Yes, I'm going to write about President Obama and the current state of things. I like President Obama, but I don't think I really understand him yet.
I think that's true for a whole lot of people.
This year in particular has been a very interesting year politically. Health care reform highlighted something I don't think is getting enough attention, and that is the real politics in play are not easily defined in terms of one party or the other. Failure to understand that, puts understanding Obama off the table. How can anybody realistically judge where his performance value is, when they are not realistic about Congress?
The hardest thing for me to bear this year was the capitulation. Over and over, the issues came up, hopes ran high because we won the elections by a significant amount, yet the product of each policy decision, if there even was one, seemed very poorly aligned with what the people really need.
More than anything, seeing that over and over has caused me to very seriously question basically everything. That meant tuning out from the traditional media for anything other than just keeping current on what the events of the day were, combined with seeking out a diversity of opinion both domestic and overseas.
What I found is startling, very disturbing, and frankly, difficult to accept. Socially, both parties are fairly well unified in their positions, each with some moderates that might swing one way or the other, but overall fairly accurately portrayed in the domestic and international media.
Democrats are liberal, in the sense of civil rights, equality, etc... The majority of the party wants progress, and has been working that direction, with some trade-offs made, but overall gains made too. Honestly, those people who have said, "don't let perfect be the enemy of the good", or something like that anyway, are right about it on social issues!
The American people and the representative government are fairly well aligned, with the representation somewhat comparable to how the people actually are on these things. Trends are looking good too, with gay rights on the rise, serious talk about legalizing pot, and the DADT repeal, setting the stage for some progress over time, so long as we don't totally drop the ball.
Ours to lose.
The up and coming generations are moving past judging who people are, focusing more on what people do, and I think that's a good thing. IMHO, Obama sees this, and is taking a fairly liberal stand, deferring to the States to squabble over things, experiment, and slowly move to some greater progress over time. He's not leading on that, and he's doing some dealing on that too, which I'll get to in a moment.
Social progress is on track, and moving nicely, if a bit roughly. Clearly, on these things Obama isn't progressive, but he's not regressive either. He's a moderate, with a strong desire to just insure the process is working, and that the people are working the process. More people are coming to understand that, and can approve of that, because some good stuff actually happened, and the trends are clearly positive.
On economic matters, we the people continue to lose. There is no other way to say it. There is motion, but the cost of it is very high. My own personal view is we took absolutely NOTHING back for the people during these two years. We did manage to get some ideas in place, some foundations, like health care done, and I think how that got done, and why it looks the way it does is very instructive.
This is also the key to better understanding how President Obama really works! Let me share some general observations.
On social issues, it's possible to find opinion and advocacy in the traditional media that aligns well with the needs of the people. This is what conservatives really mean when they say, "the liberal media".
Economic issues are a entirely different story!
In the US, we have essentially NO real left or liberal economic media in the traditional media forms. It is possible to find some progressive economic perspectives online, but it's extremely rare to see traditional media forms present a story from the perspective of labor, like what is commonly seen Internationally.
The first thing to understand about that is conservatives often speak to the media being liberal, whether or not it actually is liberal, which adds to the economic confusion most Americans experience today.
Is there any wonder that people don't understand Obama?
If you answered, "yes", I'm not done yet.
Media consolidation has brought us a corporate dominated media. This fact is well known and accepted as true, and largely accepted as a problem that needs resolution. Media reform isn't all that extreme of a thing to advocate, unless you are a member of the current US media. Then it is extreme, simply because advocating otherwise isn't career favorable, and that's just the state of things today.
Corporate media has no interest in progressive economic news or advocacy. Progressive economic policy literally would take wealth from the very wealthy, and corporations, returning it to the people. That's hostile to the corporation, and since corporations and the very wealthy essentially control the media, that advocacy isn't present in traditional media forms, such as TV, Radio, Print in any amounts that would have impact. Ideally, from their point of view, it isn't present at all.
Internationally, there is a lot of this kind of news, and in fact the only way to get significant economic news and commentary present from the point of view of labor and ordinary people is to go outside the US to get it, or begin to follow progressive minded economic news online!
Even here, at DKos, otherwise known as Progressive Central, the level of economic division is extremely high, and actually reflects the economic composition of the Democratic party more closely than many people give it credit for. Free traders are less numerous here than in most venues, but still numerous enough to not allow progressive economic ideas to become established norms, and that's important to realize when trying to understand President Obama.
Why?
Norms. The norm in the US is regressive economic policy, period. Corporations dominate the media, corporations have very significant influence in the schools, and they have dominance on policy, and have had that influence and dominance for a very long time now.
Because of that, even moderate economic policy advocacy is considered extreme, simply because it's not common to hear more than anything else! the fact that it's actually good for the nation, or that our current regressive economic policy has gone too far, are simply off the table for most legislators, because there is no perception of real, material support for it, despite a more progressive economic policy being very well aligned with the majority of American People, and small business needs today.
