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I fear that Netroots leaders are doing the same dance with Obama today that they did with Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid in 2007-08. Instead of demanding that Democrats in Congress bring our troops home from Iraq by using the power of the purse to defund the war, Netroots leaders rallied behind weak, non-binding timelines and other halfway measures cooked up with Congressional leaders.
Without a loud, clear demand for "troops home" from the large online antiwar forces, Democratic leaders started retreating and succumbing to Republican rhetoric. Reid proclaimed: "We will never abandon our troops in a time of war." Pelosi declared: "We will have legislation to fund the troops!"
And the corpses kept piling up.
Great social reforms have occurred in our country not when social movements took their lead from what the White House deemed possible, but when the White House was pushed by powerful movements demanding reforms bolder than what the president was comfortable with. Leading abolitionists pushed Lincoln toward ending slavery by demanding immediate abolition. Socialist and workers movements in the '30s sufficiently scared elites so that FDR could pass New Deal reforms far short of socialism. Martin Luther King and civil rights activists continuously pushed and prodded JFK and later LBJ.
And these movements didn't have the Internet.
In 1993, a National Health Insurance bill gained 100 co-sponsors in the Democrat-led House, plus endorsements from many unions, even Consumers Union. There was unfortunately no Internet then when the Clinton White House undermined this growing movement by pushing an incredibly complex plan that left big insurers dominating the system. Clinton's plan inspired few and confused many. After it went down in flames, talk radio host Jim Hightower asked President Clinton why he didn't back an easily-explained Medicare for All approach that had so much support in Congress. Clinton said he'd thought it was politically too difficult but now wondered about that judgment.
Here we are 16 years later. Neglected by Netroots groups, John Conyers today has 85 House co-sponsors for HR 676, the Expanded Medicare for All Act, as well as the endorsement of many unions and Obama's longtime personal physician . If all those emails I've received lately had been about building the HR 676 movement and a public system instead of a "public option," the bill would have many more co-sponsors and could be pressuring Democrats to stand tough today.
For Obama to feel secure about reform and standing up to the right, he needs to feel that he's in the center pushed by noisy forces to his left. He's admitted as much. The way to help him succeed is to mobilize seriously to his left.
The way to help Obama fail is for Netroots and liberal groups to collapse toward him from the get-go.
And if Obama does fail, we can quit laughing at a Republican Party in disarray due to Bush, religious extremism, hypocrisy and anti-intellectualism.
Because in this period of crisis and fear, unless a progressively-prodded White House delivers reforms that actually improve lives soon, rightwing reaction could rebound more dangerous than ever in 2010 and/or 2012.
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