12 Responses to “Pragmatists And Progressives”

1. conradg, on November 22nd, 2008 at 1:49 pm Said:

   I know you are desperate for evidence of progressive disappointment in Obama, I just don’t see any thus far. To the contrary, the kind of people Obama is appointing actually gives most of the progressive community a lot of hope of finally getting some progressive agenda items accomplished, particularly health care and alternative energy policy. Appointing Daschle to HHS and the new OMB guy, can’t recall his name, from the CBO, shows that Obama is very, very determined to pass new health care legislation. Progressives are not much into ideological identity politics these days, looking for some blogger from the Daily Kos to get appointed to some position, from which he will accomplish nothing. Progressives these days care about getting certain things accomplished which have not been possible for a very long time. We/they understood from the start that Obama was taking a centrist-left tack to achieve these goals, and that is perfectly fine with most of them. Not all, of course, progressives don’t march in lockstep, but the vast majority.

   Yes, many progressive would love to punish Lieberman. I’m one of them. But I don’t see how it actually helps us accomplish our goals, so I can let go of that minor satisfaction. Fact is, his vote on domestic policy issues will be important. So will McCain’s for that matter, who I think Obama can succeed at courting for “bipartisanship” cred. The GOP looks determined to try to undermine any health care program the Dems put forward, and every vote will count on that.

   Now I admit, I’d like to see someone other than Brennan at the CIA, as would most progressives. But for one, he hasn’t yet been chosen, and more importantly, it’s Obama who sets the policy, and he’s stated openly that he will end all torture. If he breaks his word on that, there will be hell to pay, but getting rid of everyone in the intelligence community who has been complicit in torture is probably not an option at this point, since it was so pervasive. So I can live with such people if the actual policy has firmly and irrevocably changed.

   The general point being, pay attention most of all to what policies Obama pursues. Putting in people who have widespread respect and experience is not undermining progressive goals, its a way to accomplish them. Probably the only way, given the shaky history of the democratic party on so many of these matters.

2. Joshua Livingston, on November 22nd, 2008 at 2:02 pm Said:

   I probably don’t disagree with your main thesis, but I will note that Kirchick is not a reliable source on the the opinions or reactions of the netroots. I’m a partisan here, but from my perspective Kirchick willfully and consistently misrepresents the views and attitudes of progressives.

3. Daniel Larison, on November 22nd, 2008 at 2:15 pm Said:

   I never assume that Kirchick is a reliable source, and I would agree that he misrepresents their views. He is pushing his tired theme that the left has no influence, but the quote from Sirota was useful and consistent with what I have seen him writing for quite a while.

   If progressives don’t care that they are being ignored and marginalized by Obama and the Democrats in Congress, why should I be more bothered than they are? However, there is evidence of discontent out there, and I think Obama and his supporters dismiss it or minimize it at their peril. From my perspective, that’s partly a good thing and partly not. It creates a political problem for him and might limit what he can do domestically, but it also means that he is going to conform to the establishment line on foreign policy perhaps even more than I thought he would.

   The issues where Obama seems willing to ignore progressives are those issues where I tend to have the most sympathy with their views, because I share their opposition to the war, illegal surveillance and so on, so what I am concerned about, as always, is that Obama will pursue the same bankrupt “centrism” in foreign policy and antiterrorism that is just clearly bad policy and bad for the country. Progressives have some more leverage over the administration than conservatives do, obviously, so I would rather see them stand up to an administration that pursues these bad policies. If progressives don’t resist Obama when he trends towards “centrism” in foreign and security policies, no one else will who can have much of an effect. Of course, I don’t expect something remotely like Kennedy’s insurgency against Carter. I would like to see progressives take their convictions seriously enough not to go along with the administration when it is making mistakes, and I think we are already seeing the beginning of some of the undesirable directions it is taking.

4. cphenly, on November 22nd, 2008 at 2:36 pm Said:

   It is impossible that any leader of anything except something very, very small should be able to please all of his constituents all, or even most, of the time. The further to the edges of a continuum, the more likely one is to be disappointed by any given decision. Anyone intending to maintain the good will of most will most of the time disappoint the most radical.

   Frankly, I don’t see any that Obama has moved in any direction along the political continuum. I don’t believe he has “tilted” center as the Times article you reference suggests by its headline; I believe he is as he was all along. It is because he was more centrist than left that he got elected. If there were, and it seems there must have been, more radical elements that voted for him less because they agreed with his politics than because they loathed the Bush regime, and if those people convinced themselves, as a means, perhaps, of consolation, that Obama was as progressive as they wished him to be, then they were doomed to disappointment from the start.

