Democrats and the Art of the Impossible

by anderson

"Obama has pathetically caved to most every Republican yowl on every domestic bill, only to watch no Republicans even vote for the butchered bill anyway.  The health care botch will be the same."

-- Shockfront,
December 7, 2009

"Moments ago, the Senate passed a comprehensive health care reform bill by a vote of 60-39 …"

-- Senate Passes Health Care Reform
December 24, 2009

OK, so that wasn't such a bold prediction.

But what is clear is that the longer the Democrats "debate" legislation, the less the American people get out of it.  The Democrats are masters of loosing ground from a position of strength, of shirking the mandate given them by American voters.  In two successive elections, voters gave the Democrats more and more firepower to get things done, and after each election, the Democrats proved unable or unwilling to do those things.

Indeed, if what we have seen play out in the health care debacle can say anything about the Democrats, it is that they can take the possible, and make it impossible; cowering before any and all Republican bluster, taking a clear and unequivocal mandate, turning it sideways, and, with corporate media encouragement, pretending it just isn't there.

What is also clear is that Democrats fear the GOP far more than they do the wrath of an increasingly distressed and disenfranchised citizenry.  Either that, or, as I've said before,* the D party is just a front operation for the GOP, which in turn is just a front company for corporate America.  So, scaredy-cats or co-conspirators?  Impossible to tell.

Unfortunately, the Democrats' inability to either act or function as a governing majority has its most profound effects upon those who voted for them and who actually expected "change," those who have no phalanx of lobbyists in Washington and expected (or hoped) that the Democrats and Obama would be their lobbyists.

But that didn't happen, now.  Did it?

___________________________
* Hilariously, I wondered then, "if Obama actually wins the presidential election, who will the Democrats cave in to then?"  Well, it turns out that they can still keep caving into the Republicans! The fun never stops, kids!

Comments

[geoff]

In light of the modern democrats lost way, Jon Raban has a warning disguised as a review of Palin's book in the latest NYRB:

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/23532

In the short essay he pens this little critic of the praised preaching eloquence of the seemingly completely muddled Obama administration:

"Recently, I came across FDR's fireside chat of April 14, 1938,[2] when, speaking from the bottom of the second trough of the double-dip recession, he delivered a plain and passionate defense of deficit spending; Keynes for the family, and as resonant and topical now as it was seventy years ago. Nothing I've heard from the present administration matches its clarity, and where puzzlement and incomprehension exist, Palin leaps to fill the gap with facile and völkisch answers."

I've looked but no audio of the April 12, FDR, chat, but reading it I think Raban is correct FDRs clarity regarding a complex matter and clearly recognized honest sincerity dwarf the faux sputtering served up by Obama.