Obama's Theory Of Change To Be Sorely Tested

President Obama has often been described as an incrementalist, believing that change is difficult to enact and that you build a different future with numerous small victories rather than one sweeping change. He has often compared the ship of state of a large supertanker where a shift of one or two degrees will leave you hundreds of miles off your original path some time in the future. That theory of change will be sorely tested in the next few years.

With control of all three branches of government, Trump and the Republicans are in a position not only to roll back Obama’s signature achievements such as Obamacare, the Iran nuclear deal, and the climate change agreement but also undo or radically change many of the progressive gains made since the New Deal. Already Paul Ryan is proposing to turn Medicare into a voucher system and Trump’s appointment(s) to the Supreme Court may result in Roe v. Wade being overturned and a further erosion of labor, consumer, and voting rights.

Obama has had many outstanding achievements in his Presidency but the two of the three biggest complaints that many on the left had against him turn out, in hindsight, to have been prescient. Many believed, Krugman, Summers, and Stiglitz in particular, that we needed a far greater stimulus plan back in 2009 in order to get the economy back on its feet. Obama’s defenders counter that they did the best they could considering the mood in Congress. As it turns out, the critics were correct because, even as unemployment dropped, many were finding their standard of living declining. The second complaint was the seeming unwillingness to make Wall Street pay for essentially destroying the world economy. Not one Wall Street executive ended up in court, much less was convicted for the financial crisis. Even if the DOJ had taken a couple of these executives to court and lost, it would have at least sent a signal to the rest of the country that the Obama administration was serious about holding Wall Street to account. Instead, much of the country saw Wall Street get right back on its feet while they continued to struggle. Both of these criticisms then lead to the final complaint against Obama which is that he was always too willing to compromise. This complaint is probably slightly less valid in that Republicans controlled Congress for most of his two terms. But it should provide a lesson for the future that Democrats need to be ruthless in a desire to advance their goals if and when they ever control all three branches themselves. You can expect the Republicans will do so now.

The next few years will be a real test of the incremental theory of change. If the filibuster remains in place in the Senate, it is possible that Democrats will be able to slow or mitigate the changes the GOP will make. If the Republicans eliminate the filibuster, it will only take them a couple of years to obliterate many of the gains made in the last 75. And Obama may find out that a combination of a hurricane of economic anxiety and a tsunami of misogyny and racism can blow that ship of state on a different course quite quickly.