Former Liberal Supporters of Obama Should Come Back to the Fold

As President Obama's 49th birthday approaches, I'm thinking about his presidency, the nastiness of politics, the increase in threats against a sitting U.S. President, and the widening divide across the country. I'm thinking about all the work that went into getting him elected and all the wounds this country has felt ever since.

Oh sure, Obama's a great orator. He says all the right things and he's not hard to look at, either. But for me, there's gotta be more to hold my interest - and my loyalty. I've gotta have substance and I believe with all my heart that there's plenty of that in Barack Obama.

Yes, I know. Some people think that supporters of President Obama drank the kool-aid and can't see the forest for the trees. This one's for them: President Obama has actually made decisions I disagreed with! I don't like FISA, the Patriot Act, Tim Geithner, Rahm Emanuel, or the way he "lets" the most egregious of Republican insults go by without a word. There are things he hasn't done that I don't like either: Guantanamo's not closed, our service men and women are not yet home from Iraq, we haven't repealed DADT, he didn't comment on the Gulf oil spill until the damage was horrendous, and he didn't fight for health care reform the way I wanted him to.

For the Republicans and Tea Baggers who don't like President Obama, I get it. At least for some of you, I get it. I get it that you don't think we should pay for more social programs, that people should take care of their own instead of depending upon the government. I get it that you believe business is the heart and soul of this country, and that you're worried our constitutional freedoms are being eroded. I know you believe we just want to take more and more of your hard-earned money to pay for the dead-beat who is too lazy to work and the illegal alien delivering her child in our hospitals. I don't share your perspective but I respect you and your beliefs.

For the Republicans and Tea Baggers who are too lazy to do their own homework, who don't know much of what it going on with our government and choose to let FAUX News keep you updated on what's going on instead - shame on you. If you actually believe a single word that comes out of the mouths of the Becks and the Limbaughs, the Angles, and the Bachmanns, or the Queen-T herself, Sara Palin - shame on you. Shame on you for succumbing to their fear techniques and buying their lies. Shame on you for allowing your own prejudices to be so easily manipulated. Shame on you for hiding your puritanical, racist, evangelical, elitist values behind the cloak of "freedom." You're the first on the protest line, carrying the biggest bullhorn, dressed in the most outlandish of Uncle Sam attire, demanding we tell the truth about what our commie-pinko-fascist-socialist agenda is really all about but you don't even have the balls to tell the truth about why you stand where you stand.

But I digress. Ahem.

The Tea Baggers and the Republicans have one plan and one plan only: block everything this administration tries to accomplish and then run for re-election on the platform that the Democrats haven't done anything. I'm actually grateful to them for being clear and consistent in their agenda.

It's my friends on the other side, the liberals and the progressives who I wish I could shake by the shoulders, pull a Cher in Moonstruck and say, "Snap out of it!!!!" Disenchanted liberals and progressives are leaving the flock and starting other, more progressive organizations. Independents are swearing to vote Republican. Libertarians and Green Party members want to vote out every incumbent out and start over with a clean slate.

The restlessness is palpable. What is happening here?

To my leftie friends, remember the early days of this presidency? Remember all the criticism Obama got for taking on too much, doing too many things? Remember how we gave each other high fives because Obama was so ON it? Now some of you are complaining that he hasn't done anything since he's been in office. Yet, the fact is, Obama has already accomplished more in his 18 months in office than Bush did in 8 years. That's not opinion, that's fact, one that can easily be verified with a simple Google inquiry.

Let's not forget the conditions Obama stepped into when he assumed office. The country on the brink of financial collapse. Soaring unemployment rates. Engaged in two wars. An auto industry that was failing. A racial divide as large as any we've seen since the '60s. And yet, the moment he was in office, he began working on all those problems PLUS the myriad of issues he promised during the campaign. On his first full day in office, he signed executive orders mandating the closure of Guantánamo Bay prison camp in one year, prohibiting extreme interrogation practices and revisiting military tribunals for suspected terrorists. On his next day of office, he signed the Lily Ledbetter bill into law giving equal rights to women and people of color. In his 2nd week of office, Obama signed into law the stimulus bill that gave 95% of Americans a tax break, and money to all states for unemployment and repairs to roads, bridges, schools, etc. What followed in his first 100 days of office are marked by the boldest intervention of government into the affairs of business since the Truman era.

There is NOTHING the President can do to make this entire country happy. Can anyone? You know that old saying, "you can't please everyone." Never were words more true than in Obama's case.

Those leftie friends of mine who gave up, who claim Obama is just more of Dubbya, are now on to bigger dreams. They're building new grassroots organizations, recruiting from the old grassroots organizations, and trying to whip up the same level of anger and frustration as our Republican friends. It doesn't look good on us and it smells funny, too. We can't compete. If there's one thing the Republicans are really, really good at, it's united fury. They don't have a platform, they don't have any ideas, and they don't have any good candidates, but lordy, lordy, they've got anger. And it wraps them up in one great big hate-fest snuggie. They're willing to use tactics we won't, and they know that about us, which is another reason we suck in the united fury department.

The Republicans don't do that. They just say "no" and get home in time for dinner.

But that's not stopping the disenchanted among us from trying it anyway. We've got our tried and true Democratic Party organizations. We've got Organizing for America. Now there's Change.org, Serve.gov, Volunteer Nation, the Coffee Party, Democracy Now, Democracy for America, Moveon.org, Courage Campaign, and countless others. Unless it's a special interest group (education, disability, LGBT, etc), why must we choose one over the other? Why can't we work together?

We fail to see that our factions are duplications rather than inventions which will come back to bite us at ballot time (can you say Nadar, Perot, or Kucinich?). We're so busy nitpicking with each other, analyzing this or that, intellectualizing a comment here, a comment there, and dissecting the president's every step, that we've compartmentalized ourselves to the point where we're in danger of becoming a moot point. We're not just angry with the Republicans or the President - we're angry with each other, evidenced by the amount of time we spend arguing about what the priorities are and how we should be going about dealing with them. We are passionaate people who live by the creed of "you're wrong and I'm right."

If you're one of those people who just can't accept less than perfect, or you're not happy until someone else is unhappy, shame on you, too.

WE'RE our own worst enemy.

This continued, systematic effort to dilute our greatest resource - the US in this grassroots movement - will be the death of us.

I keep remembering Obama's words during the campaign, when he said that he would always listen to us, and that we needed to change Washington so that our voices could be heard. He said we might not always like what he had to say, but he would always tell us the truth. I keep hearing the word "us".

Not "me", not "you", not "them" - but "US". That means each and every one of us - and Obama IS changing Washington by finding ways to best represent the majority's interest by way of the greater good.

Yes, I could choose to focus my energies on what hasn't been done. Or I can focus them on what has been accomplished and continue to press forward in that vein. I still believe that Obama is a good man who wants to do right by and for his country. I believe that he will tell us the truth when we ask him a question. And I believe that there are some decisions he will make that we will never make sense out of because we won't have (nor should we) all the information he has. But I haven't had a single second of regret over working to get him elected. I haven't even questioned it - not once. Not only was the alternative too hideous to contemplate, but he was and still remains, the clear and obvious choice to lead our country into its next defining period.

So join up with whatever cause you like. But please ask yourself whether your support of that organization is truly going to champion the issues who want to see brought to the forefront, whether they will elect the person who want to see in office, and whether they have enough clout / money / volunteers / know-how to make it happen this November. If they don't, what are you doing there?