Democracy Uprising
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      Trump’s backpedaling shows he’s not invincible

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      It’s going to take multiple strategies to win…

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      A new wave of movements against Trumpism is…

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      How to make sure your disruptive protest helps…

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      U.S. Politics / Elections

      Could we be entering a ‘movement moment’ against…

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      Trump’s backpedaling shows he’s not invincible

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      It’s going to take multiple strategies to win…

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      A new wave of movements against Trumpism is…

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      Harold Washington’s lessons for taking on a political…

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      Strategy is a Craft

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      Does It Make Sense to Protest a President…

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      Lessons from the Pledge of Resistance

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      War: The Wrong Jobs Program

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      The Ascent of Niall Ferguson

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      Those Who Don’t Count

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      Six Essays About War and About Peace

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      The Dangerous Dignity of War

      Book Reviews

      The Pan American

      Book Reviews

      The Godfather of Microcredit

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      Capitalism as Catastrophe

      Book Reviews

      Four Ways of Looking at an Aztec Eagle

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      The Ascent of Niall Ferguson

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      Ordinary Outrages

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      No Better Place

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      Jordlösa kombinerar radikala visioner med praktiska reformer (Swedish)

      Español

      Hacer Que Nuestras Demandas Sean Tanto Orácticas Como…

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      Richieste dei movimenti: sia pratiche che visionarie

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      La strategia di Gandhi per il successo –…

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      IL BANK TRANSFER DAY: UN SUCCESSO

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      Come il movimento Occupiamo Wall Street si sta…

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      ガンジーはどのように勝利したのか? (Japanese)

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      Revenge of the Combat Cartoonist (Japanese)

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      Bush’s Uneasy Mexican Visita (Japanese)

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      As reformas não reformistas de André Gorz mostram…

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      Arabic

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Democracy Uprising

  • About
    • About Mark Engler
    • About Democracy Uprising
  • Books
    • This Is An Uprising
    • How To Rule the World
  • Topics
    • All Social Movements Religion U.S. Politics / Elections War / Militarism Book Reviews Environment Essays / First Person Global Economy Immigration Labor Latin America
      2023-2025

      Could we be entering a ‘movement moment’ against…

      Social Movements

      Trump’s backpedaling shows he’s not invincible

      Social Movements

      It’s going to take multiple strategies to win…

      Social Movements

      A new wave of movements against Trumpism is…

      Social Movements

      How to make sure your disruptive protest helps…

      Latest Articles

      Why protests work, even when not everybody likes…

      Social Movements

      Harold Washington’s lessons for taking on a political…

      Social Movements

      Strategy is a Craft

      Social Movements

      Could we be entering a ‘movement moment’ against…

      Social Movements

      Trump’s backpedaling shows he’s not invincible

      Social Movements

      It’s going to take multiple strategies to win…

      Social Movements

      A new wave of movements against Trumpism is…

      Social Movements

      How to make sure your disruptive protest helps…

      Social Movements

      Why protests work, even when not everybody likes…

      Social Movements

      Harold Washington’s lessons for taking on a political…

      Social Movements

      Strategy is a Craft

      Religion

      In God’s Country

      Religion

      Reverend Billy’s Holiday Shopocalypse

      Religion

      Toward the “Rights of the Poor”

      Religion

      The Pope and the Poor

      Religion

      Will the Next Pope Embrace Liberation Theology?

      Religion

      Remembering Romero

      Religion

      John Paul II’s Economic Ethics

      Religion

      Against the God of Free Trade

      U.S. Politics / Elections

      Could we be entering a ‘movement moment’ against…

      U.S. Politics / Elections

      Trump’s backpedaling shows he’s not invincible

      U.S. Politics / Elections

      It’s going to take multiple strategies to win…

      U.S. Politics / Elections

      A new wave of movements against Trumpism is…

      U.S. Politics / Elections

      Harold Washington’s lessons for taking on a political…

      U.S. Politics / Elections

      Strategy is a Craft

      U.S. Politics / Elections

      Think #MeToo didn’t make a real difference? Think…

      U.S. Politics / Elections

      This new model for upholding labor law may…

      War / Militarism

      Does It Make Sense to Protest a President…

      War / Militarism

      Lessons from the Pledge of Resistance

      War / Militarism

      Is Rambo Still A Republican?

