Yes, Mr. President, I still have your back.
1. Introduction
That's the question (and my answer) that I recently received, part of a fundraising letter from Democrats.org. On the envelope I was asked if I still supported Obama. The letter began with a check-off box indicating Yes, Mr. President, I still have your back! There were no other choices; the only other boxes to check were to indicate the amount of a hoped-for donation.
Along with the letter came a little bumper sticker, It states in blue type: I've Got His Back, This slogan was used in the presidential campaign. The difference now is that the word "still" is inserted (in red) between the first two words. Uh-oh, Mr, President, your presidency is in trouble; it's currently in the worst state since you were first elected president in 2008. What happened to Yes, we can?
Obviously you and your supporters have had to watch your back since a hysterical, hyperpartisan opposition has been relentlessly trying to stab you there since you were elected. Yet major wounds to your presidency have been self-inflicted, such as those resulting from failing to adequately inform the public what you have done and what you are doing, thus allowing the Republican disinformation efforts to be more effective. The disastrous rollout of your signature legislation, the much needed Affordable Care Act--problems which you should have anticipated and prevented--has caused major damage.. Republicans are no fools; they know that once health care is fully enacted, people are going to like it. It is a delicate time now; health care reform is in danger, and it is partially your fault that it is.
2. The Voyage of a Political Life
The health care debacle has taken you to a new place in your political career. I would like to illustrart that career now, with the help of Thomas Cole's series of paintings entitled, The Voyage of Life.
Stage One: Political Infancy
You came from nowhere, symbolized in the painting by a dark cave. (That's you as a happy infant in front of your guardian angel.) Raised largely by your mother, you were smart and showed great promise. You went to Harvard and graduated in the upper ten percent of your class. You studied law and became the editor of the Harvard Law Review. Quite a distinction. After that, you had a successful stint as a community organizer in Chicago. Right from the beginning, you were helping the poor and middle class, a noble and lasting characteristic of your personality.
Stage Two: Politics
A great career has been launched! You ran for the senate of Illinois and won, and served as senator from 1997-2004. You sponsored and supported many bills, involving ethics and health care, etc. You sponsored and got passed the first law in the United States that requires videotaping of police interviews in potential homicide cases. What is striking about your stint as state senator was how well you worked with Republican legislators; much of the legislation you advocated received, with some give and take, bipartisan support. You were obviously going places. From 2005-2008 you served as one of the two U.S. senators from Illinois. You opposed the Iraq War from the beginning and did not vote for it, unlike Hillary Clinton. You were involved with much legislation, one of which bears your name. You sponsored the Democratic Republic of the Congo Relief, Security and Democracy Promotion Act, which President Bush signed into law in 2006. You conducted a poll to see if you had the support to run for presidency; you were certainly an underdog, but you took the chance. And it paid off--Hillary Clinton's campaign was not run nearly as well as yours. You inspired the young, and ran a very digitally sound campaign. You received the nomination, and won. Yes we can, you told enthusiastic throngs. We will put an end to politics as usual; we will work together with Republicans and usher in a new age of cooperation and achievement. You received a terrible legacy from President Bush, whose disastrous policies created the worst recession since the Great Depression. Although you were vociferously opposed by Republicans from the beginning, you achieved great things. Here is a partial list: millions of jobs have been created during your presidency; you passed a much needed stimulus program; you saved the auto industry; you eliminated bin Laden; you ended the war in Iraq; you passed new fuel efficiency standards which will eventually cut auto emission by about 50%; you reduced the deficit; reached an accord with Iran regulating the development of nuclear weapons--all truly stellar achievements. You are the first president since Roosevelt to receive the majority of the popular vote in two elections. Let's not forget, of course, your signature legislation, the Affordable Care Act, which--at last! provides health care to all.
Stage Three: Approaching the Rapids
In 2010, the Democrats lost control of the House, thanks largely to their having gerrymandered their districts. (The Democrats actually received a majority of the votes in the red states.) Since then opposition has been fierce. The mad hatters of the Tea Party took over the Republican Party and refuse to compromise on anything. You've been called many thing,s including a socialist, a Nazi, a communist, a Muslim, etc. Filibusters are to be used judiciously to assure that the minority party has a voice; the Republicans used it to a really unprecedented degree to oppose you on everything. (Fifty percent of the filibusters in the entire history of the United States have been used against you. You would not be able to fill any positions if the senate had not been forced by your irresponsible opponents to change the legislation regarding the use of filibusters.) Your popularity has plummeted. The latest poll registered doubts even about your honesty. The downward spiral has been caused in large part by the failure of the computerized exchanges to deliver, a failure that has come at a very critical time in your presidency. Will you be able to backpaddle and be towed against the current by a more competent staff? Will you be able to return to calmer waters? Is this the beginning of stage four?
