Can Obama Reinvent Himself?

All is not lost for Obama, but it is questionable whether he has the necessary fighting spirit.

At the end of his presidency, Woodrow Wilson had a wise lesson for his secretary of the Navy. “In the course of a generation,” he said, “it happens but once that people rise above their material worries. Therefore, two-thirds of the time, a conservative government is in power.”*

I take this statement from “The Cycles of American History,” by renowned historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. This book elaborates on an attempt by his father — also a historian of note — to reveal the cyclical impact of American history: After a period of reform and increased government activity, a revival of traditional values and a return to the private domain will always follow.

Spiral

That change — which Schlesinger presents as a spiral rather than a pendulum, because each time adds new elements to the story — always proceeds differently, and also, the periods vary in duration. But the wave between what he calls public purpose and private interest is a constant one.

What made Wilson’s conversation with his secretary of the Navy more salient is that his listener was Franklin Roosevelt. A few months later, as a vice-presidential candidate for the Democrats, he would ingloriously lose the elections, which meant the final end of the Progressive Era (1901-1920) and brought the mediocre Warren Harding into the White House. More importantly, in 1932 he would win the presidency, and with his New Deal ushered in a fairly long period of active government intervention.

When a Period Ends and Another Begins?

In an approach similar to that of Schlesinger, there is a tendency to take substantial changes of the guard in the White House as benchmarks. But he delivers more varied work. Sometimes a congressional election is just as important. So he puts the finish line for New Deal liberalism at 1947, when the Democrats lost the majority in both the Senate and the House of Representatives, and the “do-nothing 80th Congress” (the words of President Harry Truman) drastically restricted the strength of the White House.

Conversely, the inauguration of President Richard Nixon in 1968 did not end the progressive ‘60s: He was not averse to social legislation, and the Democrats dominated Congress for another 12 years.

The question now is: How can the wave that the midterm elections showed last Tuesday be interpreted? At first glance, it seems that cycles in the 21st century are very short. In 2006, the Republicans lost their majority in Congress; two years later, even the presidency went into Democratic hands, but now the Democrats have lost control of the House again, and that is an understatement.

This rapid change in relative strength indicates a fickle electorate. Or could it be that we cannot estimate all election results at their fair value? There is much to say for that, especially in the case of 2008. Barack Obama’s victory was historic, but in the excitement of the moment, it was wrongly interpreted by many Democrats as a triumph of progressive liberalism and a mandate for “Big Government.”

Won

He won for a number of reasons — partly because he was anti-Bush and many independent voters, even many Republicans, thought it was an honor to choose a black president (the color of his skin ultimately worked to his advantage). In the meantime, polls showed that significantly more Americans described themselves as conservative than liberal.

And that’s still the case. There is no broad support for massive government intervention, especially when the president gives the impression of being more concerned about abstract reforms than the daily needs of ordinary Americans.

All is not lost for Obama. Several commentators have reminded us this week that Bill Clinton, after his defeat in the congressional elections of 1994, managed to scramble up and two years later was able to get a second term in office. But I think Obama faces a much heavier task.

The economic downturn is deeper, and it is highly questionable whether the recovery time is coming. Clinton could fall back on the centrist values that he had advocated when governor of Arkansas. As a purebred politician, he was prepared to shake up his ideology and his staff dramatically. I very much doubt whether Obama has the same agility and fighting spirit.

* Editor’s Note: This quote, accurately translated, could not be verified.