(with apologies to Cleopatra, from whom I'm stealing the title)
Or is it Greek?
In recent days, I have found myself recalling stated respect for Reagan's style by his opponents who were known to say, "I may disagree with him, but I know where he stands." Public opinion polls found a surprising number of people voted for Reagan for this reason, even though the voters may have had various disagreements with one or more of Reagan's policy goals.
And my muse tonight, Cleopatra, made a similar comment about W Bush:
As destructive as he was, at least bush accomplished what he set out to do and made no bones about it. The voters who voted for bush, got exactly what they voted for.
Stumbling upon Cleopatra's comment in One Pissed Off Liberal's righteous diary - I Don't Blame Obama http://www.dailykos.com/... - I had a series of thoughts that were new to me. This may not be a diary in the traditional sense, because I cannot stay here to respond tonight, but my response was so new and so surprising to me that I want to preserve it here to think over, to gather your reactions, and to try to understand.
As destructive as he was, at least bush accomplished what he set out to do and made no bones about it. The voters who voted for bush, got exactly what they voted for.
Which is just to say that leadership does gain followers, while oscillating does not.
Whether for good or evil (ok, it was evil), Bush struck out upon a clear and unambiguous path and literally dared people not to follow him. He gained followers through their perception of his strength (strong argument, even if he lacked moral or literal truth) and through his efforts at arm-twisting, public and private.
Bush also used subtle, but effective and consistent, system of coercion (aka 'nicknames') that pushed nearly everyone to be subordinate to him regardless of their position - politicians, friends, reporters, foreign officials, everyone. Literally, as President, he adopted the authority to rename people. That new nickname could be positive or negative and there was a (possibly) unconscious desire to please him to avoid the negative nicknames. I could go on at this for a while, but the point is that he wielded authority. For the most part, people - as we are trained to do - submitted without a lot of fuss.
As we have seen - as the patterns have become more clear over the past two years - Obama has:
- not set a path with any unifying theme;
- retained many of Bush's worst policies;
- has not assumed a position of authority in opposition to the Republicans;
- has reserved his "backbone" and withering words for members of his ostensible party;
- refuses to adopt any incontrovertibly unambiguous positions (aka "lines in the sand"), preferring to recede from visibility into ambiguity then produce a solution away from the light of public process, away from vigorous public debate, and to move resolution away from the public benefit in favor of private benefit.
Public policy, and particularly legislation, must be settled in the public arena, not behind closed doors. "Fighting it out" through the legislative process and the concurent public debate is part and parcel of the resolution for the PUBLIC benefit. Yet this president shows a distinct preference to closed door negotiation prior to, and without, political confrontation. That shuts the public out. It avoids the morphing public consensus that coincides with the political consensus that is eventually reached through public debate.
Said another way: We all have a stake in the process.
Instead, we are being shut out - by the White House. Our telephone calls, our petitions, our demonstrations, the 70% in favor - all shut out by the White House.
We have a "No heat in the kitchen" administration, but it is also, "I'm the only adult here, you kids eat at the little table" administration.
"No drama Obama" is a reality. But the "no drama" is not to our benefit. It is for the benefit of whoever Obama selects. Not the Democratic party. Not the public at large. Not even a majority of the electorate (see November 3, 2010).
Finally, we've come to realize that Obama does intend to address the topics of his campaign promises, but not at all in conformance with traditional Democratic Party platforms, beliefs, commitments.
Call it the Fourth Way - pursuing something similar to the Third Way - but in ways hostile to Democratic Party goals and the public at large.
What has become clear is that Obama has no intention of keeping the literal or even figurative word of his campaign promises. Instead we see that he believes his checklist serves as actual "accomplishments" even if those who previously believed they would be helped by his campaign promises have not been helped by his self-check-marked "success list."
We are expected to accept these accomplishments as success, even if it is not at all what we believed we were supporting during the campaign and election.
When I reference the "public" here, I don't mean a limited set of "good" but the best and highest good for the most people. This is an important definition. For too long, tax policy, trade policy, and nearly all our legislation has been for the purpose of propping up the wealthiest few and the corporate/financial structure of our economy, not small business, not the working people, not the poor or even the middle class.
We've come to a fork in the road. We must decide what path to take. The realization is shattering for many of us. The decisions we must now make seem to alter our beliefs or what we once believed. The resolution is yet to come, but trust is a precious thing. Trust once broken is extraordinarily difficult to regain.
We need actual, open, public debate and policy resolution, not a shadow government with deals struck, one after another, behind closed doors. The next two years present dangerous times for the Democratic Party, but more so for our nation as a whole.