The Nation Magazine carried a piece by “Eyal Press” on 07/08/2009 titled “Does Rachel Maddow Speak for the Left?” The writer noted that in a recent Charlie Rose interview Maddow said that the left was disappointed with Obama. The writer was taken aback because, as a quick perusal of people in New York City testified, most, or “nearly all” expressed shock and dismay and also disagreement with Maddow.
Apparently, whomever these people are, they are nearly all happy with Obama.
Then, the writer tried to explain this discrepancy. What explains it?
1) Progressives and left-leaning Democrats are pragmatic and don’t want to be raising ideological questions at a time like this.
2) Bush was so bad, whatever Obama has been doing is smelling like a breath of fresh air.
3) Obama is a likable guy and it’s just so difficult to tell him bad things.
The Nation has often times presented itself as a clearing house of lefty and progressive ramblings. So, I will give them credit for raising the issue of whether anyone on the left is disappointed with Obama, and why some number of Democrats are not.
It is really sad that we have to be asking ourselves at this time whether or not the left is disappointed in Obama. Charlie Rose asks the question. The Nation’s writer here asks us to consider the question. No one said, not Maddow, or the Nation’s writer, that well, of course the left is disappointed in Obama.
Maddow, to her credit does say that, yes, the left is disappointed, and if we understand Obama correctly as a centrist business Democrat, not too anti-war, not too good on civil liberties and civil rights, and definitely in the pockets of corporations, we will see that there will be constant conflict between Obama’s administration and the left as we know it.
But, the question is asked because the left is not very good about making itself heard. For one thing, it supported Obama while understanding that Obama would support its positions in rhetoric only. Second, in supporting Obama without extracting any promises or commitments from Obama to give anything in return, the left now has nothing to show for its support. And third, The underlying reason that the left has no power is that it has failed to challenge the underlying assumptions and values that have created the Leviathan it opposes on many fronts.
The left has no core that it works for, no organized plan to bring about change, and no vision about what might make things better. Consequently, it cannot stand up against the right, it cannot effect the middle, it cannot defend its own people.
So, let’s look at what Maddow has to say,
She isn’t given time to develop her explanation. She mentions, as bullet points, that the left is disappointed about a large number of issues. But let’s say that are concerned for those which the Nation’s writer mentions, “They see the auto industry collapsing, the financial system melting down, Pakistan imploding, Iran imploding, jobs disappearing. These are big, complicated problems that do not seem amenable to easy solutions or quick ideological fixes.” I am concerned about these issues myself. I understand many others are also concerned.
However, it is also my understanding that the left has no “easy solutions” or “quick ideological fixes.” The claim that we hear from the left “quick and easy” solutions is a clumsy way to use rhetoric to undermine someone’s position without having to consider what they say. It’s ad hominem.
So, maybe the point of the Nation’s writer here is to get us to forget about whatever might fill in the blanks of Maddow’s admittedly hurried and sketchy remarks. Yes. we hear from the Nation, Maddow expressed dissatisfaction with Obama, and she said that the left has more to say, but, according to the Nation, there’s nothing there but “quick” and “easy” and shallow solutions to our complicated and serious problems.
Maybe Charlie Rose won’t have anyone else on his show to explain what the left might be dissatisfied about. The Nation doesn’t seem to be telling us here that it would be at all important.
A further point that the Nation makes is the one about…Oh, yeah, it’s said, “Nearly all have said…”That’s absurd!”
I like the “anonymous” touch. Who are this person’s friends and acquaintances? Is a fair sample of this person’s pick of New Yorkers going to be a fair representative of Democrats, or the left, or even American’s in general? We are not told anything about his sampling technique. All we are told is that he has friends who think Maddow is “ridiculous!”
But, I have to ask, in coming to some understanding of Obama as President, and what his government stands for, is it even relevant what some number of Democrats think about? I ask this question because the Nation’s writer begs the question whether public opinion is relevant to a critique of policy.
Practically no one opposed the Viet Nam war for years after it had started, but it was an immoral war crime from the time it was only a gleam in the eye of American policy makers. It didn’t matter what people and even Democrats thought to those people who opposed the war. The fact that people supported the war was only part of their challenge to end the war and bring about some justice.
Why do Democrats still support Obama? They support Obama for many, many reasons. The question is whether the left has any good reasons that the country should be going down some other path than the one Obama is leading us?
So, Maddow says, yes, the left thinks that we are on the wrong track, still, even though we now have a better sounding President. That there are other Democrats who disagree at this point is irrelevant.
A question I have is about Rose. Does he seriously wonder what the left thinks about Obama? Does he have no idea that there is immense disagreement about the direction Obama is taking us on many issues?
