For the first part of New Year’s Day, I thought the far-left “Obama caved” crowd would take the prize for the most insane political faction of the day considering how, as soon as a deal was reached, they accused the president of capitulating to the Republicans, even though the deal was quite good given the alternatives. But then the House Republicans stepped onto the stage and posed a serious challenge to the insanity on the far-left by engaging in further sabotage and brinksmanship before finally voting to pass the deal.

So no, the “Obama caved” left wasn’t responsible for the only infuriating responses to the deal, but they were infuriating nevertheless because, after all, liberals are supposed to be the smart, rational ones. Sadly, that wasn’t the case. Again.

As soon as the deal was announced on New Year’s Eve, the far-left kneejerked into its predictable boilerplate apoplexy: calling for the president’s head with the scripted refrains of “He betrayed the left! IEEEEEE!” even though the fiscal cliff deal is mostly composed of a 4.6 percent tax hike on the top tax bracket returning it to the Clinton-era level, along with an extension of unemployment benefits for long-term jobless Americans, and $15 billion in spending cuts. $600 billion in revenue versus $15 billion in cuts. By the way, the $30 billion in unemployment benefits will result in $48.6 billion in economic growth, per Moody’s calculations. Good news and a good investment in the economy.

In addition, the payroll tax holiday will expire, and the estate tax will increase to 40 percent from the Bush-era 35 percent. This, evidently, is the president “caving” to the Republicans — the reversal of 20 years of Republican tax policy. The party that pledged to never raise taxes voted for a nearly 5 percent tax hike on the rich, while extending an import section of the social safety net for another year.

Now, I have a sense of what some on the left would’ve preferred, but, as usual, what the left wants and what’s politically achievable are often two different things, considering the intransigent congressional Republicans. It’s clear the Republicans would never have voted for the ideal liberal package. They came closer than ever before, but they’ll never break the zero barrier. Not these Republicans. They wanted Social Security and Medicare cuts. They wanted to renew all of the Bush tax cuts. They wanted severe spending cuts to everything except defense. Instead, the Republicans voted for practically no cuts at all, and a tax hike on earners who George W. Bush famously referred to as his “base.” $41 in revenue for every $1 in spending cuts. That’s exceptional.

Given the contentious eleventh-hour outcome, it’s safe to assume the Republicans wouldn’t accept any further demands, and we can assume that if the president had held out for the most liberal version of a deal, there wouldn’t have been a deal at all. Consequently we’d risk a recession; a Wall Street sell-off today; the loss of unemployment benefits for millions of Americans; and a 50% tax hike on the lowest bracket — workers earning $0-$8,700 per year. For reasonable liberals, this is totally unacceptable. Coincidentally this is exactly what the House Republicans were willing to risk. Once again, as with the Affordable Care Act, the characters farthest to the left have somehow met up with the characters farthest to the right. I joked on Twitter that perhaps the usual liberal suspects would revive the effort to team up with Grover Norquist to kill the bill.

Throughout the day, the same phrase popped up: the president continuously moved his “line in the sand.” Paul Krugman, who I generally admire, wrote, “He kept drawing lines in the sand, then erasing them and retreating to a new position.”

Two things about this. First, drawing a line in the sand is a negotiation tactic and not the ultimate expectation for a deal. Unless you’re a dictator. Negotiators draw a line in the sand in order to get their enemies as close to their position as possible, though obviously the Republicans, and especially the House variety, would never agree to everything the president or the left were demanding on that side of the line. Never. Second, Krugman also admitted that the president basically won the negotiation with many of the things he wanted. In response, John Aravosis wrote:

We got what you wanted, but you [Krugman] still feel we lost because you don’t like the way the President got what we wanted. What was wrong with the President’s approach, I ask? He caved on his promises, you say. But if the President caved on his promises, then how did we end up with what you wanted?

Negotiations are fluid affairs: chess-matches with fake-outs, gambits and uncertainty. If the president had drawn a line in the sand, the only thing left at the end would’ve been a really, really principled line in the sand. Everything else would’ve disintegrated.

This is one of the reasons why I strongly believe there are those on the left who would’ve screeched the same “Obama caved” gripe no matter what. Why? Peer-pressure and liberal cred. Because if they were to ever full-throatedly praise an Obama accomplishment, other liberals would shout them down as Obama-apologists and capitulators. Resistance is futile, and so forth. Admittedly, though, if the deal had included chained CPI on Social Security or cuts to Medicare, or an across-the-board renewal of the Bush tax cuts I probably would’ve lined up against the deal. But it turned out to be a far better result than I thought, and I honestly don’t care how the president got there at this point.

In the real world where there are real people coping with real problems, a deal was mandatory, as was a few concessions to the Republicans since they happen to control the House and nearly half of the Senate. If there was a whip count for everything the “Obama caved” liberals wanted, I’m happy to hear about it, but I don’t think it existed. It’s fine to try to push the president towards your personal legislative priorities, and the elimination of the chained CPI idea is probably a result of that effort, but liberal advocacy and activism shouldn’t include risking damage to the incomes and lives of the people who liberals are otherwise trying to help. That’s the same kind of sabotage and hostage-taking used by the congressional Republicans, and I don’t want any part of it.

