Obama seems to be addicted to the opposite viewpoint, as does much of his cabinet. We are being constantly reminded that he prefers the light touch in terms of regulation, that the administration prefers to move forward rather than dwelling upon the sins and abuses of the past. Not to mention all the blather about bipartisanship.
Obama has probably already blown his chances for genuine structural and transformative change anyway by not seizing the moment in his first few months in office. If you look at past history, real periods of legislative innovation, for good or ill, have come about in the aftermath of cataclysmic events or major power shifts, FDR’s election in the midst of the great depression, LBJ’s legislative success in the wake of the Kennedy assassination, even the Bush agenda following the WTC attacks. Obama’s opportunity was at the start. The Republicans were on the run. We were mired, and still are, in a deep recession.
I think we have to conclude that all this talk during the campaign was just empty rhetoric and that Obama and his team are not at all interested in the kind of change that most progressives desire. If he were he would not have chosen the mopes and corporate apologists with whom he has surrounded himself. What is really curious, though, is that Obama and his team were so dead-on in framing issues and manipulating public perceptions during the election campaign, and have become so dreadful since.
But even I, pessimist and cynic that I am, was more than a little shocked to see this bit in the Washington Post, “Obama Urges Groups to Stop Attacks”. What is this all about?
"We shouldn't be focusing resources on each other," Obama opined in the call, according to three sources who participated in or listened to the conversation. "We ought to be focused on winning this debate."
Specifically, Obama said he is hoping left-leaning organizations that worked on his behalf in the presidential campaign will now rally support for "advancing legislation" that fulfills his goal of expanding coverage, controlling rising costs and modernizing the health system.
Leaving aside the fact that the only thing keeping this weak-kneed approach to the health care issue alive is the pressure from the left-oriented groups and blogs for some kind of meaningful public option and their willingness to expose the corporate interests that control most of the blue-dog Democrats, since when has the movement toward universal health care become the “goal of expanding coverage, controlling rising costs and modernizing the health system”? This is just so wonky. Does anyone seriously think this is a debate that favors Democratic ideals or that genuinely serves any real public interest? Framed in this fashion, it is a debate Democrats will surely lose.
Congress was designed to protect the interests of the propertied class and to act as a brake upon popular enthusiasm. As an institution, it is generally most responsive to fear. You can see this by people like Kay Hagan in North Carolina already caving before the mere threat of an ad campaign from MoveOn.org.
So there is probably a lesson from The Prince for progressives as well. We need to find a way to be more reliably feared by the people we put in office with our hard work and contributions.
