Yes We KECHONK!
In lieu of the regular Vine, a few words of advice: remember when this happened, and how awesome it felt. Remember that you, the Nation, have improved the lives of tens of thousands of people. Community action works; just ask that guy up top there.
Tough day for American progressives, but don’t give up. Thank reader Greg for the photo hilarity, donate to the Fall Classic, and try not to freak out. Or freak out in the comments. We’re here for you.
November 3, 2010
We ran upstairs right before eleven so we wouldn’t miss the West Coast returns, but instead of telling us who won what state, CNN just blurted it out: Obama is our next president. It took a second, but then, bedlam.
Right now, two hours later, I can still hear intermittent honking and cheering outside. Total strangers gave me thumbs-ups and congrats as I walked home. I can’t describe the feeling; I can’t believe it’s true. I barely remember what it’s like to feel like the country’s leadership cares about me or anything I believe in, or to think the guy I voted for isn’t just the lesser of two evils.
And President-Elect Obama immediately repaid my faith by 1) beginning his speech precisely on time, 2) thanking his supporters and giving the voters the credit without sounding obsequious or fake, and 3) immediately saying that this is just the first of many steps we all need to take together…”this is not over,” in effect. That speech, like so many of his speeches, is rhetorically a lot harder to do than it might seem, never mind convincingly, and he did it.
Also awesome: the crowds totally bugging out at the White House, Frank Lautenberg running for Senate in Jersey and winning despite being old enough to remember when the Senate had an outhouse, and Joe Biden’s mom. And Joe Biden. And Prop 8 going down (fingers crossed!). And, when it really counted, America. Good job, guys.
Tags: city living Obamawesome our friend English politix
“I wonder if it would have failed had it been about civil unions and not marriage? Would people feel as strongly if was just about equal legal rights for gays and not the institution of marriage?”
This is one of my fundamental problems with the term gay marriage. Disclaimer: I am a loud and proud lesbian. My opinion on the matter is just a bit different than most peoples.
The major problem gay marriage faces is the seemingly insurmountable mountain of opposition the word marriage brings to the table. I truly feel, in my heart, that if the proposition had been for civil unions instead of marriage, we would have a different outcome. We are NEVER going to win this fight if we keep calling it marriage. It is an institution too deeply bound in religion, and if a private religion wants to deny me marriage recognition, who am I to fight it? Thats the beauty of the separation of church and state.
So here is how I see it. As long as we are fighting for marriage, we are never going to win federal recognition. Civil Unions, on the other hand, very well may. My proposition, then, would be to rename ALL state-sanctioned, legal unions as Civil Unions, regardless of the sex or gender of the two individuals receiving the rights. Leave the concept, and sanctity, of marriage to religions. Because it’s not about legal rights or equality for the people who vote against gay marriage. It’s about maintaining the sanctity of a religious rite. And we have no place telling religions who they can and can’t perform a religious rite for.
Marriage = Religious. Civil Unions = Legal. Otherwise, as I see, it, a legal union for gay people will never be recognized.
@ Ashley.
I totally agree. You should get a civil union license. That should be the only thing the gov’t issues. Not a marriage license.
That being said… There were people here in CA who were HORRIFIED that instead of saying “bride” and “groom,” the licenses here were changed to say something like “party 1” and “party 2.” (or applicant 1 & 2…something like that). I mean, they were outraged! How DARE they be denied the right to have the words bride and groom on their application.
Silly, that is!
My partner and I live in East Texas, so…not so much with the people celebrating in the streets but it was still amazing to witness history being made. It is really hard living in the South where it seems like everyone hates us, but it is so great to come here and see that not everyone views us as unworthy of equal rights. And Hester, of course the language surrounding this issue is emotion-filled. I know it’s hard for you to understand because it doesn’t affect you, since you don’t experience hatred and ignorance on a daily basis because of who you love. You don’t have to be afraid that if you have children with your partner, they could be taken away from you by a family member who is “just doing what’s in the best interest of the children” if something happens to the birth parent. You don’t have to experience seeing self-righteous people all around you getting to decide for you what rights you deserve as a person. So, yes, my words are filled with emotion, and I don’t think I should have to just sit back and wait for a more tolerant generation to come along before my partner and I can enjoy the same rights as straight couples.
