Democrats need to hang together or we will hang separately
I am a liberal Democrat who is alarmed at the ability of media figures and political operatives to divide us and get us to fight among ourselves when the real enemy is the Republicans.
These operatives have used current issues such as healthcare reform, voting and reproductive rights, social spending, and the climate crisis to stress fault lines and divide our fragile coalition by demanding lawmakers walk the plank and take maximal and unrealistic positions on hot-button issues.
Now I am seeing commentary on social media demanding that President Biden “keep his promise” to forgive all outstanding student loans. This attack from the putative Left has the potential to suppress the vote of youthful idealists at a time when we need their votes to head off an authoritarian takeover.
These types of positions leave Democrats with very little room to negotiate with fellow Democrats hoping to outmaneuver Republican who are committed to obstructing every bit of progress we are trying to accomplish.
This is so infuriating.
And in our haste to descend into intra-party warfare, we too easily forget how the previous Democratic president was treated by the Republican opposition.
Since he was elected, President Obama continually had been forced to walk a tightrope and rise above partisan politics in sometimes-desperate attempts to solve problems not of his making.
He had to show restraint in 2011 when the Republicans were threatening national default by refusing to raise the debt ceiling, and many Democrats were urging him to resort to a farcical strategy, such as minting a $1 trillion platinum coin to pay off the deficit, or exploiting a novel 14th Amendment solution such as unilaterally issuing bonds without Congressional approval, both of which likely would have triggered a constitutional crisis.
When Syria was found to be using banned chemical weapons on its own people in the middle of a horrendous civil war, he had to find a middle ground between hawks calling for massive military intervention, and liberals calling him a despotic warmonger for threatening military action without obtaining Congressional authorization.
Senators Rand Paul and Marco Rubio denounced Obama, and Rubio said that by bombing Syria we would in effect be acting as “ISIS’s air force.”
When Russia invaded Ukraine, and backed armed separatists in that nation, Obama had to fend off the war hawks calling for military intervention, reassure fretful Europeans fearful of the impact of economic sanctions on their energy security, and counter those who accused the US of backing “fascist,” anti-Russian elements in Ukraine.
All the while, Republicans gleefully called Obama weak and unfavorably compared him with Russian President Putin, who, notably, does not have to govern under a system of checks and balances and is not hamstrung under any separation of powers.
And yet, somehow, Obama got Russian support to mediate with Syria’s Assad, and Putin convinced Assad to surrender his chemical weapons, a prohibition that lasted three years – until Trump entered office.
Obama somehow also convinced a skittish, energy-dependent Europe to support economic sanctions in an effort to support and defend Ukrainian sovereignty.
Obama somehow got the world’s powers to address growing fears about Iran’s nuclear program, and had to put aside, for the moment, Russia’s aggression in Ukraine, and China’s territorial ambitions in Asia and its record of cyber-crime, industrial espionage, and currency manipulation.
Somehow, he also assembled a motley and improbable 60-nation coalition to combat pro-Sunni ISIS, which includes Turkey – an enemy of Syria’s embattled Shiite-led regime that intrigued against early alliance efforts – and Saudi Arabia and other pro-Sunni Gulf oil states that sought to blunt Shiite-led Iran’s rising influence in the region and which have supported violent pro-Sunni extremists.
And somehow, against mounting odds and bad-faith scare-mongering fueled by spurious populist agitprop and Wikileaks propaganda, Obama led a 12-nation coalition to craft a new type of trade agreement in the Asia-Pacific Rim – the world’s fastest-growing region – that would internationalize Western values and condition favorable trade conditions upon verifiable, enforceable standards for human and labor rights and environmental protections rather than institutionalize cheap exploitable labor in developing countries with lax or nonexistent protections, as prior trade agreements had done.
Given the above mentioned features, much of the world saw the Trans Pacific Partnership as a work of masterful diplomacy that would strengthen the U.S. position and standing in the region – both economically as well as strategically – and counter authoritarian China’s hegemonic rise. And it was the strategic value of TPP in strengthening our ties with military allies and trading partners that was noted by former Secretary of State Tillerson and former Defense Secretary Mattis, who both supported, to no avail, the initiative.
At each turn, Obama had to reject easy but illusory choices, make the best of extremely difficult situations, and be as nimble and fleet-footed as Gene Kelly or Fred Astaire.
However, when Republicans wanted something, they channeled their inner Bigfoot:
Block raising the debt ceiling in an attempt to impose austerity and starve a still-recovering economy under a Democratic president, regardless of the threat posed by a default on the nation’s and the world’s economy and the damage of additional spending cuts on a fragile recovering economy.
