Meet the new Obama -- same (mostly) as the Old Obama

Yesterday, I sought to demonstrate that Obama was simply reverting to form in his second inaugural address by equating liberal priorities with the nation's founding principles and historical development. He did so day in and day out in 2008; the notion that liberal policy prescriptions would enable the country to continue forming "a more perfect union" was the basis of his campaign. I professed myself astonished that anyone would be surprised by his using this framework -- grounding his policies in the Declaration of Independence -- in his Second Inaugural.

Lest anyone conclude that Obama the defender of liberal priorities went into remission for four years, let's extend the 'rhetoric retrospective' back from the most recent past. Take, for example, Obama's speech at the Democratic National Convention last September -- a widely panned speech that to my ear was more forceful, more caustic, and more conceptually resonant than yesterday's inaugural.  At the DNC, Obama grounded his defense of government action to expand opportunity and strengthen the safety net and stimulate enterprise in -- you guessed it -- the Declaration of Independence:

As Americans, we believe we are endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights – rights that no man or government can take away. We insist on personal responsibility and we celebrate individual initiative. We’re not entitled to success. We have to earn it. We honor the strivers, the dreamers, the risk-takers who have always been the driving force behind our free enterprise system – the greatest engine of growth and prosperity the world has ever known.

But we also believe in something called citizenship – a word at the very heart of our founding, at the very essence of our democracy; the idea that this country only works when we accept certain obligations to one another, and to future generations....

 Because we understand that this democracy is ours. 

We, the People, recognize that we have responsibilities as well as rights; that our destinies are bound together; that a freedom which only asks what’s in it for me, a freedom without a commitment to others, a freedom without love or charity or duty or patriotism, is unworthy of our founding ideals, and those who died in their defense. 

As citizens, we understand that America is not about what can be done for us. It’s about what can be done by us, together, through the hard and frustrating but necessary work of self-government. 

So you see, the election four years ago wasn’t about me. It was about you. My fellow citizens – you were the change. 

You’re the reason there’s a little girl with a heart disorder in Phoenix who’ll get the surgery she needs because an insurance company can’t limit her coverage. You did that. 

You’re the reason a young man in Colorado who never thought he’d be able to afford his dream of earning a medical degree is about to get that chance. You made that possible. 

You’re the reason a young immigrant who grew up here and went to school here and pledged allegiance to our flag will no longer be deported from the only country she’s ever called home; why selfless soldiers won’t be kicked out of the military because of who they are or who they love; why thousands of families have finally been able to say to the loved ones who served us so bravely: “Welcome home.” 

If you turn away now – if you buy into the cynicism that the change we fought for isn’t possible…well, change will not happen. If you give up on the idea that your voice can make a difference, then other voices will fill the void: lobbyists and special interests; the people with the $10 million checks who are trying to buy this election and those who are making it harder for you to vote; Washington politicians who want to decide who you can marry, or control health care choices that women should make for themselves.

Only you can make sure that doesn’t happen. Only you have the power to move us forward.

Greg Sargent, who quite rightly stressed yesterday that Obama grounded his liberal program in the Declaration, but rather oddly implied that this was some kind of radical departure, today notes, again quite rightly, that the speech signaled Obama's determination that he " will have to defeat the opposition, rather than win it over" -- but again oddly, implied that this too is a new direction.As the passage above demonstrates, Obama made that determination in election season -- indeed, he made it almost immediately after the debt ceiling debacle in July 2011 made a mockery of his dreams of grand bargain compromise. His "you are the change" theme at the DNC was a reworking of the "we are the ones we've been waiting for" mantra of 2008 in that it was a call to fight, to resist the "lobbyists and special interests" striving to buy and steal the election and hijack economic policy in favor of top 1 percent.

That "only you" appeal represented, just as the unapologetic liberalism that Sargent notes in yesterday's speech represented, execution of a strategy that Obama articulated a couple of weeks after the DNC: ""you can't change Washington from the inside..you can only change it from the outside." His aim, I noted at the time, is not to naively use the bully pulpit to 'educate' the public or change public opinion, but to marshal opinion that's already on his side -- e.g., in taxing the wealthy and in universal background checks for gun sales -- to force select Republican acquiescences.

