However they felt about Barack Obama’s presidential campaign two years ago, activists on the Left agreed about one thing: any real gains to be made under an Obama presidency would depend on pressure from the grassroots after the voting was over. Unfortunately this consensus did not actually lead to such a mobilization. Major labor unions descended into embarrassing conflicts with each other instead of seriously fighting for labor law reform. Mass movements against war and for immigrant rights lost their ability to put people in the street, and the massive outpouring of democratic hopes that dealt the Republicans their soundest defeat in generations was channeled into little more than fundraising spam emails from DC. The first few months of the disappointing Obama administration could hardly surprise anyone familiar with the words of Frederick Douglass—lacking demand, power conceded very little indeed.
Meanwhile, the national debate around a package of minor adjustments to the country’s broken healthcare system brought an ugly plot twist to contemporary politics. It remained true that pressure and mobilization would shape the Obama’s legislative agenda—but the only political actor to show up in force for the fight was the Right.
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