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Photo via John Cole at Balloon-Juice.com

By Bob Cesca: There’s been an understandable amount of discussion since Tuesday night about how the Republicans failed and what they can do to improve. I love a good concern-trolling post as much as anyone, especially in the wake of such an exhilarating victory.

Let’s face it, though. Do we sincerely want the Republicans to soften their regional white Christian epistemic self-marginalization?

Ultimately, Republican policies are misogynistic, bigoted, obsolete and ineffectual; their politics are toxic and exploitative; their media presence is a screechy echo-chamber of gibberish and conspiracy theories; and they’re rightly suffering the consequences of this deadly cocktail. If they’d prefer to self-destruct, fine. As such, they should stay away from Nate Silver’s wizardry and stick with Unskewed Polls and Rush Limbaugh’s “gut.” Republican contra-reality politics forced them to attack an empty chair fictional construct instead of the actual president, and it forced them to fabricate policies that simply didn’t exist (Jeep to China, welfare reform gutting, and so on). Great! Keep doing that. It failed. And when Republicans fail, it helps the rest of us.

But even the most sincere recommendations will fall on deaf ears anyway. The things they need to change the most are also threads that unite them. They believe women should be subjugated via anti-choice legislation and they will never abandon their abortion plank. They believe in supply-side, trickle down economics and nearly every sitting Republican politician has signed Grover Norquist’s tax pledge, so softening on tax hikes for the rich is definitely out. They can’t abandon their anti-immigration position or risk losing their angry, white, ignorant base who want nothing more than a return to a monochromatic 1950s Leave it to Beaver utopia — these same conservatives market in horror stories about savage brown people beheading decent law-abiding white people in the deserts of Arizona.

They’re trapped inside their own Mobius Loop of crapola and, honestly, I don’t know exactly how this trend will play out for them. Perhaps a coalition of moderate and liberal Republicans will splinter off, leaving the tea party wackaloons to their masochistic descent into political extinction.

I have no idea, but I certainly won’t be abandoning this topic anytime soon. Stay tuned.

Changing gears, how about some recommendations for liberal Democrats? What could we do as progressives to improve our station and to build our coalition through the second Obama term and beyond?

Two very specific prescriptions here.

1) Get a grip on political reality.

Idealism is healthy and necessary, but not at the expense of grasping political reality. I’ve spent a considerable amount of time writing and speaking about this subject so I won’t elaborate too much. Suffice to say, a shocking number of prominent liberal Democrats have a tough time marrying political reality with policy goals.

Democracy is slow, and politics is a process. While we should actively persuade the president and Congress to adopt more liberal proposals, we can’t expect our favorite senator or the president himself to simply “use the bully pulpit” or, I don’t know, conjure fully passed slate of ready-to-sign bills using nothing more than a shaka and some close-up magic.

We will absolutely achieve more liberal successes if we focus on new ways to exploit the system rather than fighting against it. We can start by building our ranks and convincing voters on the ground, and that involves the next recommendation…

2) Stop badgering people of faith.

Not that I need to justify my personal beliefs in order to discuss this, but for the sake of full disclosure, I’m an ex-Catholic, agnostic bordering on atheist, secular liberal. I’ve spent the bulk of my political career arguing in support of the Establishment Clause and a hearty wall of separation between church and state. I’ve been ensconced in the backlash against the religious right’s campaign to usurp secular laws and replace them with a Leviticus-inspired theocracy. Anyone who engages in the theocratic effort is a political enemy and we should never back down from that fight, especially when human rights for women and the LGBT community are on the line.

Okay, so, all of that aside, liberals/progressives would do well to cut the crap with the smug, self-righteous hectoring of religious people. Categorically labeling all people-of-faith as stupids or childish sky-god fetishists is seriously beginning to sound an awful lot like the sort of overzealous intolerance we’re supposed to be fighting.

How can we possibly scold Republicans about becoming more tolerant while we’re also making blanket pronouncements on Facebook and Twitter that anyone who believes in God is a naive automaton? I doubt many of us would dare to make that same case to Stephen Colbert who’s a practicing Catholic and Sunday school teacher.

So it might be a good idea to holster the anti-religion crusade (har!) and reserve it exclusively for the operatives who are bastardizing faith as a means of sociopolitical oppression. Odds are, they’re conservatives anyway, and a law that mandates, say, transvaginal ultrasounds is evil regardless of whether it’s coming from a religious politician or a secular one. If we target the issues and remain focused on that goal, we’ve fulfilled our policy agenda without taking a broad, thoughtless shotgun approach regardless of who might be caught in the crossfire.

