The Joke's On Us

We are Godot. That is, if we Americans still believe President Barack H. Obama’s promising words, then we have been waiting for guests as hard to find as Samuel Beckett’s eponymous character—ourselves. Obama’s rhetorical flourish “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for” was embedded in a mostly healthy message about the power of Americans to achieve their goals. But it seems that only citizens with progressive inclinations are these heralded newcomers.

To take one prominent case, 56 percent of Americans favor the repeal of the health care reform bill, including one in four Democrats. President Obama’s “we,” by this count, is less than half the country. A closer look at public support for Democratic reforms shows that these policymakers have been “waiting” only for the small percentage that relishes government intervention even more than liberal social goals. It would be better, both in terms of grammar and accuracy, for the president to admit to his implicit redundancy and say, “We progressives are the ones for which we progressives have been waiting.”

Many Americans, in fact, are dissatisfied by the persistent recession and unemployment that progressives included in Obama’s “we” helped cause. President Bill J. Clinton’s National Homeownership Strategy is often highlighted as one of the causes of the housing bubble that preceded the current crisis. Clinton’s plan to “increase ownership opportunities among populations and communities with lower than average homeownership rates” meant that individuals held assets that exceeded their credit worthiness. When housing prices fell, individuals who had bet that their houses wouldn’t lose value had nowhere to turn, since “those previously underserved” citizens couldn’t absorb any economic shocks to their household. Those who couldn’t afford to own homes in the first place were foolishly given homes under a policy in which misguided sympathy trumped economic necessity.

Considering President Obama’s 20-percentage-point drop in approval rating over his term, America’s attitude toward Obama’s confidence in his imagined populace is markedly different. We’re still waiting, and so far, we aren’t pleased with the results. Obama’s push for reforms that Americans decisively opposed at time of passage, and continue to oppose, indicates that he prioritizes the progressive “we” over the real “we,” the American public.

Democrats have faith in the public—but only when the public shares their confidence in government intervention. What’s worse, the implicit Democratic message is that if we’re not these mysterious “ones we’ve been waiting for”, then we just don’t know what’s good for us. As the passage of health care legislation without our consent exemplifies, if we’re not members of the much smaller progressively-inclined “we” that Obama must have been talking about in his inspirational remarks, our opinions are not of consequence.

Why do the President and progressive Democrats trust the state more than the people? This is probably so because popular will can hinder the progressive. The people can say no to government expansion. The power of the state, however, can be widened or limited as much as a policymaker desires according to ideology. The vox populi is a reality check to the abstract world of theory.

President Obama has told us that “we are the change we seek.” But what happens when we as a nation change our minds and reject the change we once sought, or, increasingly in the case of this administration, that others seek without our consent? Well, when we are not the “we” that Obama had in mind, our preferences are abandoned in the name of political doctrines. Citizens can protest, but credos can’t.

When the governed protest modern Democratic governance, it’s the former who are shown the door. And even when we’re ahead of the curve, we’re still wrong. A majority of citizens rejected the difficult-to-reconcile notion that Obamacare would expand coverage and cut costs, even before both the International Monetary Fund and the Congressional Budget Office released reports backtracking on their earlier forecasts that spending would be reduced. For those who have less faith in the efficacy of political machinations, there’s help. Conservatism offers alternatives in which social betterment can occur while preventing the state’s at times undue and unwelcome intrusion. Most types of political conservatism, even outside the type offered by Glenn Beck, eschew ideology, particularly one that restricts the “we” of the vox populi to a select group.

Current popular resistance to progressive Democrats’ reforms imparts an important lesson. If we as a public are not “the change we seek,” progressives’ expectations, rather than national sentiment, should change. Progressives have tried celebrating their own arrival into politics and applauding their own reforms. Based on the latest predictions, few others are joining in the excitement and will likely show their lack of enthusiasm at the ballot box.

It’s time for the people to be heard, even if the rest of us outside President Obama’s progressive “we” won’t be as self-congratulatory when our turn comes. We, all of us and not just supporters of the current administration, might be waiting for something else, and an administration responsive to the continued urging of the public would be a good place to start. Even without certificates commemorating the public’s reclamation of the feeling that we matter, I think that this movement might gain momentum, perhaps even this November. So far it seems we’re all actors in the Theater of the Absurd, and it’s a tired role. Let’s hope the public gets a better representation on the political stage after a different casting call next month.

Gregory A. Dibella ’12, a Crimson editorial writer, is a government and philosophy concentrator in Mather House.