krebscycle

As we collapse into election 2016, it’s clear that  Movement Progressives, many of whom have coalesced around Bernie Sanders,  have learned nothing. The author of this 2010 blog post just cited it as evidence that his complaints about President Obama were well justified – and the dense material of often refuted errors in the post is worth revisiting. The start sets the table with the argument that the President entered office with

 most importantly, sizable majorities in both the House and Senate.[…] Basically, you have two years, and likely two years only, to do pretty much anything you want in order to grapple with this economic crisis. Do you [a] take a page from FDR’s 100 Days, go big, and push hard for the progressive agenda you laid down in your election campaign, which has the added benefit of enthusing the “rising American electorate” that got you elected?

Facts:

1. The Democrats (not the President) started 2009 with 59 unreliable votes in the Senate and faced an unprecedented disciplined Republican power grab that made it impossible to pass any legislation without 60 votes. There were 57 Democrats, plus Bernie Sanders, plus Joe Lieberman to get to 59. Only when Al Franken took the oath of office July 7 did the Democrats nominally have 60 votes (and then Ted Kennedy died).
2.  Senate Democrats were not the President’s to do with “pretty much anything” he wanted. Not only was Lieberman an unreliable vote, but the Democratic Caucus included a number of conservative or vulnerable or generally obnoxious Senators who were hostile to the President’s agenda and not obligated at all to follow along. Evan Bayh is a good example.   But even progressive Senators crossed lines – Senator Sherrod Brown allied with Republicans in an effort to block EPA rules he feared would harm Ohio’s chemical and coal industries!
3. The cohesive partisan nature of the Republican Party during the last 20 years is a new thing in US political history. The fractured nature of Democrats, particularly Senate Democrats is not – both Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton were publicly humiliated by powerful Senate Democrats on arrival in office.  The US Senate is not operated under a Parliamentary system. Democrat Ben Nelson was absolutely enraged when the Obama Administration took away the welfare a Nebraska based student loan shark company was receiving and went out of his way to sabotage further administration initiatives – as one more example.
4. The House Majority of Democrats was also not that solid. Voting during the ACA debate showed that a significant number of the most progressive House Democrats were sometimes willing to defy leadership and provide Republicans with a majority in order to oppose abortion rights – something supported by a vast majority of Democrats.
5. FDR’s hundred days bailed out banks (as Obama and Geithner did using TARP funds) and produced a number of otherwise weak and unworkable policies which were partly struck down by the Supreme Court and partly abandoned by FDR in favor of better policies. The so-called “first new deal” was routinely derided by left wingers until Obama became President at which point it became White Man Saves World in movement progressive legend.

None of these points are new, none of them are debatable, and none of them are compatible with the Movement Progressive complaint that President Obama failed to take advantage of the fictitious power to “do anything” in the first two years. In fact, there was a significant chance that a couple of high profile defeats to start the term would have essentially ended any hope of forward motion at all by encouraging Congress members to seek alliances with Republicans. And yet seven years in, the Zombie Lie keeps refusing to die and is accompanied by other Movement Progressive Zombie Lies like the following:

The Economy: As Paul Krugman has already pointed out, much of the story of this election was written way back in February 2009, when the Obama administration chose to settle on a stimulus package that was watered-down to appease Republicans who would never, ever vote for it.

Sigh. The combination of dumbass ideas in the quote above is daunting.  Note, however,  that the stimulus bill passed the Senate only with unanimous Democratic votes and 3 crucial Republican defectors. The administration watered the bill down to appease Republicans (and wavering Democrats) who were absolutely necessary to get the bill passed.

The rest is more of the same mixture of ignorance of civics and politics combined with surly attitude that we’ve all come to love so much. Yet Movement Progressives hold fast to the theory that disagreement on the part of 99%’ers must be caused by those unfortunates not having heard The Lecture delivered authoritatively or often enough. Here we are, 2016 and the same tedious progsplaining is being wheeled out again.