What Can Be Done?
Short answer - nothing by Dems in the next 2 years. Getting ready for 2012, by Dems and progressives alike, should be the plan. Markos says:
What has happened has happened. I'm less interested in talking about the ways the administration screwed up, than in what they're going to do about it in preparation of 2012. First thing's first -- stop bashing the base, or the professional left, or whatever liberal boogeymen pisses them off. Fact is, people who fall in those disaffected categories -- the young, blacks, Latinos -- don't read blogs, or watch Keith Olbermann, or read Firedoglake. But they are losing their jobs and their homes, and they see Wall Street get all manners of bailouts without any of it trickling down to them. That has killed us. Make their lives better, or (since nothing will happen with Boehner in the House) at least fight to make their lives better.
This isn't about throwing a bone to the base to make them happy, it's about doing the right thing for America -- fight for jobs, fight for opportunity, fight for equality under the law. Democrats believe that government can make people's lives better, so embrace and fight for that belief. If Democrats are in it to protect Goldman Sachs, they might as well flip to the other team.
(Emphasis supplied.) The next two years can't produce anything worthwhile in terms of policy (unless Obama decides to use the HAMP money for a HOLC.) Markos is right. Progress won't happen in the next two years. But avoiding exacerbating the problem is an attainable goal. And setting up the fight for what to do after 2012 is a must. The truth is Obama and the Dems probably won't do anything right in the next 2 years or 10, imo. But we can hope they do. In the meantime, progressives need to fight to shape the Dem Party. To me, that means fighting to get candidates who will fight for the right thing in 2012. Don't expect anything on policy in the next 2 years.
Speaking for me only
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