President's change in philosophy will only work if he has someone to work with

In his second inaugural speech, President Barack Obama revealed what is presumably his true ideological and social philosophy, while at the same time calling for the citizenry to help him out and “do their part.” No more of the failed bipartisan experiment, no more “reaching across the aisle.” The “people”—that is, those who are public-spirited rather than bigoted or narcissistic—should be guiding the direction of public policy, and not the cupidity of private interest. No more dealing on an equal level with moronic types like the man who owns the car with the license plate frame that says “Liberalism is a Mental Disorder,” after spending the previous four years declaring “Comrade Obama: The Enemy Within.” 

In the next four years Obama stated his intention to breathe new life into the words We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. No more of this libertarian/right-wing animal kingdom world: 

“For history tells us that while these truths may be self-evident, they have never been self-executing; that while freedom is a gift from God, it must be secured by His people here on Earth.  The patriots of 1776 did not fight to replace the tyranny of a king with the privileges of a few or the rule of a mob.  They gave to us a Republic, a government of, and by, and for the people, entrusting each generation to keep safe our founding creed.”

Obama, of course, knows that the foes of government of, for and by the people is under assault by small but powerful forces, and Republicans and conservative Democrat toadies “speak” for these forces. On an ABC News roundtable discussion following the inauguration speech, a right-wing commentator had the audacity to claim that Obama does not have a mandate—that he only spoke for that infamous “47 percent.” Forget the fact that it is red Republican states that have the highest percentage of that “47 percent,” and that the 51 percent of the popular vote for Obama was more than the less than 48 percent who voted for George W. Bush in 2000; it didn’t matter that Bush had no “mandate” to promulgate the disastrous tax, deregulation and war policies that followed. It didn’t even matter that an examination of all the disputed votes in Florida by the National Opinion Research Center revealed that Al Gore was the legitimate winner. It never does to Republicans who represent the interests of a few; all they understand is antebellum class distinctions and power. 

In his speech, Obama attempted to invoke John F. Kennedy’s “Ask not what your country can do for, but what you can do for your country” call for citizen responsibility. “Through it all, we have never relinquished our skepticism of central authority, nor have we succumbed to the fiction that all society’s ills can be cured through government alone.  Our celebration of initiative and enterprise; our insistence on hard work and personal responsibility, are constants in our character.”  America’s “possibilities” are “limitless,” since the country has “youth and drive; diversity and openness; an endless capacity for risk and a gift for reinvention.   My fellow Americans, we are made for this moment, and we will seize it – so long as we seize it together.”

“Together,” of course, doesn’t mean just the Koch brothers and the people who greeted Obama’s reelection with racial slurs. “For we, the people, understand that our country cannot succeed when a shrinking few do very well and a growing many barely make it.  We believe that America’s prosperity must rest upon the broad shoulders of a rising middle class.  We know that America thrives when every person can find independence and pride in their work; when the wages of honest labor liberate families from the brink of hardship.” 

So, with the wars ending and the economy more or less out of recession, it is time to address the deficit, the future of so-called “entitlement” programs, and immigration reform. I didn’t care much about the Republican “responses” after the speech, since the party has no credibility save to such small-minded bigots as mentioned above; the House of Representatives under Republican rule has become a leaderless, rudderless, ossified structure incapable of movement of mind. It is one thing to stand on “principle”; it is quite another when it is based on an inability to look peripherally. Simply taking a meat cleaver to the budget without ascertaining its effects just because you believe in “small” government is merely foolish. What comes next will depend upon whether we have leaders who want to go forward, or fall back on petty, rock-headed partisan-thinking.