Shut down the government and force Obama to choose between a functioning government and implementing the Affordable Care Act, regardless of the billions of dollars in damage to the economy and despite the widespread benefits of enhanced healthcare coverage.
Shut down Homeland Security and force Obama and Democrats to choose between action on immigration – after years of stalling and broken promises by the Republicans – and national security at a time of rising threats of terrorism.
Violate protocol and invite the Israeli prime minister – just two weeks before his nation’s election – to scare-monger Congress and the nation about the only available means to avert a potential Iranian nuclear program, force Congress members to choose between their own president and a foreign leader, and force loyal American Jews to question longtime bipartisan US support of Israel – even though undermining a deal with additional, unnecessary and punishing and provocative sanctions could drive the Iranian nuclear program underground, and never mind that a military attack or provocation could unleash a horrendous world war.
And then, openly defy the president and, in the midst of extremely delicate and potentially historic and consequential negotiations, send an insultingly provocative letter to a hostile foreign leader, signed by 47 Republican Senators and addressed to Iran’s Supreme Leader, which threatened to undo any prospects of peace in the region.
And then, in the final year of his presidency, the Republicans refused to allow a White House representative to make a presentation on the President’s proposed budget, refused to hold hearings on his nominee for the US Supreme Court, rejected repeated pleas to make a joint, bipartisan statement denouncing Russian attempts to interfere in the presidential election, and then, in the final insult, elected as his successor a reality TV host – possibly the most unfit, unqualified and corrupt individual to ever serve in the office – who told them what they wanted to hear about President Obama and his birth certificate.
At each turn, Obama had been forced to navigate, like Odysseus, between Scylla and Charybdus, while the Republican Id recognizes no limits or boundaries, no need to moderate, and no need to recognize pragmatism or consider the logic behind making politically difficult but sometimes necessary choices.
And post-Presidency, Obama has been slandered about talk of how “his” policies caused a slow economic recovery when it was the stated goal of Republicans, beginning with the night before Inauguration Day 2009, to block every Democratic policy proposal that they could – after their own deregulation policies culminated in a near-Depression that shrank the economy at a rate of almost nine percent in the fourth quarter of 2008 and cost ten million Americans their job and six million Americans their home.
He has also been slandered as the "founder of ISIS” who prematurely withdrew from Iraq, even though it was his predecessor who signed the Status of Forces Agreement and who was responsible for destabilizing the region by invading the wrong country, resorting to torture of detainees, dismantling the Iraqi armed forces, and failing to secure the army’s arsenal.
Under Trump we:
Withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal, intrigued with their regional rivals and with Israel, and assassinated a top Iranian government official which has prompted Iran to resume enriching uranium and fueled a new arms race in the region;
Withdrew from the Trans Pacific Partnership, which has decimated our export markets, prompted a wave of farm bankruptcies as a result of punishing tariffs, and left us without a framework to renew strained ties with military and trade partners at a time of increasing aggression by China, and
Discontinued a vital Obama public health initiative that monitored conditions in China in an effort to prevent an outbreak of infectious disease, and then downplayed the emergence of the coronavirus pandemic that has since killed 800,000 Americans.
None of this would have happened had we maintained unity in the face of an act of war by a foreign adversary that was conducted under cover of the 2016 presidential campaign, and which resulted in a collective protest vote that did nothing more than throw away eight years of hard fought but imperfect and incomplete progress, gained by scraping inch-by-inch out of the worst economic collapse of our lifetimes.
And that’s the bigger tragedy: that instead of girding up to continue on and fight for more progress and to defend our legislative gains, some small minority in the performative wannabe Left joined up with the haters and the Birchers and birthers on the Right and said, ‘No Thanks’ to a tough, brilliant and determined woman who devoted her life to public service, ‘but 2016 must be about Change.’
As if Hillary Clinton was ever satisfied with the status quo.
As if anyone with half a functioning brain would have needed more than a split second to decide between her and possibly the most unfit, corrupt, and incompetent person to ever hold that office.
And what did we get by allowing ourselves to be divided and electing Trump? An unprecedented looting spree that left us eight trillion dollars further in debt, 800,000 dead, millions of lost jobs, a nation divided, the Supreme Court lost for a generation or more, and raging culture wars that have left racial, ethnic and sexual minorities in danger and our schools under the threat of a new Taliban.
And now under President Biden we are facing an opposition that has voted against pandemic relief, stimulus, voting rights, and accountability for the insurgency that culminated in the January 6 attack on our Capitol, and the chilling reality is that we can expect a recurrence of the crises that Republicans put this nation through upon winning the 2010 midterm elections.
