A second contingent of readers comes to Obama’s defense:
TPM Reader RL:
Where do all these comments come from? Obama is not scolding anybody he is just pointing out the futility in venting your frustrations in a way that will certainly ensure all you value is destroyed. Don’t vote its your choice and it is the GOP’ers choice too. They are going to vote like never before..There really is no excuse for Democrats to feign ignorance here. Sit out the election and sit in on the GOP’s plans for you. It’s that simple and it’s that stupid.
TPM Reader CS:
Wow, the folks complaining about Obama’s comments strike me as really huffy and indignant.We aren’t going to get very far with this presidency and this majority unless we accept that electing Obama was the easy part. Obama’s message from the very beginning has been that positive change is hard work. I think it’s extremely clear already that Obama’s impact is not going to be fully understood and appreciated until 5, 10, 15 years after he leaves office. It’s also clear that if given the choice between going for the smaller policy victory that ensures re-election, and the larger victory that is better for the country in the long run even if a population doesn’t pay attention and appreciate it, then Obama will choose the larger victory. The crux here is whether the population pays attention, and right now we’re failing him.
I think progressives in general have to decide whether to work when the work is easy, or work when the work is hard. It was definitely comparatively easy to work for Obama two years ago, because there was idealism, hope, and a kind of certainty that if only we could elect him, then everything would change and it would somehow be easy, despite the campaign’s best efforts to tell us that change is hard. It hasn’t been easy, and now we’re witnessing a population make the choice on whether to roll up their sleeves or sit on their hands.
TPM Reader JM:
I just read your comments from readers reacting to Obama’s comments about the irresponsibility of Democratic and progressive voters sitting out this election. Many of your readers seemed to disagree strongly with what they perceived as Obama’s scolding. I, however, think that scolding is necessary.I am an extremely progressive activist and voter. I have been stunned by the critiques of progressive voters who claim that Obama hasn’t done enough to address their concerns. In the face of historic partisan obstructionism, he has still secured three or four legislative accomplishments that have been hallmark goals of progressives.
Some progressives argue that he “should have done more,” for example issuing an executive order repealing Don’t Ask Don’t Tell or “weighing in” more strongly on climate change legislation. But to me Obama’s analysis seems right. The idea that within eighteenth months Obama was going to transform thirty years of supply-side, values-voting American politics seems foolish. We should know better.
Progressives, rather than champion what Obama has accomplished while urging for more change, seem to have given up and determined Obama is a disappointment. Progressives have bought into their own hype; they have assumed that the “change” of the 2008 election was going to be swift and enduring. Sure, I wish he could reform campaign finance, completely alter the way we use our natural resources, by fiat create a nationalized health-care system. But he can’t.
If American political history shows anything, it is that institutions change incrementally and slowly by design. This is why it is crucial and advantageous that Obama is a pragmatist. For progressives to misidentify this as Obama’s “failure” is to cede what must be our decades-long, institutional struggle with pragmatic electoral, judicial, and legislative politics to those conservatives who have a longer vision of political change. …
David Kurtz
David Kurtz is Managing Editor and Washington Bureau Chief of Talking Points Memo where he oversees the news operations of TPM and its sister sites.