I blame Obama

I'm expecting a GOP win tonight -- and before it happens, I'd like to place the blame right where it belongs: With President Barack Obama. Other, better Democrats are (unfairly) judged by his example. He is, like it or not, the face of the Democratic party.

A lot of people don't like that face. And no, that reaction has nothing to do with the President's race.

It has everything to do with with the useful adjectival phrase "liberal interventionist."

That self-contradictory term describes one wing of the party. A liberal interventionist is a neocon who considers it useful and cute to keep a (D) next to his name. By whatever descriptor, we are talking about a form of "liberalism" that may may seem attractive in some parts of DC and New York City, but which, in the rest of the country, makes true liberals want to vomit.

We are sick of Nuland-esque games in Ukraine.

We are sick of secret backing for Al Qaeda-linked rebels in Syria.

We are sick of using the war against ISIS as a pretext for conducting a war on Assad.

We are sick of what's happening in Gitmo.

We are sick of allying with monsters in Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states.

We are sick of reflexive support for Israeli atrocities.

We are sick of saber rattling in Iran.

We are sick of covert support for the forces of reaction in Latin America.

We are sick of constant surveillance and eavesdropping.

We are sick of drone warfare.

We are sick of Afghanistan.

We are sick of trying to rationalize the behavior of a "Democrat" whose foreign policy is every bit as manipulative and repellant as anything George H.W. Bush might have come up with.

We are sick of war.

That said... 

I do believe that Obama has not been fully on board with the "liberal interventionist" (or neoconservative) program. The insider accounts we have received so far indicate that Obama has had to be manipulated, directed, and even tricked into some of these positions.

Obama did not, for example, commit to war against Syria in 2013, despite the enormous pressures to do so. And the fact that Israel seems genuinely to despise Obama gives us one excellent reason to admire him.

In the end, though, it does not matter whether this president treads the neocon path with enthusiasm or trepidation. It does not matter whether the path was his choice or his misfortune. In the end, his path is his path. He's on it, and liberals -- real liberals -- don't like it.

Had he been a different president, with a different foreign policy, Democrats would be much more eager to vote and to donate. Democrats would feel that they have a cause worth fighting for. In this campaign season, I did not give one dime to the Democratic party, despite many emails begging for money. I suspect that many of my readers were similarly ungenerous.

Millions of Americans despised what Dubya did to this country, and we feel that Obama gave us a continuation of Dubya's foreign policy. We want a true alternative. We want something to vote for.

I said "something" not "someone": There are, in fact, many good (or at least acceptable) people running for public office. To electrify the electorate, we need an idea -- a program to counter the twin sins of neoconservatism and neoliberalism.