On Tuesday, it turns out that Catholics voted for the president by a margin of 50-48, according to CNN. Among Jews, 69-30, and among “other” religious people, 74-23. Latino Catholics, of which there are many, voted for the president by a margin of 3-to-1. That’s tremendous. Tolerance aside and coming at this from a purely meat-and-potatoes political tack, the liberal/progressive wing of the Democratic Party risks chasing away valuable allies if we’re viewed as the religious-intolerance wing. We should be interested in building and reinforcing our coalition to include those voters rather than poisoning the evolution of the movement by brow-beating them with our too-sophisticated sermons about spaghetti monsters.

If the progressive left opens its doors to people of faith it might discover that there are millions who agree that the wall of separation should remain intact, and millions more who believe in social justice and a liberal, secular form of government.

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By Bob Cesca: It’s difficult to make it through a day of political reading without stumbling onto another progressive screed in a long syllabus of screeds about how President Obama is worse than George W. Bush. I’m sure you’re familiar with the rogue’s gallery of writers and their grievances. Recently, however, these posts have added an extra layer of questionable judgment involving a plea to progressives to vote against the president in the forthcoming election.

So far, I’m aware of three major posts along these lines.

First, there was John Cusack’s interview/discussion with George Washington University constitutional law professor Jonathan Turley in which the activists discussed their “Rubicon Line” — actions by the president that went too far, thus forcing Cusack and Turley to vote for a third party candidate this year. Then there was Conor Friedersdorf’s post for The Atlantic in which he made a similar case against the president’s record on civil liberties and national security. Drones, indefinite detention and the like. Friedersdorf wrote a follow-up item here. And on Saturday, vocal anti-Obama progressive Matt Stoller wrote an extended post for Salon.com, which outlines exactly what he and other progressives expect to achieve by voting for a third party candidate.

It’s difficult to know where to begin because there were so many things about Stoller’s post that were nearsighted or downright wrong.

Stoller’s principal gripe with President Obama is the disparity between the stronger corporate recovery from the recession against the slower home equity recovery from the recession. Specifically, the president has “enshrined rights for the elite in our constitutional order and removed rights from everyone else.” This is an important point. Stoller appears to be a vocal champion of the “99 percent” — the plight of middle class homeowners and, presumably, other non-wealthy Americans — and is changing his vote to prove it.

Yes, homeowners have suffered greatly from the recession. Yes, billions of dollars were loaned to financial institutions in order to prevent a deeper slide into a full scale meltdown, while very little has been done to bail out homeowners whose houses are either underwater or facing foreclosure. Regarding this gap, Stoller noted a pivotal moment during the Bush-Obama transition in 2008 when Bush Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson approached Barney Frank about speeding up the disbursement of TARP funds. Frank suggested that they force banks to write down bad mortgages in exchange for the second round of TARP money. The way Frank tells it, they needed then-President-Elect Obama to sign off, but Obama never responded thus missing a golden opportunity to offer relief to homeowners. Taken at face value, and I assume Frank’s account is accurate, sure, the Obama team should’ve authorized the deal. But, in its defense, the administration has repeatedly pursued a write-down option, including a $25 billion write-down deal in February and another plan this past Summer, which was blocked by regulators, “to pay Fannie and Freddie as much as 63 cents for every dollar of mortgage debt they forgive.” The money would’ve been paid out of the TARP fund.

Stoller continues by listing a series of “broken promises” by the president, and while many of the items were beyond the president’s control, the more deceptive aspect of Stoller’s list was that it’s not taken from the 2008 Obama For America campaign, but, instead, from the 2008 Democratic Party platform. Anyone who’s followed this year’s RNC and DNC knows that the parties and their nominees don’t always share the same positions and goals. Yet according to Politifact, the president has kept, or compromised on, 269 promises, with another 106 promises “in the works.” He’s broken 86 promises but, again, they’re not necessarily policy reversals. Many simply haven’t been attempted yet.

The president hasn’t been flawless, that’s for sure. But has there ever been a flawless chief executive? Stoller singles out the achievements of FDR in the wake of the Great Depression but conveniently excludes FDR’s serious flaws — a courtesy Stoller clearly offers to most Democratic presidents except for Barack Obama. But what about FDR? Not only did he prematurely compromise with conservatives to engage in austerity which caused a double-dip recession, but FDR’s record during World War II would be decimated by modern progressives were they around at the time. Indefinite detention of Japanese Americans, the fire-bombing of Tokyo, the development of the atomic bomb. I can’t imagine Turley and Cusack ignoring these egregious trespasses without labeling them as “Rubicon Lines.”

The rational, reasonable approach to selecting a president involves deciding which of the two candidates is nearest to our personal values, both in terms of policy and leadership qualities. From there, once elected, we have a civic responsibility to engage in smart accountability. That is, pushing and persuading our leaders to do what we believe is right. Sometimes it works, as with Obama and same-sex marriage and Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, and sometimes it doesn’t. But at the end of the day, we’ve still helped to elect a leader who’s at least somewhere in the same ballpark as our personal views. We don’t have to agree on everything and we can’t expect perfection or purity. Reasonable people ought to look beyond the narrow field of pet issues and view the presidency in its totality.

