Energy

The end of hope and change

Benjamin Domenech Research Fellow, Heartland Institute
Font Size:

President Barack Obama’s final speech before this weekend’s anticipated vote on health care legislation had the same soaring rhetoric he’s been known for, those turns of phrase that sound awfully pretty unless you think about them too hard.

Obama’s speeches are what a speechwriter I knew liked to call “cotton candy communication”—sticky sweet and airy, made for children, comforting to the listener as they hear, but melting away, instantly forgettable. Plus, ingest too much of it and you get sick as a dog.

There was one note in this speech, though, that stuck out by typifying Obama’s views, encapsulating his approach to health care policy, and indicating a disturbing level of desperation in his young presidency.

“In just a few days,” Obama said, referring to the Sunday roll call, “a century-long struggle will culminate in an historic vote.”

Obama likes to cast things in terms of century-long battles. He did so in his State of the Union address, referring to a law considered half that age at most, which prompted a headshake from Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito. But what is prompting him to make this assertion regarding his health care legislation, which dramatically affects an arena of government policy that has not even existed for a hundred years?

There is no conceivable date he could be measuring from, unless he has a strong sense of irony not previously in evidence. Trust-busting Teddy Roosevelt would undoubtedly excoriate the idea of special interests setting the parameters of national reform, with support campaigns from unions and activist shell groups, PhRMA in the room during every significant negotiation, more than a hundred-million dollars in propagandistic ads for legislation which will protect the industry status quo, and the like.

The fact that Obama continues to spend such energy in support of legislation that all reputable independent data suggest will raise premium costs, increase the entitlement burden, destroy hundreds of thousands of jobs, and enforce a dramatic disincentive for success indicates that this is all about politics, not which policies actually work best for the American people.

Over the past week, in backroom conversations with members of Congress, Obama changed his negotiation tone from demanding to desperate. He told progressives that the outcome of the rest of his term depended on what happened on health care, and a member of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus confided to Politico that Obama changed his position on this weekend’s vote by saying “the fate of his presidency” rested on it.

It’s not hard to see why the president would feel this way. The tidal wave of popularity he rode into office has crashed and withdrawn. This week Gallup found, for the first time, that more Americans disapprove of President Obama than approve – a shift made all the more jarring when you consider how little he has achieved in his short tenure in return for so much spent political capital.

Such crumbling popularity would give any politician pause, especially one who has spent most of his political career appearing before cheering crowds who proclaim trust, optimism, and hope for him. Obama’s dedication to passing this spectacularly flawed and unpopular health care bill appears to be based on the assumption that the American people like a winner even if the victory comes at their expense.

Other presidents have made this mistake. Voters may not have memories as long as they once did, but they will remember who this brave new health care world belongs to, and the blame for it will be a palpable political factor in the decades to come.

As the dangerous outcomes of this plan become apparent, Obama may well come to regret this moment when he chose political expediency over what’s right for the nation. When historians judge this presidency they may well point to this moment as signaling the end of Obama’s cotton candy storyline of “the people vs. the powerful,” the rhetoric that once drove to his side multitudes of people fed up with the ways of Washington, the lies, kickbacks, shady backroom deals, and lack of transparency.

Once, they trusted and hoped in his ability to achieve change. Now the American people know whose side he’s on.

Benjamin Domenech, a former speechwriter and political appointee at the Department of Health and Human Services, is managing editor of Health Care News.

PREMIUM ARTICLE: Subscribe To Keep Reading

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign Up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
BENEFITS READERS PASS PATRIOTS FOUNDERS
Daily and Breaking Newsletters
Daily Caller Shows
Ad Free Experience
Exclusive Articles
Custom Newsletters
Editor Daily Rundown
Behind The Scenes Coverage
Award Winning Documentaries
Patriot War Room
Patriot Live Chat
Exclusive Events
Gold Membership Card
Tucker Mug

What does Founders Club include?

Tucker Mug and Membership Card
Founders

Readers,

Instead of sucking up to the political and corporate powers that dominate America, The Daily Caller is fighting for you — our readers. We humbly ask you to consider joining us in this fight.

Now that millions of readers are rejecting the increasingly biased and even corrupt corporate media and joining us daily, there are powerful forces lined up to stop us: the old guard of the news media hopes to marginalize us; the big corporate ad agencies want to deprive us of revenue and put us out of business; senators threaten to have our reporters arrested for asking simple questions; the big tech platforms want to limit our ability to communicate with you; and the political party establishments feel threatened by our independence.

We don't complain -- we can't stand complainers -- but we do call it how we see it. We have a fight on our hands, and it's intense. We need your help to smash through the big tech, big media and big government blockade.

We're the insurgent outsiders for a reason: our deep-dive investigations hold the powerful to account. Our original videos undermine their narratives on a daily basis. Even our insistence on having fun infuriates them -- because we won’t bend the knee to political correctness.

One reason we stand apart is because we are not afraid to say we love America. We love her with every fiber of our being, and we think she's worth saving from today’s craziness.

Help us save her.

A second reason we stand out is the sheer number of honest responsible reporters we have helped train. We have trained so many solid reporters that they now hold prominent positions at publications across the political spectrum. Hear a rare reasonable voice at a place like CNN? There’s a good chance they were trained at Daily Caller. Same goes for the numerous Daily Caller alumni dominating the news coverage at outlets such as Fox News, Newsmax, Daily Wire and many others.

Simply put, America needs solid reporters fighting to tell the truth or we will never have honest elections or a fair system. We are working tirelessly to make that happen and we are making a difference.

Since 2010, The Daily Caller has grown immensely. We're in the halls of Congress. We're in the Oval Office. And we're in up to 20 million homes every single month. That's 20 million Americans like you who are impossible to ignore.

We can overcome the forces lined up against all of us. This is an important mission but we can’t do it unless you — the everyday Americans forgotten by the establishment — have our back.

Please consider becoming a Daily Caller Patriot today, and help us keep doing work that holds politicians, corporations and other leaders accountable. Help us thumb our noses at political correctness. Help us train a new generation of news reporters who will actually tell the truth. And help us remind Americans everywhere that there are millions of us who remain clear-eyed about our country's greatness.

In return for membership, Daily Caller Patriots will be able to read The Daily Caller without any of the ads that we have long used to support our mission. We know the ads drive you crazy. They drive us crazy too. But we need revenue to keep the fight going. If you join us, we will cut out the ads for you and put every Lincoln-headed cent we earn into amplifying our voice, training even more solid reporters, and giving you the ad-free experience and lightning fast website you deserve.

Patriots will also be eligible for Patriots Only content, newsletters, chats and live events with our reporters and editors. It's simple: welcome us into your lives, and we'll welcome you into ours.

We can save America together.

Become a Daily Caller Patriot today.

Signature

Neil Patel