The reactive, fissiparous online left has spent the budget debate cutting itself over process. The bluff was called. Obama did something no one has been able to do since the last time Republicans held power in Congress: get the GOP on record with a budget proposal. The president pantsed the GOP. The only people who don’t see that are living in a bubble of their own making.
What the Beltway village called “brave,” Obama dissected and eviscerated yesterday. Congress has its budget proposal; the president has made his proposal last, bigger, and less hurtfully. In doing so, he invoked progressive and liberal values as well as bipartisan centrism. The reason you have a “catfood commission” is to adopt some of its proposals and make proposals of your own; that way, you can use some and not all of its proposals and use the words “bipartisan commission.”
The most powerful thing a president has is not his big stick, but his silence. This principle of power goes back to ancient times, long before the class struggle of fires, dogs, and lakes even had a dialectic. A large cohort of actively engaged bloggers and netizens pays hyperattention to their issues of focus; many are steeped in the dialectic of power and class. When the president fails to advocate their cause often or forcefully enough for their taste, they heat up and threaten meltdown.
But when are they not revolting? If anything, that speech ought to have their enthusiastic applause. There was even a word about ending wars. I have written about bubbles before; what I heard in the president’s speech was the Republican House majority’s bubble popping. They’ve got nothing, the president has a plan that makes sense, and it just requires some Republican bipartisanship.
The president did not “surrender” on Medicare. He did not “surrender” on Medicaid. He did not “surrender” on any particular program, though many of his cuts hurt. But right now, he’s winning, and there is still plenty of time left in this Congress.