But it’s difficult to expect rational, reasonable arguments from progressive activists who simply don’t understand how the system works. Stoller wrote: “There are only five or six states that matter in this election; in the other 44 or 45, your vote on the presidential level doesn’t matter. It is as decorative as a vote for an ‘American Idol contestant.’”

Nonsense. Stoller either doesn’t understand the implications of the popular vote or he’s being deliberately ignorant about it. There’s a very real chance that the president could win the electoral vote and lose the popular vote: an eventuality that would cripple his second term agenda. Without a mandate — a popular vote majority — he risks losing the support of moderate Democrats. Worse, considering the conspiracy-driven paranoia of the Republican Party with it’s “Benghazi Gate,” its Unskewed Polls and rigged unemployment numbers, it’s not a stretch to expect that an electoral/popular vote split would trigger a major congressional investigation and, perhaps, a constitutional crisis with Congress refusing to certify the electoral votes. The Republicans have proved they’ll do anything to thwart the president. Additionally, which states, according to Stoller, constitute swing states? He doesn’t say, but we can assume Virginia, North Carolina, Ohio, Florida, Colorado and New Hampshire. But what about Wisconsin? Arizona? Iowa? Is Minnesota a swing state now? Michigan? Pennsylvania? Swing state status changes by the day, so who knows for sure.

So yes, if you live in a solidly red or blue state, your vote absolutely matters. Perhaps this year more than ever.

Stoller’s argument has only just begun to lose credibility.

When I wrote about the Turley/Cusack discussion, I compared it with the South Park “Underpants Gnome” episode in which a race of gnomes devised a three-pronged business model: 1) Collect Underpants, 2) ????, 3) Profit. Likewise, Turley and Cusack seemed to suggest the following: 1) Vote against Obama, 2) ????, 3) Progressivism! Of course the “????” is the biggest concern here. There is simply no plan for what comes between voting against Obama and winning a more progressive America. No plan.

But in Stoller’s post, the following line jumped off the page: “If there had been an actual full-scale financial meltdown in 2008 without a bailout, while it would have been bad, it probably would have given us a fighting chance of warding off planetary catastrophe and reorganizing our politics.”

In other words, unless I’m mistaken, Stoller seemed to be fantasizing about a full-scale meltdown in 2008-2009 so that his faction of progressives could exploit the chaos to reshape the political landscape. Is this a fair interpretation?

If I’m right on this, it sounds like Tyler Durden style nihilism — not progressivism. To further prove my analysis, Stoller wrote: “The case against Obama is that the people themselves will be better citizens under a Romney administration, distrusting him and placing constraints on his behavior the way they won’t on Obama.” Stoller appears to be suggesting that letting Romney win will trigger such a disaster that citizens will work harder to achieve progressive goals. Even if his intention isn’t another meltdown, it’s astonishing that any progressive with a brain in his or her head would suggest a Romney presidency simply as a means of getting other progressives to stop supporting the president, whoever it might be.

Either way, his plan for political realignment requires a Romney victory and, along with it, the loss of healthcare for millions, the loss of the Supreme Court to right-wing ideologues for a generation and an almost certain invasion of Iran, which could potentially entangle China or possibly Russia — just so Stoller and his friends can somehow achieve progressive goals. Somehow. The heretofore unspoken “????” prong of the plan is for Romney to dismantle Obama’s achievements, be they center-left or not. But there’s no precedent for the success of a plan like this: a group of activists voting for an opposition party in order to precipitate a confluence of devastation that forces a total reshaping of the system. Somehow. And there’s no indication or strategy for getting from rock bottom to progressive leadership and a decimation of, presumably, the two party system.

There’s no plan in the Stoller/Turley/Cusack plan. There’s no (A) leading to (B) which leads to (C) which creates (D), etc. There’s no way, therefore, to assure supporters that their vote-against-Obama path will lead to more progressive politics in America. Precipitating a disaster in the hopes that it will create a positive realignment favoring progressivism is wishful thinking at best. It could just as easily precipitate a more conservative authoritarian realignment or worse.

Again, this isn’t a plan. If you’ve been persuaded by Stoller/Turley/Cusack et al, you’ve been suckered by a white, privileged, intellectual, role-playing exercise. A theoretical activist war game. There’s very little substance beyond their list of grievances (some of which have validity while others do not), and zero strategy beyond voting against Obama in the hopes Romney wins and then something, something, something. Progressivism!

Writers like Glenn Greenwald have attempted to soften the meaning of the following truism by making it appear quaint, but it’s absolutely the truth: A vote against President Obama is a vote for Mitt Romney.

