There has been a bit of unrest lately over Obama’s performance, as his first year in office comes to a close. This DailyKos diary sums up my feelings about his performance. Essentially, he falls short of idealist progressive changes and of his campaign promises. But progressives constitute a minority of the American public; the rest of the country is moderate or conservative. Their voices mean we have to compromise. The Democratic majority is not completely progressive and does not give 100% support to Obama. So he is a dealbreaker, a pragmatist, that wants to work with everyone in order to move forward. This means our ideal progressive values must remain ideals for now, and only bits and pieces of progressive legislation will find themselves in his policies. Through a conservative lens, Obama is essentially a fascist for having progressive/socialist leanings. Conservatives also have the ability to take over next term. We don’t want Obama to make progressivism look so terrible to moderates and conservatives that they take over. His job is to keep their anger and irritation at bay so that he can continue to serve as President.
A professor on the Democratic scorecard program on KPFK put it well: Our leaders are only as progressive as its people are able to mobilize and assemble to keep leaders in check.
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