Getting shit on by a donkey is only a little better than being shit on by an elephant
There's no longer any doubt in my mind that the Obama apologists are able to piss me off worse than the worst of the ideological Republicans. At least even the obvious grifters like Sarah Palin and Christine O'Donnell go through the trouble of pretending that they give a damn about their supporters' concerns and grievances. On our side of the aisle, a liberal who dares to find the Fourth Amendment and civil liberties and gay rights and not spilling our coffers toward blowing up brown people for increasingly obscure reasons worth more than writing down points on an arbitrary partisan scorecard gets a condescending lecture about how politics are complicated and how the President is really powerless to do anything (except when a Republican is in the White House, in which case it's more than fair to blame them completely for anything you want) at best or words like "shrill" and "self-righteous" and "unserious" thrown at them.
And then we get the likes of Mark Morford and Andrew Sullivan stomping their feet and screeching about how ungrateful and downright treasonous young liberal voters are and how, like Tinkerbell, Obama needs all the liberals to clap and cheer or he just loses all his powers and it's completely your fault - yes, even the fault of you, the minimum-wage fast food restaurant employee who takes night classes at the community college and can barely afford that studio apartment in the bad neighborhood - if he doesn't get anything done. After all, isn't it reasonable to ask who is truly responsible for the state of the country: the most popular President to enter the White House in at least over a decade, who had his political party completely in control of Congress, or you liberals, who have no authentic political representation unless you happen to be represented by the likes of Bernie Sanders or Dennis Kucinich? You should have clapped harder! You should have been more grateful for the scraps he was willing to throw off the table while the lobbyists weren't looking! After all, a plan for health care reform touted by the Republicans fifteen years ago and that suspiciously looks a lot like a health industry bailout is better than no reform at all. Let's talk about how Social Security didn't cover everyone at first, anything that keeps us from having to talk about how Obama did everything he could to kill the public option before it was even presented and how he broke his promise not to push an insurance mandate. Speaking of Social Security, I'm sure even my mother who works a job she hates for less and less reward can appreciate the inevitable blog post or article from Ezra Klein or "The Nation," explaining how even Democrats should agree that the welfare state is unsustainable and how expanding the retirement age is a sensible compromise all "serious" liberals can get behind.
Where was I? Oh yes, the Obama apologists, those determined scamps, who have to cling to Sarah Palin jokes because she's one of the few people out there on the national scene who can still make them feel intelligent and principled by comparison. They have been on my mind thanks to amateur punditry like this. Tell me, if I had quoted a politico-blog post years ago that said things like "Civil liberties aren’t worth much when al-Qaeda blows up the plane that you are riding on", wouldn't you have assumed that it was a defense of Bush's security state policies? But, no, it's a defense of Obama! And if that isn't convincing enough, one of the commenters states confidently that Obama deserves some slack, since the machines were brought under Bush! I have no doubt in my mind that if Bush had started internment camps for Muslims late in his last term, the same people would defend them on the basis that, if they're already paid for, Bush might as well use them. (I still can't believe this is an actual argument, although it does kind of capture the "partisanship over principles no matter what" attitude liberals and conservatives in this country indulge in so much it's become a universal given).
Of course, forgetting the rule about arguing on the Internet and the Special Olympics, I opened my big digital mouth. I wasn't expecting polite debate, but what happened instead was downright surreal; immediately I was accused of "drinking the kool aid" and it was insinuated that I was somehow, someway repressing everybody's right to free speech. I can get getting pissed off when liberals vow they won't vote Democratic - I don't agree, but I can understand it, given how politics are set up in this country and how insanely far on the right even mainstream Republicans have become (the joke now seems to be not so much that we have a 1.5 party system, but that today's Democrats are the Republicans circa 1993 while the Republicans are conservatives circa 1893). However, I honestly don't get the anger over just insinuating that maybe, possibly the Obama administration is just as susceptible to business interests as the majority of American politicians out there, that their policies are not ideal, and pointing out that, when it comes to the security state and civil liberties, Obama really hasn't been much of an improvement over Bush, if at all. Not too long ago I thought Glenn Greenwald, as much as he is my political boyfriend, was exaggerating a little when he argued that many Democrats and self-described progressives are exhibiting the same mindless and uncritical worship of the Great Leader that many conservatives showed toward Bush. Now, having seen these and other antics by Obama apologists, I'm convinced he was absolutely right.