In this month’s Rolling Stone, renowned historian Douglas Brinkley called President Obama “the Progressive Firewall,” standing as a guardian against the radical Republican assault upon the New Deal, the New Frontier and the Great Society. A vote against Obama is vote to dismantle that firewall. Whether you vote for Jill Stein or Gary Johnson, it’s a tacit endorsement of at least four years of terrible policies authorized by a soulless corporate CEO puppeteered by the far-right — literally a member of the one-percent-of-the-one-percent who’s made a fortune with Mafia-style bust-outs and all of the malfeasance that caused the recession in the first place and real people will be irreparably harmed in the process. Millions will either lose their healthcare or they’ll be turned away from receiving it. Millions of women will become further subjugated by increasingly domineering and invasive laws dictating their human right to retain purview over their reproductive organs. The Republicans will carve away gigantic chunks of the social safety net. The economy will surely backslide into a double-dip recession for which only tax cuts for the wealthy will be prescribed by the Romney administration.

And we’re supposed to take Stoller seriously when he wrote that the middle class and income inequality are his primary reasons for voting against Obama? Unbelievable.

As I noted earlier, we’ll surely end up in another war in the Middle East, be it in Syria or Iran, and there’s a chance Romney will ignore the 2014 deadline for ending the war in Afghanistan. Drone strikes will be increased. Indefinite detention will continue. Guantanamo will remain open. Torture will be resumed. And you, if you’re a progressive who votes against the president, will have cast your vote in favor of all of it, even if that wasn’t your intention.

Liberals who vote against Obama are not unlike conservatives who cite Ayn Rand’s political acumen. Self-righteous and unserious. Claiming to be an activist without a deep understanding of how the political system functions, say nothing of the real-world human ramifications of elections, is just verbal masturbation — a protest without a realistic course of action. It’s a flailing, selfish act of high-minded personal absolution without any actual comprehension of the wide-reaching damage it risks. Take, for example, Stoller’s prior “aggressive” stance against voting for third party candidates like Ralph Nader. The 2000 election came down to 537 votes in Florida. If 97,488 Florida Democrats hadn’t voted for Nader with a similarly misappropriated enthusiasm as the anti-Obama progressives of today, enough of their votes would’ve gone to Al Gore to securely win the electoral votes there, and the history of the last 12 years would’ve been remarkably different.

The lesson of 2000 and, indeed, all democratic elections is this: your vote isn’t just about your personal whim or guilty conscience, it’s about millions of other citizens. Real-life people. If you can’t abide drones or the assassination of Anwar al-Awlaki, then use your vote to endorse providing Medicaid for millions upon millions of your fellow citizens who would otherwise lose it under a Romney presidency. Endorse the reversal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. Endorse the passage of the Matthew Shepard hate crimes law or the expansion of SCHIP or the advancement of income parity for women. Endorse the ending of the war in Iraq. Endorse the ending of torture. Endorse the formation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (it’s currently cracking down on debt collectors and credit rating agencies). Endorse the Keynesian policies that stopped the economy from collapsing into a Second Great Depression that Matt Stoller appears to have wanted. Vote to re-elect the president, and then, when and if he’s re-elected, and if you’re equally as inclined to become an activist as when you considered casting a protest vote, do the legwork to push the president on drones, civil liberties and all the rest of it. Form a PAC or a nonprofit and petition your president. As evidenced by his evolution on same-sex marriage, Barack Obama is eminently persuadable. Use smart accountability and push him.

One of the character traits which most liberals possess and too many modern conservatives lack is a sense of compromise and reason. I fear reason is being abandoned in pursuit of a destructive, misguided agenda marketed by fringe leftists with questionable motives and sketchy, incomplete plans. Millions upon millions of our fellow American citizens require that Mitt Romney not be allowed to ascend to the presidency. It’s as simple as that. The only reasonable solution is to prevent it from happening. It’s up to you.

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By Ted Lieverman: I get uneasy when I see liberals and progressives complaining so vigorously about President Barack Obama’s lack of accomplishments. Sure, the last four years have seen many mistakes and disappointments by the White House. But when I think about the realistic choices in the 2012 election, I remember with embarrassment my own private scandal from many years ago.

Okay, it’s time to come clean. Remember the election of Richard Nixon in 1968? That was my fault.

So there I am, a college sophomore, helping to run a local campaign office in Rockville Centre for Allard Lowenstein, an antiwar Democrat running for Congress in the Fifth District on Long Island. It’s the night before the election, and we are busy finalizing plans to contact voters, offer rides to the polls, respond to election irregularities, and flood our district with flyers.

Four nights before, President Lyndon Johnson had announced a partial halt in U.S. bombing of North Vietnam as a way of jump-starting the peace negotiations in Paris – and helping Vice President Hubert Humphrey win a close race against Republican Richard Nixon.