Moving backwards on our tour, remember Osawatomie, where in December 2011 Obama channeled the progressive priorities of Teddy Roosevelt? In this speech too, Obama defined positive government action as essential to reviving and maintaining the American Dream:

Ever since [the financial crisis], there has been a raging debate over the best way to restore growth and prosperity; balance and fairness...this isn’t just another political debate. This is the defining issue of our time. This is a make or break moment for the middle class, and all those who are fighting to get into the middle class. At stake is whether this will be a country where working people can earn enough to raise a family, build a modest savings, own a home, and secure their retirement.

Now, in the midst of this debate, there are some who seem to be suffering from a kind of collective amnesia. After all that’s happened, after the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, they want to return to the same practices that got us into this mess. In fact, they want to go back to the same policies that have stacked the deck against middle-class Americans for too many years. Their philosophy is simple: we are better off when everyone is left to fend for themselves and play by their own rules.

Well, I’m here to say they are wrong. I’m here to reaffirm my deep conviction that we are greater together than we are on our own. I believe that this country succeeds when everyone gets a fair shot, when everyone does their fair share, and when everyone plays by the same rules. Those aren’t Democratic or Republican values; 1% values or 99% values. They’re American values, and we have to reclaim them.

You see, this isn’t the first time America has faced this choice. At the turn of the last century, when a nation of farmers was transitioning to become the world’s industrial giant, we had to decide: would we settle for a country where most of the new railroads and factories were controlled by a few giant monopolies that kept prices high and wages low? Would we allow our citizens and even our children to work ungodly hours in conditions that were unsafe and unsanitary? Would we restrict education to the privileged few? Because some people thought massive inequality and exploitation was just the price of progress.

Theodore Roosevelt disagreed. He was the Republican son of a wealthy family. He praised what the titans of industry had done to create jobs and grow the economy. He believed then what we know is true today: that the free market is the greatest force for economic progress in human history. It’s led to a prosperity and standard of living unmatched by the rest of the world.

But Roosevelt also knew that the free market has never been a free license to take whatever you want from whoever you can. It only works when there are rules of the road to ensure that competition is fair, open, and honest. And so he busted up monopolies, forcing those companies to compete for customers with better services and better prices. And today, they still must. He fought to make sure businesses couldn’t profit by exploiting children, or selling food or medicine that wasn’t safe. And today, they still can’t...

Today, over one hundred years later, our economy has gone through another transformation. Over the last few decades, huge advances in technology have allowed businesses to do more with less, and made it easier for them to set up shop and hire workers anywhere in the world. And many of you know firsthand the painful disruptions this has caused for a lot of Americans...

Now, just as there was in Teddy Roosevelt’s time, there’s been a certain crowd in Washington for the last few decades who respond to this economic challenge with the same old tune. “The market will take care of everything,” they tell us. If only we cut more regulations and cut more taxes – especially for the wealthy – our economy will grow stronger. Sure, there will be winners and losers. But if the winners do really well, jobs and prosperity will eventually trickle down to everyone else. And even if prosperity doesn’t trickle down, they argue, that’s the price of liberty.

It’s a simple theory – one that speaks to our rugged individualism and healthy skepticism of too much government. It fits well on a bumper sticker. Here’s the problem: It doesn’t work. It’s never worked. It didn’t work when it was tried in the decade before the Great Depression. It’s not what led to the incredible post-war boom of the 50s and 60s. And it didn’t work when we tried it during the last decade...

We simply cannot return to this brand of your-on-your-own economics if we’re serious about rebuilding the middle class in this country. We know that it doesn’t result in a strong economy. It results in an economy that invests too little in its people and its future. It doesn’t result in a prosperity that trickles down. It results in a prosperity that’s enjoyed by fewer and fewer of our citizens...