Because the Republicans have made clear that if they win the upcoming elections they are determined to pass legislation that would overturn the will of the voting public, craft shifty end-arounds that call on vigilante justice to end the reproductive rights of women and possibly other Constitutionally-protected rights, undermine patient protections, and empower an undemocratic minority that stands for nothing besides clinging to absolute and undeserved power.
In light of this monstrous and looming reality we must remain united, vigilant and engaged, be careful to choose our battles wisely, and avoid succumbing to media-driven polls, clickbait, sensationalistic headlines, and optics.
No less than the fate of our nation is at stake in these uncertain and dangerous times.
Since he was elected, President Obama continually had been forced to walk a tightrope and rise above partisan politics in sometimes-desperate attempts to solve problems not of his making.
He had to show restraint in 2011 when the Republicans were threatening national default by refusing to raise the debt ceiling, and many Democrats were urging him to resort to a farcical strategy, such as minting a $1 trillion platinum coin to pay off the deficit, or exploiting a novel 14th Amendment solution such as unilaterally issuing bonds without Congressional approval, both of which likely would have triggered a constitutional crisis.
When Syria was found to be using banned chemical weapons on its own people in the middle of a horrendous civil war, he had to find a middle ground between hawks calling for massive military intervention, and liberals calling him a despotic warmonger for threatening military action without obtaining Congressional authorization.
Senators Rand Paul and Marco Rubio denounced Obama, and Rubio said that by bombing Syria we would in effect be acting as “ISIS’s air force.”
When Russia invaded Ukraine, and backed armed separatists in that nation, Obama had to fend off the war hawks calling for military intervention, reassure fretful Europeans fearful of the impact of economic sanctions on their energy security, and counter those who accused the US of backing “fascist,” anti-Russian elements in Ukraine.
All the while, Republicans gleefully called Obama weak and unfavorably compared him with Russian President Putin, who, notably, does not have to govern under a system of checks and balances and is not hamstrung under any separation of powers.
And yet, somehow, Obama got Russian support to mediate with Syria’s Assad, and Putin convinced Assad to surrender his chemical weapons, a prohibition that lasted three years – until Trump entered office.
Obama somehow also convinced a skittish, energy-dependent Europe to support economic sanctions in an effort to support and defend Ukrainian sovereignty.
Obama somehow got the world’s powers to address growing fears about Iran’s nuclear program, and had to put aside, for the moment, Russia’s aggression in Ukraine, and China’s territorial ambitions in Asia and its record of cyber-crime, industrial espionage, and currency manipulation.
Somehow, he also assembled a motley and improbable 60-nation coalition to combat pro-Sunni ISIS, which includes Turkey – an enemy of Syria’s embattled Shiite-led regime that intrigued against early alliance efforts – and Saudi Arabia and other pro-Sunni Gulf oil states that sought to blunt Shiite-led Iran’s rising influence in the region and which have supported violent pro-Sunni extremists.
And somehow, against mounting odds and bad-faith scare-mongering fueled by spurious populist agitprop and Wikileaks propaganda, Obama led a 12-nation coalition to craft a new type of trade agreement in the Asia-Pacific Rim – the world’s fastest-growing region – that would internationalize Western values and condition favorable trade conditions upon verifiable, enforceable standards for human and labor rights and environmental protections rather than institutionalize cheap exploitable labor in developing countries with lax or nonexistent protections, as prior trade agreements had done.
Given the above mentioned features, much of the world saw the Trans Pacific Partnership as a work of masterful diplomacy that would strengthen the U.S. position and standing in the region – both economically as well as strategically – and counter authoritarian China’s hegemonic rise. And it was the strategic value of TPP in strengthening our ties with military allies and trading partners that was noted by former Secretary of State Tillerson and former Defense Secretary Mattis, who both supported, to no avail, the initiative.
At each turn, Obama had to reject easy but illusory choices, make the best of extremely difficult situations, and be as nimble and fleet-footed as Gene Kelly or Fred Astaire.
However, when Republicans wanted something, they channeled their inner Bigfoot:
Block raising the debt ceiling in an attempt to impose austerity and starve a still-recovering economy under a Democratic president, regardless of the threat posed by a default on the nation’s and the world’s economy and the damage of additional spending cuts on a fragile recovering economy.
Shut down the government and force Obama to choose between a functioning government and implementing the Affordable Care Act, regardless of the billions of dollars in damage to the economy and despite the widespread benefits of enhanced healthcare coverage.
Shut down Homeland Security and force Obama and Democrats to choose between action on immigration – after years of stalling and broken promises by the Republicans – and national security at a time of rising threats of terrorism.