@JeniMull: Oh, yes. I discovered (rather late, I hate to say) Linda’s blog, awesome in its own right, but I’d be sad if she posted any less frequently here, especially on matters legalistical. And other, er, things.
Just as an aside…NORTH CAROLINA IS BLUE!!!
Thank you. You may now return to your regularly scheduled democracy.
Legalizing gay marriage does not require any church to marry anyone it doesn’t want to. Interfaith marriages are legal, but if a church doesn’t want to do them — and many don’t — it doesn’t have to. No church would, under any law, be required to perform your wedding if it chose not to.
It’s actually the reverse, in my opinion — faiths that want to sanctify gay marriages, of which there are quite a few, are denied their religious freedom, because they cannot perform a legal marriage between two women or two men, which their faith in some cases compels them to do.
That being said, I think there is great merit in your idea to separate civil marriage and religious marriage in theory. That’s probably what I’d prefer to see. But if you think equality in marriage is unlikely, I’d counter that abolishing legal “marriage” in favor of legal “civil unions” for all is far, far, far less likely to succeed. Imagine trying to pass a law intended in part to protect gay rights that literally abolishes legal marriage for straight people. Yowza.
I too support the change in legal documents to protect “civil unions” or “domestic partnerships” over marriage because I think the state has more interest in people contributing to one another economically as opposed to the spiritual ramifications of marriage. Marriage is a religious word; I can appreciate the desire of various faiths to define it for themselves.
First, a late “Well done, America, and thanks from the rest of the world! I knew you had it in you.” Now, please send some of that charisma northwards, as our current Prime Minister is, like, the personification of grey flannel slacks.
Second, thanks to Sarah for her parsing of Obama’s speech. I read somewhere that Jon Favreau is one of Obama’s speechwriters – can anyone confirm this, and also, that Jon Favreau?! I wasn’t as blown away by the speech as some, but Obama delivered it extremely well, and I did eventually tear up, when the camera cut to Jesse Jackson.
My primary feeling watching him speak was: “Oh God, he looks so tired, and it’s only going to get worse for the next four years.” My primary feeling while watching McCain speak (beyond “Suck it, Caribou Barbie!”) was “Gee, if he’d only talked like that more often he might have won this thing.” Whoever it was above who said McCain just looked glad it was over was dead on: not that he wasn’t disappointed, but he could relax for the first time in a couple years.
Third, can someone enlighten an ignorant Canuck? Do you guys have to register as something (Democrat, Republican, Independent) in order to vote? Something Sarah said earlier this week or last gave me that idea, but perhaps I misunderstood.
@Deirdre:
1. Hee, you said “slacks.”
2. Obama has not to my knowledge ever mentioned that he got cut out of “Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle,” so it’s probably the same guy. …Heh, just kidding; I have heard the same thing. Favreau can be a tool but he’s got a good ear. Just…not for his own anecdotes sometimes.
3. To vote in primaries, at least in New York State, you must be registered as a member of the party whose primary you wish to vote for. This annoys me because I am a small-I independent, i.e. not affiliated with any party, so I can’t vote in any primary; there are good arguments in favor of this system but I’d prefer universal involvement. A big-I Independence Party does exist, but frankly I don’t know what their deal is (they had McCain/Palin as their “nominees” this year, but they don’t always post a Republican ticket) and I’m not registered as that.
But the short answer is: no, in general elections, you just have to register, period; you can declare a party, but it’s not required.
When you register in most states, you pick a party (or register as an independent). In a few states, you can not declare a party affiliation when you register. Some states (like New York) have closed primaries, where you must be a registered member of a party to vote in that party’s primary. Others have open primaries, where any registered voter can vote in any party’s primary — but the voter has to pick one or the other. A very few states have semi-closed primaries, where the registered members of a party plus independents can vote in that party’s primary, but registered members of other parties cannot. The trick for most of these is that it is easy to change registrations — so 30 days before a party’s primary, you can register as a member of that party, and then switch back to independent (or to your original party) right after the primary.