      War / Militarism

      War: The Wrong Jobs Program

      War / Militarism

      The Ascent of Niall Ferguson

      War / Militarism

      Those Who Don’t Count

      War / Militarism

      Six Essays About War and About Peace

      War / Militarism

      The Dangerous Dignity of War

      Book Reviews

      The Pan American

      Book Reviews

      The Godfather of Microcredit

      Book Reviews

      Capitalism as Catastrophe

      Book Reviews

      Four Ways of Looking at an Aztec Eagle

      Book Reviews

      The Ascent of Niall Ferguson

      Book Reviews

      Ordinary Outrages

      Book Reviews

      No Better Place

      Book Reviews

      In God’s Country

      Environment

      Why Wendell Matters

      Environment

      The Gulf at the Gas Station

      Environment

      Climate Disobedience

      Environment

      Farming the Everglades

      Environment

      The Winter of the Climate Denier

      Environment

      Climate of Change: An “Inside-Outside” Strategy Against Global…

      Environment

      Provoking an American Climate Crisis

      Environment

      The Real “Farmer” Story: So God Made High-Fructose…

      Essays / First Person

      Is Rambo Still A Republican?

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      On the Price is Right

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      The Last Porto Alegre

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      Six Essays About War and About Peace

      Essays / First Person

      Republicans Among Us

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      New York Says “No”

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      The Sideshow Rebels

      Essays / First Person

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      Meet the Bailout’s New Slush Fund for Corporate…

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      The Seattle Protests Showed That Another World Is…

      Global Economy

      Jeff Bezos Has Enough! It’s Time for a…

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      The Amazon Effect: Sweat, Surveillance, Exploitation

      Global Economy

      The Godfather of Microcredit

      Global Economy

      Capitalism as Catastrophe

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      Immigration Economics: An Interview with Professor Giovanni Peri

      Global Economy

      The World Is Not Flat

      Immigration

      When Undocumented Activists Infiltrated ICE

      Immigration

      The Children of Intervention

      Immigration

      Immigration Economics: An Interview with Professor Giovanni Peri

      Immigration

      Science Fiction From Below

      Immigration

      Four Ways of Looking at an Aztec Eagle

      Immigration

      Treated Like a Criminal

      Immigration

      When Sanctuary is Resistance

      Immigration

      The Massive Immigrants Rights Protests of 2006 Are…

      Labor

      This new model for upholding labor law may…

      Labor

      Democrats Won Power in Several States. Will They…

      Labor

      The Case for a Social Distancing Wage

      Labor

      The Seattle Protests Showed That Another World Is…

      Labor

      Reviving the General Strike

      Labor

      Jeff Bezos Has Enough! It’s Time for a…

      Labor

      There’s Still Power in a Strike

      Labor

      The Amazon Effect: Sweat, Surveillance, Exploitation

      Latin America

      How movements can maintain their radical vision while winning…

      Latin America

      The Pan American

      Latin America

      Lessons from the Pledge of Resistance

      Latin America

      The Children of Intervention

      Latin America

      Against Shithole Nationalism

      Latin America

      The Last Porto Alegre

      Latin America

      Kissinger Is Not Our Friend

      Latin America

      Even If You Have Nothing to Hide

  • Translations
    • All Italiano Japanese Português Arabic Thai Chinese Deutsch Español Français
      Translations

      Jordlösa kombinerar radikala visioner med praktiska reformer (Swedish)

      Español

      Hacer Que Nuestras Demandas Sean Tanto Orácticas Como…

      Italiano

      C’è più di un modo per colpire il…

      Português

      As reformas não reformistas de André Gorz mostram…

      Español

      Las reformas no reformistas de André Gorz

      Deutsch

      Die nicht-reformistischen Reformen von André Gorz

      Italiano

      Richieste dei movimenti: sia pratiche che visionarie

      Chinese

      泛美洲人 爱德华多·加莱亚诺的世界 (Chinese)

      Italiano

      C’è più di un modo per colpire il…

      Italiano

      Richieste dei movimenti: sia pratiche che visionarie

      Italiano

      La strategia di Gandhi per il successo –…

      Italiano

      Le promesse infrante di Obama

      Italiano

      Guantanamo deve sparire

      Italiano

      IL BANK TRANSFER DAY: UN SUCCESSO

      Italiano

      Come il movimento Occupiamo Wall Street si sta…

      Italiano

      Economia tabù

      Japanese

      ガンジーはどのように勝利したのか? (Japanese)

      Japanese

      Truth Versus Superpower (Japanese)

      Japanese

      Bush’s Bad Business Empire (Japanese)

      Japanese

      Revenge of the Combat Cartoonist (Japanese)

      Japanese

      Bush’s Uneasy Mexican Visita (Japanese)

      Japanese

      Mark Twain in Iraq (Japanese)

      Japanese

      Globalization’s “Lost Decade” (Japanese)

      Japanese

      Hawks Say the Damnedest Things (Japanese)

      Português

      As reformas não reformistas de André Gorz mostram…

      Português

      A vida na Nação Prisão

      Português

      Outro pretexto?

