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      A new wave of movements against Trumpism is…

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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 Labor Latin America Social Movements Religion U.S. Politics / Elections War / Militarism Book Reviews Environment Essays / First Person Global Economy Immigration
      Social Movements

      Could we be entering a ‘movement moment’ against…

      Social Movements

      Trump’s backpedaling shows he’s not invincible

      Blog

      It’s going to take multiple strategies to win…

      Latest Articles

      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

      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…

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      The Pan American

      Latin America

      Lessons from the Pledge of Resistance

      Latin America

      The Children of Intervention

      Latin America

      Against Shithole Nationalism

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      The Last Porto Alegre

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      Kissinger Is Not Our Friend

      Latin America

      Even If You Have Nothing to Hide

      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?

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      Remembering Romero

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      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…

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      This new model for upholding labor law may…

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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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      Is Rambo Still A Republican?

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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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      No Better Place

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      Why Wendell Matters

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      Climate Disobedience

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      Farming the Everglades

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      Meet the Bailout’s New Slush Fund for Corporate…

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

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      The Amazon Effect: Sweat, Surveillance, Exploitation

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      The Godfather of Microcredit

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      Capitalism as Catastrophe

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      Immigration Economics: An Interview with Professor Giovanni Peri

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      The World Is Not Flat

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      When Undocumented Activists Infiltrated ICE

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      The Children of Intervention

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      Immigration Economics: An Interview with Professor Giovanni Peri

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      Science Fiction From Below

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      Four Ways of Looking at an Aztec Eagle

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      Treated Like a Criminal

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      When Sanctuary is Resistance

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      The Massive Immigrants Rights Protests of 2006 Are…

  • 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)

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      Where’s The Jubilee? (in Arabic)

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      The Last Porto Alegre (in Arabic)

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      Seattle At Five (in Arabic)

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      Is Market Access the Answer to Poverty? (in…

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      Die nicht-reformistischen Reformen von André Gorz

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      Mikrokredite: Die Entlassung eines Nobelpreisträgers

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      CAFTA – am besten stillschweigend beerdigen

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      Bush in Mexiko

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      Das globale Duell in Evian

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      Die Rückkehr des Daniel Ortega

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      Las reformas no reformistas de André Gorz

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      ALEC retrocede; a la derecha le da un…

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      La déroute de l’ALCA dans une Miami en…

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      La guerre en Irak : une expo des…

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U.S. Politics / Elections2011-2012Social Movements

Obama: A Better Adversary

by Mark Engler September 1, 2012
written by Mark Engler September 1, 2012
Obama: A Better Adversary

Progressive movements are stronger when they can take on centrists or liberals than when pitted against elected conservatives.

Published in the September 2012 issue of the New Internationalist.


At November nears, Barack Obama’s campaign has aired tens of millions of dollars worth of advertisements. You don’t have to believe their promises to think that his re-election would be preferable from a social movement standpoint to the coronation of Mitt Romney, one of Wall Street’s own. In fact, you don’t need to believe that the president will be a friend to social justice causes at all.

You can hope for Obama’s re-election for a more counter-intuitive reason: namely, that he will make a better adversary.

While this proposition may sound strange, the crux of the argument is simple. Progressive movements are stronger when they can take on centrists or liberals than when pitted against elected conservatives.

Let’s review the recent history. In 2008, after suffering two successive Bush administrations, it was easy to feel that some fresh air could do wonders for US politics. Expectations soared. People could have felt good just knowing that their votes kept Sarah Palin from being one cardiac failure away from command of 5,100 nuclear warheads. But instead, they began to see something more in the youthful Senator Obama. They started to look to him as someone who would do the work of social movements for them.

This delusion was not merely domestic. How foolishly premature was the Norwegian Committee’s move to award Obama the Nobel Peace Prize? The 2009 citation praised Obama’s ‘extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and co-operation between peoples’ at a time when the new president had barely finished decorating his Oval Office desk. Its predictions for US leadership in arms control felt touchingly naïve, even before Obama distinguished himself as the world’s leading drone strike enthusiast.

Perhaps to keep Rosa Luxemburg spinning in her grave, Fox News pundits insistently paint Democrats like Obama and Hillary Clinton as radical socialists. This is fantasy. Given the US’s constrained two-party system, there’s no true progressive contending in this election. So the real question is, under which administration will social justice activists do better?

When Republicans have taken office at the state level in recent years, eager to deliver on vows to decimate unions, slash the social safety net, or curtail reproductive freedoms, it has forced labour, feminist and community organizations into overwhelmingly reactive campaigns. Win or lose, these groups end up drained from having to defend basic rights and social benefits.

In contrast, when Democrats become the powerbrokers who need to be pressured, the imagination of social movements expands. It was under Obama, not Bush, that tents appeared on Wall Street and the itch to Occupy spread. The major Civil Rights battles of the 1960s were fought, and landmark gains won, when the Kennedy and Johnson administrations were targets of activist demands. Mass uprisings in Seattle and beyond took aim at Bill Clinton’s affinity for corporate globalization.

Could mobilizations like these have happened under Republicans? The Reagan era witnessed solidarity to end Central American death squads, ACT UP bridge blockades highlighting the emerging AIDS epidemic, and demonstrations against nuclear arms that filled New York’s Central Park. But these efforts – like protests against the Bush doctrine of ‘preventative war’ – often carried a sense of doomsday and desperation. They were defined by the horrors they opposed.

The global justice protests of the late Clinton era and the Occupy uprisings under Obama were different, notable for their unabashed confidence that the victims of ‘free market’ avarice might dare transform our political and economic system. There was, to borrow a book title, an ‘audacity of hope’. But it was not based on wishes for what an electoral candidate might do. It was based in the living power of collective action.

With Republicans in the White House, the temptation is to look to Democrats as saviours. With Democrats in office, we learn a different lesson – and an important one. We learn to save ourselves.

__________

Photo credit: “Obama vs. Romney 2012” by DonkeyHotey / Flickr.

Barack Obamaelectionsprotests
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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