With the current political environment drawn by partisan boundaries, it would be nice to have a President such FDR to take on the Tea Party influence Republican Party and to set the country on the right course. With the economy looking weak pass the 2012 elections, the Tea Party’s latest attempt in holding the nation hostage over the debt deficit (in which the US was downgraded by S&P from AAA to AA for the first time ever), and Republican House Speaker John Boehner declining President Obama’s request for a joint congressional session for this Wednesday (September 7th) to announce his jobs plan, President Obama is suffering from a serious case of Stockholm Syndrome. With the “Machiavellian” inspired GOP, with its Tea Party’s “gang of six”, they had bullied Obama to a corner where the President has saturated or abandoned his policies such as the health reform plan, the size of the stimulus package, extension of the Bush Tax cuts for the top percentile, reluctance to implement environmental policies such as ozone standards, and severe government spending cuts that neglects creating new jobs. Clearly Obama’s bi-partisan attempts and compromise have disappointed many American voters. Sadly, “Yes We Can!” has been replaced by “No We Can’t”.
With Republican Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell publicly stating that his main objective is to replace the President in 2012, it is clear that the GOP do not want to work with the Democrats because they fear it will only credit the Obama administration. President Obama must duplicate FDR’s 1936 MSG speech by calling out his foes influenced by special interest and to reach out to the American people to remind them that he is there to work and defend their interest. Clearly, this is the time for the President to fight out of the corner ring to defend his position or the bell will ring to end the round and fight, which is November 2012.
What this country desperately needs is not a President who is trying to appear overly “cool” or one who wants to compromise with a party that refuses to do so. The nation needs someone who is not afraid to speak his voice in defending the interest of the American people. The hypocrisy of the Tea Party is that they are not concern about defending the average Joe and Jane from the so-call giant tentacles of “big” government. Keep in mind, the majority of Tea-Party supporters are suffering from unemployment, lack of health care, foreclosures, and dependent on the Social Security system[1]. Yet, many supporters are not aware of the relationship between the Tea Party leadership and special interest (the culprits of the economic downturn) who they are supposed to be fighting against.
Remember, it is special interest that is funding the Republican Party and they are trying to stop the Obama administration from suing the main banks to be accountable over the mortgage and credit crisis. Furthermore, it is the greed of special interest that does not care about keeping jobs in America. Their overall agenda is to make profit by outsourcing jobs to keep their overhead costs low and profits high. They would rather pay less than a $1/day to a laborer in Vietnam to produce a shirt rather than pay the American $20/hour with benefits. Special interest pushed many past administrations to buy into the concept of “Globalization” and to abandon the economic incentive that helped build America’s might: the manufacturing sector. Rather than invest in building a strong modified version of the manufacturing sector focused on green energy, it is the Tea Party’s Republican Party preventing to spend on re-training the job skills of American workers for such beneficial infrastructure ventures. Now, such forces (led by Rand Paul) want to ignore the hard years and payments that American workers committed to for a proper retirement in their later years by changing the structure of Social Security. Throughout recorded history, it has always been the back of the worker that endured the hard manual labor to enrich the few making profit. Clearly, today is no different from before where such powerful figures are in large office towers rather than castles surrounded by a moat.
Now is the time for President Obama to make clear that he is not helping special interest destroy the remnants of the American dream. Like FDR, Obama needs to work around the Republican congress by throwing new ideas after another and implement them into action. He needs to remind voters that he has tried to work with them but they have refused to maintain and progress the American dream. Furthermore, the President must be more vocal in pushing his platform rather than refrain from it when the pushing gets tough. By September 2012 (when the Democratic National Convention will be held at Charlotte, North Carolina), Obama must create the opportunity to define his moment by stating in his speech that he has implemented the programs needed to help the American worker and combat the sluggish economy where the results has been beneficial, especially with a reluctant conservative counterpart working against him. Hopefully, future generations will Google or YouTube “Obama 2012 Charlotte Speech” to remember how America rose from the dark depths of the economic downfall and the harsh political culture we are witnessing today.
Very good statement of Obama's current situation. Well, in my opinion, he hasn't been changed, its just his weak/no administration is more visible to the voters or in other words people are awakening after his 'I have a dream' speech/tale. He should know that people are waiting for some certain actions from him, not another speech/tale in 2012...
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