In a diary at Daily Kos, icerbergslim has a pretty good discussion going asking whether or not President Obama is kicking "us" to the curb. It is based on the same anonymous White House source in the Politico that has been widely quoted today:
On health care, Obama's willingness to forgo the public option is sure to anger his party's liberal base. But some administration officials welcome a showdown with liberal lawmakers if they argue they would rather have no health care law than an incremental one. The confrontation would allow Obama to show he is willing to stare down his own party to get things done.
My response to this quote is more value neutral than most other bloggers. The progressive netroots and other supporters of the public option will only be "kicked to the curb" if kicking us to the curb is the most politically expedient option available for the White House. By contrast, if the White House does not feel it is possible to kick us to the curb on health care and still maintain what it considers an acceptable level of political viability, then we won't be kicked to the curb. To put it another way, we will only be kicked to the curb if we can be kicked to the curb.
There is no reason to expect that people who have managed to rise all the way to the White House will stick by their ostensible policy allies just out of principle. It would be nice if that were the case, but it isn't. Don't expect people who have risen to perches of extreme power to give up that extreme power just to be nice to you. That might be the sort of thing you expect from family members, or your best friend. To think that an elected official will do the same is to mistake that elected official for a family member or best friend.
I wish it wasn't all about too many politicians being more concerned with maintaining acquired power than with following through on principles, but oftentimes it certainly seems to be. For decades, throwing progressive under the bus has consistently proven be the most expedient option for Democratic elected officials. This is why it keeps happening. If all we can do is sit around and worry about whether or not Democratic leaders will throw us under the bus, then it is guaranteed we will keep being thrown under the bus. However, if doing this to progressives consistently causes an unacceptable level of political damage to elected Democrats, then it will stop happening almost immediately.
I don't like talking about politics this way, but progressives often get walked over because they can get walked over. By contrast, Moneyed interests and large corporations don't get walked over because most politicians don't think they can walk over them. That is a power dynamic we need to reverse.
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