Violate protocol and invite the Israeli prime minister – just two weeks before his nation’s election – to scare-monger Congress and the nation about the only available means to avert a potential Iranian nuclear program, force Congress members to choose between their own president and a foreign leader, and force loyal American Jews to question longtime bipartisan US support of Israel – even though undermining a deal with additional, unnecessary and punishing and provocative sanctions could drive the Iranian nuclear program underground, and never mind that a military attack or provocation could unleash a horrendous world war.
And then, openly defy the president and, in the midst of extremely delicate and potentially historic and consequential negotiations, send an insultingly provocative letter to a hostile foreign leader, signed by 47 Republican Senators and addressed to Iran’s Supreme Leader, which threatened to undo any prospects of peace in the region.
And then, in the final year of his presidency, the Republicans refused to allow a White House representative to make a presentation on the President’s proposed budget, refused to hold hearings on his nominee for the US Supreme Court, rejected repeated pleas to make a joint, bipartisan statement denouncing Russian attempts to interfere in the presidential election, and then, in the final insult, elected as his successor a reality TV host – possibly the most unfit, unqualified and corrupt individual to ever serve in the office – who told them what they wanted to hear about President Obama and his birth certificate.
At each turn, Obama had been forced to navigate, like Odysseus, between Scylla and Charybdus, while the Republican Id recognizes no limits or boundaries, no need to moderate, and no need to recognize pragmatism or consider the logic behind making politically difficult but sometimes necessary choices.
And post-Presidency, Obama has been slandered about talk of how “his” policies caused a slow economic recovery when it was the stated goal of Republicans, beginning with the night before Inauguration Day 2009, to block every Democratic policy proposal that they could – after their own deregulation policies culminated in a near-Depression that shrank the economy at a rate of almost nine percent in the fourth quarter of 2008 and cost ten million Americans their job and six million Americans their home.
He has also been slandered as the "founder of ISIS” who prematurely withdrew from Iraq, even though it was his predecessor who signed the Status of Forces Agreement and who was responsible for destabilizing the region by invading the wrong country, resorting to torture of detainees, dismantling the Iraqi armed forces, and failing to secure the army’s arsenal.
Under Trump we:
Withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal, intrigued with their regional rivals and with Israel, and assassinated a top Iranian government official which has prompted Iran to resume enriching uranium and fueled a new arms race in the region;
Withdrew from the Trans Pacific Partnership, which has decimated our export markets, prompted a wave of farm bankruptcies as a result of punishing tariffs, and left us without a framework to renew strained ties with military and trade partners at a time of increasing aggression by China, and
Discontinued a vital Obama public health initiative that monitored conditions in China in an effort to prevent an outbreak of infectious disease, and then downplayed the emergence of the coronavirus pandemic that has since killed 800,000 Americans.
None of this would have happened had we maintained unity in the face of an act of war by a foreign adversary that was conducted under cover of the 2016 presidential campaign, and which resulted in a collective protest vote that did nothing more than throw away eight years of hard fought but imperfect and incomplete progress, gained by scraping inch-by-inch out of the worst economic collapse of our lifetimes.
And that’s the bigger tragedy: that instead of girding up to continue on and fight for more progress and to defend our legislative gains, some small minority in the performative wannabe Left joined up with the haters and the Birchers and birthers on the Right and said, ‘No Thanks’ to a tough, brilliant and determined woman who devoted her life to public service, ‘but 2016 must be about Change.’
As if Hillary Clinton was ever satisfied with the status quo.
As if anyone with half a functioning brain would have needed more than a split second to decide between her and possibly the most unfit, corrupt, and incompetent person to ever hold that office.
And what did we get by allowing ourselves to be divided and electing Trump? An unprecedented looting spree that left us eight trillion dollars further in debt, 800,000 dead, millions of lost jobs, a nation divided, the Supreme Court lost for a generation or more, and raging culture wars that have left racial, ethnic and sexual minorities in danger and our schools under the threat of a new Taliban.
And now under President Biden we are facing an opposition that has voted against pandemic relief, stimulus, voting rights, and accountability for the insurgency that culminated in the January 6 attack on our Capitol, and the chilling reality is that we can expect a recurrence of the crises that Republicans put this nation through upon winning the 2010 midterm elections.
Because the Republicans have made clear that if they win the upcoming elections they are determined to pass legislation that would overturn the will of the voting public, craft shifty end-arounds that call on vigilante justice to end the reproductive rights of women and possibly other Constitutionally-protected rights, undermine patient protections, and empower an undemocratic minority that stands for nothing besides clinging to absolute and undeserved power.
In light of this monstrous and looming reality we must remain united, vigilant and engaged, be careful to choose our battles wisely, and avoid succumbing to media-driven polls, clickbait, sensationalistic headlines, and optics.
No less than the fate of our nation is at stake in these uncertain and dangerous times.