It’s been breathtaking trying to follow Obama’s sprint to the right since he clinched the nomination—and I say “trying” because he’s moving so fast he’s actually starting to redshift, and soon it’ll take hours just for the light from his receding back to reach us. You’ve got to admire the thoroughness and breadth of his disguise-shedding: the death penalty, FISA and telecom immunity, scolding the (ostensible) left, scapegoating black fathers, backtracking from his previous lies about NAFTA, positioning himself to the right of Likud, vowing to go Bush one better in giving government funds to religious organizations, and even hedging on the one and only thing he’s said that at all merited the “change” label—his vow to talk to leaders like Ahmadinejad. Among other things. Really, it’s been like Christmas every day…I can hardly wait to see what’s next!
So how will the faithful respond? Over at A Tiny Revolution I went miles out on a limb with this wildly speculative prediction (in response to the italicized remark):
It’ll be interesting to see what happens when the guy crushes all that hope he’s been building up.
That won’t happen. No matter how bad he is, he’ll be better than Bush—and that’ll be enough for the true believers. The vast majority of Obama voters will rationalize the inevitable “compromises” (i.e. betrayals) as necessary bows to pragmatism; he has to work within the realm of the possible, you see. In 2012 they’ll have no time for our silly quibbles about how he bombed Iran, continued the occupation of Iraq, and circumvented any meaningful action on global warming. It’ll be just like 2000, when after eight years of Clinton murdering Iraqi children by the hundreds of thousands, among other hideous crimes, a Gore-pimping Democrat actually pointed me towards the earned income tax credit as the glorious achievement that so clearly illustrates why we must, must, must keep the Democrats in power.
And just a few hours later “Dave” offered this comment on the same thread (addressing Obama’s choice to make common cause with Scalia, Thomas, Alito, and Roberts on the application of the death penalty):
His alternate choice would have been to appeal to the “child rapist” vote in one way or another. That second choice of action, even though principled, would have guaranteed the biggest loss in the history of national elections. Is that what you want?
Sure sounds like Dave’s saying that Obama took a necessary bow to pragmatism, doesn’t it? Yeah, I thought so too. Score! I hit the fish, right there in the barrel! And as I say, I don’t doubt that it’s going to go that way in the vast majority of cases.
Still, there are some hopeful signs, like the rumblings on this thread:
Quinty: His remarks today on faith based organizations for me are the last straw. He has told his original backers to collectively go to hell. He has not even attempted to hide his open contempt for us. …
anne faith: I hate admitting that I’m wrong. But here goes: all of you out there who warned that Obama was full of crap and that we had drunk the kool-aid and that we would be sorely disappointed and that he was no progressive…. YOU WERE RIGHT. And you have every right to say, loudly, “I told you so!!!” …
Bluetickle: I am angry and ready to rip the Obama bumper sticker off the back of my car and re-join the sane people who ignore this political blather.
And there are a few more like that if you read through. But for every Quinty, anne, and Bluetickle. there are dozens of people insisting that that’s not really a shit sandwich they’re eating, but a tastefully-prepared ham and cheese:
jlees: Is pushing for “conservative” ideas like self-reliance while having the liberal safety net a bad thing? Does that move him to the “center” so he can “pander”? I don’t think so. I think it makes him a realist, a pragmatist …
(There’s that word again!)
Will the de-illusioned finally outnumber the permanently-illusioned this time around? Gosh, what a perplexing mystery. But it’ll at least be amusing to see how it all falls out—especially if Obama continues trying to top himself every day in seeing how far he can jam a screwdriver into the eye sockets of his most ardent supporters.
The Distant Ocean 
Duuude – if you’re ready for the big-league stuff, read some of the threads at Hullabaloo. Primo shit. Jay B. and Grand Moff Texan have been the self-appointed liberal commissars trying to re-educate the nervous herd in the ones I’ve seen recently. But best of all, in addition to the constant paranoid shrieks about how the Democrats are all being blackmailed (which is why they keep turning into doormats) by whatever Dubya has on them due to his phone tapping, there’s a brigade of Hillary dead-enders who keep showing up to claim that she wouldn’t have done any of this! She would have fought like Emma Goldman to bring progressive paradise to us!
Anyway, the thing is, there will never be a good time as far as they’re concerned to say “Screw this” and start working on an alternative, like a third party. It’ll either be a case where, like now, we’re under siege! hanging on by a thread! we’re going to lose everything we have if we don’t rally ’round the party! The world’s gonna end if another Republican gets elected, so we can’t afford to indulge any Land of Cockaigne fantasies right now, you stupid Naderites!
Of course, even if we did reach a point where the Democrats had established dominance and the Republicans were weak and ineffectual and fighting amongst themselves, that wouldn’t be a good time either, because we would need to consolidate our gains and things are pretty good right now, why are you being so unrealistic and imagining that things could ever be perfect, you stupid Naderites!
There will always be another election coming up – The Most Important One Ever Until The Next One – and there will always be some issue that needs to be finessed so that we can’t afford to raise hell about yet another sellout or capitulation. Why, if I didn’t know better, I’d think that these defenders of the status quo had already decided that anything more radical than lukewarm DLC leftovers is unthinkable, and they’re just adjusting the excuses as needed.
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There’s a recent thread on Pandagon that declares Arthur Silber a wingnut conservative for criticizing Obama’s personality cult and alluding to fascism. Numerous people tried to explain, but all for naught. I find myself regretting I wasted my time reading it, but you might find it entertaining. Or not.
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…aaaand, over at “Deconstructing Democrats”, naturally they have a similar take. I found this line rather quotable:
“He lost me with our ‘singular greatness’. I really couldn’t read on. Oh, yeah, I know, his defense attorneys — and they are legion — will say this is what you have to do in order to be elected. To which I can only respond: In that case, I can’t begin to care who gets elected.”
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“there will never be a good time as far as they’re concerned to say “Screw this” and start working on an alternative, like a third party”
true. but i keep hearing about this third party, and what would the platform be? we’d need four or five parties, and that would defeat the chances of a third party. there’s already the libertarian party, but it’s a laissez-faire party, and many lefties won’t vote it. there’s already the socialist party, but it’s a statist party, and left-libertarians won’t vote it, much less righties. so what platform could a third party devise, that would appeal to enough people, to make it a going operation?
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Gnome: Actually I did wade through a posting or two’s worth of comments at Digby’s blog, just out of curiosity (I don’t make it a regular habit). That ham and cheese sure was looking good!
She would have fought like Emma Goldman to bring progressive paradise to us!
Now that’s some high-quality sarcasm.
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Still jamming, apparently.
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