Gallup and other pollsters have noted a rise in President Obama’s approval rating over the past several weeks, and Daily Kos founder and publisher Markos Moulitsas thinks he knows why. “Being liberal is popular,” wrote Kos in a Tuesday blog post. “We're seeing that validated in real time.”
Kos finds both correlation and causation between Obama’s approval-rating increase and recent lefty White House initiatives on matters such as immigration enforcement, diplomatic relations with Cuba, and paid sick leave. The lesson, Kos opined in his post, is that “Obama [should have] governed like this from Day One, instead of wasting years of his life trying to make nice with an intractable and hostile Republican Party.”
“The biggest failure of Obama's presidency,” Kos continued, “was believing his campaign bullshit about ‘bringing the country together’…Republicans are on a holy war to destroy everything that is good and noble about government. They have no interest in peace or compromise for the public good, they believe only in scorched-earth war.”
From Kos’s post (emphasis added):
Conservatives may have decided Obama is the devil, but they're on the fringy outside…
Just imagine if Obama had governed like this from Day One, instead of wasting years of his life trying to make nice with an intractable and hostile Republican Party. The biggest failure of Obama's presidency was believing his campaign bullshit about "bringing the country together." You can only make peace with a foe when they are ready to make peace, and Republicans are on a holy war to destroy everything that is good and noble about government. They have no interest in peace or compromise for the public good, they believe only in scorched-earth war. And worse of all, it's not as if they pretended otherwise…
So instead of giving away concession after concession to Republicans hoping for support that would never arrive, Democrats should've pulled back all those concessions and governed as real Democrats...
…Democrats didn't lose in 2010 and 2014 because America turned against them. They lost because disgusted and disillusioned Democrats stayed home. Remember, there are more of us than there are of them, objectively. It just happens that our core base doesn't vote at the rate that old white Republican fucks do. Until we can turn that around, we're destined for more non-presidential year shellackings.
So instead of hiding from the popular thing (from comprehensive immigration reform, to larger stimulus, to the public option, and on and on and on), they should've stuck that finger up in the air and gone with public opinion, all the while railing and raging against the Wall Street assholes who nearly destroyed the world. It would've been popular. It would've rallied and motivated the base. And had they turned out, the trajectory of Obama's presidency and the makeup of the current Congress would look a hell of a lot different…
Being liberal is popular. We're seeing that validated in real time. It may be too late for this Congress and presidency, but it would be nice to get confirmation that Hillary Clinton is watching. Because while Obama may have learned his lesson too late, it's not too late for our next president.
