Progressive Opinion

prospect.org — We’re about to find out, in the “fiscal cliff” negotiations, whether President Obama plans to govern the way he ran for re-election—and whether, as a result, he just might become the kind of president liberals hoped he’d be in the first place. The single most surprising thing about the 2012 campaign was that the “man from Kumbaya” completely rejected the Bill Clinton re-election model. It was the polar opposite of triangulation: This time, the Democratic incumbent won with a resonant message of liberal populism. And damned if it didn’t work—not just because Obama won, but because the central arguments he made to raise taxes on the wealthy and preserve government as a force for fairness and opportunity changed Americans’ minds in fundamental ways. When the man asserts, as he has been doing, that “voters agreed with me” on issues like tax increases for rich folks, he’s not blowing smoke.

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huffingtonpost.com — News reports from a variety of places, and my own personal report-backs from participants at yesterday's progressive organization leaders meeting at the White House, indicate that the president is signaling loudly that he will stand strong on at least some of the very highest priority things that progressives care the most about in the fiscal showdown talks. He continues to demand that the Bush tax cuts for those making over $250,000 go up. He said yesterday in the progressives meeting that Social Security was "off the table", and he said that while he believes there can be Medicare and Medicaid savings from a variety of administrative methods, that he had no intention of cutting benefits. We don't know how all of this is going to end up, but right now at least, the president has decided that in unity there is strength.

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salon.com — Fears that liberal disaffection would hurt Obama at the polls proved groundless last week when the Democratic base came out in force. But Obama’s honeymoon with the left may not last long. The top priority for Congress as it reconvenes this week is to deal with the so-called fiscal cliff, and progressives are worried that Obama and congressional Democrats may agree to a “grand bargain” that includes cuts to social safety net programs, especially Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, or gives a tax break to the wealthy. Progressive activists are now preparing to turn the firepower they marshaled to reelect the president against him if he looks like he’s backing down on his mandate, as they see it, to preserve the social safety net and raise taxes on the wealthy.

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nextnewdeal.net — Last week’s election results weren’t just a win for the president. Across the board, voters went to the polls and registered their support for progressive values, supporting needed tax increases, passing marriage equality for gay and lesbian Americans, and giving a candidate who ran on a platform of proactive government and a strong safety net a second term. The message was clear: despite an economy that continues to recover too slowly, the direction that progressives are taking the country in is the right one. So our job has just begun. Now is when we really have to roll up our sleeves and work to achieve an ambitious agenda. The politics won’t necessarily be much easier than they were over the last four years. But with a Democratic president, a Democratic majority in the Senate, and an electorate strongly behind us, progressives have an opportunity to seize over the next four years.

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alternet.org — The 2012 elections may prove to have been a watershed in several different respects.  Despite the efforts by the political Right to suppress the Democratic electorate, something very strange happened:  voters, angered by the attacks on their rights, turned out in even greater force in favor of Democratic candidates.  The deeper phenomenon is that the changing demographics of the USA also became more evident—45% of Obama voters were people of color, and young voters turned out in large numbers in key counties.  Unfortunately for the political Left, these events unfolded with the Left having limited visibility and a limited impact—except indirectly through certain mass organizations—on the outcome.

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huffingtonpost.com — Election night chatter was all about race. Pundits and commentators on all the major networks, from ABC, CNN, MSNBC and Fox were marveling that President Obama had once again lost the majority of the white vote and still won the election. Can you see it now? America has changed. Everyone got a glimpse of the future. By 2042, people of color are expected to make up a majority of America. By the end of this decade, the majority of young people will be of color. One thing is certain: No party that wants to be successful will ever again focus its appeals on a narrow slice of the white electorate.

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prospect.org — Liberals had a lot to celebrate on election night, from the outcome of the presidential race to a number of major Senate wins. But less noticed on the whole was the stunning display of progressive power in ballot measures across the country. From gay marriage to marijuana legalization, from teachers unions to school funding, voters on the whole supported a progressive agenda in the 2012 election. State policy not only carries major implications for the lives of state residents, it also helps set the stage for national debates on issues. In a number of states, voters were deciding the direction of public education; in others, the fate of union power. Election night brought some big victories for liberals, albeit with a few defeats. Here are the most notable winners and losers.

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tikkun.org — Many Americans sighed with relief the day after the 2012 election that they had beaten back a powerful right-wing assault. There was little enthusiasm about what we had achieved in retaining Obama, but much joy that for the moment the most reactionary forces in American life were held at bay. Liberals and progressives are happy, but not elated, at the outcome. Obama voters are now trying to get themselves ready for the variety of ways that Obama will once again disappoint us. Our re-elected president is poised to embrace some variant of an austerity program (sometimes called Simpson/Bowles) with large-scale cutbacks to social programs for the poor and middle classes and a narrowing of who can receive Social Security benefits and at what age, all done in the name of an invented fiscal emergency or debt crisis which are only real to the extent that one’s highest priority is paying off the bankers and large investors.

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thedailybeast.com — If I weren't married to this infernal line of work, boy, do I have good ideas from time to time for badly needed nonprofit outfits. Here's one of my better ones, which just struck me yesterday. Some rich liberals need to fund a public-education group that will work full-time to make sure the liberal blocs and constituencies come out and vote in off-year elections. Think about this. Turnout was sky high in 2008. It wasn't as high this time, but by the time they count all the provisionals and absentees, and accounting for the somewhat lower turnout in the storm-ravages areas, it won't really be off by that much. In general, presidential-year turnout is now near 60 percent. And off-year turnout is down around 40 percent. The 20 percent who leave the system are almost entirely Democrats. As long as this is true, the country's progressive coalition will spend forever taking one step forward in presidential years, and one step back in off years.

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huffingtonpost.com — The day after the 2012 election brought a great feeling of relief. Most of us, whether our candidates won or lost, were so weary of what elections have become that we were just glad the process was over. Many were disappointed that dysfunctional and bitterly partisan politics in Washington, D.C., had undermined their deep desires for "hope" and "change." Politics has severely constrained those possibilities by focusing on blame instead of solutions, and winning instead of governing. And, as the most expensive election in American history just showed, the checks have replaced all the balances. But the election results produced neither the salvation nor the damnation of the country, as some of the pundits on both sides seemed to suggest. The results of the presidential election showed how dramatically a very diverse America is changing; people are longing for a vision of the common good that includes everyone.

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