How Obama's 2008 movement fizzled

[adaher]

Inside the Fall of Obama’s Grassroots Army

It’s a long article, but basically the political people who wanted to unify everything under the party structure were mistrustful of the idea of an independent movement that might not be on board with everything they wanted to do.

There was plenty in Movement 2.0 to inspire heartburn in that crowd. In Silicon Valley terms, Obama 2008 had “disrupted” presidential campaigns, demonstrating how an underdog candidate could defeat a more experienced opponent by changing the terms of the game and empowering millions of people in the process. Now, it seemed, the Obamaites and their tech wizards wanted to disrupt the Democratic Party, diverting money and control from the DNC into an untried platform, while inviting “input,” and possibly even organized dissent, from Obama’s base. Earlier that summer, activists unhappy with Obama’s flip-flop on warrantless surveillance had used MyBO to build a group of more than 20,000 vocal supporters, earning national press and compelling a response from the candidate. What if Obama’s base didn’t like the health care reform he came up with, and rallied independently around a single-payer plan? Besides, grassroots movements, no matter how successful, don’t reliably yield what political consultants want most: money and victories for their candidates, with plenty of spoils for themselves. For insiders like Tewes, Movement 2.0 was a step too far.

“Our proposal would’ve created, at least in our dreams, yet another set of political forces and policy energy. At the time, I just didn’t realize the powerful pull that the architects of the Obama ‘movement’ would feel away from movement building and toward paranoid possession of the conventional trappings of political power. If you’re not really that committed, as a matter of principle, to a bottom-up theory of change, then you will find it nonsensical to cede some control in order to gain more power.”

Obama himself was never interested in real change, that was “campaign talk”. He was a conventional Democrat and intended to govern as one.

Trump, whether intentionally or unintentionally, is actually allowing a bottom up movement and actively encouraging it. The Democrats, always wary of the rubes, don’t want to let their masses control the agenda. Granted, there are dangers to letting the mob run the party. It can be argued that the Republicans have gone too far. But in a country practically screaming for change, not policy changes so much as radical process changes, as in “we’re in charge, not you!”, Obama missed an opportunity and Trump seized it.

[adaher]

And here is the end:

But they never got that chance. In late December, Plouffe and a small group of senior staffers finally made the call, which was endorsed by Obama. The entire campaign machine, renamed Organizing for America, would be folded into the DNC, where it would operate as a fully controlled subsidiary of the Democratic Party.

[Sage_Rat]

@adaher

Trump, whether intentionally or unintentionally, is actually allowing a bottom up movement and actively encouraging it.

There are a few board games where you play cooperatively against the game itself - games like Pandemic, Dead of Winter, Shadows Over Camelot, etc. And in a few of these games, some of the players play as traitors.

Twice I was playing one of these and realized that this one guy was the traitor. But he didn’t know that I knew and he didn’t want to reveal that he was. So when his turn would come around, I’d just talk to him about the moves he was making and point out what things he could be doing for the team. With everyone paying attention to him and my statements, he couldn’t get away with playing poorly. He had to contribute to the team, and fail as a traitor.

If we look at Trump now, the people that he hired are slowly being pushed out in favor of people that are stolid anti-Russianists. Regardless of what he might want vis-a-vis Russia, he’s not going to be able to sell anyone on the idea and everyone around him is going to push back on that. Pence is directly dealing with NATO and all the people being elected to run the military are pro-NATO and anti-Russia.

There are reports out about the White House requesting that the economic definition of trade deficit to make it seem like imports are larger than they are. If too much financial trickery starts to come out of the White House and starts to throw the stability of the markets into question, the entire banking sector is going to step in and demand that people who can do honest math are put into play at the top levels and Donald Trump of all people isn’t going to be able to resist that. He’ll be forced, just like he was forced to swap Flynn out for McMasters, to put in someone honest and let them be honest.

Trump’s abilities as a business man really revolved around self-promotion. He had nothing else to offer. Managing his assets was largely left to others and to the extent that he was involved, it was probably that involvement that has led him from one debt to the next. And so while that self-promotion has landed him the job and perhaps made it seem like he’s a force to be reckoned with, as of yet all I can see is a man who is slowly being squeezed out from the decision-making apparatus.

Obama never did live up to his promise of Change by even a millimeter, but he did avoid being a lame-duck President right up to the moment he left office, and that’s probably better than most Presidents have managed. Trump would be better to play golf and just show up every once in a while when the people who are running everything make him look bad and he has to come in, cuss a lot, and swap some things around (aka seagull management). He’d end up having a larger effect than he’s going to have by trying to guide things in any way.

