{"id":23711,"date":"2012-06-10T18:25:57","date_gmt":"2012-06-10T18:25:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=23711"},"modified":"2012-06-10T22:05:05","modified_gmt":"2012-06-10T22:05:05","slug":"23711","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=23711","title":{"rendered":"Obama\u2019s alliance with the left is an uneasy one"},"content":{"rendered":"

Obama\u2019s alliance with the left is an uneasy one<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

The Washington Post<\/a>
\n2012-06-09<\/p>\n

Peter Wallsten<\/strong><\/p>\n

President Obama bristles when he is the target of activist tactics he once used<\/em><\/p>\n

Barack Obama<\/a> entered the stately Roosevelt Room<\/a> and assumed his customary spot. Many of the nation\u2019s leading immigration advocates had been waiting for him inside the windowless meeting space in the West Wing<\/a>, eager to make their case. The president\u2019s reserved chair was situated at the center of the long conference table, its back slightly elevated, a gentle reminder of power, but this did not seem to intimidate the activists on that March afternoon in 2010.<\/p>\n

One after another, they spoke their minds, telling the president what he had done or not done that bothered them. They complained that a rising number of deportations on his watch were \u201cterrorizing\u201d Hispanic neighborhoods and tearing apart good families. They warned that he was losing credibility with a crucial constituency that had put its faith in him.<\/p>\n

Obama\u2019s body stiffened, according to several witnesses, and he started to argue with them. If they wanted meaningful change, he said, they should focus their pressure on the Republicans in Congress who opposed reform, not on him. He was with them but could only do so much. \u201cI am not a king,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

That night a group of Hispanic lawmakers came to the White House. They, too, were coming to talk about immigration, and after hearing about the earlier confrontation, the lawmakers were bracing for another argument. Instead, they encountered a president in a reflective mood, almost contrite.<\/p>\n

\u201cLook who I am,\u201d Obama said, as several guests recalled. He reminded them that as a black man he had experienced discrimination in his life and understood \u201cwhat it feels like for people to not be treated fairly.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

The variations in his demeanor that day and night illuminate the competing impulses of sympathy and frustration that have characterized Obama\u2019s relationship with liberal activist groups since he entered the White House. Their uneasy alliance has gone through three distinct phases, moving from great expectations to tense confrontations to pragmatic coexistence as the next election approaches. With Hispanics and gays \u2014 key liberal constituencies that moved early in Obama\u2019s tenure to openly challenge the Democratic president \u2014 the tension has mostly been about means more than ends, when<\/em> more than what<\/em>. The president\u2019s history, his temperament and style, his idealism vs. his ambition \u2014 all have come into play as he has responded to pressure from these two essential segments of his base…<\/p>\n

Read the entire article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Obama\u2019s alliance with the left is an uneasy one The Washington Post 2012-06-09 Peter Wallsten President Obama bristles when he is the target of activist tactics he once used Barack Obama entered the stately Roosevelt Room and assumed his customary spot. Many of the nation\u2019s leading immigration advocates had been waiting for him inside the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,63,6,26,20],"tags":[11050,2875,2581],"class_list":["post-23711","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-barack-obama","category-new-media","category-politics","category-usa","tag-peter-wallsten","tag-the-washington-post","tag-washington-post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23711","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23711"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23711\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23711"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23711"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23711"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}