Thread: Abandoning The Base (Barack Obama Turns His Back On Black America)

Abandoning the Base | American-Rattlesnake

One of the more remarkable aspects of President Obama’s political career – and this is not a novel observation on my part – is his inability or unwillingness to sacrifice political capital on behalf of his ostensible allies. A perfect illustration of the lack of reciprocity between Barack Obama and his putative friends is his relationship with organized labor. Despite the fact that he most likely would never have been elevated to high office were it not for the efforts – and millions of dollars in campaign contributions – of the Service Employees International Union and AFL-CIO, his assistance in the failed effort to recall Governor Scott Walker – Big Labor’s most prized agenda item apart from this year’s presidential election – consisted chiefly of a supportive tweet endorsing his Democratic opponent a few hours before Election Day.
What’s even more astounding is the length to which the commentariat, the Democratic establishment and other bastions of support will go in order to justify the tunnel vision of the President and his campaign advisors.*Public sector unions support Obama not for any altruistic motives – although their leadership does largely agree with the doctrinaire leftism espoused by Obama, above and beyond economic issues – but because theirs is a primarily transactional relationship; i.e. they expect him to reward their financial and political support by confiscating wealth from the private sector and redistributing it to their membership.
Yet despite the seemingly transparent nature of this political alliance – and the unstinting support labor unions have given to the President throughout his political career – he has not been willing to yield much of anything substantive in return for their support. Yes, he’s more than willing to employ the administrative state – such as the National Labor Relations Board – and use extraconstitutional measures – such as rewarding the UAW and defrauding bondholders through the massive auto bailout – in order to grease the palms of his union benefactors. However, he’s rarely willing to put his name and/or reputation on the line on behalf of his Big Labor allies, whether it means endorsing a doctrinaire leftist, union-supported challenger to Senator Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas two years ago or campaigning for the man nominated to take on the universal hate object of the left, Wisconsin governor Scott Walker...

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