On Obama’s OJT
Written in May of 2009 — reprinted for archival purposes… amazing how prescient I was back then.
I want to make a quick comment on Obama’s failure to tow the socialist line.
No kidding.
I wonder why the leftists in the Democratic Party (I mean the left wing of the center right Party) thought Obama would be a socialist. Just because the right CALLS him a socialist, this doesn’t mean he actually is one. Let’s look at notable “backpedals”:
1. Obama said he would close Guantanamo and get rid of the detainees there. But they apparently have to go on trial, and military tribunals apparently may be the way to go afterall.
2. Obama has apparently not opted to try those involved in acts that he, and the general consensus all agree are torture. Furthermore he has also opted not to release more torture photos, because apparently they will hurt our national security.
3. He has lengthened our stay in Iraq based on advice from the generals who are apparently still fighting that fight. And while it is not a “backpedal”, he has also made Afghanistan his Iraq by committing to “finish the job” there, though what that job is is not particularly clear.
4. He has moved from comprehensive health care to “affordable health coverage”, a subtle, but very important difference…
5. He pledged to tax the rich, but then after elected said that perhaps taxes shouldn’t be raised on the rich after all, because of the economic recession.
etc etc etc.
Whatever. This is rather frustrating, until one realizes that they elected a Democrat to office, and more than that, one who is committed to getting Republicans to support some of his proposals. “Oh what?! He’s a Democrat? Not a Socialist?” Yeah, no kidding. This may come as a shock to the hippies and granola folks who are “leftists” but not socialists (because they are realists, apparently), but Obama is the President of the United States now. He’s not just a safe black man that middle class white folks can feel comfortable around. He’s got his finger on the button, and as a result, he has other concerns to deal with than just listening to what his base wants. And the fact that Democrats don’t have a political spine doesn’t help him at all. Basically, it forces him to make those decisions alone.
I voted for Obama. I still have his picture up in my house: the first, and probably only President I will ever do that for. I voted for him precisely because he didn’t know what he was doing. His inexperience was a refreshing change from administration after administration after administration that told the people “Look, I know what I am doing, and know what is good for Americans better than Americans do. Just shut up and let me rule.” And he still doesn’t know what he is doing in office. Doesn’t it seem that he is making up this stuff as he goes? He’s not faking any funk, like Bush did, and he clearly is not agenda driven (like Cheney was), nor apparently are any of those around him. And because of this fact, despite the fact that his policies are REAL frustrating to me, I still support him. I support his OJT.
Do I want him to make different decisions? You’re damn right I do. But not because I think it will make much difference in this country. I just don’t want people to be disappointed in four years when they realize they didn’t actually elect Moses as President. People are real fickle and backlash against brand oversaturation is almost always guaranteed. I want him to make good decisions because if he doesn’t people will refuse to re-elect him, and we’ll get stuck with another Regan, or worse, another Bush. My primary hope for him is that he can keep ideological conservatives out of office, because conservatism is a mental disorder, in my opinion, and our country should not be governed by the lunatics that are afflicted by this disorder.
I think the best help he could possibly get is from the Congress. First, they need to get opportunists out of leadership. I’m talking about climbers and hangers-on who have found their way into the leadership now. I don’t know Pelosi’s record or Reid’s record, but it seems like most of the static Obama faces in government is actually coming from these people’s caucuses: They need to fix themselves, and get onboard with a progressive agenda. And if they get beaten in their primaries, so what? At least they did the right thing. It’s time for Democrats to start acting like a Party with power, because they actually can force legislation.
The question is: will they? The answer is “Probably not” because thew determined minority in government, the GOP, is still acting like they have power, and the Dems are still acting like the minority. Should we do this or that? No because Boehner and McConnel issued crotchety missives against that policy. The Republicans have vowed to filibuster this or that thing. This is usually enough to get the Democrats to back down.
I wonder why the Democrats won’t let the GOP filibuster. If they did, I wonder how long it would last. I’ll bet that if the Democrats called the bluff of the Republicans, the Republicans would back down 9 times out of 10. What the Democrats need to do is let the Republicans know they are beaten by not even inviting them to the table anymore. After all, during the Bush administration, this is how the GOP played ball: Dems were only invited to “negotiate” if they were already on board with the Republican plan.
The sooner the Democratic majority begins acting like the dictators that the majority of the American population elected them to be, the sooner we will see things like Guantanamo closing and comprehensive (dare I say, single payer) health care. At least they need to stop cowing before the mighty minority in the GOP. I mean, I understand that they think they need to do things this way to win another election, but they can forget about it if they don’t provide some reason for supporting them. The Republicans are simply more vicious and dedicated to their ideology than the Democrats are, and that commitment will be enough to carry them in an election against a spineless, “pragmatic” Democrat in a close race, especially if that Democrat couldn’t even pass bills when its Party had a huge majority.
If the Congress backed the President up, maybe then we would see him proposing things like single payer health insurance and hear him saying things like “I don’t CARE, what the Insurance Companies and the Generals have to say. We’re going to do things like this because they are the right things to do. Sure they are going to hurt some careers, but they are the right things to do, and they need to be done. And by the way, the rich are going to pay for it.”
But… Like all political scientists, I am cursed to be able to see and accurately predict the future, and yet have nobody pay attention to me. If I can’t have my prescriptions put into practice, I will have to be satisfied knowing that at least Obama isn’t telling us that he knows better for us than we do for ourselves. The minute he starts acting like that is the minute he will lose my support. I suppose that is the best I’m going to get from a Democrat.