On religious marriage — there are lots and lots of marriages that the Catholic church does not recognize as valid, including the marriage of any person who was previously married and then divorced. (The Catholic church will tell you that those people are still married to their first spouse and are therefore living in dirty, dirty adultery.) But nobody has ever suggested that those marriages should be denied legal recognition or any of the rights, privileges, and responsibilities that come along with legal recognition.
Many European countries have separated the legal joining of two people from the religious joining of two people — but they still call both of them “marriage.” It’s just that you only get the legal benefits if you go through the legal ceremony, and the law doesn’t care if you ever have a church ceremony. But the fact that marriage is a state function in the U.S. (as opposed to federal) makes that harder. If a state adopted civil unions for all and then a straight couple who was unionized moved to another state that still had marriage for some, how would that state treat their relationship? And how would the feds treat unionized couples? As married? It’s a nice idea, but I don’t think it makes the issue any simpler or makes the fight for equality any easier.
FWIW, my Romanian boyfriend (grew up under the communist regime) is pro-Obama and does not think he’s a communist. Just sayin’.
Also, we live in Texas, land of people who think Obama is a Muslim. To me, what’s worse than being willfully ignorant of Obama’s religious affiliations? The idea that it would MATTER if he were a Muslim, that it would actually preclude his qualification for presidency.
I have to admit I’m particularly annoyed today, after seeing someone online suggesting that Rahm Emanuel’s dual US/Israeli citizenship suggests that he could be a terrorist. My Jewish ass is pretty chapped by both this and the O NOEZ A MUSLIM?! things…
There’s an article in today’s New York Times about the economic consequences of what happened in California, fyi.
In the argument regarding the term “marriage,” I think another important point is that the legal definition of a term, in any given legal document, has absolutely fuckall to do with any other definition of that term, be it the common sense definition, the dictionary definition, or the religious definition.
Example: Most local jurisdictions in Georgia, for purposes of the local occupancy tax, define a “permanent resident” as an individual who has stayed in the local jurisdiction for more than ten days. This definition is applicable only for occupancy tax purposes.
Example again: In the state of Minnesota, for the purposes of the sales tax exemption on food, “food” is distinguished from “candy” by whether it contains flour or requires refrigeration. A Snickers bar: not candy. Contains flour, does not require refrigeration.
Ask your average person, “Hey, is a Snickers bar candy?” The answer is yes, because a Snickers bar is TOTALLY candy. It’s just that legally, for the purposes of that particular statute, it is not candy. In Minnesota.
This is really just to highlight that framing this issue as an argument of semantics rather than one of discrimination is fallacious on the face, simply because for legal purposes, the definition of any particular term often has no meaning outside of the specific legal document, and sometimes one specific section of that legal document, that contains it.
Saying, “we must legally define marriage as this definition our religion uses, or we will be forced to use the legal definition” is just flat out false. Teachers are not going to hype a Snickers bar as healthy meal on the food pyramid all, “Well, according to MN 297A.61.Subd.33, this is totally not candy, but food, therefore it is appropriate for dinner, EAT UP KIDS.”
Again, the legal definition is unfortunately not what this is about for most people. People who want to ban gay marriage will hide behind the semantics and pretend that it’s about what it’s *called*, but I very much doubt in the vast majority of cases that it has thing one to do with what we *call* a union between two men or between two women, and *everything* to do with what it *is*, namely that same-sex couples 1) exist and 2) fuck, which grosses these pro-ban people out.
Do *some* people legitimately have an issue with the semantics? Of course, and that includes some gay people. But I would prefer not to let homophobes off the hook by agreeing to pretend that it ISN’T about a profound misunderstanding of and discomfort with anal intercourse, women with buzz cuts, or whatever the issue is with The Other that they are dressing up as a protection of an institution that is already demonstrably flawed.
Now, do I feel that it’s productive to couch it to marital traditionalists this way — to tell them, “Don’t front, you hate gays”? Not particularly. Hearts and minds and whatnot. I just can’t abide the fiction that it’s about “preserving the family” or “honoring traditional marriage” when it’s actually about intolerance and fear-mongering, and when MILLIONS were spent on advertising by the supporters of Prop 8 while we all had to struggle to raise 100K for school supplies. Of all the goddamn things to raise money for: an undignified invasion into the business of others, which you don’t even have the balls to call by its real name.
