What should be a celebratory election for me, the downfall of the Reaganauts, leaves me feeling angry and betrayed. The accidents of political and economic fate have brought us an anti-leader, someone who occupies a symbolic space without embodying the substance of what those symbols represent. I read people like Digby telling us that we have to settle for the importance of symbolism rather than actual substantive legislation and we should be fine with this, and I wonder how the the Left Blogosphere became more complacent than the DLC they revile so much. How is this different than being a Blue Dog Democrat? When did triangulation come back into vogue, except this time standing squarely on a party platform that holds rejection of partisan stances as its primary political purpose?
It's very strange. Barack Obama told us exactly how he planned to win the election, and exactly how he planned to govern, and he still locked up all the the liberals. To oppose him came to be seen as . . .unthinkable.
Perhaps Obama will change course. Perhaps he'll recognize that fate has handed him an opportunity to fulfill what started out as a mere campaign strategy.
Doesn't he need to find something to put in his next memoir?
No comments:
Post a Comment