"Look for the Helpers"

The week of April 15 was one of incredible anguish, tragedy, and horror for thousands, particularly in the great city of Boston. In the aftermath of the horrendous act of terror in Massachusetts, the Facebook pages of PBS and BuzzFeed shared a particularly poignant photo worth sharing across the world wide web. The picture is of one of my childhood heroes, Mr. Fred Rogers, a comforting presence on PBS daytime programming for millions of children and their families for decades. In the photograph is a now widely distributed quote from the longtime TV presence: "When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, 'look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.'" Even if Boston is a place where, according to Augustana, "no one knows" your name, it doesn't matter to the people of that city if they do not know who you are: they'll be there helping you when you need it the most. The "helpers" that Mr. Rogers spoke of were seen throughout Boston in the last week; their spirit of altruism knew no bounds. As strangers rescued strangers, a community of helpers came together to heal the collective wounds of a magnificent city. 

That beautiful Bostonian benevolence was seen in a cowboy hat-wearing peace activist coming to the rescue of a victim, in local cops quickly rushing to the scene to provide help, in medics working arduously to ensure that that the injured will live, and in highly trained and constantly vigilant soldiers using their strength and experience to aid private citizens they fought to protect overseas.  While these stories are merely a small handful of examples, there were countless heartwarming displays of generosity, kindness, and magnanimity in Boston last week - certainly not enough to publish in a single blog post. The benevolence of Boston had the most desirable outcome too. The stories of heroism set an example and consequently became the impetus of an outpouring of selflessness across the world. That became evident in at least two instances early this week. Police in Boston received scores of food shipments from cities around the globe while the Chicago Tribune sent the Boston Globe words of gratitude and, more importantly from one's perspective, tons of pizza. Ultimately, elements of the media will obsessively focus on the backgrounds, biographies, and motivations of the suspects. While examining all of that is important, the acts of kindness and love seen in the benevolence of Boston should be cherished and celebrated. The capacity for good in the human spirit is a beautiful thing. In an ironic but admirable way, it often manifests itself in the aftermath of the worst circumstances imaginable. In fact, the pictures of rescuers that came out of Boston this week reminded me of the iconic images of firefighters and first responders risking their lives in New York on September 11, 2001 so that many others would live. Time and time again, these tragedies have seemingly proven Mr. Rogers and his mother correct every time. If there is any important lesson to be gleaned from the Boston attacks, it is indeed that: "look for the helpers; you will always find people who are helping." 

A Uniquely American Journey: The Dramatic Change of a Country, Its President, and a Culture

(PHOTO: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images, 2012 GETTY IMAGES) 

Before their groundbreaking 1973 decision to reverse course, the American Psychiatric Association defined homosexuality as a mental disorder. At the time, many Americans agreed and they found the whole notion of homosexuality to be so outside of mainstream conventional behavior that polling showed that an overwhelming majority of the public did not even support hiring gays or lesbians as schoolteachers. Fast forward a quarter century later and though the public opinion on that question reversed by the late 1990s, public policy was still tilted towards denying equality. In a widely bipartisan vote, the Republican-controlled Congress overwhelmingly passed the discriminatory Defense of Marriage Act. A Democratic president who the gay rights movement had been hoping would be on their side in this case signed DOMA into law at 1 AM in the middle of his reelection campaign. Bill Clinton proceeded to brag about what he had done despite now saying the law should be repealed. At the time, just 27 percent of Americans backed same-sex marriage, a right that DOMA explicitly denied at the national level by stating that federal law defined marriage as a "union between a man and a woman." 

       

Despite celebrating limited victories, the gay rights movement was seemingly going nowhere by the turn of the century. Don't Ask/Don't Tell, billed as a compromise, became an atrocious injustice and DOMA was now the law of the land. As America entered the new millennium, gay Americans found even less hope at the federal level with "moral values"-touting George W. Bush, famously supportive of a Federal Marriage Amendment, in the Oval Office. Bush, after all, was leading a party whose rise to power was fueled by the Religious Right. This was the same Religious Right whose stranglehold on another president they helped elect, Ronald Reagan, was so strong that he criticized the "alternative...[gay] lifestyle" in his 1980 campaign and would not acknowledge the existence of AIDS until 1987. In fact, the power of this movement in American politics was such that it stifled meaningful progress on gay rights for decades after the APA's decision to declassify homosexuality as a mental disorder. The demoralization was evident in the reaction of some of the LGBT community to Andrew Sullivan's 1989 call for gay marriage to be legalized; Sullivan was actually met with loud and vociferous protests from supporters of LGBT rights for such a radical suggestion. Much of the LGBT community, rationally, thought this idea could not possibly come to fruition after the Supreme Court ruled in Bowers v. Hardwick in 1986 that states could actually codify anti-sodomy laws. 

