Let me hasten to say, I'm not trying to convince anyone not to vote or not to support the President, just the opposite. I will vote for him and will continue to donate to his campaign as much as I can afford. That said, I still need to get this diary off my chest.
In 2008, it was perfectly clear why we wanted—needed—to elect Barack Obama to the presidency. His program to use negotiation and compromise across party lines may sound embarrassingly naive today, but it gave us hope for meaningful positive change. And his ancestry and upbringing also gave us tremendous hope that longstanding barriers would finally fall. Not to mention a Constitutional scholar who would respect the division of powers in the federal government. Wow.
Today, we know the fatal flaw in all of these aspects of the 2008 campaign: if the opposition is simply determined to do anything, up to and including harming the nation, in order to regain power, negotiations will be useless, hope will be extinguished, and the division of powers will efficiently harm, not protect, the People. Very few people were cynical enough to recognize that in 2008, but we all get it today.
So, it's 2012, and Barack Obama is running again. But this time, it's not clear at all why he is running or why we should support him.
It seems to me that virtually all of the reasons for supporting Barack Obama this time around are negative or defensive: to keep Romney from imposing his b-school, CEO algorithms on our nation. To block the TPGOP's program to cancel the 20th Century. To protect social programs we have become accustomed to and that many of us depend on.
Basically we are circling the wagons,* and it's hard to make much progress when our ride is in a defensive formation.
The problem in one word is Congress. The country still needs what we thought we had won in 2008: a government that would negotiate in good faith among all concerned parties to find common ground and compromise, a government that respected the division of powers, and a government that would dismantle traditional barriers. Some of that, we did get, but we desperately need much more of it. But as long as we (i.e., progressives and moderate) don't have control of Congress, we aren't going to be able to get it all.
Gaining control of Congress, especially without including a number of very conservative Democrats, is far from certain; in fact, let's face it, it's not even all that likely. And without a Congress that will put nation before party, our victory in 2008 is nearly meaningless, as we have seen, as would be a similar victory in 2012.
So what we need now, in place of the stirring promise of 2008, is a new positive program for Obama's second term. We need to uncircle our wagons and to get back on the trail, perhaps along a revised route, perhaps splitting up and going off in several directions at once (that way, even if some programs fail, others may succeed).
Do you remember the long list of goals published by the Obama campaign in 2008? Many of those goals had been and were being met, especially before the 2010 election. We need something like that in 2012. It will necessarily be conditional: even without cooperation from Congress, we promise ABC; if we have cooperation from Congress, we believe that we can achieve DEF; with a full Democratic majority in Congress, we will deliver XYZ. The successes and failures of the old 2008 list need to be analyzed in the context of Congressional action and used as the basis for the revised list. This approach is not only positive, it also places a fair portion of the blame for the failures of 2009-2012 squarely where it belongs, on Congress. Also, we can now use the pattern of successes and failures both to accept credit and responsibility as appropriate, but also to make a much better-supported projection into the future than was possible in 2008.
Think of closing Gitmo as one example: if we ignore Congress's complete refusal to allow it, then it was a BHO failure, but once Congress is included in the equation, it becomes much more complex of a failure. What does Barack Obama plan for Gitmo in his second term? What can he promise with a recalcitrant Congress, an honest Congress, or a progressive majority? We need to know that.
Anyway, we need a positive path through the Great Unknown of 2013-2016. I'll still defensively support the re-election of the President, as I'm sure we all will, at least as long as our ammunition lasts. But wouldn't it be more satisfactory if we were rolling, rolling, rolling toward a better America again? After all, that's why we're in these damn wagons in the first place.
Greg Shenaut
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*Please forgive my overuse of this metaphor.