On February 10, 2016–the ninth anniversary of his announcement that he was a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination[1]–President Barack Obama returned to the Illinois General Assembly, where he had served as a state senator. Below are photographs of Obama on that occasion and of the House Chamber where he spoke.
His address to the Assembly recalled some of the details of that service. But he also made comments of more general import. Here they are.[2]
Introduction
He said,“if we just approached our national politics the same way the American people approach their daily lives –- at the workplace, at the Little League game; at church or the synagogue — with common sense, and a commitment to fair play and basic courtesy, that there is no problem that we couldn’t solve together. “
“And as an American citizen, I understand that our progress is not inevitable — our progress has never been inevitable. It must be fought for, and won by all of us, with the kind of patriotism that our fellow Illinoisan, Adlai Stevenson, once described not as a ‘short, frenzied outburst of emotion, but the tranquil and steady dedication of a lifetime.’ It requires citizenship and a sense that we are one.”
Current State of Our Politics
Today “that kind of citizenship is threatened by a poisonous political climate that pushes people away from participating in our public life. It turns folks off. It discourages them, makes them cynical. And when that happens, more powerful and extreme voices fill the void. When that happens, progress stalls. And that’s how we end up with only a handful of lobbyists setting the agenda. That’s how we end up with policies that are detached from what working families face every day. That’s how we end up with the well-connected who publicly demand that government stay out of their business but then whisper in its ear for special treatment.”
“That’s how our political system gets consumed by small things when we are a people that are called to do great things — to give everybody a shot in a changing economy; to keep America safe and strong in an uncertain world; to repair our climate before it threatens everything we leave for our kids.”
“What can we do, all of us, together, to try to make our politics better? “
Myths About Our Current Politics
So, first, let’s put to rest a couple of myths about our politics. One is the myth that the problems with our politics are new. They are not. American politics has never been particularly gentle or high-minded — especially not during times of great change.”
“There’s also the notion sometimes that our politics are broken because politicians are significantly more corrupt or beholden to big money than they used to be. There’s no doubt that lobbyists still have easier access to the halls of power than the average American. There’s a lot of work that we need to do to make sure that the system works for ordinary people and not just the well-connected. That’s true at the federal level; that’s true at the state level. Folks aren’t entirely wrong when they feel as if the system too often is rigged and does not address their interests. . . . But the truth is that the kind of corruption that is blatant, of the sort that we saw in the past, is much less likely in today’s politics.”
“And it also isn’t true that today’s issues are inherently more polarizing than the past. I remember, we endured four years of Civil War that resulted in hundreds of thousands of dead Americans. This country was divided on a fundamental question. We’ve [also] been arguing since our founding over the proper size and role of government; the meaning of individual freedom and equality; over war and peace, and the best way to give all of our citizens opportunity. And these are important debates that everybody should join, with all the rigor that a free people require.”
Problems with Our Current Politics
“We’ve always gone through periods when our democracy seems stuck. And when that happens, we have to find a new way of doing business.”
“We’re in one of those moments. We’ve got to build a better politics — one that’s less of a spectacle and more of a battle of ideas; one that’s less of a business and more of a mission; one that understands the success of the American experiment rests on our willingness to engage all our citizens in this work.”
“What’s different today is the nature and the extent of the polarization. How ideologically divided the parties are is brought about by some of the same long-term trends in our politics and our culture. The parties themselves have become more homogenous than ever. A great sorting has taken place that drove Southern conservatives out of the Democratic Party, Northern moderates out of the Republican Party, so you don’t have within each party as much diversity of views.”
“And you’ve got a fractured media. Some folks watch FOX News; some folks read the Huffington Post. And very often, what’s profitable is the most sensational conflict and the most incendiary sound bites. And we can choose our own facts. We don’t have a common basis for what’s true and what’s not.”
“You’ve got advocacy groups that, frankly, sometimes benefit from keeping their members agitated as much as possible, assured of the righteousness of their cause. Unlimited dark money — money that nobody knows where it’s coming from, who’s paying — drowns out ordinary voices. And far too many of us surrender our voices entirely by choosing not to vote. And this polarization is pervasive.”
“This has real impact on whether or not we can get things done together. This has a real impact on whether families are able to support themselves, or whether the homeless are getting shelter on a cold day. It makes a difference as to the quality of the education that kids are getting. This is not an abstraction.”
“But so often, these debates, particularly in Washington but increasingly in state legislatures, become abstractions. It’s as if there are no people involved, it’s just cardboard cutouts and caricatures of positions. It encourages the kind of ideological fealty that rejects any compromise as a form of weakness. And in a big, complicated democracy like ours, if we can’t compromise, by definition, we can’t govern ourselves.”
