It’s almost impossible to write intelligibly about what’s happening now in government because, well, it’s all so big that the consequences cannot be predicted. It’s scary, exciting, and a bit frustrating. But that’s what happens when the nation blunders its way to a historical pivot point.
One example: the debate about whether Obama will govern from the “left” or the “center.” His appointments thus far – almost all Washington insiders from Hillary Clinton on down – seem to point to “center” as the answer, and that’s what we hear with approval from the MSM, with complaints from some liberal blogs.
But in both foreign and domestic policy, “left” and “center” as we’ve understood them for the past eight years – and really, for the past generation – are now meaningless terms.
Obama’s foreign policy could go in several different ideological directions. We don’t know yet. But compared with Bush’s foreign policy (at least, before it drifted toward semi-realism over the past couple of years) there will obviously be a world of difference: the difference between having/using what remains of America’s considerable influence and … sitting still, insisting the world come to us. The United States will engage with other governments and with international organizations. It will move forward on climate change, on nuclear non-proliferation, on an Iraq withdrawal, on (perhaps) a Middle East peace plan. Will we succeed at these things? I don’t know. But this is what happens when paralyzed limbs suddenly become mobile again. What the thumb and index fingers are doing is, for the moment, secondary to the amazing fact of those big muscles being flexed at all.
Obama’s domestic appointments are all smart, mainstream types. But they will be responding to a dire national/global emergency, trying things that have never been tried before on such a grand scale. Remember the “kitchen sink strategy”? That’s what we’ve got for the economy now, and it’s hard to believe that it will generate much serious opposition given the speed of the unfolding crisis and the consequences of failure. Obama clearly intends to use the huge political leverage he has right now to reshape the basic relationships between government and the economy, particularly in energy and health care, along more progressive lines.
From the perspective of the past generation, this sounds – is – radical. But sitting where we are today, it’s obvious a radical course is needed to guide us out of the humongous mess we’re in. Obama’s choice of smart, mainstream appointees to carry it out – and of realists to implement his foreign policy – will redefine the center of American politics and change the way we all think of government. Republicans probably won’t like it. But they will have to find a way to engage with it if they want to be in on the debate.
