What to do about Obama?

[Simon_Jester]

If I talk about a Tea Party 'revolution,' I damn well mean a violent overthrow of the government or something almost as sweeping (like the Color Revolutions). In a Marxist frame of reference you might call such a thing a 'counter-revolution,' or maybe some other such technical term for a drastic shift of the government to the right- but I think you see what I'm getting at if I do that.

But I won't use it that carelessly, although that's just me.

'Bush Revolution?' 'Obama Revolution?' Ha.

As I said, "To someone who's familiar with the history of real revolutions, I think the idea of a violent Tea Party revolution must seem like a bad joke."

[K. A. Pital]

I didn't mean you, but I do recall people abusing the word revolution in mass media. A lot.

[Ritterin Sophia]

Tea Party "revolution"?

American hyperbole. Where tax increases are class warfare and voting for someone who endorses only slightly less evil policies than the other side is considered 'morally responsible'.

[The Romulan Republic]

[

If you actually believed that rather than spouted it as some sort of axiom to give you credibility that would be nice.

I assure you, I am quite sincere.

Instead fucksticks like yourself continue to support Obama who is complicit in the continuation of all the Bush policies and even expanding them, that makes you complicit.

I am well aware of the negative implications of voting for Obama, and doing so is not a decision I would make lightly. However, I do not want to be responsible for, say, President Perry either. Bush is also not identical to Obama, no matter how often people like you spout that line.

If you actually believed that you have a responsibility to attempt to improve things you would not treat voting for third party nominees as 'throwing away' or 'protest' voting, instead you allow yourselves to be treated as guaranteed votes for candidates who don't actually represent your viewpoints because you're a bunch of cowardly twats.

I'm not automatically opposed to voting for third party candidates. Under other circumstances, it might be a very good idea. However, the current GOP is so fanatically far Right and the state of the country so precarious that I question the wisdom of taking that risk under the current situation.

Regardless, it is quite presumptuous of you to judge the sincerity of my beliefs, unless you've gained the ability to read minds.

Every vote for Obama is another vote for torture, government death squads, and more suicidal economic legislation.

Your opinion is noted.

[Dominus Atheos]

Tea Party "revolution"? *cries eyes out* Does anyone even use the term like that? As a revolutionary, I cringe when I hear that. In fact, "revolution" is one of the words that has been abused into meaninglessness in the American political language along with "socialism", etc. "Obama revolution", "Bush revolution", "Republican/Democratic revolution". Seriously? Uh...

Eh. Maybe it used to be defined differently, but now even most dictionaries agree with the definitions that you're decrying.

a : a sudden, radical, or complete change

b : a fundamental change in political organization; especially : the overthrow or renunciation of one government or ruler and the substitution of another by the governed

c : activity or movement designed to effect fundamental changes in the socioeconomic situation

d : a fundamental change in the way of thinking about or visualizing something : a change of paradigm <the Copernican revolution>

e : a changeover in use or preference especially in technology <the computer revolution> <the foreign car revolution>

[SirNitram]

A very unconvincing thread. I should feel shame for pushing for the guy who ended DADT, is pushing against DOMA, got 'prior medical conditions' thrown out for use in refusing medical care, REQUIRED insurance to cover reproductive care, hell, even got new banking regulations through law, even if the GOP has officially stated they won't fill the new agency unless it's weakened. This is fucking politics. Lesser of two evils is all you get unless you're a naive idealist.

[K. A. Pital]

...activity or movement designed to effect fundamental changes in the socioeconomic situation

The more you know! *eyes* I didn't know the noun revolution could be used to describe a revolutionary movement.

[Elfdart]

Having first-hand experience on how Rick Perry governs, Obama may be bad but Perry is so much worse.

That's not much of an endorsement: "Re-elect Obama in 2012 because Perry wants to break up the country"

[The Spartan]

It's okay Elfdart. Regardless of who you, or I, vote for you can sleep well that night knowing that your vote will still be cast for the regressive moron of the election.

I voted for Obama at the last election and actually felt a shiver of hopefulness. Then he demonstrated his lack of spine.

This time around, I'm seriously debating whether I should be taking the George Carlin stance on voting.

[Dominus Atheos]

...activity or movement designed to effect fundamental changes in the socioeconomic situation

The more you know! *eyes* I didn't know the noun revolution could be used to describe a revolutionary movement.

