Democrats are facing a potentially historic trouncing at the ballot-box in November. To those who have been paying attention to public sentiment, that should come as little surprise. Unfortunately, most Democrats have not.
A recent profile of the president by Peter Baker in the New York Times Magazine illustrates Democrats’ obliviousness rather well. For one thing, outgoing Chief-of-Staff Rahm Emanuel, as well as many others on the left, blame the upcoming landslide on the “anti-establishment mood.” That may be true. But the more interesting question is how a candidate that ran on that very platform — that he was not a Washington insider, that he would reform D.C. politics and change the rules of the game — in the course of merely 600 or 700 days became the very embodiment of “Washington as usual” voter outrage.
The answer is actually rather simple: the president’s disdain for “Washington as usual” politics stands in stark contrast to the majority of Americans’ distaste for what that term means to them. When President Obama expresses frustration with Washington politics, it is because he cannot pass more legislation, or spend more federal dollars on stimulus and bailouts, or require people to buy more things.
On the other hand, most Americans are frustrated that our federal government already does too much, often to curry favor with certain political constituencies. These differing notions of a “dysfunctional” Washington stand directly at odds with one another, and the president, after his own landslide electoral victory in 2008, mistook the people’s frustration with the latter definition as a mandate to overcome the former definition. To the president, Republican obstructionism has been the problem. To voters, obstructionism hasn’t done enough.
“White House aides wonder whether it is even possible for a modern president to succeed, no matter how many bills he signs” (emphasis mine). The White House aides, apparently, just don’t get it. The goal is not to sign as many pieces of legislation as possible. The 111th Congress, in fact, has already signed more legislation into law than any other Congress in history (and its approval ratings are at an historical low). To the White House, this is an accomplishment. To the majority of Americans, this is exactly why they are coming out in droves to elect politicians that, they hope, will not repeat 111’s mistakes.
A September Gallup poll illustrates this trend perfectly. Since 2006, when Democrats took over Congress and Republicans became the “obstructionists,” the share of Americans that claim the Democratic Party represents their attitude of the role of government has dropped from 59% to 44%. At the same time, the share of Americans who think the GOP best represents their view of the proper role of government has increased, modestly, from 48% to 52%. To the Democrats in Congress, the message is unequivocal: this is not what we elected you to do.
Democrats are eager to blame their own communication skills for sinking approval ratings. In the president’s words, “we probably spent much more time trying to get the policy right than trying to get the politics right … and I take responsibility for this.” The hubris required to apologize for being too wise, thoughtful, and benevolent for one’s own political good, in order to explain the unquestionably low popularity of several signature pieces of legislation, is simply appalling.
It also blinds him from the reality that the majority of voters simply do not like what he has offered. Democrats’ obliviousness to this fact will ultimately restore Republican control of Congress come January. But the next two years will reveal whether or not President Obama has gotten the message. Then again, if, as one Democratic lawmaker said of President Obama, “he always believes he is the smartest person in any room,” what is the point of him listening to the rest of us?
Jacob Shmukler was born and raised in Atlanta, GA, graduated from Emory University in 2009, and recently moved to Washington, DC to become a writer/researcher.