After a week of tragedy
Progressives who are not policy wonks all seem to want to be.
It’s true, perhaps, that Barack Obama’s campaign oversold what his election would mean for the country. Some of the leftiest of the left now hold the man in near contempt for failing to fulfill their fantasies of a progressive nirvana.
Obama was not left enough for them. Too timid. Too tied to the financial industry. They could have done more in his shoes — would have done more — if they’d been sitting at the Resolute Desk.
Most of them are white.
Other white people (and one very spray-tanned one) had a very different idea of what Obama’s presdidency meant for the country. Many of them own revile immigrants and brown people. They own AR-15s and speak of civil war. Some do more than play soldier. Some attempted the overthrow of the government. Some commit mass murder. They want to take back their country. Their country. The people they want to take it back from look like Obama or supported him and what he represents.
Policy successes and failures aside, Obama’s election 40 years after Martin Luther King’s assassination represented an important milestone in the quest for a more inclusive union. Obama reflects this morning on that legacy.
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