On top of passing a proposition positing that friends and family members of mine are not full citizens, you don’t even have the respect for them to claim it for the hate it is? Fuck off. Take that Bible with you, too, because MY copy doesn’t endorse this horseshit.
GAH!
Just FYI, so everyone’s prepared for next time: in New York (or at least New York City) it is *not* easy to change your party registration to vote in primaries. I tried. In order to vote in the 2008 presidential primaries, I discovered that I would have had to change my party affiliation before the 2007 general election date. In other words, it’s already too late to vote in *next year’s* primaries in NYC.
If you are not already a registered voter, you can register newly up to 30 days before the election (or whatever the deadline is), but you cannot change a party affiliation. I called and asked how I could have known about that deadline, and was told it was on the website. Now why I, a registered voter, would *go* to the registration website a month before a general election I was already all set to vote in? No idea.
I chewed out a completely innocent aide at the NYC election headquarters round about February on this one, because I could not believe what I was reading on their website when I tried to register as a Democrat to vote in the primary.
The financial is the least of the reasons I’m pissed off about Prop 8 and the rest of it, but I just want to mention this. My partner and I just forked over $550 to a lawyer yesterday to have all the legal documents prepared (wills, health care power of attorney, etc.) to provide all the same rights that married couples get automatically. And the cost of a marriage license in the State of Ohio, folks? $50. I have to pay eleven times more than a straight person just to assure that the most special person in my life won’t be barred from my hospital room. FUCK. THAT. SHIT.
Another fact: These laws are having unintended consequences. The very strict wording of Ohio’s anti-gay marriage amendment said “unmarried individuals.” It took approximately 24 hours of this passing in 2004 for lawyers defending guys charged with domestic violence against their girlfriends to claim that those laws no longer applied to unmarried individuals.
Wow, late response….but still so happy. It was almost a year ago that Australia *finally* kicked out John Howard of the ‘big L’ (believe me, HUGE difference) Liberal Party, and voted in Kevin Rudd, new Prime Minister. I remember the joy we had – and now we get to experience it all over again. Congratulations, America’s deserved this for a long time.
I was one of those people bugging out at the White House and I still remember how good that felt! My hope is that people will see enough bullpoopie in the next two years from a Republican Congress that they will be itching to give Obama and the democrats another shot in 2012!
@Beth: y’know, between complete majorities in the Senate and the House and a Democratic President, I’d say that the Democrats had all the shot they needed. And we’ve still got DADT, we’ve still got bans on gay marriage, we’ve still got Gitmo, we’ve still got people getting blown up in Iraq and Afghanistan.
But we got a health-care bill, which “fixed” health care by making it like auto insurance in that it’s illegal not to have any. And we gave hundreds of billions of dollars to bankers and the UAW; that’s got to be worth something, right?
It was not Democratic success that led to so many Republicans being elected.
While I feel far from as good as I did in 2008 (or in 2006, for a more apt comparison), I don’t feel nearly as bad as I did in 2004, so there’s that.
Also, despite outspending the Hon. Marcy Kaptur by something like three or four to one, Rich Iott was defeated in the Ohio 9th by a margin of about 18%. To be fair, he also had to spend more to get his name out there, although he certainly got plenty of publicity after the Nazi reenactment story broke.
Thanks for this, Sars.
Uh, yeah. And then remember when the next two years happened, and it turned out the dude was just another Chicago politician? And he backed down on DADT? And wussed out on gay marriage? And threatened to sue California if they passed Prop 19? Cuz that’s what I remember.
@Kerry: “Uh,” yeah, I live here, but “thanks” for the list. Maybe you’re determined to miss my point, but in case it just slipped by you somehow: it’s not about Obama himself.
We thought anything was possible. We were excited. We were proud of the country, proud to be a part of it. We can sit around all, “What a disaster with the stasis and the backbiting and the neither-fish-nor-fowl compromises, blah,” or we can TRY to remember what it was about Obama and his campaign that got us psyched, and involved.
