Legal Commentary

The Missing Left Flank

By Big Tent Democrat

Harold Meyerson:

The reasons for the stillbirth of the new progressive era are many and much discussed. [. . .] But if there's a common feature to the political landscapes in which Carter, Clinton and now Obama were compelled to work, it's the absence of a vibrant left movement.

[. . .] In America, major liberal reforms require not just liberal governments, but autonomous, vibrant mass movements, usually led by activists who stand at or beyond liberalism's left fringe. No such movements were around during Carter and Clinton's presidencies. For his part, Obama won election with something new under the political sun: a list of 13 million people who had supported his campaign. But he has consistently declined to activate his activists to help him win legislative battles by pressuring, for instance, those Democratic members of Congress who have weakened or blocked his major bills. [. . .] [I]n the absence of both a free-standing movement and a legion of loyalists, Congress isn't feeling much pressure from the left to move Obama's agenda.

(Emphasis supplied.) Harold Meyerson is, like Katrina Van den Heuvel, a sort of Beltway Leftie. Consider my highlighted excerpts. Meyerson talks of "Obama's activists" to move "Obama's agenda." This is absurd. Obama's agenda is not particularly progressive. It is centrist, if not center-right. As a Centrist myself (Afghan War supporter, free trader, opponent of the reenactment of Glass-Steagall, defender of a Constitutional preventive detention regime), this is not so very troubling. But for Meyerson and Van den Heuvel, people well to the left of me, they should realize that Obama is not their champion. More . . .

Indeed, it is the failure of the Beltway Left and the Blogger Left to understand their role as a non-Obama attached Left Flank that is indeed the biggest failure of the New Progressive movement. Obama is not their leader. He is not their friend. He is not even their ally. He is their target. For pressure. Until that is absorbed, there is little hope for a progressive era.

Speaking for me only

Full post as published by TalkLeft on January 06, 2010 (boomark / email).