This kind of inequality – a level we haven’t seen since the Great Depression – hurts us all. When middle-class families can no longer afford to buy the goods and services that businesses are selling, it drags down the entire economy, from top to bottom. America was built on the idea of broad-based prosperity – that’s why a CEO like Henry Ford made it his mission to pay his workers enough so that they could buy the cars they made. It’s also why a recent study showed that countries with less inequality tend to have stronger and steadier economic growth over the long run.

Inequality also distorts our democracy. It gives an outsized voice to the few who can afford high-priced lobbyists and unlimited campaign contributions, and runs the risk of selling out our democracy to the highest bidder. And it leaves everyone else rightly suspicious that the system in Washington is rigged against them – that our elected representatives aren’t looking out for the interests of most Americans.

More fundamentally, this kind of gaping inequality gives lie to the promise at the very heart of America: that this is the place where you can make it if you try...

Fortunately, that’s not a future we have to accept. Because there’s another view about how we build a strong middle class in this country – a view that’s truer to our history; a vision that’s been embraced by people of both parties for more than two hundred years.

It’s not a view that we should somehow turn back technology or put up walls around America. It’s not a view that says we should punish profit or success or pretend that government knows how to fix all society’s problems. It’s a view that says in America, we are greater together – when everyone engages in fair play, everyone gets a fair shot, everyone does their fair share.

So what does that mean for restoring middle-class security in today’s economy?

It starts by making sure that everyone in America gets a fair shot at success. The truth is, we’ll never be able to compete with other countries when it comes to who’s best at letting their businesses pay the lowest wages or pollute as much as they want. That’s a race to the bottom that we can’t win – and shouldn’t want to win. Those countries don’t have a strong middle-class. They don’t have our standard of living...
. Yes, businesses, not government, will always be the primary generator of good jobs with incomes that lift people into the middle class and keep them there. But as a nation, we have always come together, through our government, to help create the conditions where both workers and businesses can succeed. Historically, that hasn’t been a partisan idea. Franklin Roosevelt worked with Democrats and Republicans to give veterans of World War II, including my grandfather, the chance to go to college on the GI Bill. It was Republican President Dwight Eisenhower, a proud son of Kansas, who started the interstate highway system and doubled-down on science and research to stay ahead of the Soviets.

My elisions cut out lots of trenchant illustration of the ill effects of inequality and the particulars of the rival theories. The whole speech is well worth a read.

Moving on back: in May 2010, in a commencement address at University of Michigan, Obama offered a pointed to rebuttal to the "government is the problem" rhetoric that the GOP had carried to fever pitch in the just-concluded fight over the legislation that became the Affordable Care Act:

When our government is spoken of as some menacing, threatening foreign entity, it ignores the fact that in our democracy, government is us.  We, the people -- (applause.)  We, the people, hold in our hands the power to choose our leaders and change our laws, and shape our own destiny.

Government is the police officers who are protecting our communities, and the servicemen and women who are defending us abroad.  (Applause.)  Government is the roads you drove in on and the speed limits that kept you safe.  Government is what ensures that mines adhere to safety standards and that oil spills are cleaned up by the companies that caused them.  (Applause.)    Government is this extraordinary public university -– a place that’s doing lifesaving research, and catalyzing economic growth, and graduating students who will change the world around them in ways big and small.  (Applause.)

The truth is, the debate we’ve had for decades now between more government and less government, it doesn’t really fit the times in which we live.  We know that too much government can stifle competition and deprive us of choice and burden us with debt.  But we’ve also clearly seen the dangers of too little government -– like when a lack of accountability on Wall Street nearly leads to the collapse of our entire economy.

So, class of 2010, what we should be asking is not whether we need “big government” or a “small government,” but how we can create a smarter and better government.

That defense was preceded by an historical argument that went back to the founding fathers:

American democracy has thrived because we have recognized the need for a government that, while limited, can still help us adapt to a changing world.  On the fourth panel of the Jefferson Memorial is a quote I remember reading to my daughters during our first visit there.  It says, “I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and constitutions, but...with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times.”