Setbacks and regression ultimately began to run their course though. In 2003, the very first signs of true progress for gay Americans were evident. Massachusetts became the first state in the union to legalize same-sex marriage and the Supreme Court overturned Bowers in Lawrence v. Texas. Still though, the American public - in spite of things like Will and Grace opening their eyes up to the gay community - was not on board with the LGBT agenda. A year later, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom permitted his city to conduct same-sex marriages, though ultimately annulled by California, in violation of state law and Vice President Dick Cheney endorsed gay marriage. Still, Americans were not on board. In 11 states, including the swing state of Ohio, Americans voted that November to ban same-sex marriage while the public at large also reelected President Bush. In Bush's second term though, gay rights activists found hope. For one, Bush, almost immediately, disappointed the Religious Right by forgoing the pursuit of a federal marriage amendment in favor of a (failed) Social Security reform effort. Secondly, as Bush grew increasingly unpopular, so too did his policies -- and America, ever so slightly, began moving left. In 2007, the major Democratic candidates for President all condemned DADT and pledged to repeal it while Barack Obama pledged to go a step further and push for full repeal of DOMA - something Hillary Clinton would not endorse. By the time President Obama was elected a year later, a majority of Americans backed the repeal of DADT and more Americans were in support of gay marriage than ever before, albeit not a majority. Not only was America becoming more progressive and not only had it elected a leader sympathetic to the LGBT cause but millions of gay and lesbian Americans were increasingly coming out of the closet. The collective coming out of millions over the course of the last several years undoubtedly furthered public support of this cause. Scores of anecdotal evidence cited in a recent Huffington Post article combined with public opinion polling, which shows people were moved to support gay rights because of gay family and friends, confirms this to be the case. 

Further facilitating the elevation of gay rights into the national discourse was the work of the Human Rights Campaign, People for the American Way, the American Foundation for Equal Rights, and scores of other grassroots organizations, that started from the bottom and got lucky (in some cases) with the financial support of wealthy donors and political figures. Their fundraising, phone banking, door-to-door canvassing, and advocacy efforts shed a public light on the gay rights movement - identifiable as both middle-class Americans and popular celebrities like Ellen DeGeneres and Neil Patrick Harris - and led to the legalization of gay marriage in several states. The public quickly warmed up to idea of full repeal of Don't Ask/Don't Tell as well as they saw their fellow Americans denied the opportunity to serve their country as it fought two wars abroad simply because of their sexual orientation. The presence of the wars undeniably helped highlight this injustice and by 2010, 70 percent of Americans, including millions of Republican voters, backed DADT repeal. Obama helped bolster this public support by enlisting the backing of military commanders, leading officers, and generals for his efforts and by December 2010, he was able to say "this is done" when he signed into law the repeal. That wasn't the only piece of legislation that Obama signed that gay rights groups had wanted. Thanks to significant public pressure exerted on the President by the LGBT movement, Obama was compelled to order his Justice Department to refuse to defend DOMA in federal courts, sign the Matthew Shephard Hate Crimes Act, extend hospital visitation benefits to gay couples, and guarantee equal benefits for same-sex federal employees. As Obama led on the issue, thanks in no small part to a concerted effort to keep him at his word, millions of Americans quickly changed their minds on gay rights. By 2011, Gallup found that a majority of the public, 53 percent, supported same-sex marriage for the first time ever. A year later, Barack Obama became the first sitting president to publicly back gay marriage -- a significant turning point for a movement which had been continually disappointed by a string of presidents who ignored their cause. Obama's, and Joe Biden's, backing of gay marriage led to an almost immediate boost in public support for marriage equality - nationally, in swing states, and among constituents with which he had great sway: registered Democrats and African-Americans. Within time, the issue became seemingly no longer controversial as it was not mentioned once in any of the presidential debates and Mitt Romney largely remained quiet, despite opposing marriage equality. The Democratic Party quickly adopted support for gay marriage into its national platform and that November, Obama was reelected while Washingtonians, Maine residents, and Marylanders all made gay marriage legal in their states. Fast forward to the last few weeks and the gay rights movement saw yet more impressive victories: an American President used the word "gay," referencing the Stonewall riots, in an Inaugural address and that same president filed two briefs in the Supreme Court asking the Court to side for marriage equality in both the Prop 8 and DOMA cases.

Today, 58 percent of Americans support gay marriage; it is backed by all living Democratic Presidents and Vice Presidents, a former Republican Vice President, two former Secretaries of State of different parties, a majority of congressional Democrats, at least 76 prominent Republicans including an Ohio Senator and former U.S. Ambassador, and, for the first time ever, the highest court in the land is hearing a case on this specific issue. Political scientists, journalists, and assorted analysts of media and politics have been left collectively amazed by how vast, quick, and stunning the sea change in public attitudes towards gay rights has been. For a country founded on the notion that "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" were necessary tenants of our republic, this dramatic shift is one of which we ought to be proud. This is what American exceptionalism looks like. The success of the gay rights movement is part of the great history of the American people -- a people with a history of continual social progress fueled by mass movements of Americans rising up and demanding successfully that we live up to our core creed of "all men are created equal." In seeing their quest for full equality come to fruition, the LGBT movement joins, in the annals of history, the movements of abolitionists, women's suffragists, and civil rights marchers in being part of that great American journey of continually aiming to be a "more perfect union." Like those movements that preceded them, the gay rights movement can claim that they used all levers of power, from the bottom up with the help of millions of their fellow countrymen, to advance their cause and see to it that the American ideals of "liberty and justice for all" were protected. 

