Progressives are VERY Gloomy

From the progressive worldview, Robert Kuttner surveys the gloomy prospects:

Let's stop pretending. Barack Obama is a disaster as a crisis president. He has taken an economic collapse that was the result of Republican ideology and Republican policies, and made it the Democrats' fault. And the more that he is pummeled, the more he bends over.

If things proceed as they have been going, here is what's likely:

Republicans take both Houses in 2012. Obama may barely hold on to the presidency, in which case a continuing depression becomes even more of his responsibility and we have an eight-year Herbert Hoover that the Republicans can run against for a generation.

Alternatively, Obama loses in 2012, Republicans become the governing party, do incredible damage, but don't cure the depression. And there is a shot that a progressive Democrat wins in 2016.

We could be in for a period like the late 19th century, of festering economic and social problems, failed one-term presidencies, and partisan oscillation in Congress.

To be clear: I am not rooting for a wall-to-wall Republican win is 2012 on the faint hope that it will set the stage for a Democratic comeback for years later. I am too mindful of the pitiful slogan of German leftists in 1933 -- "After Hitler, Us." Palin is not Hitler, but there is never a good tactical reason to root for the far right.

Yet if we are to be spared an awful decade, both economically and politically, either Obama needs to grow a backbone; or some other Democrat could well challenge him in 2012. Either course will require the progressive community to stop crying in our beer and to get out and organize.