Lowenstein, who did more than anyone to dissuade Johnson from seeking reelection, who recruited Eugene McCarthy and then Robert Kennedy to run against him, has so far refused to endorse Humphrey. Now, he says in a large meeting of staff and volunteers, the bombing halt and Humphrey’s recent speech in Salt Lake City on the war have convinced him that endorsing Humphrey is necessary. Many of us are dismayed at his decision and, though we continue to work hard for Lowenstein, resolve not to help Humphrey.

As we work on election eve, a union rep comes in and, noting the lack of any campaign materials for Humphrey, starts loading up our front table with flyers, brochures and bumper stickers. We coolly inform him not to leave those materials there, as this office is not supporting Humphrey. Angry and incredulous, he storms out. We pat ourselves on the back for our moral conviction and work through the night to prepare for the big day.

Election Day is hectic, and we’re still at the campaign party at 3 a.m. the day after. Lowenstein has won by a narrow margin, and the vote for President is still too close to call, with Humphrey trailing slightly.

You know the end of the story. Nixon wins, keeps the war going, expands it to Cambodia and Laos, wiretaps his friends as well as his enemies, amasses huge amounts of illegal slush funds, assembles a secret spy team known as the Plumbers, obstructs justice, and ultimately goes down in flames, resigning from office in 1974 while facing near-certain impeachment by the House of Representatives.

And why did Nixon win in 1968? Plenty of reasons, but the most immediate, and the one we had some control over, was the lack of effort by antiwar Democrats and the New Left who saw no important distinction between the candidates.

Maybe that’s true if you take the 30,000-foot view of politics – but almost no one lives their lives at 30,000 feet. They live on the ground, with their hopes and fears as they raise families, seek and keep employment, pay the mortgage, and cope with the outside world. Here on the ground who becomes President means the difference between health and safety regulations being enforced or ignored, between the water becoming more drinkable or more dangerous, between corruption being attacked or encouraged, between quality health care becoming more accessible or further out of reach, between pointless wars being encouraged or avoided.

The 2012 election presents a pretty stark choice. Either you support President Obama and fight for a government responsive to the needs of living human beings, based on the principle of one person, one vote – or you go with Mitt Romney and the Republican vision of one dollar, one vote, where corporations and fetuses are people but women and workers are second-class citizens.

If Romney wins, Wall Street will be invincible and Sesame Street will be toast. Oh … and the Supreme Court? Kiss it goodbye for a generation.

Some lefties talk about the trap of electoral politics, and how voting distracts from the real world of organizing. I’m all in favor of organizing (quick – which candidate used to be a community organizer?), but no one says organizers can’t take 30 minutes one day every two years to vote. Voting is not the denial of popular sovereignty but its affirmation.

This is not about the lesser of two evils. This is a choice between two roads, between moving – however slowly and haltingly – to protect citizens through democratically elected government; or moving further towards de facto government by corporate giants. Your vote, your choice.

But don’t make that stupid, naïve decision that it doesn’t matter. Even though Humphrey took New York by over 350,000 votes, I still feel like I learned the hard way.

Ted Lieverman is a free-lance photographer and former lawyer in Philadelphia.

(Originally published at ConsortiumNews.com)

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By Bob Cesca: Over the weekend, actor and activist John Cusack posted an interview he conducted with George Washington University constitutional law professor Jonathan Turley. You might recall seeing Turley on Countdown with Keith Olbermann over the years, and you probably know who John Cusack is. They’re both extraordinarily bright guys and they have some very strong arguments in support of their positions against the Obama administration, mostly from a far-left point of view.

That said, Turley and Cusack, like Glenn Greenwald and others, are known for what I would consider to be an absolutist posture regarding the president. Specifically, their “Rubicon line” as Cusack calls it (a reference to Julius Caesar crossing the Rubicon River, an unprecedented act of insurrection) is the president’s record on civil liberties and foreign policy — his signing of the NDAA, his inability to close Guantanamo, his use of drones and, primarily, the assassination of Anwar al-Awlaki, an al-Qaeda terrorist who was born in the United States. Cusack also cites the continuance of the war in Afghanistan as a deal breaker, erroneously noting that candidate Obama opposed that war. Obama, like all of the Democratic frontrunners in the previous two elections supported “finishing the job” in Afghanistan. Consequently, neither Turley nor Cusack will support the president for re-election, and they consider him to be “worse than George W. Bush” in several of these areas.

Okay, okay. I know. Admittedly, this topic of progressive factional debate is one I’ve covered quite a bit over the last four years. But the angle I intend to cover today is one that’s considerably important for the future of the progressive movement and, subsequently, for a long-sought shift towards more progressive legislation at the state and federal level. Near the end of the interview, Turley and Cusack discussed the conundrum that many similarly-minded liberals face. If they agree with the anti-Obama left on these foreign policy and civil liberties issues — that the president’s trespasses are unforgivable — should they vote for his re-election?

Unsurprised by the usual Greenwaldian points throughout most of the interview in which the president’s foreign policy is described as being the continuance of the George W. Bush presidency, I wasn’t especially alarmed until Turley’s view on the election suddenly jumped off the screen. He said, “I think that people have to accept that they own this decision, that they can walk away. I realize that this is a tough decision for people but maybe, if enough people walked away, we could finally galvanize people into action to make serious changes.”

