We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle-field, and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearth-stone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.
--Lincoln's First Inaugural Address
Readers may have noted a dramatic decrease in the number of my political postings since the November election. In part, this is the result of Obama's victory -- my constant howls of outrage are no longer necessary. But in part, it's because of my general sense of depression as I watch President Obama's attempts to push a moderate agenda through Congress. It's like watching a kayaker paddling upstream against a strong current.
In today's New York Times, Op-Ed columnist Charles M. Blow suggests that today's America has no room for conciliators -- like Obama.
He's an idealist in an age of cynicism, a conciliator at a time of cleaving. He strives to appeal to a dwindling body of better angels in an increasingly bifurcated country. It's noble and inspirational, but will it be effective?
In some ways, he is a throwback to a gentler time of civility and commonality, when compromising on issues wasn't viewed as compromising on principles.
We need a fighter, Blow suggests. Someone who's not so interested in persuading Republicans. More interested in crushing them.
I don't want to sound bizarrely apocalyptic, but at times the country today reminds me of America in the decade before the Civil War. Conciliation and attempts to compromise were becoming less and less fruitful. Positions were hardening, becoming more idealogical and less negotiable. Political opposition was becoming more personal, less civil.
In retrospect, Abraham Lincoln -- like Obama -- was a moderate whose primary goal was to preserve the Union. The South, consumed with fury, couldn't see it that way. Lincoln was the Devil incarnate. His election precipitated secession beginning with -- no surprise, in view of recent events -- South Carolina.
Despite journalists' tidy division of today's America into red and blue states, I suspect that the majority of Americans across the nation even now are moderate conservatives or moderate liberals -- or are unconcerned with or oblivious to political debates. Most Americans -- I suspect -- still look at health care reform pragmatically, not as an Armageddon between Atheistic Socialism and Inhuman Disdain for the Sufferings of the Poor. But, then, I suspect that in the run-up to the Civil War, political polls -- if they had existed -- would have shown that most (white male) Americans wanted a solution to the slavery issue that would gradually have ended the South's "peculiar institution" at minimal cost to southern economic interests, a solution that they hoped would have kept the nation united.
The moderate middle was unable to prevent the Civil War. The moral issue of slavery and the constitutional issue of the nature of the union were decided by force -- not by reason, not by consensus. Admittedly, attitudes at that time were more sharply defined by geography than they are today, despite the apparent clarity on political maps of the blue state - red state division. Military war between the states today thus seems unthinkable (of course it also seemed unlikely in, say, 1830), but unbending and seemingly irrational Republican idealogues may be pushing their opponents into the political equivalent of military conquest -- reliance on large majorities in Congress to ram through political solutions without bothering to consult across the aisle.
If the hotheads in South Carolina and throughout the South had given Lincoln a chance, he might have mediated a mutually acceptable solution to the political crisis of those days. Instead, they were less interested in defending their region's actual economic interests than they were in going to war over an outdated idealogy of "states rights." They insisted on battle. President Lincoln gave it to them, and they ended up with Reconstruction and the Fourteenth Amendment.
When you insist on a fight to the death, you'd better be damned sure you can win.
2 comments:
"We need a fighter, Blow suggests. Someone who's not so interested in persuading Republicans. More interested in crushing them."
That's why I wanted Hillary to win. It seems to me the damage done by the Bush administration can only be undone by force. Only once that's done is any appeal to our "better angels" at all sensible.
The problem is that most Democrats (including Obama) are horrible at compromising on issues. Republicans know how the game is played: You clearly lay out the exact bill you would enact if your party had every seat in Congress, and then scale back as necessary from there. Democrats, on the other hand, compromise before they even get to the table (the broad refusal to support a single-payer system, which a significant proportion of Democratic representatives and senators undoubtedly would like to see, is a perfect example of this).
As I read back over my posting, it seems kind of confused. That usually means that I'm not sure how I feel about the subject I'm discussing.
I think Obama has intentionally dealt with health care (and other initiatives) in a way different from past presidents who have gotten nowhere by offending Congress. He didn't send a draft bill to Congress and tell them to pass it, because he wanted the bill to evolve from discussions within Congress. The plan was to strengthen party unity by hammering out a consensus. But it probably was a mistake, especially considering what the Republican opposition has degenerated into.
But also, part of the problem is that Obama's majority in Congress is deceptive -- especially with respect to health care and anything smacking of deficit spending. He needs to nudge conservative Democrats and the few remaining Maine-type Republicans into supporting whatever bill comes to the floor.
All that being said, I think I agree with you that he should have made it clearer from the outset what he wanted and was determined to fight for, and then have worked harder over the last few months to energize public opinion to push it forward. He doesn't have leadership in either House or Senate that will support his position regardless of their own personal preferences. I'm not sure if the Democrats have weaker negotiation skills than the Republicans -- I think they are just much less unified, and it's easier to be unified in saying "no" than in proposing a concrete piece of complex legislation.
Finally, I refuse to admit anything that will allow you to say "I told you so," regarding the Hillary v. Obama race! :-D I think Hillary would have had the same problems, and I don't think her style would have been any more successful in lining up support for health care legislation. The issues might have been better defined by this point, that's all I'll admit, because she would have sent a specific plan to Congress, as you prefer.
It's all frustrating and exasperating, and I sometimes wonder how some Republican congressmen can look at themselves in the mirror in the morning, ... but now I'm just being naive.
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