So much, then, for Mr. Obama’s dream of moving beyond divisive politics. The truth is that the factors that made politics so ugly in the Clinton years — the paranoia of a significant minority of Americans and the cynical willingness of leading Republicans to cater to that paranoia — are as strong as ever. In fact, the situation may be even worse than it was in the 1990s because the collapse of the Bush administration has left the G.O.P. with no real leaders other than Rush Limbaugh.
The question now is how Mr. Obama will deal with the death of his postpartisan dream.So far, at least, the Obama administration’s response to the outpouring of hate on the right has had a deer-in-the-headlights quality. It’s as if officials still can’t wrap their minds around the fact that things like this can happen to people who aren’t named Clinton, as if they keep expecting the nonsense to just go away.
What, then, should Mr. Obama do? It would certainly help if he gave clearer and more concise explanations of his health care plan. To be fair, he’s gotten much better at that over the past couple of weeks.
What’s still missing, however, is a sense of passion and outrage — passion for the goal of ensuring that every American gets the health care he or she needs, outrage at the lies and fear-mongering that are being used to block that goal.So can Mr. Obama, who can be so eloquent when delivering a message of uplift, rise to the challenge of unreasoning, unappeasable opposition? Only time will tell.
The problem isn't the lying, fearmongering that's coming from the right. That's normal procedure, and if I'm a Republican strategist, I stay with what works until it doesn't. So the real problem is not what the Republicans do. Their playbook is open for all to read. The problem lies in that after all these years, the Dems haven't figured out a way to deal with what the Republicans do, and that they persist in thinking that some kind of mature, non-partisan conversation with between people of goodwill is possible. And the result is they get played for suckers time and time and time again--and the rest of us pay the price.
I thought it was a mistake for Obama to take healthcare on so early. The only reason to do it was to take advantage of the goodwill he enjoyed during the so-called honeymoon period, but he surely didn't expect any honeymoon from Republican lawmakers; he cannot have been so stupid to expect that, could he?
He could, however, expect it from the American people, and yet he's done very little to work with the general goodwill and popularity he has enjoyed, and it's looking now as though even that is being quickly squandered. (I certainly don't feel much goodwill toward him at this point. He would not get high marks from me on any approval or job-performance rating poll.) He seems, instead, bent on working with Republicans and Blue Dogs in Congress who are themselves bent on not giving him an inch. It's blatant foolishness to continue with that strategy.
Obama has the weapons to fight back, and he doesn't have to play dirty. He has to get off his heels and show the kind of shrewdness and nimbleness he displayed during the campaign. He has to show some spine and some leadership and to use his prodigious talent to enable the country imagine that something better is truly possible. It's just a question of whether he's ever going to get around to figuring this out.
P.S. See Hullaballoo for a "Field Guide to Political Creatures." It explains why good policy gets lost in the shuffle. What we need within the Wonk set is wonks with a measure of thumos to give the rest of us a fighting chance. So long as the Right owns thumos and the Progressives own Irony, Progressives lose.
****
UPDATE: John Cole--
It is just over. And the Democrats have no one to blame but themselves. If the Republicans had majorities like the Democrats have right now, they would have abolished the IRS and the Department of Education, Bernie Madoff would be running social security, there would be an oil well in every backyard and off every inch of coast, we’d have mandatory prayer in schools, and the defense department budget would be doubled so we could have excellent adventures in Iran while we liberate Georgia from oppressive Russian rule. And we’d be doing it all with a top marginal rate of 3%.
I don't know if it's over, but it will be if the Dems don't fight back. I still have some hope that someone, if not Obama, then maybe someone in Congress, will find his or her thumos and others will follow. The latent forces of sanity need a catalyst. And I think if one can be found, we can have that turning point we're all looking for.
I am far angrier at the Democrats now than I am at the Republicans. The Republicans are feral and predictable. If the Dems don't fight back and if some meaningless Bush-lite bill comes to a vote, I hope it gets voted down and the so-called centrist Dems are humiliated, and the country which looked to Democrats for leadership finds a way to organize to get these spineless fools ousted and replaced with some people who will fight for their principles and not be intimidated by this corporate thuggery.