What the hell are you going on about? The Tea Party is an "activity or movement designed to effect fundamental changes in the socioeconomic situation".

[K. A. Pital]

...activity or movement designed to effect fundamental changes in the socioeconomic situation

The more you know! *eyes* I didn't know the noun revolution could be used to describe a revolutionary movement.

What the hell are you going on about? The Tea Party is an "activity or movement designed to effect fundamental changes in the socioeconomic situation".

I said that I didn't know the finer details of the meanings laid out in M-W, you start railing. Cool down.

[TheHammer]

Uranium nailed it. The fact of the matter is, you can cry about the Republicans but when the sitting Democrat president caves in constantly to them, enacts policies they would, engage in acts of torture, support corporations like they would and many other things that people here despise the Republicans for, then really how much better are the Democrats on a national level? The Tea Party problem is a potential spanner in a works but who knows where that will really go. There is no strong gaurentee they will even get to a position to take on Obama as president.

That's pretty much Hyperbole. There are vast differences in how the Obama has governed when compared to how a Repulican president would have governed. It seems far too many people think that getting "not everything we want" is equivalent to failure. That is not the case.

If people keep peddling myths about 'wasted votes' or 'protest votes' then they are fulfilling those myths themselves by constantly spreading them. If no one actually tries to make a third party viable then it wont be. I guess most here would like to be locked in as the political version of battered wives though. In the meantime the country will keep veering to the right, away from their treasured ideologies because their party knows they wont dare vote anything other than Democrat.

Its not a myth. Third parties, in their truest sense, aren't viable. They don't have the money or the organization to sustain themselves on the national level and they never will. The reason is simple, most people who grow up planning to go into politics are affiliated with either Republicans or Democrats. Third parties tend to spawn on specific issues that only a certain segment of the population care about, and they simply don't last. But as the tea party, and blue dog democrats showed there are in fact "third parties" within these larger political groups. Its hardly a lock stop unison as it might appear.

That's not to say that we have no choice in the matter. Party primaries are the time to "shake things up" and make your party fear the base. Granted, that doesn't generally happen with an incumbent president, but it can happen in the senate and house which is where the real roadblocks to progress are.

[Soontir C'boath]

Uranium nailed it. The fact of the matter is, you can cry about the Republicans but when the sitting Democrat president caves in constantly to them, enacts policies they would, engage in acts of torture, support corporations like they would and many other things that people here despise the Republicans for, then really how much better are the Democrats on a national level? The Tea Party problem is a potential spanner in a works but who knows where that will really go. There is no strong gaurentee they will even get to a position to take on Obama as president.

That's pretty much Hyperbole. There are vast differences in how the Obama has governed when compared to how a Repulican president would have governed. It seems far too many people think that getting "not everything we want" is equivalent to failure. That is not the case.

Yea, Republicans get most of what they want.

To truly gauge the issue, how many things have Obama gave the Democrats that they wanted compared to Republicans?

Frankly, it's more relevant to ask how much would a different Democratic President would've caved in or not to Republican demands than how much further a Republican President would have taken the country to.

Its not a myth. Third parties, in their truest sense, aren't viable. They don't have the money or the organization to sustain themselves on the national level and they never will. The reason is simple, most people who grow up planning to go into politics are affiliated with either Republicans or Democrats. Third parties tend to spawn on specific issues that only a certain segment of the population care about, and they simply don't last. But as the tea party, and blue dog democrats showed there are in fact "third parties" within these larger political groups. Its hardly a lock stop unison as it might appear.

That's not to say that we have no choice in the matter. Party primaries are the time to "shake things up" and make your party fear the base. Granted, that doesn't generally happen with an incumbent president, but it can happen in the senate and house which is where the real roadblocks to progress are.

Given the perception is that politics is moving further to the right, the possibility of a progressive left party springing up could still be created in answer for the chasm being made.

[Bakustra]

That's pretty much Hyperbole. There are vast differences in how the Obama has governed when compared to how a Repulican president would have governed. It seems far too many people think that getting "not everything we want" is equivalent to failure. That is not the case.

Take a look at what people are upset about. It's not that they're not getting everything that they want, it's that the leader that they supported and put into power is denigrating them at every turn and not actually giving them more than a few crumbs. He killed DADT. That's a program that was already dead in the water, with massive opposition. Maybe if he'd pushed for legal civil unions Obama could have been considered a forward-looking president on social issues.

