The "right steps" for what? To "save" the economic system as it existed - as it still exists. Obama protected all the big banks that committed outright fraud. Management remained in place, the same people in power. Occupy wall street was crushed by the government in an operation with an efficiency that Trump probably envies. Back to "normal" with increasing costs of healthcare and habitation, the rentier sectors of the economy came out on top from the crisis.
This is what you want to praise? Preserving the status quo that is exploitative, corrupt, unlawful even by its own (deliberately unenforced) laws? And governments in both the EU and the US did it as cheaply as they could get away with it. I recall a comment from one banker here on "european" austerity imposed with the full complicity of the national government, as the crisis was unfolding:
reporter: the people won't endure it...
banker: they'll endure, they'll endure! [mockingly]
The democrats were not helpless in the whole period from 2008 to 2016. What about appoint a treasury secretary who was not from a criminal organization? What about appointing a prosecutor who actually enforced the laws against criminal bank management? Executive power in the US can do a lot, the power was there but was used to shield the "owners" of the system from the well-deserved public anger at the time.
For the record, I was talking about Congress, not Obama. He has a long list of sins when it comes to dealing with the Financial Crisis and the aftermath.
Congress, in the two year period the Democrats had a supermajority, had only so much legislative time to deal with the Financial Crisis. The stimulus bills, while not large enough, were still better than what most of Europe did, who went in the completely opposite direction. The CFPB was a major asset in getting banks to be about as honest we can expect a bank to be when dealing with consumer finance. Dodd-Frank was a major piece of financial reform that played a major role in keeping the Covid Crisis from turning into a financial meltdown. (Well, that and the ECB/Fed saying they would take all necessary steps to prop up the economy.)
Also, I think you need to remember what party we were dealing with. The Democrats have never been a particularly left-wing party, and with a few notable exceptions are all firmly in the center / center-left pro-business spheres. Now, we all agree the Democrats need to be dragged to the left, but that was not the party that was there in 2008.
Talking about the Democratic Party (not Obama) being able to drive policy for the 2008-2016 period doesn't hold up because once they lost the House, they lost their ability to pass legislation. Obama was not meaningfully connected to the Democratic legislature (which was one of his big selling points as an 'outsider') so they had very little influence with him to drive policy through the executive.
Sorry but inno is much closer to right here. The Democrats got what they deserved after failing pretty hard on the financial system. They had a once-in-a-lifetime opportunityt to reconfigure the financial system and they didn't take it, whether out of malice or incompetence hardly matters now.
You can claim that they did the best they could in the face of opposition on the ACA, we all remember Lieberman vetoing the public insurance option, but those arguments simply don't apply to regulating the financial industry. If Obama had explained what was going on to the country, he could have destroyed the careers of any legislators who tried to stop real banking reform from going through. And from a policy standpoint, the key decisions only required executive power, not control of Congress.
Instead Obama covered his administration with the crap-stink of Wall Street and got outflanked in 2010 when the Republicans, basically accurately, painted the party as a bunch of out-of-touch elitist insiders, a narrative they are still struggling to discard.
In hindsight, this embrace of lawlessness, the transparent use of federal power to, as Obama himself put it when speaking to a group of bank executives, "stand between you and the torches and pitchforks", ie, to shield the criminals from public wrath or real legal accountability, led directly to Trump. More than anything else that moment is what's given people the mental excuse to say "well the Democrats are just as bad."
Well, you aren't going to get any great defense of Obama's record on finance from me; besides pointing out that given his actual political beliefs, it is surprising how much 'progressive' legislation Democratic congresscritters did pass in the two years they held supermajorities given the tepid enthusiasm from the White House.
Also, let's just keep in mind that during this period, the GOP wasn't putting forward any meaningful alternatives and their policies ranged from "Let's do nothing"* to "stimulus spending is SOCIALISM". They were not pushing any legislation to hold Wall Street accountable; so I'm a little skeptical that the Democratic failure to 'take on' Wall Street resulted in their 2010 losses as the GOP was not doing anything to take on Wall Street, and indeed was seeking to repeal what little reform the Democrats had passed. The right wing backlash to the Democrats on Wall Street seems less a matter of righteous anger about state capture and more generic right-wing Teahadist anger.
*You know, the same policy that prompted Hank Paulson to get down on his knees and beg Pelosi not to do, because he realized he couldn't count on GOP votes to prevent a genuine collapse of the world economy.
In other news, looks like the Democrats are falling right into the Trump-McConnell trap.
https://www.politico.com/amp/news/2...30k3Idh34AK7GEP3SFxlBSw39vDPd_XjGKLFfpv6HTZeg
My thoughts on this are that the Democrats lack the power to stop the nomination, and making the Supreme Court into an issue is bad because it is a winning issue for the Republicans (mostly since they have the power, but also because their demented legions of "abortion is the worst genocide in history" people care about this waaaaaaaaay more than even the most devoted RBG fans do).
The more the election is about the Supreme Court and not COVID, the better for Republicans.
I'm a little confused about what you want the Democrats to do with regards to the SC nomination. In one thread you are saying how the Democrats
have to fight this tooth and nail, to prevent a 6-3 hard right majority overturning every piece of climate or voting legislation for the next 20 years. You also acknowledge that court packing is going to be a hard lift, as it would require the Democrats to get a supermajority in the senate (already way above optimistic predictions) or abolish the filibuster which, while an option, is a dangerous option.
So what do the Democrats do? They have to oppose Barrett, for both ideological reasons and electoral reasons.