Are Liberals Really Abandoning Obama?
Are Liberals Really Abandoning Obama?
Rakim Brooks: Are Liberals Really Abandoning Obama?
Almost two weeks ago, New York Magazine published Jonathan Chait’s ?When Did Liberals Become So Unreasonable?? in which he described liberal frustrations with President Obama as ?inchoate and emotional,? and diagnosed what he believed to be an essential liberal pathology: the inability to feel ?satisfied with a Democratic president.? Since it was written, it has been recommended over 6,500 times on Facebook, suggesting some broad-based appeal. But I couldn?t help asking myself, ?Why did Chait write this?? I know that?s a strange question to ask of writers, given the death of the author and all that, but politics is still about intentions, and this was a political piece. So I ask again, why?
Chait?s subtitle, ?Tough love from a fellow traveler,? suggests that he?s writing this out of some sense of compassion for allies in the struggle against Republican dominance. But friends usually don?t call friends emotional and inchoate?even when they are. And, for a fellow traveler, Chait seems curiously immune to the ?exhausting psychological torment? that allegedly bedevils liberals. Even though he was frustrated by the debt-ceiling debate, he claims overall to have the wiser assessment of President Obama?s domestic and foreign policy successes: they are not milquetoast neoliberal policies, but ?gangsta shit.?
My view is that Chait is motivated by his feeling that liberals represent an existential threat to their own cause. He sums it up near the end of the article: ?Liberal disaffection helped Republicans win elections in 2000, 1968, and very nearly in 1948.? Liberals are unable to choose decisively and without hesitation between the Democrat and the Republican opposition. Fed up with compromise, they (ostensibly) either campaign against their incumbent president, like Cornel West and Bernie Sanders, or they throw up their hands, flap their arms, and pray they can find their way to Canada.
As a liberal, I accept that my fellow travelers are indeed desirous of a new tomorrow. Chait hits the nail on the head when he explains that ?liberal politics has a concern with process that is largely absent from conservative politics.? Liberals don?t just want new legislation. We also desire new ways of living and being in society. That is indeed what makes us liberals. We don?t want to conserve societies that abuse minority rights, or trample individual freedoms, or drain the earth of every vital resource to advance narrow business interests. We seek to preserve and protect liberty, while extending equality, in the common interest.
But this yearning for a better tomorrow doesn?t somehow make us unreasonable or uncommitted. Chait begins his article by claiming that the liberal-Obama honeymoon was over when the president invited evangelical pastor Rick Warren to speak at his inauguration, ?negative 34 days? into his first term. Excuse me? According to Gallup, on the day of his inauguration, 88 percent of Democrats approved of the president. This includes 86 percent of African Americans and 90 percent of those who consider themselves liberal Democrats. We supported the president then and we support him today. As of last week, liberal Democrats? support for the president registered 84 percent.
The problem with Chait?s analysis and his corresponding concern about self-defeating liberal tendencies is that he confuses criticism for a vote of no-confidence or abstention. It is neither.
Chait attempts to place each Democratic president, from Obama back to FDR, in proper perspective to demonstrate that liberals? nostalgia clouds the fact that they have never been satisfied with their elected leader. Though Clinton is now popularly hailed as Economist-in-Chief, during his presidency the man from Hope, Arkansas was thought to be hopelessly neoliberal. President Carter, now loved by human rights activists the world over, refused to pursue healthcare reform because he didn?t believe healthcare was a fundamental human right. Despite historic reforms, LBJ was challenged by members of his own party and called a warmonger. According to Chait, even FDR?s legacy would be diminished if held to liberal standards: ?FDR?s 1936 speech denouncing economic royalists represented just a brief period of [his] Presidency?.and he never seemed to understand [Keynesian stimulus].?
But most times that liberals have been frustrated with a Democratic president, they have not abandoned him. We circle the wagon, much like the conservatives Chait praises for defending George W. Bush, Ronald Reagan, and Richard Nixon, in spite of their imperfect conservatism. No, we?re not quite as enthusiastic?50 percent of Republicans approved of Nixon even after Watergate?but, in contrast to the 1980 Times? editorial board, when forced to choose between Reagan and Carter at gunpoint, most liberals will not reply ?shoot.?
Check the Gallup presidential approval ratings going back to Truman and you?ll find tremendous liberal support for Democratic commanders-in-chief. Kennedy?s approval rating never dipped below 71 percent among Democrats. For two-thirds of Johnson?s presidency, over 60 percent of Democrats approved of the job he was doing; he only lost support when the ?credibility gap? over the administration?s Vietnam policies opened up. Clinton?s low point among Democrats was 63 percent in July of 1993. Even after he signed the Welfare Reform Act, Clinton?s Democratic approval rating was a remarkable 85 percent. So either the liberals Chait speaks of are a remarkably small group, or he has an unreasonable standard for supportiveness.
The Gallup poll also demonstrates that liberals came to Truman?s rescue in 1948. Al Gore won the popular vote in the 2000 election because liberals turned out. As for 1968?well, Vietnam, white backlash, and urban riots might have been too much for any incumbent party to overcome.
Liberals are not the president?s problem. When Democratic presidents or nominees lose elections, it is because of independents and centrist voters. President Obama?s problem is no different. When he was inaugurated 62 percent of independents and 41 percent of Republicans approved of the president. Today, support rests at 39 percent and 10 percent from those respective groups, whereas core constituencies, like women and African Americans, have stuck with the president. African-American women are near universal in their approval of Obama.
If President Obama loses in 2012, it will not be because liberals are complaining, as Chait suggests, but because Obama failed to address those ?inchoate and emotional? concerns. The nation as a whole is feeling uncertain. Citizens don?t know if their jobs are safe (or if they?ll find a job at all), if their pensions are secure, or if their country will be able to meet the challenges of the future. Both the reasons for and solutions to this new malaise are unclear to ordinary citizens, but they know that leadership is at the heart of the problem.
And leadership is the substance of the liberal critique. When Chris Matthews calls Obama a transactional politician or James Carville questions his courage and manhood, they are not being nostalgic or utopian. They are channeling a general American frustration, and it is this that Obama must overcome to be reelected, not liberal criticism. Liberals will stand with the president even if he fails to stand up for us because we know that the alternative would be far worse.
In other words, Chait has nothing to worry about.