It is likely that the Supreme Court will repeal the Defense of Marriage Act and Prop 8, at the very least extending federal benefits to legally married same sex couples and ruling that gay marriage is legalized in California. However, in my opinion, I am optimistic and ready to go out on a limb. I believe that the Court will not only make that ruling but that it will further find that denying same-sex couples the right of marriage violates the 5th Amendment guarantee of not depriving one of "liberty" without due process of law and violates the 14th Amendment pledge of not denying one "equal protection under the law." In going this far, the Court will find that it contradicts the precedent set in Loving v. Virginia that marriage is a federal "fundamental right" --- thus issuing one single ruling that gay marriage is legal in all 50 states. I am confident in this opinion because the country appears ready for it, as the polling indicates and as the sentiment of the nation indicates. The Court is known to closely follow public opinion and it could not be clearer in this case. The two Justices to watch are Anthony Kennedy, the "swing" justice who wrote the pro-gay majority opinion in Lawrence v. Texas, and Chief Justice John Roberts, a legacy-oriented justice whose lesbian cousin will attend Tuesday's hearing and who already bucked his conservative bloc in voting to uphold Obamacare in 2012. Regardless though of what happens at the Court, the gay rights movement has already won. "The political debate on gay marriage is over," read a Washington Post headline last week, while Jeffrey Toobin, the famed legal analyst, declared that there is no question that the "country will never go back to where it was" on these issues. Less than a decade ago, such statements would have been unthinkable for the LGBT community. Their devotion to this effort and the dramatic change in public thinking that that push for equality caused - marked by the evolution of millions of Americans and the President who leads them - is no small feat. For decades, the gay rights movement has yearned for "equal protection under the law." In advancing this cause and succeeding, they've forged a commendable journey worthy of a great nation and its promise of liberty for all. 

The President, the Sequester, and the Republican Party

(PHOTO: President Barack Obama speaks during a White House press conference on March 1, 2013.) 

Some very unusual things are happening in Washington right now. Despite no significant legislation related to a major policy goal or priority making it to President Obama's desk since his reelection, the president is enjoying his best job approval rating since September 2009. Since early last fall, Obama has been consistently polling between 50-55 percent in almost all major public opinion polling. Although the president did sign into law Clinton-era tax rates on the wealthiest one percent of Americans (a popular signature promise of two campaigns), Obama's party has been unable to move the needle so far on climate change legislation, immigration reform, or gun control. On the other hand, when Obama was accumulating huge legislative successes such as health care reform and Wall Street reform in 2010, the president's approval rating hovered in the high 40s. 

Typically, conventional political wisdom would inform us that it should be the reverse: presidents usually do better when they successfully achieve their policy goals that they ran on while not doing politically so well when there is a stalemate or perpetual gridlock in DC. The reasons for this strange development are myriad. The central reasons are that the economy is currently doing far better - by all measures - than it was in 2010, when unemployment still hovered around 9 percent, the president's GOP opponents on Capitol Hill are widely unpopular, and the specific proposals touted by Obama right now are quite popular. Another unusual development is taking place too though. The Republican Party - a party that has advocated since the 1980 election for essentially gutting elements of the New Deal and Great Society - is refusing to accept a Democratic President's offer of cutting future Social Security benefits and means-testing Medicare because the president, a popular leader recently comfortably reelected, insists on additional revenue financed by closing unpopular tax loopholes, a solution to deficit reduction that the GOP's last presidential nominee and patron saint Ronald Reagan both advocated. So what is the consequence of this and why is this happening? 

First, the effects of weird things are always: more weirdness.  As a consequence of the sequester debate, Obama has been winning the political battle even though he is presiding over a mess in Washington, has proposed cutting the popular Social Security program, and did actually sign the sequester into law as a future threat. This is not to say that the mess is his fault. It isn't. The Republican House took the debt ceiling hostage in the summer of 2011 and demanded that raising the ceiling be tied to spending cuts -- thus giving us continued fights such as the fiscal cliff debacle and the sequester showdown. If there is any blame to be laid on Obama's doorstep it is that he did sign into law the Budget Control Act of 2011, legislation that included the sequester as cuts that would take place if the congressional super committee never reached a deal (they didn't). Further, the president imprudently said in November 2011 that he would veto "any" effort to undo the automatic cuts. Clearly positioning himself as a deficit hawk in a politically tumultuous time for him and his party in 2011, Obama had two primary goals at that time: 1) figure out a way to avoid destroying the world economy by giving the GOP at least some of what it wanted and 2) appearing to be tough on the deficit after the Democratic Party's "shellacking," in his words, in the 2010 midterms in part thanks to the perception of out-of-control DC spending. Nearly two years later, Obama is now championing the values of activist government by waging an aggressive, enthusiastic PR war on the sequester as "dumb, arbitrary" and dangerous cuts that would severely harm services crucial to millions of Americans and put many middle-class federal workers out of a job. 

Although he is proposing a deeply unpopular idea that would cut future Social Security benefits - chained CPI - as a bargaining chip for the Republicans to accept in favor of more revenue, Obama has largely sung a more progressive tune since winning reelection. Good. The president is right: the cuts would do terrible damage to things like Head Start, energy assistance for low-income families, aid for student loans, and national service programs. His basic proposition of avoiding the cuts is not only the right thing to do but it is also politically advantageous. Clearly, Obama is winning the political optics of this sequester fight. In the last two weeks, he appeared in front of federal law enforcement agents and a defense shipyard to make the (correct) case that the sequester would be perilous for the economy.  One would imagine that the president winning the argument politically would lead the GOP to cave. 