Ultimately, if we do see any change under Trump (assuming that he’s not impeached at some point and doesn’t step down), it’s going to be more along the lines of seeing what government looks like without a head, rather than seeing what it looks like with a man like Trump leading it. That’s about the exact opposite of a bottoms-up movement.

[iiandyiiii]

@adaher

Obama himself was never interested in real change, that was “campaign talk”.

That’s a bogus slam – he was interested in plenty of real change, in the form of incremental liberal policy, in addition to attempting (but failing) to reach out to Republicans and “disagree agreeably”. The ACA and policies with Iran and Cuba, as examples, were legit change, even if it seems like conventional Democratic change. In addition, he was legitimately interested in changing the tone of DC politics, but he was unable to do so (and, after a few years, prioritized getting things done over that herculean task).

[adaher]

But one change he was not willing to make was to put the movement in charge of the agenda. He was as committed to rule by elites as Clinton. As soon as that movement put him in office, he folded it into the party structure and its momentum just died.

[JRDelirious]

I have myself said that one of the big problems that happened with the Ds in the last 8 years was that OFA never sought to transform the Party. This was aided in part by having a congressional majority from '06 stay in place in '08 so Reid/Pelosi stayed right where they were on the backs of centrist Dems who beat Republicans in 06/08 due to (a) disgust with W and (b) the market crash – so essentially the only real anti-establishment victory in the 08 cycle was Obama’s own, and HRC made him grind it ourt to the end. Then when they lost the majority in 2010 they were able to blame the ACA battle ant Tea Pary haters, so they could say *they *did nothing wrong and continued to stay put. Add to that how in apparent exchange for having the experienced DLC faction not interfere with the new administration it was pretty much agreed that the '16 race was HRC’s if she wanted it.

Had OFA had the audacity to say “OK, guys, you had your time, now it’s ours” or maybe if, like Republicans do, the downballot Democratic candidates had the yarbles to stand with their upset-winner POTUS even if he was not their first pick, rather than run scared from being seen next to him, maybe the Rs would still have won Congress in 2010 but there would have been a better bench come '16. The Dems after 2008 however have been Running Not To Lose, and that IS a losing strategy.

[adaher]

Also, when all those idealistic Obama voters saw that nothing had changed and that they could have gotten the same thing had they voted for any other Democrat, they stayed home.

[BobLibDem]

@JRDelirious

I have myself said that one of the big problems that happened with the Ds in the last 8 years was that OFA never sought to transform the Party.

I have never heard of OFA. Who/what is it?

[iiandyiiii]

@adaher

But one change he was not willing to make was to put the movement in charge of the agenda. He was as committed to rule by elites as Clinton. As soon as that movement put him in office, he folded it into the party structure and its momentum just died.

This is a tactical difference – he thought this was the best way to achieve the “change” he was shooting for. He might have been wrong about that, or maybe not – maybe he would have achieved even less had he done it a different way.

I think present circumstances are demonstrating that any major, substantive “change” is just as likely to be horrific as positive.

[BobLibDem]

@adaher

Also, when all those idealistic Obama voters saw that nothing had changed and that they could have gotten the same thing had they voted for any other Democrat, they stayed home.

Nothing except millions more with health insurance, acceptance of LGTB, troops out of Iraq, stock market rising, and unemployment dropping. If that is nothing, I’ll have some more.

[adaher]

@iiandyiiii

This is a tactical difference – he thought this was the best way to achieve the “change” he was shooting for. He might have been wrong about that, or maybe not – maybe he would have achieved even less had he done it a different way.

I think present circumstances are demonstrating that any major, substantive “change” is just as likely to be horrific as positive.

Maybe Obama isn’t as cynical as I think he is and perhaps just misunderstood what kind of change the public was looking for? Well, I’m sure he knows now.

[Ravenman]

@BobLibDem

Nothing except millions more with health insurance, acceptance of LGTB, troops out of Iraq, stock market rising, and unemployment dropping. If that is nothing, I’ll have some more.

After the costly victory of the Battle of Bunker Hill, Nathaniel Greene said, “I wish we could sell [the British] another hill at the same price.”

I’d be happy to win more elections at the same price.

[adaher]

@BobLibDem

Nothing except millions more with health insurance, acceptance of LGTB, troops out of Iraq, stock market rising, and unemployment dropping. If that is nothing, I’ll have some more.