Well, maybe Rose is aware of left dissatisfaction, but was only trying to get Maddow to talk about her own understanding and involvement in this development. She’s a TV personality and talk show host. She’s someone who has a platform. So, he might wonder, is she loony, and can she articulate a political idea?
He may have been satisfied that she did not start expressing support of loony ideas like there being space people coming to us in flying saucers, and what she did say was in complete sentences.
In the end, though, we should not be disappointed that Rose did not allow Maddow to explain exactly what the left argues are Obama’s faults. After all, Maddow herself may not agree with what very many on the left argue about our government under Obama. She may not agree with ‘Single Payer,’ while others on the left do, and so forth. Again, it doesn’t matter about public opinion at the moment.
There are arguments that the left has made which can be applied to Obama. They can be applied because there are eternal verities. Obama is mainstream and the mainstream is always in the pocket of corporations. The mainstream sees nothing wrong with terrorism as a political tool so long as it’s us doing it to them and not the other way around. And there are things about democracy that the mainstream sees might be a hindrance to business. These are all issues that the left has argued, and will continue to argue, because Obama is old school on all them.
Who might we look at for clues about what the left argues about politics and Obama, in particular? Look at Naomi Klein, for one,
Obama does not have a plan to end the war in Iraq. Klein saw this before the election. It is still true now. The troops are supposed to be stationed outside Iraqi cities, but that does not mean they are out of Iraq. They are still costly there. They are still an occupying force. They are still there because Bush lied to us to get support from the American people.
There is no pressure, as far as I can see, from anyone to get the troops home.
Again, the fact that the wind is not now blowing about war resistance does not mean we should still be in Iraq, or Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The left is a door mat. It has allowed itself to be used, and continues to have no will to get up off the floor on economics, or the wars, or civil liberties or civil rights. So says Klein.
What about Ralph?
Nader told us so.
And,
I can imagine that a Nader leftist may now update her view of things, saying, What about this “Progressive Dilemma?” What about Debs? We voted for a thing we didn’t believe in and win, didn’t we…
This is the view that the “disappointed” left may now believe. - We voted for a least worst candidate; the one that had no plan to get out of war, the one who planned to give big bucks to the banks instead of workers out of work and bankrupt home-owners, the one who now says he can snatch anyone off the streets and torture them in prison forever without a trial on his say-so alone.
Now, isn’t it just reluctant-buyer’s remorse?
Or, we can listen to the Turks,
Why does the Turk think Obama is a “progressive?” By these accounts, it’s because the label brings votes. Of course, once he was elected, he does not have to do anything to satisfies any progressive’s expectations about him.
If we listen to Maddow or Klein we should not be surprised that Obama’s major policies go in a lefty progressive direction.
So, why does anyone have to justify Obama not doing anything the left would want him to do? Well, of course, Obama may say, “… of course I’m not going to do anything lefty or progressive because that’s just not me. And, if you thought so, you were not listening to what I’ve consistently been saying.”
Instead, he’s saying, “…listen, the left is so important to my Presidency that I can’t ignore them, but, right now, I have to show some small interest in the rest of the people in this country so that they won’t think I’m playing favorites….”
He’s saying, again, “trust me,” without giving anyone on the left any reason to do so.
Go back to Noam. His view will be that there is no evidence that Obama has challenged any of the principles that he has pointed out characterize American political life. There’s no challenge of the “mafia principle,” for example. He says,
There’s any number of arguments that you could bring up to Charlie Rose that would explain why the left is disappointed with Obama. One could have said, no the left is not “disappointed” because he is doing pretty much what the left thought he would do. He is corporate, for example, and he continues to show that in most everything he does. This is no surprise to the left.
One may be disappointed that Obama did not surprise us and be more progressive that anyone should have expected.
The Nation’s writer left me with the impression that progressives should be happy with Obama, even though he’s not doing anything particularly progressive or lefty. After all, if we believe his middle-ist defenders, he is bringing the country around slowly but surely.
They may say, well, it’s too early to tell whether he’ll be successful, but we should all applaud the great job he’s doing under in such trying times. A few of the things the left argues are that it’s view of how to run the ship of state makes for better outcomes for workers, for home-owners, for minorities, as well as for businesses. The money given to banks was misspent, it should have gone to encourage real job growth. The commitment to wars in foreign countries, and the meddling in their internal affairs, is harmful to everyone concerned. Our efforts are not needed, nor helpful, nor appreciated. Undermining the constitutional protections from government cannot ensure our security, and definitely will destroy our liberty. These arguments can still be made.
These, among many other issues, are still issues the left can raise against Obama. And as Maddow remarked, they will likely, knowing Obama, be a source of contention throughout Obama’s term.
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