In following with the theme of weirdness permeating Washington, that has not been the case. The Republican leadership in Congress has not budged despite Obama's conciliatory offers. At first glance, it is indeed strange. The president is offering chained CPI, an idea that Senator Mitch McConnell reportedly begged to sneak into the fiscal cliff deal at the last second, and means-testing Medicare -- another idea that McConnell has publicly praised. In exchange, Obama is asking for the Republicans to give a little on additional revenue. They have refused. A conventional political observer may think that the GOP is insane and killing their political fortunes by staking such a wildly unpopular and truly radical governing position. Further, the Republican message on the sequester has been all over the place. McConnell insists the cuts are 'modest,' House Speaker John Boehner says they need to be avoided, some in the party's House caucus love the cuts because they represent the kind of deficit hawkishness they adore, and, the favorite response of most of the GOP caucus, is this: "it's a failure of leadership from Obama!!!!" A party known for its message discipline is all over the place while refusing to accept the changes they have long craved for entitlement programs. It is, in a word, weird. However, a closer examination of their strategy reveals what the true motive is behind their recalcitrance.

Think about it for a second: if the GOP House continues to bog Obama down in these never-ending fights over government shutdowns, the debt ceiling, automatic spending cuts, etc., what will come of government? Nothing productive. The president will be unable to achieve what he wants to accomplish on gun control, immigration, climate change, election reform, and raising the minimum wage -- because Congress will be too busy dealing with these "manufactured crises," to use Obama's language. That is part of the Republican Party's real goal. Does the GOP really care about the deficit and the debt? If they did, perhaps they would have supported Obamacare because the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office found that the law would reduce the long-term budget deficit. If they did, perhaps they would have opposed President Bush's profligate spending throughout his two terms - including an unpaid for Medicare prescription drug benefit, unpaid for $1.3 trillion tax cut skewed toward the wealthy, an unpaid for war in Iraq, unpaid for No Child Left Behind, and other massive spending bills. They didn't though. All of Bush's major policy items of his first six years in office were passed with almost all congressional Republicans on board. What the GOP leadership in Congress - the most loyal supporters of big-spender George W. Bush during his presidency - is truly focused on is threefold. It is this: 1) tarnishing the Obama legacy (fueled in part by a dislike of the president), 2) stalling his progressive agenda (because they genuinely oppose it on ideological grounds), and 3) hoping that the public will get so tired of the bickering that they'll again see Washington as inherently dysfunctional thus validating the GOP's message that 'government does not work'....and leading to a Republican presidential victory in 2016. Those goals, on which it is clear the GOP is focused on, are part of why there is gridlock and a Republican resistance to Obama's offers. 

In addition to aiming to accomplish those goals, the party is also hoping that elements of the centrist Beltway establishment media  - continually obsessed with lamenting about why Obama is not "bold" on the deficit and cutting entitlements and why he doesn't "sit down in a room with the GOP and broker a Reagan/O'Neill-type deal" - will help them portray Obama as obsessed with tax increases and not committed to deficit reduction. In the process, the GOP is banking on the fact that they can convince the debt-obssesed media to communicate to the deficit-weary public that President Obama - despite offering *chained CPI* and means-testing Medicare and already signing into law $2 trillion in spending cuts- is not "serious" about cutting spending. It might just work. A new poll reported by Business Insider found that only *six* percent of Americans answered correctly that the federal budget deficit is going down, not increasing. 

Further, while it is true that the GOP Leadership in Congress has some vested interest in the national political image of the party and the outcome of the 2016 election, it's important to ask this question: does much of the GOP caucus and its members truly care about the short-term national political consequences? Perhaps not. The current Republican majority in the House is only in the majority because of gerrymandering at the state legislative level after the 2010 midterm elections. Indeed, collectively, Democratic candidates for the House won more popular votes nationwide than Republican candidates. Most of the GOP House members are focused on their individual gerrymandered conservative districts where if they are caught even talking to Obama or considering negotiating with him on revenue, they're politically dead. These Republicans are far more worried about primary challengers back home than they are about the national party's political image across the country. It should be worth noting too that many of these Tea Party Republicans in the House actually do like the sequester, voted for it, and want to see spending cuts like these eviscerate government services. This explains part of the gridlock as well. 

On the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, the President's motives for a) proposing entitlement reforms that his party largely opposes and b) being politically omnipotent on the sequester are clear. By offering changes to Social Security and Medicare, President Obama can successfully portray himself as a reasonable, moderate, compromising leader willing to give in order to get. Ezra Klein of The Washington Post and Joan Walsh of Salon.com have even posited that Obama is not truly serious about following through with these cuts and that he proposes them only so as to appear conciliatory while knowing that the GOP has become so radical that they will not accept them because of Obama's insistence on more revenue. Perhaps. If that is the case, this argument plays into the hand of the Republicans in a way - by backing up their assertion that the President is not actually focused on shaving entitlements. 

