A little more than three years later, the positive messages and bold predictions of Pres. Obama's campaign and his Presidency seem forgotten as the country moves toward conservative politics. By "politics," I mean the tactics used to win elections, and by "conservative," I mean politics that points toward the past. "Conservative," after all, comes from the word "conserve," which means to protect something from change. In 2009, about twice as many Americans defined themselves as "conservative" or "very conservative" as those who defined themselves as "liberal" or "very liberal." This ratio probably hasn't changed much in the past two years -- if anything, the country has probably gotten more conservative. According to more recent polls, trust in the federal government is at an all-time low, and that only benefits conservative politics.
It's tempting to say that this turn of events means that Americans don't want any more "hope" and "change." In fact, the country could use more hope and more change. Middle-income families have been falling behind since the 1980s. Great concentrations of wealth in the upper 10% account for almost two-thirds of the national wealth. Average hourly earnings are essentially the same now as they were in the 1960s, when measured in inflation-adjusted dollars. On measures of economic equality, we rank only slightly higher than Greece, Chile, Turkey, and Mexico. These are all economic measures, but they begin to threaten the American dream, in which everyone is supposed to have a chance at a better life -- if not for themselves, then for their kids. Hope is an essential part of that American dream, whether economic circumstances warrant it or not.
Pres. Obama still needs to talk about hope and to help make it more of a reality for more people. He is fighting against stiff political winds. When Republicans talk about the economy or jobs, they are trying to win the election by blaming the President for everything that has gone wrong over the past 30 years. When Pres. Obama talks about the economy, he needs to talk about real people and how the inequality we are living with hurts us. Just telling people that Republicans are to blame and pinning them down on a tax on million-dollar-a-year earners won't be enough, even if it's true. We need a new vision of the role of government. We need to be honest about our strengths and weaknesses as a country, and write a new "Square Deal" with the American people. The American people need to know not just that the federal government cares about them but also that the country has a way to escape its current predicament.
If I were one of the President's strategists, I would be writing this narrative now -- laying the groundwork for an argument that long-term inequality is the problem, not the short-term problem of "jobs." Republicans are using "jobs" as a pivot point to argue against regulations, for example, even though only 0.3% of layoffs came as a direct result of regulations in 2010, and Pres. Obama's administration has been less regulatory than Pres. George W. Bush's by some measures. Similarly, Pres. Obama should pivot from jobs to inequality. For example, he could say that the reason many people don't have jobs is that a few people such as his friend Warren Buffett or his likely opponent Mitt Romney have gotten very, very rich without really creating that many jobs. In fact, Romney is the perfect example of a "job creator" whose career was essentially built on "turning around" troubled companies -- that is, taking them over and laying people off or dismantling them so that the companies can become "profitable" again. Such leveraged buyout income is not an option for most middle income workers, who have been squeezed to the point of breaking by the recession. It's reserved for a privileged few.
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