Take All, Winner

American liberals are getting impatient with Obama. Amid strident Republican criticism and waffling from the White House, support for reform of the American health care system -- Obama's signature domestic-policy issue -- is plummeting. Paul Krugman puts it well:

It’s hard to avoid the sense that Mr. Obama has wasted months trying to appease people who can’t be appeased, and who take every concession as a sign that he can be rolled.

As a comparative-law guy, I'd like to remind Mr. Obama that America has a conflict-based, winner-take-all political system. This is not European parliamentary democracy, where you need to patch together coalitions to run the country, and everything has to be hammered into some sort of compromise that will please the diverse members of your coalition.

No, this is America, a country in which if you win the Presidential election and large majorities in both houses of Congress, you can do pretty much whatever you want for the next couple of years. I think I speak for a lot of Obama voters when I say: Obama, my man, I didn't vote for you so you could be nice to Republicans. I don't give a fuck about the Republicans! As a former Reagan White House official recently said of the Republican party: '[U]ntil they do penance they don't deserve any credibility and should be ignored until they do.' That's what happens in a winner-take-all system. The winner takes it all, and the loser gets ignored. That's called accountability, and it's a healthy part of democracy. Nobody cares how many Republicans' toes you step on. In fact, democratic accountability  requires that you crush Republican toes into purplish goo. They screwed up! They got shellacked! Nobody trusts them!

You're allowed to coo and gurgle about bipartisan co-operation exactly until the point that doing so begins to waste precious time and embolden your political enemies (and yes, that's the right word for them!). Then you stop the feel-good rhetoric and ram through your proposals. If some members of your party balk, you first promise them plenty of juicy trade-offs and fundraising visits. You tell them: 'This is the centerpiece of my agenda, and you're going to support me on it. Once we get this through, everything else is on the table.' If that doesn't work, you screw them so hard they'll be walking bow-legged for months. This is not a college debating society, it's politics. If members of your own party decline to support a fundamental part of the agenda you promised the American people, then they have betrayed you. You then respond appropriately: you freeze 'em out and fuck 'em over. Yes, it may sound rude and unpleasant, but it works. The ends, as they so often do, justify the means.

After the dust settles, people will respect you. Americans respect winners. Obama, my man, if you'd like to practice being a real, red-blooded American politician, give a listen to the following speech, which includes the deathless line: "They are unanimous in their hate for me, and I welcome their hatred."

Comments

[Alex]

Interessante Analyse.

Zugegeben, ich bin kein Amerikaner, sondern Europäer. Aber ich hatte bei Obama den Eindruck, dass die Einstellung des "The winner takes it all, mir doch egal, wo die Verlierer bleiben" seiner Mentalität, seinem Wesen zutiefst widerspricht.
Dass zu seinem politischen Anspruch gehört, in den USA auch einen (leichten) Mentalitätswechsel herbeizuführen.

Das war seine Stärke, sein Geheimnis, aber das könnte jetzt auch mal seine Schwäche sein. Aber so ist Obama, alles andere würde sein Wesen verleugnen. Also gib ihm die Zeit, seinen Stil durchzuziehen. Die Republikaner sich geifernd immer weiter in die radikale Ecke stellen zu lassen und damit selber die Mitte zu definieren.

Für mich klingt das nach seinem authentischen Weg, aber auch nach dem langfristig erfolgversprechenderen Weg.

Okay, hier spricht der harmonieerlernte Deutsche, dem der eigene Fanatismus des letzten Jahrhunderts immer noch tief in den mttlerweile erzpazifistischen Knochen sitzt. ;-)

Wie auch immer, ich wünsche den Staaten eine erfolgreiche Gesundheitsreform und ganz grundsätzlich eine erfolgreiche Modernisierung des Landes!

[Don S]

I am slightly surprised at the rage I am seeing expressed at Obama by the 'liberals' in the Democratic Party. Oh, they mask it by bashing the GOP for not easily being rolled, but it's really at Obama.

Many thought that the millenium had finally come & Liberal Democrats would finally get to have their own way on everything. Yet is not so. The elections of 2006 resulted in a Democratic federal government, but were not landslide elections which would enable the very liberal House and Senate leadership to steamroller their own conservatives and the GOP.

Obama sees that reality, his critics on the Left do not. That is to his credit and not theirs.

I am beginning to suspect that the GOP will gain considerble ground in the 2010 midterm elections, but Obama will be re-elected in 2012. Unless his angry 'friends' on the Democratic Left prevent it by making him look bad, impotent a la Jimmy Carter. It's certainly possible. One would think these people are too smart to do something this stupid, but their history would suggest otherwise.

[Anonymous]

Read Douthat in today's New York Times. Obama shouldn't be blamed, he writes:

"If the Congressional Democrats can’t get a health care package through, it won’t prove that President Obama is a sellout or an incompetent. It will prove that Congress’s liberal leaders are lousy tacticians, and that its centrist deal-makers are deal-makers first, poll watchers second and loyal Democrats a distant third. And it will prove that the Democratic Party is institutionally incapable of delivering on its most significant promises."

Remember, too, that Obama did stand up in Congress and vote against the invasion of Iraq while other, opportunistic Democrats did not. Obama, you must admit, must have some iron in his spine.

Our American problems go deeper than party politics and the line between "us and them." That is what this fine man, our president, has understood.

Look not just at the politicians but at the people they represent. At the way in which our communities function, the media, the uses to which money and influence have been put.

