THOUGHT EXPERIMENT: Nightmare Down The Road.

[Ken Burch]

It's 2012.

A Democratic president has been in office since 2009. This Democratic president has continued the Iraq War, continued the Afghan War, staged a coup against Hugo Chavez and thus reduced Venezuela to permanent "moderate"(I.E., conservative corporatist)rule.

The costs of these decisions have left no funds to carry out any meaningful Democratic or progressive domestic policy ideas. Cuts in social services have not been stopped, but have continued, and attacks on the morality and character of the poor have been left unchallenged in the name of "holding the center".

There was mild environmental protection and the weakest, most half-hearted defense of reproductive choice possible(coupled with denounciations of the "promiscuity" of poor women, especially poor women of color, FROM THE Administration and Democrats in Congress(who are in the minority again because all of the above decisions made sure that voters who should vote Democratic saw no reason in showing up to the polls in 2010 to do so.

The Democratic president announces plans to seek a second term.

Is there ANY good reason NOT to have a serious progressive primary challenge to this president?

Is there ANY good reason to even bother renominating this president, whoever it may be?

Discuss.

(Note:this is not aimed at ANY particular candidate, since this situation could, theory, befall any of them. So please, nobody should take this as "(YOUR CANDIDATE'S NAME HERE} bashing".

[Fovea]

1. No progressive challenge will be possible

short of insurrection, at that point.

[cali]

2. Why bother?

Seriously, this is something I can put off worrying about. There's enough bac crap in the here and now.

And yes, obviously that's not someone that liberals, progressives or anyone with a whit of sense should support.

[Ken Burch]

3. I started this discussion because I think we always have "short" and "long" term thinking.

I've always liked the First People tradition of trying to assess how each decision they make will affect the next seven generations.

[TheWraith]

4. But what if space aliens land? And then the sun turns into a giant lemon?

Seriously, do you think any of the stuff you outlined is more likely than that?

[Caretha]

5. Delete

[Ken Burch]

6. Actually, yes. If our leading candidates are talking about

not being out of Iraq before 2013, that let's face it, they'll be keeping the war going, and they'll be giving into the pressure to fight Iran as well and to try to force Latin America back to the right.

And all of the above WILL inevitably make progressive change at home impossible. Progressive change can't happen while social spending is being cut and the poor are being morally demonized.

[Stardust]

7. Hats off to you for forward thinking. Your scenario is perhaps plausible

and, Lord, we surely do need to prepare for all kinds of outcomes. In the present, though, I am almost paralyzed with discouraging events,

[TheWraith]

8. You're hearing what you want to hear.

If you'd actually looked at the context of the remarks they'd made, it had to do with guaranteeing all US troops out of Iraq, and their reservations had to do with maintaining an embassy and potential future targeted strikes on high-value targets. None of them has in any way hesitated to say that they would end the war, and to draw a line from that to "Democrats are going to invade Iran and Venezuela!" is blatant fearmongering of the worst kind.

[Ken Burch]

9. But I'm talking about what we do if our next Dem pres CAVES to PNAC

And those who want to style themselves as "Scoop Jackson Democrats" on foreign policy are likely to be a risk for such acts.

I assume you'd concede my point that those sorts of foreign policy choices would make it impossible for a Democratic president to have a non-Republican domestic policy, since the money for anything humane would be gone.

[TheWraith]

10. I don't conceed that your scenario is plausible in the least.

I think that the sun-as-lemon idea has more of a chance.

[Ken Burch]

11. If you want to live in denial, that's your call.

I'm just saying there is a real chance we could end up in a 1968 situation, with a discredited incumbent that won't get out of a clearly useless and failed war just out of fear of looking "weak". That could be ANY of our candidates.

Your contempt about this discussion is based on fear. Why do you fear looking at this? Why shouldn't we be prepared for this kind of situation?

Why SHOULD we "just trust them, they know best"?