Contrary to what it may appear on this blog, I have by and
large steered clear of politics for the past couple years. I still try and stay current and keep myself
informed, but I no longer read the Economist cover to cover every week or watch
all the Sunday morning political shows like I did from 2006 to 2010.
A large part of this is, no doubt, purely a function of
having a lot less free time than I used to.
With Anabelle and now Charlotte soaking up a lot of that time, I find
that I really want to spend the free time that I do have doing something fun
and relaxing like watching sports or a movie, reading a good book, playing
video games, or, in the rare times that we can get out of the house, having a
night out with Christy. I don’t consider
it an abdication of my duty as an American; it’s more that I see it as my role
to make an informed decision as to who the best people are to govern and then
expecting them to, you know, actually do the job they were elected to do. Politics as a hobby has lost pretty much all
appeal to me, especially since it is always so monumentally frustrating.
Four years ago, things were different. For the first time in my adult life I
actually gave money to a political campaign (to both Obama and McCain in the
primary and to Obama in the general election).
And for the first time since I was 17 and interning for state Rep Vince
Persico, I volunteered for a campaign. I
still clearly remember driving out to Indiana on a Saturday in October with Joe
to knock on doors for 3 hours. We only
talked to about 2 dozen people, most of whom wanted nothing to do with us, but
I at least felt like I did something. Obama ended up carrying Indiana and, though I
know it’s almost certainly not true, I like to think that I had just a little
bit to do with that.
Today I feel quite differently. I have been very frustrated with how the last
4 years have gone. I haven’t given any money
or time to any campaign, and don’t plan to in the next 3 weeks. I, like a whole lot of Americans, am just
frustrated by the inane squabbling and posturing of politicians. Contrary to what the talking heads on the
cable news shows will tell you, most Americans would much rather see the
country unified and working together towards something (anything) rather than
see every single point of either party’s agenda get accomplished – which will
never happen anyway. And that is what I
am most disappointed in Obama about. I
did not elect him to solve all of our problems.
I did not think that he had a “silver bullet” solution for the economy –
in 2008 most economists agreed that it would take about a decade for us to
fully emerge from this crisis and contrary to how the GOP wants to spin it that
was always the case and is still today.
But Obama ran on a platform of changing the way Washington works and
that is what got me excited. I don’t
expect government to solve our problems; I expect the government to function at
a level that allows us to solve our own problems. And the epic disappointment with Obama is not
that he failed at doing that, it’s that he didn’t even try.
The analogy I use is a family trying to pull itself out of
poverty. Unless you come from money or
have otherworldly athletic skills, the best way to succeed in this country
today is with a solid education. But for
millions of Americans, that’s just not an option. They can only afford to live in poor areas
with terrible schools and even if they have all the best intentions and
graduate high school, more likely than not they don’t have the education
fundamentals or the money to succeed in college. So they do the best they can, scraping by
and floundering. And of course then they
have kids of their own, born into the same situation and almost pre-destined to
struggle through as well and the cycle just continues. What it takes to break the cycle is for two
parents to decide that they’re going to move to where the education system is better
or send their kids to private school, even if those decisions mean that they
both need to work 2 jobs and 80-hour weeks, spend next to nothing on
non-essential items, and pretty much never take a vacation. That’s an unbelievably hard thing to actually
do – you will miss a lot of your kids growing up and they will probably resent
you for it for a long time until they’re old enough to understand why you are
doing it – but that’s the kind of commitment it takes if you want to break the
cycle. There’s no glamour in it at
all. You have to be willing to say, “I
am not going to be the one to be successful and have a comfortable life, but I
will do everything in my power to make sure I am the last generation in my family
that has to say that.”
That is what I wanted from Obama. I didn’t want him to do the “glam” work of
solving our health care system or climate change because, quite simply, I believe these
problems to be unsolvable given the current state of our government. I wanted him to dig in and tackle the rot in
the system that makes government so ineffective. I wanted him to tackle our campaign finance
system – which is arguably the one single problem from which most of our other
problems (or at least lack of solutions) stem.
I wanted him to address the almost limitless access that lobbyists and
big donors have to candidates. I wanted
him to get actively involved in reviewing each and every government program and
office, fix or eliminate the ineffective ones, and develop metrics to judge
them on and rules for accountability when they fail to live up to
expectations. I wanted him to make some
Congressional recommendations mandatory, so that when a bipartisan commission
is formed to address a problem (like Medicare, Social Security, or the debt) it
isn’t just an exercise in futility when reports and recommendations are
completely ignored and never even brought to a vote.
These are the things I wanted him to work on, even if it
meant he got crucified in this election for “not working on the real issues.” If he solved even one or two of the issues
above history would remember him as a great President. As of now, if his Presidency ends this
January, the only thing historic about him will be that he shattered the race
barrier. Elsewise, he will be known as
yet another in a long line of politicians whose oratory skill greatly exceeded
his governing skill – a nice man with lofty ideas who over-promised and
under-delivered.
I pick up my guitar
and play
Just like yesterday
Then I get on my knees
and pray
We don’t get fooled
again
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