In Defense of President Obama and 'Those' Democrats

[yallerdawg]

Trade dispute exposes House Democrats' turmoil, challenges

By ERICA WERNER, Associated Press

Congress' upheaval over trade has exposed turmoil within a House Democratic caucus that's grown smaller and more liberal in recent years as moderates have been ousted in successive election bloodlettings.

Those who remain must answer to ideologically driven voters and labor unions fighting their own battles for survival, even if it means sidelining their own leaders and humbling their president in the process.

The result is a minority caucus dominated by some of its most liberal members, leaving the few remaining centrists to question whether that will make it harder for their party to retake the seats they need to regain the House majority anytime in the next decade.

House Democrats celebrated earlier this month after they derailed Obama's bid for expedited trade negotiating authority by voting down a linked worker retraining program they long had supported. But now it looks like their victory may have been fleeting. Obama maneuvered with congressional Republicans to get the trade package back on track, clearing a key House hurdle Thursday and setting up make-or-break votes in the Senate in coming days.

The revival of the trade package inflamed labor unions and liberal groups that had fought ferociously to block it, including by running ads against otherwise friendly House Democrats and threatening to mount primary campaigns against them. Unions say past trade deals bled American jobs and tanked wages. They argue that granting Obama the power to finalize trade deals that Congress can accept or reject, but not amend, would lead to more of the same, including the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership the White House has worked on for years.

"Democrats who allowed the passage of fast-track authority for the job-killing TPP, should know that we will not lift a finger or raise a penny to protect you when you're attacked in 2016, we will encourage our progressive allies to join us in leaving you to rot, and we will actively search for opportunities to primary you with a real Democrat," Jim Dean, head of Democracy for America, said in a statement following Thursday's House vote.

It's the kind of vicious infighting that has characterized GOP politics since the tea party rose in 2010 and began trying to oust anyone who disagreed with its conservative tenets. Few believe that the fissures within the Democratic Party are as stark, noting that trade is an unusually divisive issue for the party. Yet leaders are openly alarmed at the internal conflict and are warning that Democrats must move on quickly to more harmonious topics — or possibly face even more election losses.

Just in case this seems all so familiar...

[djean111]

1. Oh, I see - if we do not want the TPA or TPP, if we do not want corporate control,

if we dare to demand that the people we elected listen to us - we are Tea Partiers.

Fuck that. Let's see - if the Tea Party wanted things so extreme that neither the GOP nor the Dems nor the president wanted them, that's bad. Yes, it is.

If some Dems don't want something that the GOP and the president want desperately, that's bad? Where is the logic in that.

Comes down to - if we don't just shut up and vote for the letter on the jersey, we are now Tea Partiers. Well, I guess I can be called a Tea Partier, I do not care, because I will not life a finger for or give a vote to Debbie Wasserman-NEW Democrat-DINO. I don't care if she has Beadazzled her entire wardrobe with "D"s.

Oh, and Hillary said she would have voted against Fast Track, although who knows at this point. Bernie is against the TPP/TPA. O'Malley is against the TPP/TPA. Gee, does the DNC know they have a slate of Tea Partiers? And what does anyone stand for, if not their ideology? Or is that handed out at picnics and rides on AF1, in a gift basket. "Here is what you stand for! Tell your constituents to STFU and keep sending money and voting for you!".

Sounds like they have enough votes in the Senate and are trying to control blow-back with shaming. Again, fuck that.

Maybe I should not post when pissed. But there ya go.

[yallerdawg]

2. Warning signs!

We've lost the House, the Senate, the Supreme Court, and most states!

What have we got to lose?

Just as the tea party wing of the Republican Party has pulled the entire GOP to the right and hampered attempts at compromise on Capitol Hill, some now fear a similar dynamic is taking shape on the left.

"The real question is, are we going to try to broaden our caucus," said Rep. Gerry Connolly of Virginia, who unlike most Democrats is an outspoken supporter of President Barack Obama's trade agenda. "That means listening more to some of these swing districts and suburban districts which have a different economic outlook."