Couple of interesting observations about the Obama years and legacy that are worth checking out, as we head into what will surely be an entertaining year in which we will hopefully do as little as possible. Whatever caveats and qualifiers people want to post hoc onto Obama's tenure as imperial custodian, the bottom line is that he was far better than the fool who preceded him, the chumps he ran against, and especially that damned thing that succeeded him. That said, his flaws deserve to be revisited, if only so that they can be avoided in the future.
I always felt that Primary Colors was an underrated gem of a movie, with pitch-perfect performances from the entire ensemble. It captured perfectly how the canned idealism of the Clintons so quickly soured into endlessly triangulated cynicism.
One of the better lines from that movie -- can't find it online right now, so going from memory -- was from Billy Bob Thornton's character, referring to Kathy Bates' true believer character, that when that sort of person finds out their guy isn't really the rock that their church was built on, it devastates them. They're not sure what to do going forward.
I think that's what's happened with all the post hoc analyses of Obama's terms. For one, he benefits simply because the people he ran against, and the people he governed against, were so awful. He comes out looking better simply by being a normal human, instead of a steadily worsening sequence of Star Wars cantina critters.
But what did he actually do to effectively combat that wretched hive of scum and villainy? Not much, it turns out; in fact, considering the massive scale of Democratic losses at all the lower levels, maybe worse than nothing at all. Maybe his health-care initiative will survive in some form. Everything else is already gone.
Obama was effective in conveying that feel-your-pain stuff that good pols need to have, but the be-the-change-you-want stuff kinda backfired. You can't tell the harried single mother working three jobs to keep her family afloat that you know what she's going through, and then when you get elected tell her that she has to step up and be the change. That's what she voted for you to do, dummy, to stand up to the animals keeping her down. She should have showed up for all the midterms, of course, but one might be able to see how such a person might have noticed by those points in time that nothing much was really going to change for their situation.
The Democratic candidate that can forcefully convey that they will fight on their constituents' behalf, and not back down or take some weasel way out, will be the one that can win, and win big. Stop whining about the corporate media and call them out, challenge the individual scriveners to step up and do real work, instead of theater criticism and pithy observations on how to eat corn dogs. Stop complaining about #MoscowMitch and his mastery of procedure, and learn to master it yourselves. He seemed quite able to stonewall things when he led a forty-one seat minority. Do that.
That's really the only worthwhile lesson to take from Obama, that all the well-meaning thoughts and words and intentions mean nothing against people who are dedicated to destroying you. Norms, rules, decorum, all of it -- utterly meaningless if only one side is bothering to observe those things.
Someone (can't recall who or where right now, but very recently) observed that Democrats could have 70% support on an issue, and still be waffling over how well it'll play in Real 'murka or whatever, worrying about what the Fixed Noise drones will say, while the Republicons will trot out some nonsense that barely has the support of their 30% wingnut base, but they'll drive it full throttle, damn the torpedoes.
The sooner the Democrats figure out why that is, and adjust accordingly, the sooner they can set about the righteous work of driving these clowns and monsters directly into the goddamned sea. No mercy, no remorse, no idiotic attempts at comity and collegiality. The Republican Party needs to be ended as a political entity, period, or nothing will ever change.
I always felt that Primary Colors was an underrated gem of a movie, with pitch-perfect performances from the entire ensemble. It captured perfectly how the canned idealism of the Clintons so quickly soured into endlessly triangulated cynicism.
One of the better lines from that movie -- can't find it online right now, so going from memory -- was from Billy Bob Thornton's character, referring to Kathy Bates' true believer character, that when that sort of person finds out their guy isn't really the rock that their church was built on, it devastates them. They're not sure what to do going forward.
I think that's what's happened with all the post hoc analyses of Obama's terms. For one, he benefits simply because the people he ran against, and the people he governed against, were so awful. He comes out looking better simply by being a normal human, instead of a steadily worsening sequence of Star Wars cantina critters.
But what did he actually do to effectively combat that wretched hive of scum and villainy? Not much, it turns out; in fact, considering the massive scale of Democratic losses at all the lower levels, maybe worse than nothing at all. Maybe his health-care initiative will survive in some form. Everything else is already gone.
Obama was effective in conveying that feel-your-pain stuff that good pols need to have, but the be-the-change-you-want stuff kinda backfired. You can't tell the harried single mother working three jobs to keep her family afloat that you know what she's going through, and then when you get elected tell her that she has to step up and be the change. That's what she voted for you to do, dummy, to stand up to the animals keeping her down. She should have showed up for all the midterms, of course, but one might be able to see how such a person might have noticed by those points in time that nothing much was really going to change for their situation.
The Democratic candidate that can forcefully convey that they will fight on their constituents' behalf, and not back down or take some weasel way out, will be the one that can win, and win big. Stop whining about the corporate media and call them out, challenge the individual scriveners to step up and do real work, instead of theater criticism and pithy observations on how to eat corn dogs. Stop complaining about #MoscowMitch and his mastery of procedure, and learn to master it yourselves. He seemed quite able to stonewall things when he led a forty-one seat minority. Do that.
That's really the only worthwhile lesson to take from Obama, that all the well-meaning thoughts and words and intentions mean nothing against people who are dedicated to destroying you. Norms, rules, decorum, all of it -- utterly meaningless if only one side is bothering to observe those things.
Someone (can't recall who or where right now, but very recently) observed that Democrats could have 70% support on an issue, and still be waffling over how well it'll play in Real 'murka or whatever, worrying about what the Fixed Noise drones will say, while the Republicons will trot out some nonsense that barely has the support of their 30% wingnut base, but they'll drive it full throttle, damn the torpedoes.
The sooner the Democrats figure out why that is, and adjust accordingly, the sooner they can set about the righteous work of driving these clowns and monsters directly into the goddamned sea. No mercy, no remorse, no idiotic attempts at comity and collegiality. The Republican Party needs to be ended as a political entity, period, or nothing will ever change.
No comments:
Post a Comment