Nathan Newman gives us a timely reminder of all that Obama has accomplished in ten months despite having to deal with unprecedented abuse of the filibuster by Senate Republicans and the constant need to cajole the weak-kneed and small brained "moderate" Democrats in the same body. I think it is doubly important to remind ourselves of this in light of articles like this, which suggest that we on the left may essentially blow the chance to advance our cause by sitting out the 2010 mid-terms in large numbers.
Look, enacting a progressive agenda is not going to be the work of ten months, or two years, or even four years. It is going to be the work of a generation and marked by many frustrations along the way. But I think there are a couple of things we should acknowledge -- number one, however much we may get impatient with him, Obama is as good a vehicle for moving our agenda as I have seen in my lifetime. If he fails, we fail. Period. And without a continued large Democratic majority, he cannot succeed. Yes, it sucks to have to work so hard to preserve the seats of so many gutless assholes, but what is the alternative? Does anyone have a realistic suggestion? As long as a simple majority will not work in the Senate, we are going to have to engage in coalition politics with a lot of tepid souls to get things like health care reform enacted. And then we are going to have to work some more to improve what we are able to get through initially.
We need to think about two things. First, the media is loving the prospect of liberal failure. If the mid-terms go badly, we are going to hear no end of the essentially conservative nature of the American body politic. The Republicans will continue to obstruct and frustrate us at every turn. It is crucial that they not be rewarded for these nihilistic tactics. These people are not fit to govern. They have left us in a profound mess -- a big part of Obama's difficulties are that he has had to step in to an astonishing series of debacles left by his predecessor. He is operating from about the furthest thing from a clean slate.
The second thing -- and this is really important -- is that our long term prospects remain very bright. Long term demographic and ideological trends are very much in our favor. We need to get through this economic crisis and the next election in relatively good shape and then things are poised to fall in line for us. But it is imperative that we not allow this opportunity to get snuffed out so that young people remain politically engaged and continue to identify with the progressive agenda.
I know we would all like more from the Administration. It is hard to roll with some of the things that have happened and still maintain the level of enthusiasm we mustered in 2006 and 2008 -- but that is what we are going to have to do in 2010 and 2012 if we are to have any hope of enacting the things that we hold dear.