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Can You Hear Us Now?
By David Michael Green (about the author) Page 1 of 3 page(s)
For OpEdNews: David Michael Green - Writer
One year ago, the Democrats won commanding victories resulting in control of the presidency and lopsided majorities in the House and Senate.
One year ago, the Republican brand was so weak that the party was on death watch, literally capable of sliding into the history books alongside the Whigs and the Federalists.
One year ago the country was enthralled with the notion of a new president who seemed committed to solving a host of problems and, above all, offering change from a hated predecessor and his disastrously failed politics.
But now, today, that promised change seems a lot more like chump change instead.
Now, today, the Big Hope president has virtually nothing of import to show for nearly a year in office.
Now, today, that president continues to follow the policies of his horrid predecessor on everything from civil liberties to civil rights to economics and foreign policy.
And now, today, he and his comrades in Congress have squandered whatever goodwill they once had and face an angry public turning back to the right, desperately seeking solutions to their problems.
Better still, this is likely only the beginning. Does anyone think the job situation is going to get better in the next year? How about Afghanistan? Does anyone believe that the public will be enthusiastic about Obama's healthcare plans, assuming anyone can locate them, and assuming that a bill can actually get through Congress? Who out there thinks that his position on global warming will please anyone in America, even as it does next to nothing serious about addressing the problem, and even as it remains – like his healthcare ideas – playing hide-and-seek with the American public?
I am not surprised that Barack Obama – like the last two Democratic presidents – has turned out to be a conservative, corporate creature whose interest in the public interest is scarce and superficial. What does surprise me, though, is just how bad he is at playing politics, especially where his own self-interest is overwhelmingly at stake. Can this really be the same person who ran such a remarkable campaign last year, stealing the presidency from two of the great figureheads of American politics?
Obama is one of the most articulate politicians in American history. And yet, his communications strategy is the absolute worst I've seen since Carter. In fact, what's most stunning about it is that his team seems to have dismissed all the lessons learned over the last three decades – especially from masterful Republican administrations – about how to market presidents and policies from the White House. This is no longer rocket science, if it ever was. How can a guy this sharp be so clueless and, thus, adrift?
Obama is also one of the smartest people ever to sit in the Oval Office, but he has demonstrated astonishing levels of cluelessness about what the public wants, about the nature of his opposition, and about what makes a presidency successful. He doesn't understand that the public will follow you if you lead them, especially if you do so with passion. He doesn't get that the conservative movement is a lethal cancer seeking to commodify, monetize and profitize every aspect of America, and therefore is committed to the destruction of all else, including this administration, despite even that it is essentially staffed by Goldman Sachs. He doesn't understand that the most successful American presidents were the ones who brought a vision to the table, and fought for it.
Fundamentally, Obama is an anachronism. He is essentially a nineteenth century president operating in a crisis era, as the early twenty-first grapples with cleaning up after the late twentieth.
Historians sometimes debate over whether history makes the man or the man makes history. Leaving aside the sexist construction of the question, I think, manifestly, it has to be both. Almost all the great presidents served during time of great crisis, usually war. But that doesn't guarantee their place in the historical pantheon. You have to also meet those challenges of your time. Lincoln is widely considered America's greatest president. His predecessor, James Buchanan, is generally thought to be the country's worst. Both faced the same crisis of Southern secession, but they responded to it very differently, earning their respective places in history. On the other hand, had the civil war come twenty years earlier or later, we'd hardly even know their names, except as the answer to trivia questions. “Who was the first president from Illinois?!” “Who was our tallest president?” And so on.
Obama could be Lincoln – or better still, FDR – if he wanted to be. He has chosen instead to be Buchanan. Faced with crisis scenario after crisis scenario, the candidate of ‘change' repeatedly and instinctively homes in on the weakest, most centrist, most useless response possible. His stimulus bill probably stopped the economy from continuing its free fall, but it leaves the country stuck in months or even years of unyielding recession at worst, and jobless recovery at best. His healthcare bill helps in some important ways, but does nothing to hold down costs in a society that utterly wastes one dollar out of every three it spends in this area, and it does nothing to make healthcare more affordable for most Americans. He seems to have some interest in a global warming bill and a banking regulation bill and maybe even doing something about civil rights for gays. But in none of these areas is there any sense that he will do what is morally necessary. Likewise, with Afghanistan, all the indicators seem to suggest that he will opt for some numbingly anodyne middle ground.
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