Complete Bullshit

From the NYTimes:

Before Mr. Obama and Republicans can secure each other’s cooperation, people in both parties say, they must first figure out a way to secure mutual trust.

After two years of operating at loggerheads with Republicans, Mr. Obama and his aides are planning a post-election agenda for a very different political climate. They see potential for bipartisan cooperation on reducing the deficit, passing stalled free-trade pacts and revamping the education bill known as No Child Left Behind — work that Arne Duncan, Mr. Obama’s education secretary, says could go a long way toward repairing “the current state of anger and animosity.”

“I’m a big believer in less of singing ‘Kumbaya’ together and going on retreats than in rolling up our sleeves and doing work together,” Mr. Duncan said in an interview. “That’s how you build respect, that’s how you build trust, that’s how you build relationships. I think it’s a way to move beyond some hurt feelings on both sides. Do it through the work.”

If all they care about is "mutual trust", "respect" and "bipartisan cooperation" why are the Democrats even concerned about losing seats? If it's all about singing "Kumbaya", what's the worry about having the Republicans gain more power? If politics is just about pretending there's no disagreement, what's the problem? This blathering about "trust" is delusional.

Consider the following. "They see potential for bipartisan cooperation on reducing the deficit, passing stalled free-trade pacts and revamping the education bill known as No Child Left Behind — work that Arne Duncan, Mr. Obama’s education secretary, says could go a long way toward repairing “the current state of anger and animosity.”

Allow me to translate. This means: the Republicans and Democrats already agree that Bush's NCLB was good and needs to be extended; they agree on forcing austerity on working people in order to make them pay for a crisis caused by Wall Street; and they agree on pushing through "free trade" agreements like NAFTA. Great. I can't wait for them to get to work on all of that.

So, keep sending those checks to Moveon.org. I'm sure the money will be well-spent punishing teachers, privatizing schools, and slashing social spending. I mean, at least the Democrats and Republicans will be "transcending their differences" and cooperating when they do it.

In all seriousness, I think liberals would do well to consider more closely the region of genuine consensus among Democrat and Republican politicians. They agree on doing quite a lot, particularly when it comes to excluding various progressive possibilities. This region of agreement constricts the questions that can even be raised within official political chambers.

And if liberals are frustrated with Obama and Co. for handling the Republicans with kid gloves, they might inquire as to why this might be. I don't think it's merely an expression of incompetence or naiveté. To be sure, when Obama says he's happy to cooperate and "trust" Republicans, a good amount of that is over-the-top and has got to be bullshit. But in a way (and this is what liberals continue to miss) he's not just making a strategic error here. This is, I think, an expression of the political trajectory of Obama and the Democrats. If you can agree that budget-cut fatalism and austerity for working people is the only way, which D's and R's certainly do, that's a real reason to think you can work together in the future. That's an obvious strategic move if your politics are obstinately pro-business.

But although there is certainly closeness between the politics of the two major parties, there is no comparable closeness between these parties and the interests of the vast majority of people. In fact there's a massive gap between people's consciousness and our ossified political institutions. The way forward for progressives can't be to keep flushing their time, energy and resources down the massive toilet known as the Democratic Party. The way forward has got to be to speak to people's frustrations with the system and to organize this energy into a force for change. And the only way to do this is to grasp that such a movement would necessarily have to be free from the chains of our electoral mechanism.