Get News & Views Updates
Most Popular This Week
Popular content
Today's Top News
Tax Cuts and Trade: Is Obama Triangulating?
It was about this far into his first term—back in late 1994 and early 1995—when President Bill Clinton truly fell under the spell of malevolent strategist Dick Morris. Stung by the heavy losses brought on by the “Republican Revolution” in the 1994 midterms, Clinton began to believe that his only route to reelection was to tack to the right and steal some of the conservatives’ thunder on issues like welfare reform and federal deficits.
Morris, who was only forced out of the White House after a sex scandal and who has since exposed his true political stripes as a FoxNews commentator, thought triangulation both a brilliant political strategy and a generator of fine public policy. The remaining liberals in the Clinton administration disagreed. As the Economist notes, George Stephanopoulos incisively labeled it “a fancy word for betrayal.”
Not yet two weeks after the 2010 midterms, and just two years after Obama’s campaign of “hope” and “change,” there are troubling signs that the current president might be tempted to follow the same path as Clinton.
Obama’s first move after the midterms, already much criticized by progressives, was to express his willingness to cave on Bush tax cuts for the rich. This one felt to me more like a gutless compromise than a calculated shift to the right. And, on the hopeful side, the White House is now backpedaling, indicating that the story was overblown and Obama’s pre-midterms position hasn’t changed.
There’s no detectable silver lining, however, to the president’s drive to push forward the Bush-negotiated, NAFTA-style trade agreement with Korea. While it appears the deal has stalled for the time being, the denunciations of the neoliberal “free trade” program that Obama once used to attack rival candidate Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primaries are now long gone.
Given the composition of the administration’s economics team, this flip-flop is not surprising. There were signs of it already back in 2008, when Obama quickly tried to moderate his earlier stances during the general election campaign.
Nevertheless the maneuver is a sad one. While triangulation arguably worked for Clinton (he was reelected at any rate), rightward moves promise few benefits for Obama. A too-small stimulus meant that unemployment remained higher and anger about the economy greater than might otherwise have been the case going into the midterms. It also produced an uninspired Democratic base, resulting in a low-turnout election that favored Republicans.
Likewise, the trade deals on deck with Korea, Colombia, and Panama are bad not only because they seek to expand a flawed economic model, but also because “free trade” is a political loser. The Democratic base is firmly in the “fair trade” camp, disenchanted with neoliberal policies, and an anti-NAFTA message also resonates with the wider electorate. As Public Citizen has documented, “House Democrats that ran on fair trade platforms in competitive and open-seat races were three times as likely to survive the GOP tidal wave than Democrats who ran against fair trade.”
Global Trade Watch Research Director Todd Tucker has gone so far as to call compromising with the Republicans on pending trade deals a “political death wish” for a president who will soon be seeking reelection.
After Obama’s first year in office, I gave the administration a “B” on trade policy, on the grounds that no news is good news. As long as unfinished “free trade” deals remained bogged down in negotiations and are not an administration priority, I am willing to judge the situation as no harm, no foul. But it’s a different story if the White House starts investing any real political capital in advancing these deals.
Even worse would be if Obama keeps his backbone as well hidden from public view as it has been since the midterms and turns to triangulation, imagining that moving right on trade would be politically beneficial.
Comments
Note: Disqus 2012 is best viewed on an up to date browser. Click here for information. Instructions for how to sign up to comment can be viewed here. Our Comment Policy can be viewed here. Please follow the guidelines. Note to Readers: Spam Filter May Capture Legitimate Comments...
32 Comments so far
Show AllObama doesn't triangulate--he caves. If this is the fall-back position of democrats, then progressives should waste no more time or money supporting them. We need a Progressive Party of America!
Absolutely! The mid-terms did not indicate approval of the Repubs. They indicated dis-approval of the Dems. In 2006 it was the opposite: dis-approval of the Repubs and certainly much of Obama's vote was against Bush and his policies.
Time for a Positive alternative. Let's remember lots of people don't even vote.
If they had something to vote for....
I think we have a Progressive Party in the Dems now that we're rid of half the Blue Dogs.
Not really -- they are hard core capitalists out for the rich. There are no true progressives there; even Kucinich is only 'sort-of' when it comes to how he caves on votes and such, although it's good to have his voice there (even if it often serves only to obscure).