Now, let's take a macro view of President Obama. Internationally, there are a mix of different governments, and public perception of them, and their various policy decisions and outcomes for their people.
He may see a nation like Germany, for example, making fairly progressive economic decisions, like subsidizing employee wages during down economic times to keep it's domestic industry operating, and it's economy functioning and liquid, so they can avoid austerity measures and continue to compete globally.
Germany also realizes the importance of balancing domestic production with International production, so that the quality of life and standards of living Germans are used to isn't seriously threatened by the financial mess the world is in today.
Then he sees China, and it's extreme leverage on us, currency manipulation, aggressive ownership of means of production around the world oppressive government, our dependency on components, products, materials.
What about the middle east? We have a serious dependency there too, largely oil, combined with the same regressive government. Worse, we are engaging that region with our military, costing us very significant amounts of money.
Corporations have significant influence here in the US. It's more than many places in the world, mostly because our current political system allows for that, and they've been aggressive about it. Money in politics is another accepted problem, similar to media reform, and there is support for positive changes that would balance things better, so why doesn't that happen?
Others have leverage on us, that's why! Corporations have leverage on us as well, both in the civic sense because money equals speech, and very large amounts of money are required to run for, win, and continue to remain in office long enough to be productive.
Most Americans are waking up to the fact that we don't produce anywhere near enough to balance our consumption. The words "trade deficit" are starting to take on a meaning beyond high policy, hitting home in terms of a steady increase in their daily cost and risk exposure, resulting in a steady decline in their standard of living. Running on the kinds of progressive ideas that would address that easily put President Obama into office, and brought the Democratic party a very good majority to work with as well.
So why didn't good things happen?
Democrats are divided economically. The establishment within the party is aligned with corporations. Democrats are not generally divided on social issues.
Republicans are united on both social issues and economic policy, both regressive positions.
This leaves Progressive Democrats as the only "left" or "progressive" economic force in our government that is aligned with the people.
Think about that, and realize the majority we the people elected was party based, because we only have two parties, but the product of that majority wasn't a majority on economic issues.
President Obama can't do anything about that. He advanced the agenda items, and notably got things done. Got a lot of things done. Hell, he got Health Care done, which hasn't been possible for long enough I don't even know.
Getting things done is costly economically, because we the people are not well represented in our media, nor our government. Read that again. We the people are not well represented in our media, nor our government on economic issues.
The norm in Washington right now is regressive policy is stimulative policy. Translated that means tax cuts, and it means cutting spending, because it does not mean transferring wealth from the wealthy and corporations back to the people, and it does not mean investing in people so that their labors pay down our policy decisions, because we don't value labor enough in this country for that to be a consideration.
How is Obama supposed to work through that?
He has very little leverage when all these things are combined, and the current economic profile of the Congress is keeping real progressive legislation off the table, despite it being demonstrated in various places around the world as not only effective, but competitive!
So what that means is Obama said he would get things done, and he has gotten a lot of them done. As a President with a agenda, Obama has been productive and I personally have no complaints, because we did legislate most of the big things that we wanted to see legislated.
Plenty remains to be done, and there is time yet to do them.
So why are people unhappy?
Because they don't understand Obama, thinking he's more like a king than the President he is, and they don't understand the economic representation trouble we have; namely, that we the people are a minority at best when it comes to votes on economic policy.
How much of a minority?
Enough that a mere three percent tax rate increase needed to keep our New Deal operating at status quo, funding our current infrastructure maintenance, which is below par, and keeping the government liquid without deep cuts to programs that people need, was denied, despite overwhelming support for it.
Enough that Health Care didn't actually do any serious damage to the profits of private insurers. That's corporate welfare, but it does get the people covered, though it will be at a cost that will only make the economic struggle we are experiencing worse, without some real changes to both our tax policy, and our trade policy.
Those won't happen unless the average American begins to understand just how entrenched the free market, regressive economic policy norms are and starts to do the work to change that!
Obama said, "Yes WE CAN!", and he's right about that too. And understanding Obama means understanding there is a "WE" in "Yes WE CAN!", and we Americans are not there yet.
Because of this, the single most important thing we Progressives can do is everything we can to grow the size of our movement, and improve the scope of it's message to include more people on more channels. Everything from simple person to person, door to door advocacy, to special interest target groups working to unseat economic regressives, to fundraising campaigns and media build outs. All of it is on the table, all of it is necessary, because the only way we can check the dollars is through time and labor.
Believe it. Don't blame Obama, support him by growing the number of Progressives, taking the seats, and writing legislation he can sign to make good things happen.
Edit: There are still a lot of things I don't understand about President Obama, but I have reached clarity on the fact that he will get things passed, and how they look is secondary, and up to the American people. Call that Obama civics 101.