The Values Deficit: Standing, Falling and Being Obama
Consensus is forming that Barack Obama and the Democrats cannot govern effectively.
Some, like Joe Klein, have hinted that this might be due to Obama's attempt to work with the Republicans being misguided because the GOP is now a "party of nihilists." Others, like Josh Marshall on TPM, seem to lay much of the blame at the feet of the "astroturf" protests at town halls and the like. Still others think that it is a failure of rhetoric: if only Obama and the Dems had controlled the message more, maybe with some snappy commercials and smart speeches, this summertime debacle would not be unfolding before us.
These are all contributing factors. But, there is one more factor that people don't talk about much: Obama just doesn't seem to have many real values to speak of. Obama, like Bill Clinton, is a creature of soft liberal politics and so has shed his deepest commitments. Obama, in short, doesn't seem to stand for anything and so the GOP is having no problem making him fall.
We heard this line during the campaign: Obama's all talk, but what does he really believe? I often retorted: he was against the war when it was unpopular to be against the war, he's committed to health care for all, he will close the detention center at Guantanamo.
Oh well. 1-ish out 3 ain't bad, I guess.
A person is defined by his or her values. As what we value change, so do we. Consequently, it is not uncommon to say of someone whose values have radically shifted, "He's just not the same person anymore."
In this way our values non-accidentally determine the boundaries of our identities. As a result, we often take the measure of a person by her values. Someone having deeply felt convictions is therefore neither odd nor extreme. The convictions someone has just are what make that person the person she is, and without those convictions she would either be a different person or not even a person at all - she'd just be some sort of vegetable.
Of course, some who become one-dimensional or overly dogmatic in their values start to seem alien to us and we naturally do not trust such persons. Similarly, the person who has no clear values to speak of and who changes her values with limited prompting seems almost spectral: we cannot quite tell where they are, who they are, or even what they are. We naturally do not trust that person either.
Obama is increasingly falling into this second category. When he became president, he simply stopped speaking the way people who have values speak. He no longer will come out and say that it is a moral imperative that we close down Guantanamo now; that it is a moral imperative that we end the war in Iraq; that it is a moral imperative that we have health care reform that includes a public option. Instead, he makes calculated policy speeches. When pushed, he _says_ that he cares about this or that. But, he rarely says in plain language and unprompted by a question: This is what matters to me, I believe it is the right thing to do, and I believe it because it is what my values tell me we must do.
Because this is politics, people understand that we must compromise and that individuals are forced to compromise some of their values for the sake of maintaining a healthy democracy.
On the other hand, no one trusts someone - and no one wants to, or even can, compromise with anyone who doesn't seem to stand for anything. In such cases, the thing to do is to assume that the other person is either a pushover or dangerous and the rational response might seem to be aggressively pursuing your own interests regardless of the other person's overtures.
In short, we have a president and a party that seems unwilling to act out of any real conviction. They don't stand for anything. And, that's why they are falling out of power and control.
Some, like Joe Klein, have hinted that this might be due to Obama's attempt to work with the Republicans being misguided because the GOP is now a "party of nihilists." Others, like Josh Marshall on TPM, seem to lay much of the blame at the feet of the "astroturf" protests at town halls and the like. Still others think that it is a failure of rhetoric: if only Obama and the Dems had controlled the message more, maybe with some snappy commercials and smart speeches, this summertime debacle would not be unfolding before us.
These are all contributing factors. But, there is one more factor that people don't talk about much: Obama just doesn't seem to have many real values to speak of. Obama, like Bill Clinton, is a creature of soft liberal politics and so has shed his deepest commitments. Obama, in short, doesn't seem to stand for anything and so the GOP is having no problem making him fall.
We heard this line during the campaign: Obama's all talk, but what does he really believe? I often retorted: he was against the war when it was unpopular to be against the war, he's committed to health care for all, he will close the detention center at Guantanamo.
Oh well. 1-ish out 3 ain't bad, I guess.
A person is defined by his or her values. As what we value change, so do we. Consequently, it is not uncommon to say of someone whose values have radically shifted, "He's just not the same person anymore."
In this way our values non-accidentally determine the boundaries of our identities. As a result, we often take the measure of a person by her values. Someone having deeply felt convictions is therefore neither odd nor extreme. The convictions someone has just are what make that person the person she is, and without those convictions she would either be a different person or not even a person at all - she'd just be some sort of vegetable.
Of course, some who become one-dimensional or overly dogmatic in their values start to seem alien to us and we naturally do not trust such persons. Similarly, the person who has no clear values to speak of and who changes her values with limited prompting seems almost spectral: we cannot quite tell where they are, who they are, or even what they are. We naturally do not trust that person either.
Obama is increasingly falling into this second category. When he became president, he simply stopped speaking the way people who have values speak. He no longer will come out and say that it is a moral imperative that we close down Guantanamo now; that it is a moral imperative that we end the war in Iraq; that it is a moral imperative that we have health care reform that includes a public option. Instead, he makes calculated policy speeches. When pushed, he _says_ that he cares about this or that. But, he rarely says in plain language and unprompted by a question: This is what matters to me, I believe it is the right thing to do, and I believe it because it is what my values tell me we must do.
Because this is politics, people understand that we must compromise and that individuals are forced to compromise some of their values for the sake of maintaining a healthy democracy.
On the other hand, no one trusts someone - and no one wants to, or even can, compromise with anyone who doesn't seem to stand for anything. In such cases, the thing to do is to assume that the other person is either a pushover or dangerous and the rational response might seem to be aggressively pursuing your own interests regardless of the other person's overtures.
In short, we have a president and a party that seems unwilling to act out of any real conviction. They don't stand for anything. And, that's why they are falling out of power and control.
