I have to think that President Obama really wants to be remembered as one of the great presidents, like FDR or Lincoln. (Don’t say Reagan, because that would just be silly.) I just don’t know if he thinks big enough. But whatever his motivations or limitations may be, we simply cannot allow ourselves to be confined by them. What America needs is a healthy dose of movement politics – the kind that brought us the five day work week, earned black people the vote, and brought the Vietnam war to an end. It’s the only way fundamental change happens, and we had best start facing that fact.

That is something the late great Howard Zinn understood. (Very sorry to hear of his passing this week.) And it’s something that gets repeated frequently in these strange days when the closest thing we have to a national progressive party behaves like a timid opposition even while it enjoys the largest majorities it has seen in Congress since the Watergate era. One can, with some justification, fault Obama with being too conciliatory, to modest in his ambitions, too willing to reach out to the other side (particularly in the knowledge that they will be satisfied only with his – and our – complete failure). But Congressional Democrats, by and large, are perhaps the most timid creatures ever to cast a shadow. Sure, there are the Graysons, the Kucinichs, the Sanders (and by each of these I really mean there is only one), but the main body of the caucus in either house is completely cowed by the opposition.

Whether or not Obama is serious about making positive change, he should understand one thing: the Republican party, particularly those in Congress, will not support him no matter what he does. He could adopt all of their positions (instead of just many of them) and they will still work to destroy him politically. That is their clear objective, whatever noises they make for the cameras and microphones. From a political standpoint, I don’t blame Obama for addressing the G.O.P. retreat this week and taking their questions. I think he should call them out, and we did see a little bit of that today. But if he seriously thinks that they are going to work with him on anything substantive, he is smoking crack. He would be well-advised to start appealing to his base, a.k.a. the people who got him elected, and use his considerable rhetorical gifts to articulate a more progressive vision of governance.

Of course, he won’t… unless we really push him. Now would be a good time to start, folks.

luv u,

jp