“So when I hear voices in either party boast of their refusal to compromise as an accomplishment in and of itself, I’m not impressed. All that does is prevent what most Americans would consider actual accomplishments — like fixing roads, educating kids, passing budgets, cleaning our environment, making our streets safe.”
“Our Founders trusted us with the keys to this system of self-government. Our politics is the place where we try to make this incredible machinery work; where we come together to settle our differences and solve big problems, do big things together that we could not possibly do alone. And our Founders anchored all this in a visionary Constitution that separates power and demands compromise, precisely to prevent one party, or one wing of a party, or one faction, or some powerful interests from getting 100 percent of its way.”
“So when either side makes blanket promises to their base that it can’t possibly meet . . . [it] means that the supporters will be perennially disappointed. It only adds to folks’ sense that the system is rigged. It’s one of the reasons why we see these big electoral swings every few years. It’s why people are so cynical.”
Proposed Changes in Our Politics
“But I do want to offer [four] . . . steps that we can take that I believe would help reform our institutions and move our system in a way that helps reflect our better selves.”
First. Take “or at least reduce, some of the corrosive influence of money in our politics.”
Second. Rethink “the way that we draw our congressional districts.”
“The fact is, today technology allows parties in power to precision-draw constituencies so that the opposition’s supporters are packed into as few districts as possible. . . . And while this gerrymandering may insulate some incumbents from a serious challenge from the other party, it also means that the main thing those incumbents are worried about are challengers from the most extreme voices in their own party.”
“That’s what’s happened in Congress [with less than 10 percent of districts that are competitive]. So our debates move away from the middle, where most Americans are, towards the far ends of the spectrum. And that polarizes us further.”
“Now, this is something we have the power to fix. And once the next census rolls around and we have the most up-to-date picture of America’s population, we should change the way our districts are drawn.”[3]
Third. “Make . . . voting easier, not harder; and modernize . . . it for the way that we live now.”
“Now, the more Americans use their voice and participate, the less captive our politics will be to narrow constituencies. No matter how much undisclosed money is spent, no matter how many negative ads are run, no matter how unrepresentative a district is drawn, if everybody voted, if a far larger number of people voted, that would overcome in many ways some of these other institutional barriers. It would make our politics better.”
Fourth. We “also have a responsibility to change the way that we, as elected officials and as citizens, work together. Because this democracy only works when we get both right — when the system is fair, but also when we build a culture that is trying to make it work.” As Deval Patrick, former Governor of Massachusetts said to his constituents, ‘Insist on us having a modicum of civility.’”
“Rather than reward those who’d disenfranchise any segment of America, we’ve got to insist that everybody arm themselves with information, and facts, and that they vote.”
“Rather than reward the most extreme voices, or the most divisive language, or who is best at launching schoolyard taunts, we should insist on a higher form of discourse in our common life, one based on empathy and respect.”
“Rather than paint those who disagree with us as motivated by malice, to suggest that any of us lack patriotism — we can insist, as Lincoln did, that we are not enemies, but friends; that our fellow Americans are not only entitled to a different point of view, but that they love this country as much as we do.”
“Rather than reward a 24/7 media that so often thrives on sensationalism and conflict, we have to stand up and insist, no, reason matters, facts matter; issues are complicated.”
“Rather than accept the notion that compromise is a sellout to one side, we’ve got to insist on the opposite — that it can be a genuine victory that means progress for all sides.”
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[1] Barack Obama’s Comments About Cuba During His Campaign for the Democratic Party’s Presidential Nomination, 2007-2008, dwkcommentaries.com (July 13, 2015).
[2] White House, Remarks by the President in Address to the Illinois General Assembly (Feb. 10, 2016).
[3] On April 20, 2016, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously upheld Arizona’s congressional redistricting map that had been established by an independent redistricting commission. The Court’s opinion, by Justice Stephen Breyer, held that the redistricting did not violate the principle of “one person one vote” because the contested population deviations were less than the 10 percent that the Supreme Court has said is generally constitutionally tolerable. “Given the inherent difficulty of measuring and comparing factors that may legitimately account for small deviations from strict mathematical equality, we believe that attacks on deviations under 10 percent will succeed only rarely, in unusual cases.” The opinion added that factors other than partisanship appeared to explain the population disparities in Arizona’s districts: compactness, contiguity, respect for “communities of interest,” geography, local boundaries, political competitiveness and compliance with the federal Voting Rights Act. (Liptak, Supreme Court Upholds Arizona’s Redrawn Legislative Map, N.Y. Times (April 20, 2016); Harris v. Arizona Independent Redistricting Comm’n, No. 14-232 (U.S. Sup. Ct. April 20, 2016).
