The Political Path for Progressives in the Face of Rabid Right-Wing Resistance

By Robert L. Borosage, Campaign for America's Future
Posted on June 28, 2010, Printed on June 30, 2010
http://www.alternet.org/story/147361/

“Change don’t come easy.”

Barely more than a year in office, the Obama presidency seems besieged. The oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, a worsening catastrophe, casts a haunting pall. A jobs bill, even when cribbed, is torpedoed by members of the president’s own party in Congress. Entrenched interests delay and dilute vital reforms. On the right, a furious reaction builds. Former Republican Speaker Newt Gingrich rallies conservatives against the “secular socialist Obama machine.” Pundits predict Republicans will benefit from their strategy of obstruction and make significant gains in the fall elections.

Will reaction block renewal? Will a politics of hate overcome the politics of hope? Will the Gulf oil disaster become a metaphor for government too incapacitated or too compromised to address the challenges we face?