Stage Four: The End of Your Career
Here we see an old man in a broken vessel. His Guardian Angel shows him the light above. Perhaps it is heaven; perhaps it's just a light under which he can write his memoirs. Old age is a symbol here; you have lost your power and are no longer of any consequence, even though you might only be in your fifties. The Republicans have been trying to get you to this stage since you were elected president. The Tea Party would have won if you came prematurely to this stage; to celebrate your defeat there would be a lot of Republicans--especially John Boehner--drinking more than tea. They might have a good chance now to repeal the ACA, thus nullifying your legacy and causing the American people significant suffering. This is indeed a possibility, since the public has not felt the beneficial effects of universal health care as yet and are woefully ignorant on the subject. Stage Four is not inevitable any time soon. Even a bad man like Scrooge received a vision and changed his life around. You, a good man, can change around the difficulties you--and we--are in. I am confident you will be able to do so.
3. Why Do They Hate You?
I can't remember any time in my lifetime--and I am not young--when political opposition has been so hateful and destructive. As Rush Limbaugh, a fanatic Republican commentator, and Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader--both speaking for the majority of Republicans, I'm afraid-- stated, their primary objective is to see to it that Obama fails. Not to see America prosper, mind you, but to see to it that our president fails. Everything that the president tries to do is thus vociferously opposed. A huge disinformation campaign is in effect, and it has been quite successful. Any yes that is achieved is despite a right-wing that automatically says no. Why this fanaticism that is so harmful not only to the country but to Democrats and Republicans as well? (The tantrum-like temporary shut-down of the government did not benefit the Republican party.) What is the reason for this unprecedented destructive partisanship?
Racism is often cited as a reason, and no doubt this is partially correct. But I don't think this is the main reason why Republican leaders oppose Obama. I don't think the Koch brothers would have any problem breaking bread with Clarence Thomas or Alan Keyes. The real reason, I think, is that Republican oligarchs are terrified by the prospect of a successful Democratic president. The Republicans are a minority party--most Americans are not filthy rich--they fear that their power will be diminished by a party that sees the horrible inequality of our country as a problem. The two recent presidents that significantly raised the degree of opposition to hysteria are Clinton and Obama. Note that both of these had/have centrist policies; Clinton for instance required those on welfare to work; Obama for instance has significantly decreased the national debt and has not increased programs such as SNAP, the food stamp program, which, despite the severe economic downturn, has actually been cut. Despite this centrism, Republican fear that if any Democrat is successful, the days of unchecked oligarchy are numbered. This is obvious in their fanatic opposition to Obamacare, the plan for which was first developed by a Republican think tank; an almost identical version of it was implemented in a state by a Republican governor. Since they are a minority party, the Republicans must trick a not too sophisticated electorate to vote for them if they are to remain in power. They will find areas where slander will be the most effective; they are really good at this.
With Clinton, it was adultery. They knew that adultery in a president would cause no scandal in France, but not so in America. (Prior to Clinton's presidency, politicians were more discrete--Kennedy, Roosevelt, etc had committed adultery also.) So they caused a scandal that had nothing to do with Clinton's ability to govern, and almost ruined his second term. Mission (almost) accomplished!
With Obama--perhaps an even greater threat to them than Clinton--things were different. They knew that this upright family man did not have a mistress in his closet. So they got him on race, not so much because they were racists themselves but because they knew racism was still widespread in America. The race card would help them trick voters to vote against their own interests, so they played it. "Barack" to be sure is not a common name in Kansas; they deepened their propaganda against him as a member of a minority by conflating that otherness with the otherness of a supposed foreigner. The Birther Movement was born. Once he was deemed "the other" that is, not a true American, it was easy to accuse him of being a socialist, a communist or even a Nazi. Some of these scandalous accusations had grass-roots origins, but at the very least have been supported by large swaths of the Republican hierarchy. Some examples of this extremism: one Republican congressman stated that he felt sick just by standing near Obama. During the shutdown "negotiations," one GOP House leader told Obama outright, "I can't stand to even look at you." The atmosphere is obviously poisonous. What has Obama done to deserve this other than the fact that he is black and is working hard for the sake of all Americans?
Your signature legislation may be in danger, Mr. President. We will briefly discuss how this came to be and how you can turn things around. First a few words why universal health care is so necessary.