The democracy designed by Jefferson and the other founders was never intended to solve every problem with a new law or a new program.  Having thrown off the tyranny of the British Empire, the first Americans were understandably skeptical of government. And ever since we’ve held fast to the belief that government doesn’t have all the answers, and we have cherished and fiercely defended our individual freedom.  That’s a strand of our nation’s DNA.

But the other strand is the belief that there are some things we can only do together, as one nation -– and that our government must keep pace with the times.  When America expanded from a few colonies to an entire continent, and we needed a way to reach the Pacific, our government helped build the railroads. When we transitioned from an economy based on farms to one based on factories, and workers needed new skills and training, our nation set up a system of public high schools.  When the markets crashed during the Depression and people lost their life savings, our government put in place a set of rules and safeguards to make sure that such a crisis never happened again, and then put a safety net in place to make sure that our elders would never be impoverished the way they had been.  And because our markets and financial systems have evolved since then, we’re now putting in place new rules and safeguards to protect the American people.

In September 2009, Obama had to rally wavering Democrats to follow through on near-universal health insurance and healthcare reform. His speech to a joint session of Congress was for the most part specific to the task.  But at the end, Obama addressed the fitness of the goal itself -- defending (through the persona of Ted Kennedy)  what is slated to become a core function of government.   That argument too was a deeply rooted defense of liberalism -- one that foreshadowed, at the close, yesterday's assertion that "fidelity to our founding principles requires new responses to new challenges":

For some of Ted Kennedy's critics, his brand of liberalism represented an affront to American liberty.  In their minds, his passion for universal health care was nothing more than a passion for big government.

 

But those of us who knew Teddy and worked with him here -- people of both parties -- know that what drove him was something more.  His friend Orrin Hatch -- he knows that.  They worked together to provide children with health insurance.  His friend John McCain knows that.  They worked together on a Patient's Bill of Rights.  His friend Chuck Grassley knows that.  They worked together to provide health care to children with disabilities. 

 

On issues like these, Ted Kennedy's passion was born not of some rigid ideology, but of his own experience.  It was the experience of having two children stricken with cancer.  He never forgot the sheer terror and helplessness that any parent feels when a child is badly sick.  And he was able to imagine what it must be like for those without insurance, what it would be like to have to say to a wife or a child or an aging parent, there is something that could make you better, but I just can't afford it. 

 

That large-heartedness -- that concern and regard for the plight of others -- is not a partisan feeling.  It's not a Republican or a Democratic feeling.  It, too, is part of the American character -- our ability to stand in other people's shoes; a recognition that we are all in this together, and when fortune turns against one of us, others are there to lend a helping hand; a belief that in this country, hard work and responsibility should be rewarded by some measure of security and fair play; and an acknowledgment that sometimes government has to step in to help deliver on that promise.

 

This has always been the history of our progress.  In 1935, when over half of our seniors could not support themselves and millions had seen their savings wiped away, there were those who argued that Social Security would lead to socialism, but the men and women of Congress stood fast, and we are all the better for it.  In 1965, when some argued that Medicare represented a government takeover of health care, members of Congress -- Democrats and Republicans -- did not back down.  They joined together so that all of us could enter our golden years with some basic peace of mind.  

 

You see, our predecessors understood that government could not, and should not, solve every problem.  They understood that there are instances when the gains in security from government action are not worth the added constraints on our freedom.  But they also understood that the danger of too much government is matched by the perils of too little; that without the leavening hand of wise policy, markets can crash, monopolies can stifle competition, the vulnerable can be exploited.  And they knew that when any government measure, no matter how carefully crafted or beneficial, is subject to scorn; when any efforts to help people in need are attacked as un-American; when facts and reason are thrown overboard and only timidity passes for wisdom, and we can no longer even engage in a civil conversation with each other over the things that truly matter -- that at that point we don't merely lose our capacity to solve big challenges.  We lose something essential about ourselves.