Healthcare reform? He ensured that insurance companies can simply suck the life's-blood out of people through mandatory private insurance without significant cost controls on insurance as a whole, and he didn't provide sufficient regulatory oversight to keep private insurers from simply refusing to offer child insurance plans rather than allow children with pre-existing conditions to get a plan. Hell, one of the major contenders for the Republican nomination established an incredibly similar plan in his home state. Other members of the Republican party also proposed similar plans in the 90s and 00s. He has done some good things, sure, but he's brought in a lot of bad things by being as centrist as he can.

Its not a myth. Third parties, in their truest sense, aren't viable. They don't have the money or the organization to sustain themselves on the national level and they never will. The reason is simple, most people who grow up planning to go into politics are affiliated with either Republicans or Democrats. Third parties tend to spawn on specific issues that only a certain segment of the population care about, and they simply don't last. But as the tea party, and blue dog democrats showed there are in fact "third parties" within these larger political groups. Its hardly a lock stop unison as it might appear.

That's not to say that we have no choice in the matter. Party primaries are the time to "shake things up" and make your party fear the base. Granted, that doesn't generally happen with an incumbent president, but it can happen in the senate and house which is where the real roadblocks to progress are.

You're quite frankly wrong. The reasons that third parties are nonviable in the US are because of the way that our electoral system and our government are structured. We have a winner-take-all system of counting votes, and we have a presidential governmental system. As a result, only one party's votes count in a district, and the president is not dependent on the legislature for a continued government. Minority governments are practically encouraged in the US system. As a result, a third party could not serve as kingmaker, and in order to become viable, would need to displace one of the other two parties- being able to place a president in the White House and a majority in both House and Senate. But in order to get electoral and governmental reform, you'd need to force one through anyways, as the current power structure will not cooperate with attempts to destroy them.

[Thanas]

Here is an interesting rebuttal to the OP. link.

[SpaceMarine93]

I would probably agree with much of the criticisms about Obama already made in this forum. But if you think about it, he's not too bad.

While Obama had not done a good job fixing the economy, the GOP still adamently demand that the Fed deregulate the market even more than it already is, doing exactly the opposite thing that would had prevent the current Recession from happening again, and making the economy even more unstable in the next decade. And above all, I still couldn't see the Republicans putting forward any plans to fix the economy as it is now.

In terms of social policy, the Republicans are still not preferable compared to Obama. Just recently I heard that Republicans, in the light of the recent legalization of gay marriage in New York, is considering to push a Constitutional amendment denying homosexuals the right to exist in American society. And they base their whole reasoning on a 2000 year old religious book which preaches the fact insects had four legs, seven-headed dragons exists, donkeys can talk and Bats are birds. (No offense meant to Christians). If that's not introducing discrimination in the land of the free I don't know what is. And things are much worse in other areas of Republican Social policy.

And one of the hottest candidates for the GOP (for now) is a mad, loud-mouthed, slandering, christian-fundamentalist National Populist, Gov Rick Perry of Texas, who made unfounded accusations of treason to the Federal Government and Obama and is obviously even more dirty and aggressive than Palin in terms playing on the people's fears and anxiety in his bid for power. And above all, nowadays his tactics are considered normal, if not encouraged, in the GOP circle. And to this day none of the cowardly lot of the rational and moderate remnants of the GOP did anything to stop this trend.

Seriously, between Charybdis of the GOP and the Scylla of Obama and Democrats, I would go for Scylla. America might still last a few more years under Obama.

[Darth Wong]

People who would pursue "principles" without regard for the realistic outcomes of their actions are generally called "fanatics". Right here in this thread, we have people saying that they cannot vote for Obama because of their "progressive" principles, yet they know full well that:

1) A Republican victory in the election would be a catastrophe for the country.
2) It's fairy-tale fantasy to believe that a "true progressive" could get nominated and then go on to win the general election, in a country where 45% of the population still thinks evolution is a hoax.

Surely they must either be delusional or they must realize that a failure to support Obama would probably lead to a Republican victory. Therefore, it's time to acknowledge that people who say such things are acting as fanatics.

[Surlethe]

In line with the rebuttal Thanas posted, here's another, earlier argument by Nate Silver of 538:

Why Another Democrat Wouldn't Do Better Than Obama

You know that a president is having a rough time when you start to see speculation that his party would be better off if it replaced him on the ticket.

