1. Barack Obama himself bears a lot of responsibility for the survival and durability of the "government doesn't work" canard. as president, even when pushing for what was originally a major healthcare bill- before everything that mattered was taken out of it- Obama NEVER challenged the Reagan "governent is the problem" meme
Obama never stood up and gave the tough passionate speeches he COULD have given that reminded everyone of the positive things government has done-the fact that, in the Thirties, it was only the New Deal that saved the country from could easily have been widespread famine; the fact that in the Sixties, the Great Society programs, with their flaws-and they had many, the worst being that the poor were given no say on how the programs were designed and the programs emphasized monetary relief rather than the jobs programs the poor wanted, largely because the right wing of the labor movement didn't want a large number of black people entering the trades- that the Great Society programs made a major positive difference in the lives of tens of millions of people and would have made a far greater difference if only LBJ himself hadn't started cutting the programs back almost as soon as they were started, both to try and appease white backlash voters who bought the lie that the programs only helped black and brown people- in reality, most of the people helped by those programs were poor whites- and, after signing the half-a-bill form of the ACA that only contained measures that asked no sacrifice of the wealthy, Obama never toured the country defending the ACA, pointing out how many people it did help, and making the case for the voters to give it a chance. If Obama was going to push for something like the ACA, he had an obligation to challenge the right-wing "government is the problem" narrative. but he never did so.
2) Obama needs to apologize for the way the Obama movement, who were promised a real say in the strategy and policies of his administration, a real role in how the party was run, were ditched as soon as the votes came in, treated as though nothing he promised them mattered, that he owed them nothing, and that there only role was to hand out the say-nothing campaign materials the big donors approved of in the midterms. It was never reasonable to treat these young people, people who were given every reason to think they would have a real role, as if they weren't worth a damn-and the dismissive treatment they were given-what the hell did the Obama movement ever do to have Rahm Emanuel curse at them and make insulting comments like "there is no fucking 'base'"? In what universe is that a sensible approach to Democratic politics?-as if, after they were dissed to that indefensible degree, they still owed it to Obama and the party to work hard for the party and turn out for the midterms.