 

That was true then.  It remains true today.  I understand how difficult this health care debate has been.  I know that many in this country are deeply skeptical that government is looking out for them.  I understand that the politically safe move would be to kick the can further down the road -- to defer reform one more year, or one more election, or one more term. 

 

But that is not what the moment calls for.  That's not what we came here to do.  We did not come to fear the future.  We came here to shape it.  I still believe we can act even when it's hard.  (Applause.)  I still believe -- I still believe that we can act when it's hard.  I still believe we can replace acrimony with civility, and gridlock with progress.  I still believe we can do great things, and that here and now we will meet history's test.

Obama's first inaugural speech has been  held up by way of contrast with the second as an offering to the  idol of bipartisanship, a call for consensus and common action. It was partly that -- and long term, I would question whether Obama's long quest to win some Republican cooperation will not prove to have served him well, as the public credit his good faith far more than that of his opponents. At the same time, that speech too, inevitably, included a defense of liberalism as a fulfillment of the nation's founding principles:

We remain a young nation, but in the words of Scripture, the time has come to set aside childish things. The time has come to reaffirm our enduring spirit; to choose our better history; to carry forward that precious gift, that noble idea, passed on from generation to generation: the God-given promise that all are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness...

Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America.

For everywhere we look, there is work to be done.

The state of our economy calls for action: bold and swift. And we will act not only to create new jobs but to lay a new foundation for growth.

We will build the roads and bridges, the electric grids and digital lines that feed our commerce and bind us together.

We will restore science to its rightful place and wield technology's wonders to raise health care's quality.... and lower its costs.

We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories. And we will transform our schools and colleges and universities to meet the demands of a new age.

All this we can do. All this we will do.

Now, there are some who question the scale of our ambitions, who suggest that our system cannot tolerate too many big plans. Their memories are short, for they have forgotten what this country has already done, what free men and women can achieve when imagination is joined to common purpose and necessity to courage.

What the cynics fail to understand is that the ground has shifted beneath them, that the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long, no longer apply.

The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works, whether it helps families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can afford, a retirement that is dignified.
Where the answer is yes, we intend to move forward. Where the answer is no, programs will end...

The success of our economy has always depended not just on the size of our gross domestic product, but on the reach of our prosperity; on the ability to extend opportunity to every willing heart -- not out of charity, but because it is the surest route to our common good.

There was a season, in the first half of 2011, in which Obama dreamed of a grand bargain that would seal his status as a grand uniter. In that period, he often soft-pedaled his opposition to GOP plans and rhetoric, directing his fire more at "Congress" than at "Republicans in Congress" and so driving allies a bit insane. That season seems to have wrought a kind of PTSD among liberals, fixing an image of Obama as a tepid liberal or would-be centrist (an image graven in part by Drew Westen's wildly inaccurate portrait).  And the image is not limited to that period: there were the earlier laments about a to-small stimulus (and failure throughout 2010 to seek more stimulus), ineffectual programs to help homeowners, the abandoned public option, etc. etc.  The image of Obama as liberal champion was dinged by political reality, his own caution, the GOP midterm triumph, and various combinations of those factors.

Obama's rhetoric, principles and theory of government have not changed much, however -- though his tactics have shifted toward opposing the opposition rather than trying to coopt it.

And with regard to results: it struck me, passing over one more great neglected speech of Obama's early presidency, that with regard to laying the pillars of what he called a New Foundation for sustained economic growth, he is arguably five for five. Not all of the actions of his administration and  the Democratic 111th Congress on these fronts may be effective, but all are substantive:

It's a foundation built upon five pillars that will grow our economy and make this new century another American century: new rules for Wall Street that will reward drive and innovation; new investments in education that will make our workforce more skilled and competitive; new investments in renewable energy and technology that will create new jobs and industries; new investments in health care that will cut costs for families and businesses; and new savings in our federal budget that will bring down the debt for future generations. That is the new foundation we must build. That must be our future – and my Administration's policies are designed to achieve that future.

The liberal Obama isn't back. He never left.
 
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