      Português

      Imigração tem efeito positivo sobre emprego e salários

      Português

      O império hipotecado

      Arabic

      Abandoning the World Bank (in Arabic)

      Arabic

      The Return of Daniel Ortega (in Arabic)

      Arabic

      Where’s The Jubilee? (in Arabic)

      Arabic

      The Last Porto Alegre (in Arabic)

      Arabic

      Seattle At Five (in Arabic)

      Arabic

      Is Market Access the Answer to Poverty? (in…

      Arabic

      Mexico’s Democratic Transition Still Incomplete (in Arabic)

      Thai

      Progressive Good Tidings of 2007 (in Thai)

      Thai

      2006: A Global Justice Year in Review (In…

      Thai

      WTO: Best Left For Dead? (In Thai)

      Thai

      Is Market Access the Answer to Poverty? (In…

      Thai

      Bush’s Bad Business Empire (In Thai)

      Thai

      The Last Porto Alegre [Thai]

      Thai

      Globalizers, Neocons, or… ? (in Thai)

      Chinese

      泛美洲人 爱德华多·加莱亚诺的世界 (Chinese)

      Chinese

      Why Wendell Matters (in Chinese)

      Chinese

      Globalization’s Watchdogs (in Chinese)

      Deutsch

      Die nicht-reformistischen Reformen von André Gorz

      Deutsch

      Als Martin Luther King seine Feuerwaffen aufgab

      Deutsch

      Mikrokredite: Die Entlassung eines Nobelpreisträgers

      Deutsch

      CAFTA – am besten stillschweigend beerdigen

      Deutsch

      Bush in Mexiko

      Deutsch

      Das globale Duell in Evian

      Deutsch

      Die Rückkehr des Daniel Ortega

      Español

      Hacer Que Nuestras Demandas Sean Tanto Orácticas Como…

      Español

      Las reformas no reformistas de André Gorz

      Español

      ¿Adoptará el nuevo papa la teología de la…

      Español

      Wall Street quiere que les estemos agradecidos

      Español

      Si Las Monjas Se Fueran a una Huelga,…

      Español

      ALEC retrocede; a la derecha le da un…

      Español

      ¿ALEC disgustado ante la pérdida de patrocinadores? Se…

      Español

      La vida en la nación prisión

      Français

      La révolution non-violente a-t-elle échoué en Egypte?

      Français

      Le pari risqué du populisme au Pérou

      Français

      Hong Kong Phooey

      Français

      Bush Nuit Même Aux Compagnies U.S.

      Français

      Le dynamisme du mouvement pour la paix

      Français

      La déroute de l’ALCA dans une Miami en…

      Français

      Ceux qui ne comptent pas

      Français

      La guerre en Irak : une expo des…

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2011-2012Blog

Stopping Obama’s Next Betrayal

by Mark Engler August 3, 2011
written by Mark Engler August 3, 2011
Stopping Obama’s Next Betrayal

A dispatch for the “Arguing the World” blog at Dissent magazine.

Published in Dissent.


The debt-ceiling debate has been a sad one for the Left—and also, in large part, a boring one. Boring because we haven’t had too much to add. As a friend said to me, you know things are bad when the New York Times liberals say pretty much all there is to say.

In this case, they have. Paul Krugman noted that the debt deal

“will damage an already depressed economy; it will probably make America’s long-run deficit problem worse, not better; and most important, by demonstrating that raw extortion works and carries no political cost, it will take America a long way down the road to banana-republic status….Republicans will surely be emboldened by the way Mr. Obama keeps folding in the face of their threats.”

Joe Nocera added, “America’s real crisis is not a debt crisis. It’s an unemployment crisis. Yet this agreement not only doesn’t address unemployment, it’s guaranteed to make it worse.”

Plenty of people have already explored in detail how bad the debt compromise is. For those who consider themselves part of a social movement Left, the real conversation concerns something different: namely, how we can avoid being betrayed again.

Progressives felt hugely let down last December when President Obama caved on extending the Bush tax cuts. And they almost uniformly feel betrayed now. Yet this problem is not exclusive to Obama. Certainly, the Left felt just as badly abused under Clinton. (NAFTA anyone?) And the history of ill feeling toward the actions of Democratic presidents could be traced back much further.

Some argue that we should not be surprised that Obama has crafted the compromises he has. Rather than assuming he’s a poor negotiator whose blundering is undermining progressive outcomes, they contend, we’re better off recognizing that Obama isn’t actually seeking progressive outcomes. Salon’s Glenn Greenwald, a leading advocate of this position, argued in April:

“I read all of these laments from liberal pundits that Obama isn’t pursuing the right negotiating tactics, that he’s not being as shrewd as he should be. He’s pursuing exactly the right negotiating tactics and is being extremely shrewd—he just doesn’t want the same results that these liberal pundits want and which they like to imagine the President wants, too. He’s not trying to prevent budget cuts or entitlement reforms; he wants exactly those things because of how politically beneficial they are to him—to say nothing of whether he agrees with them on the merits.”

