21st-Century American Governance: a drift from crisis to crisis

78.

Not, as the literal-minded might think, 208--as in 52 times 4--although it could be as high as 104, already reduced to about 100.

That's the number of weeks President Obama has to accomplish his second-term, home-front agenda. Should he be so successful as to restore Democratic congressional dominance by early 2015, he could get another 78-week lease on presidential power; transcendent midterm successes are, however, nearly as rare as an undefiled GOP congressman.

It is this political reality of four years as two, or merely one-point-five, that compels Obama administration officials "to have their foot on the accelerator," as one Democratic strategist told the Hill.

Yet it also explains why Obama's SOTU plea that we stop "drifting from one manufactured crisis to the next" is, while thunderingly commonsensical, pitiably impotent.

Against its better secular judgment (it shot dead its better angels long ago), the GOP has decided that manufactured crises are the material cat's meow. Simple math is at the square root of its decision. A mere one day of extravagant allegations against, say, a defense department nominee, can exponentially translate into, say, four weeks of deadlock. Presto, from 78 to 74, just like that--an entire month of mindless delay, squandered forever.   

Meanwhile, immense bickering on the humane inevitability of immigration reform and lots of squabbling and parsing and partisan-loaded committee hearings on profound, unanswered Questions of Our Time--for example, Should we perhaps keep assault rifles and 100-round ammunition drums away from psychotics and criminals?--can easily chew up week after week, after week. "Seventy-eight" is not exactly a numerically high-value target, so the GOP can waste it in no time. 

This spring season alone will be congressionally consumed not, however, by the really dicey question of whether it's a good idea for government to help educate impoverished pre-K Americans, but whether we should even have a government that is open at all. And next spring of course will be devoted to month-long recesses as warm-ups for a subsequent summer and fall of reelection campaigning.

"Drifting from one manufactured crisis to the next"? The phrase may be pejoratively outmoded. For when that's the dysfunctional way we operate, month after month, year after year ... well, let's face it, it's really just business as usual.

Comments

[Robert Lipscomb]

The Founding Fathers created the constitution to maintain the status quo as a tonic of sanity for instincts toward wild swings in governance - in other words true conservatism. So, the deck is stacked against progressives. Change, major change, is slow by design.

As a child, I watched similar change with the death of Jim Crow. At that time, a minority fold endless ways to stall progress with evere zanier and more distasteful tactics. While they were smart tactics, they comprised a losing strategy because the oppositions devolved from frustration to farce.

Insert a small town southern sherif or politician into any script, and you have a ready comedic scene.

We are watching another frustration to farce historic period. Obama's plan to concurrently promote all the popular elements of a progressive agenda is a good strategy for reaching the critical mass of a super-majority in the electorate.

In the near future, writers will insert Tea Party Republican characters into scripts to get easy laughs.

But the wait is frustrating.

[RT]

"While they were smart tactics, they comprised a losing strategy..."

I'm often reminded of a quote attributed to Sun Tzu:

"Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat."