Washington’s political gridlock, we are told, is the result of ideological head-banging. Few on the left or the right want to listen or deal, because most are entrenched in ideology. So all we get are foreheads colliding — lots of pain but very little else getting accomplished.
While “gridlock” can make for balanced journalism (I mean serious reporting, not Fox News), it can also make for a distorted representation of reality. What we have witnessed since 2008 is intractable partisanship, not irreconcilable worldviews. This Democratic president has been more moderate, more cautious, more methodical than his Republican predecessor. Indeed, he’s acted more conservative than the conservatives currently trying to unseat him.
I’ll explain further but first, an anecdote. Last week, U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan reminded supporters of the time four years ago when then-Sen. Barack Obama explained why he believed some white working-class Americans vote Republican. The running mate of presidential hopeful Mitt Romney didn’t put it like that, of course. Here’s what he said:
“Remember … when he said people want to cling to their guns and religion? Hey, I’m a Catholic deer hunter, I’m happy to be clinging to my guns and religion.”
He also reminisced about “Joe the Plumber,” and while this might sound like the retreading of old headlines, it’s actually good politics, especially when it comes to rallying a base already convinced the president is hiding his “true” beliefs (meaning that Obama is a secret tool of Judeo-Bolshevism, or some sort of paranoid conspiracism ensconced in the GOP).
Ryan is widely known in Washington where he’s perceived as a deficit hawk whose federal budget was twice passed by the Republican-controlled House. But he’s widely unknown outside of Washington, even among Republicans. So bringing up Obama’s 4-year-old remarks is clever: It says, “Hey, remember when the guy you don’t like said something you don’t like? Well, I’m just the opposite of that guy you don’t like, and in fact, I’m just like you.”
Trusting our national character
It’s important to identify the “you” here — white working-class Americans, a critical voting bloc for the president and his Republican rival. Ryan spoke at a steel mill in Pennsylvania, where he tried to embed the idea that he, as a Catholic deer hunter, has more in common with the white working class than Obama, and that Obama, as a worldly biracial president, condescends to people who go to church every Sunday and shoot animals for sport.
Let’s forget for a moment that Ryan, 42, was born a millionaire and became even wealthier over the course of his decade-long career as a congressman thanks to ties to bankers and the health insurance lobby. Family connections to the power elite put him on the fast-track to Washington right out of college. He’s never worked a day in his life. To suggest he has anything in common with people who work for a living is beyond cynical. As John Nichols, of the Nation, wrote:
“Romney’s vice-presidential pick has imbibed the frothy mix of Wall Street-dictated crony capitalism, social conservative absolutism and cold war militarism that defines elite modern conservatism. … Ryan has used his position as House Budget Committee chair to propose a radical restructuring of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid so that tax dollars and the savings of seniors will flow into the accounts of Wall Street speculators and the for-profit insurance industry.”
Yet cynicism was the very subject of Obama’s remarks in 2008. Given Ryan’s eagerness to revive them, it’s worth taking a second look. In them, Obama expressed sympathy for the plight of workers in industrial states like Ohio and Pennsylvania. They have seen economic decay for decades, he said, very often while politicians courting their vote promise a return of boom times. They don’t believe in Washington and they sure as hell don’t believe in politics. He said:
“In Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. So it’s not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”
More importantly, economics explains why working-class whites wouldn’t vote for a Democrat with a foreign-sounding name. Indeed, many Democrats in 2008 believed those voters were too racist to support him. Don’t bother, they said. But Obama said racism isn’t the issue; trust is.
“People have been beaten down so long, and they feel so betrayed by government, and when they hear a pitch that is premised on not being cynical about government, a part of them just doesn’t buy it.
So the challenge, the candidate said, is to talk about concrete policies that benefit the working class, such as health care and fair taxation. He wasn’t naive. Race could be an obstacle, he said — “a 46-year-old black man named Barack Obama (laughter) … adds another layer of skepticism (laughter)” — but it wasn’t insurmountable. Bottom line: Obama bet that our national character would take us beyond the limits of race toward the shared ideals of liberty and justice for all.
Conservative in the true sense
In his bid for re-election, the president is hitting all the same high notes. Who do you want to lead the country? The guy talking about my birth certificate or the guy talking about decency, fairness and trust? Significantly, these are the same notes Obama expressed way back in 2004 after he won election to the U.S. Senate and after George W. Bush beat John Kerry. In an interview with Charlie Rose, Obama said virtually the same thing he said in 2008, only much better.
He described a former industrial town in Illinois, like many Midwestern towns, hit hard by outsourcing to Mexico. During his Senate campaign, he talked to “union workers, 50, 55-year-old guys, who the best that’s being offered to them is retraining to be nurses’ assistants, right, these guys with beards, tough guys who are used to handling heavy machinery.” They are out of work. They don’t know where their health care is going to come from. They don’t know what’s happening to their company pensions. Nothing is certain except uncertainly. But:
“What they do know is that they can go out with their friends and hunt and feel a sense of camaraderie … just as there is a connection maybe for their wives to go into church and go in with their grandmother to church, and if we don’t have plausible answers on the economic front, and we appear to be condescending toward those traditions that are giving their lives some stability, then you know they’re going to opt for at least [the Republican Party] that seems to be speaking to … something solid to stand on.”
What Obama is really saying is that capitalism is a force that can destabilize communities, cause unrest and drive an entire class of Americans toward areas of their lives that provide the most safety and solace. If Democrats can offer an answer to those potentially destructive forces — through prudent trade policies, ambitious jobs legislation and fair tax laws — then voters might give the party a chance, even if they are better represented culturally by the Republicans.
In this way, Obama is actually conservative — in the truest sense of the political term. Change must be slow. Traditions must be preserved. Communities must be protected. A politician doesn’t have to look like his constituents to know what they want. Given the turbulence of our times, the most conservative thing he can do is address the root cause of that turbulence.
Who’s the real conservative?
Which brings me back to Paul Ryan.
He may be a deer-hunting Catholic, but he has proposed destructive changes to the two government programs that provide the most stability to the most Americans.
His wants to turn Medicare into a voucher program. That means you get a limited amount of money to pay for medical bills. If your bills exceed that, well, good luck. You pay for the rest.
He wants to turn Social Security into “personal investment accounts.” Instead of getting a guaranteed monthly sum — which average about $1,200 — you can risk it on the stock market.
Essentially, the Romney-Ryan team wants to upend these social insurance programs the way outsourcing upended that town in Illinois. They want to remove security and raise uncertainty. That they consider themselves conservative should be an insult to real conservatives.
Meanwhile, the president has vowed to protect Social Security and Medicare even if it means raising taxes, which, according to a new poll, is jim-dandy with most Americans. The Associated Press reported this week that a majority of respondents (53 percent) said raising taxes to protect Social Security would be preferable to cutting monthly benefits. If this is what a majority of voters says is best, Romney and Ryan, who loathe taxes but love spending cuts, are in trouble. They aren’t conservative enough to save them because they aren’t liberal enough to raise taxes. Obama, on the other hand, is that kind of conservative, because he is that kind of liberal.
Or, as President Franklin D. Roosevelt said in 1936:
“The true conservative seeks to protect the system of private property and free enterprise by correcting such injustices and inequalities as arise from it. The most serious threat to our institutions comes from those who refuse to face the need for change. Liberalism becomes the protection for the far-sighted conservative.”