Mr. Obama’s New Humility

The State of the Union address on Tuesday should be seen as the indication of a new sense of modesty.

Barack Obama wanted to be one of the historic reformers among U.S. presidents, but most of his plans have failed. Sitting behind his desk in the Oval Office, in a recent conversation, Obama told David Remnick from The New Yorker that he had learned that an American president is essentially a relay swimmer who was swimming “in a river full of rapids and that river is history. You don’t start with a clean slate, and the things you start may not come to full fruition on your timetable.”

It sounds like a new sense of modesty. So little has gone well for Obama in the past year that people in Washington are calling it his “annus horribilis,” like the British queen once had. This picture is all the more sobering since the head of state raised expectations high after his victory over Mitt Romney.

A reform of immigration laws, stricter gun control laws, ambitious action on climate change — the agenda he set out 12 months ago once again sounded like the Obama who, in the excitement surrounding his 2008 candidacy, made it clear that he did not want to be any old president, not a Millard Fillmore or a Franklin Pierce, but a president who makes a difference, a historical reformer of the caliber of Abraham Lincoln or Franklin D. Roosevelt.

The Harsh Reality

This claim was smashed to pieces when it came into contact with reality, not just because Republicans in the House of Representatives are being stubborn and still blocking the reform on immigration laws, which, among other things, would give legal status to 11 million undocumented immigrants. With the initial failure of the project came the death of the hope that the ideological “fever” of Republicans, as Obama put it, would gradually break and it would be possible to have a pragmatic working relationship. A change in the political stalemate cannot be expected any time soon. Hardly anyone is anticipating that Democrats will succeed in winning back the majority from Republicans in the House in the fall, which would break the stalemate. Experience shows that after the midterm election, it is all about who inherits the Oval Office from Obama.

From the Perspective of a Discontinued Model

In 10 or 11 months, the incumbent president will be a discontinued model, meaning his powers to get things done are rapidly declining. As Peter Baker wrote in The New York Times, Obama is hardly the first president to recognize the disparity between the perception and reality of his power. As a prime example of this phenomenon, the journalist quoted George W. Bush. Asked by an aide in his last year of office what had surprised him most about being president, Bush answered, “How little authority I have.”

The limits of power have been a common theme throughout this late stage of the Obama era. Having looked at the facts, the former senator, a man of stone-cold, sober analyses behind the facade of rhetoric, has drawn the conclusion that it is now better to pursue smaller projects. He wants to save what can be saved from his agenda, without Congress needing to agree to it. Tuesday’s State of the Union address to both Houses should be understood as an indication of a new humility. It is said Obama will present a list of relatively modest aims. A higher minimum wage, more investment in older infrastructure and an expansion of prekindergarten education — small things.

Where the legislative resists, the executive wants to act on its own initiative, with the help of presidential directives, against which the opposition can do nothing. We “will not wait for Congress,” said Dan Pfeiffer, a top adviser in the White House. “There’s a little bit of a subtle threat there,” retorted Sen. Rand Paul, once a favorite of the tea party, now a possible candidate for 2016.

However, Obama’s predecessor in the White House had great success with small projects. Profiting from the economic boom of the late 1990s, Bill Clinton was content with making a few adjustments here and there and not attempting anything else politically that could divide the nation. He was all the more active in mediating international conflicts. A model for an insecure fellow party member?