I hated to see it happen to the Democrats.

But they deserved it.

Obama deserved it. He didn’t even try to do what he promised. He asked for a quarter of a loaf when he could have owned the bakery.

What was he thinking of? Wall Street lay prostrate at his feet and he exacted no price whatever to prop those insolvent financial institutions up. It boggles the mind. Executives who should be going to jail are now getting hundreds of millions in bonuses, courtesy of the taxpayers. It’s no wonder that people are outraged. The Democrats are lucky they weren’t tarred and feathered.

I even hated to see blue dogs Taylor and Childers lose to Robo-Republicans, but they both were Republicans in everything but name, so why elect a wolf in sheep’s clothing when you can get the unvarnished wolf, all ready to devour?

The people elected the Democrats to put things right, and they failed. Hell, they barely tried. They are a sorry lot, beholden to big money but claiming to represent all the people, not just the people of Wall Street.

This was not a defeat for progressives, ostracized from the administration (read Chief-of-staff Emmanuel and Attorney General Holder for starters) and their policy suggestions ignored once Obama actually came into office. Their remedies were never even tried.

There is a glimmer of hope: maybe, just maybe, Obama will realize that his idea of bipartisanship will never work with contemporary Republicans, whose idea of bipartisanship consists solely of doing their bidding. Reasonableness is weakness to them and there’s simply no dealing with them rationally, just as there is no reasoning with a bully on the school ground. Obama must stop trying to be nice and bipartisan. It didn’t work and most savvy politicians could have told him that from the beginning. I believe he knows what needs to be done; he just needs to push, hard.


Rabbi Michael Lerner has some words of wisdom for progressives on the Huffington Post I suggest you read.