If you’re African American in the US, the Democrats are your only hope to reach equality. The Republicans want to make sure you don’t vote, make sure you stay poor, make sure you are feared, and keep you marginalized. They don’t care about black issues, because they don’t have more than token black people in positions of power in the party, and aren’t bringing young minorities into the party either. One look at their convention shows this, it was essentially only for white people.
Sure, the Democrats could do more, but they need to have control of the levers of government to do anything. All of us, white and minority, need to step up to make sure they have those levers, and then press them to do the right things as much as possible.
It’s in part because he hasn’t been too aggressive in his approach that I have confidence that President Obama’s changes will stick. I don’t want to diminish the courageous efforts of the activists of the 60’s and 70’s who fought for equal rights for all citizens – minorities, LGBT, feminists – but I grew up in the politically conservative 80’s when Reagan / Bush were able to roll back many of the gains those activists made. It’s tempting to wonder what kinds of lasting gains could have been made had history been different – Dr. King leading a civil rights movement into the 70’s and 80’s, President Carter winning a second term and possibly able to ratify the ERA, Harvey Milk leading a gay rights movement of the 80’s and 90’s… Yet the unfortunate reality is that we moved backwards during these years, then had to regain lost ground later on.
Had President Obama patterned his administration after President Johnson (i.e. make big progress legislatively, public perception be damned), we might have the same situation here – ten, fifteen, twenty years of backlash where conservatives roll back the progress made. As it is, I firmly believe President Obama has taken the right approach. Maybe the sheer amount of progress hasn’t been what many progressives would like, but what progress has been made will stick.
And now Sec. Clinton has an awesome task before her to lock in those gains and then make even further gains.
'“With Hillary, maybe it will seem like everybody is included," said Martese Chism, a delegate from Illinois. “When Obama spoke on black issues they would say he was just a black president.”
I hope but ‘they’ will say the same thing about Hillary when she works on women’s issues. That is absolutely ALL the other side has. They could do so much more if they stopped viewing themselves as victims.
Agree, President Obama was wise to reach consensus on reform efforts.
Ezra Klein has a great piece on how Hillary is an underrated politician because her best traits are more feminie in nature and not respected by our male dominated political system. She’s a gifted listener, a contemplator who evalutes gray areas, and she uses people skills to builds coalitions. Press and a lot of people don’t put value in that as they should. They want masculine traits like people who stand behind a podium and wag their finger and scream about how they’re going to go charge up the hill.
Obama is a gifted orator, more gifted than Hillary. However I always thought that was a supplemental asset behind his more feminie traits of being a listern and a coalition builder (thanks to his time community organizing in Southside Chicago). Building coalitions is how elections are won. Winning elections is a numbers game. A math problem, not a purity test.
LouisCK made a similar observation…
It’s very emotional. There is a fear of Hillary, you know? I think some of it has to do with Hillary being such a strong candidate and being a woman. The response to her is very male. The other side is very male-oriented. Trump is a man. Well, he’s a boy, and Bernie is an old man. Neither is a feminine person. Obama’s a very feminine person. I don’t mean effeminate.
You mean he’s not macho?
Everybody has both masculine and feminine sides, but Obama is feminine inside. There ain’t no femininity in Trump. There’s none in Bernie. These are both really emphatic guys saying, “We got to do this!” Hillary’s trying to say, “Guys, this is reality. These are complex issues.” And those two are going, “I don’t want to fucking hear it!” It’s weird to watch. It’s like if you had an election in your family. Imagine that when you were a kid there was an election to decide whether Mom or Dad would be in charge for the next four years. Or if some group of siblings got together and said, “We’re going to get this woman to replace Mom.” After the election, imagine how you would feel about each other. It’s terribly, terribly interesting.
This is so well put. I believe the American Experiement works because our Founding Fathers, intentionally or unintentionally, created a system where huge gigantic changes are almost impossible to enact. As a country, we make a small incremental change, give it time to digest, make another incremental change, give it time to digest… lather, rinse, repeat. It prevents regression of progress from trying to do too much before the country ready.
We all know that the current ACA is not where went ultimately want to go as an end game. But I honestly do not think our system would have handled a complete single payer system overhaul right out of the gate. It would have been too much too fast and the system would have collapsed on itself under the weight (remember how even the existing ACA teetered out of the game, and for the first year it was touch and go whether it was even going to survive). That’s not even getting the legal and Constitutional fights. The ultimate result would have rolls backs, Chief Roberts crippling the laws in Court, and a single payer system forever tarnished in America’s minds and impossible in the future.
Really, we owe a deep, deep debt of gratitude to President Obama for actually taking the bull by the horns when virtually nobody else could have come close to his effectiveness and steered us to calmer waters. It may not seem like it when looking only in one direction, but I sincerely think that a 360 degree view or as close as one can get to achieving that will reveal a quality that very few have left in their wake. There is so much more to say about this.
When it comes to Secretary Clinton, again I believe there is a quality that can further our evolution as a country that is able to process anything. I believe that we have the chance to actually progress, at hand.