Glenn Greenwald points out that many Democrats have been exposed as hypocrites, supporting abhorrent Bush era policies simply because Obama is now implementing them.
That many Democratic partisans and fervent Obama admirers are vapid, unprincipled hacks willing to justify anything and everything when embraced by Obama – including exactly that which they pretended to oppose under George W Bush – has also been clear for many years. Back in February, 2008, Paul Krugman warned that Obama supporters are “dangerously close to becoming a cult of personality.” In May, 2009, a once-fervent Obama supporter, New York Times columnist Bob Herbert, wrote a column warning that Obama was embracing many of the worst Bush/Cheney abuses and felt compelled – in the very first sentence – to explain what should be self-evident: “Policies that were wrong under George W. Bush are no less wrong because Barack Obama is in the White House.” The same month, former Bush DOJ official Jack Goldsmith – who provided the legal authorization for the illegal Bush NSA warrantless eavesdropping program – went to the New Republic to celebrate that Obama was not only continuing the core Bush/Cheney approach to terrorism, but even better (from his perspective), was strengthening those policies far beyond what Bush could achieve by transforming Democrats from opponents of those policies into supporters.
Many, including Greenwald have repeated attacked our policy allegedly justifying the assassination of Americans. A much bigger concern to me is that we are, through the use of drones, waging illegal undeclared wars in a many other countries. Also consider these domestic and foreign policy actions of Obama. How many Democrats would support them if a Republican President had been responsible?
When he became a Democrat, they learned to love Big Brother.
The word “support” is giving me problems. To me it (can) imply more than just a state of mind.
In order to “not support” something Obama condones, does that mean I need to vote for Priebus/Jindal in 2016? Or is it good enough if I just vote for Ron Paul? (rhetorical)
“I would still vote Democrat even though I disagree with X an Y” has (exactly) the same effect in terms of the voting booth counts as if one agreed with X and Y (and voted Dem).
If I remember correctly (and please be assured that my memory is approximately 20/20), prominent members of DI were giving serious thought to an (unamed) alternative candidate — and at the least were highly critical of some of Obama’s policies during the campaign.
Also, since I not have nearly as nuanced knowledge of some of these issues (free speech, guns, drones, wire-tapping, religion, abortion, net neutrality) …. it is easier (and maybe even prudent?) for us to simply use our first impression of Obama? From almost the first time I saw him and heard him speak, I knew (felt in my gut) that he was to be trusted.
What I am trying to say is… it is difficult to make a yes/no (democrat/republican) vote reflect any nuance position. (I am not really refuting Greenwald, just venting).
Ben,
elections are a tiny part of participating in a democracy. The first and foremost requirement of our elected officials is to represent the people, all the people and not just the one who voted for them or the ones that financed their campaign.
I figured out long ago that most career politicians are expert in selling themselves to the voter, and know little or nothing concerning the many facets of the issues they legislate. Most will try to do what they think will please the majority of their constituency.
The current problem is that the heavily moneyed interests have not only maintained considerably better access to the legislators, but also managed to insulate the legislators from their public.
With all the games played by the super wealthy to handle the lawmakers, the voice of the commoners can only be heard if we collectively make enough noise. The voices of a million citizens can drown out the loudest corporate bullhorn.
So it’s not enough to simply vote someone into office who you think will do what you want. You have to continually tell them what you want. If they ignore you, remember that at the next election, but between elections. do not expect them to magically know what the people want. Because if we don’t tell them, the multinational corporations will.
Ben, there isn’t any voting “Democrat.” One votes for the Democratic candidate, a member of the oldest political party in the world. “Democrat” is to Democratic as “Tea Bagger” is to Tea Partier.
“elections are a tiny part of participating in a democracy”
On that note, I actually don’t vote. Not to say that I never have, but not-voting is my default position.
My reasoning is that: as I live in a state which is 72 percent democratic, my vote is all but insignificant. I probably would not vote unless I knew it was going to be close, like within 5 percent polling differential.
On election tuesdays I catch up on sleep.
My “participation in a democracy” can be summed up as snarky comments on DI and sending Onion email links to friends. Oh and I went to that rally for sanity thing, it kicked butt.