There has been more of this recently: the political scientist Matthew Dickinson argued that Democrats would improve their chances if Hillary Clinton defeated Barack Obama in a primary challenge. The astute Ed Morrissey of the blog Hot Air wondered if Democrats might benefit if Mr. Obama simply declined to run for a second term.

President Obama’s re-election bid is in quite a lot of trouble, with falling approval numbers and sour economic forecasts. But it’s probably mistaken to assume that those problems would just go away if Democrats replaced him with another candidate.

The evidence, if anything, points in the opposite direction: Mr. Obama is more popular than his policies, and probably gives the Democrats a better chance of maintaining the White House than another Democrat would. Three pieces of data to consider:

First, Mr. Obama’s personal favorability ratings — which continue to average about 50 percent — are considerably higher than his approval ratings, which are now around 40 percent. It’s not uncommon for favorability ratings to track a point or two ahead of approval ratings — but this is a particularly large gap. Voters remain reasonably sympathetic to Barack Obama, the person, even if they’re growing less and less thrilled with his performance.

Can Mr. Obama use that sympathy to persuade hesitant voters to give him another chance? Well, we’ll see. But usually when a party would be better off disposing of its incumbent, it’s because these numbers run in the opposite direction: the candidate has some personal liability that is overshadowing his policy positions. Textbook examples would include the former Republican Senator Jim Bunning of Kentucky, whose old age (and apparent symptoms of senility) concerned voters, or the retiring Nevada Senator John Ensign, who has been involved in a series of scandals. Mr. Obama, by contrast, is young and healthy and has probably had fewer scandals than any recent president.

The second statistic is Mr. Obama’s approval ratings which, although now rather poor, are no worse than you would probably expect from the sour mood of the country. In fact, for most of his first term, the opposite had been true. Based on the precedent established by past presidents, Mr. Obama’s approval ratings had been several points higher than they “should” have been based on questions about whether the country was headed in the right direction.

(graph)

Mr. Obama’s approval ratings have slipped now — but so has the national mood, with recent polls suggesting that only about 17 percent of Americans think the country is on the right track. (The number was closer to 30 percent two months ago.) Mr. Obama’s approval ratings, at 40 percent, may not win him re-election — but seem tolerable by comparison.

To be sure, an argument can be made that Mr. Obama himself bears some responsibility for the pessimistic national mood — particularly in recent weeks, as the latest decline in confidence seems to have as much to do with political as economic factors. If nothing else, Mr. Obama has failed so far to persuade voters that America’s best days are ahead of it.

Then again, approval numbers are down for essentially all incumbent politicians. Quite a few Americans have been tolerant of Mr. Obama’s performance despite their concerns about where the country is headed.

Finally, it’s worth recalling the last major election in which Mr. Obama wasn’t on the ballot: last November’s midterms, in which Democrats lost 63 seats in the House. Although Mr. Obama’s approval rating was middling at the time — about 45 percent — that’s a somewhat worse loss than would have been expected based on his approval ratings alone.

(graph)

The implicit assumption here, of course, is that another Democrat would not be able to shed Mr. Obama’s liabilities on the economy. Relatively few voters blame Mr. Obama personally for the performance of the economy — they’re simply sick and tired of the poor numbers all the same. Another Democratic candidate would not magically turn 9.2 percent unemployment into 5.2 percent unemployment.

Nor is it likely that another Democrat would advocate policy positions that differed substantially from Mr. Obama’s, which are very close to those of the typical Democrat in Congress. Few Democrats argued against the need for economic stimulus. The health care proposals advanced by Ms. Clinton and John Edwards during the 2008 campaign were not much different from Mr. Obama’s now-unpopular one. Few Democrats have any ideas about how to substantially reduce unemployment that could pass through the Republican Congress.

So the message would be mostly the same — but would be delivered by a Democrat who was probably no more effective a messenger than Mr. Obama, and who would lack the aesthetic and tactical advantages of being an incumbent president.

Instead, if Mr. Obama declined to run for a second term, Democrats would have to deal with questions about why their president had quit on the job, something which would be read as an admission of failure and which would make his record even harder to defend. The two most recent presidents who declined to run for another term while they were eligible for one, Harry Truman in 1952 and Lyndon B. Johnson in 1968, both saw their successors lose their elections despite a prosperous economy.

