Obama does not understand "bully dynamics"

Good piece by the Legal Schnauzer

Why has Barack Obama been such a disappointment to many progressives? More importantly, why has he failed the country in a time of crisis?

It's largely because Obama does not understand how bullies operate, according to a prominent political psychologist. [...]

The president is fond of referring to “the arc of history,” paraphrasing the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous statement that “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” But with his deep-seated aversion to conflict and his profound failure to understand bully dynamics — in which conciliation is always the wrong course of action, because bullies perceive it as weakness and just punch harder the next time — he has broken that arc and has likely bent it backward for at least a generation.

The arc of history does not bend toward justice through capitulation cast as compromise. [...]

Much more.

Fixer and I have expounded at some length on how - the only way - to deal with bullies and no doubt will continue to do so until somebody does it to the far right. They have to find themselves unexpectedly sitting on their ass with a bloody nose and an incipient two-week raccoon mask shiner that'll make people laugh at 'em and tell 'em they got what was coming to 'em and give 'em something to think about when they look in the mirror. If that doesn't work, the next time you hurt 'em. Repeat as necessary until they stop fuckin' with you. Make it so they step off the curb when they see you coming down the sidewalk. Comity and respect are fine but fear works just as well.

Update:

Thanks to YubaNet.

Goddammit, O-Man, just hit the sonofabitch.