The failure to pass middle class tax cuts once again demonstrates that Barack Obama is incapable of implementing a meaningful progressive agenda which can help restore economic fairness and mitigate some of the vast economic inequalities in this country.
While his defenders can argue that this is a failure of the Congress, the real failure is Obama’s in being unable to provide leadership in articulating a vision for the country where the gains of economic growth and productivity are fairly allocated across the economic spectrum leading not to massive increases in wealth for a select few but to a better quality of life for all.
Reagan whatever his faults was able to unite and inspire his party with his vision of less government and low taxes. The Republicans quite evidently value these ideals and are willing to eschew temporary electoral advantage to advance their vision of society as can be seen from the recent debate about tax cuts. Compare this with the Congressional Democrats, different segments of whom are desperately trying to pass or block this or that piece of legislation a couple months before the election in the hope of some meaningless, temporary advantage. Quite evidently the Democrat Party as a whole has no coherent vision or ideals in the way the Republicans have and this failure should be attributed to Obama for failing to provide leadership to his party.
However it would be wrong to blame Obama entirely for his failure of leadership. Even before being elected he provided no inkling that he was capable of providing meaningful leadership. His campaign was primarily based on nonsensical generalities about hope and change. The four years before that in the Senate were mostly an exercise in risk management. I simply cannot recall any major achievement in these years which should have so impressed us to hand over the Presidency to him amid such great hope and expectation. The big moment which brought him to the nation’s attention during the Democratic Convention in 2004 was also nothing more than a pretty bit of speech making which did not mean anything much.
The fault is not so much Obama’s but ours in being so easily carried away by an interesting seeming man saying pretty but meaningless things. Given how easily we are impressed, it is no wonder Progressives and Liberals have been getting our behinds kicked for the last 30 years.