For me, it was that he gave us ownership and responsibility. That was probably his biggest mistake — people want the government to fix their lives, for free, and then bitch about getting what they paid for like it’s a conspiracy; it’s maddening, but it’s immutable human nature — but at the time it was his greatest gift.
He’s been a disappointment, but they always are. Even grading on a curve, I agree that he hasn’t lived up to expectations, but…he’s a president. If you expected a magical unicorn, that’s on you.
I’m very confused after this election cycle. There’s so much anger toward Obama and the Democrats but it doesn’t seem like they actually accomplished anything that they set out to do and that would make Repblicans mad or at least disagree….except for the health care bill that is. But can anyone tell me why people are so angry about it? I get that it makes insurance mandatory and people don’t like being told what to do. But is that really it? I’m genuninely curious. I guess I just don’t understand where this backlash is coming from.
I understand that people are angry. What I don’t get is why more people don’t realize that the most deserving targets for that anger are the Republicans who got us into this mess in the first place and who, by being obstinate, uncompromising assholes, sabotaged Democrat attempts to fix it. But instead of realizing this, people want to vote them back in! I have to wonder how much of this is because of a real groundswell of American will to move back to the right, and how much of this is the result of the Citizens United decision and the mind-boggling amount of corporate dollars that are now being injected into elections.
A lot of the failures of the last two years, though, can be blamed on the broken Senate. The Republican Party has gone completely freaking nuts, and the Democrats were facing having to get a filibuster-proof majority of 60 votes in the Senate on literally *every* bill that the Republicans were against. With Joe “Democrat in Name Only” Lieberman as vote number 60.
The Senate is broken because of the filibuster rule (which is not in the Constitution, by the way). Did you know that is is no longer necessary to ACTUALLY filibuster in the Senate? It used to be that in order to filibuster, a Senator or a party actually had to get up off their ass(es) and physically go through the act of talking without end in order to delay a vote. They don’t have to do that anymore – somewhere along the line the Senate rules were changed so that now, if you don’t have 60 votes to agree to end the discussion on an issue, it is essentially filibustered. And the Republicans have been forcing this on every single bill they don’t like. This is not how our government should be run and it is not how our government has been run in the past.
So yes, the health care bill sucks, but it sucks because it had to be watered down enough for Joe Lieberman and a handful of other Blue Dogs in the Senate to vote yes on it in order to break the filibuster. And it explains why a number of other bills were never even attempted – what’s the point if you know you can’t get it passed?
I’m at least a little encouraged that Obama knows people are disappointed, and he seems open to their feedback. He may not be doing everything that everyone wants him to do right this second, but he’s listening. I feel like sooner or later, that listening will turn into action.
“What I don’t get is why more people don’t realize that the most deserving targets for that anger are the Republicans who got us into this mess in the first place…”
Goddamit I’m NOT going to climb out of this ditch, I’m just going to SIT HERE FOREVER because I’m JUST SO MAD at the person who DUG this ditch!
Here, this should make people feel better: What the Fuck Has Obama Done So Far?
@Grainger: Okay…but I don’t think the whole curse-the-darkness dismissal works. First of all, progressives/Obama did try to climb out of the ditch, but they picked the wrong route a bunch of times; when they would get to the lip, they’d get kicked back down into the ditch by PR nightmares like Palin’s “death panel” soundbite (or GOP Congresspeople concerned that their voter base bought into that shit).
Second of all, let’s say that the ditch is the economy. The war and tax breaks, hallmarks of the conservative agenda, pretty much dug it. You can agree with how Obama/the progressives have addressed it thus far (I do not); you can think more of a comeback should have been made in two years (I do not; it doesn’t tend to work like that); but I fail to see how voting for conservatives = climbing out of the ditch. Climbing into a neighboring ditch with more Bible study, maybe.
