For years, pundits have been trying to grapple with President Obama's seemingly counter-intuitive capitulation. Rather than applying Occam's Razor and nakedly attributing it to his real alliance with Third Way-style Corporatism, some have often adopted the idea of 11th dimensional chess to explain his positions. So when Obama takes positions that apparently cut against our pre-conceived notions of him, the explanation that Obama is masterfully playing what has been dubbed 11th dimensional chess provides a safe harbor from intellectual dissonance. "Why does Obama seemingly continue to go against our accusations of being a Communist Nazi fascist Muslim overlord? Surely, his apparent concessions to supply-side economists must be a long-con to truly get the Socialist Liberal Hippie Commune that he really wants!"
While this was never really a very convincing explanation of any of Obama's positions, one of the effects of this rhetoric, was that it gave a convenient cover for a lot Obama's more purist supporters.
The thinking goes, those of us who consider ourselves Democrats must always side with whatever position the Obama administration takes. And if anyone fails in this devotion to the establishment line, surely, they have not thought as deeply as Obama and his crew. Surely, we must have faith that what they want is in the best interests of the party, in the long run, somehow, and so no dissension can be tolerated.
This rhetoric, however, does not hold much water, without the underlying premise that Obama and his crew are just so much more clever and ingenious than the rest of the political establishment. While others are only thinking one or two moves ahead, at most, Obama has already thought things out twenty moves ahead. And so surely, even though his actions don't make sense if we just take Obama at face value, his path will be borne out as the correct path in the long run.
Indeed, there are some examples, such as his actions on immigration reform, such as the government shutdown the Republicans orchestrated, where this theory seems quite intriguing. There is no doubt that there have been times when Obama has played the Republicans against themselves, and it has ended up backfiring on them beautifully.
However, what the events over getting TPP and fast-track approved have shown, if nothing else, is that perhaps this was never really the case after all.
Let's begin with the basic premise: Obama wants the TPP to come to pass.
If that was his goal all along, well, suffice to say, he sure didn't play his hand very well.
Let's look at how he actually approached things. First, he visibly quarreled with Elizabeth Warren, somewhat of a reluctant poster child for the Democratic base. Then, he took a rather heavy-handed approach to push Congressional Democrats to vote on TPP. When that didn't work, he tried honey over the vinegar. By many accounts, his approach to working with Congressional Democrats, well, it's about as sausage-making as it gets. And throughout the entire ordeal, he has kept the contents of the TPP deal confidential, despite repeated calls to make it public.
Now, one would think, that if getting the TPP passed was his goal after all, then surely on this one issue, Obama the 11th dimensional grandmaster would flex his muscles. Surely, he would find a way to get it passed, and without seemingly getting his hands dirty, and look Daniel Craig-level smooth doing it. If he's the masterful tactician he is sometimes credited as.
However, what has actually come to pass is this: fast-track authority for TPP is hanging by a thread, the bonds between the White House and Congressional Democrats have been visibly frayed, he has apparently pissed off some of the Democratic Party's most important supporters, and to top it all off, he is literally having Paul Ryan whip votes for him.
Now, how do we reconcile this outcome with the idea of 11th dimensional chess? I may not be a grandmaster in even regular chess, but from the looks of it, it seems like a loss all around.
From the get-go, agitating the Democratic base by publicly going at Warren would not seem like a wise move. Given this, the opposition to TPP by the Democratic base should not have been all that surprising. Democratic grassroots pressure has been nothing short of amazing lately. They scored a huge upset on Keystone XL. They managed to push Reid to use the nuclear option. They managed to protect net neutrality. Given all of these actions, would it really have been that hard to predict all the pushback Obama and the other TPP supporters have been seeing?
Now, let's not forget, the concept of 11th dimensional chess is that, not all things are as they appear. In the long run, even the most backwards movement is supposed to be building up for victory in the end. Or so one would think.
So what is the other alternative, if the reality is not that 11th dimensional chess is just some useless Beltway punditry concocted on nothing more than quixotic giants envisioned from windmills?
The only other possible conclusion, is that maybe this is what an 11th dimensional chess game's Endgame really looks like.
When it looks like Obama has finally truly gone over to the dark side, pulled the plug on his last semblance of a Liberal crusader, stabbed all his allies in the back, and got a standing ovation from his supposed adversaries.
When all is looking its bleakest, maybe then, that is when we really finally see the fruits of this convoluted labor.
Maybe, everything Obama has been saying about the TPP has been true all along. That it really will be this great savior of American labor and of foreign labor and of the environment and all the other great things Obama has said that the TPP contains.
Maybe, all the corporations that apparently stand to make even more billions of dollars by squeezing low-wage workers around the world dry, maybe Obama will actually put them all in their place, and we will instead see a new workers' paradise that would make Marx weep.
Maybe, by burning all the bridges with the Democratic Party, Obama is actually clearing the way for an even brighter Progressive champion to take his place in the White House. What better way, after all, than for the righteous new leader to vanquish the tyrant.
Maybe, by siding with the Republicans on the TPP, he will have them squarely embrace a role even more sinister than taking away the healthcare of millions of Americans, than shutting down the federal government over taking away the healthcare of millions of Americans, than anything they have been able to dish out up until now.
It's possible, I suppose. So the question now is, which stands to be the more likely reality? Do we take Obama to be the ultimate Liberal mastermind? Or just another political shell game who let his true ambitions get the better of him?