But its also a perfect example of how his conciliatory rhetoric acts as ruthless strategy...something I've been writing about for a very long time now.
We all know that Senator Marco Rubio was working on a Republican alternative to the DREAM Act as a way to soften the blows they've inflicted on their support in the Latino community. And we also know that what President Obama did was to basically implement Rubio's alternative via directive.
In a world where Republicans were sane, this would result in someone like Rubio congratulating the President and joining him in implementing a policy that he supported. But of course that's not what happened. Rubio is now crying, taking his toys, and going home. And its all big bad Obama's fault!
It comes as no surprise that Obama's directive is celebrated by immigrants and Latinos. And today we find out that it is generally supported by likely voters 2:1 (64% to 30%). Ruh-roh Republicans.
We've watched this happen over and over again over the last 3 1/2 years. Whenever President Obama embraces something Republicans say they support, they become terrified of what it would mean if they actually worked with him to tackle the challenges that face us. And so instead of working with him, they go into obstruction mode and paint themselves into an ever more extremist corner.
You want to know why Republicans keep insisting on jumping off an extremist cliff? There's your perfect example of how/why it keeps happening.
I'll close with 2 quotes that regular readers will have seen here before. The first is from Mark Schmitt.
One way to deal with that kind of bad-faith opposition is to draw the person in, treat them as if they were operating in good faith, and draw them into a conversation about how they actually would solve the problem. If they have nothing, it shows. And that's not a tactic of bipartisan Washington idealists -- it's a hard-nosed tactic of community organizers, who are acutely aware of power and conflict.And the second from Jonathan Chait.
This apparent paradox is one reason Obama's political identity has eluded easy definition. On the one hand, you have a disciple of the radical community organizer Saul Alinsky turned ruthless Chicago politician. On the other hand, there is the conciliatory post-partisan idealist. The mistake here is in thinking of these two notions as opposing poles. In reality it's all the same thing. Obama's defining political trait is the belief that conciliatory rhetoric is a ruthless strategy.
I suppose I should every now and again note that you're spot-on, Smartypants. I suppose I take that for granted and don't say it often enough.
ReplyDeleteWhat I will also say is that at some level I think the President has already accomplished his primary political goal (in my estimation, have at me if you will) which is to make the Democratic Party--the left-leaning party in the two-party system--the party that most people think is "normal."
His admiration for Reagan is often used by some of us on the left incorrectly, that somehow this indicates that the President liked Reagan's policy. Rather, Reagan made the GOP seem "normal" to a lot of people who objectively owed a lot to the New Deal and to unions. This move is what Obama admires. Reagan's rhetoric normalized rightward policy. Obama normalizes leftward policy. Only an idiot would say that Obama is not moving policy leftward. Of course, there are idiots out there, but that's another article.
To be sure, this is all about longer-term strategy, and in the immediate term this election is actually a fight, though not an equal one. Losing it would be a disaster and would endanger many of the gains the President has with our help made.
That said, the GOP cannot tack to the middle anymore. They lose more than they gain if they do. That reason alone is why this election is so important.
This long-term approach is really fascinating to watch once you clue into it. You know that we're watching history being made just as some people are clueless about how that's happening.
DeleteI appreciate your more positive take in describing it as "normalizing leftward policy." I've tended t see it as "making rightward policy look batshit crazy." LOL
The one thing standing in the way of all this coming clear is the economy. I get the sense that some people are so scared about it that they're missing just how over the cliff the Republicans have gone. Otherwise I have to think that Democrats would be leading in this election by a landslide.
You know, you reminded me (tangentially, as I tend to do) of the whole discussion among Bolsheviks after October 1917 about tempo.
DeleteI swear to you this is on topic.
That is to say, there were two threads of disagreement within the Party once they had come into power. First, there was what policies needed to happen. The broad goal was clear--modernize the economy--but what you do to do that was a subject of debate. The second thread was about tempo. How fast should you go?
To their credit the Bolsheviks understood the distinction between an argument about policy and one about tempo. You could get two people who both though you should squeeze the peasantry to build industry, but who disagreed on how much you should squeeze them over a year's time.
