If you haven’t read Kevin Drum’s article, please do. He puts into words exactly how I feel.
The striking thing to me, though, is how fast the left has turned on him. Conservatives gave Bush five or six years before they really turned on him, and even then they revolted more against the Republican establishment than against Bush himself. But the left? It took about ten months. And the depth of the revolt against Obama has been striking too. As near as I can tell, there’s a small but significant minority who are so enraged that they’d be perfectly happy to see his presidency destroyed as a kind of warning to future Democrats. It’s extraordinarily self-destructive behavior — and typically liberal, unfortunately. Just ask LBJ, Jimmy Carter, and Bill Clinton. And then ask them whether liberal revolt, in the end, strengthened liberalism or conservatism.
The speed the left has turned on him is striking. And it’s something that has puzzled me. I remember questioning the speed of the Tea Party rally one month after Obama was sworn in. I remember thinking that their timing had far more to do with who was in the White House than anything else. And I’m beginning to feel the same way about the left.
I say this because a lot of what I’m hearing, and reading, is disturbingly familiar. I’ve heard it all before, specifically during the 2008 Democratic Presidential Primary. The disparaging twists on Obama’s name, the predictable name calling of anyone who supports him, and the never-ending references to Kool-Aid.
It’s almost as if we came together in November 2008 under false pretenses. It’s as if some on the left were ready and waiting for him to fail, and even eager to pounce on every failure and set back as some sort of proof. Proof of what, I’m not sure. What I am sure about is that the level of Obama outrage is over the top given his time in office. I also don’t believe that this extreme approach (Obama’s a liar, he’s as bad, or worse than Bush, etc.) moves the Overton Window as much as it makes swing voters swing in the opposite direction. Bernard Avishai says it best: “Hell, if his own people think he’s a sell-out and jerk, why should we support this?”
And that’s because there is simply no balance in the left’s criticism. Obama sucks, he’s a sell-out, he’s a liar is all you read and hear from one side. There’s never any attempt to say something like, “I hate the HCR bill, but I’m pleased with the way he’s toned down the rhetoric on terrorism, the Lily Ledbetter Act, etc. They simply can’t stand him, and I sense they’ve always felt this way – that their views aren’t driven by disappointment, as much as they are driven by the anticipation of being able to say I told you so.
And while there will be plenty of blame to go around if Coakley loses today, some of that blame will rest on the far left – a fact I’m not sure will bother them, since they seem to be okay with scalp collecting to make their point. My problem? I still have no idea what their point is. Perhaps they want to kill this bill Presidency and start from scratch?