Nevertheless, Obama's proposal doesn't just appear moderate. It is moderate. The White House has laid out on their website exactly what the President is calling for in clear detail - a balanced mix of spending cuts, including a major change to Social Security, and more revenue and the Republican House could technically accept the offer and a deal would be underway. Ultimately though, there is no question that politics is part of Obama's motivation in making this offer. Yes, it is true that chained CPI is unpopular with the public. However, by proposing it, Obama can successfully portray himself to moderate voters as a compromiser willing to negotiate with a right-wing opposition. By staking out a massive PR campaign against the sequester, the President is able to counterbalance that image of moderation with an image of being an advocate for an activist government -- thus appeasing his party and actually, the majority of Americans. It is smart politics. 

Ultimately, what will be the end result of all of this back and forth anyway? Will the fights over spending, the debt ceiling, showdowns over government shutdowns, and the like define Washington for the next two years or will there eventually be major legislation passed in this session of Congress? It remains to be seen if the gridlock can magically be broken, if the sequester can be averted, or if the government will continue to stay open and pay its bills. For now, we will have to deal with the current wacky weirdness of Washington while, importantly, quietly working to win back the House in 2014. 

2013 Oscar Picks

(PHOTO: Cinemark Movie Theaters in Moosic, Pennsylvania)

In case you have not heard, this Sunday night is the Academy Awards! Everyone from the editors of Mediaite to Nate Silver is predicting who will prevail in each of the major categories of the Oscars. For the first time in this blog, I will give my readers the chance to say "wow, you were dead wrong about your predictions" by making specific predictions. Of the films in contention, I have seen in theaters "Lincoln," "Argo," "Zero Dark Thirty," "Silver Linings Playbook," "Les Miserables," and "Django Unchained" - allof which were very, very good, in my view.  I am excited for this year's award ceremony since I was a fan of all of these great films and the actors and actresses in these movies. I am also incredibly excited for Seth MacFarlane hosting too as I am a big fan of "Family Guy." Hopefully, he won't be a Lettermanesque flop (1994) but will instead be a Jon Stewartesque  audience favorite (2006 and 2008). It should be a terrific show on Sunday. So here are my Oscar picks - both who and what I would like to see win and who and what I think will win:

Who/what I want to win:

Best Picture - "Silver Linings Playbook"

Best Director - David Russell ("Silver Linings Playbook")

Best Lead Actress - Jessica Chastain ("Zero Dark Thirty")

Best Lead Actor - Daniel Day-Lewis ("Lincoln")

Best Supporting Actor - Christopher Walz ("Django Unchained")

Best Supporting Actress - Anne Hathaway ("Les Miserables")

Who/what I think will win:

Best Picture -"Argo"

Best Director - Stephen Spielberg ("Lincoln")

Best Lead Actress - Jennifer Lawrence ("Silver Linings Playbook")

Best Lead Actor - Daniel Day-Lewis

Best Supporting Actor - Christopher Walz

Best Supporting Actress - Anne Hathaway 

If any of these films or actors or actresses or directors won, I would be satisfied. However, for a myriad of reasons I am rooting for "Silver Linings Playbook" for an upset Best Picture win: 1) it contains an inspiring and beautiful message about the vital issue of mental illness - a topic I care deeply about, 2) it features a stellar cast composed of spectacular acting by Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence, and the venerable Robert DeNiro, among others, 3) it is set in my state, Pennsylvania, in the beautiful and legendary Philadelphia suburbs and it incorporates aspects of PA culture and values - including the reverent and impassioned spirit of Eagles fans, and 4) everyone wakes up happy at the end on my birthday: December 29th. The movie, at its core, teaches us that no matter what ailments, troubles, or debilitations befall you, you can pick yourself up, turn around your life, move on, and be successful. All it takes is a little bit of hard work and a little bit of love. Perhaps that message is a bit corny but it is one we should always keep in mind. For that, I am rooting for "Silver Linings Playbook." Good luck to all nominated! 

The Common Sense Progressive

(PHOTO: President Barack Obama pauses while delivering his State of the Union address to Congress.)

Since the advent of the modern American conservative moment in the wake of President Ronald Reagan's 1980 election, the term "common sense conservative" has been a part of our political discourse. During her slow slide towards eventual irrelevancy, 2008 GOP vice presidential nominee Governor Sarah Palin asserted that she was a "common sense conservative." Her running mate, Senator John McCain, delivered a speech to GOPAC in Washington in November 2006 in which he proclaimed that most Americans prefer "common sense conservatism" to the "alternative." Last December, the College Conservative penned an op-ed in which they argued that the Republican Party needed to return to Reagan's "common sense conservatism." The thinking behind the formulation of this phrase is that if a basic set of poll-tested conservative Republican solutions to our nation's most pressing dilemmas were presented in an easy to understand, reasonable, and pragmatic manner, the country would be supportive of these ideas. There was no need to be a radical right-winger the likes of Senator James Inhofe or Congressman Steve Stockman. Be a pragmatic but principled conservative appealing to what is in the public interest, rather than to explicitly appealing to the base, and you'll win elections. This formula helped Republicans - and more moderate Democrats co-opting Republican ideas (Bill Clinton) - win many elections but as the GOP moved even further right to where they were in the Reagan years and their solutions were discredited, the pattern broke.

