Sunday, November 11, 2012

Do the election results indicate we need compromise?

At IPS Balder posted a link to this article. Following are my responses.

Obama is multiperspectival perhaps. But one with a multi view does not bargain with someone with a mono view who is unwilling to bargain at all. To do so only reinforces and enables the intransigent bully, to wit Obama's completely wasted efforts with the Republicans in his first 4 years. And comparing Rachel Maddow as an opposite equivalence to Ross Douthat is simply insane for the same reasons. Maddow, a gay woman who is one of those multi cross-culturals, is basing her opinions on such considerations. And oh yeah, facts.

I'm getting tired of this kind of so-called transpartisanship that thinks progressives need to compromise with racist, homophobic, fact and science-hating ignoramuses or we're considered one-sided and extremist. Obama won because he finally took the right side on progressive issues and quit the compromising with, as Ray Harris so wisely once said, what is not left or right but just plain wrong.


I just watched Fox News Sunday, as I often do to keep in touch with regressive rationalization. Ultraconservative talk show host Laura Ingraham was on this week and agreed with what I said above. She said as much in her earlier blog post of 11/9/12:

"When Barack Obama's Democrat party lost big in 2010, did he retreat from liberalism? No. On the contrary, he renewed his dedication to pursuing a progressive agenda--moving on gay marriage, partial amnesty, and the HHS mandate--and got those constituencies to show up at the polls.... Meanwhile, he nixed a deal to work with John Boehner, only to use GOP 'obstructionism' during campaign. All infuriatingly effective."

On the show this was in the context of the question: Do the election results indicate the need for more compromise in government? Ingraham says absolutely not. That Obama won by giving up on compromise and pursuing his progressive agenda, and he now has a mandate to continue that agenda. I rarely agree with Ingraham but she is right on this one.

She did also note that the conservatives must stick to their guns as well, not compromise on their principles. So as I also predicted we are in for much more obstuctionism in both the House and Senate, despite House speaker Boehner's bald-faced lie to the contrary.

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