The Enthusiasm Gap and You

[fencesitter]

Robert Reich
Aug. 4th 2010

http://robertreich.org/post/904101338/the-enthusiasm-gap-and-you

friend whom I’ll call David raised a ton of money for Democrats in 2008 and now tells me they can go to hell. He’s furious about the no-strings bailout of Wall Street, the absence of a public option in health reform, financial reform that doesn’t cap the size of banks or reinstate the Glass-Steagall wall between investment and commercial banking, and a stimulus that was too small to do much good but big enough to give Republicans a campaign issue. He’s also upset about tens of thousands of additional troops being sent to Afghanistan, a watered-down cap-and-trade bill that’s going nowhere, and no Employee Free Choice Act. David won’t raise a penny this fall and doubts he’ll even vote. “I busted my chops getting them elected, and they caved,” he fumes. “They’re all lily-livered wimps, and Obama has the backbone of a worm.”

Tea Partiers are getting all the press. But the anger on the left, including much of the Democratic base, is almost as intense.

The pattern isn’t new. I remember a gloomy fall 16 years ago when as secretary of labor I traveled around the country trying to rev up the base for the 1994 midterms. I found anger and disillusionment then, too. Of course, Clinton hadn’t accomplished nearly as much as Obama. In fact, he’d pushed initiatives like NAFTA that infuriated the base.

When Republicans control Congress or the White House, their base can get restless but doesn’t seem to suffer the same disillusionment. Republicans stood by Ronald Reagan in the 1982 midterms and rallied enthusiastically for his re-election in 1984. They were out in force for George H.W. Bush’s 1990 midterm as well as George W. Bush’s in 2002 and his 2004 re-election.

Why the asymmetry?

First, the Republican base keeps the heat on after elections so Republican officeholders accomplish what they promise and are less likely to compromise in the first place......

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The Republican base is part of a conservative movement. The Democratic base, by contrast, is a loose coalition that elects a new president and then goes home, expecting the new president to deliver miracles.

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I can understand your disillusionment with a president and representatives that seem to bend to the prevailing winds from the right. But if you and David and other progressives wallow in your cynicism we’ll be in much bigger trouble as a nation than we are now.

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Read the whole essay, I just took snips. He's got a lot to say.

[Skittles]

1. horse shit

we sit back waiting for the new president to deliver miracles? WTF? They fuck us over and then want favors? Fuck this shit. I'll vote Dem but the enthusiasm is LONG gone.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

2. Quoth: "They fuck us over and then want favors?"

You bet.

[Skittles]

3. I'm so sick of the "IT COULD BE WORSE" threat

do they not realize the real beef is IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN BETTER?

[xchrom]

5. See it for what it is: TERRA TERRA TERRA only

Democratic style.

I'll through anything -- if dem don't
Want to do the right thing - well
So be it.

[roseBudd]

4. If you aren't scared shitless about how much worse the economy could get if...

the Boehner & McConnell Dog & Pony Show get ahold of it, you have not been reading enough financial news.

Zandi testimony on unemployment benefits & the risks ahead

"the greater immediate risk is not that long-term interest rates will rise too high, but that hiring and job growth will fail to revive as anticipated. Costs to taxpayers will be measurably greater if the economy does not turn the corner to expansion but instead retreats back into recession. With the unemployment rate already near double digits, a deflationary cycle of falling wages begetting falling prices, leading to more wage cuts, could well take hold. At that point, policymakers will have no good response, given the 0% federal funds rate and the federal government's rapidly eroding balance sheet."

The GOP is doing everything it can to destroy the economy, so they can claw their way back to power, and the won't be done with their sabotage until after the 2012 election.

[MineralMan]

6. +100

[bread_and_roses]

7. this article is such a muddle that I don't know where to start

First of all, hundreds of thousands at least I would guess of those of us who worked to help elect Obama were and are years if not life-long activists? And how many others of those who voted for him were ready and willing at his call? Millions. His was the most inspiring campaign and victory of my lifetime, and I'm almost 60. We did not expect him to work "miracles" all alone. But we did expect him to work with and for us - as we had worked with and for him and the vision he put forward.

Last, after correctly noting that change arises from movements, Reich's solution is to work and vote for politicians? Eh? What? Just which politicians would he be talking about? The ones who called us "retards?" The ones who put the interests of their Corporate Overlords - the same Overlords that own the Rs - ahead of ours? The ones who want us to vote for them and then go away? Working and voting for politicians will create a movement? I don't think so - Obama had that opportunity, he blew it, and it's gone.

Between there are other muddles, but it's late and I'm tired.

I don't "hate" Reich and honestly think he tries. But if ever there was an "inside the Beltway" conventional analysis that really misses the point on the ground, this is it.