Fault-Lines: Right and Left

In his 2013 State of the Union address, President Obama clarified, for any who remained doubtful, that the opening gambit for his second term will be to drive a wedge into the Republican Party - and particularly, into the House Republican conference.

The President's method?  To hammer away at a center-left agenda full of popular items which will inevitably place the GOP in what the chess masters call Zugzwang.

 

At the climactic moment of his speech, Mr. Obama threw down the gauntlet.  Calling out the names of one town after another victimized by madmen armed for combat, the President repeated the battle cry, "They deserve a vote!" - to a rising chorus of cheers from congressional Democrats.

It was a stirring moment, but it was more than that.  It announced a tactic.  Public frustration with two years of congressional gridlock have created an opportunity which might never come  Mr. Obama's way again.  Having won decisively in November, he has never stood higher in the polls.

 

The iron is as hot as it's going to get.

If the President is not to become a premature lame duck, he needs to hammer away at the opposition, driving his wedge ever deeper into the dysfunctional alliance of establishment Republicans and the Tea Party wing.

    

He has already enjoyed initial success.  When Speaker Boehner agreed to suspend the so-called "Hastert Rule", allowing Republican members to vote freely to increase taxes on high-income Americans, it was more than a device to avoid the fiscal cliff.

It was an invitation to collaboration between the White House and Republicans alarmed at the extremism of their own right wing.

 

In coming months, we could see a tacit alliance between the Speaker and the President to pass bipartisan legislation over the objections of the Tea Party.  If this alliance holds, it might allow the Speaker to gain the upper hand over the discontented Tea Party faction.

On the other hand, it might lead to a complete rupture of the Republican conference - and a Tea Party walkout.

 

The struggle for the soul of the Republican Party is clearly on.  Whether the Tea Party prevails - or secedes - it could mark the beginning of a decade or more of Democratic hegemony.  Either way, Mr. Obama stands to gain.

His problem, of course, is that the Democrats - who have historically been more a coalition of interests than a true party - might also fracture under the growing stresses of the times.  The danger comes from educated progressives, young citizens strongly influenced by libertarian values, and serious  environmentalists.  All these groups have serious issues with a President who seems only slightly better than his predecessor on questions of individual liberties, global climate change, and setting forth a vision for a genuinely sustainable, 21st-century economy.

From the beginning, Mr. Obama has been wedded to a classic Democratic notion of restoring an economy based on statistically full employment, with most of the jobs being provided by large, corporate employers.

For all his nods to green jobs and the high-tech sector, the President seems wedded to an old-school vision of a manufacturing economy harking back to the glory days of FDR, Truman, JFK, and LBJ.

Mr. Obama dreams of lifetime jobs.  Well-paying jobs, with good health benefits.  Union jobs. Jobs for Democrats.

 

In his State of the Union address, Mr. Obama made a point of hailing the return of manufacturing jobs from Japan and Mexico.  Good news, to be sure - but the President's enthusiasm for these small gains reflected his fixation on the economics of the mid-20th century.   

The old manufacturing economy, in which middle class status is dependent upon big corporate employers and the protection of big labor unions, is part of a vision of economics which relies heavily upon consumerism - and consequently, on waste.  It ignores the inevitable environmental impact of forever making more and more stuff, and using more and more natural resources in the process.

Such a vision would set American workers in an unwinnable competition with their counterparts in Asia, where labor is cheaper and environmental standards laughable.

It would also postpone the hard work of re-imagining economics to allow future generations of Americans - and others - to live well in an economy based upon thrift, sustainability, ingenuity, and individual initiative.

If the human race is not utterly to ravage the planet, such an economy must come soon.  But the President - with his penchant for kicking the can down the road - seems more interested in securing short-term political advantage for himself and his party.

And, to be sure, his present tactics might well secure an historic upset in the 2014 mid-terms, giving him a chance to remain relevant well into the last two years of his presidency.  They might even pave the way for Hillary Clinton, or some other Democrat, to succeed him in 2017.

What is not certain is that the nascent forces of a neo-Progressivism - who have supported Mr. Obama mainly out of revulsion at the alternative - will continue to support him if the GOP shows signs of falling apart.

In his ideal world, Mr. Obama might succeed in taming the Republican Party - or governing in a triumphant period of divisa et impera.  But, as in the geological world, movement along one fault line might well lead to movement upon another. 

In four years time, America might have - not two parties - but a situation in which three, or even four, parties play a serious role in shaping the future.

Much depends upon whether America's genuine progressives are ready to cast off their dependence upon the old politics of Mr. Obama's Democratic Party.