The Constitution should be more than a piece of paper. America should not act as an aggressor nation. Separation between church and state should hold. And the people should elect the president, not the Supreme Court.

To me that's obvious. No doubt, to you as well.

But it hasn't quite been working out that way, even when the Democrats have had their say.

[sohalt.wordpress.com]

I think RNC chairman Michael Steel reads your blog. :-)

[Andrew]

Ralph:

I don't disagree, there are certainly reasonable people on both sides of the aisle. However, those people on the (R) side of the aisle just lost the election by a healthy margin. I'm not saying they're unreasonable, I'm saying their program and their ideas were just rejected. I'm not saying they should be demonized, I'm saying they should be ignored. If the voters of the United States wanted Republicans to play a significant role in shaping government policy, they wouldn't have thrown them out of Congress and the White House.

I'm also not condemning the idea of bipartisan cooperation out of hand. I suppose there are some issues in which it might be appropriate and possible, but there are also many issues as to which it's clearly impossible, and health-care reform is one of those. The Republicans just had eight long years in which to broaden access to quality, affordable health care. If they genuinely perceived a problem or cared about the issue, they would have taken action when they had the White House and Congress. Is it reasonable to assume that after eight years of neglecting the issue, they now suddenly have workable ideas that deserve to be taken seriously? I don't see it.

And once again, let me stress that I'm not advising Obama to demonize or insult Republicans, just politely ignore them. Until they start lying about 'death panels' or some such, in which case the proper response is to call them liars.

Making nice to Republicans isn't something you do for its own sake. The people who voted for Obama wanted him to stand up for his ideas, and actually get them through Congress. That will take some horse-trading, arm twisting and sharp elbows. I'm not seeing those, and it worries me.

[Don S]

Ralph, I think what Obama is trying to do in reaching out to certain Republicans has less to do with their votes and more to do with providing political cover to Democrats in conservative states and districts.

Andrew looks to the map and says 'we won and therefore *we* should take the spoils and do what we want to do. That is true as far as it goes, if Democrats can hold the party line they *can* do what they wish to do Problem is those health bills were constructed mostly by Democratic congressional leaders from the coasts and in safe districts, but need the votes of back-benchers in formerly GOP districts who won in 2008 by less than 2%. The viewpoint is much different.

In the Senate it's a similar thing, something like 14 of the Democratic Senate seats are located in states which McCain took. So there is a similar problem.

I suspect they will get *something* through, but what they pass may not get German Joys seal of approval.

As for the GOP, they are opposed. And how does that differ from the way Democrats behaved when they were in opposition? Not much. It makes sense to demonose the other side. Democrats did it to Bush when He tried to unite the country, but are shocked, Shocked when the GOP returns the favor to Obama. ;)

[Ralph Noble]

Laying it on a bit thick, Andrew. There are reasonable people on both sides of the aisle. The Party's not exclusively Palin's and Limbaugh's playground.

Obama pledged to reach across the aisle and overcome the politics of division. That's what the man said, and that's what he's been trying to do.

While at the moment it's looking more like the audacity of pork than of hope, I haven't given up on him yet.

[M. Möhling]

As the previous speakers explained, the sleep of reason begets ranting, would-be bulldozing monsters. Well written though, and I can identify with the bulldozing. Hey, like, totally. Dammit, where are them with cojones when you need them! Some ranting of my own tomorrow.

[Jim]

Obama needs to realize that the people who followed him down Pennsylvania Ave during his inauguration are way ahead of him politically. If he wants to keep following the Goldman Sachs clique in the Treasury and the "more war" brigade in the Pentagon, fine. I am sure that they can fix him a second term. However in the common collective memory he will be remembered as "the one" who appeared to have all the talents that monkey who proceeded never had, but decided nevertheless to go down the same route to oblivion as the equally spineless Carter, Johnson and Kennedy who proceeded him

[Don S]

Two differences between FDR and Obama, Andrew. FDR ws elected in a massive landslide, Obama was elected by a couple points.

The Democratic Congress in 1932 had the largest contingent in history, the Democratic margin in 2008 is a lot slimmer, and the margin of victory in Congress is comprised of centrist Democrats often elected in formerly GOP districts. Often in states which went for McCain in 2008.

So Obama can't just bulldoze it through as FDR did, because FDR could afford to disregard the conservative Democrats of his time; he still had a majority without them.

If Obama bulldozes the Blue Dogs this time he;ll end up with nothing.

[Don S]

Andrew, the problem is twofold. In the House it's the 'Bue Dog' Democrats whom Obama and the house leadership are trying to win over. They are the democrats from conservative districts whom Rauhm Emmanuel recruited, wnd whom comprise most of the gains the Democrats made in the House in 2006-2008

The other problem is in the Senate. If moderate Republicans like Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins do not support the most left-wing effusions of the Democratic House, then the Democrats in the Senate must be completely united. That means the conservatives like Jim Webb in addition to the Barbara Boxers of the world. An additional difficulty is Teddy Kennedy's advancing illness, which has kept him in Massachusettes most of the summer.

Bottom line, I think, is that Obama will have to make deals to get his program through. With his own centrist Democrats, and perhaps the Maine Republicans.

[sohalt.wordpress.com]

I think Obama does not care about the Republicans at all. He uses them just as scape goats to hide the fact that he can't get a majority for his plans. They had even problems to get a majority within the committee.

Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) blamed Rahm Emanuel for the difficulties because he created the big Democratic Majority by recruiting a lot of centrist Democrats.