Admittedly this post and similar posts I've been on Facebook were driven by alcohol in no small part but, seriously, I'm also feeling this emotion that could only be described as "sick-of-this-bullshit-ness." Since I'm sure there are many people out there who would call me "unserious" for not assuming that Obama is right and well-intentioned about everything, no matter what my personal principles tell me, I'll close on an "unserious" note by summing up my assessment of the Obama presidency and the behavior of his most devout defenders, using the words of one of my favorite Internet personalities: "It so fucking sucks it fucks; it so sucking fucks it sucks."
Sometimes "unserious" language is just the most succinct and poetic option.
And then we get the likes of Mark Morford and Andrew Sullivan stomping their feet and screeching about how ungrateful and downright treasonous young liberal voters are and how, like Tinkerbell, Obama needs all the liberals to clap and cheer or he just loses all his powers and it's completely your fault - yes, even the fault of you, the minimum-wage fast food restaurant employee who takes night classes at the community college and can barely afford that studio apartment in the bad neighborhood - if he doesn't get anything done. After all, isn't it reasonable to ask who is truly responsible for the state of the country: the most popular President to enter the White House in at least over a decade, who had his political party completely in control of Congress, or you liberals, who have no authentic political representation unless you happen to be represented by the likes of Bernie Sanders or Dennis Kucinich? You should have clapped harder! You should have been more grateful for the scraps he was willing to throw off the table while the lobbyists weren't looking! After all, a plan for health care reform touted by the Republicans fifteen years ago and that suspiciously looks a lot like a health industry bailout is better than no reform at all. Let's talk about how Social Security didn't cover everyone at first, anything that keeps us from having to talk about how Obama did everything he could to kill the public option before it was even presented and how he broke his promise not to push an insurance mandate. Speaking of Social Security, I'm sure even my mother who works a job she hates for less and less reward can appreciate the inevitable blog post or article from Ezra Klein or "The Nation," explaining how even Democrats should agree that the welfare state is unsustainable and how expanding the retirement age is a sensible compromise all "serious" liberals can get behind.
Where was I? Oh yes, the Obama apologists, those determined scamps, who have to cling to Sarah Palin jokes because she's one of the few people out there on the national scene who can still make them feel intelligent and principled by comparison. They have been on my mind thanks to amateur punditry like this. Tell me, if I had quoted a politico-blog post years ago that said things like "Civil liberties aren’t worth much when al-Qaeda blows up the plane that you are riding on", wouldn't you have assumed that it was a defense of Bush's security state policies? But, no, it's a defense of Obama! And if that isn't convincing enough, one of the commenters states confidently that Obama deserves some slack, since the machines were brought under Bush! I have no doubt in my mind that if Bush had started internment camps for Muslims late in his last term, the same people would defend them on the basis that, if they're already paid for, Bush might as well use them. (I still can't believe this is an actual argument, although it does kind of capture the "partisanship over principles no matter what" attitude liberals and conservatives in this country indulge in so much it's become a universal given).
Of course, forgetting the rule about arguing on the Internet and the Special Olympics, I opened my big digital mouth. I wasn't expecting polite debate, but what happened instead was downright surreal; immediately I was accused of "drinking the kool aid" and it was insinuated that I was somehow, someway repressing everybody's right to free speech. I can get getting pissed off when liberals vow they won't vote Democratic - I don't agree, but I can understand it, given how politics are set up in this country and how insanely far on the right even mainstream Republicans have become (the joke now seems to be not so much that we have a 1.5 party system, but that today's Democrats are the Republicans circa 1993 while the Republicans are conservatives circa 1893). However, I honestly don't get the anger over just insinuating that maybe, possibly the Obama administration is just as susceptible to business interests as the majority of American politicians out there, that their policies are not ideal, and pointing out that, when it comes to the security state and civil liberties, Obama really hasn't been much of an improvement over Bush, if at all. Not too long ago I thought Glenn Greenwald, as much as he is my political boyfriend, was exaggerating a little when he argued that many Democrats and self-described progressives are exhibiting the same mindless and uncritical worship of the Great Leader that many conservatives showed toward Bush. Now, having seen these and other antics by Obama apologists, I'm convinced he was absolutely right.
Admittedly this post and similar posts I've been on Facebook were driven by alcohol in no small part but, seriously, I'm also feeling this emotion that could only be described as "sick-of-this-bullshit-ness." Since I'm sure there are many people out there who would call me "unserious" for not assuming that Obama is right and well-intentioned about everything, no matter what my personal principles tell me, I'll close on an "unserious" note by summing up my assessment of the Obama presidency and the behavior of his most devout defenders, using the words of one of my favorite Internet personalities: "It so fucking sucks it fucks; it so sucking fucks it sucks."
Sometimes "unserious" language is just the most succinct and poetic option.