The key is to look at how they vote and what they do and how they trade off looking good on occasion. A real progressive would blow the lid off the capitalist and corporate scams, and always stand up for the people. That's why only a new and/or true, progressive or socialist party would fill the gap.
Good points.
I would say that how they vote doesn't mean anything. They all know ahead of time whether a bill is going to pass or not. If the leadership does not need their vote, they can then cast a meaningless protest vote to keep their progressive image looking nice and shiny. But what do they do when the leadership has to have their vote? They cave. They compromise. Beyond that, if members do go ahead and vote in opposition to the leadership they will be stripped of committee chairs and campaign funding.
It is also meaningless what a politician supposedly "is" or claims to "believe."
Agree. An occasional good vote when the results are predetermined isn't sufficient to be a progressive, especially when they when it comes time that the vote is meaningful (healthcare), they cave.
If they were really progressive, Democratic Progressives would work together for progressive causes, not just form a group, call it progressive, and act as individuals in voting. Recently, where were these "progressives" when the FBI raided peace activists in the Midwest, or when Israel recently executed a Turkish-American, illegally hijacked and took possession of an American flagged aid flotilla ship and kidnapped its members, or it was revealed an Israeli company was monitoring and collecting data on activists in Pennsylvania? When has the "progressive" wing really threatened mainsteam Democratic policies? Have they ever threatened to disrupt Congress, e.g, through delays and filibusters, to get a win? The Democratic Progressive wing wasn't formed just yesterday, what do they have to show for being so called progressive?
We need a regime CHANGE!
Stephanopoulos has it right--triangulation is “a fancy word for betrayal.” I'm sick of people talking about how he caved or is timid or confused. He has betrayed his base from the beginning, just as Clinton did.
Like how the Washington Generals "triangulate" to the Harlem Globetrotters every night.
"... just two years after Obama’s campaign of “hope” and “change,” there are troubling signs that the current president might be tempted to follow the same path as Clinton."
________________________________
I would have more confidence in the author if the above-quoted sentence had read, “... just two minutes after Obama launched his marketing award-winning campaign of 'hope' and 'change', there were troubling signs that the future president might be tempted to follow the same path as Clinton.”
Whether one dubs it "triangulating" or chooses a more elaborate geometrical shape to characterize Team Obama's duplicitious scheming and manipulation, Obama's reliance on an abysmal amoral, pseudo-pragmatic, machiavellian calculus of expediency was plain to see from the very beginning.
And Team Obama's rush to castle behind its right rook and stay there as soon as the primaries ended should have given away the game to anyone that wasn't already enthralled, bamboozled, or terminally naïve. Especially since Obama promptly filled his upcoming administration with wall-to-wall Clintonistas and fellow-traveling banksters.
Poor Engler is way too easy.
Well said. "enthralled, bamboozled, or terminally naïve". So many of these writers seem truly captured, too vested and willfully blind to see what you've stated so clearly. It proves Chris Hedges' declaration in "The Death of the Liberal Class".
The revolution will not be televised.
Obama is a Republican. Republicans realized that they wouldn't win in 2008 because of the Bush fiasco. So they did a flanking movement and put a Republican into the Democratic race. Of course he (Obama) had to pretend to be a Democrat in order to run as one. He was well practiced at posing as a Democrat because he had been doing that for many years. One has to wonder how long ago the Republicans began grooming this mole for the presidency!
I think all those insurance ads that feature cave men should hire Obama as he is the consummate cave man!
"Bombing and slaughtering. Is Obama a war criminal?"
Liberal pundit asks rhetorical question.
People will never be able to understand what Obama is doing so long as they don't understand what the entire party, and the liberals and progressives are doing and have been doing, and so long as they refuse to see that the Obama administration is the logical and inevitable outcome, the result of 40 years of "working within the system" and "taking over the party" and "speaking truth to power" and the rest of the liberal and progressive "middle class" program. The "betrayal" and "triangulating" themes are weak attempts at drawing a line between Obama and the "real" progressives, the "real" liberals, the "real" Democrats, in order to make sense of what the administration is doing without questioning the party, without questioning the premises an assumptions of its supporters and even of most of the dissenters who are scrambling around trying to come up with ways to salvage the whole mess, in their minds if nowhere else - third party, work for progressive candidates, etc.