I agree that, in 2010, raging at Bush et al. for the fine mess etc. etc. is a waste of energy. What I for one am trying to untangle, vis-a-vis the Tea Party and their ilk, is how you build a political coalition around the two-pronged idea that 1) the government has failed to fix our problems, therefore we should 2) revamp the government. The answer to 1) is not 2). It’s to understand that sometimes life is hard and it’s nobody’s fault, and if you believe that it’s the government’s job to see to every boo-boo you incur, you are actually a socialist.
The phrase is “the PURSUIT of happiness,” not “the GUARANTEE.” That people who don’t grasp that; blame the government for not getting them jobs or taking over the mortgage or buying them ponies or whatever; and then run FOR government on a conservative platform that, as *I* understand it, is about making government SMALLER — expressing bafflement at that “logic” isn’t cursing the darkness. It’s expressing bafflement.
“Goddamit I’m NOT going to climb out of this ditch, I’m just going to SIT HERE FOREVER because I’m JUST SO MAD at the person who DUG this ditch!”
Um, well, not to stretch a silly metaphor even further, but if the only alternative is to re-hire the folks who dug the ditch and who heretofore have been intent on 1) fouling my attempts to climb out of it and 2) preventing any attempts to fill it in, and are in future planning to dig the ditch even deeper, then… yes. I suppose at that point I’d rather just sit in it.
Yes! Does anyone remember Obama’s swearing in? His speech flat out stated that we were in the middle of hard times and more hard times to come, and he was going to do his best, but everyone else had to as well.
The recession is so, so hard, and to keep our basic infrastructure in place some really hard to choke down deals were made, and I for one am mightly pissed that at least a handful of CEOs are not currently in prison. (Bernie Madoff, as horrible as he was, was a straw man for all the Wall Streeters who were even worse.)
Nobody wants to hear about the insane, mindbreaking piles of crap the governnment will have to wade through to hold someone, anyone, responsible for the banks and the housing bubble and worthless mortgages and on and on. And we’re losing our jobs and we can’t find new ones, and where is that magic we felt in 2008? Why isn’t it making things better, damnit?!?
So we freak out and demand to pay no taxes for anything and the government is EVIL and they should just stay out of our business forever, but don’t cut Medicare, and tell me how much you understand me, and how it’s okay that I have nasty thoughts about those damned immigrants, tell me that the way I think is the RIGHT way, and you’ll do things the RIGHT way, and I won’t have to do anything hard, or boring, or unplesant ever ever ever, please?
Christ, it drives me crazy. People in Washington just voted no on every single tax, including one to pay for law enforcement, but voted yes on a bill to keep more people accused of an expanded class of felonies from being allowed bail. Which sounds great when you remember Maurice Clemmons who gunned down four police officers, but the reality is now we’ll have more people in the penal system for longer periods of time and no way to pay for it. Gah!
We can’t keep thinking in a way that lets flagrantly unqualified and quite possibly insane individuals decide they have a shot at being our representatives and running our country. We have to start thinking like strategists, like economists, like fucking ADULTS.
I voted for Obama and I’ll vote for him again, because while he may disappoint, it’s not because he’s throwing a temper tantrum or pandering to idiocy. He’s a MFing adult.
More than one person has made the point that, given the shitty economy, the turnover should have been way bigger. The fact that only the house turned, the fact that the progressive caucus only lost 4 whilst the blue dogs were halved, suggests that we still value progressive ideals, and we are still interested in going that way, not back to BushCo. (Paul’s success? I’m inclined to view that as the same cult-y thing that surrounds his dad, not a deep-seated desire to kill SocSec and Medicare and repeal the Civil Rights Act.) It’s a foot-stomp, not a tsunami.
Divided branches of government is way more the norm than single-party rule; we’ll get through it.
BushCo really fucked every last thing up for eight years. It ain’t like any of us can fold our arms, blink like Jeannie, and fix all that was broken. It’s probably gonna take a while yet while more fucked-upedness shakes out still. We did make an unusual amount of progress in spite of it all.
@Jenn: I was totally going to post that link!
I just don’t understand how this newly elected regime thinks they are going to shrink government and cut taxes while having no plan to cut spending. The ONLY thing even remotely resembling a “plan” that I’ve heard anyone say is how they are going to completely dismantle the new healthcare bill. The one thing the Obama administration has done that will actually *reduce* the deficit to the tune of $160 billion over the next 10 years. Slow clap, John Boehner.
