Success That Looks Like Failure

Nothing is left of Obama’s dream of changing American political culture.

Barack Obama has really accomplished something. With the passage of his health care reform legislation Saturday evening, it’s now evident that his presidency will no longer be described as “historic” just because of his race.

Sure, it sounds crazy that it took the richest country on earth a good sixty years to catch up to every other Western industrialized nation and provide almost all its citizens with fairly normal access to health care. Even more unbelievable is the fact that it unleashed a bitter ideological debate and that a majority of Americans actually believe the lies, confusing claims, libels, scare-mongering and just plain lunacy put out to the world by Republicans. It’s all actually pretty pathetic; after the historic victory, Obama exulted that America showed it’s capable of accomplishing great things. I suppose so.

Nonetheless, Obama’s reform package, as gutted and trampled as it may be after a year of squabbling, is still a big step for the U.S. But the whole thing also showed that there’s little left of Obama’s dream of changing America’s political culture. Substantive cooperation and compromise? Forget about it. Bipartisan agreement that government aid in the midst of an economic crisis isn’t really Satan’s doing? Yeah, right.

Obama was only successful because he and his speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, used every trick of the trade they could come up with, including the ugliest ones. And that was just enough to turn the tide in the House. It’s nice that they succeeded, but a change in political culture looks a lot different than that.

Over the past ten years, the Republican party has become an almost purely conservative organization and walled itself off from any internal opposition. It represents a clear and unified world image they attempt to sell as “American values” — wrong again — while simultaneously trying to portray Obama as a big-government monster from outer space. Despite Obama’s eloquence and charisma, and despite majorities in both houses of Congress, he and his Democrats look like they’re in full retreat. They’ve just passed the most important legislative reforms in the last half-century and they’re already fretting about a possible voter revolt in the congressional elections next November.

Good luck to this topsy-turvy world!