"Obama [may be] imagining that moving right on trade would be politically beneficial." No, that's why he's doing this now, just after the election. He's hoping we'll forgive and forget by 2012. Right now, he's just doing the bidding of his real masters, the guys who will fund all the 'forgiving and forgetting' I just mentioned.
It's been Triangulation 2.0 unless I missed something.
"Tax cuts and trade: Is Obama triangulating?"
Of course he is, but with his neo-liberal/neo-conservative blinders on he refuses to grasp that he cannot continue to misgovern like it's 1996. Quantitative easing isn't going to currency inflate enough global asset bubbles for our criminal bankster speculators and hedge fund managers to "financialize" via derivatives to generate enough faux "economic growth" to mask the ongoing withering of the underlying real economy.
Too many countries' banks and economies are still reeling from the effects of the Housing Bubble implosion. Another big bubble implosion (or series of smaller bubble implosions) could lead to a domino effect of government defaults in smaller EU countries and elsewhere. This could threaten the obscene wealth of our criminal banksters and hedge fund vultures again and lead to their demands for another TARP handout and ever harsher "austerity." Similar demands will echo elsewhere. The international economy may still collapse into a full on 2nd Great Depression that could be much worse than the first one and lead to greater political chaos and extremism here and abroad.
This DINO (Democrat in name only) O Admin. makes me sick...
Right on, Donna, (comment 1). Back after the 2nd Bush-stolen Presidential election in 2004, I wrote up a piece about a proposed Voters Internet Party (VIP !), that would be progressive and not funded by any corporations or wealthy contributions. Now we seem to have two Repub Parties, both corporate, imperial and royalist-tyrant...
I believe Obama is doing exactly what he wants to do - be a Corporatist.....
if people view obama thru the lens of him being a "lefty" or even a "democrat" then his actions look cowardly or foolhardy.....
but if we view Obama thru the "he's a corporatist" lens then his actions make perfect sense.....
I agree.
This article, like so many others, wants us to focus on Obama and his administration. This is a huge mistake (or mislead).
You could argue that the Clinton administration conveniently "caved" to a republican dominated congress, but Obama is in the peculiar situation wherein he supposedly "caved" to the republican agenda while running for office and, subsequently, while he had two houses of congress clearly under the control of the democrats.
So, in fact, there was no caving by Obama. He, and the majorities of democrats in both houses of congress, ardently worked to only promote the corporate, militarized, unconstitutional agenda of corruption and deceit which they pretend to oppose.
Obama is only the front man for a corrupt government which is run by Wall Street for Wall Street. We now have a government where the politicians merely manage the "Human Resources" for the owners of this corporation of debauchery.
I give the Obama administration a Big Fat F MINUS MINUS on both trade and taxes. For trade, not only has Obama refused to revisit or cancel every one of those previous "free" trade deals from US-Canada and after but he is pushing for more in other nations. On taxes, nothing has been done to raise taxes on the wealthy/corporate elite or close the loopholes. Plus, this administration is no different from Congress or previous administrations in poorly spending the money for military and corporate welfare instead of on domestic social programs.
THIRD WORLD STATUS SYMBOLS
1) the leader must be able to lie and not admit to any faults at all for that is a sign of weakness and also speak elequently and smile like a college educated car salesman.
2) Bring other people in who lie as well as you or better (hard to do), will do as they are told and not ever question. Questions are grounds for termination. Not with prejudice yet but who knows?
3) Secrecy; This one is vital to the handling of whatever agenda the leader has in mind whether it be foreign or domestic.
4) The media, whatever form it might take, must be made to function as an arm of the leader and as a narcotic to the masses.
5) Lets get the masses in this for they do have a vital role to play. Someone must pay for what the leader wants. Is not this the way?
The masses are serfs because slavery is illegal at this time.
6) Make sure your base is taken care of for they share your values and the rewards accrued from the citizens/serfs by so many ways there aught to be a Noble Prize for it.
7) If perchance the serfs want a share of what they have been working hard for scare them into submission. Terrorism is out to get them and they need you to save them. The serfs must sacrifice! Freedom, money, self respect and anything else not nailed down.
8) Healthcare, retirement, schools, decent wages, not any particular order, all negotiable down if the leader or his base requires it after all the elite must be serviced!
