“It’s times like these when the difference between political activism and self-expression and primal scream therapy become really apparent. Politics isn’t easy. Political change isn’t easy. It includes tons of reverses and inevitably involves not getting a lot of what you wanted, at least not at first. This doesn’t mean everyone needs to agree on policy or priorities. People don’t agree on things. That’s life. But that’s different from cashing out of the process if you don’t get just what you want.”
I’m really annoyed by people who say Obama is “just like Bush” or isn’t the leftist we elected. That’s an incredibly naive and simplistic view. First of all, Obama never put himself forth as a leftist. But more importantly, being president of the United States is really an impossible job. The public expects you to change the world with a wave of your hand, but the only real power the Constitution gives you is the power of persuasion. You have no concrete way to make Congress pass laws; you can only try and convince them to do it. (This list of presidential paradoxes is worth reading.) Granted, if you are talented enough a populist, you have more leverage, but even so, there’s no guarantee that this will work.
The Constitution discusses the Congress before it discusses the presidency. (Literally, Congress had to come first; the first act after the Constitution was ratified was for Americans to elect a Congress, because Washington couldn’t assume the presidency until after Congress had certified his election.) Not only that, but it divides Congress into two bodies. Not only that, but one of those bodies isn’t even apportioned democratically. So right off the bat, even if everything is working well, our system of government is constitutionally set up to make change difficult. Throw in the spineless Harry Reid, the incorrect notion that the Constitution requires a 60-vote majority to pass legislation, and the cult the Republican party has become, and it’s a miracle that health care legislation has gotten as far as it has.
The problem is that if Obama tries to explain this to the American people, he’ll come off looking weak, because we like our presidents to seem strong. (We invest the presidency with monarchical trappings: the White House, Air Force One, “Hail to the Chief.”)
If only he could argue that terrorists were trying to deny us single-payer health care.
Politics is not primal scream therapy. The last decade would have turned out much differently if a bunch of Florida Naderites had sucked it up and voted for Gore. And don’t even get me started on the teapartiers.
Politics isn’t about magic ponies. Don’t drop out of the process just because you don’t get what you want.