elitists, supported by special interests and lobbyists.

You get what you want in DC by buying each other off. It has nothing to do with doing something good for America. There are no red dogs or blue dogs, the place is full of bloodhounds.

Hugh Askew

at 14:22 on December 22nd, 2009

Bloodhounds? That dog won't hunt.

Whores and pimps would be more appropriate.

spazkeeper

at 08:47 on February 19th, 2010

Whores, pimps and PARASITES. You missed the largest group.

Iffy (not verified)

at 14:23 on December 22nd, 2009

The problem with liberals is that they do not understand power, or how to use it. Dick Cheney knows power, W Bush knows power. Liberals, and Obama, do not know power. And when you don't know how to use power, when you get power, you waffle endlessly. You can be damn sure Sarah Palin is itching to use power. Liberals can't get things done. Copenhagen was an excellent example for the world of this behaviour in action.