Obama played it safe. The State of the Union address was a politically savvy maneuver that laid the foundation for future mandates, while failing to do enough in the here and now. The speech was delivered from a place of center-left policy using center-right hyperbole, which spoke more to the unification of governing parties and bodies, and less to the divisiveness that currently stymies a functioning government. This was all part of the plan, but it’s one predicated on retaining control of the Senate, and at the very least, gaining several more seats in Congress during the upcoming election cycle. The gambit, in layman’s terms, can be explained thusly: By reducing all divisive rhetoric to a bare minimum, Obama is attempting to portray himself as the good guy trying to get things done, while giving Republicans just enough rope to hang themselves should they fail to do so in Congress. It’s not a bad political play. If Congress remains historically feeble, we can expect to see a shift toward Democratic representatives in November. If Congress acts, the President appears to have gotten things done—which, in turn, would more than likely also result in a Democratic upswing. So now that we understand the strategy, we should also understand that the speech itself was lax on policy implementation tactics, and woefully inadequate on important matters such as jobs and gun control. But this is the problem when you play it safe during a time when too many Americans are anything but.
Despite a clear political strategy, Obama knew that relying on Congress this time around was a mistake he could not repeat. Statistically, this has been the most unproductive Congress in the history of Congress. While they toil in superfluous bills including topics such as outlawing abortion, denying women contraception, and repeal of Obamacare, they have been profoundly ineffective at passing important legislation, namely job creation. Instead of another year of hoping Congress does the right thing, Obama assured us he will act with executive orders if need be—a welcome notion from a president that has been reluctant to do so, despite those on the right claiming otherwise. The facts, however, quantitatively place him in the low end of presidents to use such measures. How low? To date, Obama has used fewer executive orders than any president other than George HW Bush (and to be clear, Obama has only issued two more than HW Bush, and he only had one term) since Grover Cleveland’s second term. How long is that? One hundred and twenty years. So, despite Ted Cruz’s factually wrong and misleading Wall Street Journal op-ed piece, Obama is not “lawless” in issuing executive orders. He is not only well within the boundaries of the Constitution that Senator Cruz so adores, but he’s also the most executive order conservative president we’ve seen in more than a century. Congressional failure to support a country in need shouldn’t deadlock a government into inaction. Obama recognized this, and made it a point to say so in a clever, pragmatic way.
Executive orders may be a welcome counter to the current “broken government” mantra, but we shouldn’t forget they only go so far. It is here that real substance can form a path toward meaningful action, one that all Americans can call Congress to act upon, instead of the usual hollow-idea proliferation. Part of me understands that these speeches are often big on hyperbole and short on substance, but they don’t all have to be. Big ideas don’t have to die as big ideas. They can be expanded upon with actionable outlines on how they are to be implemented. This puts the onus on Congress to act on a plan already outlined to the American people, versus throwing words into the ether and hoping someone with clout runs with them. I like things such as equal pay for women, capping carbon emissions, extending unemployment benefits, closing Guantanamo Bay, and creating jobs in America. What I like to hear following these bold ideas is just how they are going to be achieved. I didn’t hear this. Instead, outlines for execution were supplanted with meaningless applause, and when the commotion was over it was already on to the next subject. The lack of jobs in America still remains the pervading topic, and while Obama pledged to increase focus on federal job-training and raise the federal minimum wage, the rest of the speech was lackluster at best concerning creation of jobs. More indicators for progress were needed. This would have gone a long way toward alleviating growing concerns for government inactivity.
Sometimes lack of substance leads to glaring omissions. This was made painfully evident by Obama’s absence of anything substantive on gun control. Playing it safe here was a mistake. This increasingly important topic was relegated to two insignificant sentences in the State of the Union, lumped in with immigration reform, and then summarily discarded for more ostensibly interesting talk regarding the military. This is shameful, and morally wrong. Obama may have wanted to tackle this next year with a possibly more Democratic Congress, but that does nothing to mitigate the current systemic failure on this issue. This January alone, there have been 11 school shootings in 19 school days—a sobering statistic that should remind all of us of the very real danger we tacitly accept. Yet, we’ve become so desensitized to school shootings that only high body counts garner attention. Litanies of smaller shootings where kids are only injured or a couple people die simply aren’t enough to galvanize us into action. The NRA spends over a quarter of a billion dollars in Congress to assure that your second amendment rights aren’t eroded in the least (which is lunacy since other amendments have been eroded to protect the citizens of this country) and without so much as a whimper, we’re no better off. For Obama to brush off this historically important topic is disgraceful. Yes, out of all the issues Obama outlined, this is among the least likely to be accomplished, but that does not mean we should sweep it under the rug. Obama will need continued pressure to lean on Congress next year should he hope to pass meaningful gun control legislation. This was a huge missed opportunity, and one that stretches into the realm of moral incompetence.
I could go on about the lack of substance in the speech. I could cite how state-defined poverty lines have made Obamacare unaffordable for millions of Americans, or how workplace discrimination based on gender or sexual identity is still a serious problem, but believe it or not, I’m not out to bash Obama. It was a politically shrewd speech, and you can only talk about so much while going into so much detail. I get it. In the end, it’s just a speech. However, it’s important to remember that with all speeches, what is said is far less important than what is achieved as a result. Only no one is quite sure what will be achieved given recent history. This leaves the American people in an untenable situation. Waiting a year for a possibly more productive Congress is hardly a solution, and while executive orders are a welcome reprieve from congressional inaction, they can only go so far to assuage current conditions. What’s evident now more than ever is that American people are on their own, something that may have a reflection on the president’s current approval ratings. But we shouldn’t confuse this with an indication of decline for the Democratic Party, nor a boon for the Republicans. It’s simply a barometer for the country’s feelings as a whole. And as a whole, it’s the country that may have to sustain another year of government ineptitude to see results. Like it or not, this is what happens when you play it safe.
The only problem is, for many Americans, safe is not a word they would use to describe their current condition.
A Pleasant Conversation 