Greenwald added to his position this week by countering the idea that Obama was “forced into” the current debt deal “by the Tea Party hostage-takers”:

“For those who believe this narrative, please confront the evidence there; how anyone can claim in the face of all that evidence that the President was “forced” into making these cuts—as opposed to having eagerly sought them—is mystifying indeed. And, as I set forth there, there were ample steps he could have taken had he actually wanted leverage against the GOP; the very idea that negotiating steps so obvious to every progressive pundit somehow eluded the President and his vast army of advisers is absurd on its face.”

I think this line of reasoning has been a useful counterpoint to the widespread liberal tendency to make excuses for Obama and to claim him as someone who may be faring poorly against a rabid Republican Congress, but who is still a progressive at heart. It’s also useful for highlighting the Democratic tendency to campaign as a liberal (or at least as a center-leftist), and then govern as a market-focused neoliberal—as opposed as the Republican tendency to campaign as a moderate and then govern as a hard-right conservative.

Yet, while it was valuable as a corrective, I think the argument has problems of its own. Those who claim that the president is, at heart, a conservative (or at least a right-leaning centrist) are ultimately engaged in the same process of trying to discern the nature of the “true Obama.” And in the same way there is a yearning hopefulness—and perhaps a naivete—in the “progressive at heart” position, there’s a type of smugness in the “conservative at heart” position that I find troubling. It usually contains some contempt for those yearners, and I think that’s a problem. Any mass movement pushing toward the left in America in the future will certainly need to rely on a base of people who are hoping—even against the evidence—that Obama wants to advance progressive goals. We should take these hopes as signs of support for a more socially just and economically equitable political program, not merely dismiss them as foolishness.

Beyond that, I don’t think it is necessary that we divine Obama’s true desires. We don’t need to know what policies he’d chose in his heart of hearts. I think it is more useful to see the president as someone who is being constantly lobbied and pushed to appease different interests. He is surrounded by appointees representing a variety of ideological positions. Many of them are far more conservative than I would like (as are Washington Democrats as a whole), while some are solid progressives. Through the work of its many and varied branches, the administration is doing some things that are admirable (as I have argued with regard to the Department of Labor) and some things that totally stink (as I am inclined to say of the Department of State).

For his part, President Obama is making constant judgments, not only about which of the groups lobbying him he will appease, but also about what policy options he perceives to be politically acceptable and expedient. Forces outside of Washington go far in determining the range of those options. Indeed, those who believe in the power of social movements argue most forcefully that popular mobilizations can affect the range of policies seen as desirable, advantageous, or even inevitable.

Believing that Obama is more “conservative at heart” than the Left would like him to be—even if this is accurate—doesn’t lead very far in terms of suggesting a political response. It seems to lend support to those who, in utter disillusionment, would simply abandon electoral politics. In contrast, recognizing the multiple and sometimes contradictory faces of the administration—and seeing White House decision-making as reflecting a constant balancing act between different interests—gives us a different sense of what we need to do.

Obama is willing to compromise and cave because progressive movements are not strong enough to enforce discipline among politicians. Nor are they strong enough to consistently outweigh corporate influences within the Democratic Party. Immediately after Obama was elected, there was a widespread acknowledgment that those same forces who fueled his populist field campaign would need to “make him” stay true to progressive ideals. As it turns out, we have not made him do much of anything. Organizing for America, an outfit that was supposed to carry forth the grassroots energy of the Obama campaign, largely fizzled as the White House demonstrated that it preferred a loyal PR operation to a genuinely engaged and independent-minded base. Other efforts—such as the labor-backed American Dream Movement, MoveOn.org, and other significant progressive players—have only recently started trying to remedy the situation.

Until a vocal, dedicated, progressive grassroots, taking a page from the Tea Party, can show that it’s far more effective to reposition the center of the debate than it is to forever triangulate in hopes of appealing to “independents,“ Democratic politicians will continue to do the latter.

At this point, we can do little about the horrific budget compromise. We can only start working to stop the next betrayal.

* * * * *

As a postscript, I would note that one leftist who has had something different to say about the debt-ceiling debate is Marxist scholar David Harvey. He argues that, since capitalism relies on the continual expansion of credit and debt spending, “a vote against further debt creation is a vote to end capitalism!” You can read more of his very interesting rationale here.

David Harveydebt ceilingfederal budgetGlenn GreenwaldneoliberalismausterityBarack Obama
Mark Engler

Mark Engler is a writer based in Philadelphia and an editorial board member at Dissent magazine. His latest book, written with Paul Engler, is entitled This Is an Uprising: How Nonviolent Revolt Is Shaping the Twenty-First Century.

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Mark Engler is a writer based in Philadelphia and an editorial board member at Dissent magazine. His latest book, written with Paul Engler, is entitled This Is an Uprising: How Nonviolent Revolt Is Shaping the Twenty-First Century (Nation Books). Mark’s full bio is available here.

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