This year has been very frustrating for many progressives. The president in whom many progressives placed so much hope, probably too much, proved himself to be largely a disappointment. Some of the most significant legislation for which President Obama can claim credit during 2010, including the health care reform bill and the recent tax legislation emerged from compromises in which Republicans clearly got a lot more than progressives. President Obama, almost literally, frequently added insult to progressive injury by rhetorically attacking not the conservative Republicans who have sought to destroy Obama since the day he took office, but progressives who have expressed disappointment in his compromises.
The election in November further discouraged progressives as Republican control of the House of Representatives beginning in January will all but assure that no truly significant progressive legislation will come out of Washington anytime soon. It was not only the degree of the Republican victory, but the nature of the victory which saw the further consolidation of the Tea Party as the dominant faction of the Republican Party. The acceptance of bizarre assertions that the president is a socialist, and perhaps not even a citizen, become accepted wisdom among substantial proportions of the population. That particularly rankled many progressives.
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