December 8. 2011--Four More Years?

This is directed mainly at my fellow liberals.

Let's assume Barack Obama is reelected. We would welcome that, right? We know he is far from perfect, that he was too prone to cave in to the demands of the Republicans who vowed from his first day in office to do everything possible to assure he fails, and we also admit to ourselves that he didn't take on enough of our political agenda to make us feel enthusiastic about his first term.

But the alternative--the prospect of John McCain ("Bomb-bomb-bomb, bomb Iran") and Sarah Palin in the White House during these complex and perilous times is enough to make even centrist Democrats feel pretty good about the last three years. Or at least the first two years of Obama's presidency when Democrats controlled both houses of Congress and some useful things were accomplished--a deeply-flawed health care bill was passed, some new regulations for the financial industry were put in place, there was finally the end of don't-ask-don't-tell, the withdrawal of American troops from Iraq was accomplished, a half-successful stimulus bill helped our deeply-wounded economy, and among other things GM and Chrysler were rescued and are now thriving.

Above all, Obama will go down in history for helping prevent the U.S. economy from plummeting into another Great Depression.

From the last year, however, with Republicans in effective control of all of Congress, we can get a glimpse of how four more years of the Obama administration would look.

Budget gridlock above all is what we could expect. The GOP will assure that the wealthiest are protected at the expense of the poor and middle class. And they will do nothing serious except fulminate about reducing the deficit that they have been fully complicitious in amassing.

Little mentioned when there is talk about letting the Bush tax cuts expire is the fact that most of the actual money redistributed by it to taxpayers goes to the bottom 95 percent. Yes, the top earners are disproportionately catered to, but there are a lot of tax benefits larded into the Bush era tax codes that in absolute dollar terms (as opposed to the average benefits to individuals) go to the rest of us.

Thus, letting it expire would be particularly hard on the middle class. Someone earning $1.0 million a year could absorb the additional $50,000 hit better than someone earning $75,000 could handle paying another couple of thousand dollars in taxes. So, with Obama, or anyone else in the White House, and with Republicans committed to protecting millionaires, the fate of how middle class Americans would fare at tax time is inexorably and politically linked to how the wealthiest are sheltered.

For progressives, who see government playing a significant role in protecting the most vulnerable citizens while doing what they can to assure the game of life is less rigged and thus fairer, having a functioning government is essential. Republicans, conservatives, on the other hand, win when government, as now, is dysfunctional since they want to eliminate much of it.

I am sad to say, since there is no chance that Democrats will retake control of the House and win 60 seats in the Senate (to make it filibuster proof), during the next four years, with Obama still president, we will see the same kind of governmental sabotage as at present.

Some of this is ideological but much of it, a great deal of it, is personal. There is no other way to put it--congressional Republicans and their media and financial enablers despise Obama because of his very being. Thus the on-going compulsion to invalidate him, to turn him into a literal alien. And worse.

Since we desperately need to get important things done in order to keep economic and social Armageddon at bay, as a patriot who cares deeply about his country, the country that offered him so many opportunities, which through his smarts and hard work he turned into a remarkably life and career, Barack Obama should stand down and not seek reelection.

He could justly claim that he had an historic term in office but recognizes the fact that the Republicans are so willfully intransigent and obstructionist--even at the expense of the people they are sworn to represent--that they will continue to block any initiative of his, even those that they themselves at other times endorsed. In the face of this, he should consider saying, so much needs to occur during the next four years that he is stepping aside so that another Democrat can be elected to lead the country.

Hillary Clinton or Joe Biden would quickly emerge as candidates who could not only win the nomination but also the presidency. Both are much better at working with Republicans in Congress than Obama and thus could accomplish at least a few essential things. That is just the truth.

Fairly or not this is where things stand. We do not have a continental system where the prime minister by definition commands a parliamentary majority and thereby can enact his or her agenda. In the absence of that, for the sake of all of us, especially the future of America, we have to accept the unpleasant reality that Republicans will never allow Obama to succeed, even during a second term knowing he would not be able to seek a third. We need to stifle our frustration and appropriate sense of outrage at this and move on. We need somehow to get big things done. Desperately.