Barack Obama VS Those Craaaazy Republicans: Is He the Lesser Evil, or the More Effective Evil?

The last refuge of Obamaphiles is that no matter how many times the First Black President double-crosses us by cutting Medicare and Medicaid, no matter how completely he betrays his voters and us by ignoring black unemployment, by deporting one million Latinos, by protecting the banksters responsible for the foreclosure crisis and by invading, bombing, occupying and subverting even more countries than the Cheney-Bush regime, his white supremacist tea party opponents are far worse. But what if Democrat Barack and the Republican tea partyers are just playing different positions on the same team?

praise the war in Iraq and endorse the Cheney-Bush “surge” [7]. It explains why candidate Obama, after promising (but mostly only before labor audiences) to renegotiate NAFTA, walk a picket line and pass legislation that would make more unionization possible, president Obama pushed to extend “free trade” agreements everywhere, cracked down on federal workers, demonized teacher unions and more. It explains why Obama literally claims to walk in Martin Luther King’s footsteps when it suits him — on the campaign trail he declared himself “Joshua” [8] to Dr. King’s “Moses” — but manages to ignore black unemployment and mass incarceration, the wave of foreclosures which are inordinately concentrated among nonwhite households, and maintains the US position as in King’s words “…the number one purveyor of violence in the world today.”

“Only the First Black President could have disbanded the peace movement and rolled into town promising to “cut entitlements” without provoking a firestorm of protest.”

The 2012 Republican presidential candidates are indeed different from most (but not all) Democrats. They are intolerant religious zealots and Dominionists. They are anti-Muslim and anti-gay bigots, and open white supremacists. Their debate audiences raucously cheer the prospect of more executions and the undeserving poor dying for lack of medical care. But these are all about cultural, not policy differences. What Republicans call “Obamacare” is the same insurance company boondoggle governor Mitt Romney imposed on Massachusetts in the 1990s, and the poor are indeed still dying for lack of care in Massachusetts. The rhetoric Republican candidates use to round up and corral their base voters should not be confused with Republican policy objectives.

Since the forces financing Republicans are the same as those financing Democrats the directors of US political theater have the power to play games with us. For them, Obama is the preferable alternative. Only the First Black President could have disbanded the peace movement and rolled into town promising to “cut entitlements” without provoking a firestorm of protest. Only the First Black President could have accepted a Nobel Peace Prize with a war speech, and invaded an African country without millions of protesters in the street worldwide. Only the First Black President with a strong Democratic majority in Congress could have resumed offshore drilling after the Gulf BP disaster, and blocked any new regulation on the oil industry. Only the First Black President could have given GM back to its managers after sticking the unions with its underfunded health care and pension load. Only candidate Obama could have come in off the campaign trail in September 2008 to whip Democratic votes in the Democrat-dominated congress for the $3 trillion Bush bailout, and only the First black President could have quintupled down on that bailout, giving the banksters $15 trillion more once in office.

personal [9] (but not institutional) racism among Republican candidates and supporters. Like in any production, every actor has a job to do, and everybody does their job.

When Republicans invade new countries, global public opinion can put millions worldwide in protest demonstrations in the street. When Democrats invade, there are no demonstrations. When Republicans propose social security, Medicare and Medicaid cuts, and try to regulate unions out of existence, public outcries and near general-strike situations loom. When Democrats do the same, all is quiet. Republicans could not even pass their own bailout bills with a Republican in the White House. So between bigoted, bumbling tea party Republicans, and level-headed, competent corporate Democrats, which is the greater evil? And which is the more effective evil?

Bruce Dixon is managing editor at Black Agenda Report and based in Marietta GA, were he is one of the principals in an internet technology partnership and a state committee member in the Georgia Green Party. He can be reached at bruce.dixon@blackagendareport.com.

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