I remember the Politico article that talked of how President Obama declared himself a New Democrat in March 2009 ... New Democrats are not Liberals or Progressives. As a political movement New Democrats abandoned populism for market based solutions. The Democratic Leadership Council, the New Democrat centerpiece, had representatives of Koch Industries on its board. Again, New Democrats are not, nor have they ever been, Liberals or Progressives, but in a cynical political strategy they drape themselves in those terms.
President Obama is a centrist President of the Conservative Democratic Party ... Republicans being reactionaries, have moved the political needle far to the Right in the US, so the Democrats can masquerade as Progressive or Liberal, when, in reality, they are still corporate driven and conservative.
I feel for Progressives being disheartened by President Obama is kind of like having a cat, and wishing you had a dog. I mean, a cat is a cat, not a dog. If Progressives want a truly Progressive President they need to build a political infrastructure to achieve that aim. Progressives need to move the Democratic Party in their direction, by electing Progressive Democrats to office in local, state and federal offices, as an ultimate path to a Progressive President ... that is one route ... but you can't look at the New Democrat Party and expect Obama to be anything other than what he is.
This election, from the Progressive perspective, is still about the lesser of two evils.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
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