Thomas Friedman thinks Obama has a "poetry" problem. You see, it's not that people are unsupportive of the "Obama plan" - it's just that he hasn't framed it correctly.
He has not tied all his programs into a single narrative that shows the links between his health care, banking, economic, climate, energy, education and foreign policies. Such a narrative would enable each issue and each constituency to reinforce the other and evoke the kind of popular excitement that got him elected.
I can tie it all together for you in that single narrative, but I don't think Tom is gonna like it.
Without it, though, the president’s eloquence, his unique ability to inspire people to get out of their seats and work for him, has been muted or lost in a thicket of technocratic details. His daring but discrete policies are starting to feel like a work plan that we have to slog through, and endlessly compromise over, just to finish for finishing’s sake — not because they are all building blocks of a great national project.
Great national project ... like National Socialism?
But to deliver this agenda requires a motivated public and a spirit of shared sacrifice. That’s where narrative becomes vital. People have to have a gut feel for why this nation-building project, with all its varied strands, is so important — why it’s worth the sacrifice. One of the reasons that independents and conservatives who voted for Mr. Obama have been so easily swayed against him by Fox News and people labeling him a “socialist” is because he has not given voice to the truly patriotic nation-building endeavor in which he is engaged.
I'm telling you ... some parades ... a few posters ... THAT is how you motivate people for a "Great National Project."
The mistake is in the belief that our Country can be improved from the top down. A bigger government, with more power and control will certainly be the answer, right? Friedman and friends are so loath to call what Obama and Pelosi wants "socialism" but I really don't know what it is when the Federal government has so much power and income is increasingly redistributed in the name of "fairness."
Posts
|