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By ANDREW LEVINE
http://counterpunch.org/levine07252011.html
The Obama presidency has been outstanding at one thing: ridding liberals of illusions about itself. It has also been good at undoing illusions about America’s duopoly party system and other undemocratic facets of our electoral politics. But the deepest reasons for the sorry state of the current political scene have yet to reach widespread awareness. In this respect, we are not much better off than we were back in the day when the Great Capitulator was still perceived as an agent of change – not for the worse, as he has surely been, but for the better.
In liberal quarters, where it had once been rampant, Obamamania is now a distant memory, having given way to profound disappointment. Recovering Obamaniacs understand that Obama is a spineless leader who talks out of both sides of his mouth, and that wherever his sympathies lie, in practice he is not on the peoples’ side. The fecklessness of the Democratic Party is also, by now, well understood: how could it be otherwise when Democrats and Republicans feed from the same trough and when, unlike Republicans, Democrats, when pushed, always cave and never fight?