"Get Ready to Turn Inward" (Interesting Post by Chris Bowers, "Open Left")

Channel surfing today, I already see glimmers of what Bowers is warning about. From "Morning Joe" to CNN, CNBC the meme is all about how Obama is going to govern and how he isn't going to be run by the "loony left," or that he won't be able to do what he said because he doesn't have the money and the "Investor Class" will not allow him to "raise taxes" on them. This comes from those who aren't all far right Wall St. Repugs and Fox Operatives, but from Dem pundits like Harold Ford and Bob Shrum.

----------

Get Ready To Turn Inward
by: Chris Bowers
Tue Nov 04, 2008 at 14:48


Inevitably, there will be a plethora of talking heads tonight arguing that while Obama and Democrats won, this was really a center-right, "bi-partisan" victory. Or, at least, they will argue that Democrats better govern in a center-right, bi-partisanship fashion, or else. Such comments will, inevitably, be just about the least enjoyable part of what otherwise should be a fantastic night.


It will be a sad sight to see so many people praise certain sections of the Democratic effort this year, while dumping on the rest. Specifically, the left-wing and the netroots will be dumped on the most, as always. The Village must never credit the DFHs with anything. For example, Adam Nagourney is on MSNBC a few minutes ago talking about how Dean doesn't deserve any credit for the 50-state strategy, even though that was really the entirety of his tenure at the DNC.

This should be a victory for all Democrats, given how hard everyone has worked. However, it just won't be spun that way. It was clear in 2006, for example, that certain sections of the party were eager to demean all others after our victory. Jim Wallis's trumpeting 2006 as a defeat of the secular left, Rahm Emanuel's media deification, and the constant pundit drumbeat of just how conservative all these new Democrats were (a claim that was based almost entirely on Heath Shuler being anti-choice), are just some examples of what happened.

This time, it will be key for progressives and the netroots to claim victory, too. Republicans will be reduced to such small numbers in Congress, that Democrats will be governing virtually unopposed. As always happens in such situations, the dominant majority party will factionalize quite a bit. We have to be aware of this, and ready to fight. After today, the struggle will take place almost entirely within the Democratic Party, not between Democrats and Republicans. If you are a progressive or a grassroots activist, and you expect unity and praise for your efforts afterward, then you are being very naïve. Tonight is the end of one phase of the fight for a progressive governing majority, and the full-fledged start of another.

http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=9697

I could not agree more. The democratic leadership has NOT represented the interests of the liberal left for some years, and there's no reason to expect that they'll start now unless something pushes HARD in that direction. Will Barak Obama be that force? Nothing really indicates that he will, frankly, so that means the grassroots have to keep the pressure on.

In 2006 we rid ourselves of the republican legislative majority.

Today we're ridding ourselves of the republican executive, and hopefully kicking even more of the bastids out of congress. But getting rid of arch-conservative republicans is only part of the equation, and replacing them with any ol' dems is NOT necessarily the other. Not from this liberal's perspective.

The real job is REFORMING American politics and establishing liberal policies that benefit Americans. Yes we have to kick out the chaff to accomplish that, but bear in mind that some of that chaff has a D after their names!

As we saw after the 2006 Election where we gained more Democratic Seats we weren't able to achieve the change we were promised and many of us had worked for since 2000 Stolen Election.

We have to work very hard to rebuild our party and keep them honest. The RW and the Corporate Media won't have changed because of an Obama win. And many of us know what they did to Bill Clinton his first year and Jimmy Carter. The evil ones are still out there and will be re-grouping and we see how our Democrats often don't support their own like they didn't defend Carter or Clinton in those early days or even their whole administration when the RW attacked and attacked.

Obama will need the support of those of us willing to support and push him to make sure he makes that "change" he promised. We can't leave it up to Congress it has to be "US."

I just hope we can get good Supreme Court appointments, the dismantling of Gitmo, the withdrawal from Iraq, a change in the FISA legislation, the end of extraordinary rendition, upholding habeus corpus, the end of torture and a clearer definition of terrorists based upon facts instead of a nebulous concept of "enemy combatants", the opening of diplomatic negotiations with such countries as Cuba and Iran, and a few other major issues. If there's in-fighting among Democrats and the progressive left doesn't always get what it wants, I at least hope that the finer points will be debated and that our voice will now be heard.

I saw that Dean thing going down.

Folks will be trying to take the glory left and right. But the folks who've had their hair on fire about BushCo and the repubs all along will continue to be the red-headed step-children.

( Don't yell at ME, I think redheads are HOT!)

i do not believe there will be room for "the left" in an obama administration. the real victory is for republicans in passing obama off as a "leftist". it happened in subtle ways, like in the last debate: mccain says to obama (paraphrase), "I think you may be too far left for me to cross over the aisle to you." whereas, obama has not indicated that mccain would be to far to the right to work with, in fact, he has welcomed powell. there doesn't seem to be anyone too far to the right for obama to reach across to. he's more likely to distance himself from the left than the right but he's still a "leftist".

That's what I want to hear--that and a complete repudiation of trickle-down economics, the unitary executive theory of government, and the Republican Party.

Instead, I suspect the OP is right. The powers-that-be will try to hamstring us immediately, calling this a victory for moderates. Bull!

I hope Obama governs from the left and not from the middle. I hope he has been lying (as I have said all along): http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Laelth/15.

:shrug: