Both sides do it? Obama 2010 edition (Or, how not to oppose rightwing radicalism)

I don’t often just plagiarize and repost my own posts. But I’m doing so with this one, because it’s a sharp reminder of what nicely-nicey “bipartisan” rhetoric by the Democrats accomplished over the last decade and a half, i.e., encouraging Republicans to radicalized further.

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Text from 10/31/2010 (1):

Obama's pre-election weekly address: say what?

I just don't get it. This is the President's last regular weekly address before Tuesday's election. And he makes a pitch for an impossible bipartisanship on domestic issues? Other than setting the stage for him to embrace Social Security Phaseout when the Catfood Commission makes its recommendations Dec. 1, what is the point of this?

[Obama:] Whatever the outcome on Tuesday, we need to come together to help put people who are still looking for jobs back to work. And there are some practical steps we can take right away to promote growth and encourage businesses to hire and expand. These are steps we all should be able to agree on – not Democratic or Republican ideas, but proposals that have traditionally been supported by both parties. ...

On these issues – issues that will determine our success or failure in this new century – I believe it’s the fundamental responsibility of all who hold elective office to seek out common ground. It may not always be easy to find agreement; at times we’ll have legitimate philosophical differences. And it may not always be the best politics. But it is the right thing to do for our country.

He does take a timid shot at the Republicans:

That’s why I found the recent comments by the top two Republican in Congress so troubling. The Republican leader of the House actually said that "this is not the time for compromise." And the Republican leader of the Senate said his main goal after this election is simply to win the next one.

Then he goes on to say, "But when the ballots are cast and the voting is done, we need to put this kind of partisanship aside – win, lose, or draw."

I just don't get it. After what we've seen this last two years with the Republicans, I really don't get it.

End of 10/31/2010 text
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Here was what former Texas Congressman Dick Armey, then head of FreedomWorks, one of the main corporate front groups funding far-right "Tea Party" events had to say on October 31 of that same year on ABC’s Sunday show This Week:

No, I think what's going to happen is they're going to -- there's going to be the continuing contest in the big issues. Will the government be in control of America, which will ultimately destroy America, which is right now the obsession of the Democrat Party with their progressive core that controls the entire party, or will it be, in fact, restrained and responsively responsive to the desires and the needs of the American people. [my emphasis] (2)

None of the other panelists nor ABC’s host Christiane Amanpour made a peep about the fact that a senior Republican Party figure and "Tea Party" bankroller said outright that the "Democrat Party" (Republican grammar) was obsessed with trying to "destroy America." Once upon a time, it was considered sleazy and generally unacceptable to accuse individual candidates, much less the entire opposition party, of treason. (I’m pretty sure most people would regard the “obsession” to “destroy America” as treason.) In 2010, it had become so routine for the Republicans to accuse Democrats of treason that respectable TV pundits pretended not to notice.

On the one hand, it's understandable that Obama as the first African-American President would want to reassure more conservative whites and Republican that he wasn’t a bomb-throwing anarchist.

On the other hand, since they had no reality-based reason at all to think he was a bomb-throwing anarchist, maybe it wasn’t the best idea to try to reassure people who had maximum incentive to make sure their ideological friends and party affiliates would never be reassured by Obama’s good intentions.

But it was certainly political malpractice on Obama’s part to promote his “grand bargain” of trading permanent cuts in Social Security for temporary tax increases from the Republicans. That was the theme of Obama’s Catfood Commission headed by Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles, formally called the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform and widely called by the press the Simpson–Bowles (or Bowles–Simpson) Commission. Critics called it the Catfood Commission, as in “let Grandma east catfood,” because its only actual purpose was to cut Social Security by further raising the age at which people became eligible to received Social Security benefits.

Cutting back Social Security has been a Republican dream since the program was created during the New Deal. The ideal for investment bankers would be for the current Social Security tax withholdings to continue but individuals would be left responsible for managing how the funds were invested. That would give both respectable firms and more criminal ones to rake off large portions of the funds through investment banking fees. In other words, it would convert Social Security from a “defined benefit program” to a “defined contribution program,” which for something like 99% of Social Security recipients would mean less retirement income.

Paul Krugman famously mocked Alan Simpson, a former rightwing Republican Senator, as one of the VSP (Very Serious People);

Paul Krugman is not a fan of Alan Simpson or his ilk. At all.

"Alan Simpson would be a very serious person," Krugman tells us. "In other words, he talks about how serious he is, and then you look at what he actually says about the economy, about economic policy -- it's all wrong." (3)

The only real political effect of Obama’s Grand Bargain pitch was to make the Republicans think he wasn’t serious about fighting for his own side. And they worked hard to radicalize their own base in opposition to Obama. Obama’s failed Grand Bargain proposal lent undeserved credibility to a false Republican charge in the 2010 Congressional elections that Obama had cut $500 million from Social Security.

Obama made other futile efforts to create some impossible “bipartisan” harmony. He made an elegant statement after the Supreme Court’s 2010 infamous Citizens United decision that opened the floodgates to unlimited corporate contributions to election campaigns. He made one major effort that year to create a legislative solution to nullify the worst effects of that decision. (4) But it went down to defeat. And after that it became a standard item on the list of issues that Democrats use on fundraising emails but have no intention to do anything about them. At the time, Democrats controlled both Houses of Congress with a larger Senate majority than they’ve had since.

Obama’s personal popularity remained high and the beat the colorless Republican oligarch Mitt Romney in the 2012 Presidential race.

