As I have written several times over the past several months, I think the most important thing progressives can do over the next four years is to help President Obama succeed. Through most of our country's history, if a President didn't succeed, it was bad for himself and his party, but not necessarily for the country. But there have been a couple of times in American history - in the 1860s during the Civil War period and in the 1930s/40s during the Great Depression and World War II - when a President's success was fundamental to our country's success. I believe that our economic crisis is profound enough that now is just such a time.
Beyond that, President Obama's very identity makes it fundamental to progressive prospects for the future that he succeed. As a multi-cultural, African-American, son of an immigrant, and as the personification of hope for an idealistic young generation, if Obama fails, it hurts progressive hopes for decades if not generations to come, and likely engenders a dangerous right wing populism in response that will undoubtedly be tinged with racism and anti-immigrant fervor.
The good news is that President Obama has gone out on a boldly progressive course on his budget, health care, climate change, and education plans, and that his stimulus bill had more progressive investments for the public good than any single piece of legislation in history. Progressives can and should be proud of, and push hard for, all of these great legislative goals of the President.
The problem comes when those of us who are strong supporters of the President disagree with him on something important.
On the variety of smaller issues that come up, I'm happy to swallow that difference, or work quietly with members of Congress or members of the administration to change the policy. But when the issue is so big that it is fundamental to whether Obama is a success in his Presidency, for loyalists like me it presents a tough choice: my personal preference is to quietly disagree without raising hell, but some things are too important to be silent about. The administration's plan on saving the banking system is too central to the economy's basic.
Paul Krugman, Dean Baker, Jamie Galbraith, Rob Johnson, George Soros, Leo Hindery, and a variety of other economists and business leaders, who in recent months and years more accurately predicted what was going to happen to the economy than anyone in the government, have convinced me that the Geithner/Summers plan for dealing with the banking and insurance industries is deeply flawed and will not work to help fix our economy. This plan goes to the heart of whether President Obama has a successful Presidency. My belief is that Obama is a smart and progressive guy who will eventually figure out a better path, one that puts these big banks into receivership and break them apart. In the meantime, all of us troubled by the banking plan need to keep pushing him on these issues, for example by joining thousands of our fellow citizens at A New Way Forward rallies on April 11th, and will continue to work with progressive economists, and activists to get better ideas on what to do about our broken banking system into the public debate.
I hope all progressives will do everything they can to help pass the Obama budget, health care, climate change, immigration agendas, and the rest of his progressive transformational policies. But on this banking plan, let's join together to push President Obama in the right direction.
As an anti-spam measure, there is a 24-hour waiting period after registering before new users can comment. blog advertising is good for you
blog advertising is good for you