It’s something, I’ll grant you that, but it’s also an elite-led agenda. Prioritize gay rights while gutting coal country in the name of fighting climate change and not following through on promises to renegotiate NAFTA, and people get a little pissed. A nontrivial number of Obama voters went to Trump in 2016. Many times more stayed home. That’s a direct result of the decisions Obama and his closest advisors made. They had created this giant movement and then just said, “Okay, it’s served its purpose, let’s just give it to the DNC”.

[Captain_Amazing]

@BobLibDem

I have never heard of OFA. Who/what is it?

Organizing for America, the group set up after he was elected to lobby for the ACA. It went on to become Obama For America, Obama’s 2012 campaign organization.

[BobLibDem]

@adaher

It’s something, I’ll grant you that, but it’s also an elite-led agenda. Prioritize gay rights while gutting coal country in the name of fighting climate change and not following through on promises to renegotiate NAFTA, and people get a little pissed. A nontrivial number of Obama voters went to Trump in 2016. Many times more stayed home. That’s a direct result of the decisions Obama and his closest advisors made. They had created this giant movement and then just said, “Okay, it’s served its purpose, let’s just give it to the DNC”.

Piffle. I think it’s time we said fuck the coal miners. There was a time when the coal industry was an integral component of our industrial society. Not anymore. Its time has past and those jobs are never coming back no matter what any candidate says. Dolt 45 pandered to them in his campaign but there is nothing he can do to bring the coal jobs back. Right now, they are useful as pawns for Republicans, nothing more.

[CarnalK]

How did the elites gut coal country? I was under the impression that mostly market forces did that.

[iiandyiiii]

@adaher

Maybe Obama isn’t as cynical as I think he is and perhaps just misunderstood what kind of change the public was looking for? Well, I’m sure he knows now.

There’s no specific “change” the public at large is looking for. Everyone defines change differently. In a non-trivial way, his election was a form of change, in demonstrating that a particularly talented black politician can, in fact, get enough support from white voters to win a national election. A lot of his policies were some form of change (in particular the ACA, LGBT rights, and foreign policy re: Iran and Cuba).

Some broad sense of “elites running the show” or “top-down control” is vague enough that you can say that anyone, or no one, has accomplished this sort of change.

[adaher]

@BobLibDem

Piffle. I think it’s time we said fuck the coal miners. There was a time when the coal industry was an integral component of our industrial society. Not anymore. Its time has past and those jobs are never coming back no matter what any candidate says. Dolt 45 pandered to them in his campaign but there is nothing he can do to bring the coal jobs back. Right now, they are useful as pawns for Republicans, nothing more.

Democrats, rather than trying to neutralize the anger of groups they are clearly out to eliminate, should just be like Republicans and say, “Fuck those guys.”

[adaher]

@CarnalK

How did the elites gut coal country? I was under the impression that mostly market forces did that.

The market for coal definitely got worse, but the government under Obama definitely encouraged it by raising the cost of coal mining, and raising the cost of coal use in power plants. And they didn’t even get to do all that they wanted to do. If your goal is to get rid of dirty fossil fuels, there’s no point in denying or disclaiming responsibility for it. Democrats want to get rid of fossil fuels and workers in those industries know it. And Democrats who are environmentalists want it. So why dance around the issue?

[FlikTheBlue]

@adaher

It’s something, I’ll grant you that, but it’s also an elite-led agenda. Prioritize gay rights while gutting coal country in the name of fighting climate change and not following through on promises to renegotiate NAFTA, and people get a little pissed. A nontrivial number of Obama voters went to Trump in 2016. Many times more stayed home. That’s a direct result of the decisions Obama and his closest advisors made. They had created this giant movement and then just said, “Okay, it’s served its purpose, let’s just give it to the DNC”.

How are those things for the elite? My MIL has health insurance and now receives treatment for her diabetes thanks to a Obamacare. She works in housekeeping and is probably not anyone’s definition of an “elite.” I have family members who are gay whose lives have improved with the increased acceptance of homosexuality under the Obama administration. One of those family members still jumps from job to job, but overall his life was better under Obama than under Bush. Had McCain or Romney been POTUS I don’t think we would have achieved that progress. And does anyone who looks at things rationally really think that Sotomayor and Kagan are essentially the same as Alito and Gorsuch?*. What about all the veterans that would have died in Iraq under a continued war under a McCain or Romney administration? They’re also elites?

• I’ll leave Roberts out of the SCOTUS comparison because I think he’s going to end up playing a crucial role in saving us from Trump. I’m including Gorsuch because I believe he basically will be a third vote for the Thomas / Alito wing of the SCOTUS.