That doesn't make it a bad bill or mean it's worse than nothing, but it illustrates something very important: While liberals focused on a narrow, short-term definition of "winning," conservatives took a longer view. As a result, conservatives have moved the national dialog radically rightward while liberals frantically shift their definition of "winning" accordingly. A "liberal win" is apparently now defined as the passage of a conservative proposal, as long as it's better than nothing and is signed into law by a Democratic President.
If this keeps up in a few years we'll be celebrating passage of the Romney/Ryan Medicare voucher plan as yet another "liberal win." Didn't America's seniors get something? And didn't a Democrat sign the bill?
The health-care bill does some good things, but it also contains many flaws and weaknesses. Bill Scher's engaging in faith-based reasoning, as anyone does when suggesting that the outcomes the President got were the best that anyone could have achieved. Like most professions of faith, that statement can neither be proved nor disproved.
But even if it's true (which we doubt), these outcomes could have -- and should have -- been accompanied by stronger rhetoric, by clearer defenses of the good things that were being sacrificed and a pledge to work for them again in the future. That didn't happen, and we're all paying the price.
Parallel Universes
On issue after issue, President Obama adopted positions that would have been considered center/right Republicanism in previous decades: Over-emphasizing the urgency and importance of deficit reduction. Willingness to cut Social Security benefits to balance the budget. Minimal or destructive action regarding underwater homeowners. Claiming that "Wall Street and Main Street rise and fall together" while failing to investigate criminal bank activity. (And this list doesn't include civil liberties issues, since the topic is economics.)
Would a more progressive Obama be in a stronger political position today? That gets into alternate-history scenarios that can never be proved or disproved. He might have met with more corporate resistance to his agenda -- although its hard to imagine much stronger resistance than we're seeing now, despite his many concessions -- and his donations from Wall Street and other large donors would have undoubtedly been smaller. That's not trivial in this post-Citizens United world, and we understand that.
On the other hand, a truly progressive President Obama would presumably be enjoying the enthusiastic backing of the core voters who propelled him to the Presidency in 2008. Would a more progressive economic agenda have been a net political advantage? We can't know.
But isn't it about time a Democrat tried it? Clinton's corporate-friendly agenda including the repeal of Glass-Steagall and the deregulation of Wall Street. Obama's corporate-friendly agenda left his party vulnerable to a GOP attack on the left over Medicare, wounded his party's brand as the defender of Social Security, and tainted him as too cozy with Wall Street. How's that workin' out?
And here's something we do know: The passage of better bills would have been better for the country.
The Way Forward
One thing is clear: Victory for liberalism cannot and must not be defined by the limits of what legislators can accomplish. Legislators operate within the realm of the politically possible, while independent movements change what's politically possible.
One of the President's greatest failures over the last three and a half years is that he chose to think like a legislator, not a leader. And one of liberalism's greatest failures was allowing so many people to identify with a leader, not with the principles and values that should be a movement's guiding star.
We can't change the past, but we can learn from it. We know that we need to think both short-term and long-term. We know now that electing persuadable politicians is the first step in the change process, not the last one. (Sure, re-elect them, as long as we can pressure them. But don't confuse tactics with strategies, compromises with goals, or politicians with ideals.)
Most of all, we know that we need a vigorous and truly independent movement -- one that will speak to disaffected voters like the adults they are, mobilizing them with honest talk about the limits of elected leaders, the power of a engaged citizenry, and the perils of outsourcing ultimate accountability to any politician or party.
That, and not attempting to put a positive gloss on inappropriate compromises, is the way forward. That's the right path, and the pragmatic path, for liberals to take -- this year, and in the years to come.(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
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