Certainly, Mr. Truman and Mr. Johnson had other concerns to deal with, like the Vietnam and Korean Wars. But Adlai Stevenson and Hubert Humphrey were attacked on those issues just as an incumbent might have been.

In other words, Obama is actually overperforming relative to the generic Democrat brand. Dump him, and your chances of winning the election go down.

[Dominus Atheos]

People who would pursue "principles" without regard for the realistic outcomes of their actions are generally called "fanatics".

Oh, is that the definition of fanatic? So pacifists who refuse to fight in a war are fanatics. And doctors who refuse to euthanize a patient are guilty of fanaticism. Also, black people who refuse to shop at stores owned by racists are doing so fanatically.

[Bakustra]

People who would pursue "principles" without regard for the realistic outcomes of their actions are generally called "fanatics". Right here in this thread, we have people saying that they cannot vote for Obama because of their "progressive" principles, yet they know full well that:

1) A Republican victory in the election would be a catastrophe for the country.
2) It's fairy-tale fantasy to believe that a "true progressive" could get nominated and then go on to win the general election, in a country where 45% of the population still thinks evolution is a hoax.

Surely they must either be delusional or they must realize that a failure to support Obama would probably lead to a Republican victory. Therefore, it's time to acknowledge that people who say such things are acting as fanatics.

Since I am one of the people you are calling out as a fanatic, I'd have to say that I disagree with both your premises. Firstly, the entire point of many people's posts was to show that the actual behavioral differences between the Obama administration (that is to say, the Democratic leadership) and the Republican leadership are limited, and thus a Republican victory would not be the doomsday that the Democratic leadership wants its rank-and-file to believe, or rather, that there will be doomsday if either party wins and things do not change.

As for your second premise, it presumes that a) an opinion on one issue informs all other issues reliably. This is easy to counter by pointing out that 60% of all Americans thought that the government should provide universal healthcare in 2009, and about the same number thought so in 2003. In fact, even greater majorities want universal health insurance period. There is far broader support for a variety of progressive/social democratic policies than your elitism leads you to believe.

But at a more fundamental level, there is the presumption that the goal of people who oppose Obama from the left is to establish control over the United States. I, at least, can say that my goal is to ensure that I get represented as someone on the fence between socialism and social democracy, and my former co-workers get represented as members of organized labor, and my other former co-workers get represented as laborers in general, and that centrists get represented, and conventional liberals, and greens, and women, and racial minorities, and sexual minorities, and conservatives, and libertarians, and the whole spectrum (barring groups opposed to participating in the democratic process, obviously) of political opinions gets representation, so that actual debate and actual discussion can take place, and people can make decisions based on what they believe, and what the people who elected them believe. I would love it if social democracy was expanded in the US, but I believe that in order to do that we need to fix our broken political system.

But what stands in the way is not a harmless organization- instead, we have seen Democratic and Republican leaders both making this country a worse place to live. I would counter that the only moral position to take is that of opposition to the leadership of both parties. Pretending that because one uses boogeymen on the right to get people to vote against their interests and then betray them anyways, it is therefore better is frankly ludicrous. Madness.

So, to put it another way, you perceive anybody who thinks that in order to get things done you need to work outside the framework as a fanatic. Well, I perceive anyone who looks at the problems of the system and thinks "well, if I just make clothespin votes, it will turn out okay!" to be, frankly, insane. The system is broken. It cannot be fixed while the current leadership holds the reins of power. It must be changed, and replaced.

In other words, Obama is actually overperforming relative to the generic Democrat brand. Dump him, and your chances of winning the election go down.

I don't get why people think that a primary challenge would work. The only times it's ever been tried, it's just handed the election to the other party, and it doesn't really replace the people calling the shots within the party. It basically assumes that the problems originated with Obama, and that they'd go away if Obama did. I guess that people just assume Obama is mind-controlling the whole DNC to comply with his orders or something.

[Surlethe]

In other words, Obama is actually overperforming relative to the generic Democrat brand. Dump him, and your chances of winning the election go down.

I don't get why people think that a primary challenge would work. The only times it's ever been tried, it's just handed the election to the other party, and it doesn't really replace the people calling the shots within the party. It basically assumes that the problems originated with Obama, and that they'd go away if Obama did. I guess that people just assume Obama is mind-controlling the whole DNC to comply with his orders or something.