In 2006, Democrats won back control of both houses of Congress for the first time in 12 years on a platform of opposition to the policies of President George W. Bush. In 2008 and 2012, Americans elected Barack Obama to the presidency after he ran on campaign platforms that included raising taxes on the wealthiest Americans, investing in infrastructure, ending the wars in Iraq (an '08 pledge) and Afghanistan (a '12 pledge), reforming health care, and expanding gay rights. Well aware of the left of center agenda of the Democrats and Obama, the country put the Dems in control of Congress and elected Obama by comfortable margins in two consecutive elections - a 365-173 electoral win and 53%-46% popular vote margin in 2008 followed by a 332-206 electoral victory and 51%-47% popular vote advantage in 2012. Consequently, even conservatives like Sen. McCain, who said that in that 2006 GOPAC speech that America was still a "right of center" country, resigned themselves to the fact that that talking point was no longer applicable after 2012. The morning after the 2012 election, Sean Hannity (desirively) declared that the American people "now deserve Barack Obama" because more than half of them "took a look at his...agenda" and said they approved of it. Charles Krauthammer, the conservative columnist, said on Inauguration Day that "Reaganism is dead." The Weekly Standard's Matthew Continentti said much the same as well. Why is this the case? It is becuase President Obama has been able to successfully sell progressive policies with a pragmatic touch in a common sense, easy to understand manner. While this has not been true for some specific legislation - notably, Obamacare - it is true in broad brush strokes considering the large majorities of Americans that agree with Obama's most notable proposals for his second term.


In his State of the Union address, Obama portrayed himself as that kind of common sense progressive that the Democratic Party longed for when they were in the wilderness as the GOP won elections. He embraced raising the minimum wage to $9.00 an hour - a left of center policy proposal, one that would certainly help ease income inequality and increase GDP as the wage-earners go out and spend that hard-earned money, that has support from 80 percent of Americans. He called for investing in high speed rail - a smart proposal that would lessen our dependence on gas-guzzling vehicles and create potentially millions of new jobs and strongly boost the economy - an idea that also has broad public support. Check out a recent Guardian article touring how a high speed rail network would be enormously beneficial for America. The President firmly declared that "Gabby Giffords...and the families of Newton and Aurora..deserve a simple vote," appealing to the emotional core of what is at stake in the gun debate in a way most Americans can resonate with and backing policies like universal background checks, which has the support of over 95 percent of Americans in public opinion polling. Even the assault weapons ban polls at over 50 percent support in recent polling. Obama called for government action to address climate change -- an idea with over 60 percent support in a recent poll, according to The Huffington Post. The President ambitiously laid out a proposal to make preschool education universal - an investment that would ensure those kids grow up to become productive members of society and would lessen future government spending on prisons and safety net programs because of that initial investment. This proposal has wide public support too and even GOP Senator Johnny Issakson says it's a "good" idea as long as it is paid for in some way. Finally, Obama also put his full support behind comprehensive immigration reform including a path to citizenship for the undocumented immigrants - a plan that is clearly not only reasonable and pragmatic when balanced with strong border security but one that the 2012 election proved was an election year winner. Even John McCain is saying that the party needs to support this reform because of the growing Latino population and the political realities of that change. 

The Barack Obama that Americans saw last Tuesday night was a common sense progressive. He was a president clearly buoyed and strengthened by a convincing reelection and ready to take on a bold and liberal agenda - one that, while left of center, is backed by most Americans. The solutions are in many ways common sense in that they are reasonable, pragmatic, and have a history of proven success with statistics and real evidence to support the arguments behind them. America appears ready to embrace this agenda and that's a good thing because as Ezra Klein said, just "imagine" the country we would have would all of these policy items become reality. It'd the kind of nation that President Obama could rightfully say he left better than he found it after eight years in office. 

All You Need is Love

(PHOTO: Clockwise - Andy Warhol painting at The Woodlands Inn & Resort in Plains Township, PA; me at the LOVE sign in Philadelphia in June 2012; Barack & Michelle Obama hug at an August 2012 Iowa campaign rally {picture courtesy the President's Twitter account}; an American athlete & an Iranian athlete embrace at the London Summer 2012 Olympics {picture courtesy NBC})

In my very, very short life so far, my views on Valentine's Day have radically swung from one direction to another back to my original perception. I am not of course talking about the critically panned Ashton Kutcher and Jennifer Garner 2010 film Valentine's Day -- which I ashamedly saw not once, but twice, in theaters. I am talking about the beloved holiday named for Saint Valentine.

At first, of course, when I was really little, I loved Valentine's Day. Those days were consumed by pure childhood innocence. Before serious relationships and dating, there was the cherished ritual of putting Valentine candies in little designated pouches for your classmates every February 14th. In those years of elementary school where I had a crush on a girl in the class, I would make sure to, naturally, stuff extra Valentine candies and messages in that particular girl's pouch. Alas, performing this task resulted in no dating or flirtations in third grade. This ritual continued until the middle school years began.

