Remember what it was like in 2008? It just seemed there was no breaking the Conservative grip on power; nonchalant Republican corruption was taken for granted and there just seemed no way to fight.
That was a lot of what got Obama elected. The conventional wisdom was that a black man had no chance to win the White House, that McCain had too great a stature for any Democrat to beat him, that even if Obama won he’d be assassinated within months, if not days — and, even if he made it past all of that, he was an idealist, a liberal, a scholar and academic, so he’d be a useless, weak President.
Then the Affordable Care Act became law. I remember Fox News dancing on Obamacare’s grave a little prematurely, almost comically caught off balance at being wrong.
But up ‘til then, all through the Bush years, they’d not been wrong — even when they were. And the Bush administration was the culmination of decades of Right Wing strategy; GOP politicians simply quit trying to be public servants and concentrated on gaining power.
An all-but-irreversable grip on government, that’s what they wanted and had.
I’ve thought for some time now that President Obama had planned and implemented a Long Game, 8 Year strategy based around cracking the corruption and monopoly on power the Conservatives had. But, not being used to a President actually smarter than I am, he was always so far ahead of the curve that I couldn’t track the overall picture.
Hell, it’ll be years yet before all of it comes into perspective — but any Long Game has at least two parts: the Set Up and the Close.
I think President Obama spent two terms negotiating, showing the public the corruption in a plain, non-adversarial manner, realigning the Presidency and setting up the tools and battleground.
That’s not to say that his individual accomplishments, taken at face value, aren’t impressive — there’s massive lists here on DK and around the ‘net for those that need a refresher — but that they’re part of a larger worldview he sees that his opponents can’t.
Hillary is the Closer. I’m sure of it. And I’m certain that the President wasn’t alone in planning, either; the Clintons — especially Bill — had to be involved very early on. James Carville, too, probably.
Heh. Guess this is kind of a positive conspiracy theory.
So — what do you think? See any pieces of this puzzle? Or am I completely missing the mark?