Seizing Difference or Having Difference Thrust Upon Him: President Obama and Democratic Strategy

For SC and NEP

I'm not an Obama hater, but this from Krugman was so startlingly true it made me laugh: "It looks from here as if the president’s idea of how to bargain is to start by negotiating with himself, making pre-emptive concessions, then pursue a second round of negotiation with the G.O.P., leading to further concessions."

Since the early 1990s (at least), the Democratic leadership has had some success in stealing Republican initiatives and making them their own. For President Clinton, it was welfare reform. Currently, President Obama seems to be trying to take deficit reduction and spending cuts from the Tea Party. There's no doubting the political advantage to stealing an issue that has galvanized your opposition. However, snatching the rug out from under your opponents and making it your cape is not the only strategy. In fact, I would say it is best as a short-term strategy and what the Dems lack is a long-term one. Hence, they lost their majority in the blink of an eye. (Let's not forget, the Democrats--fractured though they were by region--controlled the Congress from the 1950s to the Gingrich-led revolution of 1992. Why do Congressional majorities shift so frequently now?)

Think back to 2004. Remember all the excitement around Howard Dean before the infamous post-primary press conference where he somehow mixed "Yeah," "Yee-haw," and "Ow" in an over-inflated show of optimism? The excitement Dean generated came from the clear alternative he offered to the sitting President--one who, we should remember, won the office by the narrowest of margins (and that's a generous interpretation). As the Democrats struggled to find a military candidate to steal President Bush's war mantle, they eventually settled on John Kerry. Most of us recall him--with some help from late-night television--as a dry and boring senator. However, what I would say was most boring about him was not his demeanor but his political unoriginality. 

I remember watching one of the debates and hearing Kerry say, repeatedly "President Bush is right..." or "I agree with the President..." My question, at that point, was simple: Then why should I vote for you to replace him? It's difficult enough to unseat an incumbent; drawing only faint contrasts can't improve the odds. (Kindly correct me if a candidate has ever taken an office by vowing to do the same things as an opponent who is still living).

Kerry's copycat strategy had appeared before in 2000 when candidate Gore said that he supports the death penalty despite the fact that its application is notoriously  in thrall to racist fear, the capacity to buy an excellent defense team, and judicial caprice.  Krugman's point above helps us to see the unnecessary "pre-emptive concessions" made by politicians who seem to have taken themselves hostage. It makes me laugh, but then it makes me want to tear my hair out.

Play Politics -- Or Take Your Ball and Go Home

One of the more interesting developments of the last few years is that President Obama seems to bring about very polarized responses within the Left -- which for current purposes I'm calling that wide swath from Clinton Democrats to doctrinaire socialists, pacifists, and the like. At least since the George W. Bush era, we have heard of increasing polarization within the US electorate: red states versus blue states, evangelicals versus "secular-progressives," the heartland versus East Coast elites. In the Bush era, the most vicious disagreements seemed to be between liberals and conservatives (again, broadly construed). As Iraq dragged on and New Orleans flooded, you could pretty much count on anyone to the left of Donald Rumsfeld to despise the Bush administration. What we have now, though, is a bit more surprising: a rift within a bloc that was unified by their anti-Bush sentiment. This unity was, it seems, as short-lived as any alliance made against an external foe -- like a Bin Laden. With the foe vanquished or vanished, all the old disputes resurface. And so it seems that among those who voted for President Obama, we now have staunch defenders who will not brook an unkind word said against the administration and disgusted partisans who consider him to be a spineless panderer or "worse than Bush."

This last claim seems inflated by hysteria. Certainly, one can find single issues on which the administration has either continued Bush policies (Guantanamo and black ops prisons), compromised with Republicans (the deal to extend tax cuts for the most wealthy), or imposed more Draconian measures of their own (immigration). However, one can also find single issues on which President Obama was able to succeed in ways that has Democratic predecessors had failed: outlawing discrimination against gays and lesbians in the military, passing health care reform, mandating gender equity in pay.

Within the fraying leftish coalition is a group who decries failures of the administration to impose policies that we would like as proof of either the President's weakness or the Democratic Party's secret conservative agenda. I would say that this group does not like politics -- a strange aversion, considering how often they utter the word. Outside of autocracies, politics does not work by imposition. The process of political negotiation proceeds based on what you can get others to agree to do. Therefore you do not get everything you want -- even if you are "right." Being "right" barely enters the equation, sadly. Moreover, even when you get what you want and what is right, that victory often has unintended consequences -- foreseen and unforeseen messes that have to be cleaned up. That's why the song goes: Pressure. Persuade. Negotiate. Rinse. Repeat.

To say that participating in political life means accepting the fact of concessions does not mean that one should not hold positions. It means that the difference between pragmatism and idealism is not determined by the supposed cowardice of the pragmatist. (The loud insistence that the reason the Left has not achieved total victory lies in Obama's secret conservative ideology or well-concealed lack of vertebrae run on variations of this theme).

Idealism is a worthy game, but it is a different one from engaging in the political process. In any group situation, from a theater to a business or government, no one ever reaches the ideal. There are too many egos and ideological differences to contend with--not to mention the fact of human fallibility. But one can still get tasks accomplished in these settings. They are simply unlikely to reflect exactly any one participant's ideal. And even if one person's ideal were achieved, sustaining it becomes dependent upon the leverage and charisma associated with that personality.

That gulfs separate ideology from legislative settlement -- and both from enactment -- does not justify abandoning ideals--far from it. Still, it is time to recognize that the fight of politics takes more than simply stating the ideal with eloquence and force. It takes all the persuasion, negotiation, and concession necessary to inch (and sometimes leap) forward on important matters.

While I find the exposé style of Obama's Left-intellectual critics to be ineffective, I also cannot support the strategy of those who put their true beliefs aside and overlook the President's concessions. Disagreeing with the President's choices and demanding that the Democratic party return to some core principles is not an act of disloyalty--even in the midst of virulent right-wing attacks on the First Black PresidentTM. It's really what being a constituent is about: reminding representatives of who they represent and what we expect of them. We need not accept the rightward drift of the Democratic Party and should continue showing up and pushing in the opposite direction. Taking our ball and going home is not an option. But neither is allowing the party to ignore us.