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Now that the Democrats have caved on raising taxes next year...
Let me digress for a moment.
There are people wondering right now how the Left put itself into a situation wherein they had to trade an extension of unemployment benefits (which the GOP was inclined to permit anyway) for no tax hikes and a temporary cut in payroll taxes and the Democrats backtracking on fully reinstituting the death tax. Well, it's like this: it's partially because campaign promises made when the economy is good are not always viable when the economy is bad. And it's partially because the recent election cycle has made a few Democrats more aware of their political mortality. And it's partially because Democratic politicians secretly agree that now is not the time to raise taxes on small businesses.
Yet it mostly ended up this way for the same reason that FISA passed despite the Left's best efforts: because the Democrats suck, and the Republicans don't.
But back to the matter at hand.
The question now switches to: What will the fallout be on the Left from this? Because there will be fallout; tax-raising was an integral part of the Democratic pseudo-populist message in 2008, and bizarrely there are quite a few true believers out there who are upset that the class war has been called off on account of gutlessness. At a minimum, there will be renewed pressure on the administration for movement on virtually every other pet cause of the progressive coalition; the fallout from that might (emphasis on might) breathe some life into what have been up to now pro forma calls for a primary challenge from Obama's left. This may be harder to bring off than progressives expect; the administration has been busy making certain that others do not do unto Obama in 2012 what he did unto Hillary Clinton in 2008. But there may be an effort.
But what may be most important here: this set of events could be the final blow to the Myth of the Lightworker. It is the (admittedly, sometimes sour) assessment of the Right that the race in 2008 was not so much an election as it was the triumphal procession of Obama to Washington while--appropriately enough, on several levels--being borne on an ass. If the 2010 election cycle was about convincing independent voters that yea, indeed, the President was a mere mortal, then possibly the lame duck period will be about finally making it clear to his base supporters that they have placed their trust in someone who made promises he could not keep.
I do not suggest that this will lead to anything resembling a moment of clarity for Lefty pundits or activists. For example: if you look at this quick NYT roundtable you will see a lot of calls for the President to be things that he's never actually been and doesn't actually know how to be, like resolute, or confrontational, or visionary. But that's all right, because the Right isn't responsible for fixing the President's inability to lead. All we have to care about is making sure that the Democrats cause as little damage to America's economy, foreign policy, and domestic infrastructure as possible for the next two years, which is the amount of time that we have to wait before we can give the voters another chance to put adults in charge of the government. Having a fuming, incoherent, and deeply suspicious Democratic base during that time period will be quite helpful, thanks.