Primarying works as a strategy, not a tactic. A single, one-off primary will likely throw the election. A primary challenge to too-conservative candidates every two years (hah, to-too-two), regardless of the electoral consequences, will pull the entire party to the left. It will also slowly replace the party elite with more liberal people if it continues over decades. That's how the far-right made the political dialogue this conservative in the first place.

[Bakustra]

Constant primaries only work if you can reasonably enter the elite in the first place. The Republican party shifted rightwards and became more aggressive because of the Reagan revolution and because of Newt Gingrich and his cohorts actively seeking to make it so. They didn't gain power by primary challenges, they got it because they were elected and then seized power within the House, in the process seriously damaging its operations.

In addition, this assumes that you can just enter the elite. I don't think that's possible for a leftist without compromising their ideals in some fashion, not with people like Rahm Emanuel in the upper echelons.

[Darth Wong]

People who would pursue "principles" without regard for the realistic outcomes of their actions are generally called "fanatics".

Oh, is that the definition of fanatic? So pacifists who refuse to fight in a war are fanatics. And doctors who refuse to euthanize a patient are guilty of fanaticism. Also, black people who refuse to shop at stores owned by racists are doing so fanatically.

What do you think are the realistic harmful outcomes of those actions? Do you truly not understand the point I was making?

Oh wait, I forgot: you're one of those idiots who thinks that we'd be better off if we let the Republicans destroy the country, so naturally, you'll desperately search for any justification to dismiss an argument against your fanatical behaviour.

[Soontir C'boath]

People who would pursue "principles" without regard for the realistic outcomes of their actions are generally called "fanatics".

Oh, is that the definition of fanatic? So pacifists who refuse to fight in a war are fanatics. And doctors who refuse to euthanize a patient are guilty of fanaticism. Also, black people who refuse to shop at stores owned by racists are doing so fanatically.

What do you think are the realistic harmful outcomes of those actions? Do you truly not understand the point I was making?

If the recent spate of articles here are to go by, probably not much. Obama doesn't have a Nader (yet anyway) nor is there an actual dangerous movement discouraging voters away from Obama to a different Democratic/third party candidate. So it's pretty hilarious, to me anyway, how you guys are all blowing it up like we're pretty damn important bloc to be swayed back.

I personally don't think my vote either way will do much in the election (even if I wasn't voting in NY) for Obama or to bring about a rise in a third-party contender now but not voting for Obama is what I think is the right choice for me and that is what I will do come November 2012.

[Uraniun235]

People who would pursue "principles" without regard for the realistic outcomes of their actions are generally called "fanatics". Right here in this thread, we have people saying that they cannot vote for Obama because of their "progressive" principles, yet they know full well that:

1) A Republican victory in the election would be a catastrophe for the country.
2) It's fairy-tale fantasy to believe that a "true progressive" could get nominated and then go on to win the general election, in a country where 45% of the population still thinks evolution is a hoax.

Surely they must either be delusional or they must realize that a failure to support Obama would probably lead to a Republican victory. Therefore, it's time to acknowledge that people who say such things are acting as fanatics.

I don't think a (highly unlikely) string of several Democratic administrations would be likely to do much (if any) better than the present administration; I think the party is too corrupt and beholden to the monied interests I despise in order to effect significant change, as well as being utterly unable to rally and present any greater message than "we're not the Republicans".

Meanwhile, the Republican party has mastered the art of totally blocking anything they don't want to get through Congress, even when they're the minority party in both houses, and of course their publicity machine is supremely adept at shaping the narrative among the public. In other words, the Republicans are likely to ruin the country regardless of who is in the White House. Besides which, I tend to assume that the general direction of this administration is pretty unsustainable as is, so the threat of "the Repubs will ruin the country" doesn't mean much to me when Democratic victory appears likely to be mostly the same thing over a longer period of time.



I've already admitted that my own defection is basically worthless in any larger sense; not only do I live in a state likely to go Democratic with or without me, but my state is not even particularly pivotal in the general election (and next to worthless in the primary). That said, I think people should be fully aware of the actions and policies they are signalling approval for when they vote for Obama next year, and I think they should be aware that they are playing into a Democratic strategy of "we can literally do whatever the fuck we want as long as we're at least one step to the left of the Republicans."