Obama's Legacy

Therein lies one of the most enduring attributes of Obama's legacy: in many crucial areas, he has done more to subvert and weaken the left's political agenda than a GOP president could have dreamed of achieving. So potent, so overarching, are tribal loyalties in American politics that partisans will support, or at least tolerate, any and all policies their party's leader endorses – even if those policies are ones they long claimed to loathe.

This dynamic has repeatedly emerged in numerous contexts. Obama has continued Bush/Cheney terrorism policies – once viciously denounced by Democrats – of indefinite detention, renditions, secret prisons by proxy, and sweeping secrecy doctrines.

He has gone further than his predecessor by waging an unprecedented war on whistleblowers, seizing the power to assassinate U.S. citizens without due process far from any battlefield, massively escalating drone attacks in multiple nations, and asserting the authority to unilaterally prosecute a war (in Libya) even in defiance of a Congressional vote against authorizing the war.

And now he is devoting all of his presidential power to cutting the entitlement programs that have been the defining hallmark of the Democratic party since Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal. The silence from progressive partisans is deafening – and depressing, though sadly predictable.
~ from Barack Obama Is Gutting the Core Principles of the Democratic Party by Glenn Greenwald ~

What makes this whole situation surreal is that Barack Obama is advocating policies to the right of the Republican Party!

For years, one of the great criticisms of Democratic leaders is that they too often try to present their brand as Republican-Lite. They have done this by adopting the GOP's talking points, but offering a slightly less draconian version of legislation. While the conservatives might advance a bill that throws grandma under the bus, the Democratic version only throws her legs under the bus or her whole body under an SUV! Grandma may be killed either way, but under the Democratic plan, she will die more slowly.

But Obama has thrown away this game plan. Not only is he willing to throw grandma under the bus, but he wants to stab her several times beforehand! All this from the supposed liberal branch of the two-party system.

Many people are wondering why the GOP hasn't jumped at this offer. The president is offering them everything they have wanted for the past 15 years or more. My guess is that their reticence is due partly to the fact that they are dumbfounded. They completely are shocked that their Democratic adversary is running around their right flank -- the one place they assumed he would never, ever go.

In short order, the shock will wear off and I am confident they will sign off on the deal. Once that is accomplished, they will move farther right than the president's current position in the hope he again will leapfrog beyond them.

Best of all -- for the GOP and the wealthy class -- I am sure he will.