The Optimism of "NO". A Happy New Year Blog Post.

Democrats were winning too much and the voters said "Not so fast!"

The election of Barrack Obama set in motion the seeds of his opposition.   Democrats won some rounds and the deep inertia of the political system did what it does.  It reversed itself.  

We see it all the time.  

Note to progressives:  Gridlock is still real.   In 2008 Barrack Obama won the presidency, had about 58 sure votes in the Senate and a couple of additional marginal ones, plus a majority in the House of Representatives--a much bigger mandate than Trump has.  Trump's majority in both houses includes Republicans who openly dislike him and who have spent long careers disagreeing with his fundamental policies.

Note to progressives: The pendulum swings.  Obama created his own backlash. Obama's election and the signature thing he could barely squeak through, with debilitating compromises and one-off giveaways to Nebraska, was Obamacare.  Its application was incomplete because the forces of opposition grew so strong so quickly that the states promptly elected Republican governors and legislators who blocked implementation.  Plus, Obama's very presence--a blackish, mixed race liberal--unleashed an invigorated firestorm of talk radio opposition, intransigent Fox News opposition, and flourishing social media opposition. 

GOP: party of opposition

Obama was characterized as a "feckless weakling" and simultaneously a "tyrant."  Even today a full majority of Republicans say to pollsters that they doubt he was born in America or is not a secret Muslim.

This process was not Obama screwing up.  It was as inevitable as day following night, a big action creates a reaction.   Trump is creating his own backlash.

Note to progressives:  This was a good 8 years for things important to progressives.

***The big trend is that the country became much more conscious of the widespread prejudice against women, blacks, Hispanics, and the LGBTQ community.   
***The big thing that happened is that homosexuality and gender fluidity have become almost mainstream, which is why opponents are freaking out.  

***The big thing is that voters are now conscious of widespread racial profiling and they don't defend it; they attempt to minimize it and deflect blame.  

***The big thing is that the immigrant share of the population approaches the heyday level of the early 20th century Ellis Island era and what we are seeing is pushback against the big tide.   

***The big thing is that contraception access is very inexpensive and ubiquitous and abortion is generally available and the attacks on Planned Parenthood are the reaction to this. 
***The big thing is that more and more Americans are secular in orientation.  The churches that are doing best are the purest backlash churches: fundamentalist fellowships.

Bipartisan opposition

***Globalism, technology, and automation are the big trends.   Democrats and Republicans both were a free trade, globalist parties  Trump and Sanders were the reaction to it.  Both parties are creating the resistance to what was bi-partisan consensus.  Neither party can stop the big tide of progress.  Young people at computer screens are busy disrupting the hospitality industry, the taxi industry, the entire transportation industry as thoroughly as Walmart disrupted retail and then Amazon disrupted Walmart.  

Trump's electoral vote victory is a sign of resistance.  It is not the big thing, it is a reaction to the big thing.   Progress won.

Trump is already creating the anti-Trump reaction, in both parties.  It will divide the Republicans but unify the Democrats.  This is no surprise.  The only real unity binding Republicans is that Obama and Hillary Clinton are  terrible.

Thad Guyer's comment below focuses on the strength of American culture as the big thing, the big victory.  His international perspective--he currently lives in Ho Chi Min City, also known as Saigon, Vietnam--allows him to see that American culture is observed world wide as powerful and respected.  Indeed it is the triumph of American culture that has stimulated the Islamic fundamentalist backlash.  Osama Bin Laden did not protest America democracy; he protested the threat of American culture to traditional Islamic values.

American politics bends to the pressure of popular sentiment--as it is doing from the traditionalist right in 2016 but also as it did from the anti-segregation and anti-war movements of the 1950s and 1960s.  My focus in this introduction is on the pendulum swing of politics as resistance to political victory  and Guyer's below is on the the cultural victor, but we are not in disagreement.

Note to progressives:  Trumpism and white political consciousness is backlash.  Progressive politics is riding the tide of progress, the big force.  Trump is already helping Democrats clarify their thinking on what they think.   They will be the anti-Trump party on Russia, on race, on destruction of the social safety net, on trickle down taxes, and on tariffs.  They will attempt to re-take the support of working people and will out-Trump Trump with that constituency by support of a meaningful minimum wage and assistance to working mothers.  

The backlash against the backlash is already underway.   2017 will be a good year for Democrats.

Guest Comment by Thad Guyer:  The Indefatigable March of American Culture in 2016

It would be a mistake to see 2016 as only a year in which America suffered a political set back. Barack Obama could not have explained it better when asked whether his presidency is proof that America finally embraced a multi-cultural identity:

Thad Guyer

“In the wake of the election and Trump winning, a lot of people have suggested that somehow, it really was a fantasy. What I would argue is that the culture actually did shift, that the majority does buy into the notion of  one America that is tolerant and diverse and open and  full of energy and dynamism. And the problem is, it doesn’t always manifest itself in politics”.

As someone who worked and traveled in nine countries in 2016, I can attest that it is myth that America's example to the world is primarily our politics. Our culture, not our politics, is America’s global shining star.  We are viewed more than ever as the world's great melting pot of multi-culturalism, of economic endurance, academic strength, of scientific, technological and pharmacological innovation, and of athletic, musical and cinematic wonder. 

Counter-intuitive as it is, Trump is seen from abroad  as a kind of misfortune that happened to us, perhaps from carelessness, but not as something we wanted or planned. Government run amok, in spite of its people, is something that almost every other country on earth understands.  Probably two-thirds of the global community wishes this: “If only something like Trump was the worst that our own political system could conjure up”. I found on the streets of places like Saigon, Kuala Lampur, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Bratislava, Paris, and Geneva, that there’s a confidence that American culture is far more enduring than any political calamity that pops up from time to time. It is our culture that leads our “living constitution” and circumscribes our government-- not the reverse. 

In 2016, our political order may have taken a step back, but our culture took two steps forward.  Here are 10 things that I think the rest of the world saw in America in 2016:

1. The American spirit of humanism and social liberalism is thriving

2. Racial justice causes, such as Black Lives Matters, were front and center, and became both cross-racial and international.

3. Undocumented kids that have known no other country, our “dreamers”, won a cultural consensus that they have a right to stay, that it is something they earned.

4. Feminist identity became even more empowered.

5. White men got a much needed dose of humility.

6. Blue states became the official guardians and defenders of our ethnic and cultural diversity.

7. Sexism was more unmasked than ever before.

8. Academic freedom fostered fierce cultural debate, and showed undeniable staying power, despite a barrage of ridicule.

9. Diverse voices in the blogosphere multiplied like an expanding big bang of free speech.

10. Climate science and accountability became institutionalized as cultural norms. 

If this is how a large part of the world sees us, we should listen, and see through our political setbacks, to a better truth—2016 was a good year for the indefatigable march of American culture, in spite of our bleak politics.

Happy New Year!