There is no meritocracy: It’s just the 1 percent, and the game is rigged

[brooklynboy49]

13. I'm disappointed in Obama, but for different reasons

First of all let's get this out of the way -- I'm not a hater and recognize the political realities Obama had to deal with. I also recognize his accomplishments and, most of all, that we are immeasurably better off under an Obama presidency than we would have been under either a McCain or a Romney presidency.

Having said that, I did not support Obama in '08 because I felt he was naive. I didn't think he could implement the sweeping changes he was talking about making. No way, I thought, the McConnells and Boehners of the world would allow him to take any kind of significant steps toward leveling the playing field, to starting us on the road toward economic and social justice. I didn't think he had a snowball's chance in hell of getting anything meaningful done even when the Dems held majorities in both houses, too many Blue Dogs to contend with.

Boy, was I off base.

He didn't even TRY to implement the sweeping changes he was promising. After 30 years of Reaganomics and right center (or hard right) politics, I hoped against hope that I was wrong, that our time had finally come.

Then he made his back room deal with Big Pharma. And didn't even propose single player. No way the country was ready for it, no way it would have been enacted, but you propose it, goddammit, and let the thugs shoot it down. You at least get it into the national debate, get the populace at least superficially aware that such a system exists and is viable so that it's easier to get it done 5, 10 or 20 years down the road. Hell, at least you can negotiate down to a public option or, at the very worst, a Medicare buy-in.

IMO, health care "reform" was a fiasco.

And then he puts Social Security on the table WHEN IT WASN'T EVEN BEING SOUGHT BY THE OTHER SIDE.

Who taught this guy negotiating skills? Neville Chamberlain?

I haven't even scratched the surface in an attempt to make my point -- I thought he was naive in thinking he could fundamentally change Washington, change the rigged system. I was wrong. He wasn't an inept radical. He just wasn't a radical, period.

So much for our time has come.

Maybe it will in '16. But it won't if we nominate/elect Hillary. It'll be more of the same. The only chance we have of seeing economic and social justice in our time is a Sanders or Warren presidency. Anybody else = more of the same.