Walking away from the election and not voting, Turley and Cusack asserted, would fire an opening shot in an effort to scramble the red/blue paradigm in American politics. In other words, if enough people abandon the electoral system, the system will have no choice but to shift and change in the direction of the non-participants. Interesting.

Turley’s statement cut to a central flaw in liberal thought that tends to resurface every time liberalism (or progressivism) enjoys a toe-hold in politics. As soon as Democrats become the slightest bit successful at the presidential level, the far-left decides to stay home.

The arguments are familiar. Democrats and Republicans are the same on matters that constitute that uncrossable Rubicon line. The two party system is a disaster. And if we either vote our conscience for a third party candidate or stay home entirely, the system will collapse on its fainting couch, crying for us to come back. Come to think of it, you’ve probably seen this attitude on various internet discussion forums I’m sure. I call these people “Goodbye Cruel World” attention whores: disgruntled or humiliated commenters who write an extended missive — a virtual suicide manifesto — about how they’re leaving and never coming back. They storm off the boards in a big dramatic snit, expecting everyone else to beg them to return. But it never works that way. Things proceed without them.

I’m not begrudging anyone their right to vote for whomever they choose. But as a strategy for a broader movement, this is an extremely troubling concept with well-known repercussions. Bluntly, it’s both stupid and dangerous. I’ve told this story a million times, but it bears repeating. During the late 1990s and the 2000 presidential election, Michael Moore and other pre-blogosphere liberal activists pitched the line that the Democrats and Republicans were basically the same, so we shouldn’t vote for either. Likewise, Al Gore and George W. Bush were exactly the same, so why bother voting for either one? Ralph Nader was running and he seemed like a true progressive so hundreds of thousands of voters cast their ballots for Nader, seriously cutting into the Gore vote. We all know what happened next.

Just as soon as it appeared that left-leaning politics was on the verge of prospering into the 21st Century, liberals decided to end that process out of a movement-driven decision to vote against Al Gore who, by the way, went on to become a liberal lion, especially and famously on the climate crisis. If Al Gore had been elected, it’s likely that he would’ve reinforced a gradual move to the left. Instead, the dark ride of the 2000s began in earnest. Partly because the left walked away from the process.

Walking away is not an option, at least for anyone who’s interested in achieving positive change. The practical goal should be to carefully and tenaciously persuade more voters and politicians about the progressive agenda. This is especially true when it comes to President Obama who’s displayed both a willingness to evolve on various issues, as well as an openness to hearing opposing views when they’re presented thoughtfully and fairly. There’s no evidence whatsoever of the president or the Democratic Party chasing the far-left when they’re in the process of storming off like a petulant reality show diva. Usually when the Cusack, Greenwald and Hamsher types start screeching “worse than Bush” and the like, the Democrats engage in the well-worn practice of “hippie punching,” and then either ignore the far-left or run to the center where there are considerably more votes.

When liberal policies and liberal politicians fail, they’re invariably replaced with moderate or conservative policies/politicians. That’s a sad fact of life in American politics. For instance, every time healthcare reform has failed, the next iteration has been more conservative — not less. When the Carter administration failed to be re-elected, the next Democratic president was more conservative. If Barack Obama fails to win re-election, the next Democratic president will absolutely be more conservative, especially if pollsters determine that liberals by-in-large stayed home. In the interim, a Romney administration would roll back everything the Obama administration has achieved, painfully rewinding the legislative clock back to 2008. Do the list. DADT would return. Conservatives would gain a stranglehold on the Supreme Court. Marriage equality would be held back by another decade. Women’s reproductive organs would become the total purview of the government. Obamacare and all of its benefits would be repealed. New emissions standards would be repealed. We’d return to war in the Middle East — with either Syria or Iran or both, and maybe even Russia. The climate crisis would escalate unchecked. And the Bush tax cuts would become permanent. To name a few. Pretty much the worst possible outcome you can imagine. You might disagree with President Obama, say, 20% of the time with 10% being “Rubicon line” worthy. But I guarantee that you’ll disagree with 100% of the Romney agenda and all of the horrendous policies within.

Let’s take this one step further according to Turley’s plan. Imagine if the bulk of the progressive movement attempted Turley’s strategy of staying home until the day when sometime ambiguously in the future the red/blue paradigm vanishes… maybe? Is there really a long term plan for this destruction of the red/blue paradigm? You know, other than: 1. Stay Home, 2. ?????, 3. Progressivism! And how does Turley’s support for the Citizens United decision and corporate “speech” in elections help this plan? I can only imagine the cavalcade of Republican presidents or centrist Democrats who would fill the void. Two decades worth? More? Who knows. One thing is for sure, the progressive movement would have to possess considerably more electoral heft than it does today in order to yank with it the weight of the entire American political system. It’s shockingly delusional and naive. It’s a “Goodbye Cruel World” move — with severe blowback against the very ideas that these activists hold sacred.