4. The Obvious Case for Universal Health Care
While waiting to get my haircut, I overheard the conversation between a customer and the barber. The customer was a middle-aged white man from the working class. He stated that Obamacare is a disaster; premiums will go up--way up--for everybody; the takeover of health care by the government will lead to death panels; the American people are stupid and have been manipulated into trading in their freedom for governmental slavery, etc. The barber, a middle-aged Korean woman, agreed completely. When he had left and it was my turn, I gently tried to present her with some facts to the contrary. She clammed up completely and I gave up. If this is a typical situation, Republican propaganda has been markedly effective, and the President has done a bad job in informing the public of the truth. I'm afraid both are true.
The necessity for universal health care has been discussed at length in many articles, so I will only present one slide that says it all:
The United States is an outlier. Every advanced country has health care; nearly all spend half or less than what we spend on health, yet our country has worse outcomes. (Mortality rates are obviously the most important indicator of the success of health care delivery.) Take one example, Italy, The vertical axis indicates that peopl;e live much longer there than they do in America. The health care costs per person are less than half of what we pay. We, in fact, spend almost 18% of our GDP on health care; most other countries, as the chart clearly indicates pay less than half of what we do per person,--and with better outcomes. If all this is true, and it is, how can one imagine that health care costs will not be brought down by the Affordable Care Act?
5. Obama's Problem
In Time's cover story of the December 2nd, 2013 issue, entitled "Broken Promise" I read that, as a candidate for the presidency in 2007, you said, "Some in this debate around experience seem to think the job of the President is to go in and run some bureaucracy. Well, that's not my job. My job is to set a vision of 'Here's where the bureaucracy needs to go." How wrong this is! We didn't elect you to be our Presidential Adviser, but our president. If a president develops policies wise as Lincoln's but has the political savvy of van Buren, there will be extreme difficulties in implementing those policies. And implementing them is the bottom line! Who cares about good laws that are never enacted? Look, the presidency is a hard job. No one can have all the skills needed. But if you're basically a great policy wonk, yet lack both desire and skill to push your visions into laws, you must see to it that you have people around you who are able to do so. In that same article was a devastating assessment from Elaine Kamarck, from the Brookings Institution: "The President has never surrounded himself with people who have deep experience in managing government." You admitted, Mr President, in your Nov. 14 news conference, that you were, among other things, ignorant that there were significant problems with the national health care web-site. There is no excuse for that, Mr. President! It has put your legacy in danger at a very critical time. Another consequence of your aloofness is that nobody is afraid of opposing you on Capital Hill. Do you think Lincoln, Roosevelt and Johnson would have gotten their signature laws passed without seeing to it--even sometimes with intimidation--that they could obtain the necessary votes?
Although the news is bad now, it is far from all bad; I still am confident that you will succeed with the health care law, despite the precipitous decline in the polls both for you and this law. You are too intelligent not to learn your lesson about how government works. Even better, the health care law is showing signs of success. Medicaid continues to expand on target in those states where Republican governors have not sabotaged this aspect of the new law. California, with 38 million people, making it larger than several European countries, is well on target. Important here is to note that prior to the law, California had many uncovered residents. A large number are young, and they are signing up in unprecedented numbers--which is of crucial importance if the program is to be successful. State exchanges in several other states are working well, too--notably in Kentucky and Washington. The national web site is functioning better now, and improvements will continue to be made, I have no doubt about this. Yes, there will be problems. Some people, especially if they work part-time, might lose their coverage from their employers and might have to settle for more restrictive policies from the exchanges. Some people, especially wealthy young people, will have to pay more. But prices will undoubtedly follow the pattern established in the rest of the world and come down. People will have to abandon cheap, shabby policies for better ones that might cost a bit more. There are generous subsidies to help out the majority of Americans to pay for coverage. Best of all, the national shame of having over forty million people uncovered will finally come to an end.
But you have shot yourself in the foot and now must swim upstream, bloodied in a river full of piranhas. Get yourself some help, and you will be successful. The American people are depending on you!
I will end this essay with The Parable of the Fastidious Woman.
6. The Parable of the Fastidious Woman
Once there was a woman who grew medicinal herbs in her garden. They did not grow easily and she worked tirelessly because she knew that the herbs could cure an illness that was the plague of many. After much effort, she harvested a sufficient quantity of the priceless plants. She put them in a basket to deliver them to the people that needed them--But there was a problem. The sick people lived on the other side of a very polluted stream. There were no bridges. She would have to wade across the foul stream, if she wanted to help--and that was her fervent desire. She approached the bank of the stream, but couldn't walk any farther. She was too fastidious. She thought for a while, and came up with a solution. She went to a neighboring town and hired people who were not afraid to get dirty. They bore her, high above their heads, across the stream. She delivered the herbs to the sick, after which she was brought back to her garden, where she continued to grow a variety of herbs for the sake of many. One day she noticed a group of healthy people waving to her from across the stream. She gave them her best smile.
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