The only way to siginificantly cut spending and reduce the deficit is to make big cuts in defense, social security and Medicare. Until politicians start talking about that, anything they say is just lip service.
As I told a friend yesterday, the one thing that got me through Wednesday was remembering something Jon Stewart said at The Rally on Saturday:
“We are living in hard times, not end times.”
At the time Jon wasn’t speaking about the election, but those words provided me with comfort, nonetheless. Yes, it was a tough day, yes, it seems like we’re going backwards, but we’ve been here before, haven’t we? We thought the Bush II presidency would never end, but it did. Many of us thought we’d never see anyone but white guys in the Oval Office, but were proved (awesomely) wrong.
Yes, times are tough, but that’s when the tough get going. (And/or bake cookies.) So, take a little time, lick your wounds, and begin planning for 2012. Because I, too, can see it from my house, Mrs. Palin, and it ain’t lookin’ good for you.
Although I’m disappointed of course with the backswing of the last election, it is true that divided branches are the norm and I try to take heart that we’ll get through it, and that we’ll continue the painstaking long view process of getting out of the ditch. And god knows I feared the inevitable dashing of such unrealistic hopes put on Obama from the night of his election, coupled with never losing faith in the democrats having some ideas that I like, but being terrible at maneuvering the politics of implementing them; but I try to remind myself with articles like this
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/17390/220013?RS_show_page=0
that there is progress being made, even if it’s compromised, long-term and ugly to achieve, and take heart that the administration seems to understand that, and maybe I prefer the small steps of a pragmatist to the soaring rhetoric of an idealist.
I just don’t understand how this newly elected regime thinks they are going to shrink government and cut taxes while having no plan to cut spending.
I have wondered for a while whether some Red State folks (and it’s not an attitude confined to the US – many fiscal and social conservatives in Canada would hold similar views) think that “Big Government” (i.e., any) is completely separate from the public services they actually use. In a lineup at a Sarah Palin book signing last year, a fan/supporter of Ms. Palin was asked which government spending she would eliminate. Her answer, perhaps predictably, was “All of it.”
I feel relieved of any obligation to take people like that seriously.
What I don’t get, and haven’t, since 2008, is why anyone thought Obama would be a miracle-worker in the first place. Did they actually read the article inside the New Yorker with the infamous “terrorist fist bump” cover? Because it was all about Obama’s modus operandi in Illinois, and how he was the ultimate pragmatist and a pretty darned smooth operator.
Which is fine. If politics is a zero-sum game, governing is compromise. If you have any belief at all in the Benthamite theory of greatest happiness for the greatest number (and democracy’s ability to achieve same) you have to accept that the president’s job isn’t to make things good just for the people who voted for him.
It’s difficult to imagine how, given the hand he was dealt, Obama could have made everything better in two terms, let alone two years. I think people are right to criticize him for focusing on health care instead of other priorities, especially given the watered-down nature of the bill. Speaking as a Canadian, although I am appalled by the American health care system, I would sooner he’d worked on the money stuff, because a weak dollar and decreased purchasing power is bad for Canada’s sell-our-resources-to-the-highest-bidder based economy. But I also think anyone who’s surprised, or upset, by the fact that he’s sought compromise, is perhaps a tad naive.
Thanks, Sars, for re-posting this and giving folks a chance to comment. I feel better reading that others are just as consternated as I about the lip service being paid to cutting spending and shrinking the government while at the same time screaming for this administration to fix the economy and replace all the jobs eliminated due to the previous administration’s policies. Those concepts just don’t go together. And I don’t understand why people forget that TARP happened in 2008 — it’s not a product of the Obama administration. So blaming all the increased spending on this administration is just plain incorrect.
I understand being frustrated about the state of things. I’m frustrated, too. But reverting to the folks and policies that got us here just doesn’t logically make sense to me.
Although divided branches may be the norm, cooperation across the divide is necessary to make progress. And I have seen no evidence that Boehner and friends are interested in or willing to compromise or cooperate.