Compromising Ourselves Into Oblivion

The Wars Against the Firebaggers demand that I open this post with the disclaimer that I do not in any way endorse primarying Barack Obama, no matter how tempting the prospect or fabulous the candidate.

What I do endorse is using the lessons of this presidency to kill DINO-ism wherever it exists and start creating new liberals in your neighborhood.

David Dayen at Firedoglake gets to the core of liberal discontent with Obama: He never makes the case for the liberal values he claims to support, and does everything he can to prevent anyone else from making the case, either.

One of the more constant critiques of this Presidency is that Barack Obama has failed to teach a generation of willing listeners a story about his beliefs and his values, something that will outlast his term in office and provide a blueprint for the future. This isn’t true. He’s teaching a fundamental lesson. It just may not be one that progressives value.

In March, Obama spoke to college students of a range of political beliefs – Democrats, Republicans and independents – after a speech in the Boston area. In this video, released by the White House this weekend and given prominent treatment, including a blast of the video to supporters by David Plouffe, Obama explains what I have to assume is his core belief about politics in America. It is that compromise is necessary in our democracy, even virtuous. You cannot get 100% of what you want at any time, no matter if you’re in the majority or the minority, Obama says, and all that we can expect is to move forward incrementally, believing that others will pick up the ball down the road and carry on.

This is Obama’s last lecture. It’s what he wants to impart to the next generation. He outright says that:

One of the challenges of this generation is I think to understand that the nature of our democracy and the nature of our politics is to marry principle to a political process that means you don’t get 100% of what you want. You don’t get it if you’re in the majority, you don’t get it if you’re in the minority.

You can be honorable in politics understanding you don’t always get what you want.

While there’s talk of marrying principle to compromise, in this clip Obama does not define that principle. In the whole of his public life, actually, he has not fully defined that principle. He has, however, defined compromise as the necessary element of the most important thing a politician can do, which is to get something done. To “do big things,” as he has been saying throughout the debt limit fight. And you cannot separate the appearance of this last lecture, produced four months ago, on the heels of his efforts to engineer a grand bargain, a compromise that would include major cuts to the social safety net.

SNIP

I don’t think anyone would disagree that Obama deeply believes this in his core. The man who came to power on a message of hope is saying that there’s no real hope in implementing the full governing agenda in the American system. That’s true, apparently, even if you have a large majority in the House and 60 votes in the Senate, which Obama had for several months of his first term. That’s true, apparently, even if we’re talking about issues and policies where the President has full authority on his own, with HAMP being the best example.

SNIP

But there’s also a difference between the person who views those procedural blockages for what they are, and sees opportunities for pressuring those blockages through the court of public opinion, for making it difficult on those holding up progress to sustain themselves, for using elections as a lever to enable progress, and even for changing the fundamental structures to bring our democracy up to date to meet the challenges of the 21st century, and… Barack Obama. Because here he doesn’t just acknowledge the need for compromise. He glories in it. He sees it as “part of the process of growing up.” It’s juvenile to act on your own beliefs, to draw bright lines that cannot be crossed, to express core convictions. “Don’t set up a situation where you’re guaranteed to be disappointed,” Obama says. That’s the worst thing that could ever happen. He makes an enemy out of disappointment, when it can just as easily be a rallying point, an opportunity to show a better path next time.

Later, in response to Steve Benen's example of Social Security to prove that activists unhappy with compromised legislation should just shut the fuck up, Dayen adds:

Obviously, Townsend’s activism didn’t topple FDR. But it did help lead to tangible, beneficial changes to Social Security. By 1939, Congress had enacted amendments to the Social Security Act that added survivor and dependent benefits. But, to FDR’s progressive opponents, that wasn’t enough. Various social justice coalitions joined Townsend in agitating for higher benefits. Eventually, in 1950, this relentless advocacy produced another round of amendments that added a host of other professions outside of industry and commerce to the Social Security program, and the first cost-of-living adjustment, so that benefits finally outstripped the miniscule amounts in Old Age Assistance. This dynamic continued apace for 30 more years. Disability insurance entered the program in 1956, early retirement became allowable in 1961, and automatic cost-of-living adjustments were added by 1972. All this happened under Democratic and Republican presidents. It’s difficult to conclude that Townsend’s persistent, forceful critique resulted in negative consequences for the policy–in fact, the result was completely salutary. And Townsend wasn’t alone–pension organizations like Ham and Eggs in California, Upton Sinclair’s EPIC movement, the Share Our Wealth Society, and many others pressured Roosevelt in those years, often quite critically, and in the end Social Security became the successful, expansive program we have today.

Similarly, abolitionists were harshly critical when Lincoln compromised on the Emancipation Proclamation. Civil rights leaders were apopletic at early, fatally compromised anti-discrimination legislation. Gay activists went nuts when Obama appeared to squander the opportunity to end Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. This is part of our politics, too. And the dissenters are almost always a positive force for progress over time. It’s fair to say that progress wouldn’t come in the form it does without dissent.

A man Barack Obama claims as a hero, Martin Luther King Jr., understood this. He famously said:

I made it very clear that I recognized that justice was indivisible. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. And then there are those who said ‘You’re hurting the civil right movement.’ One spoke to me one day and said, ‘Now Dr. King, don’t you think you’re going to have to agree more with the Administration’s policy. I understand that your position on Vietnam has hurt the budget of your organization. And many people who respected you in civil rights have lost that respect and don’t you think that you’re going to have to agree more with the Administration’s policy to regain this.’ And I had to answer by looking that person into the eye, and say ‘I’m sorry sir but you don’t know me. I’m not a consensus leader.’ [Laughter - Applause] I do not determine what is right and wrong by looking at the budget of my organization or by taking a Gallup poll of the majority opinion. Ultimately a genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus but a molder of consensus.

Politics cannot survive on incrementalists alone. It cannot survive with only an inside game, and a political science conception of the art of the possible. Ultimately it needs people on the outside who look at what the incrementalists have produced, and say “No.” It doesn’t make those people juvenile, it doesn’t make them unrealistic. It makes them an integral part of the democratic process.

Liberals know anything worth having is worth fighting for.