Taibbi stumbles close to the truth

In a blog post on Rolling Stone called "Obama Doesn't Want a Progressive Deficit Deal," (go read the whole thing; it's short, I'll wait) Matt Taibbi is both right and wrong in his summary:

I simply don't believe the Democrats would really be worse off with voters if they committed themselves to putting people back to work, policing Wall Street, throwing their weight behind a real public option in health care, making hedge fund managers pay the same tax rates as ordinary people, ending the pointless wars abroad, etc. That they won't do these things because they're afraid of public criticism, and "responding to pressure," is an increasingly transparent lie. This "Please, Br'er Fox, don't throw me into dat dere briar patch" deal isn't going to work for much longer. Just about everybody knows now that they want to go into that briar patch.

I don't think the Democrats would be worse off with most voters either. Some voters will be demagogued no matter what Obama and Congressional Democrats do or don't do. And then there's racism, of course. But the Democrats haven't retreated from bread and butter issues like job creation because they're afraid of "public criticism." They may well be, of course, but they're even more afraid of losing their lifeblood: campaign contributions from Wall Street and the rest of corporate America. That is why Obama and the Democrats enact policies that are pro-rich and pro-business. This is not rocket science.