If an arsonist congratulated himself on putting out his own fire, would you join in the celebration, or throw him in jail for setting a building ablaze?

It should be obvious by now that the only winners of the “fiscal cliff” scam were the corporate sugar daddies of DC politicians. The deal that we apparently had to pass to avoid a complete economic meltdown included $30 billion in unemployment extensions, and $205 billion in tax breaks, subsidies, and other taxpayer-funded handouts to corporations that are already making record profits and not paying any federal taxes. And apparently Vice President Biden and Mitch McConnell were okay with that when they hammered out the deal on New Years’ Eve.

President Obama has repeatedly shown us that he’s a weak negotiator with a willingness to cave on things that even his opponents had already conceded, like tax cuts for quarter-millionaires. And even though President Obama didn’t even fight for a single-payer healthcare system during the healthcare debates of 2009 and 2010, and basically allowed his opponents in Congress to walk all over any hopes of a public health insurance option in the final bill, his administration still congratulated itself on passing healthcare “reform” that is essentially a taxpayer-funded bailout of the private insurance industry.

The Obama team patted themselves on the back again when they passed watered-down Wall Street “reform” that didn’t even include any regulations on the risky derivatives market that caused the 2008 financial crisis, and much less jail time for those responsible for the crisis. And while the White House was conducting drone strikes in Pakistan and Yemen that were largely affecting innocent bystanders, Obama had the nerve to accept the Nobel Peace Prize even as he ramped up the troop presence in Afghanistan, putting more U.S. soldiers in harm’s way to accomplish a vague and unattainable goal.

Despite these abject failures, establishment Democrats sought to silence any dissent from the left during the last two years as Obama was running for re-election, lest we allow Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan to take his place. I still draw ire from staunch partisan Democrats when I tell them I worked on Green Party nominee Jill Stein’s presidential campaign in the last election cycle.

While it was popular and encouraged to criticize Bush for lowering taxes for millionaires and waging war on countries that we had no business bothering, criticizing Obama for those same actions was not tolerated.

Now that Obama has been re-elected to another term, will these staunch partisans join in the left’s dissent against Obama’s constant kowtowing to his political opponents? Despite who we voted for in November, we now have to unite and be as loud as we can over these next few weeks to ensure that Obama doesn’t cave to Republicans in the coming debt ceiling talks.

While the Republicans, the corporate-owned media and the corporate-funded Democrats would have us think we must give in on either Social Security or Medicare, we have to remain strong and hold our president accountable to his promises that we won’t pay for their crisis.

And we have to hold him accountable with more than just our words. Unless this president hears us loud and clear, don’t expect him to do us any favors.