I’m voting for Obama this year, just like I did four years ago. I am somewhat less enthusiastic than I once was, but that’s probably likely any time your candidate faces re-election.

The decision has not required any real time or attention from me, however. There’s no credible opposition to Obama from the left. And when I woke up this morning I checked and no, I have not turned into a fundamentalist Christian, I like gay people, and I seem to remember most of what I was taught about economics. Based on the bits and pieces I’m hearing from the debates, that pretty much makes me ineligible to vote Republican.

This gives me a rather strong advantage I think; with the opposition opinion so alien (and even actively opposed!) to my own, I really don’t have to spend much time forming an opinion on them.

There’s no question Obama’s supporters on the left are a little dispirited. Some people think that’s unfair. Why should we hold Obama responsible for not implementing a progressive agenda when the GOP won’t even pass legislation to pay our bills? And that’s true — we’ve had a thoroughly and effectively obstructionist GOP.

But I don’t think we’d be as upset about that if Obama had actually fought for progressive policy instead of talking down to the rest of us. Like this:

[Obama used his speech before the Congressional Black Caucus] to criticize — without naming — CBC members like Maxine Waters and Jesse Jackson, Jr, who have said that they’re “getting tired” of Obama’s inaction on black unemployment: “Take off your bedroom slippers, put on your marching shoes. Shake it off. Stop complaining, stop grumbling, stop crying. We are going to press on. We’ve got work to do, CBC.” Shani Hilton: Obama to Black Lawmakers: ‘Stop Crying, We’ve Got Work to Do’

As Hilton points out in the article above, black lawmakers organized running jobs fairs throughout the country. Not to mention that Obama was the focus of the CBC conference this year was on job-making.

Obama has been frequently critical of his teammates on the left while reaching out to folks on the right who bargain in bad faith. He shouldn’t be surprised that we’re a little less enthusiastic this time around.

Ta-Nehisi Coates has more commentary on this.

A more conservative friend of mine posted the following federal budget information:

I mean, look at that. If the federal government was a family it would be a terribly irresponsible spender. (And if the federal government had a bill and webbed feet, it’d be a duck.)

Continue reading “What if families spent like the federal government?” »

Based on the actions of the Tea Party caucus as well as the conversations I’ve had with rank-and-file Tea Party people, it’s a mistake to see the Tea Party is “fiscal conservatives” or “anti-tax.” It’s more useful to think of them as the Confederacy risen again, striving to recreate the Southern antebellum economic and political model, although perhaps along less racial lines.

Adam Serwer’s discussion of Michelle Bachmann’s slavery views helps bring this into focus, but risks making the Tea Party’s motivations sound essentially racist. The modern romanticization of slavery has little to do with racist apologetics. It’s just a way to package a view of government that relies on mass poverty for cheap labor. Slavery isn’t the point; restoring Southern feudalism is.

I said this on Facebook but I think it’s worth saying here, too. If you’re angry about our national politics — especially the manufactured and totally pointless crisis over the debt limit — you can’t just “throw the bums out.” You have to:

1. Identify the bums
2. Not replace them with insane clown bums

Continue reading “On throwing out bums” »

I’m flabbergasted that the GOP has turned down deal after deal from Obama, especially considering that many of those deals would have made deep cuts to social programs they hate while alienating Obama’s base and depressing his fundraising. Watching Obama in this fight has had me regretting every dollar I sent to him in the last election, but his plans still are not insane or mean-spirited enough for the GOP.

Just mind-boggling.

So we are all waiting to see whether or not our nation can pay it’s credit card bills on time. Heaven knows I’ve been late a few times on mine, but I always found it embarrassing — I never considered it a principled act of courage. But different strokes, et cetera.

It is beyond boggling that the Tea Party is eager to kill programs that serve the poor and needy if it means fixing the deficit, but they won’t consider even a meager tax increase on the rich who have only gotten richer under the last decade of surplus-destroying tax cuts.

I’ve said a lot about taxes here over the years, so I don’t really have to say it again. It’s all still true. Here are some highlights:

• We should let people opt out of taxes
• The rich ought to pay more, and not just because they have more money.
• Government employees get a bad rap
• How government programs increase our liberty and freedom

So maybe you like Michelle Bachmann’s politics. But did you know she has migraines? Those can be pretty bad. Maybe they’re bad enough that she shouldn’t be President. You know, just for safety’s sake.

Yeah, I think that argument is pretty stupid and irrelevant too, but Talking Points Memo has a reader who thinks it’s more than just irrelevant, it’s “sexist, sexist, sexist.”

Continue reading “Bachmann, Migraines, and Sexism” »

When I look at the paralysis in Congress right now it’s hard to hold onto any hope in the American experiment. Honestly, our biggest argument right now is on whether or not we feel like paying existing debts. And the party of fiscal responsibility is the one threatening to default on loans rather than raise taxes on a segment of the population that’s seen their income grow by 23% over the last year. This morning’s news? Obama’s willing to cut federal spending by $4 trillion, including cuts to medicare and social security, in exchange for getting some of those taxes raised. Just so we can pay our existing debt (which we are capable of paying) on time.

That’s not precisely the change I’d been hoping for.

Continue reading “Our government hasn’t failed, our parties have” »

I consider myself to be a relativist. I’m not a “hard relativist,” which is someone who believes all points of view are of equal worth. I’m somewhat puzzled about how someone could come to that kind of conclusion anyway. How do you assign enough value to a proposition to make it equal anything?

I am perhaps a “relative relativist.” Someone who acknowledges that some points of view can be more right — or at least more useful — than others. So it is with satisfaction that I read John Quiggen’s post suggesting that journalism is becoming more reality based. I don’t insist on perfect accuracy, but it would be nice to have people point out that a lot of Republicans don’t seem to share the same consensus reality as the rest of us.