The left in the US does not seem to distinguish an argument over tempo from an argument over policy. The President clearly has a sense that historical change that sticks is incremental and largely a function of changing definitions of normal. Axelrod, significantly, has made explicit reference to Burke on this account, partially as a tactical feint, but also because Obama and Axelrod both share Burke's understanding of the dynamics of historical change. I will note that to a very large extent, if you change the vocabularly, Marx did, too.
Maybe this is the discussion we need to start having, an explicit one about tempo.
Not only are your blog posts amazing, but you attract some truly insightful commenters.
ReplyDeleteThis site is a daily read and a sanity anchor as we forge deeper into the silly season.
Thank you!
Meanwhile you have people like John Boehner whining about how Obama's action is making it harder for Congress to solve this problem, and Mitt Romney whining about how Obama should have done something about this issue earlier in his term. They seem to forget that the Democrats brought the Dream Act up for a vote, but Republicans in the Senate refused to allow a vote on the bill.
ReplyDeleteYou know, my favorite part of Barack Obama's strategy is that it forces people to constantly underestimate him. He knows that the various fictional characters that have popped up about him are dead wrong, but he doesn't care. If the GOP thinks he's a weak-willed pushover then they're that more easy to trick.
ReplyDeleteOf course, this ultimately has the downside of the less strategically minded among us thinking that he's "caved" or that he's "letting the GOP win." These people are of course, idiots who care less about actually winning this war (and let's be frank here, it IS a war, albeit a cold one.) and more about petty revenge and emotional validation.
You can't beat an entity like the modern Conservative movement with a full broadside or frontal assault. They have more money, the media eating out of their hands, and have dominated the political culture here for decades. To truly topple the colossus, you have to wear it down over time, slowly and patiently. Get it angry and goad it into making stupid mistakes, which you know it won't reflect on because it wouldn't know the concept of self reflection if it was right in front of it. And eventually, after years of effort, the giant crumbles after you've made it vulnerable enough to strike a killing blow.
People who interpret the battle between the President and his opponents as the battle of David and Goliath are woefully mistaken. It's a battle between Goliath and Sun Tsu, and Tsu is about to goad Goliath into exposing a major artery for a killing blow.
I second Anonymous's comment regarding insightful commenters. What a breath of fresh air! Indeed, time and time again, we see PBO playing 10-dimensional chess, rope-a-doping his opponents then using their own momentum to take them down. People keep underestimating him, especially the GOP. See, the GOP thinks to win a debate or fight, you have to yell and be cantankerous. Make the most noise! Yet, the way President Obama has been winning the fights have been this resolve of steel and using the opponents' weaknesses against themselves. Just look at the immigration directive. It's been almost a week, and neither Romney nor the GOP leaders have anything to say about it except their qualms regarding process.
ReplyDeleteI think this is only the beginning, and there will be more of these to come as the election nears. Mitt Romney needs to realize that this isn't like the GOP Primary where he was able to push around those incompetent candidates. He's playing with the big boys now, and if he's not ready (he's not), President Obama will take him down hard.
This is the first time I've seen a discussion of Obama's political tactics that really more successfully explains what he's doing. And I'm NOT one of those people who underestimate him.
ReplyDeleteMy parents are teachers (PhD's) and I tended to see Obama preforming the same same sort of thoughtful, deliberate, carefully planned out process as what I grew up with. I'm also not intimidated by intellectuals.
I'm disgusted by the rampant racism I do observe by some. Ugh.
No one I've seen has brought this up but I am guessing that Obama's "Mr Spock" personality may have come from years of putting up with racism. One of my close friends was so tortured by racists that it was driving him crazy. He didn't act out but every time we spoke it was a topic that came up. We have to know that Obama has seen his share of this stupidity. The fact that he remains calm and mature is just impressive.
It also means he's got a spine of steel. After years of putting up with racism it was like a crucible: nothing seems to really bother him.
For me the biggest problem with Obama getting reelected is that there are people who did vote for him in 2008 but are mistakenly "disappointed". They seem to be under some delusion that Obama was going to wave a Harry Potter wand and everything would be fine. It's their underestimation of Obama that is the real problem.
How can they be properly informed ?