   I think that the vast spread of Mr. Obama’s influence has all along been indicative of his ability to please many people, and that certainly means that his views have consistently been communicated to most of his supporters as much more centrist than the mythos that some press–and many Republicans, who often tried to brand him “the most liberal Senator”–have created. A choice not to ignore the farthest radical fringes of the Republican party, and indeed to cater to that element, has been the metaphorical death of George Bush; I don’t see Barack Obama making the same mistake. Instead, I see his Cabinet appointments as absolutely indicative of exactly what he promised throughout his campaign if one listened to him and not to his legend. Most people I come into contact with did just that and are neither surprised nor alarmed, but are instead satisfied, with the steps he has taken so far.

5. Daniel Larison, on November 22nd, 2008 at 2:44 pm Said:

   ” I believe he is as he was all along.”

   So do I. I should have made that clear. His appointments confirm what we all should have known about him. I suppose the disappointment is greatest among the most radical, and I don’t think strong progressives or paleos and Obamacons should have had any illusions about what Obama represented. If most Obama voters are satisfied with “centrism,” I can’t believe they had that many objections to the current administration. Frankly, for all our sakes I hope Sirota is more representative than the people you’ve talked to. Of course, I have to assume that he isn’t.

6. cphenly, on November 22nd, 2008 at 3:10 pm Said:

   “If most Obama voters are satisfied with “centrism,” I can’t believe they had that many objections to the current administration..”

   Here I must disagree. The current administration has been radical, both socially and economically. No President eager to pursue legislation solely applicable to Terri Schaivo, to deploy a host of signing statements as an army protecting him from complying with laws he agreed should apply to everyone else, who sought and enacted legislation allowing for warrantless wiretap, who approved torture and who spent money in quantities no President in memory matched could begin to claim to be centrist. Note that I do not exonerate Congress in this; none of the three branches of government can reasonably be called centrist based on their performance during the last eight years.

7. Daniel Larison, on November 22nd, 2008 at 3:20 pm Said:

   You misunderstand me. When I talk about “centrism,” the reason I use scare quotes is to make clear that there is nothing particularly centrist in any meaningful sense about the policies normally identified with such a position. Aggressive war, torture, trampling on the Constitution–this is not representative of the political center in any meaningful sense as I understand it. Lieberman and McCain are not really centrists, but they are often called this because of their foreign policy views. The “centrism” I’m talking about is exactly the sort of lawless extremism you’re describing, and what I find disturbing about many of the appointments so far is that they were by and large on board with one aspect or another of this “centrism” in the past. Perhaps we should begin describing political leanings along a line from extreme coercion/consolidated power at one end to consent/decentralization on the other, which would place this so-called “centrism” far to one side of the spectrum.

8. cphenly, on November 22nd, 2008 at 3:48 pm Said:

   Very good. Thank you for the clarification. We are in agreement entirely about lawlessness being an extreme, and utterly unacceptable, position. We disagree, I believe, as to whether the Obama appointments represent a return to the same. I am not, so far, alarmed, as I do not see a pattern of shared ideology forming, but rather a collection of informed but to some degree opposing forces which have the potential to balance each other out. Because I have been impressed, so far, with Obama’s intelligence, long-range vision, and capacity for management of large teams of people, I am comfortable, at least for the time being, trusting him to enact his vision by employing the strengths of the people he has chosen to inform him where he lacks experience while employing his own strengths to quell any renegade tendency and to direct actual action restoring the rule of law.

   This may turn out to be naive on my part, and if it does, then I will be among those deeply disappointed, but I am at this point greatly relieved by what seems to me to be the shaping of a cabinet which, in dramatic contrast to the people Bush surrounded himself with, will not simply kow-tow to a President’s ignorant, self-serving ideas and let him aggrandize himself to the detriment of the constituency he once swore to serve.

9. conradg, on November 22nd, 2008 at 9:38 pm Said:

   Daniel, I just don’t get how you imagine that the netroots progressives ever assumed that Obama was planning some massive social revolution once elected. Do you think these people are stupid naifs or something? Like you, they are largely intelligent people who are well aware that they inhabit the far margins even of their own party. They supported Obama not because they imagined Obama was serious about certain basic agenda items they support. They seem to have been, for the most part, largely aware that Obama is a center-left candidate who will only partially move things in the direction they want. You really have to give us serious examples of some large group of progressives who think Obama is going to introduce some kind of massive radical reorganization of the government, if you want to be taken seriously here. You challenged McCain in a post above in a similar vein - I challenge you similarly.