Into the middle school years, I started to slowly grow disenchanted with this holiday. Without divulging into detail, I experienced a horrible Valentine's Day in 2006 - seventh grade - which had nothing to do with any crush or young love interest or anything of that nature. To put it simply, it was a day marked by ridicule and hate, not the spirit of love that defines this day. That single day would come to partly define how I viewed the holiday for the coming years. That occurrence was soon followed by the famous February 14, 2007 Pennsylvania snowstorm, the mindless manufactured drama of the first two years of high school (though I did give away flowers for the first time on Valentine's Day 2008), and a lack of success in dating anyone while many friends started "going out," in earnest. I hated Valentine's Day.

That didn't last long. I finally had a valentine by February 14, 2010. The atmosphere of love and appreciation of one another that is supposed to consume Valentine's Day felt real and legitimate to me. I finally came around to loving Valentine's Day once again. Why not? It is a great day defined by the expression of something truly uncontroversial: loving one another - a central tenet of the Ten Commandments and one of the fundamental standards of a morally righteous life. Although I have not had a real valentine (a date) in the years since, I still have loved this holiday since that time. The 2011 and 2012 Valentine's Days were marked by reminders of love: exchanging of chocolates and candy grams between some of my best high school friends and dinner with my best friend (2011) and lots of expressions of support for my successful campaign for GW CCAS Undergraduate Senate (2012).

While it is true that one should show this kind of love toward one another every single day of the year, it does nobody any harm to have a day set aside in the year to amplify, fully recognize, and entirely embrace the spirit of love. If we follow this logic, why do we even have some of our most popular non-religious holidays? What is the point of Father's Day, Mother's Day, Memorial Day, Veterans' Day, and  MLK Day? Should we not love our fathers, our mothers, our servicemen and servicewomen, our veterans, and the contributions of Martin Luther King, Jr. every single day instead of just on one day of the year? Sure. Honoring our parents, troops, MLK, and loving one another every single day while also setting aside holidays in the calendar to recognize these tasks do not have to be mutually exclusive.

To quote The Beatles, "all you need is love." Embrace the atmosphere of love around you, be happy for the wonderful couples you see around you, remind your family and friends just how much you love them, and be a beacon of love to everyone you pass by, become acquainted with, or friends with at any point in time. President Obama said it best in his beautiful January 2011 address at the Tucson memorial service for those lost in the shooting that nearly cost former Rep. Gabby Giffords her life. The President said that in this "fleeting" time we have on Earth, we will be judged partly by "how well we have loved." Indeed. In the Bible, Jesus talks at length about "loving...your neighbor as yourself." It should go without saying but Jesus was literally the perfect example of the kind of unconditional, forgiving, and beautiful love that one should always strive to show to friend and foe alike. Jesus preached of showing stedfast love, displayed tremendous compassion towards the poor and the sick, and displayed the kind of incredible mercy towards others that we can only strive to achieve. That kind of love is at the core of what it means to enjoy and embrace Valentine's Day. Be the most merciful, loving, compassionate soul you can be because after all, it is those qualities that will save all of us from our inner demons and ultimately save the world. In the words of a president whose birthday was celebrated earlier this week, let's appeal to the "better angels of our nature." Love one another. Happy Valentine's Day!

The Obama Era

           
(PHOTO: Our view of President Barack Obama at the 57th Presidential Inauguration on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. on January 21, 2013. Picture courtesy Molly Allen.) 

      President Abraham Lincoln delivered arguably the greatest and most memorable Inaugural address of all time on March 4, 1865, when he was sworn in for a second term as the country's chief executive in the waning days of the Civil War. The central components of the speech that made it a particularly effective address were both its content -- "with malice toward none and charity for all" -- and its succinctness. In other words, it was "short but sweet." Certainly, the address was more memorable than Lincoln's 1861 Inaugural speech. 140 years later, President George W. Bush also delivered a second Inaugural address more memorable than his first address. True, Bush's 2005 address was rightfully criticized by Matt Yglesias as "unhinged hubris," the delivery was not very good, and some of its content is retrospectively ironic (the grandiose dream of creating an "ownership society" was quickly undone by the financial crisis and economic recession that hit late in Bush's second term). However, the speech's Wilsonian themes of promoting American democratic values abroad and exporting the virtues of liberty and freedoms of speech, religion, and press made it a compelling address.

Prior to last Monday's Inaugural ceremony, there was much made about the fact that President Barack Obama's second inauguration would be not as historic, moving, or memorable as his first inauguration. In 2009, he was supposed to give the most eloquent address in our time and he fell short. In 2013, expectations were not high. On Monday, President Obama shattered the expectations of conventional wisdom, as is often the case. He delivered an Inaugural address that was more memorable than his first, more compelling and eloquent than his first, and one that will come to define the era in which we find ourselves: the Obama Era. In many ways, this new era - one marked by a progressive trajectory in American politics led and defined by President Obama and his millions of supporters - is a rejection and correction of the excesses of the Reagan Era.

