We’re all limited in our judgments by what we’re capable of seeing. Our political perceptions are skewed by our passions—we can’t help think everyone else cares about or responds to what we care about and respond to. We’re limited by what we’ve experienced. The last government shutdown took place within a certain context and ended a certain way, so this one probably will too. We’re limited by the realities in which we individually rose, by the facts that reigned in that world. Someone once said: “Show me the headlines a man saw in his 20s and I’ll tell you what he thinks.”
So everyone is seeing the shutdown through a certain prism, and the best you can do is know the prism is there, allow for it and do your best to keep it from distorting your vision.
This is what I think I’m seeing. Both sides made big mistake the past 10 days. The Republicans mistake was to force a shutdown over the defunding of ObamaCare. “Defunding” isn’t even a word they can win on, never mind a concept. The dark side of their brand is that they’re always “defunding,” they’re always trying to take away and not adding, they’re all about cutting and never expanding. You should never play to the dark side of your brand. “Delay” would have been better—better as sheer policy, more in line with the anxieties of the public, and more in line with the needs of the administration. We saw what happened this week when they didn’t delay: the embarrassing, nonstop glitch that is ruining ObamaCare’s brand.
But the White House this week has made an equally dramatic and consequential mistake, and it is balancing out the Republicans’ mistake. The Democratic mistake is the punitive, crude, pain-bringing shutting down of things that everyone knows don’t have to be shut down—the World War II memorial, the Iwo Jima memorial, parks, landmarks, etc. All this is part of a strategic decision to cause and ratchet up pain for normal citizens. That pain, the White House thinks, will make people hate the shutdown and therefore make them hate the Republicans who summoned it.
It is a mistake.
First, everyone knows it is the federal government that’s doing it, and the chief executive officer of that government is the president. If he didn’t want it to happen he could make it not happen. Every informed voter knows why the White House is doing it. Which means every informed voter knows they are being abused by the administration in order to make them hate that administration’s political foes.
If there’s anything this White House knows it’s modern media. But in this case there are signs they have insufficiently absorbed the fact that the old media landscape that prevailed during the last shutdowns, in 1995 and 1996, is gone. Now, as we all know and somehow have to repeatedly relearn, there is a whole new media world that is in effect a counter to the old media landscape—all the news sites and news aggregators, Twitter, etc., not to mention a broader, more culturally significant talk-radio presence, and a major, still-rising cable news network that is not of the liberal-left. The end result of this technology is not necessarily compliant toward or supportive of the Democratic Party. We all know this and have known it for 15 years, and yet it looks to me as if the administration isn’t acting as if it knows it.
Go Google the stories about the World War II Honor Flights and the old men ignoring the shutdown signs and going into the memorial. Google “barrycades,” “Iwo Jima memorial,” “national parks,” “historic site.” Google “Why would we want to do that?” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s answer when asked about restoring funds for children with cancer.
Americans are seeing this stuff, and they know who’s causing it.
The White House thought they’d cause pain with their strategy and the pain would redound on the Republicans. They have caused pain, but it looks to me very likely it will redound on themselves.
Add to this the seemingly incoherent but probably clever Republican move to force a shutdown and then pass bill after bill restoring funding to various government agencies and departments—which allows them to argue they’re trying to keep from hurting the people. They’re trying to lighten any pain.
They’re trying to get a shutdown with nothing shut. That way they rouse their base without riling all the American people.
This story has shifted, in just a matter of days.
Both sides have been hurt: The American people don’t want a government that’s shut down, they want a government that works. But between now and Oct. 17, it looks to me likely the White House will be hurt worse. As James Baker told me last week, the president has repeated over and over, in different venues and to different audiences, including on the phone with the speaker, that he will not negotiate. At first it looked as if he was saying he wouldn’t negotiate on ObamaCare. But he has allowed it to morph into a blanket statement that he won’t negotiate on the debt limit.
But presidents do negotiate on the debt limit. They have to. They can’t not negotiate it. And if the president keeps not negotiating, he is going to look like the man who caused a U.S. government default—an outcome of a whole other order of magnitude. He’s going to look that way because he allowed himself to look that way. And the reasons for his stand look exactly like this: miscalculation, stubbornness and pride.
People keep saying the Republicans don’t seem to have a clear endgame, and that’s true. But at this point I don’t see a clear, clean endgame for the White House.
It is a funny thing but the Republicans rescued Mr Obama from his troubles the past 10 days by going at him over defunding. Now Mr. Obama is rescuing them from their mistake. And once again there’s every sign No Drama Obama will add to the sense that he is really Endless Drama Obama—bringer of nonstop face-offs, constant brinksmanship, nerve-jangling cliffs.
That’s how it looks, today, to me.