But again and again, he let opportunities to counter Republican radicalism and boost Democratic prospects lying on the table undone. He had pledged in his 2016 campaign to pass a “card check” bill that would have protected labor rights and facilitated union organizing. But he basically forgot about it once he took office.

He brushed off proposals to codify the reproduction rights protections in Roe v. Wade. Women in many states are now paying a high cost for that failure.

One of the saddest examples of Obama senselessly caving to Republican radicals who were not in the least open to bipartisan cooperation with him, ever, was how he retreated from a Department of Homeland Security Report that documented the rise in violent far-right militia groups:

More than ten years ago, a report written by a Department of Homeland Security official [Daryl Johnson] warning about the resurgence of right-wing extremism caused outrage among conservatives and some veterans groups across the country.

Titled "Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment," the report was met with harsh criticism from officials including then-House Minority Leader John Boehner, who accused the agency of not focusing on the "real threats," like Islamist terrorism.

The internal study singled out white supremacists and warned that veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan could be targeted for recruitment by right-wing extremists. But due to the ensuing political backlash, the DHS caved to pressure and dismantled the unit that had published the report -- and all work connected to analyzing and tracking the rise of violent right-wing extremism was halted. (5)

One memory I’ll always connect with that story is when I first heard the news on August 12, 2017, about the death of Heather Heyer, the woman murdered by a supporter of the neo-Nazis’ demonstrating in Charlottesville VA, the neo-Nazis that Trump would soon call “very fine people.” It was just before a panel began at the Netroots Nation convention that year in Atlanta, a panel organized by journalist Dave Neiwert on far-right militia violence and which included Daryl Johnson on the panel.

Here is Johnson in 2012 talking about his experience: (6)

That was a particularly egregious example of Obama’s unwillingness to take seriously enough the threat of the violent and insurrectionist far right, and the sharp radicalization among “respectable” Republicans that accompanied it. Another was his Administration’s obvious reluctance to prosecute the widespread criminal behavior by large financial institutions that contributed greatly to the social damage caused by the 2008 financial crash. Shrub Bush’s rightwing Attorney General John Ashcroft’s Justice Department was far more aggressive pursuing criminal charges against perpetrators during the “Enron scandal” period of 2001.

Perhaps even more significant that it sent to radicalizing Republican Party was the Obama Administration’s failure to bring charges or to even pursue serious criminal investigations against official of the Cheney-Bush Administration who were responsible for the gruesome torture crimes we associate with Abu Ghraib prison and the Guantanamo gulag. And neither Obama nor Biden closed the Guantanamo prison. “As of July 2024, at least 780 persons from 48 countries have been detained at the camp since its creation, of whom 740 had been transferred elsewhere, nine died in custody, and 30 remain; only 16 detainees have ever been charged with criminal offenses.” (7)

Obama’s effort to promote “bipartisanship” as a way of mitigating radicalization in the Republican Party was a resounding failure. When Obama left office, Donald Trump was sworn in as President. And four years later Trump incited a murderous mob to attack the US Capitol in order to overturn the legitimate results of the 2020 Presidential election.

Notes:

(1) Text link: <https://oldhickorysweblog.blogspot.com/2010/10/obamas-pre-election-weekly-address-say.html> Video link: Weekly Address: Working Together on the Economy. The Obama White House YouTube channel 10/03/2010. <https://youtu.be/0nMWVQS06kI?si=sU1-5PFXW1cLQzj3> (Accessed: 2024-17-07).

(2) I posted Armey’s quote the following day. <https://oldhickorysweblog.blogspot.com/2010/11/dick-armey-on-treasonous-obsessions-of.html> However, the 'This Week' transcript I linked there no longer includes Dick Armey’s comments. The Vanderbilt News Archive for 10/31/2010 confirms that Armey appeared on This Week on that date but says only, “On ‘This Week,’ FreedomWorks chairman Dick ARMEY- says the Republicans will win.”] <https://tvnews.library.vanderbilt.edu/programs/978700> (Accessed: 2024-17-07).

(3) Wiesenthal, Joe (2012): PAUL KRUGMAN: Alan Simpson Is 'All Wrong' And Conventional Wisdom On Economic Policy Is 'Stark Raving Mad'. Business Insider 07/14/2012. <https://www.businessinsider.com/paul-krugman-on-the-very-serious-people-2012-7> (Accessed: 2024-20-07).

(4) President Obama on Citizens United: "Imagine the Power This Will Give Special Interests Over Politicians". Obama White House Archives 07/26/2010. <https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/2010/07/26/president-obama-citizens-united-imagine-power-will-give-special-interests-over-polit> (Accessed: 2024-20-07).

(5) Romero, Laura (2022): DHS official whose early warning about militias was rebuffed speaks out about Jan. 6. ABC News 01/06/2022. <https://abcnews.go.com/US/years-ago-officials-rejected-warning-rise-wing-militias/story?id=82098720> (Accessed: 2024-20-07).

(6) Former DHS Analyst Daryl Johnson on How He Was Silenced for Warning of Far-Right Militants. Democracy Now! 08/09/2012. <https://youtu.be/zmAP684NLzw?si=fme9JKsJkeJzRFG5> (Accessed: 2024-20-07).

(7) Guantanamo Bay detention camp. Wikipedia 07/18/2024. <https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Guantanamo_Bay_detention_camp&oldid=1235367355> (Accessed: 2024-20-07).