Andrew Sabl lays out the progressive fracture points using three different polarities that amplify the point that I was making in my earlier post on this subject. The first is idealist vs. pragmatist. the second two relate more to the point that I was trying to make about short-term and long-term:
2. Civic republicans vs. non-republican liberals. Civic republicanism (small “r,” of course) is an awkward label for a common position: that the fundamental issue of our time is the ability of the rich, and corporations, to game the political system and prevent the rest of us from exerting true self-governance. (Roger Hodge’s The Mendacity of Hope, which I haven’t read yet, sounds from what I’ve heard like a pure instance of this view. Richard Trumka’s angry statement opposing the deal, with its stress on income inequality and “moneyed interests,” is, perhaps surprisingly, another instance.) In contrast, a non-republican liberal position is that giving material sustenance to the poor is more important than whether the rich get paid off, however regrettable and undeserved that is. Randi Rhoads has been pushing this position hard on her show and her blog. And Obama has explicitly taken it as well.
3. Immediate results people vs. repeated game players. Many of the deal’s supporters (Steve Benen, Ed Kilgore) have started to ask opponents what they propose as the next move if it’s voted down. We opponents, frankly, don’t have a great answer so much as a different question: how can we change baseline expectations so as to achieve progressive outcomes in future negotiations? Everybody, of course, thinks that both the short and the long term are important to some degree. But the deal’s supporters largely rely on the argument that results now are very important, either because in a recession those who lose benefits will face great and immediate hardship (see James), or because stimulus now will crucially boost Democratic prospects in 2012 (which is, to fill in the minor premise, an unusually important election because of the Affordable Care Act). Most of the policy wonks, by the way, are lining up behind the deal because their professional deformation is to solve the immediate problem rather than looking at the future negotiating situation it sets up. As professional biases go, this one’s honorable and functional—but still a bias.
I'm not sure what "non-republican liberal" means (in an update he renames this type "welfarist liberals"), but it and the "immediate results people" are the the essence of what I described as the short-term, small picture 'pragmatic progressives' in my first post on this subject, and it clearly describes what Obama is. And I think that it's at the heart of his confusion and why he doesn't understand why what I call 'structuralist progressives' are giving him a hard time. He thinks he's fighting the good fight on behalf of the poor and the middle class, and in a way he is. The problem lies in that his efforts are killing us long-term because they are ceding too much poltical infrastructure to the superwealthy, and that's not something they are going to give back without a fight.
Sabl's point, however, is to remind us that we are all on the same side:
BUT we have to remember something. Both sides of these debates have immeasurably more in common with each other than with the Republicans—who want to sabotage Democrats tactically and also destroy them ideologically; dislike the welfare state passionately and on principle while wanting as a matter of principle and practice to give the rich and corporations more money and power, not less; and are excellent players, on the oligarchical side, of both one-shot and repeated games.
As a progressive subsidiarist, I'm not crazy about Obama's top-down "welfarist pragmatism", but I'd feel a lot better about it if I thought he had a long-term game plan. Because he doesn't, I see him as unwittingly colluding with the long-term destruction of the broader progressive cause. And if he doesn't see that as a problem, somebody better educate him, because while six more years of him is better than the alternative, it will be six more years of steady erosion.
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