   Lots of people have been and are excited about Obama for strictly symbolic, aesthetic reasons. Most are excited because, first, he’s going to reverse most of what Bush did, including the war in Iraq, torture, and tons of domestic policies. They aslo think he will at least partially solve a number of nagging problems by pushing through new legislation reforming health care, increasing alternative energy, and revising tax policy. Plus, of course, find a way through this present economic crisis with sound monetary policy and God knows what. Progressives are generally supportive of all these things, because each of them represents “progress” in the right direction, as far as they are concerned. Now, you are suggesting that the most important thing, in their view, is that someone who can be labelled a “progressive” gets appointed to certain cabinet positions. Well, who are you referring to? Who would represent a progressive appointment? Someone proposed Kucinich at State. Well, that’s not going to happen, not just because Kucinich is an idiot, but because he wouldn’t actually advance progressive causes. Hillary Clinton, for all her centrism, has a better chance at actually advancing progressive causes in foreign policy than Kucinich, and guess what, progressive know that too. That’s one reason why a lot of progressive originally supported Hillary, or Edwards, rather than Obama, and certainly not Kucinich.

   In a word, Progressives are not being ignored or marginalized by Obama. He is clearly trying to advance their causes, and they are happy with that generally speaking. He just isn’t trying to institute some radical, sudden transformation. There simply are no high caliber far left “progressives” who can actually do a good job at the higher levels of government, and progressives know that. They know that they have to build over time towards that, and they hope they will be able to use the Obama administration to make their agenda more mainstream and popular. They also know that undermining Obama is not the way to do that. It would sink their cause for another generation at least.

   I’m guessing you are confusing Obama with a leftist Reagan. You have to realize that the parallels between Obama and Reagan aren’t all that deep. Reagan was a leader of the conservative revolt long before he became President, and he rode into town on a wave of conservative ideological politics, and appointed hardline conservatives everywhere he could. Obama is not a leader of the progressive movement, and he road into town due to the collapse of the conservative movement, not due to some long-fought victory by progressives. He’s a pragmatist with a very different relation to progressives, who are not even the base of the party. Calling him a centrist isn’t really accurate, in that his ideology is very plastic, readily conformed to the problem at hand. If he can solve a problem using progressive solution, he will. If he finds that more centrist of conservative solutions will work, he will use those. His general opinion is that liberalism is what works, but he’s not going to advocate a liberal policy simply because he thinks it is “right”, but because he thinks it will work right now.

   Even more important, most progressives understand this. You have been presuming for months now that progressives are idealistic idiots who don’t know this about Obama, and of course are going to be disappointed in him. That’s just not what the situation is. There are certainly ways Obama could disappoint progressives, such as re-instituting torture, or invading Iran, but not appointing progressive leaders to cabinet positions isn’t one of them. You simply have no real sense for what the progressive movement is, and how these people think. Which is understandable, given that you are on the margins even of the GOP and the conservative movement altogether.

10. conradg, on November 22nd, 2008 at 9:40 pm Said:

    Type, second sentence of above post should read:

    “They supported Obama because they imagined Obama was serious about certain basic agenda items they support.”

11. Daniel Larison, on November 23rd, 2008 at 11:00 pm Said:

    ” I just don’t get how you imagine that the netroots progressives ever assumed that Obama was planning some massive social revolution once elected”

    When did I say that they expected this? Their coolness towards him from the beginning was partly a result of their recognition that he was not going to be as progressive as they thought some of the other major candidates would be. Each time he does something they don’t like, they keep consoling themselves with talk of pragmatism and necessity. That’s all very well, but judging from the remarks of Sirota, Bowers, and Hayes, to name a few, there is some feeling that they are being marginalized or ignored and they aren’t very happy about it. Maybe they aren’t representative of progressives. Frankly, that’s too bad, because their dissatisfaction with compromises on FISA, the bailout and the rest is correct.

12. conradg, on November 24th, 2008 at 1:23 pm Said:

    Daniel,

    I would think you should know from experience that being “correct” is one of the fastest paths to marginalization in politics. Whether progressives are “correct” about various issues has nothing, I repeat nothing, to do with whether they succeed in electing their candidates or enacting their policies. It is like being “correct” about some technical matter in the playing of baseball. One still has to have the talent to play the game, and win. Obama has the talent, and most progressives recognize that. They can certainly hope he will listen to them, but the actual playing of the game is for those with the skills, not just some sort of abstract analytical ability to figure things out. Not that Obama lacks that ability either, but what makes him a real player is his overall skill set at playing the game.This is how the real world works, and ideological purists have to understand that. The smart ones do.

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