For the last three decades, American politics has been defined by Reaganism and the conservative political ideology of President Reagan. The 30 years following his landslide 1980 presidential victory, a realigning election, are essentially regarded as the Reagan Era. Through Reagan's presidency, the tenures of the Bushes, and even, to a lesser extent, during the Clinton years, the federal government operated from a Reaganite vision. Our government instituted sweeping deregulation of the financial industry, enacted huge tax cuts that - for the most part - heavily favored the wealthy, significantly boosted defense spending, embraced devolution, and rolled back elements of the social safety net. Our national political culture has been defined by Reagan as well. For several election cycles, it has been unfathomable for a presidential candidate to campaign on raising taxes and even Democratic President Bill Clinton proudly ran on *not* being a "tax-and-spend Democrat." In fact, it was Clinton who declared in his 1996 State of the Union address, "the era of big government is over." The Democratic Party moved to the center, embracing Reagan-cherished policies like welfare reform, a decades-long conservative dream signed into law by Clinton. The Republican Party - once dominated by the likes of liberal GOP Vice President Nelson Rockefeller and moderate Pennsylvania Governor Bill Scranton - adopted Reagan's belief in low tax rates for the rich, embraced his penchant for large defense budgets, and became determined to gut elements of the Great Society and the New Deal, which Reagan once claimed had roots in "fascism." They won elections based on these promises as the country embarked on a conservative trajectory post-Reagan. Thanks to an extensive legacy project heralded by anti-tax stalwart Grover Norquist, Reagan is also the namesake of literally thousands of pieces of public property, including the Washington National Airport. (Of course, the GOP conveniently ignored Reagan's protectionism, support of the assault weapons ban, enactment of numerous modest tax increases, and granting of amnesty to three million undocumented immigrants.) The Reagan Era marked our politics for at least three decades. 

Though much is still uncertain, it is increasingly clear that we are now in the Obama Era. This time is one shaped by a progressive trajectory reflected in two developments. For one, new domestic public policy (i.e. Obamacare, Dodd-Frank, the Don't Ask/Don't Tell repeal) has used the instruments of government to promote the common good, constructively improve peoples' lives, and further social progress. Secondly, the American public has become more supportive of these changes and receptive to progressive causes thanks in part to a new majority governing coalition that elected Barack Obama twice. President Obama's inaugural address symbolized the advent of this era. His powerful speech was both a full-throated defense of his achievements and agenda ("a decade of war is ending, an economic recovery has begun") and a progressive clarion call ("we must do these things together"). In fact, it was an eloquent and proud articulation of the core principles of modern American liberalism.  Constantly returning to the overarching theme of "we the people," the President championed the notion that "together, we discovered that a free market only thrives when there are rules to ensure fair play." The new national consumer protection agency, created by Obama's Wall Street reform law, has been doing just that, enacting tough new rules that have restrained the excesses of banks, mortgage lenders, and debt relief services. "A great nation," Obama proclaimed, "must care for the vulnerable and protect its people from life's worst hazards and misfortunes." He further pleased progressives by surprisingly bluntly declaring, "we will respond to the threat of climate change." This view of an activist government can be traced back to the thinking that fueled the foundations of the American progressive movement of the early 20th century. Last Monday, Obama gave voice to that core belief of progressivism. The proud defense of a proactive government was also seen in Obama's declaration that "preserving our individual freedoms ultimately requires collective action." In fact, the President even made an explicit reference to three specific domestic federal programs - Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid - as commitments to each other that "enable us to take the risks that make our nation great." Surely, Obama would like to be remembered in the same vein as FDR and LBJ - a Democratic president who broadened America's commitment to social justice and economic fairness.

Obama's embrace of progressivism was further, and perhaps more notably, reflected in his telling of the story of America as a story of individuals and mass movements rising up to successfully demand equal treatment under the law. In telling this story, Obama was able to constantly return to one of the themes of his address: that our history is a tale of constant struggle to truly up live up to the creed that "all men are created equal." Obama's address included gay and lesbian Americans as part of this history.  The first sitting president to publicly endorse same-sex marriage became the first to utter the word "gay" in an Inaugural address. Even eight years ago, it was unthinkable that gay rights would get any such mention on that kind of a national platform. By linking the gay rights movement to previous equal rights struggles ("from Seneca Falls to Selma to Stonewall"), Obama asserted that the recent struggles and successes of the LGBT movement are part of the great American tradition of continual social progress. Clearly, Obama is aware that he is likely to go down in history as the president who facilitated, and led to some extent, the expansion of gay rights.


At some point in the first term, President Obama made the choice to be remembered not as a president who fixed the ills that plagued Washington politics - in that task he set for himself in his previous inaugural address, he (to his own admission) failed. Instead, he chose to be remembered as a president who put the country on a progressive trajectory. An article entitled 'Why Barack Obama Will Be a More Effective Liberal' in The Atlantic put it best last November: Obama decided he wanted to "change America" instead of "change Washington." So far, he has succeeded in the former, bringing about sweeping changes in our health insurance system, Wall Street regulatory framework, military policy towards LGBT Americans, student loan system, and national service programs, to name a few. America has come along with him for the journey. New public opinion polls find that a majority of Americans agreed with Obama's ending of the Iraq war, his recent tax hike on the wealthy, his proposal of a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, his desire to end the Afghanistan war, his gun control proposals, and his Inaugural plea to preserve Social Security. As Barack Obama changed during the course of his presidency, so did America. To quote Andrew Sullivan of The Daily Beast, Obama will likely become "the Democrats' Reagan" - a president who fundamentally reshaped the trajectory of American politics and our political culture. Conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer even declared on Monday that "Reaganism is dead." As the conservative dominance of our political culture subsides, we find ourselves in a new time: the Obama Era.