Why Progressives Should Fear Rick Santorum (It's Not Why You Think)

Two things are becoming increasingly clear this election season: 1) Mitt Romney is looking less and less likely to be the GOP nominee; and 2) whoever is the nominee is going to be pushed so far to the right that he or she will in no way be able to effectively challenge Barack Obama in November. The reason on both counts is the same: the incredible emergence of Rick Santorum.

At first glance Santorum's improbable rise to the lead in the GOP primary race would seem to be a good thing for progressives. His completely insane brand of theological right wing conservatism turns off everyone to the left of Glenn Beck.

So why should progressives fear Santorum? The obvious answer would be the remote possibility that Santorum would actually get elected and our political realm would become a nightmare of monumental proportion. But that is so unlikely that if it did actually happen I really would start preparing for the Mayan Apocalypse.

No, the real problem with Santorum's emergence is the fact that because the GOP has done cartwheels to position themselves to the right of Barack Obama, that the chances of any movement away from the pro-Wall Street, anti-liberty policies of his first term are unlikely at best.

This election gave progressives the opportunity to move the Democrats away from their recent centrist governance by withholding our votes, refusing to vote for the lesser of two evils. There was a real opportunity to either move Obama to the left (which would put him somewhere in the middle) giving some hope to a second Obama term, or make the Democratic party re-evaluate its position (which is no longer the party of the middle class or the workers) if they lost the 2012 election.

With the specter of a possible Santorum candidacy or some other wing nut in his place, the next four years is unfortunately most likely going to resemble the last four. The Republicans are placing themselves so far to the completely insane right wing, that there is really no choice but to vote for a second Obama term. So there will be no consequence for Obama's policies of appeasement of Wall Street, of the overwhelming secrecy of his Administration, of his policies of assassination and indefinite detention of American citizens without charge or trial, of the largest number of deportations in history, of neo-liberal economic policies which increase the gap between rich and poor and steer us toward austerity and the further suffering of our lower classes, of the unparalleled attacking and punishing of whistle blowers, of the doubling down of the prosecution of marijuana growers and distributors which are legal under their state's laws, all of which have been the policies which this Administration has put into action over the last three plus years.

With no primary challenge, and no socially moderate opposition, Obama will go into the next four years thinking that his landslide re-election, which is all but inevitable at this point, is somehow an approval of these policies and we will see four years of the same policies further cementing the fact that no major party represents the vast majority of Americans who make up the increasingly shrinking middle class and the ever growing lower class.

What Santorum means is that the progressives have lost. Let's face it, Obama was just not that into us to begin with. Now with no reason for the Democrats to court our vote, we are essentially left ignored by both parties once again. Obama's campaign coffers will be filled by the same Wall Street titans who have on the surface met his occasional criticisms with derision while at the same time benefiting handsomely from his actions (or lack thereof), the protests at the DNC will be covered as crazy anarchists who won't be mollified by anything, and those who, like me, continue to criticize Obama's policies will be even further marginalized and met with more credible arguments of "But, do you really want Santorum as President?"

The answer, of course, is no. Or hell no! But I really don't want four more years of the same nonsense that I've received from Obama either. The only thing I can hope for is an Elizabeth Warren victory in Massachusetts catapulting her to the Democratic Presidential nomination in 2016. Now, that would be something to hope for. Of course, we'll probably be left with some inoffensive, stuffed-shirt, Wall Street beholden hack. Martin O'Malley, you used to rock with O'Malley's March, but you'd be one hell of a shitty president.