The alternative is to simply make a strong, persuasive case on the ground. Convince voters and politicians alike that progressive ideas work. Make the case in a reasonable, strategic, smart way. Start at the school board level and work up the ladder if need be. But walking away from the process should never be an option beyond the shadow realms of cynical quitters.

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Signs of hope and change in America.

Given hardening Republican opposition to Congressional health care proposals, Democrats now say they see little chance of the minority’s cooperation in approving any overhaul, and are increasingly focused on drawing support for a final plan from within their own ranks.

Top Democrats said Tuesday that their go-it-alone view was being shaped by what they saw as Republicans’ purposely strident tone against health care legislation during this month’s Congressional recess, as well as remarks by leading Republicans that current proposals were flawed beyond repair.

The White House spokesman, Robert Gibbs, said of Republican lawmakers, “Only a handful seem interested in the type of comprehensive reform that so many people believe is necessary to ensure the principles and the goals that the president has laid out.”

The last time we had a Democratic president, we and he allowed for truly progressive change to be snuffed out in favor of conservative corporate interests. It was good, but it could have been far better.

I hope we don’t give away the farm this time.

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In an interview with the London Times, political consultant and apparent snake oil salesman Dave “Mudcat” Saunders says the following:

“The Democrats talk of tolerance, but in reality the only tolerance they ever exhibit is for their own intellectual arrogance — and they don’t have tolerance for my culture,” says Mudcat. “They think we’re a bunch of hillbilly heathens who go out and burn crosses and do crazy bullshit. “

The article is accompanied by this picture:

Do you see, perhaps, why some of us may see folks like Saunders as knuckle-dragging dumbass hillbillies? The confederate flag is a flag flown in support of slavery. There’s not really any way around that. You can go on at length about horsepuckey “southern pride” or whatever the b.s. du jour is, but at its core that flag stands for fond memories of keeping black people subhuman and in chains.

And Dave “Mudcat” Saunders sleeps under it. That should tell you pretty much all you need to know about where his stupid heart is.

I’m not privy to the details but Saunders worked on the campaigns of Mark Warner and Jim Webb in Virginia. We continue to live in the era of the big name political consultant who reaps the lion’s share of the credit for victories, and maybe Saunders was the catalyst for those wins. But it may also be likely that demographic trends are what has been turning Virginia into a blue state — and perhaps the wins of Warner and Webb were not confederate-loving Mudcat Saunders’ doing, but the skill of the candidates and demographics. His supposed brilliance sure didn’t seem to deliver for John Edwards in Iowa.

But frankly, Dave Mudcat Saunders could be the greatest political operative since Machiavelli, no Democrat should be working with a guy who sleeps with the confederate flag on his bed.

>> My run-in with Dave “Mudcat” Saunders, the Democrats’ Dixie huckster.

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Progressives beat back Ward Connerly’s anti-civil rights bill designed to turn up conservative votes in Missouri.

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Shorter Matt Stoller: Quit acting like babies. Waaaaaaaaaaaah. The world is ending because Sen. Obama doesn’t personally read every blog and conduct online polls asking the “netroots” what color underwear he should wear.

Do these guys know that a presidential election isn’t all about candidates catering to their personal idiosyncrasies? I don’t think so.

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A few months ago I wrote about how I really really want the president of the United States to be someone who is the national leader of the country and not just a party chairman. I feel the need to point this out again in the middle of some of the typical blogosphere whining over Sen. Obama’s appearance Sunday on Fox News.

There are certain things I demand out of a Democratic candidate, but I don’t labor under the pretense that the person is going to check, check, check down the line for the progressive movement. Do I want them to sound like a Republican and echo conservative phrasing? No. But to act as if a deviation from the line will cause the universe to collapse on itself? Come on.

In the case of Sen. Obama I say again: I don’t want a cheerleader for the Democratic party. I want an adult to set this country back on the path of righteousness.

This comment from Matt Stoller’s comment thread does a good job of summing things up:

The job of a candidate for US President is to put together a winning coalition, not to pamper the tender egos or play into the macho fantasies of his/her supporters.

If you are this disappointed by Obama the candidate, you will weep bitterly as Obama the President tacks and weaves just like FDR did and as every politician has to. The question is balance and total direction. What you people have failed to understand is that the problem with Bill Clinton was not that he was expedient, but that his goals were limited to his own personal political success.

Most of us who support Obama are not under the illusion that he is a magical hero or that he is a progressive miracle worker. He’s a smart politician trying an potentially game changing tack that may reconstitute a pro-working-american coalition. So we don’t weep and gnash our teeth and demand constant reassurance or go into hysterics at every imagined slight.

Grow up, children.

I know I’m too cynical, but the sort of utopianism pushed in some corners of the progressive blogosphere are just kind of nutty.

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