A Splash of Cold Water

Glenn Greenwald's blog is regular reading around here, and hopefully it is with you as well. Today's post is insightful about why an Obama victory is desirable, but not ultimately that exciting to me.

I honestly don't know of any "progressive bloggers" who blindly support Democrats. I think the strategy of the blogosphere has always been two-pronged -- (1) remove the hideous right-wing beast from power and (2) change the Democratic Party in order to make step (1) worth doing. Those are EQUALLY IMPORTANT goals.

Step (1) is merely a pre-requisite (an absolute one) to achieving anything worthwhile. But without step (2), step (1) is mostly (though not entirely) worthless, because the Democratic Party as currently constituted at its core is a wretched and status-quo-perpetuating institution. If those who spent the last eight years vigorously opposing the radicalism, militarism, and anti-constitutional abuses of the Bush administration fail to oppose the Democratic leadership with equal fervor when they violate the same principles -- as they inevitably will -- then the humiliation of the Right and its removal from power will be emotionally satisfying, perfectly just, and a very mild improvement, but will ensure the continuation rather than the termination of most of the worst abuses of this government.

I want to be clear, I am voting for Obama, I have donated money to his campaign. I want him to win. But Greenwald is right, and my gut tells me that with Obama we are getting a huge step up from Bush, but a lot of the excesses of the Bush Administration aren't going away soon.