The most important battle at this moment in politics isn't actually the one between Democrats and Republicans. We Democrats won that convincingly in November (and two years prior to that as well), and are winning it overwhelmingly in public opinion polls. For the moment at least, the Democratic-Republican thing is less a fight and more of a rout. For now, the more important battle is between Obama's own progressive vision of big bold change vs. the DC establishment (including many Democrats, some of whom work for the President) and conventional wisdom.
President Obama, in his speech Tuesday night to the Congress and the nation, has called on us to think big, be bold, and make major change. He has said that he wants a fundamental reform of health care to provide universal coverage and real cost containment, that he wants to re-structure our fossil-fuels based energy system, that he wants major change in our system of public education, that he wants to completely rebuild and restructure our financial regulatory system. Obama has described his already-passed massive economic recovery package as only a first step toward fundamentally rebuilding our economy.
These truly are big, bold ideas- and thank goodness they are, because these gigantic problems we are facing will not be solved by small, cautious solutions.
More of what I'm talking about in the extended entry.
His speech could not have been a clearer call for what I call in my book, The Progressive Revolution, a Big Change Moment. He summed up his vision for change in this clarion call:
I reject the view that says our problems will simply take care of themselves, that says government has no role in laying the foundation for our common prosperity. For history tells a different story. History reminds us that at every moment of economic upheaval and transformation, this nation has responded with bold action and big ideas.
Unfortunately, though, the conventional wisdom Democrats, those guardians of what I call in my book the Democratic culture of caution, are trying to convince Obama and congressional Democrats to go down a very different path than the path of bold action and big ideas that Obama laid out in his speech. They want to go slow and take incremental steps on health care; they want to bail out the big banks without demanding true accountability; they want to avoid tough issues like the Employee Free Choice Act and immigration reform. These Democrats, some of whom actually work for the man, need to listen to President Obama and take seriously when he says:
History reminds us that at every moment of economic upheaval and transformation, this nation has responded with bold action and big ideas.
That is precisely the story American history tells us. In The Progressive Revolution, where my message mirrors President Obama's message exactly, I sum it up this way:
The time has come again to choose a progress path, to reject caution and embrace our history, and to rise to the example of progressive leaders of the past. Paine and Jefferson, Frederick Douglass and William Lloyd Garrison, Abraham Lincoln and the Radical Republicans, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, FDR and John L. Lewis, JFK and RFK, Martin Luther King Jr. and Cesar Chavez, and Betty Friedan and Rachel Carson: their legacy calls us. We need to rise to the challenge and make the coming years a time to remember and record in our history, a period of transforming change that will lift up our nation and inspire future generations.
We can solve the immense problems of our time if we understand our history, throw fear and caution aside, and then choose the path that goes forward.
President Obama, you should ignore the voices of the DC conventional wisdom and follow your vision of big, bold change.
And the rest of us should respond to the call of the President. Let's follow the call of our own history. Seize the day.
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