9) Oxymoron: The loyal opposition, more loyal than opposition for they also realize that they might get what the serfs are paying for. Some throw crumbs to the serfs but not enough.
10) Elections, war: The first is a joke and a scam run by the leader and his base the serfs have nothing in mind for the narcotic works for elections and war! As for war though treat the troops as serfs (that’s where they come from!) for if they come back dead? Less to deal with. Wounded? Hide them and treat them only if forced to. War bad news is a no-no.
11) M-o-n-e-y: Sell the country’s assets to the highest bidder, after all it is not the leaders money or his lackeys money but the serfs money going. Sweet deal.
This is as far as I can go. My spleen is tapped out for the time being.
Tony
kayaker (12.13.10 12:28 PM), your post bears repeating:
Obama is a Republican. Republicans realized that they wouldn't win in 2008 because of the Bush fiasco. So they did a flanking movement and put a Republican into the Democratic race. Of course he (Obama) had to pretend to be a Democrat in order to run as one. He was well practiced at posing as a Democrat because he had been doing that for many years. One has to wonder how long ago the Republicans began grooming this mole for the presidency!
"And, on the hopeful side, the White House is now backpedaling, indicating that the story was overblown and Obama’s pre-midterms position hasn’t changed."
There was a person on my FB page that cited this yesterday and then she proceeded to blast anyone that wasn't supporting Obama because, you see, he's progressive after all, and would de-friend anyone who was not a "true progressive." Sometimes you read what people say and, well, they seem to have common sense, but then during the elections there were also a lot of nasty comments regarding people not voting Dems. In any case, just as a person like this has no time for me, I have no time for them. If one cannot be pleasant regarding the views of others, then why communicate with them in any medium? You can't reason with an O-bot.
I am not at all surprised by the backtrack, the clarification, the misunderstanding, or whatever name Team Obama is calling it these days. At this point anyone who takes Obama or any Obama mouthpiece at his or her word is a fool. He didn't have to cave in the first place. There is still a Dem majority. Triangulation isn't new as of Election Day 2010. It's been the name of the game since day one.
Obama... Bush whats the difference. Its like saying the civil war was about slavery and freedom. The reason Lincon wanted a united states was to take care of the rich industialists in the north. They needed that million tons of cotton to come north not over to england directly every year and by the way he felt blacks were a less than race. Wake up!
Stop paying taxes! quit paying these people. It does not matter who is in the white house. Who ever it is is worring about those who got them there and it is not the voters. We get swayed. Its a shell game. There is now conspiracy. No one person said lets keep them in the dark. It is how we would act in order to save our selves... right? We are either afraid we are not going to get what we want or lose what we have. I bought a house and lost a house. I'm glad its gone. We simply need to stop play not create another party only to be taken over by the rich again.
Simply put, Obama's continued political moves right off center
reveal his treasonous Blackmail by Blackberry. Big business
and its CEOs have his ear. They are constantly on the cellphone
with the Changeling-in-Chief. Kenneth Cole's top male model
Barry can't wag his tail fast enough drooling after the entreaties
and affectations of corporate America's big honchos. Compared
to Bill Clinton's pathological need to feel loved, Obama's
love of power has him caving in to the oligarchy's economic
agenda of ruin for We The People as they fatten up their wallets
and secure the rule of corporate feudalism. For those at the top
of the top 1% income bracket looking at the big picture
the Plutocracy's latest mascot Barry the Nobel Laureate
is still plenty useful.
O.K. So most of you here at C.D would like to see a new Party. I would agree that one is needed. You all basically have 3 choices: 1.) Start a new "Progressive Party" 2.)Get involved with a fledgling Party, The Green . or 3.)Take back Democratic Party.
Whatever everyone decides, we must do it as one. There is no power without the power of numbers. So what's it going to be folks? Talk or action?
We have a right to discussion here and if you don't like it, then buzz off.
There will never be only one way.
Joe
Obama must wonder why the South Koreans don't want to be free traders and let US cars in their markets or why the Chinese will not stop manipulating currency. Pundits say its because they don't respect the US because of its trade deficits. Partially true, these nations don't respect us but the core reason is different and so strange to this administration that they would have trouble recognizing it. These countries actually want to protect their manufacturing base and their workforce.